The aptly named dismal debt rating company Moody's downgrades our credit rating to something akin to a dead parrot. And whose fault is that? asks the Taoiseach. The media, he says, for its "pervasive negativity", urging us to look on the bright side of life – as the other Brian said.
And now for something completely simian. A man is nabbed by the authorities trying to smuggle 18 tiny titi monkeys through Mexico City airport on a flight from Lima. The monkey man was acting "nervously", as you do with monkey-stuffed socks hooked on a girdle dangling from your midriff. The airport police were confused as to whether he indeed had something wriggling in his trousers, or was just glad to see them.
There's another headline to distract from all the dismal debt. Police in southern Russia investigate allegations of animal cruelty after a donkey is hitched onto a parachute and made to parasail as part of a rather nasty advertising stunt. As the donkey screamed and onlooking children wailed, all the ad agency did was make an ass of itself.
Hark, what twit through yonder window breaks? Why it's the former vice-presidential candidate, back in a new tragicomedy. Sarah Palin tweets Muslims on their plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero, asking them first to "pls refudiate", and then typically confusing the issue further by incorrectly using "refute". GWBush's undoubted heir pleads that "Shakespeare liked to coin new words too". There's something rotten in the state of Alaska.
Maybe America's most famous hockey mom could coin a better name for R136a1? The newly discovered star weighs 265 times more than the sun, shines millions of times more brightly – although is still not as collossal as our national debt. British astronomers spotted the star, using an instrument with an Alaskan governor-friendly kind of name – the Very Large Telescope.
More astronomical figures as the very large social networking site Facebook signs up its 500 millionth user. If Facebook were a country, it would be the third largest in the world – although only virtually speaking, and populated by easily bored egocentrics with very short attention spans. The kind of place you'd never want to visit. Well okay, maybe 20 minutes during lunch hour then.
The impressively named Lady Eliza Manningham-Buller knows a thing or two, but is really only telling the Chilcot enquiry into the invasion of Iraq what the rest of the world already knows. The former director-general of M15 says the British government's action became al-Qaeda's greatest recruitment weapon. It "radicalised a whole generation of young people who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as being an attack upon Islam".
What Islam feels about one of its more recent converts is anyone's guess. Soccer star Franck Ribery, who became a Muslim when he married Wahiba in 2005, is formally accused, along with teammate Karim Benzema, of soliciting a 17-year-old sex worker (soliciting a prostitute under 18 is a crime in France). The Zaman Cafe on the Champs Elysees in Paris, where the women worked and the men trawled, is described as organising "high-class pimping". A contradiction, non?
Former Tánaiste Michael McDowell believes 'The Twalf' should be made a national holiday. He challenges government ministers to travel to the North on the day of the annual Orange Order celebration commemorating the Battle of the Boyne. Can't you just see it now? Mary 'Orange Lil' McAleese, cooking up a big Ulster fry for our boys in the Áras before they don bowlers, white gloves and sashes and head to Portadown with Brian and his big Lambeg drum? Ah Michael, give our wee heads peace.
Sineád O'Connor marches up the aisle to marry for the third time, but there are no controversial remarks on her website, just a "Thanks be to the Great Lord Jah. Rastafarai. Dread I. Conquering Lion I. One love".
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