SO I GUESS WE'RE ALL POTENTIAL GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS

Pardon me for commenting on a story that is five days old, but I've been on vacation and have one burning question: Am I the only one who wants to know what this asshole Nick Berg was really doing in Iraq before he got his head lopped off?

Let's follow his alleged story for a second.

He says he was in Iraq as a "private contractor" to rebuild telecommunications infrastructure. Right. "The government contracts for telecommunications services in Iraq go to....Halliburton, Nextel, Lockheed-Martin.....and Nick Berg". My bullshit alarm is ringing softly.

Furthermore, the government has vehemently denied that he was in fact doing any official CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority, the body that is governing Iraq right now) business there. The State Department, on numerous occasions, extended offers to Berg for a flight out of the country and in fact detained him on multiple occasions to inquire about his activities there. The alarm is starting to crescendo.

Lastly, it is absolutely impossible for an American citizen to LEGALLY enter Iraq right now unless they are a contractor, according to the State Department consular information. Since the government has not disputed the fact that they were aware of Berg's entry into the country, a question becomes clear: why was he allowed entry if he was not affiliated with any official entity? Are we to believe that anyone who feels like being a handyman will be allowed in Iraq to wander about testing phone lines?

Anytime someone feels like explaining what he was REALLY doing there - covert ops, running guns, trying to join the Hezbollah, etc - I would love to hear it.

chicago's weekend

1) Go and ask George Romero why he's so cool at the Movieside Film Festival. Jack Hill, the director of such exploitation classics as Foxy Brown and (Tarantino's favorite) Switchblade Sisters, will also be on hand.

2) Mexican Wrestling Macbeth is amazing beyond belief, both as a take on campy 50s luchadores movies and radio drama as a whole. The two actors who do the radio voiceover need to be seen to be believed. And it's BYOB.

3) The Constantines play at the Empty Bottle on Wednesday (but start late, so you can still see the series finale of Angel). Also, head's up: The Thermals are at the Fireside Bowl a week from Sunday (the 23rd). They have a new album out Tuesday.

4) In response to our Save Wilmington Campaign, the staff recieved all kinds of emails complaining about Wilmington being a fuddy-duddy North Side elite who can't enjoy a good ol' fashioned entertaining movie. The arguments sometimes pointed south of I-290 towards Ebert/Roeper, critics of the masses, as being the true speakers of chicagoland.

Well I hope you all know that Wilmington gave Troy 4 stars and loved it. Even better, cinephile Rosenbaum over at the Reader gave it his critic's choice. Here's the funny part: Ebert panned it by taking the cinema high ground, even referring to the story not being fit "for a multiplex audience":

"Great films like Michael Cacoyannis' "Elektra," about the murder of Agamemnon after the Trojan War, know that and use a stark dramatic approach that is deliberately stylized. Of course, "Elektra" wouldn't work for a multiplex audience, but then maybe it shouldn't."

Slow down there Ebert! Who will defend the south side against Wilmington if you take the 'epater le patrons of mall cinema' stance?

Also: SAVE WILMINGTON!

It's official, all good disaster movies have already been made.

Yes, we have had them all. We've enjoyed more than our fair share of movies about volcanoes, earthquakes, terrible storms, insect infestations, and the great “an asteroid is going to hit Earth” genre, all of which came into being around 1998. Now, it would appear that all good disasters have been used up.

That’s right! In case you haven’t heard, Hollywood has created the fantastic, sure to be a blockbuster, eco-thriller, The Day After Tomorrow.

Just when you thought that movie-makers had done it all, they change it up on you, and the “ice age” disaster movie enters the fray. This movie is described as being about:

”A climatologist tries to figure out a way to save the world from abrupt global warming. He must get to his young son in New York, which is being taken over by a new ice age.” watch the trailer here

As would be the case with any movie with a climatologist as the protagonist, actual climatologists can’t help but voice their opinion on the movie. When will scientists learn that being quoted about how inaccurately a movie depicts the science really just makes them look foolish? Regardless, scientists (and I know this because I am one) get thrilled every time someone shows even the faintest interest in what they are doing, so naturally, this is what the experts are saying:

"The movie exaggerates how quickly climate change can happen. And higher carbon dioxide will not push us into another ice age."-Daniel Shrag, Harvard University oceanographer

"The... scenario the film portrays is scientifically ludicrous - not only in the speed of response but also by linking sea-level rise to extreme cold."-Professor Phil Jones, climatologist at the Climate Research Unit

"The The Day After Tomorrow takes its starting point from science, but ends up telling a dramatic and entertaining science-fiction story."-Professor Mike Hulme, scientist at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change

Thank you Professor Hulme, I would have never thought Hollywood was capable of something like that until you pointed it out. read more about thrilled scientists here.

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The problem with the situation is that we got caught.

The most interesting thing that came out of Rumsfeld's testimony before the Senate last week was the promise that there are more disturbing images to come. For an administration that never admits to making a mistake, much less apologizing, the fact that they have Rumsfeld out there doing premature spin control means that it's going to be really, really bad.

The second, less mentioned item, was this statement he made in his opening remarks (italics ours):

Second, we need to review our habits and procedures. One of the things we’ve tried to do since September 11th is to get the Department to adjust its habits and procedures at a time of war, and in the information age. For the past three years, we have looked for areas where adjustments were needed, and regrettably, we have now found another one.

What does adjusting to "the information age" have to do with anything? Torturing prisoners is a pretty old thing; the only thing that is new to the information age is the speed and efficiency with which images and videos can be reproduced and transmitted across the world. Which implies that the biggest problem that they've encountered was a lack of preparation for how hard it is to destroy incriminating images. Or to prevent them from leaking.

Our legal team here at ginandtacos.com is now advising R. Kelly to address his courtroom about the fact that he has to update his behavior and procedures to be in sync with the information age.

*update* From this week's upcoming New Yorker:

NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the unreleased photographs showed American soldiers “severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner, and ‘acting inappropriately with a dead body.’ The officials said there also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.”

The credibilty of the argument (if there even was any) that this was just frat pranks is suddenly going to take a nosedive.

And just when you thought that it was not going to get any worse...yeah right:

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday (unfortunately not available online unless you subscribe) that the Red Cross toured Iraqi prisons in November of last year and approached the commanded officer about inappropriate treatment of prisoners. The response given was that this was standard proceedure.

**In case you have read one of the several articles entitled things like: "Red Cross Releases Report." You should probably know that, although the report was true, the Red Cross had nothing to do with it. The Red Cross is apparently infuriated about the leak of this information due to the fact that they rely on an agreement of confidentiality with detaining powers to gain access to prisons.
Red Cross

Despite the fact the fact that the United States has moved very quickly to court martial to low ranking soldiers, the evidence that the leadership should be held accountable is mounting. Further, in the midst of testimony to this end by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, senator James Inhofe (R. Oklahoma) rebuked all of those people out exaggerating or missplacing their criticism.
Read about it here

And finally, I am sure most of our readers are aware of the retaliation for prisoner abuse which was released today.
"So we tell you that the dignity of the Muslim men and women in Abu Ghraib and others is not redeemed except by blood and souls. You will not receive anything from us but coffins after coffins ... slaughtered in this way."