What Caught My Eye Today

Fred's Note: We'll be out of action until next week--heading up north to visit Grams. So hopefully today's musings will tide you over...

2008 Presidential Race - Busy day for both contenders. Let's start with John McCain. Speculation swirled that McCain might name his vice presidential partner within the next few days — right in the middle of Barack Obama's overseas tour. McCain has told reporters he doesn't care if Obama's trip was stealing attention and thinks it "doesn't in the slightest" undercut his own message. Aw come on. I think he cares a little bit. The McCain campaign released two videos set to love songs and encouraged viewers to choose which one best conveyed this message: "The media is in love with Barack." See, even if McCain says he doesn't care, his campaign sure does. Plus, do you really think these videos would have been released without his approval? Neither do I.

And now to the jetsetting Barack Obama. What up, dawg? Barack Obama stepped into the thicket of Mideast politics Tuesday, declaring in Jordan that neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are strong enough internally to make the bold concessions necessary for peace. I'm sorry. How exactly does this statement shed any new light on this situation? Obama said he would work to bring the two sides together "starting from the minute I'm sworn into office." But he cautioned it is "unrealistic to expect that a U.S. president alone can suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace in this region." No kidding. Bush and Clinton didn't have much luck either. Though I hand it to Obama for tempering any unrealistic expectations. Kind of unusual for a presidential candidate to exercise restraint on pretty much anything. He stood by his call for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq over a 16-month period and said the United States, NATO and the Afghanistan government must do more to counter a resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida and declined repeatedly to concede that President Bush's decision to dispatch 30,000 troops to Iraq in 2007 had succeeded. Funny thing about success--so much depends on how one defines it. Of course, regardless of the measure, I doubt Obama will give credit to Bush for much of anything, unless it's for something bad.

Serbia - Serb nationalists skirmished with riot police in the capital, lashing out against the new Western-leaning government that captured war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic. Serb officials say they arrested Karadzic near Belgrade after more than a decade on the run. The war crime suspect had grown a long white beard to conceal his identity and had lived freely in the capital before being arrested. Hard to imagine that a beard was all it took to fool law enforcement for more than 10 years. Karadzic is sought on 11 charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity for his actions during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war. Karadzic is accused of orchestrating the worst massacre of Bosnia's war, when Serb troops overran the U.N.-protected enclave of Srebrenica and slaughtered thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys. Karadzic is also linked to the 3 1/2-year siege of Sarajevo, when Bosnian Serb troops starved, sniped and bombarded the city from hills high above it. Residents were kept alive by a thin lifeline of food and supplies provided by U.N. donors and peacekeepers. The siege lasted from 1992 to February 1996. An estimated 10,000 people died. While on the run in Serbia, the world's top war crimes fugitive worked at a private alternative medicine clinic and wrote for a Belgrade magazine. Not exactly what you would consider to be maintaining a low profile, is it? "This is a hard day for Serbia," said the leader of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, adding that Karadzic was "a legend of the Serbian people." Being a legend isn't always a positive thing. Jack the Ripper was a legend too, you know.

Alcohol - Rhode Island State Police arrested a man whose blood alcohol level allegedly was .491 — more than six times the legal limit — which they believe is the highest ever recorded in Rhode Island for someone who wasn't dead. Way to make your way into the record books, sparky. The legal limit in Rhode Island is .08. A blood alcohol of .3 is classified as "stupor," .4 is "comatose" and .5 is considered fatal, according to the health department. "Our only assumption could be that the person has a serious alcohol problem," a police spokesperson said. Gee really, do you think? Why is it that anyone speaking in an official capacity feels it is necessary to state the obvious in such lofty tones. Of course the dude has an alcohol problem. His blood alcohol was just this side of fatal, you moron.

Traffic - This next story is proof positive that if you look hard enough you can find a silver lining no matter how depressing the situation is. Rising prices at the gas pump appear to be having at least one positive effect: Traffic deaths around the country are plummeting, just as they did during the Arab oil embargo three decades ago. See what I mean? Researchers with the National Safety Council report a 9% drop in motor vehicle deaths overall through May compared with the first five months of 2007, including a drop of 18% in March and 14% in April. And here's another brilliant insight, this time from an Ohio commuter. "Fewer people on the road means fewer fatalities." Did you come up with that one all on your own?