Your Friday Iranian Space Monkey Dacker

Iran advances to the 1950s by shooting a monkey into space, emulating the early US Space program, which from 1948 through the 1960s sent a variety of primate into space.

Arabic-language channel Al-Alam and other Iranian news agencies said the monkey returned alive after travelling in the capsule to an altitude of 120 kilometres (75 miles) for a sub-orbital flight.

Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said: "This success is the first step towards man conquering the space and it paves the way for other moves", but added that the process of putting a human into space would be a lengthy one.

"Today's successful launch follows previous successes we had in launching (space) probes with other living creatures (on board)," he added.

"The monkey which was sent in this launch landed safely and alive and this is a big step for our experts and scientists."

The Other (Stacey) McCain celebrated with a thread of Iranian Space Monkey jokes:

I bet that space monkey was happy to get the hell out of Iran!

Of course, the news that Iran has launched a monkey into space is no laughing matter. It’s like the North Korean “space program,” a purportedly peaceful (nudge, nudge) way of flight-testing an ICBM. So once they get a nuclear weapon, the fanatical Jew-hating mullahs now have the means of delivering that warhead to Tel Aviv — or perhaps on some suitable infidel target right here in the Great Satan.

I saw Iranian Space Monkey open for Cheap Trick in 1981.

Look on the bright side: If Ahmadinejad were to nuke Manhattan, we’d no longer have to put up with the New York Times. And if there were a slight malfunction with the guidance system in the Iranian ICBM, it might go off-course and annihilate the cast of Jersey Shore.

One should also bear in mind that the same era in the United States was the periods during which the main bulk of the coldwar nuclear weapons stockpile was produced. I'll sure be glad once Chuck Hagel is in on the job to prevent that. Say, how's that going?