Congo continues to be the 21st Century’s Secret Holocaust.

The continuing bloodlust in the Congo is the worst ongoing Holocaust on Earth and actually looks set, in simple numerical terms, to soon surpass the number of Jewish dead in Hitler’s WWII genocide. Already there are 5.4 million dead. This article about human tragedy and corporate sponsorship of rape by Johann Hari gives a very necessary glimpse into the worst secret slaughter in modern history.

The battalions of child soldiers — drugged, dazed thirteen year olds who had been made to kill members of their own families so they couldn’t try to escape and go home. But oddly, as I watch the war starting again on CNN, I find myself thinking about a woman I met who had, by Congolese standards, not suffered in extremis.

I was driving back to Goma from a diamond mine one day when my car got a puncture. As I waited for it to be fixed, I stood by the roadside and watched the great trails of women who stagger along every road in Eastern Congo, carrying all their belongings on their backs in mighty crippling heaps. I stopped a 27 year-old woman called Marie-Jean Bisimwa who had four little children toddling along beside her. She told me she was lucky. Yes, her village had been burned out. Yes, she had lost her husband somewhere in the chaos. Yes, her sister had been raped and gone insane. But she and her kids were alive.

I gave her a lift, and it was only after a few hours of chat along on cratered roads that I noticed there was something strange about Marie-Jean’s children. They were slumped forward, their gazes fixed in front of them. They didn’t look around, or speak, or smile. “I haven’t ever been able to feed them,” she said. “Because of the war.” Their brains hadn’t developed; they never would now. “Will they get better?” she asked. I left her in a village on the outskirts of Goma, and her kids stumbled after her, expressionless.

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Market Crash Looks Like….

The market crash and all its associated mini-crashes, mushroom clouds, and 747-loads of mom-n-pop investors headed straight into the sun surely is a thing of horribly nightmarish misery, loss, and sadness.

But some twisted bastards have found the silver lining and posted it, at The Brokers With Hands on Their Faces blog.

OMG – look at that one closer. Remember when the Dow could still fall to 11281 points? That must have been like at least 3, maybe 4, weeks ago.

McCain: Obama is a “motherfucker”

Bless you Mr. Fish – you’re soooo nasty.

Sarah Palin has not approved these political cheezburgers. Will you?

After you have voted for any of the messages you like by clicking on the images below (hint hint), then make sure to go check out Pundit Kitchen – from the same nom noms who brought you I Can Has Cheezburger, it’s more democratic than democracy, costs less than freedom, and it’s less likely to kill a doctor or beat a single mother than an evilgelical Xtian.

Relax! US Economy is perfectly sound!

… unfortunately the sound is

which really Adam Sandler howling “the price is wrong, bitch!” over the top of it. And somebody has gone and written an article at Bloomberg.com entitled, Bush says “U.S. using wide range of tools”

Isn’t that the problem? Biggest bunch of tools ever.

And speaking of douche nozzles, Mayor Bloomberg himself, mega-squillionaire mayor of New York City has been complicit in an 11th hour act of utter scumbaggery. Amidst all the noise of the $700B bailout with its associated $150B in pork products, lawmakers quietly buried legislation that would have guaranteed $5B in ongoing health costs for rescue workers made ill from time spent working at New York’s Ground Zero. Bloomberg supported the backdown, unwilling to cover 10% of the bill.

Makes it clear who the real sick f#$ks are.