Son No. 2 asked me over the weekend if I was on vacation, and when I was going back to work. After my initial surprise wore off, I came to realize just how much time the Navy demanded over the last decade. After all, until a few weeks ago I had been on sea duty for the entirity of their memories (my oldest is approaching ten), and they know no other Navy.

I have also become keenly aware following my recent promotion into the ranks of the senior officer corps that I’m most likely much closer to the end of my naval career than the beginning, and most importantly it’s time to start preparing to move on to other things. And I have little desire for those other things to remain centered on the Navy.

Finally, as my oldest son approaches double digits in age I’ve become more concerned about preparing them to live in the world, and consequently about shaping that world and the broader politics and culture of America. Recent developments in Washington have just added fuel to that fire. I have sensed domestic enemies in our midst before, but they appear now to be in control and consolidating power.

As a result, I believe this blog has run its course; other projects are now more important and enduring.

This is not quite a farewell, however. I will continue to read and participate in the naval blogosphere because it still interests me, but my posting will be less frequent and limited to Information Dissemination and the USNI Blog.

[Update 14 Dec 09] I’ve launched a new blog, Watcher of Worldlings.

Say the words “political sex scandal” to see what names you can elicit and it becomes clear that extramarital affairs are one of the last true bastions of bipartisanship in American political life.

In reply, you’ll get names of high-profile figures like John Ensign, John Edwards, Eliot Spitzer and Bill Clinton. Now, add to that list, Mark Sanford. This one, though, is truly bizarre:

Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) admitted that he had conducted an extramarital affair with a woman in Argentina who he had gone to visit over the last five days — during which time a massive media story developed over where he was and why.

“I have been unfaithful to my wife . . . I developed a relationship with what started as a dear dear friend,” said Sanford.

He said that he had met the woman, who he did not name, roughly eight years ago and that it had become romantic within the last year. He visited her three times during the past year, Sanford said, and noted that his wife, Jenny, had been aware of the affair for the past five months.

Sex is a problem the powerful have struggled with going back at least to the reign of King David. What puzzles me, though is when people who know they’re working in a job that generates enemies–and living under a microscope where the mere hint of an affair can make front page news–insist upon dabbling with another woman (or man).  How do they think they can possibly keep it a secret?

Never mind carrying on an affair that your wife knows about. In Argentina.

[Update] - A Columbia, SC, newspaper has e-mails between Sanford and his mistress that they’ve been holding onto since December. Was someone planning an election eve surprise, perchance?

Those pale, pocket-protectored denizens of military computer rooms throughout the world now have their own, big ticket command to guide the hive mind:

The US military on Tuesday announced a new “cyber command” designed to wage digital warfare and to bolster defenses against mounting threats to its computer networks.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates formally established the command — the country’s first — that would operate under US Strategic Command, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

The command will begin operating in October and be fully operational in October 2010, Whitman said.

The move reflects a shift in military strategy with “cyber dominance” now part of US war doctrine and comes amid growing alarm over the perceived threat posed by digital espionage coming from China, Russia and elsewhere.

There’s no word on whether Secretary Gates passed under an arch of sliderules during the announcement ceremony.

This being the first day of Vacation Bible School at the Sailor household’s church, I got home before CINCHOUSE and the kids today and was expecting some peace while I cracked open an adult beverage and got started on supper. Around the time I was expecting the brood to return an aggressive fist shook the front door. Being the father of three boys and a frequently frazzled wife, I figured it was one of them summoning my presence to help move the baggage train back in the house.

My sons are all still in the single digits in age, and frequently enjoy knocking with abandon or ringing the doorbell seventy to eighty times as they come and go, you know, because they can. So, there was I, cruising for the door at a brisk pace, ready to fire for effect on the young, recalcitrant offender. But it wasn’t one of my kids. It was my neighbor’s daughter, breathless exclaiming “My father’s choking–he needs help!” Needless to say, I shifted gears quickly and raced for the house next door.

When I got there, his wife was in tears beside him on the floor, pleading with the 911 operator to send an ambulance. We got him on his side and I checked his breathing. He wasn’t choking, but his breathing was labored. I checked his pulse and it seemed normal. He wasn’t responding to questions, though.

I told him to open his hand. He didn’t.

I told him to blink his eyes. He didn’t.

I looked for signs of shock, but didn’t see any.

Having exhausted my first aid knowledge, I did a mental inventory of neighbors to see if there was a corpsman or medical officer among the bunch (there aren’t), so all we could do was wait.

The ambulance came and took him and his wife to the hospital. Their two kids stayed with us.

An hour and a half later, his wife calls mine and says he’d had a grand mal seizure, and they’re going to do a CAT scan to see if they can find the cause.

Another hour and a half later, his wife calls again.

He’s got a tumor.

In his brain.

One moment he’s harrassing his son to clean up his room, and the next he’s on the floor in the hall convulsing. There’s tough times ahead for that whole family, so keep them in your prayers.

With the percieved failure of the War on Drugs, lots of brain cells are being taxed to find an alternative to remedy the problems of drug use. The most insidious proposal, and I believe the most wrong, is just walking away and legalizing drugs. Here’s a typical roundup of the suggested benefits:

The legalization of drugs would prevent our civil liberties from being threatened any further, it would reduce crime rates, reverse the potency effect, improve the quality of life in the inner cities, prevent the spread of disease, save the taxpayer money, and generally benefit both individuals and the community as a whole.
…
Drug dealers are a thing of the past. Violent crimes and theft are greatly reduced. Drug-related shoot-outs are unheard of. The streets of America begin to “clean up.” Communities pull themselves together. Youths and adults once involved in crime rings are forced to seek legitimate work.

So for those of you that are in favor of legalization, I have some questions. As anyone who paid attention in history class knows, organized crime in America really took off trading in alcohol during prohibition. Did the mobsters just disappear when prohibition was ended? I’d say no. Organized crime is made up of people willing to do anything to accumulate power and wealth, and to suggest they will just disappear with the legalization of drugs is foolish. For every drug that is legalized, the criminals will be working hard to come up with new drugs to traffic or looking for other criminal enterprises to feed their greed.

Foreign Policy notes two British scholars find soft power in an unexpected place:

Sometimes it takes non-American voices to identify America’s strengths. Such is the case with the new book by the British writers (and Economist editors) John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge with the audacious title God is Back: How the Global Revival of Faith is Changing the World. About half of the book is a survey of the seemingly endless — and endlessly creative — varieties of religion in the United States, while the other half of the book profiles a range of important religious movements around the world. Though in most cases it is not that religious faith has “re-appeared” after a long secular decline, but rather that elite observers are finally noticing what has been true all along: the vast majority of people outside the West, and many people in the West, are religious.
…
Religious freedom is central to Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s argument as well. As breezy and sometimes sprawling as the book is, the authors attempt to tie it together around a provocative thesis: the American religious system of disestablishment, choice, and competition, is becoming the ascendant religious model around the world. This is also a potent illustration, they believe, of American soft power. Whether consciously or not, religious leaders and movements across different faiths and spanning many nations are finding growth and success through models pioneered in America: independence, innovation, communication through new media, and energetic appeals for new adherents.

Of course, it’s no surprise that the U.S. government would not expand and highlight its efforts in the area of religious freedom, lest some of our more fanatical adversaries wave it as proof of a Western crusade against Islam.

Every once in a while I like to drill down into the details in Rasmussen’s polls to get a sense of the underlying sentiments driving the generic approval ratings. Today there are some very interesting numbers lurking under the surface that should send chills down the spines of Democratic politicians and strategists everywhere. Examine the percentages of voters that believe the following:

Taxes Will Go Down – 14%
Tax Increases Hurt Economy – 53%
Gov’t Spending Will Go Up – 67%
Increases in Gov’t Spending Hurt Economy – 53%
Obama on Economy – Ex/Good – 46%
Obama on Nat’l Sec – Ex/Good – 48%
Trust Obama on Economic Crisis – 30%
Obama Governing as Bipartisan? – 31%
GOPs acting Bipartisan – 24%
Dems acting Bipartisan – 18%
The US is on the Wrong Track – 58%
America’s Best Days in Future – 38%
US is Safer than before 9/11/2001 – 47%

Finally, of ten key issues polled, Americans trust Republicans over Democrats in six of the issues (taxes, economy, war in Iraq, national security, government ethics/corruption and immigration) and are tied with the Dems in a seventh (abortion). Only in the areas of health care, education and Social Security do the Democrats have the trust of those polled. On the number one issue as selected by Americans, the economy, those polled trust Republicans by a 45% to 37% margin, and of the six issues rated by a majority of respondents as “very important”, Republicans are trusted more on four of the issues.

Five months to the day into his first term as president, Barack Obama sets a record. I expect it’s probably not what he wished for, though:

So much for hope.

The topic of our pastor’s sermon this morning was Matthew 23:1-19. The passage in question begins with this:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, “The experts in the law and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat. Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach. They tie up heavy loads, hard to carry, and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing even to lift a finger to move them. They do all their deeds to be seen by people, for they make their phylacteries wide and their tassels long. They love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues and elaborate greetings in the marketplaces, and to have people call them ‘Rabbi.’

All I could think about was this:

Coincidence? Who’s to say?

Inspiring and unsettling at the same time:

My intuition tells me Iran has reached a tipping point, but which way it will tip is still not known. Either it will tip towards more freedom (though not necessarily objectively free or democratic by Western standards) or it will tip towards something more like a Taliban-style authoritarian theocracy. Pray the Iranians get the former and not the latter.