You Can't Make Up Stuff Like This

Condoleezza Rice is blowing off a major annual meeting of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) in Laos later this month. She is the first US secretary of state not to attend the event in more than 20 years. Rice gave a lame excuse like she was too immersed in the problems of the Middle East. But everyone knows it's because the US wants to pressure ASEAN not to allow Myanmar (used to be called Burma), which is under military rule to chair the group next year. Then, sensing that perhaps she was being undiplomatic, Rice made a trip to Thailand to explain why she's not attending ASEAN. The town she visited in Thailand is named Phuket.