A lighthearted look at current events:

U.S. Sen. John McCain penned an acid reply last week to Vladimir Putin’s op-ed in the New York Times. Unfortunately, he peddled it to Pravda.ru, thinking the Soviet Union was still in business.
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Pravda.ru is a rather obscure web-only product that covers politics, celebrity and fashion news. It’s not certain which category McCain’s piece was placed under.
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McCain told Russians their leaders, “don’t respect your dignity or accept your authority over them.” Instead, they should have leaders such as we do in the United States. They truly listen to all people, through the NSA.
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Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin may decide to run for a fourth term in 2018. You have to admire that. Controlling the media and launching investigations against political opponents takes a lot of energy for a man of his age.
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With an October deadline looming to keep the federal government going, President Obama may soon be diverting war ships from the Syrian coast to the Potomac.
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Republicans are threatening to shut down the government unless everyone agrees to kill Obamacare. This will happen right after Americans agree to amend the Constitution so that the House becomes the sole governing body in Washington.
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Imagine if the federal government shut down — all those lobbyists and politicians walking the streets, begging for money. Come to think of it, who would notice any difference?
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Syrian President Bashar Assad has apparently agreed, under intense international pressure, that from now on he will kill his people only with conventional bullets and missiles.
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On the other side, rebel leaders are hoping they can shut down the government and bleed it dry through a lack of funding, forcing real change … no, wait, that’s the Republicans.
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Meanwhile, one can’t help reminiscing of the days of Ronald Reagan. By now he would have bombed Syria and then “accidentally” made some joke into an open microphone about how Russia would be next.
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The Associated Press reports that police in Salt Lake uncovered a plot to steal expensive graphing calculators and sell them in other states. Despite their loot, the folks involved apparently miscalculated their chances for success.
Jay Evensen is the associate editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Follow him on Twitter @jayevensen.

A lighthearted look at news of the day:

A semitrailer truck got stuck on a narrow road in Butterfield Canyon last week, reportedly because a GPS system told the driver to keep going. Enter this as Exhibit A in the case against self-driving cars.
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If you saw everyone else driving off a cliff, would you do so, too? You would if everyone’s smart cars got hacked.
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That groan you heard last week was all the comedy writers and pundits in the land reacting to the defeat of Anthony Weiner in the New York mayoral primary.
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Weiner was to comedy writing what hurricane season is to roofers.
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Rumor has it Dennis Rodman might be hired to coach the North Korean Olympic basketball team. The only catch is that Kim Jong-un has to be the starting center.
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Think about this for a minute. Rodman might coach a team in the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. I can foresee a crisis in which people think the entire North Korean team has defected, when in fact they will just be out all night trying to find their coach.
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On the other hand, if you were a dictator trying to warn your people about the evils of freedom and capitalism, you could do worse than Dennis Rodman as your poster child.
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The world was grateful last week when the president found a solution that avoids the U.S. having to bomb Syria. OK, so it wasn’t OUR president who found the solution, but you can’t have everything.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin wrote an op-ed in the New York Times rebutting President Obama’s speech to the nation. Millions of Americans thought it was an improvement over the guys the Republicans usually get to do that.
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Putin lectured the U.S. on what it means to follow the rule of law. Apparently, that’s a rule that doesn’t include extraditing people like Ed Snowden.
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A golf course in Wisconsin got into trouble for offering 9 holes for $9.11 to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It seems we’ve discovered where the current line on taste lies — somewhere between Miley Cyrus’ tongue and cashing in on a national tragedy.

Jay Evensen is the associate editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Follow him on Twitter @jayevensen.

A lighthearted look at news of the day:
Way to go, Diane Nyad. Now no one under 64 can enjoy just sitting around the house because they feel old.
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Nyad became the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. That is, if you don’t count all the Cubans since the early ‘60s who finished their journey in the dark of night.
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Just to mess with her, the crowd on the beach in Florida should have said, “Florida? No, honey, this is Africa. Which side of Cuba did you dive off?”
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New York Mayoral hopeful Anthony Weiner tried to help his flagging campaign last week by getting into a shouting match with a man in Brooklyn who accused him being “disgusting.” Weiner responded, “It takes one to know one.” All of which means the campaign is actually taking on a more intellectual tone.
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Former GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain was caught playing poker on his phone during a recent hearing on going to war in Syria. But really, no one should be surprised he likes to gamble, given his choice of a running mate in 2008.
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I wouldn’t say President Obama is being too cautious, but word has it that if he gets Congress’ approval to launch a military strike, he still won’t act until he also gets the OK from Syria’s parliament.
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Scientists in England now say they have a better idea of exactly when Egypt came to be a nation state. I’m guessing most Egyptians today would rather have a better idea of exactly how much longer they will continue in that condition.
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Here is why I hope automatic smart cars never become commonplace: I don’t want to live in a world where 10-year-old computer whizzes are better drivers than I am.
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Do we really want to live in a world where if we find ourselves aimlessly circling a roundabout it will be because we forgot to reboot the engine?
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And why do I think it’s just a matter of time before teenage drivers will secretly download programs that make their smart cars rev up and act stupid in front of their friends?
Jay Evensen is the associate editor of the Deseret News editorial page. Follow him on Twitter @jayevensen.

On Second Thought is a lighthearted look at current events.

Americans are ready to go to limited war with Syria to protect the nation’s interests, or at least to not make the president look bad for something he said a year ago. If that isn’t an argument for limiting politicians’ media exposure, I don’t know what one is.

The Obama administration maintained the element of surprise by leaking information on what it was going to do, for how long and the general vicinity where the bombs would fall. If only the cable guy would be so forthcoming.

That sound you heard from the north last week was millions of Norwegians wishing they could repossess a certain Nobel Peace Prize.

If the president really was interested in alleviating the suffering of the masses, he would launch an attack on the MTV Music Video Awards.

Let’s face it, if entertainers really wanted to be shocking, they would show up to these awards fully clothed and ready to sing about family values.

We’re now at the beginning of football season, which is sort of like Washington politics with helmets and pads and penalties for  unnecessary roughness. Only one thing is different: Things get resolved by the end of the day.

Speaking of which, we’re about one month away from another fight over raising the nation’s debt ceiling. Think of this as perpetual full employment for government roofers.

The NFL and more than 4,000 players decided to settle a case regarding concussions last week after the plaintiffs forgot why they were there.

Firefighters in California were using predator drones to help fight the Rim Fire last week. This gave them the added advantage of being able to destroy any al Qaida members they happened to find at the same time.

Scientists last week said they found a clue as to why people begin losing their memory with old age. They said … uh … what was I talking about again?