Short night's journey into day

Dateline: Delta flights to Berlin from Indy through JFK, 7-8 November 2005; then in Berlin Hilton, 8 November 2005

Heading to a NATO conference.

Not my first NATO gig, but first one in Europe.

First time in Germany since the early 1990s, when the Balkans genocide was raging just a couple of doors down the hall.

Different, more distant challenges now for NATO. Must mean the Core is growing.

Hoped to do this mega-blog plus a Director's Commentary on flight over, but I needed some sleep too, so I take the Ambien and get what I can.

I am awakened about an hour out of Berlin (Bear-lin, as they like to pronounce it) and I get somewhat into the first chapter Director's Commentary, but I run out of time before we land. Picked up at airport by German troops, along with a Joint Forces Command general who does lessons learned for the Chairman. I discuss including his office's work in my upcoming effort for Esquire. He thinks his group would have a lot to tell me.

Not bad for the van ride in!

Now in my Hilton Berlin room, I need to get my day going. So I will shower up, work the clothes and then head down to conference to check it out a bit. Then lunch with a Vice Admiral, a Major General, a Brigadier General and a Rear Admiral . I have no idea which are U.S. and which are German/NATO, but I guess I'll find out.

After lunch I get guided tour of Berlin, to include some shopping.

Then back for reception tonight at Aquarium at Berlin Zoo (should be cool).

Tomorrow is breakfast with same Read Admiral I have lunch with today, then 45 minutes of presentation and 30 of Q&A to the NATO conference. Then some local media, and then the journey continues.

Here's the daily catch:

■ Global trade talks: the calm before the shturm

■ France's connect-or-die moment (part duh!)

■ India and North Korea: compare and contrast content controls

■ Sudan's continuing horrors: Left's definition of "empire made easy"?

■ Oil scarcity will be about investment, not reserves, in coming years

■ SysAdmin in the U.S. gets privatized and professionalized

■ Sequencing is everything in SysAdmin work; delay being the greatest enemy of success

■ The big contrast with Vietnam: lack of meddling incentives for outsiders

■ Good news on grad students coming to the U.S.

■ Don't it turn my red states bluuuuuuue?

■ Does the federal law sometimes kill the logical outcome of rule set clashes among states in the U.S.?