What Caught My Eye Today

China- Two men from a mainly Muslim ethnic group rammed a truck and hurled explosives at jogging policemen in a city near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, killing 16. The timing so close to opening day for the Summer Olympics heightened the attack's shock value and bore the hallmarks of local Muslim militants. Never a good sign. The attack came as Olympic dignitaries and journalists poured into Beijing for an Olympics that some Chinese want to leverage to get the government to address festering grievances. Migrant workers cheated on pay for construction, homeowners angry about pollution and other disgruntled residents believe the government would help them rather than see the Olympics disrupted. I'm not sure I would bet the farm on that happening. Rumor has it that there is a lot of room at the neighborhood prison for anyone who chooses not to see eye to eye with the government. The attack also underscored that with so much security focused on Beijing, areas far from game venues make tempting targets that could also diminish China's Olympic moment. Well, China is a rather large country. No government, even China's, could reasonably be expected to have eyes everywhere to quell any potential terrorist attacks. Still, politics aside, I really hope the Chinese have a successful Games. Lord knows what they went through to pull this off.

Oil - Is it just me or is there a pattern developing here? Barack Obama put forward a broad energy plan designed to end U.S. reliance on imported oil within 10 years and shore up his standing amid a tightening White House race and high anxiety over gas prices. Obama's proposal, though, includes two significant reversals of past positions: He had steadfastly fought the idea of limited new offshore drilling and had been against tapping the nation's emergency oil stockpile to relieve pump prices that have stubbornly hovered around $4 a gallon. Obama, who as recently as last month argued against tapping the petroleum reserve, proposed that the government sell 70 million barrels of oil from the stockpile and said past release from the reserve have lowered gas prices within two weeks. The reserve contains 707 million barrels in salt caverns in Texas and Louisiana. It was last tapped shortly after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I suppose you can view these developments one of two ways. On the one hand, skeptics may claim that Obama is flip-flopping on yet another issue and is basically saying whatever he thinks will get him elected President in November. On the other hand, one could applaud Obama for recognizing that the issues confronting the country will require bipartisan support and he demonstrating that he's willing to do whatever it takes to bring relief to Americans. I guess it all depends on which candidate you are supporting.

Afghanistan - The Pentagon has ordered roughly 1,250 Marines serving as trainers for the Afghan security forces to stay on the warfront about a month longer to continue a mission that military leaders say is a top priority. The decision to extend the tour of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment in Afghanistan comes just a month after defense officials told the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit that it would stay an extra month in Afghanistan. Well what do you know, another pattern. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he would not replace the Marines with other U.S. troops when they left later this year. But commanders have said they need three more combat brigades — or as many as 10,000 troops — to bolster the fight in Afghanistan. And U.S. officials have indicated they would like to send extra brigades there next year. Military leaders, however, have made it clear they need to free units from Iraq deployments in order to send more troops to Afghanistan. Let me see if I've got this straight. The head of the Pentagon says no more troops will be sent to Afghanistan while the leaders on the ground say they need 10,000 more troops. Like my pappy used to say, "what we have here is a failure to communicate."

Nuclear Arms - President Bush is rushing the clock and running out of time as he tries to stare down nuclear threats on three fronts. Bush has seen Iran ignore a weekend deadline to say whether it will haggle with the U.S. and others worried that Iran is racing toward the bomb. And he has just days to decide whether to reward another adversary, North Korea, for inconclusive steps to get rid of weapons it already has. Bush's administration also offered India novel cooperation in developing civilian nuclear energy that critics say would let India build up its nuclear arsenal and spoil global efforts to stop the spread of atomic weapons. The deal survived what had seemed fatal opposition in India only to fall victim to the election-shortened U.S. legislative calendar. All three situations show what the administration calls flexibility and its critics call tunnel vision, and it is an open question whether, if ever closed, the deals would really lower the risk of nuclear war. Honestly, George, why are you resorting to diplomacy now? Nuke the bastards. Simple, effective, problem solved. What more could you ask for? Plus, as an added bonus, if we take India out of the picture, demand for oil is likely to drop, which would certainly be welcome news for all those hard working Americans struggling to make ends meet.

Capital Punishment - Here's a defense tactic I haven't heard of before. A death row inmate scheduled for execution says he's too fat to be put to death, claiming executioners would have trouble finding his veins and that his weight could diminish the effectiveness of one of the lethal injection drugs. Lawyers argue in a federal lawsuit that the condemned inmate had poor veins when he faced execution five years ago and the problem has been worsened by weight gain. His attorneys say a drug he is taking for migraine headaches could affect the execution process. The drug Topamax, a type of seizure medication, may have created a resistance to thiopental, the drug used to put inmates to sleep before two other lethal drugs are administered. Attorneys say that his weight, combined with the potential drug resistance, increases the risk he would not be properly anesthetized. Seriously, what do they feed these guys in prison anyway? I was under the impression that the all you can eat buffet on death row had been suspended a long time ago.

Emergency Services - I'm almost at a loss for words on this last item. A man called 911 twice after a sandwich shop left off the sauce. He initially called the emergency number so that officers could have his subs made correctly, according to a police report. Wait, it gets better. The second call was to complain that police officers weren't arriving fast enough. What a putz. Workers told police that the man became belligerent and yelled when they were fixing his order. They locked him out of the store when he left to call police. When officers arrived, they tried to calm him and explain the proper use of 911. Is this guy a complete moron? Those efforts failed, and he was arrested on a charge of making false 911 calls. I guess he is.