Here's the thing...

(In case you need help understanding, "RUN!")

You might, or might not, have heard about the tsunami early warning system that foreign governments have spent millions on in order to prepare countries surrounding the Indian Ocean of potential tsunamis. It's supposed to work like this: very high tech equipment located in the ocean monitors seismic activity which is then relayed to satellites which are monitored and that information is sent very quickly to governments so that they can warn their people. Let me tell you how it works in practice: very high tech equipment located in the ocean monitors seismic activity which is then relayed to satellites which are monitored and that information is beamed directly to CNN and BBC. Some watchful person in the the U.S. or UK sends us a message - today it happened to be my sister - saying that there's a tsunami warning. I look up from my computer and say, 'hey, did you know that there was an earthquake today and that there's a tsunami warning?' Everyone in the office stares...

You knew it was coming sooner or later and so here, now, without further ado I present to you: Darfur, the music video ... Not sure how I fell about them using an IDP camp as a backdrop for a music video, but some of the footage is beautiful...

After years of taking doxycycline, slathering on the Deet, and spending time in rooms sprayed continuously with insecticide I'm wondering how bad can malaria and dengue fever be? Which is worse - the mossys or this self-poison?

I'm tired of the news coming out of Sudan these days. It's all shock and amazement at the current goings-on. ("What? The North and the South don't get along?!" or "What? There's fighting in Darfur?!" or "Weren't there peace deals? Wasn't everything peachy?!") No! Things haven't been peachy since the ink was drying on either of the so-called peace agreements with the South (CPA) or in Darfur (DPA). And, so I am going to give you a short treatise on what the future of Sudan will hold in coming years. Ready? There is no peace agreement in Darfur. The peace agreement with the south is all but dead. It never really was all that alive and it was always more of a cease-fire than a 'comprehensive peace agreement' anyway. Both the North and the South have used the period of the CPA to fortify their positions rather than actually work toward a future peace. The north has done this by bringing in Chinese weapons and soldiers by the...

This is me getting shot...yes, I know that you're not supposed to wave the weapon about wildly like this but I was running away and in pain: Gun-toting hooligans: Darren examines nasty flesh wound I inflicted at close range...entirely, on accident, of course:

And by "weekend" I mean TWO days!!