BERLIN - BOMBASTIC CARPETS

Afghanistan means war. When it comes to everything. Not enough with every kid there being capable of assembling any weapon you can imagine lickety-split. We’ve already told you about that in our Guide to Travel, right? But, seriously, forget about traumata management by means of expressionist art (you know, like Georg Grosz and the likes), because it's not like people don't already know that the Mujahideen literally weave their wars into their culture. School doesn't start for another couple weeks but let's prepare with a refresher on these carpet bombs.

GERMANY - HOW MANY BABIES DOES BERLIN NOT WANT?

The crisis, the fucking crisis, over and over. Now it’s come to the point where they had to close down a dog hatch (basically a McDrive, except that it’s the other way around and the critters are still alive) they just opened in Dallgow-Doberitz because the animal benefactors couldn’t accommodate the masses of dogs people wanted to get rid of. But what about children? I mean the human kind. Who cares about them? 

BERLIN - A PORN STAR IN WESEL ISN'T REALLY INTO IT

Wesel is about as jerkwater as it gets. It’s not only one of the most boring towns in Germany, it also doesn’t seem to ever produce any news that is NOT related to sex. It seems like the people there care so little about anything that they don’t even give a damn about an ex-porn star becoming up for election "against her will..."

SCANDINAVIA - BRIBED BRIDES FROM IRAN

If you’re a young, modern Iranian chick with ambitions beyond cooking and cleaning or protesting for the rest of forever (or until you go to jail or die on the street while someone records your last breath with a cell phone and become a martyr), you might want to consider, contradictory as it seems, an arranged marriage. Marrying a man you’ve never met in a faraway country is actually pretty common for defectors in Iran looking for a way out of the country. It’s one of few ways to leave without being considered a traitor. But watch out for those older Iranian men who have left for countries that aren’t plagued by constant feuds and oppressive religious mullahs, because they’re using arranged marriages as a way to import hot young wives for them to boss around.

CHICAGO - ADVENTURES IN INFRASTRUCTURE SPENDING

Everyone always hears about how much winter sucks in Chicago. But Obama recently gave the NPO tens of millions in the stimulus package, and suddenly they had to figure out how to inspect and repair four times as many houses next year as in the past. Now, if you own your own home here but fall below some household poverty line and are struggling to pay your heating bills, you can apply to this program to have your house slightly fixed so it's more energy-efficient and your bills drop and you can keep making those mortgage payments. In their frantic dash to hire people, I just got a job as an inspector.

SCANDINAVIA - GOOD BENEFITS AND LOTS OF TRAVELING

On a chilly morning on a frozen estuary a meter above the river Pirita in northern Estonia we sparked up a chat with a fisherman we’ll call John. It turned out he’s a former British soldier of nine years and has now gone over to the private sector. Yep, he’s one of those mercenaries who worked in Iraq back when people were still mad about Saddam Hussein. The whole wide world knows about these guys already but with a brand-new war starting in Afghanistan today, we’re feeling nostalgic for the way things used to be fucked up. We’re sharing our interview with him.

MILAN - DON'T PAY ANY ATTENTION TO THE BURNING CAR

Besides an unhealthy and unwelcome wave of nostalgia for the 80s, another side effect of The King's passing is that lots of good news got sidelined. For example, nobody has heard of Mir Mousavi's whereabouts since last Thursday--Iranian official sources say he's under house arrest, but who knows what that means? That might be code for him being strung up like a provolone somewhere. Anyway, my point is that you probably read all about MJ on every single news outlet and watched at least four of his videos, and that the editor of this website told me that "walking down the street is like listening to a Michael Jackson sound collage," so I thought I'd give you a little head's up about what's going on in mafialand, where it was recently confirmed that we have the most hilarious prime minister in the history of world politics, and the horniest (although that boner belongs to Czech PM Topolanek). Consider this a breather from all the Jacko-being-dead-news-insanity.

NEW YORK - SUCKS FOR FARRAH FAWCETT AND SKY SAXON

What a fuckin' day to die. You spend a life sweating just to get a few greatest hits, and then its end is eclipsed by Michael Jackson moonwalking into the great beyond. Twice. (Ed Zipco owns the rights to Michaeljacksonsgrave.com, so he's probably going to make a few bucks sooner than he thought; apparently his phone's ringing off the hook.) Anyway, apparently not only has Twitter broken for good (thank god, so R.I.P. to that too), the media's in such a tizzy over this, no one's even bothering anymore to wax poetic about Ed McMahon's chortle, nor report that Jeff Goldblum has also passed, one of those plummeted-to-his death-while-filming-in-New-Zealand situations. What is this, Cosmic Celebrity Genocide Day? Appropriate commemorations to those who everyone's already forgotten coming soon. Or not.

LONDON - RIOT COPS OR GAY SADOMASOCHIST FUTURISTIC DISCO?

The brown stuff hitting the proverbial fan in Iran has meant images of riot police all over the media last week, proving yet again how cool they look. Riot police are fashion geniuses; their constantly evolving uniforms are just about the only thing you can wear that doesn't look like some sort of revival of the stuff people wore 20 years ago. Riot gear is where it's at–it's definitely not a retro look, and anything with a built-in six-pack is hot stuff in fashion terms. The padded and armored gloves, jackets, and trousers are menswear heaven–it's techy, nearly all black and definitely not for pussies.

LONDON - BARE NAKED ISLAM, A HUB FOR THE DERANGED RIGHT-WING COGNOSCENTI

All this fuss about Twitter and YouTube being the new vehicles that are going to deliver the next Iranian revolution really whipped me up into a frenzy today and I spent a large portion of time watching videos of people on marches, suffering abuse at the hands of the Iranian authorities. It's all quite exciting stuff, and would be fascinating to watch unfold on YouTube if a revolution did really happen. Not least to see the inevitable Gil Scott-Heron song quickly rushed out as he tries to find a political phrase that rhymes with YouTube.