An Ironic Cabinet Lineup {humorous}

[Please only read this with a sense of political humor.]

Here are some funny ideas for domestic and foreign picks for a fantasy Cabinet team:

Department of Defense – (Oh no) Russian President Vladimir Putin because he knows how to fight and win wherever he wants. 

Department of State – (Oh no) Julian Assange because he has so may of the cables anyway.

Department of Treasury – (Oh no) President Barack Obama because he doubled the national debt to $20 trillion and it’s no problem.

Department of Commerce – Chinese President Xi Jinping because he has most of the world’s manufacturing and the biggest trade surplus. 

Department of Justice – (Oh no) James Comey (with all due respect) because he could investigate Hillary Clinton and deem her “extremely careless” with national security and yet also do the job of the prosecutors and recommend that “no reasonable” one would bring such a case. 

Department of Education – (What if) Sergey Brin and Larry Page because they made Google the most valuable company in the world by organizing all the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful. 

Department of Labor – (What if) Ken Jennings who was beaten in Jeopardy by IBM’s Watson, and understands that artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics will soon be eating people’s lunch. 

Department of Homeland Security – (Oh no) Edward Snowden because he already knows all about surveillance–how we conduct it, how to evade it, as well as the vulnerabilities in our security. 

Department of Transportation – (What if) Elon Musk because of his leadership in electronic vehicles here on earth as well as rockets to even get us to Mars. 

Department of Energy – (Oh no) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani because he knows how to get his nukes while ridding his country of sanctions and getting $150 billion to continue global terror

Department of Agriculture – (Oh no) Any of the notorious drug kingpins because they know how to grow it, distribute it, and make lots of money doing it. 

Department of Interior – (Oh no) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un because he manages one of the most remote (Isolationist) nations on Earth and does it with virtually complete self-sufficiency. 

Department of Veterans Affairs – (Oh no) Bowe Bergdahl because he was charged with desertion and still managed to get honored in a White House ceremony.

Environmental Protection Agency – (Oh no) Former CEO of BP John Browne because he knows the ramifications of being responsible for one of the worst polluting industrial accidents in history in the Gulf of Mexico.

Housing and Urban Development – (What if) Ivanka Trump because she is an absolute class act and helps run one of the greatest brands in building and managing real estate worldwide. 

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal via National Geographic)

What’s The Capital Of The United States Again?

So this is what the state of education in the United States has come to.

We were having dinner last night with another couple. 

They asked my daughter, “Do they still teach geography in school? They don’t teach that anymore do they?”

My daughter said, “Yeah, we learned a lot of geography” and gave some good examples both modern and ancient. 

So the guy says, “Well I don’t think a lot of other schools are teaching geography anymore, like they used to with us.”

Then he tells us a story how someone they know was asked what the capital of China was.

And he goes to me, “You know, you know [he emphasizes again], what the guy said?”

I looked at him a little puzzled by this question, like what could someone possibly answer to such a simple question, so I said, “Well I hope they said Beijing.”

He nods his head back and forth no, eyes closed, lips pursed, like we won’t believe what he was about to say.

Then, he says, “The guy said that the capital of China is…JAPAN!”

I looked at him my eyes squinting in disbelief, like that can’t be a for real answer, right?

“No,” he says, “That was what this guy thought, can you believe it?”

I said sort of laughing out loud, “Well maybe if World War II had ended differently that would be correct.”

It sort of reminds me of the famous goof when Clinton gave the Russians the now famous “Reset Button.”

It was supposed to indicate a thawing and renewal of peaceful relations, only the word printed on the button was “Peregruzka” meaning a more hostile “Overcharge.”

Oops! 

Maybe the overcharge referred to was prophetic of the West’s losing the strategic Crimea to the Russian blitzkrieg in 2014. How much did that mistake cost us?

I guess it’s not only STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) suffering in our educational system. 

How’s that standards based education reform “No Child Left Behind” (2001) working out? 

It definitely seems like some folks are most definitely being left behind if not completely lost in the system.

At this rate, I fear the capital of the United States is now Iran. 😉

What’s So Funny About Non-Proliferation?

Here’s what they are saying online in some satire on the Iranian Nuke WMD Deal.

The Spanish comedian is talking about something else (I don’t know what), but the subtitles were dubbed to make the points about the issues with this deal. 

No disrespect intended to anyone, but the points illustrated are well made. 

Is this how we want the world to view us? 

We are hoping and praying for a real and verifiable peace. 

A Dumb Dumb World

So I took this photo on the Metro in Washington, D.C.

One person is on their “smart” phone, and the other is reading a book called “Our Dumb World.”

This is a contrast supreme. and I was intrigued. 

I couldn’t exactly ask what the man was doing on his smartphone… but presumably email, texting, news, a video, maybe even some gaming.

The other person reading about the dumb world–what’s that all about?

So I looked this book up, and apparently the satarists at The Onion make some laughing-stock fun in their “fake” atlas of the world. 

So stupidity is out there every day…

But stupid isn’t the worst part of it…”stupid is as stupid does”– not sure you can blame someone for doing dumb things when they’re done innocently and by accident.  

But what is really bad is when dumb things are done with intent and malice–for power or to get what you want when you want it.

Leadership often treats the masses as the dumb people who can be fooled some, if not all, of the time. 

But people are smarter than you think, eventually seeing through the amalgam of lies, deceit, and spin–thrown at them through the old world media as well as in social media. 

That type of dumb becomes a foolish legacy–not a laughing matter. 

Real, ongoing passion and care for the people and the progress of our nation within the larger world context…we can see it in the eyes, hear it in the words, feel it in our bones–it’s tangible and it lifts us to achieve greatness.

Those things are smart–and what we need more of in the “real” world atlas. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Are You Thing 1 or 2?

The old Dr Seuss story of The Cat In The Hat had the crazy part when “Thing 1” and “Thing 2” jump out from under The Cat’s hat and proceed to make a messy house disaster even worse.

Recently, I saw some people wearing the matching type shirts–you know the ones that that generate attention–bright red, with one shirt saying “Thing 1” and the other person’s shirt saying “Thing 2.”

It was cute the way the family members were connected through the shirts, and I smiled to myself thinking, like in the children’s story, which one is the bigger “trouble-maker” in this family–Thing 1 or 2?

Today, I saw this picture online of these twins, again with these matching type t-shirts, but this time, one said “Ctrl + C” and the other one had written on it “Ctrl + V” — these are the well-known Microsoft commands for copy and paste.

I guess with twins, the copy-paste imagery makes a lot of sense–copy kid 1, paste, and there you have it, kid 2.

Generally, t-shirts have messages about peace, rock and roll bands, corporate branding, or satire of some sort–I wouldn’t say it’s exactly a fashion statement, but more of an identity thing–how we choose to brand ourselves in a world of 7 billion people. It’s not necessarily about who we are, but more like how we choose to identify ourselves–a meaningful one for example, is for breast cancer awareness.

I remember as a kid, my sister, who was a budding biomedical scientist, bought me t-shirts from a scientific catalogue–so that I was wearing the Periodic Table and Einstein on my chest from very early on in life.  While I always did like science too, it was not what I ended up pursuing, but I would still wear these shirts today, because in some ways, I still identify with science and psychology and learning and so on.

These days, if I had to choose some t-shirt themes, I am pretty sure technology and futurism would be in the mix. Then again, my current t-shirts include a hefty mix of Rocky and Everlast–you see identity is a complex subject. Also, a whole bunch came 4 for 10–who can say no to a sale? 😉

A simple t-shirt, and the messaging can take you from Dr. Seuss to Microsoft, the Periodic Table and to the future (or even to the bargain bin).

What are you wearing–who are you?

(Source Photo: here)