Tuesday, October 16 in the news....
- The U.S. military believes it has dealt devastating and perhaps irreversible blows to al-Qaeda in Iraq in recent months, leading some generals to advocate a declaration of victory over the group, which the Bush administration has long described as the most lethal U.S. adversary in Iraq. In related news, 200 other Islamic terror groups in Iraq are now vying for al-Qaeda's title.
- Brazilian and Argentine paleontologists have discovered the largely complete fossil of a new species of giant dinosaur that roamed what is now northern Patagonia about 80 million years ago. Paleontologists is a South American term for stumbling across shit while playing soccer.
- Turkey's government agreed on Monday, as expected, to seek parliamentary permission to send troops into northern Iraq to crush Kurdish rebels there, but said it still hoped this would not be necessary. When asked why they hoped it would not be necessary, the Turks said that unlike the US most of the taxdollars they would use to pay for the incursion comes from the profits of foreign Turkish Delight sales.
- President Vladimir Putin has been warned by his special services of a possible plot to assassinate him during a visit to Tehran this week, according to the Kremlin. It was later discovered that this was a planned celebration to welcome the Russians to Iran with some of their native culture.
