iPod sanctions, Jackass Soldiers, Borat and Ali G

George W Bush's newest idea to intimidate North Korea is a sanction on Kim's favorite gadgets, including iPods. Can you imagine? I love my iPod, but if I had superpower ambitions and a nuke, I would laugh if you tried to punish me by taking away my iPod. Besides that, imagine how easily it would be to smuggle in an iPod. Think how many Americans smoke cuban cigars.

The US military is investigating some YouTube videos which show some gross behaviour, including the now infamous video of soldiers making kids run a mile behind a tank in the hopes of getting a bottle of water and laughing. Was amazes me is that these fucked up soldiers are so invested in documenting all of their abuses. They're like the Jackass/Bumfights generation of soldiers. All soldiers throughout history have done evil things, but these dudes film it and proudly display it on the internet. Remember all the Abu Ghraib photos with the thumbs up? Rumsfeld's solution was to ban cameras.



It's kind of interesting, the first Gulf War was all very controlled in terms of images we were allowed to see. Like camera shots from "smart" bombs hitting targets. Now with the internet no one can stop people from seeing the uncensored view of the war. And the irony is that it's the perpetrators who are making the images of this war, not reporters, just some cocky soldier with a camera.

I guess we had the same thing in Canada. Remember the murder of the Somali boy on a Canadian peacekeeping mission? They took all kinds of pictures of him.



There was a website for a while that offered soldiers a free account (it was an amateur porn site) if they uploaded a gory war photo. Tons of images came in that were each more gruesome than the last. The US military FREAKED and shut the site down, mostly to cover up the real face of war.

All very depressing.

In other news, Borat was the cause of Pam and Kid Rock's divorce. Apparently he saw the movie and flipped out on her in front of people calling her a whore and a slut. She had been in on the joke in the film and apparently had a great time performing, so it must have been devastating for her to have hubby treat her like shit over it. It was a major highlight of the film, it made me crack up anyway.

Other Borat trivia:
Borat's well hung son was played by Stonie, a gay porn star. Sacha Baron-Cohen was slugged out as Borat by an unappreciative New Yorker. Also he is being sued by various parties.

Some people are really appalled at Sacha's brand of comedy, even when they haven't actually seen it. I think it's because he's a Contrary. In Cree terms this is someone who teaches by the creed "If you cannot be a good example, be a terrible warning." For example, more well known aboriginal Contraries would be Coyote, Wesachejahk, or Nanabush. You can't take him at face value or you'd be an idiot, something he shows over and over in his film. I find it hard to explain why this kind of satire works. It's kind of like people who hate Ab Fab because Edina and Patsy are so evil, but don't realize that's the point, they are the antagonists. It goes against what we're taught are the rules in narrative storytelling.

I leave you with one of my favorite Ali G clips.