I am NOT Going to Talk About Michael Jackson

While a gazillion people wax poetic about how, in some alternate universe, Michael Jackson single-handedly broke down race barriers for entertainers, musicians, sports figures and children, there's some other pretty big shit going-down today:

President Obama visited Russia today. Nobody is apparently going to bomb anybody, and in fact, there will be further nucLEAR disarmament.

While meeting with some guarded success, American and Coalition troops are dying.

1,400 Chinese protestors were arrested this morning, with some Muslim Chinese expressing frustration over being treated as "second-class citizens." The Chinese government "took all the usual steps to enshrine its version of events as received wisdom: it crippled Internet service; blocked Twitter’s micro-blogs; purged search engines of unapproved references to the violence; saturated the Chinese media with the state-sanctioned story."

Mahmoud Ahmadalphabet says that the Iranian elections "were clean, fair and were the start of a new era." Please try to stifle laughter. The opposition is demanding the release of people taken into custody during the protests.

Siciliano's Market, a beer and homebrewing store in Grand Rapids, MI, made a big-time national blog today! I know ATK contributor Sopor is a big Siciliano's patron...

Just, you know, for some perspective that despite certain national days of mourning, Marines and soldiers are getting blown up, Obama is trying to make sure Putin doesn't slip a knife between his shoulder blades, 1,400 people are arrested and a State censors its own populations from the facts, a half-crazed dictator declares himself the winner of an election after beating and arresting anyone who said he wasn't, and a local beer supply shop makes big news!