On Second Thought for May 6, 2013

On Second Thought is a weekly feature that takes a lighthearted look at current events.

President Obama has once again vowed to close the prison for terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, if only he could find the darned key.
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Rumor has it he asked the former president for it during the opening of Bush library, but W. said he thought Dick Cheney still had the keys.
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Congress and the president have decided not to furlough air traffic controllers after all. Instead, they just won’t pay them.
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Five years after the Great Recession, home prices finally are spiking upward again. That means Congress can once again take the money it spent helping people avoid foreclosure and divert it to helping poor people get homes they can’t afford.
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Boeing officials say the company is working on a plane that would have the longest range of any passenger jet. The trick is designing a galley large enough to hold the amount of peanuts and pretzels needed to keep people alive from London to Honolulu.
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The Defense Department announced last week it won’t permit any religious proselytizing in the military. In other words, it may be true there aren’t any atheists in foxholes, but anyone trying to press the issue could get court martialed.
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Americans were infused with hope last week that strong leadership would emerge to vanquish the stubborn ideologues in Washington and save the nation’s long-term economy from ruin. But then they learned Iron Man is fictional.
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If Washington wrote its own superhero movie, the House version would have Austerity Man battling the evil forces of Sequestration and the Deficit Hog. The Senate version would have Robin Hood taking from the rich and giving to … the Deficit Hog.
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Social media is filled with sophisticated, modern, Information-Age consumers who know they can trust crowd sourcing more than the mainstream media. That’s why, not long after the Boston Marathon bombings, the Czech embassy had to release a statement instructing Twitter and Facebook users that, contrary to what many people were posting, the Czech Republic is not the same as Chechnya.

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

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