Brian!

National - A man from Indiana and his son were saved last Friday, not from a fire alarm, but by their parrot, Peanut, who imitated one. The smoke alarm had activated, but due to other droning noises in the house it could not be heard, and it was the bird that woke the two up from sleeping on the couch.

Opinion – This reminds me of a TV show that used to be on that PAX station. It was some animal rescue, or animal miracles show. It was really corny, but all the stories on it would be something like this. This is just proof that every once in a while, pets do pay you back for cleaning their mess up after them.

National - Today, The United States Postal Service did something very important. They put out a stamp of Yoda, the Jedi Master from the Star Wars films. Yoda was released along with several other stamps, namely the annual holiday stamps, which this year feature Norwegian sweater designs. All the stamps are all 41 cents, first class.

Opinion – It seems like mail is becoming obsolete, but I always prefer getting messages that are nicely handwritten. Especially if they have cool stamps. Even more so if the stamp is of Yoda.

International - The world’s new largest passenger jet, the Airbus A380, made its first flight from Singapore to Sydney, Australia today. This fuel efficient, extremely quiet, double-decker plane has ended the Boeing 747’s reign as the most spacious passenger plane. The plane is capable of carrying more than twice as many passengers as the 747 (from 400 up to more than 800). From the description, the first flight sounded more like a cruise than an uncomfortable plane trip.

Opinion – This is pretty cool. The article even mentioned that the plane has room for luxury suites with double beds. Maybe more people will eventually take plane trips for the mere enjoyment of it someday as planes grow bigger and more comfortable. I’m just waiting for commercial flights out of the atmosphere.

International - On Tuesday, Communist dictator Fidel Castro released a brief essay entitled, "Bush, Hunger and Death". In it he claimed that Bush may spark World War III, and is aggravating world hunger and famine, partly due to a bill that Bush signed which is meant to support using of corn and other crops for developing fuel. Castro has been too weak to appear in public and for over a year his handpicked successor, his brother Raul, has been filling in for Fidel. The attack on Bush (one of many recent attacks by Castro) was meant to preempt Bush’s own speech calling for free speech, freedom of assembly, and free elections in Cuba. Municipal elections were held (staged) last Sunday in order to determine (in a one party system) whether Castro would remain the leader in Cuba.

Opinion – When are these men (Castro, bin Laden) going to kick the bucket? Or when are we going to find out that they already might have? While it’s possible Bush might get us into more International conflict (for better or for worse) before his term is up, it doesn’t seem likely that America would be the ones to start WWIII or even be willing to use nuclear weapons except as a last resort. And while it does seem more governmental collaboration should be done about world hunger, this doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with growing crops for fuel (my dad always tells this story about accidentally eating feed corn, which isn’t even meant for people, but for farm animals). Castro’s arguments don’t hold up, while Bush’s arguments do (his speech was on C-Span Wednesday). Americans have fundamental rights guaranteed in the first amendment that Cubans simply don’t, and such a thing can’t go on forever.