I am so glad this week is over. Every time I come out here, the stupidity factor has gone up by at least 20%. Lots of observations I want to give about the things the US Navy is doing in the Middle East, but there is a better time and place. Suffice it to say there are too many people here, being tasked to do too many things, with not enough time to any of them well. And instead of designing ourselves for the eventual day when peace may come and we get our asses out of the Middle East, the way we should, we will be here forever. I remain firmly convinced that for Bahrain at least, less would be more, and it would be a great candidate for outsourcing “the backroom”. And a whole bunch of other things. But they won’t. The pampered princes need to increase their empire over here. The goal should be to work for peace and go home.
Work related issues screwed me out of my Hong Kong stopover on the way back. Got some things that need to get done before Monday, so in a remarkable change for me, I did the prudent thing and went all the way back to Tokyo. Watching Hong Kong pass by with out riding the train into town is no fun. I was even going to try to look up some of Spike’s friends.
Driving over here is always an adventure especially when the Saudi’s come into town for their weekend sinning. (“Allah does not look upon Bahrain”). Seems all ideas about traffic laws go out the window and its survival of the fittest at traffic lights and circles. Did drive past the big tourist attraction every day though:
Finished Thomas Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat“. Don’t agree with all his conclusions (but I do agree with several) and I think he ignores the burden that being world policeman places on the US economy. Also, it would be good for him to remember that he is still an American when he writes these things. He is far too complimentary of Indians and the jobs they are doing. They may be doing good work, but since they don’t hold American passports, that does not mean its good for American workers. A little jingoistic patriotism would have been nice to see. Since Friedman is rich though, he doesn’t have to worry about losing his job or seeing good expat jobs get localized. Maybe if he did, he would not be so complimentary towards the Indian call centers and software development.
Time to go board. Internet access should have been better this week, but I had not enough time to drink and blog, so blogging went out the window. I’ll fix that back in Japan.
Ja ne,
Skippy-san
