Don’t iron your euros

In 1951, Britain was considering a plan to divide Afghanistan up between Russia and Pakistan. Is it too late now?

A 19-year old is elected mayor of Mercer, Pennsylvania. He lives with his parents.

Pakistan demands evidence before handing over the Kashmiris India wants. Either that, or the newspaper reporters have all gone on vacation and just set up a computer program which inserts the names of different countries into old stories. Tomorrow: Montana threatens to bomb Idaho if it doesn’t hand over terrorists. No wait, that could happen.

Pakistan is walking a hilariously fine line over Kashmir, since it wants to look like it’s backing off of supporting terrorists without actually stopping support for Kashmiris who are killing Indians. You know, freedom fighters. They now say they’ll only support actual Kashmiris who are fighting for independence and not, say, Arabs who are helping them. Blatant discrimination, I say.

Russia is now using its old gulags from ordinary criminals, some 100,000 of them.

The decennial British census shows that residential segregation is increasing in Northern Ireland. I might also add that punishment beatings and shootings were at record levels in 2001. Peace, ain’t it grand.

The Swiss have re-relaxed airline security and are allowing Swiss army knives onto planes, including those heading for the US.

People have been playing with the euro. They find that it is ok to wash it but not iron it, because of the encoded strip. Also, the odds of it landing heads or tails vary by country. Belgium’s national design, for example, produces a 56:44 ratio in favor of tails.