Season 3, Week 7

We are looking into the possibility of the NCAA tournament committee screwing Butler with a 7 seed as a human rights violation. You can read more about that here. This is the last week of the ELL's third season. The top 4 evil-doers make the evil playoffs, while the bottom three will be relegated. Let's check the results.

Mugabe vs Musharraf
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has been in power for a few decades. He began as a virulent voice for pan-Africanism. He has degenerated into a pillar of vitriol incompetent authoritarianism. That is the stuff of evil legend. But his time in the evil spotlight seems to be short. He is very old and his challengers are consistently gaining clout. His record in the ELL this season might not be good enough to return next time and all of that could end his run here. Mugabe is trying to make it work one last time by stuffing dead and non-existent people onto the voter roles before the upcoming election. It's an old trick that has been found out. Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, is in a bit of trouble. His parliament hates him and his powers are disappearing faster than an arctic iceberg. But his powerful position probably won't be seriously challenged for a little while.
winner: Musharraf

Kim vs al-Bashir
This would be a much needed victory for North Korea's Kim Jong-Il against an old and capable foe. Kim fears a potential coup from a general, so he stripped the military of its power. Bravo, Kim. Very evil. That's reminiscent of when Mao allowed 30 million people in rural China to die of starvation because their mere presence was counter-revolutionary. Ok, that's a bit of hyperbole fueled by present-day bias, but Kim is still pretty evil. Omar al-Bashir runs Sudan. He oversees a humanitarian crisis in the region of Darfur. A recent peace agreement meeting had to be delayed because al-Bashir had a headache. There are times when reality is far more bizarre, intriguing, ridiculous, and absurd than anything we could imagine. I only wish I was sardonic enough to have invented the fact that al-Bashir didn't attend a meeting to try and stop a genocide because he had a headache. However, while al-Bashir's actions are dickish, they're way too wimpy to be evil.
winner: Kim

Putin vs Chavez
Vladimir Putin is the president of Russia for the time being. He has softened on an American plan to build a missile defense system in eastern Europe, which Russia feels is threatening to their security. What is Putin doing? Diplomacy with the United States? Well buddy, you've just lost your spot in the ELL. See you in 2012 when you run for president again or maybe sooner if Dmitry Medvedev appoints you to be prime minister. Venezuela's Hugo Chavez is having problems creating his anti-U.S. Latin American alliance. But he's still evil. He called George W. Bush a terrorist and responsible for genocide. Exactly which group has Bush tried to extinguish? He didn't say. The accusation doesn't make sense. I thought maybe he was accusing Bush of genocide against terrorists. But Bush hasn't been effective on that front. His war in Iraq has created more terrorists. Plus (according to Chavez), Bush himself has become a terrorist. But evil leaders don't have to make sense.
winner: Chavez

Hu vs Ahmadinejad
Hu Jintao of China has an implicit role in the Darfuri genocide. He is squashing out protesters in Tibet. He leads a one-party government. He runs a country that could soon conquer the world. But no one cares. Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad probably said something crazy and threatening to a country that would destroy Iran if it decided to blink.
winner: Ahmadinejad

standings:
Mushar 5-2
al-Bash 5-2
Ahmad 5-2
Kim J-I 4-3
Chavez 4-3
Mugabe 2-5
Putin 2-5
Hu Jin 1-6