I hope Donald will stay at home. Every presidential visit brings multi-million city to a halt. It has similar effect as an earthquake, major fire or other natural disaster.
It is recommended not open windows, there is risk of snipers. International airport is closed for several hours for a single airplane. And main roads are closed everyday while president is traveling.
I still remember New Orleans. People could not leave flooded city, because Bush decided to do a personal rescue mission :-(
I agree with the fact that the President should probably not visit foreign cities unless absolutely necessary.
In our case, President Obama (and I am a full supporter of his) visited our little town here in Australia (pop: ~100,000) back in 2011 to meet with our Prime Minister to ratify a deal to station about 10,000 US Marines in our town.
He was on the ground here for about 6 hours. For the whole day (and most of the day preceding), major roads were blocked and citizens could not get in or out of the city. RAAF fighter jets criss crossed our skies constantly during his stay, and the police kept all the local citizens out of parks and recreational areas near the airport.
It was a major PITA, to say the least, as commerce and general activity ground to a halt for everyone in our city.
During the same visit, President Obama also met with the Governor General of Australia in Canberra. Watching the televised meeting, I was amused to see that at the end of it, the president was whisked away by his security team in his motorcade, with police escort, whereas the Governor General simply walked back to his home along the river by himself.
The irony that the leader of the free world is probably the least free person in it...
A couple of years back I saw president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on TV talking to a group of people in Tehran. He just stood on the top of a car with a megaphone and a big crowd of people surrounded him. Sure there were a few bodyguards, but you if you wanted you could pretty much tap him on the shoulder. Now I don't want to overestimate the merits of Iranian democracy, but I was kind of impressed by this.
Compare this with the leaders of the Western world. If there's a summit, the city gets under siege as if it's a Hollywood production. People are not allowed to stand on their balcony. If you get within half a mile of Obama, a sniper will put a bullet through your head. There is just something wrong about this ritual of self-importance. Seriously, aside from personal tragedy, what does it matter if some terrorist kills Obama? We just replace him with the next guy in a suit and tie, and the following day it would be the exact same politics. The system runs itself and no longer depends on the individuality of the persons in the top position. In that sense it reminds me of Europe in 1914 where the diplomatic system overruled the kings and presidents. It may be one of the deeper reasons for Trump's election -- people wanting somebody who can shake the tree.
Obama went to Paris (I live in downtown Paris) several times I think, and there have been multiple reunions of numerous heads of state here, I don't remember any particular perturbations, other than 5 or 7 subway station blocked. The most notable was after the november 2015 attacks, there was some trouble because Obama kept changing* schedule.
Not to downplay this, but maybe in some cities it is more doable than others.
*guessing they weren't "changing" the schedule and they were in fact keeping it very tight and putting out another schedule altogether
Foreign leaders need to meet with other foreign leaders. If US president were to never leave the US, requesting that all foreign dignitaries visit him, that'd be great loss for US foreign policy.
Y'all are all overstating the impact of visits on local communities too. It is done the way it is to minimize risk and expediency for both parties...
Obama visited Ireland in 2011. I remember the Clinton visit in the '90s. Both shut the city down and increased the presence of security forces everywhere. I worked in the city centre at the time and it was chaos for a few days.
Making matters worse was the fact that a week or two prior the Queen visited (arguably a more important state visit, for historical reasons). So in effect, for about three weeks, Dublin was hell to commute in.
We get to deal with this every day in NYC for the foreseeable future. Hundreds of millions of dollars and quite a few nearby businesses down the drain.
Westside traffic was often brought to a halt when Obama came to Los Angeles because he tended to visit some extremely wealthy entertainment figure's home (in Bel Air or Beverly Hills or Holmby Hills etc) in order to participate in a fund raiser.
It got to the point where a lot of LA commuters, who overwhelmingly supported Obama, would wince when they learned the presidential motorcade would be gumming up the traffic.
The LA Times typically reported the route so that LA commuters could stay the hell away from it.
Not the best of maps to tell that story. The loxodromes between Washington and the countries he visited aren't all that useful, yet draw most of the attention.
I'd probably make a list of countries, ordered by visit. Beside that, a simple political map with the markers. I'd resist the urge to label the markers with the city he visited, but I might have a mouse-over for more info and a link if available.
Hope this isn't too off-topic, but if you like this and want to create a similar map of your own international/domestic flights you can do that here: https://skyhops.com/
Apparently in 2009 Obama visited Moscow and managed to meet both president Putin and president Medvedev. Granted, it is sometimes hard to remember who of these two is a president at any given moment, but a two-president state is a bit pushing it.
This map uses arcgis jsapi 3.19, compare to leaflet js, it is quite heavy and demanding for low-end pc or mobile. jsapi 4.x is more lightweight though.
I like the fact that the site includes all killed people. With 20% civilian casualties rate, the recent announcement of 50000 killed people in Syria/Iraq means US may have directly killed 10000 civilians in just the last two years there. https://airwars.org/ reports a lower number though. But theirs is a very conservative estimate.
That site really drives the tragic results of drone strikes, however from a UX perspective, I wish they would not use a stacked sliding bar for the death count at the top.
Seeing the death of children growing at the start is heart wrenching, but as the other values grow, the 'children' bar actually shrinks, devaluing the impact of the tragic toll.
Perhaps counters like the "Every Atomic explosion since 1945 video"? [0] Might drive home the point a little better?
The statement that only 2% are high profile targets is kind of misleading. The vetting that goes into assessing whether military age males are actually doing bad things is surprisingly high.
I am not saying mistakes were not made. Civilians and kids have died for sure, but the majority of those killed were combatants. Implying otherwise makes me doubt the veracity of the other claims here.
Accurate how?
At the time Medvedev was President of Russia, and Putin was Prime Minister. Since he was President before that, it's ok for him to be referred as President, like any former President of country.
Hawaii isn't considered international, from the perspective of the US - it's domestic. Notice that there also is not a trip to Alaska shown, though he did visit Alaska. (And, trips in the mainland US are not shown either.)
[+] [-] jankotek|9 years ago|reply
It is recommended not open windows, there is risk of snipers. International airport is closed for several hours for a single airplane. And main roads are closed everyday while president is traveling.
I still remember New Orleans. People could not leave flooded city, because Bush decided to do a personal rescue mission :-(
[+] [-] cyberferret|9 years ago|reply
In our case, President Obama (and I am a full supporter of his) visited our little town here in Australia (pop: ~100,000) back in 2011 to meet with our Prime Minister to ratify a deal to station about 10,000 US Marines in our town.
He was on the ground here for about 6 hours. For the whole day (and most of the day preceding), major roads were blocked and citizens could not get in or out of the city. RAAF fighter jets criss crossed our skies constantly during his stay, and the police kept all the local citizens out of parks and recreational areas near the airport.
It was a major PITA, to say the least, as commerce and general activity ground to a halt for everyone in our city.
During the same visit, President Obama also met with the Governor General of Australia in Canberra. Watching the televised meeting, I was amused to see that at the end of it, the president was whisked away by his security team in his motorcade, with police escort, whereas the Governor General simply walked back to his home along the river by himself.
The irony that the leader of the free world is probably the least free person in it...
[+] [-] random_upvoter|9 years ago|reply
Compare this with the leaders of the Western world. If there's a summit, the city gets under siege as if it's a Hollywood production. People are not allowed to stand on their balcony. If you get within half a mile of Obama, a sniper will put a bullet through your head. There is just something wrong about this ritual of self-importance. Seriously, aside from personal tragedy, what does it matter if some terrorist kills Obama? We just replace him with the next guy in a suit and tie, and the following day it would be the exact same politics. The system runs itself and no longer depends on the individuality of the persons in the top position. In that sense it reminds me of Europe in 1914 where the diplomatic system overruled the kings and presidents. It may be one of the deeper reasons for Trump's election -- people wanting somebody who can shake the tree.
[+] [-] erelde|9 years ago|reply
Not to downplay this, but maybe in some cities it is more doable than others.
*guessing they weren't "changing" the schedule and they were in fact keeping it very tight and putting out another schedule altogether
[+] [-] brynx97|9 years ago|reply
Y'all are all overstating the impact of visits on local communities too. It is done the way it is to minimize risk and expediency for both parties...
[+] [-] kxd|9 years ago|reply
Making matters worse was the fact that a week or two prior the Queen visited (arguably a more important state visit, for historical reasons). So in effect, for about three weeks, Dublin was hell to commute in.
[+] [-] JohnTHaller|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aaronbrethorst|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HillaryBriss|9 years ago|reply
It got to the point where a lot of LA commuters, who overwhelmingly supported Obama, would wince when they learned the presidential motorcade would be gumming up the traffic.
The LA Times typically reported the route so that LA commuters could stay the hell away from it.
[+] [-] gcb0|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thinkloop|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Waterluvian|9 years ago|reply
I'd probably make a list of countries, ordered by visit. Beside that, a simple political map with the markers. I'd resist the urge to label the markers with the city he visited, but I might have a mouse-over for more info and a link if available.
[+] [-] skept|9 years ago|reply
Disclaimer: personal side project
[+] [-] freehunter|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eps|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Angostura|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nl|9 years ago|reply
Met with then-President-now-Prime-Minister Medvedev and former-President-then-Prime-Minister-now-President-again Putin?
[+] [-] jankotek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akjainaj|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] terenceng2010|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] executesorder66|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kfish15|9 years ago|reply
Sorry for being off topic, just curious.
[+] [-] imron|9 years ago|reply
http://drones.pitchinteractive.com/
[+] [-] megous|9 years ago|reply
I wonder when will this escalation stop.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-500...
[+] [-] cyberferret|9 years ago|reply
Seeing the death of children growing at the start is heart wrenching, but as the other values grow, the 'children' bar actually shrinks, devaluing the impact of the tragic toll.
Perhaps counters like the "Every Atomic explosion since 1945 video"? [0] Might drive home the point a little better?
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY
[+] [-] dforrestwilson1|9 years ago|reply
I am not saying mistakes were not made. Civilians and kids have died for sure, but the majority of those killed were combatants. Implying otherwise makes me doubt the veracity of the other claims here.
Nifty visualization though.
[+] [-] zeroer|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] sctb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 67726e|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldplay|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] k1lly|9 years ago|reply
This is at least innacurate.
[+] [-] samkone|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smcmurtry|9 years ago|reply
[1] https://whitehouse.gov1.info/blog/blog_post/agenda-hawaii.ht...
[+] [-] bobf|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kobeya|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shanselman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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