"That's a joke... I say, that's a joke, son"

Ah yes, if ever we needed Foghorn Leghorn's words, it is now.

First there was the uproar over the Mohammed cartoons published in a Danish newspaper, which was followed by the International Holocaust Cartoon Competition sponsored by an Iranian newspaper.

Now the Russians have banned comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's film "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Because it might offend people.

But what about.....
Darfur
Global Warming
and....the fact that almost 30,000 children die EVERYDAY from preventable causes
I could go on...but that last one is hard to top.
Apparently, these things aren't nearly as offensive.

As a comedian, there can be no greater honor than to be banned by a government. It's like a Nobel Prize.

Lenny Bruce, Sam Kinison and Bill Hicks must be laughing their asses off somewhere.

If I Can Make It There….

It was quite a week at the United Nations in New York. Not since Nikita Krushchev pounded the table with his shoe have there been such performances. And now that the speeches are done, it's time for the reviews.

Now, I could analyze it as a foreign correspondent, or as a student of International Relations, but I think covering it as a reviewer at a comedy club would be more fun. So, let's recap shall we?

First of all, only one person popped the room.

In comedian parlance, that means, rocking the house… taking it over and making it their own…or killing.

Every seasoned comedian knows when they "kill." So does the audience. There is an electricity to it that is undeniable. When you pop a room, you know it.

So, let's look at who worked the room:

Kofi Annan opened the show Tuesday morning. Fair enough, his room.

He brought on Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President of Brazil. He didn't have a strong set, but then it's not surprising as he is still an open miker as far as the world stage is concerned.

George Bush had the morning headlining spot and turned in a fairly pedestrian set. He really needs to write some new material. Plus given his off stage antics, he had an uphill battle with the crowd.

Thabo Mbeki of South Africa had to follow Mr. Bush, not a fun spot.

The rest of the morning was pretty slow.

There was some excitement in the afternoon though. It was standing room only as everyone crowded into the room to check out Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the kid from Iran who is hot now. In his set here last year he showed some promise and he has been working regularly at home and getting a lot of ink. His set ran a bit long and as all political comics do from time to time, he lectured a bit.

But the biggest surprise came on Wednesday morning when, for the first time, someone worked blue. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez came in and opened with a Noam Chomsky reference, called yesterday's headliner George Bush the devil, and said that the stage still smelled of sulphur from Bush's set. And that was just in the first few minutes!! Talk about going for the crowd's throat.

The kid is hot right now. He had the room eating out of the palm of his hand.

After his set at the UN he worked a few more rooms in Manhattan, with each set wilder than the last. He reminded me a lot of the take no prisoner's style of Sam Kinison.

But for all the polemics and fist pounding, the name calling, and the posturing…. everyone….and I mean EVERYONE….all the dictators, all the tinpot generals, all the despots….have one thing in common:

You ain't nobody on the world stage till you've played New York.

Having a nice day?

So Labor Day came and went. Darfur Had a lovely barbecue with lots of great friends, tons of food, starvation and plenty of cold beer. The Bay Bridge was closed for repairs so the city was quiet refugees and there was no one around genocide and for a change the peace indiscriminate attacks against women and children and quiet was nice.

Now life is back to normal, get up, go to work, get the dry cleaning, do some shopping live a normal life.

As I plan to go to bed on this routine, boring Tuesday night, there is a report from Reuters that Sudan's government has started bombing the civilians in Darfur.

I could try to describe it, but perhaps U.N Humanitarian chief Jan Egeland says it best:

"In Darfur, in many ways, we are in free fall. Mass murder, war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing -- that's very visible on the ground."

In my neighborhood any one of either mass murder, war crimes, crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing is usually good enough to bring a cop car. Maybe even two.

The folks in Darfur got all four. And ain't it the truth? There's never a cop around when you need one.

It's not like Darfur is something we didn't know about. It's been going on for a while now. Over the weekend, one of the refugees was quoted as saying, "we are going to be massacred."

Looks like he was right. Only, no one heard him.

You're getting warmer...

This opening line from a Financial Times piece says it all:

"Hong Kong's worsening air pollution is prompting a number of
hedge funds to move to Singapore, in a trend that could undermine the
competitiveness of the territory's financial sector."

Whether you believe in taking care of the environment or not, whether you believe in the concept of global warming or not, human beings care about the conditions they live in.

And when the quality of the environment dips below the acceptable level, people and by extension companies, will penalize that event financially.

That Hong Kong's pollution is getting worse is not a matter of debate anymore. And because of that fact, Hong Kong's financial community is adversely affected.

So, you see, the environment does matter.

Choosing Sides

As Buffalo Springfield once sang, "Battle lines being drawn....."

Osama Bin Laden, who is undoubtedly a hero to many in the Muslim world, and who, up to this point was seen as a Pan-Islamist, has threatened the Shiia with retaliation.

Why is this significant? Because he has taken a side.

As a Saudi, he is a Sunni, and Sunnis make up the majority in the world of Islam.

Up to now, I have not read or heard of Osama taking sides, but with this latest audio tape he has done so.

It will be interesting to see how this will play out in the coming months and years.

Of one thing we can be sure, many innocent people will die needlessly. And that's the most unfortunate part of this development.

Shock and Awe

A talent show on television asked the American people to vote for the winner tonight.

In the CNN story about the event was this quote:

More than 63 million votes were cast, "more than any president in the
history of our country has received," Seacrest said.

I wonder if anyone cares anymore that this is something we should be ashamed of?

Dinner and a Movie?

According to a report in the Guardian, the war in Iraq may end up costing us 1 TRILLION dollars. For those of you not familiar with the number, that's a 1 with 12 zeroes after it. That's a lot of money, by anyone's standards. And what are we going to get for it? More to the point, what are the Iraqi people going to get for it?

Couple things of note here. One, that report in the Guardian was initially published in January of 2006, and didn't really get any mainstream media attraction in the US until a few months later.

Two, its authors are Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winning economist at Columbia University and Linda Bilmes, a Harvard budget expert.

And now with all the saber rattling going on between the U. S. and Iran, we may be getting ready to spend another trillion.

So this time I say we try a different approach. Why?

Well...let's look at what we could have done with a trillion in Iraq.

Instead of dropping bombs on March 20, 2003, we should have dropped leaflets offering them a choice. Either fight the invasion or from that moment on, everyone, yes, every man, woman, child, whether Shiia, Sunni or Kurd would be on the U. S. payroll. A fantasy? I don't think so.

Let's do the math.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Iraq's per capita GDP in 2005 was $3,400.00. That's about $283.00 a month.

As of July 2006, according to the same CIA Factbook, Iraq's population was 26,283,383.

If you divide one trillion by 26,283,383 you get $38,046.85.

So on March 20th, we should have made them an offer. And since we're generous Americans, we would have made it a nice one.

We should have told them that effective immediately we were tripling everyone's salary to $634.11 a month. And...we're going to keep paying them every month for the next 5 years, until they're back on their feet.

All they had to do was to lose the Saddam guy and his thugs, be cool, live their lives and maybe give the whole democracy thing a shot.

So what happens then?

Well, you KNOW Saddam and his guys didn't have that kind of cash. And clan or no clan, remember, "money talks and...." So, Saddam is history.

Now, everyone is happy. Wouldn't you be if someone just tripled your monthly income?

Now they also have the one thing that everyone in the world wants -- disposable income. And what do people do with disposable income?

They go to dinner and a movie.

Right. And how do they get to the movie theater? Well, they are going to need a car. They may want to buy a Dodge or a Chevy or even a Saturn. Then their going to need insurance. So now you got insurance companies setting up. And with insurance companies comes golf tournaments. If they can build golf courses in Palm Springs, they can build them in Iraq.

Another thing to do with disposable income is to take a trip. Heck they could even hop on Delta, United or American and visit the U.S. and spend some of that money here.

All of these disposable income related things also create jobs. Golf courses hire groundskeepers, theaters hire ushers, restaurants hire cooks and waiters, car dealers hire salesmen and mechanics, the government hires people to maintain the highways and the airports hire folks to run the airline counters.

So now, when it comes to Iran's turn, they will have a choice: The Mullahs or a dinner and a movie.

It's just a thought.

Is there something you're not telling us?

The whole world's watching...and waiting to see how this Iran/IEAE/US/China and Russia thing is going to play out.

What made me pause though was the article in today's Financial Times with the headline "Russia and China warn UN not to antagonise Iran."

Which naturally begs the question: What do they know that we don't?

Have a nice weekend.

Settling In

In case you were wondering what our long term plans were for Iraq, this article from the Washington Post should clarify matters.

According to the article, we are building the biggest U. S. Embassy in the world in Baghdad.

Here's how the lede goes:

"In preparation for ending its occupation of Iraq, the United States is making plans to
create the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in the world in Baghdad, complete with a staff of over 3,000 personnel, according to U.S. officials."

In another article from AP, the embassy spokesperson in Baghdad said the location was a secret.

Which would make sense if it wasn't for the accompanying picture AND the fact that the Baghdadis can all see it being built.

When You're Jet, You're a Jet All The Way......

Same as being a Neo Conservative. Once you're in baby....

Anyway, there's a great little internecine gang war going on in Foreign Policy circles. But unless you follow this stuff, you'll have no idea what I am talking about.

So, where to start?

Well for starters, any moment now I am expecting to hear that the Italians have given asylum to Francis Fukuyama as well as that Afghani who converted to Christianity.

That is the fate of apostates. And right now, Francis is apostate du jour.

Francis Fukuyama, author of "The End of History and the last Man" was one of the leading lights of the Neo Cons, the guys that brought you "Iraq 2 - This Time It's Personal." Their essential thesis has been the promulgation of an interventionist foreign policy with muscle.

In his latest book, "America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power and the Neoconservative Legacy" he recants his views in favor of an approach involving more emphaiss on softpower, the use of public diplomacy and media to affect the hearts and minds of those we want to encourage on the road to democracy, and the guys in the clubhouse are NOT happy. And now they are essentially calling Francis a big wuss.

Basically the big question comes down to this: Should the US kick some booty in the world, or should we take a softer approach.

This may not seem like a big deal for most folks who get up everymorning, fix breakfast for their kids and get them off to school before commuting to a job they don't like. But it is a big deal. Because, the side that wins this argument will decide whether or not your kids will be carrying a gun somewhere in the world in the future.

Catching up

Well...I had my bout with the flu, so now I'm back, and where do I start?

They held an election in Belarus...and sitting President Aleksander Lukashenko won... again. (wink...nudge.) Of course he had to arrest a few opposition leaders, and stuff a few ballot boxes but hey...it's the Chicago way.

Africa is coming apart at the seams. Trouble and strife in....well...pretty much everywhere. Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia...and the Sudan continues to fester. People continue to die in Darfur. Hey...if there was someone from Darfur on American Idol, maybe we'd notice. But until then...

The Fourth World Water Conference was held in Mexico City and gee...where does one begin with this issue?

The news is not all that good. One of the big issues was the privatisation of water delivery systems in developing countries. The Guardian sums it up quite well in this paragraph:

"Water privatisation was seen by the World Bank and G8 countries as the most effective way to bring clean water to large numbers of poor countries throughout the 1990s, but in spite of investments of $25bn (£14bn) between 1990 and 1997, the rich have mostly benefited at the expense of the poor. Sub-Saharan Africa has received less than 1% of all the money invested in water supplies by private companies in the last 10 years."

Wow....the poor didn't have any money! What were the odds?!

And for those of you keeping score, bird flu deaths are now at 103. Slowly, slowly, creeping inexorably to full scale pandemic.

Have a lovely day.

Shhhhhhhh

Things must be slow in Taiwan.

How else to explain President Chen poking China with a stick. That stick, of course, is the never ending issue of unification. China wants it, Taiwan...not so sure.

This question has always been the proverbial 800lb panda in US-Chinese relations. The issue pops up every now and then, kind of like the swallows returning to Capistrano.

A few days ago, it reared its furry little head again. As the BBC reported, Taiwan's President Chen decided to scrap the council on unification with China.

Hello? Who cares? And why bring it up now?

Domestic consumption? Is there a scandal brewing? Does he need to divert the attention from something else?

China naturally responded by saying the move "will create antagonism and conflict within Taiwan and across the strait."

Well....yeah. What did you expect them to say?

But the real question here, that NO ONE wants to ever have to answer is:

What would the US do in a scenario where China decided to invade Taiwan?

The Bush administration is committed to spreading Democracy around the world. Taiwan, aside from the occasional fist fight on the floor of the legislature, is a Democracy. You see the dilemma here? Who's going to come out on top? Taiwan? A little island that makes computers?

Or Wal-Mart's factory?

Dear President Chen, not sure if you know much folks here in the US like their Wal-Marts, but I suggest sending over a fact finding mission.

Or short of that, you may want to take a meeting with the Ambassador from Wal-Mart.

I'm not saying that Democracy isn't a good thing, and that everyone should have it, but if the dragon is sleeping, don't go poking him with a stick.

What year is it?

Sunnis killing Shiites, Shiites killing Sunnis, Christians killing Muslims, Muslims killing Christians.

You'd think it was 1587 not 2006. So we haven't really progressed all that much.

Oh sure, we have the Internet, 700 channels of satellite television, instant messaging with any part of the world and yet, we still find reasons to kill each other. And when we don't have guns? Or bombs to do the job, we manage. Because we're earthlings. Primitive, superstitious and just plain ignorant.

I bring this up because all of us have become so inured to daily reports of religious killing. I'm no different. But this report on CNN really caught my eye. It is a piece about the sectarian killings in Nigeria. And the story is like any other story except that one little paragraph caught my eye. Well, OK, the headline "Corpses burn on streets of Nigerian city" caught my eye too.

Ready?

"Christian mobs, seeking revenge for the killings of Christians in the north, attacked Muslims with cutlasses, destroyed their houses and torched mosques in two days of violence in Onitsha, where at least 93 people have died."

Cutlasses?????? Are you KIDDING me?????

And it was cutlasses....plural!

Where do you buy a cutlass these days? Besides the knife channel, I mean.

Is there a Cutlass Outlet store in Nigeria that I don't know about? Or are there left over armaments from Long John Silver's errant voyage to Nigeria?

Cutlasses??

But it gets better. How is that possible you ask??

Read this story from the Daily Independent in Nigeria.

It describes a world that I cannot begin to fathom.

Allow me a few random quotes from that piece:

"Ogunyemi whose leg was completely cut off by his attackers "

And you worry about yellow waxy buildup on your coffee table....

"He was stripped naked and beaten to a state of coma before he was bundled inside a bus and taken to the Eleyele Police headquarters in Ibadan where he has since been in detained."

I presume "he" is still in a coma, even in detention at police headquarters.

"Last week the entire city of Ibadan was held hostage by series of attacks by Tokyo men who held motorists hostage with violent display of guns, cutlasses, charms, amulet and other dangerous weapons...."

Well...we can't have people walking around threatening you with "amulets" now can we?!!!!

So the point today is, the next time you drive to the Wal-Mart, in your air conditioned SUV, to shop in a large, clean, well stocked food store, take a moment, drop to your knees and kiss the ground with gratitude that no one tried to hack your leg off with a cutlass or threatened you with an amulet.

Of course, I'd be wary of that ham and cheese omelette at the IHOP.

I've Got You.....

Under my skin.

The Chicago Tribune has a story about yet another slow move toward general acceptance of sub-cutaneous ID chips.

The article concerns an Ohio security firm's boss and two workers who have had radio transmitting chips implanted under their skin. How nice.

The article further details how this is nothing new, and that the US is behind the rest of the world in using this technolgy.

Hey, I don't want to be "behind" the rest of the world, I want us to be the ones who never use this technology. Dead last. Paranoid? You bet.

And yet...the erosion continues.

Don't know if you've been paying attention to the news of the inevitable introduction of biometric ID cards in the United Kingdom.

Of course, we already have an ID card here in the U.S., it's called the Social Security card. And try getting a new one if your identity gets stolen.

This whole ID card, chip-under-the-skin, personal identity card stuff is creepy. And it's a lot like global warming. It's happening so slowly that you don't even realize it until the island you've been living on is suddenly under a foot of water.

So where's the funny here?

There isn't.

OK...a little nervous laughter. But that's a whole different kind of funny.

Some thoughts on the Olympics.

Once again the world has come together to celebrate physical excellence, sports-man and woman like conduct and extreme displays of nationalism.

• Very cool that Peter Gabriel sang John Lennon's "Imagine." Even more cool was that all the athletes sang along and knew the lyrics. For one brief moment you had a glimpse of the possibilities.

• Watched the Canadian women's ice hockey team shut out the Russian women 12-0, which makes me miss the Soviet Union. You know that would have never happened under the Soviets. OK…so the women would have had 5'oclock shadows…but they would have at least given the Canadians a game.

• The snowboarders are the coolest.

• I miss the Norwegian women's beach volleyball team.

Now on to today's topic. Television.

Now, admittedly, I live in the US and thus my only recourse is American television and their coverage of the games. But what I really want is to see universal coverage of all the events. I want to see what the French, Germans, Norwegians, Russians, Japanese etc. see.

If I can call my journalist friend in Afghanistan on my cell phone, then I should be able to pick and choose my coverage on the Internet.

But it's not that easy.

Just try finding international television on the net. There's very little.

The Official Olympic Site from the UK, Eurosport, and a few other places but it's slim pickings out there.

Either NBC has it locked up, or I'm not good at researching the net. Which is eminently possible.

My own choice would be that the IOC has complete control of the broadcasts, and that the coverage is 24 hours a day, NBC and other television networks can put together packages for prime time viewing for those who are not able to watch the men's downhill at 3AM California time.

And it should be available over the Internet.

For free.

Especially women's beach volleyball.

The Countdown has Begun

According to an article in today's Guardian newspaper, Sweden's Minister of Sustainable Development, Mona Sahlin, says that Sweden is going to completely wean itself off oil by the year 2020.

I know what you're thinking... "Oh those wacky Swedes...imagine having a silly department filled with people working on sustainable development. What'll they think of next? Safe cars?
Decent health care? Affordable child care?

But I digress.

Imagine, little Mona has the stones to say hasta la vista Chevron, BP, Shell Oil et al.

And why are they doing this?

Here's a direct quote from the article: "According to the energy committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, there is growing concern that global oil supplies are peaking and will shortly dwindle, and that a global economic recession could result from high oil prices."

Well, so what you say. It's Sweden. Who cares?

Well, I care. No, not because it's Sweden, although having lived there, I am a huge fan. Herring, Volvos and blondes. What more do you need in a country?

No, it’s the source of the quote that has me concerned. And it should have you concerned as well.

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. These guys know what they're talking about. They're the guys who every year figure out who gets the Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry.

Now you see why I'm a teensy bit concerned.

So, what shall we do?

How about establishing our own Department of Sustainable Development? Or is that just too redolent of sprouts and birkenstock shoes?

Well we better do something, because while I already have my EU passport, the rest of you are going to be standing in a long line in 2020 waiting to get into Sweden where they have electric power to keep the beer cold.

Unclear on the Concept

Out of England this morning comes irrefutable proof that drugs affect the logic and reasoning functions of the brain.

The Mirror in the UK has a story about a crack dealer selling drugs to raise funds for radical Muslim groups. Whatever happened to bake sales?

eMission Statement?

As I embark this on this blog journey I find myself thinking: "Yeah, right. Just what the world needs, another blog."

And it hasn't escaped me, that only one letter separates blog and clog.

However, in searching the general blogosphere, I haven't found a single strictly foreign policy humor blog. Admittedly, it's a tough subject to lampoon. And here I speak from experience.

Back in the day when I was doing stand-up, at the IMPROV and Catch A Rising Star in New York and other comedy clubs around the country, being a political comic was tough. Being an international political comic was suicide. Which will explain why you never heard of me. Well, that, and the fact that I wasn't a particularly funny stand-up. Although in my defense, a survey published by National Geographic magazine back in 2002 revealed that 29 percent of young Americans couldn't find the Pacific Ocean on a map.

Anyway, surveying the blogosphere I really get tired of, among other things, the harshness of the rhetoric, the ignorance, the xenophobia, the jingoism and the partisanship that runs through it all.

I think that now, more than ever, we need a sense of humor when engaging each other and the world.

So, this is going to be my daily attempt to write a little something amusing about this tiny little ball of mud we all have to live on. This is for all you analysts, spooks, NGO' ers, journos, IR students and diplomats. And anyone else who opens a newspaper and thinks to themselves……"What the heck were they thinking?"