1. “Every Japanese Arnold Schwarzenegger commercial ever made” by Ron Nurwisah | The Ampersand
The Japanese have advanced the surrealist form of advertising more than any other culture. In this spirit of innovation in the field, I present this video post. Really, it’s not just because listening to Arnie attempt to speak Japanese is downright hilarious.
2. “Avatar and the politics of our time” by Rick Salutin | rabble.ca
Salutin, a former seminarian, ponders why, in the current political discourse, left wing equals secular and right wing equals religious. Is there no room in the middle?
3. “Toronto’s Disenfranchised Voters” by Myer Siemiatycki | The Mark
Toronto is gearing up for municipal elections this October. Come voting time, however, only a third of eligible electors will turn out at the polls. Is it time to let the city’s massive non-citizen population — about one in seven residents — vote in local elections?
4. “Rogier van der Zwaag” by Jeff Hamada | BOOOOOOOM!
And the belated Oscar for Best Direction of an Incredibly Complicated Music Video That Looks Like CG, But Is Actually an Animated Sequence of 4,085 Photos goes to… Rogier van der Zwaag, for “Grindin’” by (Dutch electro group) Nobody Beats the Drum.
5. “Gracias, Sean!” by Michael C. Moynihan | Hit & Run
After his incoherent speech at this year’s actual Oscars, Sean Penn kept up the craziness by appearing on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher and suggesting that critics of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez should be jailed for their “biases.” Um, Sean? You’re not exactly known as Mr. Fair and Balanced.
6. “French village went insane after CIA spiked its bread with LSD” by Cory Doctorow | Boing Boing
Fifty years ago, residents of the French town Pont-Saint-Esprit became temporarily insane after eating bread from their local bakery. Five people died, and dozens were sent to the asylum. The mystery of the “cursed bread incident” is finally solved. Uncovered documents reveal that the American CIA spiked the bread with LSD: yet another of its notorious tests of the drug’s efficacy as a weapon.
7. “Is Torture a Leading U.S. Export?” by Scott Horton | No Comment
This week, a former director of the British Intelligence service MI5 made a surprise public accusation about US motives for interrogating captured Al Qaeda members. “Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld certainly watched 24. The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing,” said Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, reigniting a fiery debate about the allied countries’ treatment of terror suspects.
8. “Liberals take another shot at Tory ‘Bonnie and Clyde’” by Jane Taber | Bureau Blog
Lately, her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition has likened former Alberta Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer and his wife, junior cabinet minister Helena Guergis, to the infamous crime duo because of his sweetheart deal to dismiss a cocaine possession charge and her blowup at the Charlottetown Airport. Taber points out the illogic of the association: Bonnie and Clyde paid for their crime spree with their lives.
9. “World’s Richest Man: The Carlos Slim Story” by John Hudson | The Atlantic Wire
Forbes has released its annual list of the world’s wealthiest people. At the top of the heap this time is Lebanese-Mexican mogul Carlos Slim Helú, worth an astonishing $53.5 billion (US). His companies are responsible for about 7 percent of Mexico’s entire economic output.
10. “How Cars Are Killing Us” by Andrew Price | GOOD Blog
It wouldn’t be Weekend Links without an infographic. This one, using data compiled by the World Health Organization’s global status report on road safety, shows how cars are killing us with more than pollution.
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