Season 1, Week 4

For week 4, The ELL gets a little help from Parade magazine's list of "The World's 10 Worst Dictators," because everyone knows that the worst dictators make the best evil leaders.

Kim vs Castro
Parade magazine ranked Kim Jong-Il #2. They called him a wily politician. He's shown this throughout recent negotiations with South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, and the US. Kim makes outrageous energy demands so that his less-outrageous demands seem more reasonable. He acquired this skill at the Bill O'Reilly School of Being a Dick or BOSBD. The six partners have reached a tentative agreement where North Korea kinda shuts down their nuclear program in exchange for energy and humanitarian aid. It's the same deal I have with my mother.

Castro was unrated because he's not in power. But even if Fidel Castro was in power and didn't have an artificial anus, he would lose this matchup, because of the active- though small- Jewish community in Cuba. Jews have been practicing more and more since the ban on religious freedom was lifted in 1992. What kind of evil leader allows Jews to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives? Not a very good one.
winner: Kim

Ahmadinejad vs Hussein
Parade did not rank Ahmadinejad, opting instead to list Ayatollah Khamenei, the true authority in Iran, at #3. Ahmadinejad gave his much anticipated speech Sunday, marking the 28th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution, and, well... it was pretty weak. "The Iranian nation on February 11, 2007 passed the arduous passes and stabilised its definite (nuclear) right." Now we're supposed to wait until April 9th for the good stuff and hopefully a better translated sentence ("passed the arduous passes "- what the fuck?). A poor showing for the Iranian president. Could he actually lose to a Sunni Arab this week? No, because that Sunni Arab Saddam Hussein was also unrated. Cuz he's dead.
winner: Ahmadinejad

al-Bashir vs Chavez
Omar al-Bashir of Sudan was #1 in Parade magazine. Besides his striking appearance to Michael Wilbon's father, he garnered the top spot for sitting on a genocide. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez didn't make the list because technically he could be removed from power by legal means. The country did buy Verizon's stake in the television station CANTV, hoping to put it back under state control. Also, Venezuelan officials can now take control of food distribution if they so desire. Chavez is turning into an evil leader mastermind with all of these government controls and increased executive power. But the democratic loophole combined with al-Bashir's lofty rank in the world of worst dictators, makes the outcome of this contest clear.
winner: al-Bashir

Lukashenko vs Mugabe
Alexander Lukashenko was ranked 14th. He continues to try to forge ties between Belarus and Iran. Robert Mugabe was rated 7th by Parade magazine because "under his rule the health and well-being of his people have dropped dramatically, which is as much an abuse of human rights as arbitrary arrest and torture." That's not evilness; that's incompetence! And for some reason he dropped from 4th last year, even though the condition in Zimbabwe has deteriorated to a tremendous degree within the year. Inflation in the country may have reached 1600% but Mugabe's win total goes up infinity percent after this one. Mugabe was 7 places better at being evil than Lukashenko, who didn't even get a mini bio or a picture in the magazine.
winner: Mugabe

standings:
Kim J-I 4-0
Chavez 3-1
Ahmad. 3-1
Lukash. 3-1
al-Bash. 2-2
Mugabe 1-3
Castro 0-4
Hussein 0-4