Burn After Reading Green Band Trailer

dark spy-comedy from Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen. An ousted CIA official’s (Academy Award nominee John Malkovich) memoir accidentally falls into the hands of two unwise gym employee..

Ang Lee's Lust, Caution Trailer

cannot stop watching this film, so much passion and Tony Leung is great

In the Mood for Love (unofficial trailer)

just gorgeous

All things french

just thought this was too perfect...

Kanye's style

DJ Shadow - In Tune and On Time - Blood On The Motorway

was watching the film Dot the I and this song was on during the final credits

more style inspiration

This coming fall I will be living in Geneva for three months, this requires a wardrobe makeover, here is some inspiration....French chic, I have to look great at the United Nations

sexy....

just thought these two looked fine

style

N.E.R.D - Everyone Nose (All The Girls Standing In Line ...)

love, love, love

Blur - Out Of Time

I identify with the lyrics so much

Håkan Hellström

i must find myself a swedish man...

quotes

• There is a common tendency to ignore the poor or to develop some rationalisation for the good fortune of the fortunate.

  — John Kenneth Galbraith

• There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow men—true nobility is being superior to your former self.

  — Anon

• There’s enough on this planet for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed

  — Mahatma Gandhi

• More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul.

  — William Blake

• The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

  — H.L. Mencken

• During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

  — George Orwell

• Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

  — Albert Einstein

Comparison with Kosovo

The number of people that had been killed in Kosovo to raise alarm bells with the international (read West) community was about 2000 -- how many will it have to be in Africa¹ where there are already millions of refugees and unimaginable number of deaths?

While in Kosovo, the result of NATO pressure was a military action, the same energy seen by the mainstream media could help get populations of those nations to pressure their governments to try and help resolve the problems in Africa. (As this link² also points out, it would have cost very little for the US to provide a peace keeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, yet the Clinton administration didn't. That would have helped prevent a huge massacre, which didn't appear on the radar screens of the western mainstream media.)

If the Kosovo intervention by influential NATO members was meant to be humanitarian, then we would have long ago seen humanitarian intervention in some form, in Africa. Or, if not long ago, (in case only around March 1999 was there a revelation that world powers should now start to act with humanitarian concerns), then we should see activity from the world powers now.

Instead we do not, which does not lend credibility to the claims that the Kosovo war was purely on humanitarian grounds (as by definition, a humanitarian action cannot be selective). There were other political and national interests behind it causing it to become selective. While I do not necessarily think military intervention by USA/UK is needed in the conflicts within Africa -- as humanitarian intervention in the form of diplomatic negotiations, pressure, full political and financial support of the UN, etc could help -- it would put other conflicts, such as Kosovo in perspective in terms of humanitarian costs and the resulting problems.

Oxfam, as a small example criticizes the international community for still ignoring the DRC and when comparing with the response in Kosovo. They point out³ that "[i]n 1999, donor governments gave just $8 per person in the DRC, while providing $207 per person in response to the UN appeal for the former Yugoslavia. While it is clear that both regions have significant needs, there is little commitment to universal entitlement to humanitarian assistance." (Emphasis added)

As this following commentary from the Guardian suggests, race⁴ could also be a factor. And, as this commentary from the Center for Defense Information suggests, media coverage of visits to Africa by leading figures of influential nations may be lacking⁵ because national interests are not affected directly.

Of interest is also the publishing⁶ of sixteen declassified US government documents, by the National Security Archive in the United States, detailing how US policymakers chose to be "bystanders" during the genocide that decimated Rwanda in 1994.

globalissues.org

Barack Obama on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

so its jay leno, but I think this interview really showcases the strong points of Barack Obama as a candidate. He's just so human and honest

UN sets out food crisis moves

Food Crisis

A United Nations summit on the global food crisis called on Tuesday for trade barriers to be reduced and food export bans scrapped to help stop the spread of hunger that threatens nearly one billion people.

Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made," U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Rome summit

"The excess consumption by the world's obese costs $20 billion annually, to which must be added indirect costs of $100 billion resulting from premature death and related diseases," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who is from Senegal.

Humanitarian agencies estimate soaring food prices could push as many as 100 million more people into hunger. About 850 million are already going hungry.

"It is unacceptable that rich countries still subsidise farming by $1 billion a day, costing poor farmers in developing countries an estimated $100 billion a year in lost income," said British International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander.

The cost of major food commodities has doubled over the last couple of years, with rice, corn and wheat at record highs. This has provoked protests and riots in some developing countries where people may spend more than half their income on food.

Rising fuel prices, as well as making agricultural supplies like seeds and fertilisers more costly, have raised interest in biofuels, blamed by many for competing with food output for grains and oilseed.

International Herald Tribune
June 3, 2008