Operation ÖSTERREICH
The air temperature was only slightly above 50˚ Fahrenheit when I left for my daily constitutional this morning. My costume is the exact same as when I began walking this course in April or May: long-sleeved T-shirt (to ward off the death rays of the Accursed Sun), gym shorts, wide-brimmed straw hat (the Accursed Sun again), & dedicated exercise sneakers. My hands were chilled by the cool air, but soon warmed up as the exertion generated enormous heat within my elephantine bulk. However, in the fullness of time the cold will be too great for me to be outdoors & sweating so profusely in short pants & an ordinary T-shirt. I shall have to consult the experts at my local running specialty shop for the skinny on appropriate cold-weather gear, including the always sensitive pecuniary issue.

Obamboozled
After Governor Romney's foreign policy speech this morning, there was much discussion of how much his proposals differed from or aped current administration policy. This got me thinking, What is our current foreign policy? I really have no idea. When peaceful demonstrators demanded the ouster of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in '09, President Obama did not voice support for the protests nor did he call upon Ahmadinejad to resign. When peaceful protestors demanded the ouster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in 2011, President Obama did voice support for the protests & he did call upon Mubarak to resign. Are we to infer from this that Mubarak remaining in office was a greater threat to vital American interests than Ahmadinejad remaining in office? Does Mr. Obama regard our then-ally Egypt as a greater threat than our longstanding enemy, Iran? When peaceful protests demanded greater political freedom in Bahrain, but explicitly not demanding the ouster of King Hamad, President Obama did not voice support for the protests nor did he raise the slightest objection when Peninsula Shield forces imposed martial law & crushed the protests. Iran is an enemy & its genocidal president had to be kept in office. Egypt was an ally & its highly-cooperative president had to go. Bahrain is an ally & it's highly-cooperative king can, like the president of Iran, use as much brutality as he deems necessary in order to remain in office. (We're not even going to try to sort our the mess of "leading from behind" in Libya & our impotence in Syria.) So, what exactly is United States foreign policy under President Obama? Many of The Secret Base's readers were proud Obama supporters in '08; might one of you be able to articulate our current foreign policy?

The Rebel Black Dot 007 Song of the Day
Shirley Bassey, "Goldfinger" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: The titular villain's name is Auric Goldfinger. Ian Fleming, you mad genius!