Man you are staying up late!
Thank you for the kind wishes. Allow me to give you some back-from Japan!
Akemashite, omedetou gozaimasu!
(Happy New Year! Congratulations!)
Kotoshi mo, dozo yoroshiku onegai itashimasu!
(This year too, please favor me.)
Finally keep your calendar open later in this coming year-I may have a speaking engagement for you...
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Well, had to watch the last Skins game -- not a fan (still a loyal 49er) but had to support my daughter. Besides, it was not unlike watching a train-wreck... 
Thanks for such a kind words and wishes, SJS. They were totally unexpected, and received with great gratitude. These last couple months it's honestly been people like you that have given my spirits just enough lift to avoid complete burnout (to mix a metaphor... I think...).
Happy New Year to you! May it bring you joy, satisfaction, and all things good.
What she said about completely unexpected and gratitude. Thanks a bunch, sir. Always nice to get well-wishes this time of year, especially this year, as things have been a little...*weird*...in the personal arena, combined with grades being about where I thought they'd be. But no matter, as you say there's new cirriculum. One advantage of which is that I can read pretty much any policy book I want to over break and chalk it up as "research." :-p
On a different note, I like the new direction for the blog. China and all the rest need all the attention they can get, else we forget there are other threats out there than the one we're currently engaged in and make the same short sighted mistakes that led to 9/11. That's one thing I like about all you Navy guys (you, 'Mander, Chap, Lex...hell, I'll even throw Skippy in there, even though he's more concerned with beer 'n' babes) is that you all beat on that China drum pretty heavy.
Anyway, like I said, thanks, and a happy '07 to you as well.
SJS;
Thank you for the well wishes and, yes, that seems like a wonderful idea to me. You certainly had a hand in helping to turn up the volume and a whole lot of "little" bloggers added to the run to be first across the finish line, but, I see more ahead.
I agree with the many others commenting on the GWoT. Lateley I have been wondering what direction to go, as there is little of daily Navy stuff to work, besides picking on the more admirals than ships count...
I have really come to look forward to FDF posts. They are a wonderful lay out of Naval history - BZ! I'm thinking a run thru the classes of ship as a companion series, and let Eagle1 and CDR S handle the detailed history of battles/units.
Happy New Year and I look forward to 5 May, 2007.
Mike,
Beer and babes is just a sideline. Inmy day job I worry about China just as much as anyone else. I also worry about Chinese beer and babes from time to time.
Happy New Year, SJS! I'm looking forward to the blog's new direction in the coming year...
One flashpoint that may merit your attention-and is getting mostly ignored by the US MSM-is the troubles in the Nigerian Delta:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/...k/
L07746556.htm
With our presence being ramped up in the Gulf of Guinea, and given the strategic implications of a significant oil disruption from the Niger Delta, the US may be obliged to get involved.
If that were to come to pass, it would be a largely Littoral/Riverine war, and may well prove to be the first significant USN naval engagement of the 21st Century.
Sorry, meant to add this...
http://www.state.gov/p/af/rls/rm.../2006/
77336.htm
Got it -- thanks Sid. Especially interesting in light of the soon-to-be new geographic command: AFRICACOM.
- SJS
Latest on the proposed AFR:
African Command Undecided, EUCOM Commander Says
By Michael Fabey/Aerospace Daily & Defense Report
01/08/2007 08:59:44 AM
There's still no official approval to start a new separate African command, Army Gen. William E. "Kip" Ward, European Command deputy commander, said Jan. 5.
Ward doesn't know if there will be an African command, as has been recommended, he said during a breakfast meeting with reporters.
Part of the uncertainty is due to a lack of detail about how such a command would be set up, where it would be located, who would be a part of it and how it would impact other commands that now oversee African operations, he said.
"More analysis is needed," he said.
Ward acknowledged a need to put more resources into Africa to safeguard natural resources and stabilize the region.
Military experts say the United States must gain a stronger foothold in the region to keep China from consuming too many of those resources. But Ward said a military mindset won't be enough.
"More airlift or strategic logistics may be needed," he said. "But it's not just that."
Making sure that African societies develop will be equally important. Any American effort will have to take an integrated holistic approach, he said.
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