What Caught My Eye Today

Budget - The Treasury Department said that the budget deficit increased by $192.3 billion in March, and is near $1 trillion just halfway through the budget year. The deficit already totals $956.8 billion for the first six months of the budget year, also a record for that period. The Obama administration projects the deficit for the entire year will hit $1.75 trillion. A deficit at that level would nearly quadruple the previous annual record of $454.8 billion set last year. If you are going to go big, you might as well go really big. Of course, if you want want to go really, really big, then $1.75 trillion is just a stepping stone to truly astronomical figures. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that President Barack Obama's budget proposals would produce $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next decade. As you can imagine, the Obama Administration has a slightly different perspective on the future. The administration projects that after hitting $1.75 trillion this year, the gap between spending and tax revenues will dip to $1.17 trillion in 2010, and plunge to $533 billion in 2013. If accurate, that would fulfill Obama's pledge to cut the deficit he inherited in half by the end of his current term in office. Isn't that nice--there's a prognostication for everyone to enjoy. Bias aside, I really hope the Obama administration knows something the rest of us don't.

China - As if you needed another reason to laud the positive side of sex... China has 32 million more young men than young women because parents facing strict birth limits abort female fetuses to have a son. China has 119 male births for every 100 girls, compared with 107 to 100 for industrialized countries. The imbalance is expected to steadily worsen among people of childbearing age over the next two decades and could trigger a slew of social problems, including a possible spike in crime by young men unable to find female partners. You see, because there aren't enough females to satisfy demand, males are left to alternative means for venting testosterone fueled "frustration". If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times; you don't mess around with Mother Nature. No good can come of it, as the Chinese are discovering yet again.

Africa - Once, just once it would be nice to read some good news about this poor continent. Alas, this is not that time. Much of the Horn of Africa, which is made up of six countries -- Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Djibouti --covering roughly half the area of the United States, is beset by a rare set of disadvantages that makes it ripe for chaos. Poverty, hunger, corruption and lawlessness has made the region a haven not only for pirates, but for arms smugglers and Islamic insurgents. The Horn of Africa is notorious for corrupt governments, porous borders, widespread poverty and discontented populations, creating a region ripe for Islamic fundamentalism. The United States worries that Somalia could be a terrorist breeding ground, particularly since Osama bin Laden declared his support for Islamic radicals there. Bin Laden himself has ties to the Horn, having once lived in Sudan. What a mess. I wonder what the U.S. is doing to keep things from getting out of hand. The U.S. has stationed 1,800 troops in Djibouti to keep terror networks in the Horn of Africa in check. That much, huh? I guess that's the trade off you have to make when you've got all your military assets investing in Iraq and Afghanistan. At some point, the United States may stabilize those two countries--maybe. Of course, the rest of the world will have collapsed, but at least we'll have Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sri Lanka - The nations leading Sri Lanka's peace process on Friday urged the Tamil Tigers to free 100,000 civilians they are holding and the military to stop shelling the no-fire zone where the separatists are making their last stand. The statement from the United States, Britain, Japan and Norway came as Sri Lanka's military said it had begun what it called "the largest hostage rescue operation in the world" by identifying the best routes for people to get out. Tens of thousands of civilians are trapped inside a 7 square mile army-declared no-fire zone on the northeastern coast, held there by the Tamil Tigers and being killed in shelling. I'm guessing that the designation of "no-fire zone" is most symbolic in this case. Human Rights Watch calls the "no-fire zone" one of the most dangerous places in the world. Not that I want to belabor the point, but why don't the calamities in Sri Lanka or Africa--or pretty much anywhere outside of Europe and the Middle East--ever make the evening news. If it wasn't for my interest in world news, as well as the fine folks at Reuters and the Associated Press, I'm not sure I would ever have known about this crisis. That being said, I don't particularly feel much better about the state of the world. Quite the contrary.

India - It's been a while since we've heard from our friends in India. Let's see what they've been up to. A 28-year-old Indian woman smeared its seeds on her eyes before gobbling up 51 fire-hot chilies in two minutes for an entry into the Guinness World Records. I love this country. It never fails to deliver the goods. The thumb-sized chili pepper was accepted by Guinness World Records in 2007 as the world's spiciest chili. It is eaten in India's northeast as a cure for stomach troubles and a way to fight the crippling summer heat. The chili has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chili's spiciness. Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units, while jalapeno peppers measure anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000. I'm cool with the record, but, good Lord, what motivated this woman to smear this stuff on her eyes?