The sun continues to rise in the east (or the earth continues to revolve around the sun – depending on your religious views, that is) despite the failure of the Roger Goodell, NFL Commissioner, to resign for failing to do the right thing regarding the recent domestic violence scandals that have damaged the the one of the most profitable non-profit 501(c)(6) organizations in the US of A.
So, here’s a few of the “less significant” stories TV cable news isn’t obsessing over that caught my bleary eyes this evening:
In Ukraine, there’s another ceasefire deal – MAYBE – in the works.
Participants in Ukrainian peace talks have agreed to create a buffer zone to separate government troops and pro-Russian fighters, as well as withdraw foreign fighters and heavy weapons from the area of conflict in eastern Ukraine.
The deal reached early on Saturday by representatives of Ukraine, Russia, the Moscow-backed rebels and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) marked an effort to add substance to a ceasefire agreement that was signed on September 5 but has been frequently broken by clashes.
The new deal signed after hours of talks that dragged late into the night envisages setting up a buffer zone that would be 30 kilometres wide.
Personally, I’m not optimistic that this ceasefire proposal will work out any better than the prior ones.
Meanwhile, the Rick Perry and his very serious spectacles continues to troll for media attention to boost his hopes for another futile attempt at obtaining the 2016 GOP Presidential nomination. This time he has ordered the Texas National Guard to find where all the dead immigrant bodies are buried.
(Reuters) – Texas Governor Rick Perry on Friday ordered the Texas National Guard to search for the bodies of undocumented immigrants who have died by the hundreds in a remote part of the state as they attempted to walk to southern cities hundreds of miles (km) away.
Good luck with getting anyone other than Fox News to cover this story, Rick. Well, on television, that is.
And how about that member of the Axis of Evil that no one talks about anymore, Iran? Well, there’s something going on that involves stopping lots of ‘bad’ tubes from spinning around and around too much according to David Sanger, writing for the New York Times:
Over the years, the United States has shown considerable ingenuity in its effort to slow Iran’s production of nuclear fuel: It has used sabotage, cyberattacks and creative economic sanctions.
Now, mixing face-saving diplomacy and innovative technology, negotiators are attempting a new approach, suggesting that the Iranians call in a plumber.
The idea is to convince the Iranians to take away many of the pipes that connect their nuclear centrifuges, the giant machines that are connected together in a maze that allows uranium fuel to move from one machine to another, getting enriched along the way. That way, the Iranians could claim they have not given in to Western demands that they eliminate all but a token number of their 19,000 machines, in which Iran has invested billions of dollars and tremendous national pride.
Hopefully, the Iranians agree to this ‘plumbing’ solution to their centrifuge infestation. I mean considering they are now one of our undeclared allies in our not a war against ISIS or ISIL (or whichever acronym you prefer), we probably ought to play nice with one another, or at least pretend to do so. Unlike our other Islamic allies in the region of whom John McCain is so fond:
“Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar,” John McCain told CNN’s Candy Crowley in January 2014. “Thank God for the Saudis and Prince Bandar, and for our Qatari friends,” the senator said once again a month later, at the Munich Security Conference.
McCain was praising Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the head of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services and a former ambassador to the United States, for supporting forces fighting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham had previously met with Bandar to encourage the Saudis to arm Syrian rebel forces.
Oh Johnny Boy, always so wrong and yet always so available to provide soundbytes to our friends in cable news. By the way, thank-you, again, Sarah Palin, for helping John McCain not become our President in 2008.
That’s all I got folks. Feel free to post links to other important (or not) stories our cable news media is ignoring at the moment in the comments.
