News Roundup

• From the "Torches and Pitchforks" Department - The governor of California is proving that he likes to live in danger.  He has announced a proposal to cut back on retirement benefits for state employees, which will include a two tier system, more contributions from employees, and an increased retirement age.  Look for cell phone footage of death threats and calls for his defenestration from union leaders anytime soon.  Think more "Tehran 1979" than "Occupy Wall Street 2011".
• From the "Pennies on the Dollar" Department - Negotiators in the European Union have announced a deal where the financial institutions that own Greek bonds will forgive a huge amount of that debt in order to help the Greeks limp along for a few more quarters.  Remember kids, bonds are promises, not assets.   When the bond holder sends a couple of guys around to tell you that you can either take a beating by 'forgiving' a part of the debt, or they can knife you and you'll get nothing and like it, I guess you take the beating.  I just wish they wouldn't make you smile while they do it.
• From the "Bad Idea" Department - The widow of the man who set dozens of predatory animals loose before committing suicide is telling the Columbus Zoo to return the surviving animals to her care.  Nothing can go wrong here.  The zoo says it has no right to stop her from getting the animals back under current law, so I suppose she's going to get them. I just hope that the emergency services, schools, and zoo bill her and her husband's estate for the cost of all this, and I hope her neighbors sue her for the distress that having lions, tigers, and bears roaming the neighborhood caused. 
• From the "They May Have A Point" Department - The family of dead Libyan dictator Mo-Q, as he is known to fans of his electronica recordings, plans to sue NATO in the ICC for causing his death.  Their theory seems to be that the legal mandate for NATO intervention said nothing about close air support of ground troops and interdicting convoys of SUV's, so the attack on Qaddafi was illegal.  Much as it hurts to say, I kind of agree.  The rationale for our involvement was to stop government forces from killing civilians, not to help the opposition win the war.  I don't think this will go anywhere, but it will be interesting to watch if it does.
• From the "Death From Above" Department - A new Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) project is apparently underway.  The object is to create a small drone that could be carried by a larger drone, then launched as needed.  This would give forces on the ground a small eye-in-the-sky that can be deployed from its mothership, then used as either a surveillance platform or as a mini-smartbomb.  This is all really cool and I hope it comes to fruition, but the only thing that comes to mind is this:  "Yo dog, we heard you like flying drones and killing insurgents, so we put a drone in your drone so you can kill insurgents while you're killing insurgents!".  I know, I feel dirty too, and I'm sorry.