The Afghan Quarterback

The coach had put together the perfect team for the Chicago Bears. The only thing that was missing was a good quarterback. He had scouted all the colleges and even the Canadian and European Leagues, but he couldn't find a ringer who could ensure a Super Bowl win.

Then one night while watching CNN he saw a war-zone scene in Afghanistan. In one corner of the background, he spotted a young Afghan soldier with a truly incredible arm. He threw a hand-grenade straight into a 15th story window 100 yards away. -KABOOM!

He threw another hand-grenade 75 yards away, right into a chimney. -KA-BLOOEY!

Then he threw another at a passing car going 90 mph. -BULLS-EYE!

"I've got to get this guy!" Coach said to himself. "He has the perfect arm!"

So, he brings him to the States and teaches him the great game of football. And the Bears go on to win the Super Bowl.

The young Afghan is hailed as the great hero of football, and when the coach asks him what he wants, all the young man wants is to call his mother.

"Mom," he says into the phone, "I just won the Super Bowl!"

"I don't want to talk to you, the old Muslim woman says. "You are not my son!"

"I don't think you understand, Mother," the young man pleads. "I've won the greatest sporting event in the world. I'm here among thousands of my adoring fans."

"No! Let me tell you!" his mother retorts. "At this very moment, there are gunshots all around us. The neighborhood is a pile of rubble. Your two brothers were beaten within an inch of their lives last week, and I have to keep your sister in the house so she doesn't get raped!" The old lady pauses, and then tearfully says,

"I will never forgive you for making us move to Chicago!

With thanks to TGIF-Jeff!

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Shocking graph revealed

Actual meaning yet to be explained.



Courtesy De Speld, with HT @JanRadio

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The complexity of the US "Fiscal Cliff"

TV screen shot: Last night the Belgian program "Ter Zake" tackled the difficult subject of the US "Fiscal Cliff".

Or was it the "Ficscal Cliff"?

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Teased bull frog eats finger

An African bull frog is trying to catch ants on an smartphone screen. Kinda funny. Is even more funny when he takes revenge..

Discovered via AllTop

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So who is the dude in the suit?

Okay.... self sensoring prevailed.

Figured out who the dude was.

Post deleted.

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Dog and man: "I ate it all"

...because it is Saturday, something lighter.


Discovered via: @bethkanter

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Yeaah, It's a Party in the CIA

yeah, we’ve got our backups all over the world,
from Kazakhstan to Bombay;
payin’ the bribes like yeah, pluggin’ the leaks like yeah;
interrogating the scum of the earth,
we’ll break them by the break of day!

yeeeaaahhh, it’s a party in the CIA!

by Weird Al Yankovic

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Multi Millionaire, several times a day.

Man, this is a good day. A great day! I won't have to work anymore, for the rest of my life!

Your winning Price of One Million Five hundred usd.($1.500,000USD) has been forwarded to Western Union Department for immediate transfer to you as soon as possible.
Contact: Customer Care Department Tel: 00 233 543 49 6991
Email: (customerservice.dept@qatar.io )

My name is Mrs.Beatriz Yusi, The wife of Albert Yusi who was coordinator of Bayan Muna for Misamis Oriental and Chairman of MOFA. He was gunned down and killed in our home in the Philippine on July 20th, 2008. Before my late husband was killed, I inherited from his estate a total sum of ($ 9.5 Million Dollars) Nine Million five Hundred Thousand Dollars (..) I made up my mind to give you 15 % of the total money for your help after the money has been transfer to your account.

Je voudrais solliciter votre accord à recevoir le transfert de 13.850.000 dollars,en tant que proche parent d'un de mes clients qui est décédé dont le compte est actuellement en veille, pour reclammation. Si vous voulez traiter cette affaire avec moi contactez moi immediatement. +2285249574

Picture discovered via GeoGum

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Living in Italy - Part 18: Mobile phones

In Italy, talking on a mobile phone without an earpiece or microphone is punishable by law.

But I am not sure if the law actually has provisions if you talk on one phone, held in your right hand, while at the same time, you set the Email configuration of an other phone with your left hand.

While you are driving.

Let me correct that: While you are driving a bus full of people. In the middle of Rome.

I mean, after all, God gave men two hands, right? How else would you use the spare time in a traffic jam than calling up a helpdesk to configure the "Backke Barry" (sic) Email settings. Right?


Discovered via Repubblica, tipped by @GeoMmm

Read more in the Living in Italy series

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You have been an aidworker for too long (Part 14)

You have been an aidworker for too long...

...if you can sum up the names of all political parties in Zambia, but can't remember which parties formed the government in your own home country. (*)


(*) which is not valid for Belgian aidworkers, as we haven't had a government for almost a year.

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You've been an aidworker for too long (Part 13)

You have been an aidworker for too long...

...if you can curse fluently in Pashtu, Swahili and Urdu but forget the translation for the word "assessment" in your own mother tongue.

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Pimp my aid worker

Oh God...

Video via www.pimpmyaid.org, no kidding!

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Khadaffi: Born to confuse

Just to start with: how the hell do we spell his name?

Kaddafi (ANP)
Kadhafi (AFP, Le Monde)
Khaddafi (Parool, VRT)
Gaddafi (Reuters, BBC)
Qadhafi (Wikipedia)
Qadaffi (ABC News)
el-Qaddafi (NY Times)
Kadhafi (NOS, Volkskrant)
Kadafi (LA Times, Trouw)
Gadhafi (AP, Canadian Press Stylebook ,Huffington Post)
Ghadaffi (Spits)
Gadaffi (Telegraaf, Nederlands Dagblad)
Khadaffi (Algemeen Dagblad)
Al Gathafi (his official website)
Al Qaddafi (further down his official website)
Algathafi (A few pages further on his official website)
Al-Gathafi (also on his official website)

I'll just call him "Mulazim Awwal Mu’ammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi", or "Mu" for short.


Cartoon courtesy Toonpool

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Cartoon: Khadaffi's political system

Cartoon courtesy The Dry Bones Blog

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After Tunesia, Egypt and Libya, is the US next?

Fact:

The battle against Republican attempts to undermine trade union rights is spreading with Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state of Indiana in a bid to block anti-union legislation, and workers' rights protests swelling in the US Midwest.
(..)
Thousands of protesters have occupied the state Capitol in Wisconsin for eight days now in an attempt to block a bill that would strip public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights.

Governor Scott Walker insists he is unbowed by the protest -- which reached a peak of 65,000 people on Saturday -- but the bill's passage was stalled by 14 Democratic state senators who fled to Illinois Thursday to deny the necessary legislative quorum. (Source)

The state capital occupied for over a week, mass protests, lawmakers fleeing the state, governing bodies remaining unbowed... Hmm... does that not make it a bit of a mix between Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain and Libya?

But contrary to the latter, the Wisconsin protests hardly got any international press. Just imagine things were different and the press would pay more attention. Let's play sarcastic for a while here. In the form of news bulletins.

AFP: After two weeks of mass protests in Wisconsin, the governor turned over control of the state to the federal government. President Obama is quoted as saying, before he flushed, "Right, more shit on my lap, that is juuust the thing I needed at this moment!".

Reuters: In a decisive action, President Obama is said to have given the order to "shoot the protesters". In an act of sudden lucidity, the White House called Cheney, asking for the telephone number of Blackwater. Since Iraq, that company had changed names fifteen times already, and their telephone numbers got lost between all other post-Bush files which were muffled away.

Al Jazeera: In the mean time, all foreign and domestic press was banned from the state. As the Blackwater helicopters (part of a new multi billion dollar contract) circled around the Wisconsin capital, the commanding officer asked Obama, if indeed, they could shoot. Obama said "Yes we can!".

Al Jazeera: (which obtained exclusive footage from Wikileaks) aired the shooting ten minutes later. It showed Blackwater operatives shooting unarmed people, saying -quote- "Hey this is better than a turkey shoot". "Here, eat this, bastard" and "Yeah, I can see it is a pen he is holding, but let's pretend it is an RPG, like in the Baghdad times, and nuke the bastard".

Al Jazeera: UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon read a statement on live UN TV (Yes, it exists, but nobody watches it, and the Serbs hijack the channel at night to broadcast porn): "We find this situation totally unacceptable. This is a violation of basic human lights, showing a cleal dislespect for individuality, democlacy and civilization. We can not accept UN staff folced to pay for palking tickets in New Yolk City!.. (later it was clear someone gave him the wrong speech).

Google: Google went undercover, and using a dial-up line to a free Internet service in the Netherlands (as all US Internet were cut), they showed mobile phone footage of protests spreading to Utah, North Dakota and South Dakota. And also Mexico and Venezuela. But that was on the rising oil prices)

Al Jazeera: Three hours after the turkey shoot, Obama came on national television with the following statement: "In a clear breakdown of communications.." (crowd shouts "Yes we can!") "I gave the order to shoot pictures of the demonstrators" (crowd shouts "Yes we can!") "..An order which was misunderstood as to shoot the demonstrators with bullets" (crowd shouts "Yes we can!"). "I take full responsibility for the casualties" (crowd shouts..) "..and have decided to hand over the power of the nation to vice president "Hilary -La Bitch- Clinton", while I take my family for a short vacation to Hawaii."

Al Jazeera: Violent protests spread all over the country, including Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. People are seen smashing windows of cars (seems later, it was footage from a documentary "One day in LA South"), massive civil disruptions (Was old footage from the Katarina floods), and missile launches (the average space shuttle launch attempts). Nothing really happened, as the public was too busy hamstering food from the local McDonald's and Wendy's, and watching the play-offs.

Al Jazeera: Four days later, the government blamed the Russians and Iran for the instability. The army took over control officially, and handed it over to twenty rich industrialists (who always had control over the country anyway), with the instructions "Blow me another economic bubble, like the one with the prime mortgage".

MNBC: One month later, aired an exclusive interview with Obama, now living in the village "Toeternietoe" in North Kenya. Obama proudly showed his wife working in the garden and his kids attending the local school. He stated "I have always felt like a Kenyan, and now I am a Kenyan. Next year, I will run in the elections for village chief (crowd shouts "Yes we can!")."

Three months later, Ushahidi arrived on the spot, asking "Crowdsourced information gathering, anyone?"

[end].

Next on The Road: The Weather.


Picture courtesy De Wereld Morgen

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United Nations Home Security: The Solution for Safety at Home

The United Nations now offers your home the same security that countries have enjoyed since 1945. If your house is broken into, the UN will send unarmed observers to watch the burglars and debate the appropriate response.

Hilarious.

Video courtesy BabelGum, discovered via AidBlogs and Alpha

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Slave to technology

I keep most of my applications and software on my laptop and iPad/iPhone up to date, but this starts to become a full time job.

I don't have many applications that I don't need, or don't use. Some I can not do without. For instance I need iTunes as it is the only "easy" way to get music on my iPhone/iPad. And I need Safari to test browser compatibility on different blogs I am working on. So am bound to Apple. But that means I am bound to upgrade the software regularly.

Then I get notices of (make the calculation 43 + 4 + 34 +93 = 174 Mbyte ?!?!) of Apple upgrades? That does not even include the latest iPhone OS upgrade. People, people where is this going to lead us?

I have nightmares of how depended we will become on IT suppliers, and how much overhead this will cause for us. Will we start to be a slave to technology?

Nightmares... How far are we off from this (fictional) scenario:

I overslept this morning.My iPhone had a bug, and the alarm clock did not go off (nonfiction Jan 1 2011 scenario). I can't afford that excuse twice or my boss will fire me. It's like "the dog ate my homework" excuse. So I decided, as I was brushing my teeth, to upgrade my iPhone's operating system. But, as I was avoiding to get toothpaste on the screen, I found out that it is not that simple. Need to do that via iTunes.
But that needs the latest iTunes version. Which is 93 Mbyte (non fiction). Decided to do that. Takes an hour to download (non fiction). Then download the new OS. Another hour (non fiction). Then need to upgrade the iPhone, another half an hour (non fiction).

Only to see that half of my apps then also needed to upgrade. Decided to upgrade the apps on on my iPhone. But when I came home in the evening, saw that also requires I download them in iTunes. Which also upgraded the apps on my iPad, and installed iPhone apps on my iPad (all nonfiction).

As I was getting into the car, I found out my Bluetooth did not work anymore, so could not pick up my calls while driving. Found a patch for that. Installed the patch, but then found that the patch conflicted with an earlier patch I needed to direct my Internet 3G home to the right page. So now I have Bluetooth, but no Internet. Installed a patch upon the patch.

To find that that crashed my iPhone. Which crashed my iTunes. Which crashed my computer. Found the patch for the patch actually contained a virus. Upgraded my computer virus programme, but it did not detect the virus. Installed another antivirus programme, which crashed the first one. Decided to reinstall my computer's operating system.

Etc...

So tell me.. how far are we away from this fictional nightmare scenario? Not far I think...

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Don't worry. I am putting my life in your hands at least once per month

A significant and self explanatory error message popped up when I wanted to send an email to Brussels Airline using their website.

Why do things like that always remind me of the "relativity of flying"?

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Aidwork? Or did you mean Paid Work?

Google is funny. I Googled "aidwork" and they asked if I meant "paid work"...?

Is Google suggesting I should go for a decent job?

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How to make shit smell good

Once upon a time, a red box was delivered to a large aid agency. The courier was a bit confused because of the lack of a clear addressee. It only had the street and the city on it. But as it bore the logo from a big donor to the aid community, he delivered it at the agency's front gate.

After a while, it ended up on the desk of the "Director Donor Relations, Press Relations and other Public Stuff". He was a bit surprised. "Hmmm.. a big red box, what do we do with this. Can't throw it away as it apparently came from a donor", he thought as his trained marketing mind started on a roll. "And red... hmm.. Communism.. Not much I can do with that. But wait. Wait a second...".

He immediately called in his whole team and presented The Box: "This green box here, will be the center of our new fundraiser and awareness efforts..", he started. Immediately some eyebrows were raised, but as trained PR professionals, nobody said a thing: If it was to be a green box, green it would be. Even if everyone knew it was red, and wondered "WTF ?". The trick was to sit, look, but not see. Have your mind wonder off somewhere else. Nod when everyone else is nodding, smile when everyone else was smiling... That is the trick of a PR professional.

The PR team immediately went to work. Took pictures of the box. Photoshopped it until it was green. They pasted their agency's CEO (who had not been in the office for two years and moved off to the Bahamas, but nobody was to know) standing next to the green box. Several well known actresses and actors, which are always part of their PR conglomerate, were also photoshopped in it.

The "PR content" team had a bigger challenge... "What can we tell about a red, euh, a green box?", they brainstormed. "It is green. Which is good. Green is good. Green is in. Green is Eco-stuff. It is a box.... represents mystery,... like development is a mystery. No, wrong, like.. Many poor's needs are a mystery.. Better. Like.. euh, many problems in the developing world are a mystery. Good. Think further. Green. Islam.. Good. Green is Islam, but only Islam knows that... Will not piss of the Americans which will think of Eco stuff. What more..? "Empty the box"... no "Join the box".. Better... "Join the Box". "Wrap the world in green paper of change"... Work on that.. Mmm.., "Green Trap, Change Wrap", no. More."The Green Wrap" Right... Green, the colour of change. Al will like it. The Iranian people will too. Shit, for all we know, the Taliban might like it!" It went on for hours. It was clear all PR staff, who were seconded for three months from big PR companies, as a collective tax writeoff, knew their marketing stuff.

Then it went to the operations department, the finance department, the risk analysis department (who indicated that green was also the colour of the election protests in Iran, but all wiped it off the table as "nobody cared about that Iran shit anymore"), the IT department (who distributed green mousepads) and even the catering people (who wore green caps for two months). The security department suggested to scan to box as nobody had opened it. And there was an awkward smell coming from it.. But they got orders from "up above" to keep their hands off.

In short, it took less than two months to prepare the campaign, and to present it at the next "General Government Meeting". They got the nod from the Americans and the Brits, which was good enough to roll out the campaign globally. None of the other donors were important anyway.
Neither the US nor UK knew what it was all about trusted the organisation to know what they were doing. It was also as a trouble-free way to empty their budget before the year's end. Otherwise questions were asked. And by nodding, they stepped up as a major donor, so they'd see their logo on all PR material. "Donation from the American and British People". Solid deal, man. Solid deal..
Some rumour that the US and UK representative to the General Government Meeting had been drinking the night before, and were actually dozing off. Which would explain their enthusiastic nodding at the proposal. But that is just a rumour of course.

The Green Box was put in a huge display case, stuck on a massive rotating pole with flickering lights and all, in front of the agencies' office. It even dwarfed the McDonald's sign right next to it. McDonald being one of the main private donors to the agency, did protest every so slightly. But they were quickly reminded that Burger King was just around the corner and waiting... Indeed, the main private donors: McDonald's, Bayer, Shell and Bureau for the Promotion of Tourism in West-Agriculturia (which later turned out to be a tax outlet for the Albanese Mafia, but that is another story), all supported the idea and made small green boxes for change collection in their offices and outlets. "Change for Green".

In one of the roll-out meetings that followed, some staff did question the content of the Green Box. One even opposed the idea, but the cold stares she got, had her sit down and be quiet. After all, nobody wants to be a lone tree. They catch a lot of wind. And she had only a temporary employment contract, so 'not extended due to funding limitations' was easy.

Once this initial opposition was dealt with, all went very fast. Everyone was enthusiastic. Directors pitched in their support, as they knew the Green Box campaign had a huge budget. They all wanted a piece of the pie. Staff stepped up to be the "Champion of the Green Box". There was a competition to collect the most money from family. Kids had a worldwide "Green Box" painting competition, you name it,...

The press had a ball. They pitched everything from "Turning Development Green", "The Green movement: turning evolution into revolution". "The Largest Green Aid Campaign Ever"... Millions, Billions, it did not matter, figures were thrown. Everyone loved the hype. I mean apart from Putin having the flu and the Americans invading North Korea, it was a slow news month.
Even Foxnews feature something. "Large Green box, center to Obama Tax Evasion" in which they proved through extensive investigative journalism, that the box was sent straight from Obama's office, and contained money left over from his election campaign...

Three years later, the Green Box campaign was declared a success. It went in the books as a school example how to to strategize for a good fundraiser, how to motivate staff for your causes, how to rally donor support.
In the next government meeting, the UK and US reps gave an enthusiastic nod on the final evaluation report, and approved funding for the next project.

So, everyone was happy. Loads of money went around. And they even helped some poor along the way. Not many, as their 10% declared overhead cost, did not include 50% staff cost, and 20% transport cost, 10% security cost, plus the agreed 10% miscellaneous cost.

It did not matter. Everyone was happy. With the funding generated, the organisation survived another year. There were no scandals, so donors were happy. And does it not feel good to help the Poor of the World.

Oh and the box? It was delivered to the wrong address. It was supposed to go to the recycling company next door, and contained 300 dead AAA batteries.


Question to be asked:
How many green boxes exist in the aidworld? How many times are we all sitting in a meeting, enthusiastically nodding at eachother, although we all know the proposal is shit, the product is shit, the purpose is shit, but it does not feel right to ask questions or to oppose. How many times are senseless things done, because "donors want it", because politics want it, simply because the boss wants it? Do we leave enough room for critical thinking and opposition? How many times are we sucked up as part of this massive dynamic which includes all the "wins-wins", and where it is almost impossible to stand up in the stream and say "Is this really what we should be doing?". There is no reward in opposition, after all. Loser!

A Wise Friend told me not long ago, that in the Aid World failure, incompetency, "half-half" are much more common and accepted than in the Commercial World. I think I will start to believe that.

Picture slightly modified from a find on Words, Pictures, Humor

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