A collection of the inane

UNICEF has a smurf of a good video for you, straight from the fantasy video collection of Gargamel: (via Wizbang)

The people of Belgium have been left reeling by the first adult-only episode of the Smurfs, in which the blue-skinned cartoon characters' village is annihilated by warplanes.

The short but chilling film is the work of Unicef, the United Nations Children's Fund, and is to be broadcast on national television next week as a campaign advertisement.

The animation was approved by the family of the Smurfs' late creator, "Peyo".

Belgian television viewers were given a preview of the 25-second film earlier this week, when it was shown on the main evening news. The reactions ranged from approval to shock and, in the case of small children who saw the episode by accident, wailing terror.
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The short film pulls no punches. It opens with the Smurfs dancing, hand-in-hand, around a campfire and singing the Smurf song. Bluebirds flutter past and rabbits gambol around their familiar village of mushroom-shaped houses until, without warning, bombs begin to rain from the sky.

Tiny Smurfs scatter and run in vain from the whistling bombs, before being felled by blast waves and fiery explosions. The final scene shows a scorched and tattered Baby Smurf sobbing inconsolably, surrounded by prone Smurfs.

Now while I admit to a sadistic desire to hear that stupid Smurf song morph into "Laaa laaa la-la-la Ahhhh!!!!" I must question just what the heck the U.N. is doing. I mean if the purpose of this was to raise funds and awareness about child soldiers in Burundi, perhaps showing the actual situation in Burundi would be a more powerful motivator?


In other news, Britney Spears' auction for Katrina relief has ended...finally. Though ironically enough, braless.

Britney Spears stripped her charity auction of a jewel-encrusted bra, but still raised thousands of dollars for hurricane relief efforts.
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On Saturday, she posted a message on her Web site saying she was "concerned that some of you might be confusing this bra with something that it's not."

The 23-year-old pop star said she wore the white stone bra — bids had risen to over $47,000 on the auction Web site — during her HBO special — but not during her performance of "... Baby One More Time."

"I feel the correct thing to do is remove this item from the auction because I don't want any of you to feel misled," she said.
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It was the second time the bra had been removed from the auction. Earlier, an eBay staffer pulled it because it violated the Web site's policy of not selling used undergarments. The decision was reversed, though, because the bra fit under the category of memorabilia.

I was unaware eBay even had such a policy. Either way, I doubt anyone felt misled by the auction...except perhaps Ms. Spears.


And lastly, filed away under the "what have you been eating" category. First it was python vs. alligator, then it was python vs. cat, and now we have farmer vs. farm animals.

A Chinese man who raised bears to tap them for their bile, prized as a traditional medicine in Asia, has been killed and eaten by his animals, Xinhua news agency said on Tuesday.

Six black bears attacked keeper Han Shigen as he was cleaning their pen in the northeastern province of Jilin on Monday, Xinhua said.

"The ill-fated man died on the spot and was eaten up by the ferocious bears," it said, citing a report in the Beijing News.

Though in this case, I really am sympathizing with the bear here.

In practices decried by animal rights groups, bile is extracted through surgically implanted catheters in the bear's gall bladders, or by a "free-dripping" technique by which bile drips out through holes opened in the animals' abdomens.

Rather gross.