i entertain myself.

As much as half the food aid sent to Somalia is diverted from needy people to a web of corrupt contractors, radical Islamist militants and local United Nations staff members, according to a new Security Council report.

In addition to the diversion of food aid, regional Somali authorities are collaborating with pirates who hijack ships along the lawless coast, the report says, and Somali government ministers have auctioned off diplomatic visas for trips to Europe to the highest bidders, some of whom may have been pirates or insurgents.

Rolling Stone published an article about the Republican’s strategy to gain power, and basically destroy the country while doing it.  An excerpt:

The GOP’s resurrection has not come on the strength of transformative ideas that can actually solve the nation’s problems: Republicans continue to peddle warmed-over Bush — from bankruptcy-inducing tax cuts to the privatization of Social Security. Instead, it has been achieved through what one party strategist admits is “tactical small-ball.” The GOP game is as simple as it is hypocritical. First: Reject every Democratic proposal — including some of the exact same initiatives that Republicans championed under Bush — while branding the consensus-seeking Obama as a radical leftist. Second: Stoke populist fury over exploding deficits, even though they’re the fallout of eight catastrophic years of Republican rule. (President Bush inherited a projected surplus of $5.6 trillion and left behind a forecasted deficit of $3 trillion.) Three: Promise to fix what’s wrong with Washington — despite having waged an all-out war to make government appear as broken as possible.

It has come to this: The unreconstructed party of Jack Abramoff and Dick Cheney is now making the cynical bet that it can win a “change election” of its own this year by drafting a new “Contract With America,” focused on initiatives for “good governance” and accountability. And come November, that bet might just pay off. “Does the Republican Party lack a clear leader? Absolutely. Do they lack a positive message? Of course. Do their demographics suck? Yeah,” says Cook. “But in a midterm election, none of that matters. Because midterm elections are a referendum on the party in power. And to throw one side out, you’ve got to throw the other side back in.”

…At heart, the Republican obstructionism is not only hypocritical, it’s perversely cynical. Blocking the president, after all, will only pay political dividends if the country continues to fall apart. The GOP’s political thinking, Cook says, is simple: “If President Obama and Democrats do well, we Republicans are screwed. But if they screw up, then we’re going to be standing there ready to be the beneficiary.” What’s most surprising is that Republicans in the Senate have gone along with the just-say-no strategy laid out by Cantor. “Historically, Republicans have been unable to act as a true Senate opposition party,” says Rollins, “because there have always been some moderates willing to make deals with Democrats.”