Kickbacks For Cash Flow

Sure, the Japanese prime minister could easily afford his own iPod, but this just seems tacky:

Rock star Bono bowed deeply and gave Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda an iPod at the start of a meeting Saturday to try to get more Japanese support for the fight against poverty in Africa.

The gift broke the ice as Fukuda sat down with Bono, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other major supporters of more aid for Africa.

Again, it's a pretty trivial gift. But still, Jesus Christ, try to follow the rationale here... The gift is to get the Japanese PM to pledge more "Japanese support." That makes it sound like Fukuda-san would just whip out his wallet and hand the poor people of Africa $1000-Yen per person.

But Bono's not interested in Fukuda's money. He's interested in the Japanese taxpayers' money. To make it sound like anything else is underhanded bullshit. Although I don't believe it's a Japanese taxpayer's moral responsibility to give money to the poor in Africa, that's not the point. If any citizen of Japan wishes to send money to Africa via any medium available, he or she is free to do so.

What is disgraceful here is that Bono has the balls to hand the prime minister of Japan anything; be it an iPod, a Pepsi from the vending machine, or a slap on the ass; and expect the prime minister to be more likely to pledge the hard-earned yen of his taxpayers towards Bono's pet cause.

Bono, seriously... I don't want the people of Africa to be poor any more than you do. But can you at least be straightforward about what you're proposing? I'd have so much more respect for you if you'd just say, "I think every person in the world should be forced by his or her government to give $100 per year to the poor people of Africa" than this lobbying of government officials to get them to spend taxpayer money per your demands.

I'm Going To Name My Bong "Mohammed"

Sudan has arrested a British teacher for insulting faith and religion, the British Foreign Office said Monday.

[...]

Numerous media reports say Gibbons was arrested after allowing her class of 7-year-olds to name a teddy bear "Mohammed."

That could be seen as an insult to the Prophet Mohammed, the reports said.

Blasphemy is punishable with 40 lashes under Islamic Sharia law, Britain's Press Association news agency reported.

Just as depressing, both articles I read about this (CNN and The Times of London) quote the high school's director as referring to Gibbons' actions as an "innocent mistake." And the TV coverage on CNN concentrated more on whether or not Gibbons intended to insult Islam rather than whether or not jailing and lashing someone for insulting a religion is a blatent abuse of human rights.

I hope the human rights organizations of the world jump all over this shit. And I hope Ms. Gibbons is freed promptly and safely. Fuck you, government of Sudan.

Barry* Bonds* Indicted

I wish this shit would just go away.

I think Barry is a whiny prick, so I don't really feel any sympathy for him in general. But his reputation is already ruined. His name will be attached to the steroid controversy for at least 100 years. There has been much debate about whether or not to include an asterisk next to Bonds's name in the record books, but in reality the asterisk has already been affixed to his reputation.

But it looks like the government wants the last word.

And in a strictly by-the-book kind of way, the charges are appropriate. Bonds may very well have lied to the feds during an investigation, which is indeed grounds for "obstruction of justice" charges.

However, the original investigation four years ago was bullshit to begin with. If the MLB finds steroids a big enough problem, they are free to require testing (pending a battle with the players' union, of course). But except for the completely unreasonable and unconstitutional Drug War, there is no justification for the feds to be involved.

Whether the actual charges are valid or not, the feds are beating a dead horse here.

Then again, when Congress and its subcommittees operate under the rules quoted in this letter [pdf] from Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), I shouldn't be surprised.

And They Also Found A Line of Coke on Karen Tandy's* Desk

The government of Myanmar is claiming that some of the Buddhist monks from the protests were armed.

Myanmar's military leaders stepped up pressure on monks who spearheaded pro-democracy rallies, saying Sunday that weapons had been seized from Buddhist monasteries and threatening to punish all violators of the law.

* Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration

Hell, This Has To Be One Of The Worst Op-Eds Ever Written

This one by Colonel David Hunt, via FoxNews.com, I mean... In case you plan on reading the entire article, take an aspirin and a few quick shots of whiskey first.

For the sake of discussion, I'll breeze quickly past the poor writing style - such as calling President Karzai a "cute little guy who wears a cape and a hat" and starting 10% of his sentences with "Hell,..."

The first three paragraphs are reasonably accurate, minus the oddly placed immigration reference at the end (and maybe the claim that the US has "owned Afghanistan for five years"). In fact, the article starts much like most pro-drug war articles start: with facts that support ending the drug war.

And then, the paragraph:

The United States of America is sadly the largest user of raw opium — you may
know it as heroin. My friends, you cannot make this up … you see, truth is stranger and always more shocking than fiction. What else is stranger than fiction is how easy it would be to destroy the stuff. These fields are miles and miles long and wide. We should bomb them, blow them up, set up an artillery and motor training range and blow the opium off the planet. It is true that it’s the only product Afghanistan farmers export. Between us and Europe, we surely can come up with another product that this poor country can export. We can also pay them for their opium that we will destroy for a few years, and, of course, while we are getting them to use another product that does not kill people. [How about marijuana, then??]

All emphasis and bracketed comments mine.

Wow... WOW... In this one paragraph, Hunt advocates not only spraying but bombing opium fields. He claims that the US and Europe should be able to dictate what crops poor Afghan farmers can grow. And finally, he advocates extending the oh-so-successful "pay to not produce shit" farm subsidies to a foreign country.

I could quote some more from the final paragraphs of the article, but there's really no need. It doesn't make any fucking sense. To summarize, Hunt goes on to scold you for not caring enough about bin Laden's most recent video and then the grand finale (ok, I just have to give in and quote one more time):

...with the sheer amount of opium present, the massive size of the problem will get your attention and maybe, just maybe, you might put down the beer, or even better, take the half full one and throw it at the TV and then write your congressman, senator or even the president and say, “Enough is enough, this is the greatest damn country in the world, how about we act like it?

My head hurts.

Video Games Make You Neglect Your Kids

This was at least suggested by this AP article. Have a taste:

RENO, Nev. — A couple authorities say were so obsessed with the
Internet and video games that they left their babies starving and suffering
other health problems have pleaded guilty to child neglect.

[...]

"They had food; they just chose not to give it to their kids because they
were too busy playing video games," Viloria told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Police said hospital staff had to shave the head of the girl because
her hair was matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth
infection, dry skin and severe dehydration.

Yeah, pretty gross... There's no question these "parents" deserve to be locked up. And if there was a hell they'd have a cut-in-line ticket.

But can something this terrible really be blamed on video games. Is it not right to blame - I don't know - the piece of shit parents? The implied chain of causation here seems really ass-backwards. Could it be that rather than video games causing child neglect, this couple played video games all day because they were too fucking useless and careless to address their real responsibilities in life?

Suppose video games didn't exist for the sake of discussion. Is there any question that people like this would have found some other unproductive activity to use in order to escape their parental and other responsibilities? There is no question in my mind. It seems like blaming video games (or even implying that video games were the cause) will serve no purpose except to let this couple off easy from the punishment and/or help that they deserve. Not to mention it will help high-minded nannies further prod the government to shift blame for people's lack of personal responsibility to video games, drugs, etc. once again (You listening Hillary??).

For the most part, video games (and most drugs for that matter) provide mostly responsible people to pass some free time in a way they enjoy and get their minds away from work and other daily stress. But, yes, this also means that a minority will use them to avoid the basic responsibilities necessary to maintain their lives and, in this case, their children's lives.

To conclude this post with the conclusion of the article:

Patrick Killen, spokesman for Nevada Child Abuse Prevention, said video
game addiction's correlation to child abuse is "a new spin on an old
problem."

"As we become more technologically advanced, there's more
distractions," Killen said. "It's easy for someone to get addicted to something
and neglect their children. Whether it's video games or meth, it's a serious
issue, and (we) need to become more aware of it."

Ah yes, the call for awareness: step 1 in the process towards nannyism.