One bizarre strain of analysis about the recent hack of the DNC’s emails is: “Hey, the real story here is that Russia is trying to influence our election, which is bad.” That’s crazy!

The Venezuelan military has seized control of the nation’s major ports and has been placed in charge of distributing food in an attempt to deter murderous, starving food bandits. That is not even the worst news.

When I think “unfortunate mistake,” I think about getting handed the wrong change at the grocery store. I don’t think about having my nice day spoiled by an ever-loving supersonic missile!

The good news is that Saudi Arabia has changed its mind about executing a poet for “the contents of his poetry book.” Then there is the bad news.

Humble Shining Sun Who Lights Our Path, Honorable Leader Kim Jong Un, has put North Korea on war footing over South Korea’s outrageous imperialist puppeteer provocations. To the barricades, fellow well-fed anti-imperialists!

Israel and Palestine are warring again. Civilians are dying again. Families are losing their homes, and chaos persists. Again. This would not be happening if Israel were located somewhere that makes more sense: in Germany.

China is afflicted with slowing economic growth, widespread poverty, and toxic air. And high prices at Starbucks. The Chinese government is definitely ready to address at least one of these issues.

Holy hell, this is harrowing. This past weekend, Delorean, an electronic-pop act from Barcelona, performed at the Mexican installment of the Mutek Festival and on Monday morning, they were still at their Mexico City hotel when an emergency call came in, urging them to vacate the premises due to a shootout. They complied—and were taken hostage.

North Korean leader Kim Jon Un has placed his nation's missiles on standby and announced that he is targeting the American mainland. The leader has made recent brash public gestures of militarism, and the Pentagon has vowed to strengthen our nation's West Coast missile defenses in response. With tensions between the U.S. and the unpredictable North Korea at an all time high, the slightest signal by either side could set off a cascading set of responses that could end in disaster. So you can imagine the shockwaves rippling throughout the intelligence community right now, as analysts try to parse the latest strategic volley from North Korea's official news service:

Sound the war bells, grab your gear, and prepare to man the bombers, fellow Americans: the dirty nation of IRAN has wiped its shit-stained bootheel upon our national sovereignty, in the following manner: they shot at one of our spy drones. We say it was outside of Iranian territory; they dispute that. Either way, the strong, muscular foreign policy view of this must be: Hey, That Was Ours, And We Must Escalate Into All Out War, Or We Might Look Weak. From The Guardian:

Arid Uka, a 21 year-old from Kosovo, has confessed to the March shooting of four U.S. soldiers at the Frankfurt airport, which left two of the soldiers dead. Uka says he was "blinded" by "lies and propaganda."

Stamp collector Willem van der Bijl, who disappeared in North Korea only to re-appear with a praiseful op-ed in the state-run Pyongyang Times, has returned home. Turns out he'd been arrested! So, take his column with a grain of salt.

Venezuelan politicians: when they're not holding boob job fundraisers, they're brawling in the national assembly, as they did yesterday, when this spat between a pro and an anti-Chavez legislator turned into one of those big "everybody rush the stage and watch other people pushing each other" nightclub-style fights. Sure, you could say "Incidents like this and the cheap jokes they inspire just prove that Americans don't pay attention to other countries unless they do something bad and sensational," but that's kind of the point.

One Iranian nuclear scientists was killed today and another was seriously injured in separate, simultaneous car bomb attacks. Did we do that?

In an incident with shades of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, at least 33 people—including six politicians and an 11 year-old boy—have been killed in a Mogadishu, Somalia hotel, in an attack by anti-government insurgents. [NYT. Pic: AP]

Sick of all these rich guys' crap, Thai protesters went ahead and set the country's stock exchange on fire today. "Earlier in the day, Thailand's benchmark index finished up 0.7% on hopes for a quick resolution." Efficient-market hypothesis: disproved. [WSJ]

For an incompetent terrorist, alleged Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad sure is provoking a lot of international incidents.

The FBI has filed its criminal complaint against Times Square Car Bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad. In it, they say that Shahzad admitted that he "recently received bomb-making training in Waziristan, Pakistan."

America's message to Haitians, blared from an airplane: "If you think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that's not at all the case." Y'all can fight over MREs at home. [NYT]

Everyone knows that Somali pirates are a lovable, ragtag group of devil-may-care adventurers living the dream of millions of daydreaming office workers. But, whoa, now the WSJ says ships are carrying anti-pirate guards, with real guns? Is that even safe?