Fireworks in Lagos.

Days after Chris Brown visited the city as part of his tour a fire started in a warehouse storing fireworks yesterday tore through the Jankara neighbourhood of Lagos, Nigeria killing one and injuring thirty. This was obviously reminiscent of the damage done in Breezy Point, New York state during Superstorm Sandy which was of course referenced in the killing of firefighters in Webster, New York state. As I've mentioned the purpose of the US sending Brown to Nigeria was to put pressure on the Nigerian government specifically through the possible threat to his safety presented by primarily the Islamist terror group Boko Haram. In itself this was a very stupid move by the US because even if you're trying to destabilise a resource rich nation through an armed insurgency the idea is to get them to fight each other not you. However with the Nigerian government knowing this well in advance in agreeing to allow the visit to go ahead there seemed to a large element of the Nigerians going; "We'd rather take the hit then see Brown reunite with Rihanna."

Unfortunately Brown and Rihanna did very publicly reunite at a televised basketball game at the Staples Centre (where the Grammys will be held) in Los Angles on Christmas day (25/12/12). Although far better then crushing Barbados between the US and the UK Commonwealth this did make the US the centre of attention at a quiet time of the year by making it look like they had some really cool secrets. This was not helped by Rihanna sending out such strong signals it looked like provocation and appearing to have a massive argument with her friend Melissa Forde on Twitter over the Brown issue. Therefore the Lagos fire seems to be Nigeria criticising the US for not keeping up their part of the bargain and instead trying to inflict fireworks on the world. This was underlined by the fact the Nigerian government has been considering banning the sale and use of fireworks due to the threat presented by Boko Haram because it can be hard to tell if a loud bang is a firework or a terrorist bomb. The US response to the Lagos fire was the sudden and suspicious worsening of former President George H Bush's condition which has seen him admitted to intensive care. His 'raging fever' is supposed to represent the delirium the people running the Brown/Rihanna reunion must be suffering from. This an attempt to draw the world in by making it look like there's some internal dispute between the Republican and Democrat factions within the US establishment which is preventing an arrest warrant being issued for Brown for breaching the terms of his probation and setting off multiple red flags through his conduct. It is of course also an enquiry to South Africa as to whether Nelson Mandela's medical problems are a reference to the Brown situation because well they did rather coincide.

While I'm here I should point out that the Brown/Rihanna thing does demonstrate one of the the fundamental problems with  Obama's Presidency in microcosm. I think it's well established that Obama is something of a ditherer often unable to make tough decisions. This all stems from his time as a law professor which encourages people to think that if an argument around a decision can be continued indefinitely you can avoid making the decision. This is a major flaw in a President but rather then facing up to it Obama is passive aggressively transferring this on to his 'kill list' of Islamic terrorists because there seems no tougher decision then to kill a man using an unmanned drone. So when a lot of people outside of the US talk about the controversy of Obama's drone program they're actually mocking Obama. However I'm not sure if the writers of Homeland were aware to this.

11:35 on 27/12/12.

Edited at around 15:24 on 27/12/12 to add: Due to high levels of illiteracy Egyptian voters who wished to reject the constitution were asked to vote "Brown" at the referendum. Needless to say the constitution was adopted by around 65% of the vote pushing Egypt further out of the US' sphere of influence and further into the Gulf Co-operation Council's (GCC). Therefore I think someone's handlers should be spending the rest of their festive break writing a very long essay entitled; "We though this was a good idea because..."