Nelson Mandela: the Nobel Peace Prize winner shakes his groove thangEver play that Six Degrees of Separation game where you pair two completely opposite people and try to link them together in six steps or less? Like for example, how do you get from Amy Winehouse to Nelson Mandela (without any anti-incarceration campaign jokes)? Thank goodness the people over at the HIV/AIDS awareness organization 46664 are giving us a good reason to tie these two very different celebs together.

That’s right: While the entire blogosphere was busy announcing that Amy Winehouse was to enter rehab at exclusive Israeli detox center, and then taking it back, the British pop star and tabloid favorite was making plans to sing at Mandela’s 90th birthday celebration and fundraiser in London next month, as 46664 announced today. This will be the singer’s first big-time concert appearance since November, and the world should be grateful that this particular Winehouse rumor is true.

Other performers scheduled for the event include Queen, Annie Lennox, Razorlight, and many more. Going to be in London around June 27? Tickets are still available.

George Bush was quite deliberate in picking last week as the time to announce his vast expansion of US HIV/AIDS relief efforts in Africa. It was all about social pressure. With the G8 summit coming up this week, most of the member states had so far failed to fulfill their promises to Africa made at the historic 2005 G8 summit in Gleneagles. Most of us expected that they would now at least act to mitigate any appearance that they were poorer global citizens than the neoliberal Evangelical war chimp. That being Bush.

But no. It appears that all the G8 states other than the UK and the US will be slinking back home without meeting their promises, and without even discussing the issue in this week's sessions.

Continue reading...