You are a living mockery of your own ideals. If not, you have set your ideals too low.
Charles Ludlam’s Ridiculous Theater manifesto (via elizabethactual)
There’s a movie based on Battleship — so why not adapt any of these 12 board games as well?
We put together a dozen fake posters for board game movies we’d like to see — as well as plot summaries and casting suggestions for each flick. (For Connect 4: “In Connect III, Reg Caldwell pulled one last job and thought he was out of the life for good. He was wrong. Again. With only four bullets in the chamber, he takes on syndicate boss Milton Bradley (William Fitchner), who has kidnapped Caldwell’s sister. Luckily, sis (Gina Carano) is known to be pretty sneaky herself.”)
In the first verdict of its kind since former President George W. Bush left office, he and several members of his administration have been successfully convicted in absentia of war crimes in Malaysia.
Yes, this is a BFD.
This past Friday, a five panel tribunal delivered a unanimous guilty verdict after a week long trial that, unsurprisingly, was not covered by American media. The witnesses included several ex-Guantanamo detainees that gave testimony on the conditions and human rights violations that were systematically carried out under orders of the Bush administration.
Former President Bush, Former Vice-President Dick Cheney, Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo that crafted the legal ‘justification’ for torture that basically said, ‘we can if we want to even if it’s illegal’ were the defendants. None were present, of course, but international war crime trials do not require the presence of the accused. The trial was run according to the standards set by the Nuremberg Trials to convict war criminals after World War II.
Professor Gurdial Singh Nijar, who headed the prosecution said, “The tribunal was very careful to adhere scrupulously to the regulations drawn up by the Nuremberg courts and the International Criminal Courts”.
The United States is subject to international law which makes this trial significant beyond the borders of Malaysia. Foreign Policy Journal reports:
President Lamin told a packed courtroom: “As a tribunal of conscience, the tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. The tribunal has no power of enforcement, no power to impose any custodial sentence on any one or more of the 8 convicted persons. What we can do, under Article 31 of Chapter VI of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission to submit this finding of conviction by the tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.
“The Tribunal also recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names of all the 8 convicted persons be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicized accordingly.
“The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions if any of these Accused persons may enter their jurisdictions.”
The hope is that other countries will hold trials of their own and the guilty verdicts will mount up. This is not that outlandish an idea as Bush and Cheney have not only brazenly admitted they authorized torture in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention, but bragged about it. Nothing more helpful than having a criminal do all the heavy lifting for the prosecution. If enough of these verdicts are passed on to the international courts, they will have no choice but to hold a trial of their own. While Bush won’t be arrested on American soil, he’ll have a very difficult time leaving the country. Already he’s canceled a trip to Switzerland, due to possible charges of war crimes.
The best possible outcome is that the world court delivers a guilty verdict that sends a clear message to President Obama and his successors that the United States is not above the law, American Exceptional-ism be damned. It’s a lesson we’ve forgotten and need to relearn.
This… is a big deal.
This is probably going to get quoted in every publication just because I said it. And I’m not even saying anything. I’m not talking about my films, I’m not talking about my life, and I’m not talking about the world. And yet, the media will print it simply because I said it. And at this moment in time, I bet there is an artist around the corner of this hotel, on the street, with a mind far beyond ours, but we will never listen to him simply because he has not appeared in a movie. And that is what is fucked up about our culture.
Robert Downey Jr. (via quote-book)
Saw this picture on imgur and just had to post it here, because this is without a doubt, one of the most badass women alive. Meet Katrina Hodge, a corporal in the British Army and Miss England 2009. According to Wikipedia, she enlisted back in 2004 after her brother challenged her to and earned the nickname “Combat Barbie” after showing up at her assigned unit wearing false eyelashes, kitten heels (whatever those are) and carry a pink suitcase. In 2005 her unit, the Royal Anglian Regiment, was deployed to Iraq, where she saved the lives of her comrades from a prisoner by wrestling not one, but two rifles from him and then knocking his ass out with her bare hands.
With her bare hands.
Then in 2009, she decided to compete in the Miss England competition to destroy stereotypes about women in the military. She didn’t win (she placed runner-up), but still became Miss England after the woman who did got into a fight and gave up the crown. While Miss England, Hodge convinced the people running the competition to ditch the bikini contest, because she felt that it was more important to be a role model than looking good in a bikini.
In 2010, she handed over the crown and returned to military service, being deployed to Afghanistan.
This woman is both a BAMF and a HBIC. Damn.
Stephen Colbert interview on ABC
More accurate view of Washington crossing debuts
One of America’s most famous images, a painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River, got much of the story wrong: The American commander wouldn’t have stood triumphantly on a rowboat in daylight, but on a ferry bracing himself against a fierce snowstorm on Christmas night.
That’s the historic scene depicted in a new painting that goes on display this week at the New-York Historical Society museum in Manhattan.
“No one in his right mind would have stood up in a rowboat in that weather,” artist Mort Kunstler said. “It would have capsized.”
He told The Associated Press that he’s “not knocking the original” — the well-known 1851 painting by German-born artist Emanuel Leutze, who Kunstler says “was glorifying Washington using what he knew at the time.” But Kunstler said his new piece is aimed at righting the historical mistakes.
Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/entertainment/2011/12/more-accurate-view-washington-crossing-debuts/2032811#ixzz1iQwlzbnz
Bambi meets Godzilla (1969)
