Thursday, April 9, 2015

SAR #15099




The Perils of Pandora: Athens has scraped together enough drachma to pay this month's pound of flesh installment , so default has been postphonyed to next month. Again. 
 
Finely Printed: There seems to be some disagreement about the US/Iranian agreement to agree on an agreement to work towards agreeing on an agreement. Or something like that. It's all in the details. 
 
Unsung: With little fanfare in the US media, India successfully rescued almost all of the 4,000 Indians trapped in Yemen, through both naval sealift and Indian Air Force flights. Pakistan's navy also rescued a handful of Indian nationals. With even less US notice, China's navy rescued citizens from Pakistan, Ethiopia, Singapore, Poland, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, Ireland and Yemen. The US was conspicuously absent from the rescue attempt, as it sat off-shore admiring the global reach of Chinese and Indian naval forces as it rubbed shoulders with two Iranian warships that had sidled up to two US aircraft carriers standing uselessly off-shore.
 
May The Finger Be With You: Responding to President Erdoğan's ongoing efforts to drag secular Turkey back into the 14th Century, impose widespread Islamification on the nation and position himself as Emperor for Life, thousands of Turkish college students are demonstrating to demand that Jedi Temples be built on campus.

Fair Warning: NASA's Chief Scientists says we will find “definite evidence” of alien life in the universe by 2040 or so. It'd be nice to find intelligent life on earth by then.

Them's Fighting Words: Hezbollah's Secretary General is calling for a universal jihad against ISIS because ISIS is a form of Saudi Wahhabism and the Wahhabism is a perversion of Islam.

Inoperative: The US has – in a clever example of diplomatic doubletalk – admitted that Venzuela is not a threat to the national security of the United States, but refuses to withdraw Obama's executive order that claims that it is. Maybe it has something to do with Venezuela formally charging the mayor of Caracas of leading a US-funded coup attempt against the democratically elected government. 
 
What Could Go Wrong: China is recruiting over ten million youth “to help promote socialist values” by countering 'wrong ideas' online. It worked so well the last time, with the little red book and all.

Score: Black Americans killed by US police last year outnumbered the dead on 9/11.

Be Prepared: Harvard found that “anger issues” rather than mental illness is the operative factor in gun violence. Having one on your hip makes expressing your anger so much easier. No thought required. 
 
Preparations: The White House announced it was sending nearly $1 billion worth of military equipment to Pakistan so they will be decently armed when we come to fight them.

Backdating History: It did not start with 9/11; the US began keeping secret records of billions of Americans' international phone calls in the early 1990's when it was thought necessary to violate constitutional rights in order ot win the war on drugs. Except they didn't.

Birds & Bees & Bullcrap: Chattanooga state representative Republican Todd Gardenhire thinks that “Men go through a lot more stringent process for a vasectomy than women, I assume, go through for an abortion.” We keep electing these dufusses. 
 
Disqualification: Anybody who believes the president has the power to stop NSA's spying on US citizens isn't competent to be president. That would be Rand Paul.

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