Jet Li versus Jason Statham

War is definitely a guy movie complete with nice cars, car chases with said nice cars, beautiful women, some scantily clad or not clad at all, and awesome fight sequences including a couple sword fights.

The premise is FBI agents trying to take down two warring Japanese gangs and one FBI agents personal battle trying to capture an elusive assassin named Rogue.

Good movie, I just wasn't too fond of the ending, which I'm hoping isn't becoming a trademark ending for Jason Statham (possible spoiler if you follow this link).

How long will the war last?

British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to spend up to 20 billion pounds (US$38.60 billion) on three or four nuclear-armed submarines to replace the aging Trident system.

His rational:

• Britain must retain nuclear weapons because new threats from Iran, North Korea or nuclear terrorists make it dangerous to abandon them.
• Design and construction of new submarines will take so long that it must act quickly to have a replacement ready when the existing nuclear submarines go out of service in about 2024.

2024! That's over 15 years from now! How long will tensions in the Middle East last? And does the military really use submarines anymore let alone 15 years from now?

Tony Blair is due to step down in a few months and critics are saying that he's trying to rush the decision through to leave a legacy. He's been in power for 10 years, I think he needs to seriously consider this.

I wouldn't want my final act in power to be spending $38 billion dollars on nuclear weapons.

I'm sure there are lots of better uses for $38 billion dollars. Perhaps using it to help people in the Middle East rebuild and set up a government that will end the conflicts (hopefully a lot sooner than 2024).

Blood Diamonds

You've likely heard of the movie currently playing in theatres,starring Leonardo DiCaprio, but you may not be aware that blood diamonds are a real problem in the world.

Blood diamonds have fueled wars across Africa, leading to the deaths of more than four million people and displacing many millions more.

Right now, $23 million in conflict diamonds from the Ivory Coast are being smuggled into diamond markets around the world.

In the movie, men from villages were taken from their families to work at the diamond mines. The young boys were taken, brainwashed and turned against their families and made to fight for the rebel armies. The rebels would cut off a villager's limb for every rebel that was killed. The women and young children, if they weren't murdered, fled their homes to refugee camps.

War stories from Sierra Leone, where the rebel group mined diamonds to fund the conflict (PBS):

• Unidentified Amputee: “First used the ax to chop the left hand off. After, they want to cut the other, then this little boy started crying and said, "Please soldier, don't cut off my papa's other hand." So they said, "Let this woman remove this child from her back, we'll chop off his arm." And I said "No!" So they decided to chop the other hand off.”
  

• De Sam Lazaro: “So they basically said you could have your right hand if you gave your son's hand.”

• Amputee: “Yes”.

You can do your part to help stop the smuggling and sale of blood diamonds, by reading this buyer's guide and ensuring jewelers you visit have policies in place to guard against selling blood diamonds.