Europe Baffled - Foreign Policy Magazine

The President has joked about it twice now - at the annual big media Gridiron dinner  (Gridiron dinner - Washington Post), and in response to a shouted question, which he almost always ignores.  His Secretary of State has been so forcefully pushing the President to impose a no-fly zone in Libya, that it has lead to the President joking about the Secretary's  persistent advocacy, even as the President and his inner circle thought about the matter and what to do.  Ultimately, after thirty-one days of crisis, the US agreed to a French proposal for a no-fly zone.  Rebels had taken much of the country until the President made his statement last week that he wanted Gad gone but then made no mention and took no action to assist the people trying to make that happen.  Even in the face of an unprecedented agreement with military action of any sort by the Arab League, the White House pondered.  And Uganda was unleashed, using air strikes and artillery to escalate his attacks.  He began to kill indiscriminately - rebels, innocents, women, children and elderly people were killed if they were in the line of his advance.

A Hug for Gaddafi when the President met him gave many diplomatic and intelligence sources a very worrisome sign to the world. 

European diplomats meeting with Secretary of State Clinton pressed her to clarify US policy on Libya, but the best she could do - and I am not being sarcastic - was to say 'There are difficulties'.  The problem is that the President eschewed any leadership role in achieving his stated  goal - getting Uganda out - while the dictator and his sons killed and bombed both rebel forces and civilians.  The man even used the word "cleansing", a word with such evil context in political and diplomatic circles that it probably served as the catalyst that has lead to the "no-fly zone', which will initially be made up of British, French and Canadian fighter aircraft.

I'm not being partisan here.  A lot of former Clinton and Bush advisors and commentators began to be concerned when the White House gave the world such mixed signals that the protestor group snubbed Secretary Clinton when she visited.  People began to fear that with the US on the sidelines, and indicating that the White House was uncertain and ill-informed about the nature of the events unfolding in Egypt would create a frightening impression in an exploding Arab world:  Mubarak did not order the army to fire upon the people and he was driven out of power; Uganda was killing rebels and civilians with no distinction, and it looked (and maybe still looks) like he would hang on to power.

Secretary Clinton has the experience of having been in the White House for eight years, and by virtue of being the First Lady AND an important advisor to President Clinton.  I think her answers to Wolfe Blitzer earlier this week give a good indication of how difficult it really is to implement, or even explain the President's policy in crisis situations.  When asked if she would continue as Secretary of State, should the President win re-election, Mrs. Clinton said, "No."  When asked if she might serve in a different post in a second Obama administration, her answer was that same simple "No."  She repeated the answer twice more and did not elucidate her meaning.

Foreign Policy Magazine - What does the US want in Libya?

I have been reading Brit newspapers a lot, and there are a lot of articles and opinion pieces about the perception that the President doesn't seem to want to engage on any issues except getting re-elected.  From the right-leaning Daily Express: Barrack-Obama-The-Weakest-President-in-history?  And even the sturdily left-leaning Guardian quotes a former staff member from the Reagan and George HW Bush White Houses and ends the piece saying that while the reasons are a bit more complicated than the presumably right-leaning blog writer has expressed them, but "I would like disagree with this post more than I do".  It seems to me that the President is increasingly being seen overseas as weak, unwilling or unable to engage, with a staff that can't set or maintain an agenda.  It seems that,  as one Guardian article put it, he has lost his Mojo.  He is in a tough spot, I think, because his liberal base is growing angry because he has been less "Yes we can!" seems to have become "Oops, can't do that (Guantanamo, tribunals)" and "Maybe we can do that later..."

And the worst thing of all:  I saw dozens of similar references in the press, such as: "Those fabled Chicago enforcers around the president turned out to be feckless Chihuahuas, didn't they?"; but the kicker is a number of references to Obama's Illinois State Senator days and the 130 times he voted "Present" to avoid taking a stand on tough issues.  Or maybe I should have said that the comparisons to Carter were the most troubling.  In any event, it is clear to me that in many European Capitols the President is coming to be seen as ineffective, non-committal and impossible to rely upon.

With his re-election campaign already in motion, a House controlled by the opposition, unpopular stimulus bills, a punted budget that does not address the astounding level of US debt...I think they're going to need a really good new campaign slogan.  Something like "Yes we Can!" but not that one, which has become a bit of an op-ed page one-liner.  I can't come up with one just now, all I can think up is  "Sure, we might"

I've always felt that winning the Presidency is really just a ticket to immediate gray hair, the most difficult on-the-job training in existence, and the built-in decline in job approval polls always shows up whether the President takes tough measures or chooses to sit back and simply see what the international community will drum up, and then maybe offer verbal support.

Newt Says Glad French Not Distracted by NCAA Tournament.  The former Speaker went on to refer to the President as the "Spectator in Chief".

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/19/world/africa/19policy.html?_r=3&hpw

Technorati Tags: Libya,Foreign Policy,Diplomacy,No-Fly Zone,Gaddafi,Barack Obama,Hillary Clinton

We Live in a New Age of Touchy/Feely

OMG this is getting out of hand.  Why in the hell don't we just get the top people from El Al and take notes?  The most targeted airline in the world is also the safest?  Maybe we should try some of their screening methods.  No, that's crazy, what am I talking about?  From the article below:  "Anyone who sets off the metal detectors is required to go through a physical pat down, but the TSA says they use a less aggressive touch for children under 12."

Does it bother anyone else that a sentence like that is treated like a normal thing to say, given the actions described in the article - patting the genitals, running the hand between underwear and skin, etc.?  Oh, and of course, we only do that to kids over 12.  WHAAAAT??????  Would you let some uniformed screener dude or gal stick his or her hands down your 13 year old's pants?  Isn't that what damn near bankrupted the Catholic Church?  Doesn't that sort of behavior get you sentenced and called a "Registered Sex Offender"?  Am I crazy?  Sure, there was a guy who tried to make explosive underwear.  Is groping every adolescent  that wants to fly the only way to make sure he/she is not wearing a dangerous diaper?
Oh, and when did it become okay just because it is after age 12,  to grope, pat, touch, etc. adolescent kids?  It is just wrong.  Oh, and much as I hate to mention it, what about past victims of sexual assault, trauma or rape - no matter what their age?  Can you imagine having bad some horrific act done to you and then at some later point, if you want to fly, being forced to submit to what would WITHOUT ANY DOUBT be a SEXUAL ASSAULT were it not being done by TSA at an airport? 

Since a guy tried to blow up a plane by putting a bomb in his shoes, will we soon be seeing foot fetishists not only relying on the removal and X-ray of the shoes, but requiring the person being screened to remove their socks and submit to a tongue inspection (to see if the foot tastes like explosives) of the foot?

I flew hundreds of thousands of miles for business and pleasure.  I was always polite, and willing to do what was asked of me in the interest of security.  I was waiting for a plane the morning of September 11, 2001, and I watched that day unfold convinced that I'd support whatever was needed to keep us safe in the skies and in the country.  But now I am second-guessing my blind obedience.  Why? 
There are better, more effective, less personally intrusive ways to screen passengers and ensure safety than to commit battery and sexual assault.  Plain and simple.  When my daughter is 13 how can I take her to fly somewhere knowing what I know may very well happen?  Will she be subjected to a virtually nude screening X-ray, visible to many?  Will it be worse, where she's forced to get molested in order to fly?  OMG!  How did it come to this?

I think that there ought to be a hue and cry from sea to shining sea, insisting that the BEST and BRIGHTEST security experts available be immediately brought together to develop systems to keep us safe.  Without having people putting their hands in people's underwear.  Is that too much to ask?  To fly without some guy or gal sticking their hand INSIDE your underwear, tapping and patting your junk? 
It's time to examine who is making the decisions, writing and training the procedures, choosing the technology and bickering over whether the airlines, airports or TSA should pay for technology to make us safer in the air.  All this virtually nude photography - will someone do a statistical analysis showing that a man is 12% more likely to be a terrorist if he "dresses right" (and by that I mean not that he buttons the right button with the right buttonhole, but that his junk rests naturally to the right side of the vertical midline of his body) - all this physical grabbing and groping...is this the best option we have for screening? 

In a word: NO.  It is not, and the people who can develop screening technology, use the currently available technology, and still keep us safe are out there, and they are willing and able.  And it is a dirty secret that there are frequent breaches of the system we use now - both in tests and just when the person next to us says, "Oh man, I forgot to take this out of my briefcase!" and parts the top of the case to show a five or six inch knife. 
We can do better, we can do better and be safe.  And whether the person being screened is under 12, adolescent or adult, we can do it without battery, assault and sexual molestation.  And we should.  And though some of this post is amusing and meant to be so, the topic and the practices that caused me to write it are not funny.  They are wrong.  And a helluva lot of us better stand as tall as we have to and shout "NO!  This is not acceptable, not in America."

http://www.kmov.com/news/mobile/Woman-says-her-Lambert-security-screening-was-sexual-assault--109114934.html

Technorati Tags: TSA Screening,Airport Safety,Passenger Screening,TSA

CBC News - World - Acid-throwing woman sought in Wash.

You’re getting something out of your trunk outside a Starbucks store.  You see a woman approaching with a cup.  No reason for suspicion there, right?  Well, for a particular woman in Vancouver there would be plenty to worry about.  The woman with the cup walks closer and asks “Hey pretty girl, would you like to drink this?” and before she knew what was happening, the woman, 28 year old Bethany Storro – an attractive and well-liked Safeway clerk – saw the stranger throw the contents of the cup in her face.  Instantly she began to burn, and felt her skin bubbling.  Her clothes, where the contents of the cup touched them, began to disintegrate.  Miss Storro fell to the ground screaming and her assailant ran off.

I hope that this beautiful and well-liked woman can be made whole again, and that her assailant, (perhaps tracked by the purchase of concentrated sulphuric acid?) is quickly apprehended.  No one should have to fear or suffer such an assault and this assailant needs to be off the street.

CBC News - World - Acid-throwing woman sought in Wash.

Technorati Tags: Crime,Vancouver,Acid attack,True Crime,WTF?

Gang 'killed victims to extract their fat'

In Peru police arrested three men, and are looking for at least seven more in connection with a scheme to ‘harvest’ body fat from humans to turn into a wrinkle reducer.  The black market in these fats has to this point been largely though of as an urban legend, since there is a plentiful supply of liquid fat available from donors.  The arrests let us know that not only is the black market real, but at about $50,000 for two bottles of human body fat, it is lucrative anywhere, but particularly in locations where incomes are far less than in the US and Europe. 

Many of us heard stories of the Boogieman as children.  He seems to take on different characteristics depending on where one lives.  In Peru, the Boogieman is the Pishtaco – a sort of demonic creature, said to resemble a human with white skin.  The Pishtaco were said to murder Indians on the roads and trails, and mutilate their remains.  When the Caucasian missionaries came they initially terrified many Incas because they resembled the white-skinned Pishtaco of legend.  The missionaries were thought to kill peasants for their body fat, which they used to keep their oil lamps lighted and their church bells oiled. 

I just cannot think of a single thing to say in commenting on this.  It is hard to imagine that dozens of people could be murdered simply to harvest body fat for high-end wrinkle treatment.  I wonder if this development will cause a decline in sales for the treatment, or if the pattern we saw with ‘blood diamonds’ – sales were not affected overall – and it will be something people express concern about but go right on with their purchases. 

I guess I can think of one thing to say:  It seems to me that this case cries out for the death penalty, and certainly it should be followed by extraction of body fat from the perpetrators of all these murders.  It is amazing what our consumerism and vanity becomes as it ripples across the globe to lower income societies.  Something we think little about because we can afford it, can be so extremely valuable in the second and third world as to cause murder – as in this case where the murdered number in the dozens.  Does that make the men who killed and removed body fat modern-day Pishtacos?  Are the people buying human body fat as anti-wrinkle treatments responsible in some way also?  I have to say that I will be quite surprised if we begin to learn that similar rings are going on around the world, but instead of body fat their target is harvesting organs. 

The Guardian

Reuters

Technorati Tags: Pishtacos,Body Fat Killings,Peru,Anti-wrinkle treatment,blood diamonds,consumerism

Deer: You Should See the Other Guy

Strange things happen during the rut (mating season) to be sure.  You may have seen the photo of an elk trying to mount a buffalo statue just outside of West Yellowstone, Montana.  I can’t say what the result was in that case, but whether the bull elk was satisfied with his ‘hard body’ or not, he came away much luckier than the buck that chose to fight with a 640 pound ornamental statue of a big buck.  Antler marks indicate that the challenger locked antlers with the stoic buck, before finally choosing to  ram the concrete statue head first.  The buck staggered off about twenty yards from the statue (which finally tipped over) and died.  Don’t worry, the man who owns the property is a hunter with a deer tag.  I imagine it was the easier ‘hunt’ anybody’s heard of:

1. Rise from bed.
2. Scratch.
3. Pee. 
4. Walk from bedroom to front room.
5. Notice statue on its side, and dead buck about twenty-five yards from the front door.
6. Call butcher to pick up and butcher the deer. 
7. Pick up venison at butcher, tell the story of the ‘hunt’ to everyone you encounter.
8. Put the meat in the freezer. 
9. Scratch.

   And, as you contemplate the poor dead buck who took on the badass big buck in your front yard; the very buck that wanted to be a big shot with the lay-ay-ay-dees, it occurs to me that this episode is an example of natural selection, and this buck has been spotted by the great lifeguard in the sky, who says sternly: “Hey! You!  Yes you, the guy with the cracked skull!  You are OUTTA the Gene Pool!

Deer loses head-butt with Wisconsin lawn ornament - TwinCities.com

Technorati Tags: humor,funny photos,funny pictures

Everett Police Officer Charged with First Degree Manslaughter in Shooting Death

I hate reading stories like this one.  It is the old saw acted out – one bad apple spoils the bunch.  Officer Troy Meade, an eleven year veteran of the Everett, WA police department, shot and killed a fifty-one year old man in the parking lot of a restaurant. 

The victim had been drinking at the bar, and patrons called the police when he said he intended to drive home.  An autopsy would later show that his blood alcohol was .26, which is more than three times the legal limit in Washington State.  Police arrived, and upon seeing the man in his Corvette, Meade blocked the car about fifteen feet to the rear.  Cars on both sides, and the a curb kept the man from driving forward or turning to either side. 

Meade approached the man, and was speaking with him when a second officer arrived at the scene.  Meade waved the other officer off, indicating that he didn’t need backup and the other officer began to drive away.  Then Meade radioed and told the second officer to come back.  When he returned to the scene, the officer saw Meade speaking with the driver, standing by the drivers door.  The man was seated in the drivers seat but the engine was off.  Meade was talking to the man and telling him not to try to drive off.  The man’s voice became more belligerent and he refused to comply.  Both officers drew their stun guns and the second officer drew his baton.

People who witnessed the event said that then Meade fired his stun gun into the man’s shoulder and the driver stiffened briefly in response.  The stun gun record showed that the officer had triggered two shocks: one of six seconds and then five seconds.  The driver then started his car and tried to drive off, over the curb barrier and into a chain link fence several feet in front of the parking curb.  The car was stopped by the fence, and witnesses say that it seemed to move slightly as if the engine were revving. 

At that point Officer Meade drew his pistol and said “Time to end this”, firing eight shots into the rear of the drivers seat.  The man died at the scene, having been hit seven times.  The car was found to be running with the transmission in park.

The man’s family is suing the City of Everett for $15 million, and the prosecutor has decided to file first degree manslaughter charges.  And while I agree with the prosecutor, and feel that the city should compensate the family, I also think that this is yet another proof to the old saw, “Never run from a police officer”.  Nothing good comes of running from police.  It is a shame that this happened, and of course Officer Meade ought not have fired his weapon – let alone eight times – when there was no immediate danger from the man and his car.  He was probably too drunk to comply, and the officer should have used his taser, reached in and removed the key once the car was fully blocked.  I can’t see this any other way than shooting was a bad and unnecessary decision, and shooting eight times was a clear sign of the officers depraved indifference to the drunk man’s life.

Photo from Everett Herald, courtesy of Luvera Law Firm – seven shots hit the drivers seat and are circled to make it easier to locate them.

HeraldNet: Snohomish County police officer charged in killing

Technorati Tags: Crime,true crime,Everett,Policeman Charged,Everett Policeman charged,manslaughter,Police Officer shoots drunk driver

I’m Pretty Sure I Just had an Aneurism!

So very seldom in life do we appreciate how unique are our experiences.  We get into a rut, thinking that everything we do, think, eat, read, watch has been done before.  Or at least a lot of it.  Well, maybe you don’t, but I tend to do so, and I am always glad of it when something unexpected and novel reminds me that I am constantly experiencing the unique, it is just that I forget to pay attention. 

Earlier this week, I came across a perfect little reminder of just how unexpected life really is.  Before you look closely at the photo below, I am going to make a prediction about you that will be 100% accurate.  100%.  If you are honest, you will be forced to admit that without even knowing you, or at least without knowing you well at all, I have been able to tell you something about yourself.  Something undeniable.  And at the same time, I am going to prove that we will have shared a unique experience, one that every last one of us will be forced to admit was both singular AND  unpredictable.  How can I make this claim?  How can it be true in every case?

Start by examining this photo:

(photo by Alexey Eliseev and caption from Improbable Research)

I know that in looking at the photo, there is something odd that trips a little alarm in the brain, alerting us to possible funny business.  Who are these people and what are they doing?  To set the scene, allow me to tell you how I came across the photo.  On a message board I frequently read and occasionally pollute with my own posts, I was reading a discussion of the Nobel committee’s decision honoring President Obama with the Peace Prize for this year.  As was the case in the papers, at water coolers around the country and on the television news programs, opinions were mixed about the committee’s decision.  I commented on it in an earlier entry here at the Bully Pulpit (The Bully Pulpit  - Obama-wins-Nobel-peace-prize), and at the message board most of the posts expressed either surprise or gratification.  One of my favorite members of the board, known there by the handle Seagull, added a very simple post.  It contained a link to a website called Improbable Research, and it was there that I first saw the photo shown above.  I nearly skipped the caption of the photo  and simply moved on to the article, but something in my subconscious caught the oddness of the picture and made me take another look.

Seconds later I was laughing and wiping coffee off of my chin, and being reminded that  I don’t care how many of us there are on this planet, there is no way that anyone woke up the morning of October 11, 2009 and thought they would see this, or anything like this.  The photo at the top of the website linked by Seagull makes my all-time list of INWHGIWIWU events (I-never-would-have-guessed-it-when-I-woke-up).   No, no way someone woke up thinking, ‘uh, I foresee three - no four - Nobel Laureates, several women removing their bras, dividing them in two and...now the women are giving everyone a cup to breathe through.’  Now take another close look at the photo and you will see that at the 2009 Nobel Prize ceremony, Public Health Prize winner Dr. Elena Bodnar demonstrates her invention — a brassiere that, in an emergency, can be quickly converted into a pair of protective face masks, one for the brassiere wearer and one to be given to some needy bystander. She is assisted by Nobel laureates Wolfgang Ketterle (left), Orhan Pamuk, and Paul Krugman (right).

Tell the truth, now, there is not a person among us that could possibly have awakened that morning thinking, ‘I bet I see four Nobel Prize winners at this year’s ceremony wearing bra cups on their faces to demonstrate a patent-pending invention meant to equip all (unliberated anyway) women with life-saving emergency equipment as well as life-enhancing comfort and support.’ So you see,our lives are not so very predictable at all. 

Insert gratuitous remarks HERE.   

Oh, and so what does the title have to do with the rest of this mess?  Well, think of it as a sort of Public Service Announcement to warn you not to do what I did.  Whether you have a mouthful of coffee or not, when you need to laugh, and laugh hard, DO NOT HOLD IT IN!  Nothing good will come of it, with results ranging from ruptured ear drum, to aneurism, to an (hopefully small) unintended deposit in the shorts, to, well…I think you get the idea. 

Technorati Tags: funny photos,funny pictures,humor,humorous pictures,Nobel Peace Prize,Obama Peace Prize,Barack Obama,WTF

'Ira' Spring Mountain of Trouble by Seattle Times Columnist Danny Westneat

I always enjoy Mr. Westneat’s writing and have at least twice agreed with him.  Once was at a poker game when I got him a beer and he said something like: “You’re alright, Tom”.  Though I admit I was on the verge of revoking my agreement because my name is Mike.  But then, who needs to be THAT hung up about names?  Curious?  I hope so, because if not you’ll miss this gem of a column by selfsame Danny Westneat. If you have the stomach for it, after reading Danny’s column, come back and read below the link to see what I think.  Wait!  I saw you thinking of just looking now, but trust me, Danny is the professional writer here, not me, so you’ll want to read him first.  The most intelligent of my readers will read him solely. 

Danny Westneat | 'Ira' Spring Mountain of trouble | Seattle Times Newspaper

I know that without a naming board we'd have even more strife over trivial matters (in the larger context of a human condition offering war, famine, disease, death, disability, crime...well, like that), but there's something forced about someone voting to reject honoring a person by naming something after him/her just because it "felt forced".   Maybe we should have a naming board appeal board, and then a sudden-death naming board trivia contest to determine which board gets to be the top board. With the exception of Danny's writing, which is always scintillating, the whole naming thing leaves me, well,  bored.   How about we leave it Mt. Spring, though all of us here in the Other Washington will know that Mt. Spring is really just an abbreviation for Mt. Ira Spring? Just a thought…MB

Technorati Tags: Seattle Times,Danny Westneat,Hiking,Trail guides,Opnion,Columnist,humor

OMG Moment Number 631

Don't know if you ever read the FML (F*** my Life! FML link) website but sometimes it cracks me up.  Now I know that some of you might not believe this one could happen, but let me assure you that it could.  According to one poster at the site:

"Today, my girlfriend of a year broke up with me because I didn't fight some guy that started hitting her right in front of me... In a dream. She was totally serious. FML"

I can vouch for the story not being too unbelievable because I once had an employee who quit suddenly.  I asked why, and she replied, "You were really mean to me."  Surprised, and because I hardly ever had contact with her, I asked her when my meanness had occurred.  "In my dream."  I started to laugh, but she didn't.  "You're quitting because I was mean to you in a dream?"  I thought about it just in time to stop myself from explaining how crazy that is, because it occurred to me: ‘do I really want this mental giant doing client work’?  The kicker was that she went to her psychic after the dream and the psychic affirmed her decision because it would be best for her to find a new dream boss who wouldn't be mean to her.  True story.  I nearly had a car wreck laughing about it.

Technorati Tags: OMG,WTF,dreams,psychic

Perhaps Darwin was Wrong…

If you like, watch all the comments in this video, they are a hoot.  But please don’t miss the first speaker.  I’d be happy to send a buck to the first person who can come up with any reasonable explanation of her comments.  And all you slave-holders back east?  We’re on to you now!

Technorati Tags: Funny video,Santa Cruz Public Comments,Incredibly inane woman