News roundup

Tony Blair launched a 'diplomatic offensive' and managed to get 6 countries in Africa to 'pledge solidarity with the USA' in the fight against terrorism. 6 countries out all Africa. Well that's not to bad. Botswana, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and Tanzania all signed the statement and, hopefully, I am sure they must be thinking, got their names scratched off that target list of 60 nations that are just in for it really good in the days ahead. We can assume that the USA is not going to be bombing Europe, China (we would hope anyways, but they have been selling missiles like hot cakes and that might count as terrorism, but they did sell them to states, so that probably means its okay), and probably not Brazil or Japan, Korea and, you know, other prosperous countries of the world, I can only assume then that out all the rest of those African countries that have not yet succumbed to the diplomatic skills of Tony Blair, being the dirt poor kinds of countries likely to have lots of those terrorists in them, well those other African countries are probably on the list. After all there aren't 60 countries to nail in all Latin and South America, and even if you add some muslim countries, a really bad idea by the way, but even if you did that you'd still need to go after some African countries to make 60.

In other news Defense Secretary Rumsfeld was gently grilled about not much of anything by some reporters and seemed badly shaken, but maybe in a few days he'll be back to his usual confident hawkish self and just get over whatever it was that was bothering him so much. In response to a reporters gentle and considerate question to an obviously shaken Rumsfeld about what could possibly be done to a disaster area country like Afghanistan, Rumsfeld noted obscurely that the USA would have to resort 'a variety of other measures' since, unfortunately, as he pointed out, Afghanistan didn't have any buildings that were really worth blowiong up, since they already had so many wars there that all the really good buildings had already been blown up, and thus didn't present any really 'good targets'. He did note however that many other countries did have some still good and decent buildings in them and they were and on the list of countries, presented real good targets and said that in those cases their buildings would of course be blown up as one would expect when a countrys buildings haven't already been ruined just because someone else got there before. He also mentioned that nongovernmental organizations are helping and yes even encouraging the very terrorists the USA is after and would also be dealt with, which makes you wonder which of those NGOs are also on the target list, and I am sure will have NGOs around the world crapping their pants this morning and perhaps cutting a deal with Tony Blair to 'express solidarity' with the USA, thus saving they soon to be kicked butts.

CNN also reported on the suffering experienced on Wall Street using words that truly captured the pain such as incredible amazing anguishing heartbreaking suffering, which is of course the kind of tragedy that is bound to move a planet, and who knows, might even convince a few more African nations to sign onto with the USA once they've had some time to reflect on the matter and it really begins to sink in how awful and horrible the suffering has really been on wall street. This would be a good tactic for Blair to use if he wants to launch a second leg of his successful diplomatic offensive (work the empathy angle real heavy with the rest of those not signed on African nations, or at least on the ones that aren't on the list, which I assume at least Blair saw beforehand...but who knows maybe he only got six because he saw the list and knew that the whole rest of Africa was on it except for those six countries so why bother right).

There was however some good news today, or so I thought, as in an exceptionally good developement cloud cover has decided to start building up on the Sahara during the day time too as the following photos from earlier this morning (Sahara time) and then mid afternoon demonstrate. Now as I reported earlier in the news, one site I was monitoring had the night time pics gone, since usually thunderstorms build up at night, so as long as they don't take the daytime ones off as well I should be fine for a while.

This was your latest not the media news update...