We wish we were joking. First this, from UPI, Feb. 18:

US skies to be opened to drones
WASHINGTON — A new federal law allows commercial drones to fly over the United States by late 2015, officials said. The drone language was included in a funding bill for the Federal Aviation Administration signed Tuesday by President Obama...

It is really, really a drag to have to do this, but we really have no choice. Whatever legitimate reasons there are to oppose Henrique Capriles Radonski, it doesn't let the Hugo Chávez political machine off the hook for the most vulgar Jew-baiting. Once again, the chavistas serve up propaganda ammo on the proverbial silver platter for the corporate media to shoot right back at them. Fools. From Reuters, Feb. 17:

As we have pointed out over and over, a driver's license in New York City is literally a license to kill. Meanwhile, police crack down on the solution. From Transportation Nation, Feb. 15:

NYPD Issued Almost 50,000 Bicycle Tickets in 2011
The NYPD doled out 48,556 summonses to bike riders in 2011. That figure was reported by Executive Officer of the Transportation Bureau, John Cassidy at a hearing held by the NY City Council Wednesday on NYPD policies for traffic investigations.

On the one-year anniversary of the start of the Libyan revolution, the NTC seems to have just lost control of Libya's west to a new federation of militias. From AP, Feb. 13:

Representatives of about 100 militias from western Libya said Monday they had formed a new federation to prevent infighting and allow them to press the country’s new government for further reform. The move was a blow to the Transitional National Council, which helped lead the eight-month uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi and has sought to govern Libya since. The council has largely failed to decommission or bring under its control the hundreds of militias that fought in the war. The leader of the new federation, Col. Mokhtar Fernana, said the council’s committee in charge of integrating revolutionary fighters was taking in men who had fought for Colonel Qaddafi. "This committee is an attempt to hijack the revolution," Colonel Fernana said. One militia commander, Ibrahim al-Madani, said the fighters would not give up their arms to a corrupt government." [Sic]

In a case that seems to have received virtually no media coverage, the Sacred Land Film Project website reports on the struggle of the Tibetan village of Abin to halt a mining project on Mount Kawagebo, which is sacred to Tibetans and whose summit lies on the border between the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and Yunnan province. The village and proposed mine are on the western slope of the mountain, within the TAR and along a traditional centuries-old pilgrimage route; the eastern slope, within Yunnan, is protected by the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan UNESCO World Heritage Site, where the Yangtze, Mekong and Salween rivers plunge down through green gorges from the Tibetan plateau. Citing activist He Ran Gao of the Chinese NGO Green Earth Volunteers, the account states that gold mining began near the village in February 2011, over the protests of the villagers. After repeated attempts at negotiations failed, villagers pushed some $300,000 worth of mining equipment into the Nu River (as Tibetans call the Salween). Harassment, death threats and attacks on villagers predictably followed, and some fled to other villages to escape the violence. But then:

Argentina on Feb. 12 agreed to accept UN mediation in an escalating dispute with Britain over the South Atlantic archipelago known to one nation as the Malvinas and to the other as the Falkland Islands. Buenos Aires and London have in recent days waged a fierce war of words over the sparsely populated islands, some 460 kilometers off of the Argentine coast—less than two months ahead of the anniversary of the brief 1982 Falklands War. The war cost 1,068 Argentine and 255 British lives, ending with Argentina failing to hold the islands but refusing to acknowledge British rule over them. The UK is contracting a Zimbabwean team to clear out mine fields left by the 74-day Argentine "occupation." Argentina now accuses Britain of provocatively sending warships to the archipelago—a move London says is a routine exercise. (Xinhua, Feb. 12; CNN, Feb. 9; The Falklands Conflict website)

What's utterly maddening about this is the complete hypocrisy of reactions in the West—both from the establishment, which purports to support democracy and secularism in the Middle East while continuing to arm and underwrite the Saudi regime, and from the "left," which correctly opposes the rise of Christian fundamentalist rule at home while (as have have bemoaned before) it is so caught up in the mutual demonization among rival branches of the Abrahamic tradition that it seems incapable of recognizing the threat of Islamic fundamentalism. Is it only going to be neocons who will rally to the defense of Hamza Kashgari? That would be really depressing. From Global Post, Feb. 10:

Two years ago when we reported revelations that two Czech NATO commanders in Afghanistan had worn Nazi SS regalia while on duty, everyone told us it was an isolated incident and not to make a big deal of it. What do you say now, pronoiacs?* From MSNBC, Feb. 9:

Marines posed with flag resembling Nazi SS logo in Afghanistan
SAN DIEGO — The US Marine Corps confirmed Thursday that a sniper team in Afghanistan posed for a photograph in front of a flag with a logo resembling that of the notorious Nazi SS.