"US military causes outrage by invading Vietnam using harrowing audio recording 'Crazy in love' from 2003"

From The Daily Mail:

There are a lot of Vietnamese men and women who are angry with Beyonce.

Yesterday's US-backed invasion of Indo-China features audio taken her 2003 smash hit 'Crazy in love', recorded at the time that overweight raptard Jay-Z first started fancying the leggy Texan in 2003.

"Guerilla fighters here looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction. We preferred Hendrix and all the stuff they were listing to last time we kicked their arses," a VietCong public affairs official said as wreckage fell towards Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) on live TV.

But on Monday the 32-year-old defended the Army's use of the song in a statement to ABC News:

"The song was recorded with the sincerest intention to help heal those who have lost loved ones."

The Halo singer added the reference should "remind people that crazy things happen... just because somebody is carpet bombing you doesn't mean they don't love you deep down."

She also said, "My heart goes out to the families of those killed in the first wave of the invasion."

Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T Odierno added: "The songwriters allowed us to use the audio in tribute to the unselfish work of the military-industrial bloc with hope that they will never be forgotten."

"Confusion over Obama lip-syncing"

From the BBC:

Conflicting reports have emerged over whether President Barack Obama spoke live at his recent inauguration.

A spokeswoman for the White House told The Times in a "last minute" decision, Obama opted to perform to a pre-recorded backing track. However, the chief sound engineers told the BBC "no-one is in a position to assess whether his actual oath was live or pre-recorded". But he confirmed that the accompanying music was not performed live.

Millions of people tuned in to watch the president be sworn in for his second term in office. The ceremony was punctuated by performances from James Taylor, Kelly Clarkson, as well as Beyoncé, who sang the national anthem.

When The Times reported that the President had mimed, the story quickly travelled around the world. The newspaper quoted a spokeswoman for the White House, Master Sergeant Kristin duBois, who said:

"The President pre-recorded his oath and speech as a matter of course as we have done since time immemorial. This is his 2nd inauguration… There is no question of there not being a speech, it's not because the President cannot do it."

... Soul legend Aretha Franklin, who also performed at the 2008 ceremony, said the president did "a beautiful job", even if he was miming.

"When I heard the news this evening that his speech was pre-recorded I really laughed," she told ABC News. "I thought it was funny because the weather down there was about 46 or 44 degrees and for most public speakers that is just not good speaking weather. But he did a beautiful job with the pre-record... Next time I'll probably do the same."

Battleship

I took my little lad and one of my big lads to see this film.

As per usual, all those film reviews which gave it one or two stars turned out to be very reliable - the film was AWESOME.

It was about 50% Transformers, 30% Independence Day, and 5% Mars Attacks. They filmed it on the scene of Pearl Harbour, the aliens borrowed the protective shield from the last Harry Potter film and/or War Of The Worlds, the injured veteran was using Gary Sinise's artificial legs from Forrest Gump and to round things off the old guys from the Crimson Permanent Assurance hi-jacked their own ship and saved the day, one of whom was a foul mouthed old yob like the butler in Arthur.

The list goes on: there was a football match between sworn enemies like Escape to Victory, the blonde love interest was basically Kelly McGillis out of Top Gun, it had a female American popstar (Rihanna) in it like Austin Powers in Goldmember (which had Beyoncé), and like Iron Man 2, the soundtrack had two songs by AC/DC, only they used two good ones, "Hard as a rock" and "Thunderstruck".

And so on and so forth. we're still trying to work out which film the two geeks on the mountain were from, Wayne's World, perhaps? Funniest of all is one of the key scenes was towards the end where they are firing at random using grid co-ordinates, like in the good old fashioned game "Battleships" (upon which the Hasbro game is based and in turn on which the film is loosely based).

Friday Night Gear Change

In the spirit of getting down with the kids, keeping my finger on the pulse etc, I watched some Top 40 programme on the telly this evening, which featured Bouncy at number 19, doing one semi-tone up truck driver's gearchange after another (1 min 45 sec; 2 min 5 sec; 2 min 25 sec; 2 min 45 sec) for no apparent reason:

Alvin & The Chipmunks 2: The Squeakquel

Took the kids to see this today, it was marginally funnier than part 1. Here's one of the key scenes:

Beyoncé Knowles - champion of human rights

The Mad Mullahs Of Malaysia told Bouncy that she wasn't allowed to wear her skimpy outfits.

Unlike the delightful Gwen Stefani, who wimped out and covered up, Bouncy told them to get stuffed and is doing a concert in Indonesia (also a Muslim country, but nowhere near as strict) instead.

Bouncy, you rock!