Vacations, Ignorance and Bliss

Aaaah yes, summertime. The endless repeats on TV and the news as the sheeple are lulled into the false sense of security that all is well in the world. Nothing new ever happens until the new school year starts up again and along with it a nagging need for distraction. Returning from my yearly summertime hiatus away from these fine internets, I'm pleased to report that the status quo has been maintained once again, making it possible for us to enjoy our vacation time. Having landed on my feet again here in sunny Spain, browsing the news from the past month is eerily similar to leafing through the TV guide lineup of summer reruns making it so much easier to understand the circular nature of news. A top ten for y'all:

1) End of the financial crisis. That's right it's over. At least in Canada where the governor of the Bank of Canada declared, "We're on track for the recovery both in Canada and globally". The Canadians are looking at a 1.3% rise in GDP this quarter. It's hard not to agree when the reason we got into that mess were the actions of banks and non-bank (at the time) entities such as Goldman Sachs. All must be good when they declare profits of $3.44 billion this quarter, while others such as HSBC and Barclays pull in over £6 billion in six months. Aaah, feel so much better again. No weapons of mass destruction here. And the bonuses are because bank employees are like footballers and movie stars. What's that you say? Nothing has changed structurally to make the problem go away, and in fact conditioned have improved for those same institutions to make even more money because they have less competition and more government leeway to do crazy stuff like this? And there not even sorry? My dad says housing prices are going up again on the west coast, so all must be ok.

2) The death of US health care reform, sold as the only hope to pay for the bailout of the above crisis. Well, the parallel to the tactic used in the 90's to derail the last big push is far too obvious, the disinformation too painful. Really, many Americans equate a socialized health care system with eugenics.

3) The Clinton-era flashback above leads straight to North Korea. Kim Jong-Il is crazy! No?? Again, sorry, Really? Is it necessary to make the news so transparently circular? Bill coulda bombed them in '93, didn't, now he negotiates for the release of reporters. Ah yes, the old rewarding children for bad behaviour gambit. Lucky America likes bombing other countries.

4) The world is still safer due to western help in Afghanistan. Did I say change the channel? This rerun is boring. Well, it's not as big as Iraq anymore but while the new NATO boss pushes for more European help most Americans - oops, there I go again, US bashing - of the world are still blissfully unaware of the ease with which this could have been avoided. Books not bombs. Everyone should just head up to Mongolia to check this out to remember what war and hegemony used to be all about

5) Mongolia to the Chinese. What's that, Chinese are being executed. Is it Tiananmen? No, Uighurs, well away from Beijing. They're Muslims and not as pretty as those Iranian girls, so who really cares I guess?!

6) Political unrest in Latin America. Honduras this time. Yes, I know, America once again in a no-win situation. Do something, don't. Hmmm, how did they get there?

7) The G8 is still in charge of guiding the world towards a better future (?!), with or without Italy apparently.

8) Myanmar, Aung San Su Kyi on trial. Probably seems old hat even to her, having been in jail off and on for over 20 years now. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 1991, after having won elections the previous year for which the military threw her in jail, is this time accused of having a man swim out to the island where she was held to warn her that "her life was in danger". In a country that moves their capital to avoid scutiny, anything can happen. A most bizarro world we live in, the junta can just keep her in jail indefinitely, until she becomes "Nelson Mandela figure" at which time, well, something will happen. What the?

9) Planes still crash, celebrities die. Look it up. It happens. Oh yeah, plus hot weather plus no water equals fire! Whether you're in Spain, BC, California or Australia. Wait a minute, it could be anywhere! I'm I the only one to notice the pattern here, and the fact (yes, fact) that these events are not only getting more common, but also more intense. Heck, even Camrose, just south of my home town of Edmonton, got into the news due to freak storms trying to kill country music fans. A small increase in the intensity of common storms and POW!

10) Wacked out nationalists like to blow people up. Back to back ETA bombs to celebrate 50 years of killing innocent people. OK, so I like Spain, but really, why the regional nationalism? It's really messed up. Right up there with religion and right wing fanatics in my book of things I dislike. I love the Basques and Patxaran, spent a lot of time up there, they are a different people, but killing people never solved anything. One could argue that they have too much autonomy, or too little (as in their own country). The merry-go-round will keep going until we run out of tickets. Replace Basque with Palestinian or Kurd minus the rights and you get the circular, interchangeable picture.

I know, I know, I've missed a bunch. Life, the news is a kaleidoscope of events, all twirling to form an image one snap shot at a time, one vantage point at a time. But really, do I care that there are cops in Massachusetts who still hate black guys but love beer? That the last communists lost out in Moldova? It was just twitter practice for the non election in Iran. And yes, there's a lot more to say about the death spiral in American politics, but who cares anymore, it'll either be Palin or Obama in 2012! So what if Saakashvili could still light a fuse under Russia or if there are Russian subs sitting off New York? Makes one long for the days when technology would just wipe us all out. Or, it makes one look forward to Labour Day, fall, autumn when the real fun starts. Global food riots, woohooo!

See no evil...

Evil comes in many forms. Sometimes it make itself known up front, Darth Vader or Dick Cheney style. They're easy to spot, often commanding headlines and front page stories around the world. Other times, one man's evil is another's hero; here you find folks like Hugo Chavez or Vladimir Putin. However, the most dangerous evil is often the one that flies in under the radar; depending on which media you use, you might not even know they exist until it's too late. Since we don't all have Hugo's ability to identify the sulfur smell of evil and top ten lists are all the rage, here's a top 10 most evil people in the world you may never have heard of.

#10. Joseph Kony - Leader of the Ugandan rebel group the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). So bad ass the US coordinated an attack with the Ugandan army to try wipe him out at his base in northern Congo. Unfortunately it went Black Hawk Down, worse really as the rebels slipped away and have since been on a wild killing spree from village to village. It's estimated that Kony is responsible for the abduction of an estimated 20,000 children (a number that could be 2 or 3 times higher) to fight in his army since 1988. It appears his rebellion began in northern Uganda as his Acholi people had been excluded from power, then by pledging to rule the country according to the 10 Commandments, he took the religious moniker LRA. He holds the distinction of being the first man indicted by the International Criminal Court. Having been driven out of Uganda, he now makes northern Congo and southern Sudan his killing zone. Maybe Kony has made a deal with the devil as he's never lost a battle and always seems to slip away.

#9. Grace Mugabe - OK, you know her husband, but do you know what a bitch this lady is? She's also pretty good with her fists, beating up a photographer last month as her bodyguard held him down. She steals land, just like her husband who took Zimbabwe from independence, pride, early success with education to pariah state. He stole land from whites, she steals it from blacks he gave it to like Judge Ben Hlatshwayo, who presides in the High Court in Harare. Ironically, the nation's downfall was accelerated with the land invasions that began 2 weeks after the defeat of the constitutional vote in 2000, Hlatshwayo was on the committee that drew up that constitution. Cholera is rampant, store shelves are empty as the economic activity of the nation has been ground to a halt. With the recently issued 500 trillion notes already worthless by now, foreign currency, basically dolarization, has been sanctioned for use. But there's a glimmer of hope as Robert seems to be on the verge of ceding a bit of power to the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, as early as Feb. 11th, but we've all heard it before... Did we mention that Grace isn't too bright? Could just be the syphilis. Plus she made my brother miss a plane once.

#8. General Than Shwe - Leader of the Myanmar (Burma) military junta. An army junta has held power since a coup in 1962, led first by the charismatic and superstitious Ne Win, now his rather less magnetic successor Than Shwe. Along with his fellow generals, they control all aspects of politics and the economy. The army has repeatedly turned its guns against its own people, most tragically in 1988 when a student-led protest movement was crushed, leaving some 3,000 dead. Remember Rangoon, the capital of Burma? Yeah, me too. In 2005, the ruling junta mysteriously moved the nation's capital from Rangoon to a new city called Naypyidaw, carved out of the jungle at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. As the masses have grown poorer, the military has enriched itself through timber and natural-gas deals. Last year, a video of Than Shwe's daughter getting married made the rounds in Rangoon, most of the country has no access; Burmese were shocked by the number of jewels dripping from her body — and by wedding gifts valued at an estimated $50 million. Meanwhile, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, don't know where the Daw came from either, the former Nobel Peace Prize winner languishes and bitches from house arrest. How many years now? 13 of the last 19. You'd be bitching too. Yeah, there was that little flood and land slide thing in 2007, to go along with killing a few monks, but we couldn't get in to see how bad it really was. Dude, crazy town, right across the border from Thailand.

#7. Abdul Qadeer Khan ; Pakistani nuclear proliferator. Or hero. Could fit into the above Chavez/Putin category, but c'mon, he sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya! Anyway, Islamabad sees him as the father of their nuclear program/hero these days and released him last week; was it a snub at the Americans? I live in Poland, there was just a Polish engineer executed, first westerner since Pearl in Pakistan; it's a miracle because today I can understand the TV, rare for me: scary music, kill the Muslims. Fact is though, I can't think of a country that is more dangerous than Pakistan today. Nuclear weapons and religion don't mix, just look at Israel. Khan sees himself as a hero - is it possible Pakistan needed the bomb because India had it? Balance of power craziness.

#6. Father Floriano Abrahamowicz: Fellow holocaust denier along with Bishop Richard Williamson who is at the centre of a schism healing attempt by Pope Benedict XVI gone awry. The more I read about Vatican II and the ensuing split in the Catholic church and now the personal prelature similar to that of Opus Dei being contemplated for Williamson's Society of Pius X, the more frightened I am. Religious hatred is the biggest problem in the world, they remember in Germany, as Angela Merkel shamed the pope on behalf of the massacred masses enough to cause him to order the good bishop to study up about the holocaust. In an interview with a Swedish station Williamson said there were only a couple hundred thousand Jews killed during WWII and there were no gas chambers in the concentration camps. He also has wacky 9/11 and 1984 stories. John Paul II kicked out Williamson, the Borat of the schismatic ultra-reactionaries, along with two Frenchmen, a Spaniard, an Italian, and an Englishman for being ordained without Vatican permission. Now they're being un-excommunicated in an effort to bring his sect back into the flock. Breaking news is that Williamson has lost his post at an Argentine seminary. (Is it because Poland is a Catholic country that I can't get the video with the Swedish channel: this link comes up "This video is not available in your country", even though Williamson lost the court case to restrict it.)

#5. Pramod Mutthalik: Leader of the Sri Ram Sena, an extreme right-wing Hindu group often referred to as the Hindu Taliban, connected with the ruling BJP government. Spotting the religious theme yet? If you missed the attack he ordered carried out two weeks ago against women in a college-town bar, here you go:

The Taliban comparison is apt, as in addition to hating women, they smash art, attack rivals, disdain fashion, abduct and torture, and are even being linked to the 2006 Malegaon terrorist blasts which killed 37 and injured over 125.

#4. Ronald Larsen: American land owner in eastern Bolivia. A Montanan no less, so it's the wild west in eastern Bolivia. Hypocritical of me as well, seeing as the indigenous leader of his nation (Evo Morales playing the part of Robert Mugabe) is trying to force whitey off the land. Morales won another Constitution vote last month, making it certain that there will be more armed confrontations as the government tries to move Larsen and other land owners off their land. Limits on land holdings of 5000 hectares have led to Larsen trying to reduce his holdings by giving them to his Bolivian born sons, one of whom was Mr. Bolivia in 2004 (and he's married to a former Ms. Bolivia). One of his ranches, Caraparicito, where most of the confrontations have occurred, is 37,000 hectares alone. He's got over 104,000 more. Accused of slavery, kidnapping and obstruction already, the government will come for the gas rich land, in the name of saneamiento - sewage, running water, that kinda thing. Did anybody else notice that Bolivia is now known to have the most lithium in the world, enough to power the battery-powered car boom, not the Hunter S. Thompson stuff. Pro Larsen arguments here - I feel guilty, the Mugabe parallels, I really like Evo Morales.

#3. Avigdor Lieberman: Leader, Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel Our Homeland) party. In case you missed it, with the Gaza massacre distraction for land grab going on, there's an election in Israel today and unfortunately Lieberman and his party will probably hold the key to power if the results are as tight as polls indicate they will be between Netanyahu and Livni. Bibi and Tzipi. Being so close, the winner will need at least a few other parties to join the coalition. Lots of kids are gonna vote extreme right, Lieberman, for "security" with the top concerns being Gaza, rockets and of course Iran - always nearing the point where they can wipe out the country, launching satellites and now preparing for an election of their own. Of course this all plays together, an Ahmadinejad victory later this year combined with a hard right leaning Knesset equals trouble. Imagine, in a few months we'll all be watching an Irani election closely, and cheering for a guy named Khatami.

#2. Angelo Mozilo - Former head of Countrywide, the largest sub-prime mortgage lender in the US. These lenders have of course been accused of using misleading marketing to push unsuitable mortgages on sub-prime homeowners who could not afford to service the debt, the root cause of the credit crunch. During the housing boom, Mr Mozilo reportedly earned $470 million in salary and other income. Yes, even kickbacks to politicians are involved while he unloaded $141 million in stock options before the company's share price collapsed. Could of picked any of a number of people in the financial industry; runner-up - Kathleen Corbet, head of the biggest credit agency Standard & Poors back when they were rating Mr. Mozilo's and whoever else's debt derivatives AAA in a crazy system where companies pay for ratings. The Japanese "yen from heaven" scam guy Kazutsugi Nami a close third representing the Bernie Madoffs of the world

#1. Ken Ham: Some may think I'm giving Ken a raw deal making him numero uno. Perhaps you'd prefer Carl Baugh, Ben Stein, or "Dr" Kent Hovind. Just pick one, they're all evil. Fact is, in celebration of Charles Darwin's 200th birthday this week, there is no more fitting spot than atop this list for this group of lie spreading creationists. Ken just happens to be perhaps the most public face, what with his Creation Museum and all. These are some sick puppies. If you've made it to the end of this top 10, then you deserve to watch these freaks taking the piss out of Ken, poor Aussie never knew what hit him. (read accompanying story of the first day of the creation museum from another perspective here)


Well, that got a little long, and there's so much more to say about each plus so many more names to add to the list. Let me know who you think belongs in the comments below.