Obama offers regrets. Japan offers excuses. The Hague offers a verdict. It’s Friday, and here are the 5 things you need to know to Get Up to Speed and Out the Door:
TERROR THREATS
In the crosshairs: Things are tense, tense, tense in Europe. In Belgium, six people have been arrested as investigators race to uncover the network behind Tuesday’s attacks. And in France, cops busted a man who they said was in the “advanced stage” of planning an attack. But wait, it gets scarier: Investigators say they are aware of multiple other plots in Europe that are in various stages of planning. Dear God, why?? (Two reasons, actually)
RADOVAN KARADZIC
Harvester of sorrow: The Bosnian War, the bloodiest European conflict since World War II, killed more than 100,000. Radovan Kardzic was responsible for 8,000 of those deaths. Yesterday, the “Butcher of Bosnia” got his comeuppance when a special U.N. court in the Hague sentenced him to 40 years in prison for the Srebrenica massacre. The court called him “the architect of destruction” who directed his forces to systematically kill “every able-bodied” Muslim male.
ARGENTINA’S ‘DIRTY WAR’
Regrets, I’ve had a few: You know how your military junta killed or made “disappear” 20,000 people and how we kind of enabled it? We shouldn’t have done that. That was President Obama’s message to Argentina, referring to the country’s “Dirty War.” It was a brutal period. Half of those purged have yet to be ID’d. Obama has said he’s going to begin unsealing intelligence files that might shed light on U.S. involvement. It’s a pretty striking admission. But alas, what most people noticed about the Obamas’ visit is that they danced the tango.
NORTH KOREA
Bomb-astic: The bad news – Some U.S. intelligence analysts now believe North Korea probably has a mini nuclear warhead. The good news – The darned thing might not actually work. Still, it’s troubling because it shows that Lil Kim isn’t just B.S.-ing when he brags about his arsenal. His regime has come a long way in its goal of gaining a missile with a ballistic tip that can potentially strike the U.S. Sorry for ruining your Friday :’-(
JAPAN WHALING
Yeah, whatever: Japan really doesn’t give a toss about international orders, does it? There’s a global ban on commercial whaling. So what does Japan do? It calls its hunts “scientific research” and kills 333 minke whales. And then whaddya know — the meat shows up on dinner plates. If you think that’s terrible, know that this hunt is part of a 12-year program that’ll kill FOUR THOUSAND minke whales.
BREAKFAST BROWSE
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Quote of the Day: “I’m not saying that Donald Trump is necessarily Hitler. I’m not saying that.”
Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, who was kind of saying that.
When Tay Tay goes cray cray
Epic fail for Microsoft’s AI experiment when its online chat bot, Tay, starts spewing lines like “Hitler was right I hate the jews.”
The house that crack built
To build a house
To hide a tunnel
To sneak their drugs
Be kind, remind
Dunno know what’s more embarrassing: To be arrested for forgetting to return a VHS movie 14 YEARS AGO. Or that the movie is “Freddie Got Fingered.”
Whole lotta Rosie
So, guess who’s rumored to be fronting AC/DC now that docs have told Brian Johnson he can’t tour? Axl freakin’ Rose!
Parents at a metro Atlanta school get the word “namaste” banned because they’re offended by the “religion” of yoga. <facepalm>
AND FINALLY …
Sad to see you go
Let us pause to remember comedian Garry Shandling who elevated neurotic self-awareness to an art form. Even the theme song to his sitcom was hilariously self-referential.