NWSFLSH: Local Man's Hopes Dashed by Shit African Economy

by Jeffy Jefferson, Staff Reporter

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- The dream is over. It's all gone Pete Tong. Well, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that The Central Bank of Zimbabwe has essentially abandoned its currency with the announcement that businesses can now legally conduct business in foreign currencies. This means a couple of things: among them, 1) that the starving trillionaires of Zimbabwe will continue to use US dollars for basic transactions, as they have been for months; 2) that Zimbabwean teachers, many of whom have resorted to selling their bodies on the street to earn money, might have some reason to go back to work in the coming months with the incentive of being paid in non-imaginary currency; and 3) that it no longer makes logical sense to continue printing new, obscenely high denominations of money nobody is using anyways.

So on to the really bad news, the related but much more distressing story for me: today we have news that a week or two after introducing its highest denomination bill ($100 trillion) they've knocked TWELVE more zeros off the Zim Dollar. If you've read this blog before, you know how devastating this is for me and my dream of rolling and writhing around in a bathtub teeming with cash money dollar bills, be they worthless or not. There's nothing I can do, and as a result it's probably time I start looking to other countries with floundering economies. Mother shit.


A short calculation: Under the new system, one trillion ZWD now equals one ZWD. In the last five months, this country has knocked TWENTY TWO zeros off its currency. At $100 trillion, the newest bill was worth about $35USD. If the system were left unchecked... Okay that's a poor choice of words, because the system HAS been left entirely unchecked. But if the system had not made its ludicrous attempts to control inflation by cutting 22 zeros out of the equation, $0.33 USD would today be worth ten SEXTILLION ZWD, or $10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (there are something like 70 sextillion stars in our motherfucking GALAXY according to the most recent estimates). All that works out to about three and a half metric shit-tons of zeros. This kind of hyperinflation makes me finally understand why we had to learn scientific notation in high school, as when you get to numbers like these it's not even worth your time to write that many zeros. You know your country is in trouble when.

Anyways, in moderately positive news for the nation, it also looks like president Bobby "Dick" Mugabe may have finally come to a power-sharing deal with Morgan Tsvangirai, the HUGE-balled opposition leader who has in the past been kidnapped, threatened, and beaten to a pulp by Mugabe's troops. So maybe something good will come of that, but I wouldn't bet the farm just yet, as Mugabe has a promise-keeping history on par with Hitler himself ("Guys I told you already, I'm not gonna invade Czechoslovakia. Seriously. You have my word."). Because it's topical, and because Mugabe's a dick, I want to share this awesome drawing my brother Justin did of Mugabe recently:

'mr. mugabe, how do you get your powers?' (2009)

Awesome.

When Advertising Goes Oh So Right

You may have seen this, and I usually refrain from posting videos, because there are so many of them and they are not really the focus of this blog, but this is the best thing I have seen in a long time. It is taken from a recent broadcast of Battlestar Galactica on the Space network, where apparently Jesus Christ Himself is working overtime as the Hilarious Advertising Placement Manager. Make sure you watch it to the end. Alls I will say is, ka-blammo.



Alleluia!

Masterful Czech Graffiti: #4

To make up for the serious lack of graffiti photos over the past two months, I will now unleash a warm torrent of photo action all over your sultry, volunteering eyes. Here we goes, starting with the most astounding piece I've seen yet:

Celeb Movie Reviewzz: Cannibal Holocaust

Well that was quick. Peter Koss, who seems to be the only person to respond to these shitty non-'contests', was the first to figure out that our guest writer a few days ago was none other than Adam "Pacman" Jones, although I do prefer answers to be in the form of a question and repeated in triplicate wherever possible. You're 2-0, Pete. Hook up the mailing address.

Now it's time for another edition of Crunk in Public's Celeb Movie Reviewzz. This afternoon we're pleased to have respected 'subversive' actor/director/producer George Clooney with us. Mr. Clooney was Michael Clayton in the good film Michael Clayton. Today we've watched Rugerro Deodato's 1980 film, Cannibal Holocaust, which may deserve a bit of an introduction before we get into talking about it. 

Firstly, this is not to be confused with the 1992 hit single Cannibal Holocaust by Brutal Juice, the one that came with that B-side Punk Fuck. Not that one. The one I'm talking about is the extremely controversial and totally fucked up film that was banned in a fair number of countries due to its disturbing content. In order to qualify for free distribution around Europe, the film stars two Italian actors. The shooting is said to have been an absolute nightmare, and the release didn't go any better. After the premiere, director Deodato (who, by the way, is OUT OF HIS MIND) faced life in prison because Italian courts believed the graphic deaths in the film were real. To make things worse, the actors had signed contracts forbidding them to come forward to the media for at least one year in order to make it seem like the story was true. This would have been an awesome publicity stunt, until the heat really came down on him and in order to save his own ass he ultimately had to go on a talk show with the cast to prove they were alive.

I can't say anything more about the movie other than it lives up to its title, and that out of principle I will not link to its Wikipedia site. I suppose that is a somewhat suitable introduction. So, Mr. Clooney, would you care to begin with your thoughts on the film?

Mr. Clooney:

Ryan: I must admit I am also rather troubled right now as a direct result of the things we have just witnessed.

CONTEST: Who Am I?

First person to guess who I am in the comments section will get that crisp Hitler postcard personally mailed to them, by whoever I end up being. By the way, you can now comment on all my posts without signing in to anything.

CLUES:

I like American football. In fact I am an NFL star.

I love drugs. I was arrested in 2006 with a bunch of weed and have since claimed, on record, that I know how to beat the NFL's drug testing system.

I love women. Well actually this one is more of a love-hate kinda thing. You could say I have a penchant for spitting in the faces of women at nightclubs. Although there have been several incidents of this, the most recent was in 2006. Her story: motherfucker spat in my face for no reason. My story: bitch stole my wallet.

I love violence. A laundry list of misdemeanour assault and weapons charges litters my criminal record. Perhaps my fondest violent memory was the time a few months ago when I drunkenly assaulted some bodyguards who were personally assigned by my NFL team to keep me out of trouble. As a result I was suspended indefinitely from the NFL for the second time in my career. How many guys can truthfully speak that sentence?

I was also arrested a year ago for assaulting a female strip club employee in Atlanta. Her story: motherfucker reached over the counter and suckerpunched me in the left eye. My story: to quote Slim Thug, "I ain't heard a dat."

I suffer from autism, or if I'm not autistic, I simply have no concept of finances or monetary value. Outside of my football career, I am best known for walking into a Las Vegas strip club and showering 40 strippers with literally over $81,000. Club owner's story: motherfucker flipped out once my girls started to actually pick up the money he was throwing around. He repeatedly bashed a stripper's head against a metal bar and when confronted, threatened to kill our security staff. Upon leaving, two of his friends returned into the club and shot up the place, seriosuly injuring two people and leaving another paralyzed for life. My story: I'm a paying customer.

So? Who am I?

Mein-y Kampf-mas

I'm sorry for not posting a lot recently. I've been busy, so back off.

Anyways, I picked up this old postcard at a second hand shop here in Prague. It's Santa Klaus, which is kinda strange because in the Czech Republic they teach their kids that it's the baby Jesus (not Santa) who sneaks around giving gifts to kids. The card itself pretty innocuous and kinda festive, until you turn it over, and then uh-oh:

In this photo (L to R): Happy little Czech children, Santa Klaus

In this photo (L to R): Hitler

Mugabe to World Leaders: "Bitch I thought I told you to shut your dirty bitch mouth, bitch"

So it sucks that there's still stuff to post about this dude, but our buddy and President of the Failed State of Zimbabwe Robert "Fuckhead" Mugabe is back at it again. There is so much shit going down in his country right now that it's impossible to talk about it all, but it's also impossible not to say anything about it. So here's a brief summary of the tip of the iceberg.

Firstly:  Mugabe's government has now gone on record insulting heads of state all over the world who have criticized its tyrannical dictatorship, stating it hopes "this is the last time they open their dirty mouths on Zimbabwe." As of today, Mugabe is inexplicably (and inexcusably) backed by the African Union in his refusal to leave office and is using this opportunity to all but dare the rest of the world to overthrow him, saying through his spokesman, "we won this country through the barrel of the gun and we will defend it the way we won it." No doubt that's hardcore, but it's the stupid kind of hardcore, more like post-screamo-core than anything. So this isn't the first time Mugabe and his crew have challenged world leaders. He's been noted in the past for, on separate occasions, telling former UK PM Tony Blair and American Ambassador to Zimbabwe Chris Dell to both "go to hell." He also once called Blair a "gangster" who had "gone insane." I love that. I'm sorry but to me it's really funny when politicians are that candid on record.

Secondly: Apart from widespread starvation, which is more or less commonplace and therefore no longer surprising in this country, Zimbabweans have a couple of terrifying disease outbreaks to keep their minds off their mess of a country. FAQ TIME!

Q: Which diseases? A: Cholera, the last outbreak of which in North America occurred in 1911 (and has now infected over 11,000 Zimbabweans), and ANTHRAX. Like, not your fancy "biotech-lab-cultured-post-9/11-white-powder-to-Sen.-Tom-Daschle" kind of anthrax, but rather the "your-livestock-is-dead-because-you-can't-feed-it-and-death-surrounds-you-because-there's-no-firewood-to-boil-water-with-and-you-are-literally-forced-to-eat-raw-the-spore-ridden-rotting-corpses-of-your-cattle" kind of anthrax.

Q: Who the fuck gets anthrax nowadays? A: I don't know. It's insane. But the real answer is 3 people, so far.

Thirdly: These internal and foreign policy calamities all come just days after George "Fuckhead" Bush finally spoke out against Mugabe, saying something like "DUR, he's bad...time to go," which, coming from the spittled mouth of the most powerful subhumans on the planet, is supposed to mean something. So who the hell knows. Barack Obama has yet to make a comment, so this would be a good opportunity for him to step up and at least say something.

At the same time, although it sounds selfish, the paper money bathing fantasy I keep writing about (see 'Zimbabwe' tag below) seems to become more and more realistic every day, even after Mugabe knocked ten zeroes off the currency a couple months back. In reaction to months and months of exploding hyperinflation (and really, who could have guessed that knocking ten zeroes off the currency would NOT effectively solve the nation's financial crisis?), the government has now unveiled its latest obscenely large bill, at the denomination of $200,000,000. This is the second time around that they've released a bill at this amount, so maybe this'll be it. Maybe this is as high as they'll have to go, and they won't release a $1 billion bill in the next month or so. Maybe. Probably not though. I don't think it's unreasonable to say it won't be long until they're back to the $100 billion bill and I'm washing my stanky crotch in cash money that is worth less that the dirt it's covered in. 

Lastly: Under Mugabe's orders, as if all this bullshit weren't enough of a strain on the Zimbabwean people, his troops have now begun to spark and fuel a huge blood-diamond industry by looting diamond mines, killing indiscriminately, and generally fucking shit up all over the place.

BOOOOO. Next post will be positive and happy, I promise.