It was put together by "A Smart Army Major" who clearly is enjoying the sequester.

I'll be doing a book signing at the Barnes & Noble at Seven Corners in Falls Church, northern Virginia, tomorrow (Saturday, Feb. 23) at 2 pm. Wear your Best Defense t-shirt for a 10 percent discount.

The bonus is that there are about 10 great Chinese, Persian, and Laotian restaurants within walking distance from there, including my favorite joint for Peking duck. Check it out. Indeed, in just one shopping center across the highway at 6755 Wilson Boulevard, Arlington, VA., there are 12 Vietnamese restaurants, cafes, and bakeries.

It's a real NoVa weekend for me -- the next afternoon, at 3 pm this Sunday, I'll be riding toward the sound of the guns at the George Marshall house in Leesburg, Va.

Finally, I am told that The Generals is now available on Kindle in the U.K. This came in response to reader demand, I am told, so thank you.

By Rebecca Frankel

Best Defense Chief Canine Correspondent

Tanja, a Belgian Malanois, was up until her retirement from service this week, the longest serving military working dog in the Department of Defense. With a 12-year career behind her, she's deployed five times. They were impressive tours of duty that included uncovering IEDs and even stopping vehicles from making off with  "extremely valuable" stolen classified documents.

Tanja, a patrol and detection dog with the 366th Security Forces Squadron was stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. Her most recent handler, Tech. Sgt. Roseann Kelly, says that despite Tanja's age, the dog was still "kicking butt." During base patrol Tanja noticed a suspicious individual and alerted others to him. When they got close, Kelly says, "he decided to leave instead of deal with her."

Still, the tough exterior didn't mean she was above a little extra comfort. Tanja wasn't handling the cold weather like she used to so Kelly, who is adopting her partner, made sure the dog wore sweaters to keep warm even though the other handlers teased them. "I didn't care," Kelly insists, "because she liked it."

Rebecca Frankel's book about military working dogs will be published by Atria Books in August 2013.

Then apply here. They seem to like it.

Here at Best Defense we've never really gotten into VUCA, an acronym apparently developed at the Army War College to describe the "Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous" environment that many think we will face in coming decades. It actually brought to mind a woman I dated in my senior year of college for a few crazy weeks. It was a learning experience, OK?

But I think the acronym-makers missed a chance here. If they added "Lethal" in the middle and "Novel" at the end, then we could face a "VULCAN" challenge.

Do it all at CNAS's annual Woodstock for policy wonkers. It will be on June 13 in DC. 

If you haven't seen Brzezinski and Scowcroft do their breakdancing routine, you haven't lived. Bust them moves.

Friend of the blog Paula Broadwell was on the Daily Show, I think last night, and challenged poor Jon Stewart to a push-up contest. He lost. Her new book on General Petraeus is out now. 

I just liked this photograph. President Obama yesterday bestowed the Medal of Honor on Dakota Meyer, the Marine on the right. Just when I think Obama is tone deaf on the military, he does something like this that makes me think he really knows what he is doing. Apparently Meyer had mentioned to White House staffers that he would like to have a beer with the president.

I was surprised to see Ronald Wilson Reagan and Woodrow Wilson almost tie as the worst presidents of the 20th century. Reagan led most of the week, but Wilson pulled by him yesterday afternoon -- only to be edged out in the final tally when I shut down voting at 9 A.M. eastern time this morning.

I understand Wilson's showing -- both the pacifist left and the non-interventionist right loathe him, as well as many people who simply see him as a racist. But I suspect Reagan's high score says a lot about the readers of this blog. Based on comments posted on this blog and notes to my blog e-mailbox, you guys really think Reagan was a bad president. I suspect his surprise near-"win" is due in part to a growing distaste with tax-cutting ideologues who seem blithely unaware of the damage they do. Sample comment from Boone, N.C.: "with his half-baked political philosophy, Reagan set this country on its present course to ruin."

The surprise to me is how even the voting was. After Reagan and Wilson, it basically is close to a scatter-shot tie between the rest -- Harding, Lyndon Johnson and Nixon clumped together, followed by Carter and Hoover, who also tied. And old Coolidge brought up the rear with one vote.

I was impressed that one Marine intelligence analyst in Afghanistan took the time to send in an anti-Harding vote. Another military e-mail voted against Richard Nixon, not for the usual reasons of corruption and such, but because, he wrote, "He's helped the Chinese more than he's helped Americans. We're still paying for his foreign policy coup since most of our manufacturing is now over there."

And you all certainly don't agree with me about JFK. In fact, there was not a single whole vote for him as worst president of the century, although one person gave him a half vote, and several offered him 2nd place, maybe just to be nice to me. Reading over the discussion and notes, I've been persuaded that he was not the worst president of the 20th century, but probably the most over-rated. (Though of course many of you would give that title to Reagan.)

I'm also surprised that Lyndon Johnson didn't get more votes. And apparently people have forgiven Bill Clinton his inability keep all his body parts inside his clothing -- not a single person named him, despite the apparent bias against Southern Democrats (Wilson, Carter, Johnson) in the polling. And yes, Wilson was a Southern Democrat. He received one of the most succinct votes: "On any consequentialist reading, whether you are realist or liberal in international relations, the worst American president in the international realm of all time. On civil rights, more retrograde than any American politician since Andrew Johnson."

Here is the final tally:

1. Ronald Reagan 17.5
2. Woodrow Wilson 17
3. Warren Harding 9
4. Richard Nixon 9
5. Lyndon Johnson 8
6. Herbert Hoover 7
7. Jimmy Carter 7
8. Calvin Coolidge 1
9. JFK .5

The little think tank that could is launching a new TV series, titled "Command Post," with the Lucian empire. You can see the first episodes, about the future direction of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, here.

Next, "CNAS: The Movie"? If so, I wanna be played by Homer Simpson, the TV character with whom I most closely identify.

...Then you know you've got trouble.

On the other hand, it is a good sign that the Balkans are so peaceful that the Serb defense minister has time to complain about an Amy Winehouse concert. Maybe we should send her on a tour of Syria, Iran, and Pakistan. 

(HT to MK)

From Shit My Students Write: "The rebel and onion armies showed grose negligence by having many of their battles right inside national parks, like Gettysburg."

(HT to AS)

No, I am not selling this blog to AOL for $100 million. But I am told it is true that I was in a 'Jeopardy' question last night. I never realized so many of my friends and relatives watch that show. I got a note from one who wrote,

Just wanted to give you a heads up that you were in a Jeopardy question tonight. And it was a Daily Double in the second round. Here's the question, from the category, "Si, Parlo Italiano":

"This word for a disastrous failure is the title of Thomas Ricks' book about the American military in Iraq"

The guy bet $2,600. He didn't know the answer.

Tom again: Meanwhile, old Jamie McIntyre reports that one of the memos that former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has posted ranks Pentagon reporters. I appear to be at the bottom of his list. Judging by the date and title of the memo, my guess is that he is summarizing what he thought Ken Bacon, the spokesman for the preceding Pentagon regime, told him about the media. Ken, who is now dead, was always very impressed with Bill Gertz of the Washington Times, but at the time had a somewhat contentious relationship with me, I think in part because before he went over to the dark side he had been a colleague of mine at the Wall Street Journal. We made up when he went back to civilian life.

A year later, Rumsfeld's opinion of my reporting abilities apparently had risen, as he wrote in a memo on Sept. 16, 2002, that:

I think what I ought to do is open the meeting by pointing out that the last time we met in classified session, within 23 hours Tom Ricks called the Pentagon and quoted things to me I had said in the meeting.

(HTs to JW, JEM, MT, JM, FXD, DP, HM, etc.)

You're all winners, of course -- that's why you read this blog. I actually liked a lot of the submissions, even though it kind of deteriorated near the end. (Caddyshack? And someone forgot blog rule 19: Try not to post comments after consuming four or more drinks.)

Anyways, thanks for the laughs. I've long been an Elmer Fudd fan, so one of my favorites was Conormannix's "Be vewy vewy qwiet … we're hunting insurgents."

But I think the winner is this, from Thomas Sheehy (I had posted it as an anonymous contribution, but in a follow-up e-mail, he said it is OK to ID him): "But wait, there's more: I'll throw in an extra troop surge absolutely free! Just pay shipping and handling."   

And to those of you who posted from Bagram -- congratulations on your nerve! I'm impressed you found that much vodka out there.

Meanwhile, here are some terrorist fist bumps in Bagram: