High five, bro

Take today as a chance to high-five your friends and loved ones (and first officers).

tagged: pop culture, high five, Star Trek, gif, Spock, Kirk

Swede emotion

A quick nod of "well done, lads" to this act of peaceful resistance by a plane full of Swedes...

A man facing deportation from Sweden has been granted a temporary reprieve after fellow passengers aboard his flight to Iran prevented it from taking off by refusing to fasten their seat belts.

A Kurd fearing persecution in his home country of Iran, Ghader Ghalamere fled the country years ago and now has two young children with his wife Fatemeh, a Swedish resident.

As a result he qualifies for a residence permit himself – yet because of a quirk in immigration laws he is required to apply for it from outside Sweden.

On Thursday, Mr Ghalamere was put on a flight at Östersund bound for Stockholm – and ultimately Iran itself – accompanied by his friends and family in protest.

Gathering in the departure lounge, they spoke to other passengers preparing to board the flight and explained the situation.

Clearly moved, once on board the plane the other passengers refused to fasten their seat belts – a protest that prevented the pilots from being able to begin take off.

tagged: Iran, Europe, Sweden, protest, amnesty

Crimea river

No doubt Ukraine, or as I call it "The Ukraine" has seen some setbacks recently.

The economy is struggling, more so than the many struggling economies world wide. Government opportunism and political corruption run rampant. Paul McCartney is no longer knocked out by Ukraine girls.

Then of course there was the loss of all of that prime Black Sea beach front property with the "citizens" of the Crimean peninsula "voted" to "secede" from Ukraine and officially become part of "Russia."

It's almost enough to make a guy go orange with revolutionary rage, or at least make a guy want to move to Johnson County.

But there's one group in Ukraine that's prepared to strike back.

As Ukraine battles to stave off dark forces of its own, the Star Wars villain Darth Vader announced at the weekend he was running for president in a bid to restore glory to the downtrodden nation. 

The Sith lord, or at least an unnamed costumed protester often seen on Kiev's Independence Square flanked by his loyal stormtroopers during the winter protests, has been chosen as the official candidate of the Ukrainian Internet party (UIP) which has become known for its theatrical public stunts.

"After winning intra-party primaries by a landslide, comrade Vader will be our party's candidate," said the UIP leader, Dmitry Golubov, who spent time in prison after being convicted of using the internet to run a credit card fraud scheme.

tagged: Russia, Europe, Ukraine, Crimea, EU, Darth Vader, Star Wars