Beware the coconuts

The link on Yahoo's homepage reads "Republicans decry cost of Obama's trip, but there's a problem."

You have to actually click through to find out that the assertion that Obama's Asian trip will cost 200 million dollars a day is a lie, although Yahoo just says it's not correct.

But this is my favorite part of the article:

The nonpartisan FactCheck.org took up the issue, too, saying that even though the administration won't release a price tag, there is "simply no evidence to support" a claim of $200 million a day. One reason to doubt the report, according to the group: The entire war in Afghanistan costs $190 million a day.

That is not to say that some of the precautions for Obama's first presidential visit to India aren't possibly a tad over the top. As the BBC reports, Indian officials have been removing coconuts from any trees that Obama might walk under, to prevent anything from falling on the presidential head. And as London's Daily Telegraph notes, the country has deployed trained monkey catchers to prevent any "simian invasion" (a measure that Indian officials also took when President Bush visited in 2006).