He added, “The West is afraid to be accused of being neocolonial, as Mugabe accuses it of being. But this is not what is happening. What is happening is that twelve million people are under siege by a purported liberator.” Mudzuri concluded, “Why is it O.K. to help Iraq and fund everything there, but wrong here? To leave Africa to the dictators and the looters doesn’t help you. Where is Big Brother? He is not here.”

I’m not sure how long The New Yorker archives their essays online, so here’s a PDF for download.

His Excellency was perspiring, even though there was frost on the ground. In the palatial gardens of State House, the oak-panelled home of former British colonial rulers, Robert Mugabe’s face glistened with sweat as he was declared President of the Republic of Zimbabwe. He pulled at his cuffs and glanced over his shoulder.

After 28 years of bloody rule — and two hours before the election results were announced ‘live’ on state-controlled TV — Mugabe appeared anxious as he was sworn in for a record sixth term this week. His opponents had been killed or forced at gunpoint to vote in rigged elections.

Yet it wasn’t the international outcry over this that worried him. No, beneath the megalomania, what he must know is that he has already lost power, not to the persecuted opposition Movement for Democrat Change (MDC), but to a bloody — and secret — cabal.

The rest of the story is shocking, graphic, and so goddamned hard to believe. Read The Dirty Half-Dozen: The generals who are even more ruthless and bloodthirsty than Mugabe at the UK’s Daily Mail Online.

Excellent stuff, especially the list of websites.

These houses are completely “off the grid�?—they’re not connected to the utility companies. Yet the teams have to live like normal Americans. Using only power from the sun, they have to keep the TV on six hours a day, run the computer five hours a day, cook meals, wash dishes, do two loads of laundry a week, take four 15-minute hot showers a week, keep the temperature between 70 and 78 degrees, maintain 40 to 60 percent humidity, and recharge an electric two-seater car.

My three favorite things:

In short, they have to prove that living on solar power does not involve sacrifice.

…

The University of Maryland team installed a wide, bookcase-sized, indoor waterfall—not just to soothe the soul, but to pull humidity out of the air. It was a desiccant solution—like the “Do not eat�? packets that come in your electronics, but in liquid form—that absorbs moisture. Drier air inside means that you don’t need to run the air conditioner as much. The saturated waterfall flows out the bottom to an outdoor evaporator; the re-concentrated solution is pumped back in to the waterfall, and the cycle begins again.

The sheetrock of this home’s walls was infused with paraffin (candle wax). Why? To absorb heat and liquefy during the day, and then release the heat and re-solidify at night.

The full report to be broadcast 9 a.m. EST, “CBS News Sunday Morning.�?

In the 1950’s, Alfred Lansing, author of Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, penned 288 of some of the most gripping pages I’ve read. For the uninitiated, the back cover of Lansing’s paperback reads:

In the summer of 1914, Sir Ernest Shackleton set off aboard the Endurance bound for the South Atlantic. The goal of his expedition was to cross the Antarctic overland, but more than a year later, and still half a continent away from the intended base, the Endurance was trapped in ice and eventually was crushed. For five months Shackleton and his crew survived on drifting ice packs in one of the most savage regions of the world before they were finally able to set sail again in one of the ship’s lifeboats. Alfred Lansing’s Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage is a white-knuckle account of this astounding odyssey.

Through the diaries of team members and interviews with survivors, Lansing reconstructs the months of terror and hardship the Endurance crew suffered. In October of 1915, there ‘were no helicopters, no Weasels, no Sno-Cats, no suitable planes. Thus their plight was naked and terrifying in its simplicity. If they were to get out–they had to get themselves out.’

This book is actually so much more. In fact, leadership training schools and outdoor survivalist training courses use Ernest Shackleton as a model for how to act and react in times of absolute desperation. And how to come out on top or simply alive. “How Shackleton did indeed get them out without the loss of a single life is at the heart of Lansing’s magnificent true-life adventure tale.” Don’t miss a chance to read this; you won’t put it down until you’re done. And when you are finished, you’ll think twice about the things you complain about when it’s cold outside.

Next up: Mark Twain’s tale of his 1895 journey around the world in Following The Equator.

“The number of Zimbabwe dollars that bought a three-bedroom house with a swimming pool and tennis court in 1990 will buy a brick today.” BusinessWeek

Zimbabwe’s inflation is now 1,600%. Yes, you read that correctly: one thousand six hundred percent.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC — Mugabe’s only offical opposition party — tried to stage a political rally to announce his candidacy for president in the election due next year, but it was thwarted by tear gas- and water cannon-enabled police officers.

We’re spending $1 billion a day “fighting a war” in the Middle East, but because Zimbabwe doesn’t have any oil, no one will say or do a thing.

Read more. Get angry.

How true.

Lance is very clear about his cause and his goal. He wants a billion dollars for the fight against cancer and he won’t stop until he gets it.

Others are involved, too. Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach of the National Cancer Institute set a goal of “eliminating cancer as a cause of suffering and death by 2015.”

You should take a few moments to read the article, it’s a pretty damned good one.