Everything You Need to Know About Last Week’s News #19

In reverse order of importance:

President Obama copied McKayla Maroney’s “not impressed” face last week, proving once again how tuned in he is to the all-important Internet Meme demographic, and also just how cool and hip he is.

A bunch of people in a bunch of states think they want to secede. Pretty sure this is not a “new” development or that it actually affects anything. Yet.

Scientists invented a better version of an invisibility cloak. Apparently it’s still a long way from practical production.

The Mars rover discovered that radiation levels on Mars are similar to levels in low-earth orbit, which is good news for people who want to live there.

A house in Indianapolis randomly exploded. Apparently we still don’t know why.

Hostess, the company that makes made Twinkies, went out of business after their union employees protested a judge-approved 8% pay cut that was supposed try to keep the flailing company alive a little longer. Oops.

A California man was arrested at an airport for wearing a customized watch that had “all the components” for a bomb “except for the material that would have actually exploded.” Oh, OK.

The Petraeus Scandal got more scandalous, although we still can’t decide if the scandal is that 1) The general expanded an invasive and unaccountable drone program, 2) The general’s personal life was ironically uncovered by the FBI accessing thousands of emails with no warrants or suspicion of a crime, or 3) that he was, you know, having sex with this biographer.

Fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip heated up a few orders of magnitude last week. Hamas has launched hundreds of rockets into Israel, although they’ve only killed about 3 Israelis since they generally suck at launching rockets and Israel has a really cool rocket interception program called the Iron Dome. Israel has launched rockets and medical supplies into Gaza and has killed lots more Hamas militants but also lots more civilians as well. Oops. Sigh. Oh yeah, and they’re all live-tweeting about it. Not sure how that makes me feel…

4 thoughts on “Everything You Need to Know About Last Week’s News #19”

  1. I love the “reverse order of importance” thing you do. Also, the Petraeus thing reeks of a conspiracy, although I have no clue as to which way the conspiracy would unfold.

    1. Thanks. I always feel slightly arrogant implying some stories are identifiably more relevant than others, along with the slightly arrogant “everything” title. But I like to think its all a meta-satire on the arrogance of punditry in general. (But perhaps that is arrogant in itself.)

      The Petraeus story is… enigmatic, to be sure…

  2. I love the “reverse order of importance” thing you do. Also, the Petraeus thing reeks of a conspiracy, although I have no clue as to which way the conspiracy would unfold.

    1. Thanks. I always feel slightly arrogant implying some stories are identifiably more relevant than others, along with the slightly arrogant “everything” title. But I like to think its all a meta-satire on the arrogance of punditry in general. (But perhaps that is arrogant in itself.)

      The Petraeus story is… enigmatic, to be sure…

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