Now, most people remember Blackwater from that high profile shooting incident in Iraq, which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed inSeptember 2007. But for the readers who aren’t familiar with Blackwater, let me define their existence. Blackwater, currently known as Xe, is a private military company and is at present time the U.S. State Department’s largest private security provider, and might I add, that two-thirds of their government contracts are no bid contracts. Oh yeah, these are also the same guys hired by the Department of Homeland Security after Hurricane Katrina hit to do who knows what (and we all remember how that debacle played out). So, you might ask “how does a company get these great no bid contracts with U.S. government agencies”? Well, I’m pretty sure you know the answer to this…friends in high places.
It’s safe to say, Blackwater’s elite have made some pretty good friends in major departments and agencies of the U.S. government (but hey, who’s keeping track?) That’s my point – we need to keep track!
Shall we take a gander at Blackwater’s most noteworthy incidents? read more…
The rise of the rest might not look like we think it will
Who killed Uncle Sam?
Has America’s global pre-eminence finally vanished? Many within the international chatterati seem to think so. The financial crisis of 2008 seems, in this reading of the grand sweep of history, was the final blow to US dominance – the irrefutable downfall of the American leviathan. And it its place step up the so-called BRIC countries – the developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. One can almost detect a certain smugness in much of the writing. After the untrammelled hubris of the Bush administration, all the better than the US swallow a dose of humility; all the better that other global powers now can balance against the unashamed hyperpuissance and casino capitalism of the cowboy colossus. But as Yogi Berra famously said, prediction is difficult – especially about the future. Perhaps we should not write off America just yet.
An under discussed topic, to my mind at least, is the sheer exuberance with which stupid people strive to innovate new and better ways of being unspeakably annoying.
Generally, there are two levels of achievement which stupid people can strive for; primarily being so annoying they make you want to poke their eyes out and, for the high achievers, being so annoying they make you want to poke your own eyes out.
In the first category fall the majority of reality TV stars, people who think Dan Brown is a literary genius, and people who insist on saying place names in over accentuated tongue in order to display their sophistication. We all know there is a sh sound in Budapest and if Greek people don’t feel the need to call it Athena when speaking in English, than neither should you.
As the world grows fecund with stupidity, the bar for getting into the second category continues to rise. Entrants need to attain a persistent level of blood curdling aggravation in their stupidity in order to succeed. Past luminaries include George Bush, all of my ex-boyfriends, anyone associated with Fox news, and last but by no means least, climate change sceptics.
read more…
I ewzed my way over to the theatres last night to watch New Moon, the latest release of the Twilight Saga. First of all, I’m not going to sit here and condescendingly look down upon the Twihards like some reactionary conservative pop-culture ignoramous. But, I do have a funny story to tell. We had to go to three different movie theatres as all were sold out by the time we got there. When we finally got to the last one, there was a huge, enormous, line of Twihards that continued far far down the street. We walked in, however, and saw that the main ticket counter was actually empty. SO we proceeded to buy tickets and asked the ticket attendant why there were a bunch of women lined up outside when they could just buy tickets here. He replied “I know. We told them a number of times that they don’t have to line up outside in the cold, but they don’t believe us.”
As we went back outside, tickets in hand, we stopped at one girl in the queue and told her “you know you don’t have to line up here in the cold. There are a couple of empty ticket counters inside.” We waved our tickets as proof. The girl looked at us supiciously, then turned to the girl behind her and said “okay, you go check. I’ll save your spot here just in case.” And that charming example of obsessive paranoia, my little ewzies, perfectly describes a Twihard. God bless them.
Anyway onto the movie…
The movie was, apart from a few snooze-worthy Bella scenes, an absolutely brilliant love story. It touched on themes of longing, difficult decisions about compromise, desire, lost and unrequited love, heartbreak, and six-pack abs. Additionally, it’s a great story about a long rivalry between two groups: vampires and werewolves, and what happens when one, incredibly gormless young girl, gets caught in the middle.
err, dude...
The internets are abuzz with talk of the hack into the email server at the Hadley Climate Research Centre at the University of East Anglia in the UK (or as one website strangely call them a “global-warming advocacy centre”…but then facts do have a liberal bias). A link to access the emails was then sent to a number of (mostly skeptic) websites, along with messages similar to this (reproduced here):
We feel that climate science is, in the current situation, too important to
be kept under wraps.We hereby release a random selection of correspondence, code, and documents
The University has since all but confirmed they are genuine, and since the emails and files number into the thousands dating back over a decade the chances of someone having the time or skill to mount a convincing fraud on that scale are fairly low.
What has made them such hot property are statements such as this:
In May 2009, after a decades-long civil war, the Sri Lankan armed forces militarily defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). However, a political solution to the aspirations of Tamils frustrated by policies and processes favouring the Sinhala majority still remains to be instituted by the Sinhalese-dominated government. Almost 140,000 Tamils are still enclosed within the Menik Farms camp in Sri Lanka’s north, and the government argues that isolated pockets of LTTE members, capable of launching suicide bombing attacks, remain.
There are a number of interesting articles I’m going to throw your way that give a good and balanced understanding of the current political situation in Sri Lanka. From the Asia Times, a brilliant article that serves as a good introduction to one of the most prominent elements of the civil war’s legacy: the Menik camps. It goes through the Sri Lankan government’s recent declarationthat the Menik Farm camp will be closed by the end of Jan 2010, and describes the government’s justifications for the camp, the conditions inside them and the political debates surrounding them. A good introduction to one of the most prominent elements of the civil war’s legacy.
Since when did William Easterly bring the lulz?? The accademic, vocal critic of the international aid system and sworn enemy of Jeffrey Sachs, has just unveiled total ownage of U2 frontman and all round unlikeably human being Bono:
An expert commission of African leaders today announced their plan for comprehensive reform of music band U2. Saying that U2’s rock had lost touch with its African roots, the commission called for urgent measures to halt U2’s slide towards impending crisis.
“Our youth today are imperiled by low quality music,” said Commission chairman Nelson Mandela. “We will be lending African musicians to U2 to try to refurbish their sound to satisfy the urgent and growing needs for diversionary entertainment at a time of crisis in the global music and financial sectors.”
Definitely check out the rest of the post, but to summarise:
Poor Mrs. Palin. After hearing such promising forecasts about her book sales in the beginning of the week, it looks like
her luck has finally dried up. Apparently most of the hoopla was due to below cost pre-sales from major online retailers, and for 9 bucks a pop, who wouldn’t buy one as a gag gift for their best friend’s Christmas present? We all deserve some Palin under our trees…
Also, is there a reason why she scheduled most of her book signings at stores like Costco, BJ’s and Sam’s Club? Oh, I know, she wants to prove she’s just an average American. But didn’t she know that those stores all require a paid membership to enter the building? So isn’t she excluding some of her less fortunate fans who can’t afford to shop at these ‘elitist’ bulk retailers…
Whatever Sarah, if you had half a brain, you would realize that you can grab a lot more sales by opening up your book signings to the general public. Some bookstores are even refusing to carry your collection of ground-breaking thoughts on ‘American Life’, so why aren’t you trying harder to include everyone. While some smaller non-chain bookstores are just declining based on practical sales reasons, others have chosen more personally opinionated rationales.
“Our customers are thinking people,” said Nathan Embretson, a bookseller at Pendragon Books in Oakland. “They’re not into reading drivel.”
In August of 2009, the X-Factor introduced the British public to two 17-year-old Irish twins.
“I’m John”
“I’m Edward”
“And together we are… John and Edward”
Really, this is where most people should have realized that things would never be the same again. Following a cocky and ingenious pre-interview with the judges (in which one of the twins said that in 15 years, he sees himself “being older”) John and Edward launched into an amazingly obnoxious rendition of ‘I Want It That Way’. They peppered their shaky vocals by asking the audience to join in and ‘sing along if you know the words’, before being told by Simon Cowell that they were “incredibly annoying… two of the most irritating people we have had in a long, long time”. Out of four votes, the twins got 3 yeses, and the rest was history.
sigh...
For those of you who have yet to be enlightened, allow me to enlighten you: Chelsea Handler is the future voice of the pop-culture world. If it was up to ewz, Lady Gaga would be our president, and Chelsea Handler would be our Secretary of State. Smart, sexy, sassy, and self-proclaimed bitch, Handler is the new , cynical, face of late night talk shows.
The daughter of a Jewish father and Mormon mother, Handler’’s already published best-selling books about her promiscuity (‘My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands‘) and alcoholism (‘Are you There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea?‘), and now she’s taking on late-night television, unashamedly talking about how much she loves drinking (Grey Goose, if you were wondering…), flubbing her lines and then laughing about it, and swearing like a sailor.
What’s great about her, though, is that she continues to get it. Now that The Daily Show is taking itself a bit too seriously, Chelsea Lately remains one of the few talk shows that point out their own ridiculousness alongside everyone else’s. She’s not afraid of telling her guests exactly what she thinks of them (to Aaron Carter “you’re cute….ish“), and manages to regularly put her foot in her mouth about Mexicans (specifically immigrant Mexican midgits, such as her assistant Chuey, one of the few who can hold his own against her), Jews, and of course, black people (“No honey, once you go black you come running back, trust me“).
Here are our favourite Chelsea Handler moments:
Ah, the First Amendment… the first of many rights slapped onto our U.S. Constitution to guarantee particular civil liberties. You know, the old “Separation of Church and State”, among other freedoms. While this is probably the most frequently evoked amendment inside and outside the courtroom, I struggle to recall anyone quoting the text I find most compelling.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”
Why am I basing my whole argument around those ten little words? Simple, U.S. law grants tax exempt status for religious, err charitable, institutions. I could go on for pages about which churches violated which laws, but the one that sticks out like a sore thumb is the Mormon Church and their $200,000 initiative to ban gay marriage in California (and most recently, the Catholics in Maine). Just last week, the Catholic Church has ventured into the area of extortion by bullying Washington DC with an ultimatum on their proposed legislation concerning gay marriage. They actually had the nerve to threaten to abandon the city’s social services contracts if the government decides to allow gay marriage within the national capital. Wait, what? Now just to be clear, this new law does not force the church to perform any new tasks or require them to marry same-sex couples. The only stipulation to the church: they must obey city laws not to discriminate against gay members. Wow, the audacity of some people. Tell me again why they still enjoy tax exemption? The tax law was created to benefit charitable organizations and while I don’t disagree that churches handle their fair share of charitable work; YOU ARE STILL A RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION.
after much time and consideration, i have decided to “unfriend” you. as i type this an odd red squiggle appears under the word “unfriend”. apparently my computer can’t recognize the gravity of the situation. it doesn’t realize that this means it is time we part ways. my computer, despite being the host of our friendship – the entity responsible for strengthening our bonds – does not grasp the concept of severing them.
maybe i just need to update my software. after all, it was only yesterday that the oxford english dictionary added you as its word of the year. which makes me cringe.
i was all atwitter when the word blog was added to the dictionary in 2004. a blog, being a contraction of two nouns, remained a noun. but now grammar rules are being thwarted to make way for publicity.
i’ll give the old dudes at webster and oxford credit for gaming the system – they get that if they introduce one of the 2.0 buzz words into their roladex of writing then the yuppies at techcrunch, mashable and the like will get all excited and blog away.
and so they get their 15 minutes of digital fame. but the tradeoff is that they bastardize the very thing they set out to preserve: language.
yes, i’ve told people “to google” useless information, i’ve “sexted” my way through dull days, i’ve even told friends “to ping” me when they’re on their way to pick me up.
but in those moments, i knew each time that i was using slang. never did i expect that nouns would actually be sanctified as verbs. by the oed, no less. what’s next? will the ap issue a style guide replacing commas with backslashes? will the dewey decimal system classify books by google rankings? will hypertext markup language replace the english language just for a couple mentions on a popular blog?
whatever happens next, my dictum for the day is that i’m defriending the dictionary to save my diction.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has been hailed as the ‘entertainment event of the year’ by the Telegraph. Not hard to see why after Infinity Ward’s juggernaut absolutely smashed sales records this week; 4.7 million copies sold on day of release compared to the now meagre 631,000 copies that were sold by Grand Theft Auto IV.
But of course this profound success was always going to suffer the dogmatic nonsense and usual harsh criticism and controversy found with violent games. Among the criticisms, The Guardian has actually reported that in Russia titles have been recalled from shelves, purportedly because of its unfavourable depiction of the country. This (supposed) peremptory action, like the other criticisms to be addressed, all completely overlook vital attributes or basic facts about the game.
The difference during campaigning and being in power:
George W. Bush: Nov. 6, 2000
“Let me tell you what else I’m worried about: I’m worried about an opponent who uses nation building and the military in the same sentence. See, our view of the military is for our military to be properly prepared to fight and win war and, therefore, prevent war from happening in the first place.”
Barack H. Obama: Oct. 27, 2007
“I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank. “
Change you can believe in…?
Newz just in: Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) director general Jacques Diouf and UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon went on ‘hunger strike’ to draw attention to the plight of 1 billion ‘hungry’ people in the world.
Jacques Diouf even drew attention to his gesture of solidarity by appearing also to work in a lobby as documented by the obligatory YouTube video produced to accompany it.
How long did this hunger strike last, you ask? 24 hours.
Ok, seriously thats not a hunger strike. I’ve had crash diets in which I haven’t eaten for longer than that. And lets be honest these guys are not lacking reserves.
Compare that to the hunger-strikes of 68 days in the case of (admitedly now deceased) British aminal rights activist Barry Horne, the 46-73 days of the various Republican paramilitaries in British custody in 1981, and the 28 years in the case of Nicole Ritchie (pictured right looking waif).
Where is the line between a worthy publicity stunt and a patronising gesture? Somewhere about 5 steps back from where these guys are at.
As you may know, unless you’ve missed the media extravaganza of the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall for reasons of, say, living in a war zone or absolute poverty, two decades have now passed since of the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that eventually culminated in the end of the Soviet Union.
As wonderful as that event was, we, loveable and harsh social critics at ewz, do not buy that “end of history” nonsense that some have spewed about. Walls, between and within nations, still exist, some are torn down while others are reinforced. So in celebration of one wall coming down, we would like to highlight our list of other walls that divide us, and look forward to their end…especially if it incorporates some colorful explosives and perhaps dramatic classical music (Beethoven would fit the bill). This is not a complete list, and is placed in a totally arbitrary order, not one of importance (that would be way too complicated):
I’m thinking dirty thoughts. Naughty, wicked, dirty thoughts. Behind these innocent blue eyes I’m thinking about something so dirty it would need to be locked up in a specially made container for thousands of years before it was safe to release. So dirty, it’s nuclear.
Nuclear energy is a funny one isn’t it? It sort of resides, along with paedophiles, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter and Roger Moore’s turn as James Bond, in the box in our brain labelled “Wrong and bad – no more analysis needed.” And so we don’t try and analyse it. With so many other more pressingly ambiguous issues keeping us up at night – like string theory and Lady Gaga’s gender, it has been easy enough to let nuclear energy waft quietly along in the same paradigm it has existed in for the last half a century. Safe in the knowledge that teenage activists the world over were keeping its, obviously, evil growth in check.
read more…
Oh I see now, this is how I should behave...
So some nice people at WarnerBros have joined the battle against HIV through teaming up with The Partnership for an HIV-Free Generation. Great! So what have they done?
Well…
Uhm…
They made a video game!
Its called Pamoja Mtaani, and young people in Kenya can go to one of the three specific locations where it’s available and play it. You see the game goes like this: Five strangers are hijacked on a matatu (minibus) ride and lose their possessions and then have to recover them. However, according to the blurb:
- Give me your little girl!!!
The Fourth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) has kicked off in the sunny Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik this weekend with China’s number two, Wen Jiabao, announcing $10 billion worth of preferential loans for African states and businesses. This is double the $5billion announced at the last meeting in 2006, re-affirming China’s benevolent, win-win, harmonious, equal, warm, cosy, south-south generally wonderful for all involved and totally not neo-colonial approach to Africa.
Without continuing to be smarmy, the figures are impressive: Africa’s exports to China, most notably in natural resources, have increased by nearly 40% every year between 2001 and 2006. One pledge made at the 2006 FOCAC stands out, which was to increase trade value to $100 billion by 2010. Despite the financial crisis, this commitment was actually achieved in 2008, when trade hit $107 billion, marking a ten-fold increase since 2001. The rate of this growth seems set to continue: For example, after having established diplomatic ties only ten years ago, China has recently become South Africa’s largest export market.
In his cliche (white-ex-hack-writes-about-Africa) but actually alright book, Altered States, Ordinary Miracles, Richard Dowden argued that while Europe still saw Africa as some poor helpless victim in need of a handout from its post-colonial masters, and America sees Africa as a dangerous minefield of security threats, China sees Africa as a business opportunity. In a commentary for The Times, Dowden suggests that the post-colonial states don’t like this very much:
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