Cheney Dresses Down for Anniversary of Auschwitz Liberation

I just thought that this was a bit sad on the part of the vice president.

OSWIECIM, Poland -- Vice President Dick Cheney's utilitarian hooded parka and boots stood out amid the solemn formality of a ceremony commemorating the liberation of Nazi death camps, raising eyebrows among the fashion-conscious.

The fashion experts get on it too.

"Cheney stood out in a sea of black-coated world leaders because he was wearing an olive drab parka with a fur-trimmed hood," Givhan wrote in Friday's Post, also mocking Cheney's knit ski cap embroidered with the words "Staff 2001" and his brown, lace-up hiking boots. "The vice president looked like an awkward child amid the well-dressed adults," she said.

I am not going to be too hard on the VP, but honestly... couldn't you have thinked this through a little bit? And since you dressed up so nice for the Inaugration, it just seems like you cared less about something as important as this anniversary.

I am sure this will help us win back the support of the international community.

Tsunami Pictures

The destruction is incredible....

Before


After

Warning of Tsunami?

After the deadly tsunami struck last week, many were quick to send donations to various organization and groups. A number of governments also pledged millions in aid, with the total as of now around $2 billion, a staggering figure demonstrating the severity of the situation. Yet the true culprit behind the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people is not the tsunami, but clearly greater forces that are at work. The most obvious is, of course, third-world poverty which meant a lack of infrastructure to deal with such a catastrophe, or even warn about it. But not so fast says a Canadian Professor, who claims that an American Navy Base in the Indian Ocean was notified of the earthquake, while millions were denied the information.

Prof. Michel Chossudovsky of the University of Ottawa asks in an analysis produced for the Venus Project why fishermen in India, Sri Lanka and Thailand were not provided with the same warnings as the US Navy and the US State Department. He wants to know why the US State Department remained mum on the existence of an impending catastrophe. With a modern communications system, why did the information not get out? By email, telephone, fax, satellite TV, he asks, as it could have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

The Professor has a number of questions about the warning system and many will probably never be answered. Although he clearly is no fan of American foreign policy, even pointing out the folly of appointing a senior commander from the invasion of Iraq to the relief effort, his questions are important ones and his analysis is equally poignant. Undoubtedly, we will find that a disaster like this can be prevented, but it will involve greater support from rich countries like the U.S.

More on Michel Chossudovsky