Furthermore the American company KBR has been accused of bribing Nigerian officials in order to build a natural gas plant. KBR was forced to pay $420m in fines for this. KBR has also been accused of political corruption in the US (Lyndon Johnson had a close relationship with them, they gave him campaign funds and they got construction contracts), avoid paying its taxes by using shell companies in the tax haven of the Cayman Islands, professional negligence in Iraq, endemic sexual abuse towards female workers, human trafficking, and exposing US soldiers to asbestos fumes.

Wow.
You’d imagine America would be pretty ashamed of these abuses.
Nope.
They hold a larger contract with the US Government than with any firm in Iraq.

Instead the big gongs went to the woman who’s the ex-wife of the director of ‘freakishly tall alien film’. How about that for bloody poetic irony? Because it turns out people that give away film awards tend to want something with a plot rather than a lazy rehash of already rehashed and lazy cliches while mirroring the plot of your last film!

The Full List of ‘winners’, if this life actually has winners and is not merely a series of ultimately joyless and asinine relationships with feelings designed to do nothing more than associate pain with negativity, are listed below:

Best Picture: Hurt Locker. Outstanding British Film: Fish Tank. Outstanding British debut: Moon. Director: Kathryn Bigalow. Original Screenplay: The Hurt Locker. Adapted Screenplay: Up In The Air. Foreign Film: A Prophet. Animated Film: Up. Leading Actor: Colin Firth. Leading Actress: Carey Mulligan. Supporting Actress: Mo’Nique. Supporting Actor: Christopher Waltz. Music: Up. Cinematography: Hurt Locker. Editing: Hurt Locker. Production Design: Avatar. Costume Design: Young Victoria. Sound: Hurt Locker. Visual Effects: Avatar

and other categories too dull TO MENTION.

Convalescent gnarls gnash, nightingales of daylight.
Twisting and turning like spirals of the future
laced with venom and calling songs.

Motivate.

Bacteria are multiplying ever longer, eternally spreading
oceans of virus. Space and time, moonrays of gold.
Digital blue and green hover over terrible massacres and
the butchers of liberty sit in oaken capsules
free from accounts of stolen souls. Bodies of
specks and dust, but the spirits of stars.

They’re either fucking idiots who make awesome music. Or some high artists masquerading as fucking idiots who make awesome music. Either way the result is the same. Check out their website for to listen to their full album $O$, which is apparently being released this month.

And the nominees are *opens golden envelope*:
Best Picture

1. Avatar (dir. James Cameron; produced by Lightstorm Entertainment and Dune Entertainment; distributed by 20th Century Fox)

Grossing over $2bn worldwide and the most financially successful film of all time, it would have been an almighty snub for this film not to have been included. In the not-too-distant future John Smith Jake Sully is a paraplegic former Marine offered a new chance on environmentally hostile moon Pandora. On Pandora Jake is given an Avatar, a separate body which is a mixture of his DNA as well as the DNA of the native population, the Na’vi. In his avatar body Jake encounters Na’vi warrior princess Pocahontas Neytiri with whom he falls in love. Together they attempt to stop the encroaching corporate human population from destroying their villages and sacred sites.
This film was widely hailed as one of the most significant steps towards photorealistic CGI people (or Na’vi in this case) and environments since Gollum; it’s plot however came under some criticism for it’s simplistic nature and predictable outcome.

Trailer (sorry for the annoying woman, it was either her or you get the trailer in German)

2. The Blind Side (dir. John Lee Hancock; produced by Alcon Entertainment; distributed by Warner Bros.)

This is a sports drama documenting the true story tale of American footballer Michael Oher. Oher is an orphan who runs away from numerous foster families. One foster parent enrolls him at high school where it is clear Oher has an aptitude for football and could gain entry to a University on a football scolarship. Simultaneously, Oher begins to gravitate towards the Tuohy family. He develops a maternal bond with matriarch Leigh Anne and is best friends with her son SJ. As Oher’s grades drop it becomes unlikely that he will be able to reach university; however the Tuohy’s pitch in and a private tutor is hired.

Trailer

3. District 9 (dir. Neill Blomkamp; produced by QED International; distributed by TriStar Pictures)

District 9 is a science-fiction film set in an alternate South Africa. An alien spaceship has been hovering above Johannesburg for over 20 years. Its inhabitants number of a million are all forced to live in a cordoned off area of the city called District 9, but are being forced to relocate to a new camp. MNU (a corporation with a private military) are tasked with the relocation which is brutal. MNU operative Wikus is infected on his arm with a mysterious substance, which begins to mutate into an alien arm. He becomes disillusioned with MNU after they attempt to dissect him, and with the help of an alien dubbed Johnson he joins the alien cause.

Trailer

And as a special treat, here is the original short film it was based on, Alive in Joburg:

4. An Education (dir. Lone Scherfig; produced by E1 Entertainment; distributed by Sony Picture Classics)

1961 and 16 year old Jenny Miller is a devoted academic, excelling in school and enjoying a restricted life of orchestral performance and Latin repetition whilst vying for a place at Oxford. That is until she meets charming older man David Goldman who leads her into a life of glamour and glitz with his high society friends Danny and Helen. David’s infectious charms win over Jenny’s parents who agree to allow him to take her to concerts, jazz clubs, racetracks, Oxford and Paris. David’s charm is merely a persona though, and as his secrets are revealed he loses Jenny’s love.

Trailer

5. The Hurt Locker (dir. Kathryn Bigelow; produced by Voltage Pictures; distributed by Summit Entertainment)

Sergeant William James is a reckless bomb disposal expert in Iraq, 2004. Tensions mount as his team don’t trust him because of his unorthodox methods. James’ mental state is questionable and his thrill at success is tampered by his feelings of dismay when he fails and when he discovers the body of a local boy with a bomb stitched into it. A man is forced to enter a military checkpoint strapped to a bomb – James ultimately fails to disarm it. He is sent home. He tells his son that there is only one thing he loves now – James returns to Iraq. The story of a soldier losing his grip on reality this is a master-class in subtle tension building and is one of 2009′s most acclaimed films.

Trailer

6. Inglourious Basterds (dir. Quentin Tarantino; produced by A Band Apart and Studio Babelsberg; distributed by The Weinstein Company and Universal Pictures)

The latest off-beat adventure from QT, this follows the story eight Jewish-American soldiers behind enemy lines in World War 2 France. They wage a guerilla war against Nazis, never taking prisoners; they become known as the Basterds, and their leader, Lt. Aldo Raine, is The Apache (for his fondness for scalping people). Simultaneously a young Jewish girl called Shosanna is running a cinema in Paris after all her family are murdered. With the premiere of a new propaganda film looming she takes her chance to get rid of the Nazi hierarchy (including Hitler) by planning to burn the cinema to the ground. However the Basterds have a similar idea…

Trailer

7. A Serious Man (dir. Joel and Ethan Cohen; produced by Relativity Media, StudioCanal, Working Title Films and Mike Zoss Productions; distributed by Focus Features)

Black comedy from the ever dependable Cohens. Larry Gopnik lives with his son Danny (who smokes pot) , his wife Judith (who is seeking a divorce, so she can move in with family friend Sy), his daughter Sarah (who is stealing money for a nose job), and his brother Arthur (who is sleeping on their sofa). Larry is up for tenure at the university where he lectures but the committee receive letters against his appointment. He is forced out the house, penniless, with his brother. Soon after a student, Clive, attempts to bribe him. Sy dies a pauper in a car-crash, forcing Larry to pay for his funeral. Finding no help from his Rabbis, Larry attends his son’s bar mitzvah. His son is high. Afterwards he accepts Clive’s bribe, just as a tornado bears down on the city.

Trailer

8. Up (dir. Pete Docter and Bob Peterson; produced by Pixar Animation Studios; distributed by Walt Disney Pictures)

Bitter widower Carl harbours a secret desire; to fulfil a promise made to his wife and carry his house to Paradise Falls in South America. As the house flies over the city skyline suspended by thousands of helium balloons Carl realises that he has an unwanted passenger aboard: a child, called Russell. In South America Carl and Russell meet Dug (a dog with a collar which allows him to talk), and Kevin a (female) flightless bird. Carl also meets childhood hero Muntz, an explorer who’s reputation has long faded. Carl discovers that he has been trying to capture Kevin and has killed any other explorers who get in his way. Russell, Dug and Carl set out to stop Muntz once and for all, and to get Kevin back.

Last one now people! Are you flagging at the back there? Come on! One more! It’s got George Clooney in it?

9. Up In The Air (dir. Jason Reitman; produced by Cold Spring Studios, DreamWorks Studios, The Montecito Picture Company, Rickshaw Productions, Right Of Way Films; distributed by Paramount Pictures)

Ryan Bingham works in CTC for ISM. Which basically means he flies all over the country firing people. He lives a life of sterile airport air, salted hotel peanuts and causal relationships while on his way to earning 10 million frequent flyer miles. He gives motivational speeches expounding the benefits of a life with no relationships. ISM force him to take on a co-flyer, Natalie, who wants to institute a remote lay-off scheme rather than fire people face to face. She convinces him to commit to a serious relationship with casual acquaintance Alex. They attend his sister’s wedding where he has to convince a nervous groom to go with it – using his motivational speech for the opposite purpose. When Alex is revealed to be married he writes Natalie a glowing review, but it is revealed that one of the remotely fired employees has killed herself, and her program is put on hold.

So there we are people. The Hurt Locker and Avatar are the hot favourites, but any of the others could conceivably cause an upset. Up is likely to win in the Best Animated Feature category, so can it win Best Picture too?

BBC news report:

Scientists have been able to reach into the mind of a brain-damaged man and communicate with his thoughts.

The research, carried out in the UK and Belgium, involved a new brain scanning method.

Awareness was detected in three other patients previously diagnosed as being in a vegetative state.

The study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that scans can detect signs of awareness in patients thought to be closed off from the world.

Patients in a vegetative state are awake, not in a coma, but have no awareness because of severe brain damage.

Scanning technique

The scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which shows brain activity in real time.

They asked patients and healthy volunteers to imagine playing tennis while they were being scanned.

In each of the volunteers this stimulated activity in the pre-motor cortex, part of the brain which deals with movement.

This also happened in four out of 23 of the patients presumed to be in a vegetative state.

I volunteered to test out the scanning technique.

I gave the scientists two women’s names, one of which was my mother’s.

I imagined playing tennis when they said the right name, and within a minute they had worked out her name.

They were also able to guess correctly whether I had children.

Questions

This is a continuation of research published three years ago, when the team used the same technique to establish initial contact with a patient diagnosed as vegetative.

But this time they went further.

With one patient – a Belgian man injured in a traffic accident seven years ago – they asked a series of questions.

He was able to communicate “yes” and “no” using just his thoughts.

The team told him to use “motor” imagery like a tennis match to indicate “yes” and “spatial” imagery like thinking about roaming the streets for a “no”.

The patient responded accurately to five out of six autobiographical questions posed by the scientists.

For example, he confirmed that his father’s name was Alexander.

The study involved scientists from the Medical Research Council (MRC), the Wolfson Brain Imaging Centre in Cambridge and a Belgian team at the University of Liege.

Dr Adrian Owen from the MRC in Cambridge co-authored the report:

“We were astonished when we saw the results of the patient’s scan and that he was able to correctly answer the questions that were asked by simply changing his thoughts.”

Dr Owen says this opens the way to involving such patients in their future treatment decisions: “You could ask if patients were in pain and if so prescribe painkillers and you could go on to ask them about their emotional state.”

It does raise many ethical issues – for example – it is lawful to allow patients in a permanent vegetative state to die by withdrawing all treatment, but if a patient showed they could respond it would not be, even if they made it clear that was what they wanted.

The Royal Hospital for Neurodisability in London is a leading assessment and treatment centre for adults with brain injuries.

Helen Gill, a consultant in low awareness state, welcomed the new research but cautioned that it was still early days for the research: “It’s very useful if you have a scan which can show some activity but you need a detailed sensory assessment as well.

“A lot of patients are slipping through the net and this adds another layer to ensure patients are assessed correctly.”

She said the hospital did a study of 60 patients admitted with a diagnosis of vegetative state and 43% could communicate.

It was a gentle easing back in to the routine. An introductory lecture that wasn’t too taxing on our fragile post-Christmas break brains and included some comedic moments when the lecturer began lecturing sitting down under the desk (it had a purpose…I think). In fact it was amazing how quickly I fell back into the routine. A 9am start where I’m sure today will be the day I don’t leave until the last-minute, yet I inevitable end up outside the lecture theatre a minute or so before the lecture is due to begin.

So overall, a good lecture. And a good start to the day. Quite what these new evening lectures (of which I have two a week) will do to my internal clock god only knows. But we’ll cross that hurdle when we get there (ie. in four hours); wish me luck!

Oh and English Social tonight. RocSoc tomorrow night. Avatar, birthday drinks and Kes’s moving in party Wednesday. It’s gonna be a busy and expensive few days!

“What?” I hear you say, “but in this multicultural ultra-minority sensitive world, has this not already been achieved?” To which I answer: no. There are 9.8 million people in the UK with a disability and of these half have incomes below the national mean (a common measure of poverty). In 1999 disabled people made up half of the unemployed who “would like to find work again”. As the recession bites disabled workers have been discriminate more and more – one in twenty disabled people have lost a job in the last 12 months. Is this acceptable?

Well clearly if disableism in the workplace is gone, then it must mean that disabled people are lazy. Or incompetent. However, studies show that disabled people are less likely even than able bodied people to take a day off work. Yet as a group disabled people have an employment rate of 12-14%. They are being unfairly targeted for redundancy because of their vulnerability – and if you can find a clearer example of discrimination in the workplace then i’d like to hear it.

So disabled people are forced out of employment into a benefits system which treats them all is if they’re money-grabbing thieving scumbags who don’t deserve the bare minimum the welfare state can afford. The new media craze for catching disabled benefit thieves has distorted and magnified the problem. There will be benefit cheats for every kind of benefit – but do they get reported on? Oh, someone has fiddled tax credits. That never gets picked up. But as soon as it’s happening with disabled people all of us are suddenly demonised as greedy penny-pinching degenerates. This has happened to me before – I’ve gone to the pub in the wheelchair, hobbled to the bar and accused of being a benefit cheat. This demonstrates some fundamental flaws in public opinion here.

So, where was I? Oh yes: Scope. They provide support during the early years, help with independent living, help with work. They provide education in the form of schools and colleges for disabled people. The work they do is vital.

So please, think twice before you judge and check out Scope at this link, or check out their Twitter for all the latest news.

Sources for the stats:
Youreable

The Independent

“I’d like to play Hermione’s boyfriend” said one half of the dictionary definition of douche.

So, what do you all think? I’d say my position on the matter was clear.

Source: http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news/a200432/jedward-audition-for-potter-hobbit.html