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Obama: "I Got The Sucker"
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| Magnetonium |
Its all over the news. See the video - click on the link, and watch the corpse of the dead fly crash to the floor. Learn from the best to improve your fly-swapping skills.
:stongue:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8105232.stm
| quote: |
10 ways to swat a fly
By Tom Geoghegan
BBC News Magazine
They buzz irritably and contaminate food. So when Barack Obama slapped dead a fly during a news interview, some people would have been looking for tips. What's the most effective method?
Attempts to swat flies usually end in fluster, breathlessness and frustration.
But for the man described as the most powerful in the world - yes, he can kill a fly with a single blow.
Halting his television interview momentarily as a fly landed on his left hand, President Obama hit it with his right. "I got the sucker," he declared, as the corpse fell to the White House carpet.
So what is the best way to swat a fly? Here are 10 suggestions.
1. Do it early in the day, says Max Barclay, an insect expert at the Natural History Museum. "Because they are cold-blooded, the reactions of insects depend on the temperature of the air. Early in the morning or in the evening they will be a bit dopey, but in the heat of the day they will be very quick." But expect failure. Barack Obama was probably quite lucky, unless he's been practising. "Nine times out of 10, a human will come off second best. Flies have a phenomenal barrage of senses, half of which we don't have."
2. Approach from behind, goes one theory, because flies take off backwards. Anecdotal evidence suggests some people find this a successful method. But the fact that flies have 360-degree vision and can jump in any direction makes it improbable.
Fly
Flies usually outwit humans
3. Aim ahead, rather than at, the fly say researchers in the US, who found that within milliseconds of sensing a threat, flies get their body ready to take off forward, backwards or sideways. "Given that they are going to be jumping away from the swat, it's best to aim slightly ahead of it," says Michael Dickinson, of the California Institute of Technology. Although how far ahead depends on the speed of the fly. He's been studying take-offs for five years, using video that provides 5,400 frames a second of a fly's precise motion when threatened with a swatting.
4. The old-fashioned slap, now known as The Barack. Stay still, keep focused, take aim and attack. Ideal for a fast hand and if the fly is stationary. And if the world's media is in attendance, YouTube fame beckons.
5. Implements with holes are more effective, says Dr Peter Barnard, director of science at the Royal Entomological Society. "It's the air pressure they detect and fly away from. It's not so much that they see something coming, but they feel the pressure wave in front of the object." This is due to their coating of microscopic hairs, highly sensitive to air movement. Practising what he preaches, Dr Barnard uses a plastic pistol that fires a holed circular device. A fly swat gun, if you will.
6. Use chopsticks, like the Karate Kid. Under guidance from his instructor Mr Miyagi, teenager Daniel LaRusso demonstrates his speed and hand-eye coordination, and learns an important life lesson at the same time. Mr Miyagi's advice - "Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything" - features on T-shirts in homage to the 1984 film.
7. Put hands either side of the fly, facing each other, so it doesn't know where the threat comes from, then clap the air a few inches above it. Wash hands immediately to remove the contents of the fly's stomach (don't ask).
8. Get a gadget. At the hi-tech end of the market there's an electric-powered mesh, a dome complete with pheromone and an insecticide aerosol. For those on a budget, there are decorative window stickers or pens to coat windows with transparent insecticide, and fly-swats cost as little as £2. Animal rights organisation PETA, which advocates compassion for flies, says there are humane bug-catching devices available too.
9. Improvise with a rolled-up newspaper (bear in mind point five, above), or a spray window-cleaner.
10. The humane approach - to capture but not kill. "I like to grab them in my hands," says Mr Barclay, who's had plenty of practice. "When you want them for a collection you don't want them damaged. Hit them with the palm of your hand and close your fingers over it." And if you're not an entomologist, release the fly outside. It will make you feel better. |
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| yukii |
| i can't believe they can have so much coverage & outside information about killing a fly lol .. the simplest things.. i was thinking today as well while watching the news, they were asking if hilary clinton was going to appear more vulnerable now that she broke her elbow :rolleyes: ffs. lol :stongue: |
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| Knowland |
| Obama catches a fly and the stock market rallies. Not a coincidence. |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Op-Ed Columnist
Obama’s Fly Move
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: June 20, 2009
WASHINGTON
The White House has two kinds of aides: The ones who prefer to think of their boss as gifted but human, and the ones who think their boss is on a date night with destiny.
The first group thinks that when things go really well for President Obama that he’s benefiting from luck as well as skill. For instance, they suggest, if any one of the sharpshooters from the Navy Seals who killed the three Somali pirates holding the American captain had aimed a millimeter to the left, maybe the captain would have been killed, and the incident would have turned into a symbol of weakness — as when Jimmy Carter’s attempt to free the hostages in Iran ended with a helicopter crash in the desert.
And what if there had been another terrorist attack in America? Everything would be seen through a darker lens.
The second group of aides are more caught up in the myth and magic, feeling that Mr. Obama summons the three-point swishes when he needs them; that his popularity is not so fragile; that the president’s unparalleled vision and buzzer-beating will can shape fate.
Just so, there are some Americans who think the president got an excess of attention from an excitable news media for expeditiously executing a fly that was buzzing around his face during an interview with CNBC and the Times’s John Harwood.
And there are others who see a mystical, metaphorical dimension to the way the president nonchalantly lasered in on the meddlesome insect after it ignored his admonition, “Hey, get outta here.” Without even uncrossing his legs or lunging about, the Chill One caught it, crushed it and kicked it aside and then said to Harwood, “Now, where were we?” before returning to his point about regulatory reform.
“It’s like he’s got one of those Fly Terminator targeting systems in his eyes,” marveled Jon Stewart.
Maybe the president who collected Spider-Man comics as a kid couldn’t resist the age-old face-off with a fly.
The moment had echoes of parables in which the ordinary one becomes the golden one.
In “The Karate Kid,” a teenager whose father has died learns lessons about the body and spirit from his surrogate father and karate teacher, Mr. Miyagi. His lessons are about not going to the dark side, the importance of discipline, and catching flies. “Man who catch fly with chopstick,” Mr. Miyagi says, “accomplish anything.”
In the Grimms’ fairy tale, “The Brave Little Tailor,” a tailor brandishing a rag kills seven flies swarming around his jam-smeared bread. The little man admires his own bravery so much — “For joy his heart wagged like a lamb’s tail” — that he wants the whole world to know of it. So he stitches up a belt for himself embroidered with the legend “Seven at one blow!” and saunters out.
Protected by his legend, using brains rather than brawn, he dispatches two giants and captures a unicorn and a wild boar before winning a princess and living happily ever after as a king.
The president didn’t order up a “One at one blow!” belt. You don’t need such accessories in the era of YouTube viral videos. But he did admire his own ninja moves so much that he gave himself a shout-out: “That was pretty impressive, wasn’t it? I got the sucker.” Then he solicited more snaps for what Harwood called his “ ‘Make my day’ moment” from his press secretary off camera: “Whaddya think, Gibbs?” After the interview was over, he continued his superfly moves by cleaning up the carcass with a napkin.
The moment may have resonated so much because some Americans fear that President Obama is too prone to negotiation, comity and splitting the difference, that he could have been tougher on avaricious banks and vicious Iranian dictators.
The “shocking murder in the White House,” as Stephen Colbert dubbed it, was a small moment. “All they want is to be loved and to feed on our waste,” Jeff “The Fly” Goldblum said in a dry defense of the exoskeletal creatures on the Colbert Report.
But at least this moment didn’t involve any talking or therapy or charm or compromise or seminars.
“The snuff aspect of it was psychologically useful for Obama,” Harwood told me. “He decided to take it out and he did take it out.”
If only the president could be so brazen about pushing through gay rights and health care.
Harwood was bemused about the serious issues in his interview getting swallowed by a bug.
“It will be the most noticed thing in my career,” he conceded, “but I’m rolling with it.” |
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/21/o...1dowd.html?_r=1 |
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