Beware the killer attack balloons!

If you wanted to send a really strong message to your opposition, one that states your position in no uncertain terms and strikes fear into their very hearts, what method would you choose?  You would want to choose something dramatic. Something intense.  Something larger than life that cannot be ignored.  You would choose… balloons?  Behold a headline from early last month:

“London rally threatens Moscow with balloons”  (http://en.rian.ru/world/20101212/161746043.html)

Wow.  Well, that ought to do it.  Assuming the balloons are actually able to complete the journey from London to Moscow, I’m sure the folks over at the Kremlin will be shaking in their shoes.  Or maybe they’ll just practice their dart tossing skills.  Hard to say.  I’m off to launch some balloons at the local biker gang – I’ll let you know how it goes.

The lost art of the macho photo op

With the end of 2010 upon us, I spent some time over the last day or so considering how best to look back at the year that was.  I thought it might be amusing to put forth some nominations for the best macho photo op by a world leader in 2010.  Imagine my dismay to discover just how painfully few macho photo ops I could find.  Granted, I didn’t spend hours and hours searching but heck, I shouldn’t have to!  The whole point of the macho photo op is to make sure the world knows just how manly you are.  These aren’t pictures that are hidden away in some cobwebby corner of the ‘net.  They should be some of the very first pictures you see when you google or bing or yahoo your favorite world leader. 

In order to try to rectify this sad state of affairs I hereby declare 2011 to be the year we bring back the macho photo op.  To do my part to restore this time-honored and noble political art form, here are some 2010 examples of our fearless world leaders at their macho best… or maybe not so much.

Notably absent – Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: I figured these two would be shoe-ins for some macho pics.  What I found was either utterly commonplace, like Ahmadinejad addressing the troops (yawn), or utterly ridiculous, like Kim Jong Il in his underwear.  (Word to the wise – don’t go looking for pictures of Kim Jong Il.  Just don’t.  It isn’t worth it.  It took several shots of bourbon to get over the underwear picture.)

An attempt gone wrong – Hugo Chavez: So here’s another guy who you’d think would have oodles of macho pics floating about the ‘net.  Sadly, no.  Oh sure, there are lots of him in uniform looking stern, but those don’t count seeing as stern uniform pics are fairly commonplace.  Then I stumbled across this:

OK, he’s in uniform, he’s stern, he’s colorful, he’s… um, well, he’s got a parrot on his shoulder.  Having seen what happens to my truck when parked under a bird for too long I really do have to give the man at least a couple macho points for bravery.  But a parrot?  Wouldn’t this have gone better with, say, an eagle or a hawk or maybe a pteradactyl?  He gets an A for effort, but in general this is an example of what NOT to do.

Passing off a regular photo op as macho: Nicolas Sarkozy – When you think macho you probably don’t think Sarkozy.  However I did come across this pic of him bravely staring down a chinese firing squad:

Oh… wait a minute.  No, actually he’s just on a dipomatic visit.  My bad.  But a good illustration of how sometimes a photo of an ordinary event can be passed off as a macho photo op.  Don’t be fooled!

We’re getting warmer: Felipe Calderon –  Now here is an example of a fairly good macho photo op:

We see Calderon managing to express his manliness without having to resort to military uniforms or reviewing troops.  This definitely earns him some bonus points.  And let’s be honest –  nothing says macho quite like Formula One!  However, to really do this right the car should have been black, he should have been in a driver’s suit and he should have actually driven the darn thing.  But still, a good effort and worthy of some kudos.

The master of macho: Vladimir Putin –  Get out of the car Calderon, Putin will more than match your Formula One pic…

and will then go on to put all world leaders to shame by being macho on horseback…

riding with a motorcycle gang…

and demonstrating his awe-inspiring judo techniques.

Yes, when it comes to the art of the macho photo op, Putin is the undisputed czar.  The web is repleat with pictures of the man being macho on the ski slopes, on snowmobiles, flying airplanes, guiding submarines and stalking tigers, to say nothing of all the shirtless gun-toting photos of him out there.

As a bit of inspiration to world leaders everywhere I offer up this final pic of Putin performing a stunt so extreme, so macho that even Chuck Norris himself wouldn’t attempt it… driving a Lada across Russia!

Wishing everyone a very macho 2011!

Deflecting attention from the verdict in your show trial: what not to do

You decided to have a show trial.  Good for you!  This can be a very effective method of taking obnoxious people who oppose your agenda and keeping them safely locked away for years at a time.  So you got some prosecutors to trump up some interesting (if not exactly believable) charges and you spent many, many months pretending that anything said in court actually mattered.  Now the time has come for the verdict to be announced.  Uh-oh!  This is where things can get a bit sticky.  For whatever reason, government and media types have a tendency to get their panties in a bunch whenever a pre-ordained verdict is announced.  What to do?  It is all too easy to panic and make poor decisions that can make the situation worse.  Here is a handly list of some things you should definitely NOT do.

1. Don’t schedule a date to read the verdict and then change it at the very last minute when a zillion reporters and protesters are already standing around outside the courthouse.   If a postponement is absolutely unavoidable, for heaven’s sake don’t announce it by having some poor clueless courthouse employee scotch-tape your fax to the front door.

2. Don’t try to hide the verdict behind a holiday. It can be incredibly tempting to announce the verdict close to a holiday in the hopes that people will be distracted by all the festivities.  This might have worked 50 years ago, but in the age of cell phones and twitter it only takes one scrooge to show up and spread the word to the whole world.

3. Once the verdict has been postponed, don’t then go on TV and tell everyone what the verdict is going to be.  You’d think that by doing this people will be less interested in the actual verdict but for some reason it seems to have the opposite effect. 

4. Don’t try to distract people by putting out videos of your manly sports prowess.  Oh, people will definitely check out the videos – who could resist?  But sadly, it won’t distract them for very long and soon they will return to being interested in the verdict.

5. When verdict day finally arrives, don’t allow the media in the courtroom and then, after it becomes clear what the verdict is, kick them back out again.  Sure, they’ve heard all they need to hear and there really is no need for them to stay, but once outside they’ll have nothing better to do but film protesters getting arrested.  Which segues nicely into the next point:

6. Don’t arrest little-old-lady protesters, no matter how annoying or wrong they may be.  There is simply no way to sugar-coat pictures of the military police hauling away grandma.

One last bit of advice: Once the verdict is out, there is little you can do about the worldwide reaction to it. Don’t aggravate things by getting all self-righteous and telling people to mind their own damn business. Of course people really SHOULD mind their own business, but being told so tends to just make them even bigger busybodies.  And that’s the last thing you need right before sentencing.