Necrophilia in Zamboanga?

A number of female corpses have been removed from their destroyed graves here, which authorities believe were abused by a group of necrophiliacs.
About 5 dead bodies have been discovered in two cemeteries in Barangay Mercedes since October last year, when authorities found a freshly buried female corpse that was dug up and placed on top of her own grave.
In February, a corpse of an old woman was also found outside her final resting place. This went on until March, when bodies of a 17-year old lady and a 13-day old baby girl were removed from their respective graves.
Just recently, a corpse of a female teacher was found hanging upside down from her own stockings tied to a nearby post. Authorities said the victim's underwear was also removed and was placed on her head.
Relatives of the victims were enraged by the alleged sexual violation of the female corpses. Authorities said they are already looking at drug addicts, members of fraternities and lunatics as suspects to the so-called necrophilia case.
What is necrophilia?
Stephen Hucker, consulting forensic psychiatrist and a professor at the University of Toronto, said necrophilia can be best defined as sexual arousal stimulated by a dead body.
In his website, forensicpsychiatry.ca, he said the stimulation can either be in the form of fantasies (which are never acted upon) or actual physical contact (kissing, fondling, or performing sexual intercourse) with the corpse.
The concept of necrophilia has been known since ancient Egyptian times, when a dead woman's body was left to decay for three to four days before being given to embalmers to discourage intercourse with the corpse.
Citing studies, Hucker said the presence of other personality disorders in necrophilia can manifest in more grotesque elements such as the mutilation of the corpse, drinking the blood or urine, or homicide (called "necrophilic homicide" or "necrosadism").
Although assumed rare, Hucker said many have argued that necrophilia may be more prevalent given that the act would be carried out in secret with a victim unable to complain (since he or she is already dead)David Mikael Taclino
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16 yrs old Boy Rapped Pig in Mindanao

 A 16-year-old boy was arrested for allegedly raping a pig in Koronadal City in Mindanao, a radio report said on Tuesday.

Radio dzXL reported that the irate owner of the animal haled the suspect, whose name was withheld, to a police station in Koronadal City after learning of the act.

Mariano Curay, the owner of the unfortunate sow, said the incident occurred in Sarabia village in Koronadal City.

But the suspect was freed after a few hours, because the police could not file charges against him as he is a minor.

The incident came half a year after an 18-year-old farmer was arrested for allegedly sexually molesting – and killing - a two-year-old goat in Iloilo province after a drinking spree.

In that incident, the owner of the goat was shocked to see the suspect sexually assaulting the animal.

Police learned Calamaan went on a drinking spree after he had finished planting rice. The goat died after the assault, the report said.

Calamaan was quoted as saying he was going to gather the harvested rice when he saw the goat in a "prone" position, and took "interest."

He said he strangled the goat when it tried to resist his advances.

David Mikael Taclino
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All Road to Texas

 The road to Arlington, Texas begins for Team Pacquiao Monday (Tuesday in Manila) as it heads there for the final countdown of the Filipino ring idol’s 12-round showdown against Joshua Clottey of Ghana.

A chartered plane that leaves Los Angeles at around 3 p.m. Monday will bring Manny Pacquiao and around 150 people to Arlington, the seventh-largest city in Texas, following a three-hour flight covering 1,251 miles.

The fantastic $1.2 billion Dallas Cowboys Stadium owned by billionaire Jerry Jones will be the site of Pacquiao’s 12-round title fight against Clottey this Saturday.

This marks the first time in three years that the 31-year old southpaw from General Santos City is fighting outside of Las Vegas since scoring an eighth round knockout of Mexican Jorge Solis in San Antonio, Texas in 2007.

The change in venue and atmosphere hardly deters the champion, staking for the first time the 147-pound title belt he won four months ago with a 12th round technical knockout of Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto.

"We’re ok and we’re ready," said Pacquiao Sunday afternoon at his posh Palazzo Apartment in Hollywood, where he personally supervised the final day of the three-week long weight loss challenge he put up for his bloated staff.

Pacquiao skipped his road work Sunday and instead attended Mass at the nearby Christ The King Church accompanied by his close family members and friends. He later had lunch at his $2 million house located just outside of the upscale Los Angeles neighborhood of Hancock Park.

Prior to his departure for Texas, Pacquiao will be doing his final sparring in training camp at the WildCard gym as he is scheduled to go four rounds against old hand Ray Beltran.

"We’re just going to maintain everything. I have no weight problems," Pacquiao told Manila-based sports writers.

Asked on whether he’s having problem meeting the 147-weight limit, Pacquiao smiled and said, "No, I just eat when I want to."

Pacquiao is arriving in Texas a day after Clottey planes in. The challenger is set to hold his public workout at the Convention Hall of the Gaylord Texan Hotel on Monday, while the champion does his own on Tuesday.

The final press conference of the match, dubbed "The Event" and promoted by Top Rank, is on Wednesday.

With less than a week before finally facing Clottey in the ring, Pacquiao wished his opponent the best.

"Good luck to both of us. May the best man win," he said the Filipino.

Pacman’s "Biggest Loser" challenge
American Tim Sladeck, meanwhile, emerged the best man in the weight loss challenge participated by 87 personnel and friends close to Pacquiao.

Sladeck, also an associate of Pacquiao adviser Michael Konz, won the top prize of $20,000 for losing the most in weight during the three-week contest. The winner lost a total of 49 pounds, going down from 214 to 165.

He also won an additional $3,000 as the contest rules call for participants to lose 15 percent of their body weight. Sladeck lost 22.5 percent of his body weight.

In all, 38 participants were able to meet the test and took home $3,000 each, bringing Pacquiao’s total prize close to $135,000 or about P6.3 million.
David Mikael Taclino
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Oscars Aftermath

For Hollywood pundits, industry folk and Oscar fans still paying attention on Monday, a major question remained: How did David slay Goliath?

For as much as "The Hurt Locker" was the critics' darling, it had three major strikes against it in its battle against the mighty James Cameron's "Avatar."

First, the box office was paltry — it's taken in just $14.7 million domestically, compared to an amazing $720.6 million for "Avatar." That makes "The Hurt Locker" the lowest-grossing best picture winner since accurate records have been kept.

Second, it had no big acting names, usually an important factor in Oscar victory.

And third, it was about the Iraq war, a subject moviegoers traditionally just don't want to deal with. "Iraq is usually the kiss of death at the Oscars," says Tom O'Neil, blogger for the Los Angeles Times' Envelope, an awards site.

But even with 10 nominees in the running for this year's best picture Oscar, the two films — whose directors were once married — were quickly pitted against each other in the race for Hollywood's highest honor.

How did "The Hurt Locker" win out? Theories abound:

FINALLY A NON-POLITICAL FILM ABOUT IRAQ:

Many films about the Iraq war have fallen into a trap of appearing preachy or at least having a strong point of view. Viewers may or may not agree with that view — that still doesn't mean they want to get it at the movies.

But "The Hurt Locker," a story of three technicians on a bomb-defusing team in Baghdad, is at heart an action movie — a documentary-style close-up of the men, their relationships, their missteps and the almost unbearable tension inherent in their exhausting, terrifying, tedious work.

"This isn't that kind of muckraking film aiming to show torture or violation of rules of war," says Robert Sklar, film professor at New York University. "This is a film about men trying to save lives rather than take them. It's also a buddy story. It has classic war-movie themes."

OSCAR LIKES FILMS WITH AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

Often the Academy honors big, sweeping films, which "The Hurt Locker" is certainly not. But it also looks for films with a substantial message. "Oscar likes films of importance, with a capital I," says film historian Leonard Maltin. "Often they're big films, but this is a small film that dealt with a really important subject."

OSCAR VOTERS DON'T CARE ABOUT BOX OFFICE:

Who says Oscar cares about box office? "The Oscars don't pay attention to that at all, and nor should they," Maltin says. In fact, he adds, they've often been accused of being too elitist, favoring independent movies over big films favored by the broader public.
YES, THEY DO!:

Nonsense, says O'Neil, of The Envelope: "The Academy wants their movies to do well. Then they anoint them." Even last year's "Slumdog Millionaire," which originally almost went straight to DVD, had made $40 million before the nominations, then rode to $70 million by the time of the awards, he says.

IT'S ABOUT THE CAMPAIGNING:

All of "Hurt Locker's" technical merit aside, "it would be naive to think Oscar campaigning had nothing to do with it," says O'Neil.

He credits Cynthia Swartz, whose public relations firm was given the Oscar campaigning job by Summit, the film's distributor, which was looking for industry respect and had plenty of money to fund the campaign, having already cashed in with the "Twilight" vampire movies.

"It was a very savvy campaign," says O'Neil. "Full force, and highly aggressive."

THE WOMAN FACTOR:

As compelling as her movie was, director Kathryn Bigelow had a compelling story of her own. This director who specializes not in female-oriented films but in big action thrillers had a real shot at becoming the first woman in Oscar history to win the best director prize, with her film winning best picture, too.

Yet Bigelow tried to downplay that element of her story, saying in interviews that she just wanted to be seen as a filmmaker, not a female one.

"Bigelow refused to capitalize on the woman factor, and to her credit," says Maltin. Everyone else wanted to make it a story but her. Still, you can't deny it had some impact."

THE EX FACTOR:

Nor did Bigelow have any desire to capitalize on the "Ex Factor" — in case you're way behind on your Oscar gossip, she was married to Cameron from 1989-91. Were there some voters who were secretly rooting for her to leave him in the dust? No way of knowing, and the two seemed amicable through the awards season, with him standing and cheering as she won her Oscar. Still, there's no doubt that the "battle of the exes" (ok, we're done with the puns) added to the hype.

THE VOTING SYSTEM:

Then there was the new system for choosing best picture, with 10 nominees this year instead of the usual five. In previous years, a voter would simply make one choice for best picture. But this year's ballots had a preferential system, meaning voters ranked their choices. The lowest choices were then eliminated. That meant it was a system that favored consensus choices, some hypothesized.

"'Avatar' is polarizing," postulated Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker magazine last month.

"So is James Cameron ... these factors could push 'Avatar' to the bottom of a choice-ranked ballot.'"

AND SPEAKING OF "AVATAR"...

Was "Avatar" ever really going to win? Blogger O'Neil doesn't think so, even though it won the Golden Globe and seemed to be at the top of many prediction lists.

"I think we pundits convinced ourselves that 'Avatar' might win, but in reality there's a science-fiction bias in the Academy, and it's pretty unbudgeable," he says.

We'll never know how close the vote was — the Academy doesn't release that information and it doesn't do exit polls. But informal exit polls done privately by industry insiders, and his own conversations, lead O'Neil to think that Quentin Tarantino's wild "Inglourious Basterds" was actually the film that almost won, not "Avatar."

HOW ABOUT ... IT'S JUST A REALLY GOOD MOVIE:

"Look at all the awards this film won — screenplay, sound, editing," notes Sklar, the NYU film professor and author of "Movie-Made America."

"The sheer quality of the work must have influenced a lot of the professionals in the industry who were voting. It's just such a well-made movie from aesthetic and technical point of view, it overcomes all those other concerns."

And so maybe it's this simple: In the end, good writing, superb acting and just plain excellent filmmaking do win out in Hollywood.

















David Mikael Taclino
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3 ‘statistically tied’ for 1st in Senate race—Pulse Asia

Three senators who are running for re-election are “statistically tied” at first place, according to the results of the latest survey conducted by Pulse Asia released on Tuesday.
Senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, and Miriam Defensor-Santiago would most likely end up in a tie had the senatorial race been held on February, Pulse Asia said.
In its survey conducted from February 21 to 25, Revilla registered a voter preference of 53.6 percent; Estrada registered a voter preference of 52.6 percent; while Santiago registered a voter preference of 49.4 percent.
The survey, which was conducted among 1,800 respondents nationwide with margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent, also showed Santiago as the biggest gainer among the candidates.
Santiago gained 8.2 percent in terms of voter preference, compared to the previous survey also conducted by Pulse Asia last January where Santiago registered 41.2 percent in terms of voter preference.
Pulse Asia also said that 14 candidates would have a “statistical chance” in gaining a seat in the Senate this coming election.
A majority of those who made it in Pulse Asia’s list were senators or former senators seeking to return to office.
Tied in third place are Senator Pilar Juliana “Pia” Cayetano (45.4 percent) and former Senate President Franklin Drilon (45 percent).
Completing the list of 14 candidates are current Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile (43.8 percent), former Senator Vicente “Tito” Sotto III (33.2 percent), former senator and former National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) director general Ralph Recto (33.1 percent), former Senator Sergio “Serge” Osmeña III (29.1 percent), Ilocos Norte Representative Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (28.2 percent), Senator Manuel “Lito” Lapid (25.8 percent), Bukidnon Representative Teofisto “TG” Guingona III (24.3 percent), businessman and national broadband network deal whistleblower Jose “Joey” De Venecia III (23.5 percent), and Muntinlupa Representative Rozzano Rufino “Ruffy” Biazon (22.7 percent).
“Of these candidates, former Senators Sotto, Recto, and Osmeña, and Rep. Marcos would have joined the winning circle of 12 senators if the elections were held at the time of the survey,” Pulse Asia said.
Pulse Asia also said that despite only three months left before the elections in May, 8.3 percent of registered voters “did not express electoral support for any senatorial candidate, refuse to name their senatorial preferences, or have yet to decide on the candidates they will vote for.”
The survey was conducted using face-to-face interviews. Among the prominent issues at the time the survey was conducted include the C-5 road extension controversy involving Senate President Manny Villar, Senator Panfilo Lacson evading arrest by fleeing the country in relation to the Dacer-Corbito double murder case, and other election-related concerns involving the Commission on Elections.

David Mikael Taclino
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Cebu Pac Goes Public

 Budget carrier Cebu Pacific Monday announced plans to raise about P12 billion through the sale of new shares to the public.
Cebu Air Inc., the company that operates the Cebu Pacific airline, said it planned to list 125.25 million new common shares through an initial public offering (IPO). At the maximum offer price of P95 each set by the company, the new shares are valued at close to P12 billion.
The company also said that it had asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to approve its request to list an additional 110 million existing shares at the same price.
The company wants to list 35.33 million shares owned by Cebu Pacific’s parent company JG Summit Holdings Inc. “subject to the over-allotment option granted to the stabilizing agent under the same terms and conditions as the primary and secondary offer.”
In addition, an extra 18.4 million shares will also be listed as part of the company’s employee stock option plan, at a 25-percent discount to the IPO price.
The company originally planned to go public in 2008, but jittery market conditions at the time forced Cebu Pacific to postpone an IPO.
Officials Monday said that while the airline’s shares would be listed on the local bourse, the company would offer the shares primarily to international institutional investors.
“There is not enough capital available in the country for an offer of this size,” JG Summit vice president for finance Bach Johann Sebastian said in an interview.
He said the figures were only indicative and did not necessarily mean that this would be the exact amount the company wanted to raise.
Sebastian declined to say when the company planned to conduct its IPO. “We just had to put a nominal value in our request, but that does not mean that we are targeting to raise that amount,” he said.
He said the proceeds of the IPO would be used for the company’s continuing expansion plans.
Cebu Pacific swung to profitability in the third quarter of last year with a net income of P1.78 billion against a net loss of P1.87 billion in the same period in 2008
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500 Christians Massacre in Nigeria

Nigerian troops were patrolling villages near the northern city of Jos Tuesday after the massacre of more than 500 Christians there that sparked international shock and outrage.
But survivors of the latest wave of inter-ethnic violence, in which women and children were hacked to death or burned alive in their homes, denounced the authorities for having failed to intervene in time.
Relatives of the dead meanwhile attended funerals Monday for the victims of the three-hour orgy of violence in three Christian villages close to the northern city of Jos. Related article: Survivors wail as children, women buried in Nigeria
Witnesses have blamed the massacre on members of the mainly Muslim Fulani ethnic group, and according to media reports Muslims villagers were warned two days before attack via text messages to their phones.
The security forces said they had detained 95 suspects in the violence.
"We have over 500 killed in three villages and the survivors are busy burying their dead," said state information commissioner Gregory Yenlong.
"People were attacked with axes, daggers and cutlasses -- many of them children, the aged and pregnant women."
Around 200 people were being treated in hospital, said the information ministry.
Much of the violence was centred around the village of Dogo Nahawa, where gangs set fire to straw-thatched mud huts as they went on their rampage.
The explosion of violence was just the latest between rival ethnic and religious groups.
In January, 326 people died in clashes in and around Jos, according to police although rights activists put the overall toll at more than 550.
"The attack is yet another jihad and provocation," the Plateau State Christian Elders Consultative Forum (PSCEF) said.
It had taken the army two hours to react from the time a distress call was put through and "the attackers had finished their job and left", they added.
Acting President Goodluck Jonathan has already sacked his chief security advisor.
John Onaiyekan, the archbishop of the capital Abuja, told Vatican Radio that the violence was rooted not in religion but in social, economic and tribal differences.
"It is a classic conflict between pastoralists and farmers, except that all the Fulani are Muslims and all the Berom are Christians," he said.
Fulani are mainly nomadic cattle rearers while Beroms are traditionally farmers.
Locals said Sunday's attacks were the result of a feud which had been first ignited by a theft of cattle and then fuelled by deadly reprisals.
Rights activists also said the slaughter appeared to be revenge for the January attacks, in which mainly Muslims were killed.
The Vatican led a wave of outrage with spokesman Federico Lombardi expressing the Roman Catholic Church's "sadness" at the "horrible acts of violence".
UN chief Ban Ki-moon told reporters he was "deeply concerned", but added: "I appeal to all concerned to exercise maximum restraint.
"Nigeria's political and religious leaders should work together to address the underlying causes and to achieve a permanent solution to the crisis in Jos."
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged "all parties to exercise restraint."
She added: "The Nigerian government should ensure that the perpetrators of acts of violence are brought to justice under the rule of law and that human rights are respected as order is restored."
Survivors said the attackers were able to separate the Fulanis from members of the rival Berom group by chanting 'nagge,' the Fulani word for cattle. Those who failed to respond in the same language were hacked to death.
Witnesses said armed gangs had scared people out of their homes by firing into the air but most of the killings were the result of machete attacks.
"We were caught unawares... and as we tried to escape, the Fulani who were already waiting slaughtered many of us," said Dayop Gyang, of Dogo Nahawa.
Gbong Gwon Jos, a Muslim resident of Dogo Nahawa, told The Nation daily he received advanced warnings of the attacks.
"I got a text message about movement of the people."
Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that some of the attackers were former residents of the villages who had fled previous inter-community conflicts.
"I recognized a few of [the attackers'] voices," one witness told them.
Another witness told the group many of the attackers had their heads wrapped in cloth to make it hard to identify them, and that some had cried "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great).
Amid continuing tension Monday, Christian youths set upon a Muslim journalist covering one of the mass burials near Jos, an AFP reporter said. Police had to pull him to safety and he needed treatment for a broken nose.

David Mikael Taclino
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Low Oxygen in Ocean Floor Threatened Life

Lower levels of oxygen in the Earth's oceans, particularly off the United States' Pacific Northwest coast, could be another sign of fundamental changes linked to global climate change, scientists say.
They warn that the oceans' complex undersea ecosystems and fragile food chains could be disrupted.
In some spots off Washington state and Oregon , the almost complete absence of oxygen has left piles of Dungeness crab carcasses littering the ocean floor, killed off 25-year-old sea stars, crippled colonies of sea anemones and produced mats of potentially noxious bacteria that thrive in such conditions.
Areas of hypoxia, or low oxygen, have long existed in the deep ocean. These areas — in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans — appear to be spreading, however, covering more square miles, creeping toward the surface and in some places, such as the Pacific Northwest , encroaching on the continental shelf within sight of the coastline.
"The depletion of oxygen levels in all three oceans is striking," said Gregory Johnson , an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle .
In some spots, such as off the Southern California coast, oxygen levels have dropped roughly 20 percent over the past 25 years. Elsewhere, scientists say, oxygen levels might have declined by one-third over 50 years.
"The real surprise is how this has become the new norm," said Jack Barth , an oceanography professor at Oregon State University . "We are seeing it year after year."
Barth and others say the changes are consistent with current climate-change models. Previous studies have found that the oceans are becoming more acidic as they absorb more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
"If the Earth continues to warm, the expectation is we will have lower and lower oxygen levels," said Francis Chan , a marine researcher at Oregon State .
As ocean temperatures rise, the warmer water on the surface acts as a cap, which interferes with the natural circulation that normally allows deeper waters that are already oxygen-depleted to reach the surface. It's on the surface where ocean waters are recharged with oxygen from the air.
Commonly, ocean "dead zones" have been linked to agricultural runoff and other pollution coming down major rivers such as the Mississippi or the Columbia . One of the largest of the 400 or so ocean dead zones is in the Gulf of Mexico , near the mouth of the Mississippi .
However, scientists now say that some of these areas, including those off the Northwest, apparently are linked to broader changes in ocean oxygen levels.
The Pacific waters off Washington and Oregon face a double whammy as a result of ocean circulation.
Scientists have long known of a natural low-oxygen zone perched in the deeper water off the Northwest's continental shelf.
During the summer, northerly winds aided by the Earth's rotation drive surface water away from the shore. This action sucks oxygen-poor water to the surface in a process called upwelling.
Though the water that's pulled up from the depths is poor in oxygen, it's rich in nutrients, which fertilize phytoplankton. These microscopic organisms form the bottom of one of the richest ocean food chains in the world. As they die, however, they sink and start to decay. The decaying process uses oxygen, which depletes the oxygen levels even more.
Southerly winds reverse the process in what's known as down-welling.
Changes in the wind and ocean circulation since 2002 have disrupted what had been a delicate balance between upwelling and down-welling. Scientists now are discovering expanding low-oxygen zones near shore.
"It is consistent with models of global warming, but the time frame is too short to know whether it is a trend or a weather phenomenon," Johnson said.
Others were slightly more definitive, quicker to link the lower oxygen levels to global warming rather than to such weather phenomena as El Nino or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a shift in the weather that occurs every 20 to 30 years in the northern oceans.
"It's a large disturbance in the ecosystem that could have huge biological changes," said Steve Bograd , an oceanographer at NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in Southern California .
Bograd has been studying oxygen levels in the California Current, which runs along the West Coast from the Canadian border to Baja California and, some scientists think, eventually could be affected by climate change.
So far, the worst hypoxic zone off the Northwest coast was found in 2006. It covered nearly 1,200 square miles off Newport, Ore. , and according to Barth it was so close to shore you could hit it with a baseball. The zone covered 80 percent of the water column and lasted for an abnormally long four months.
Because of upwelling, some of the most fertile ocean areas in the world are found off Washington and Oregon . Similar upwelling occurs in only three other places, off the coast of Peru and Chile , in an area stretching from northern Africa to Portugal and along the Atlantic coast of South Africa and Namibia .
Scientists are unsure how low oxygen levels will affect the ocean ecosystem. Bottom-dwelling species could be at the greatest risk because they move slowly and might not be able to escape the lower oxygen levels. Most fish can swim out of danger. Some species, however, such as chinook salmon, may have to start swimming at shallower depths than they're used to. Whether the low oxygen zones will change salmon migration routes is unclear.
Some species, such as jellyfish, will like the lower-oxygen water. Jumbo squid, usually found off Mexico and Central America , can survive as oxygen levels decrease and now are found as far north as Alaska .
"It's like an experiment," Chan said. "We are pulling some things out of the food web and we will have to see what happens. But if you pull enough things out, it could have a real impact."

David Mikael Taclino
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Real Hurt Lockers "Life's No Movie"

American bomb disposal experts in Iraq say few people understood what they did.
Not any more.
Now, the U.S. military's explosive experts are basking in their job's newfound fame after the Iraq war drama "The Hurt Locker" took home the best picture prize at Sunday's Academy Awards in Hollywood.
But the specialists still have to explain they are not all like the film's arrogant, adrenaline-junkie hero.
Set in the summer of 2004, the movie tells the fictional story of an elite U.S. Army bomb squad that has 38 days to go before its members can leave Baghdad. Under enormous pressure, since one false move can kill them and everyone around them, they are itching to get the job done and head home.
Enter Staff Sgt. William James, who's either a swaggering, brilliant, bomb disposal expert, or an egomaniacal showoff — perhaps a bit of both. The character and the screenplay were inspired by the screenwriter's own experience while he was embedded with such a squad in 2004.
But James' character earned mixed reviews from bomb experts in Iraq attached to the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division.
"That guy was more of a run and gun cowboy type, and that is exactly the kind of person that we're not looking for," said Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Phillips, a team leader in Iraq's eastern Maysan province.
Phillips, 30, from Fayetteville, North Carolina, called the movie's portrayal of a bomb expert "grossly exaggerated and not appropriate."
Airman 1st class Stephen Dobbins said such swagger would put a whole team at risk.
"Our team leaders don't have that kind of invincibility complex, and if they do, they aren't allowed to operate," said Dobbins, 22, of Paulden, Arizona, one of many Air Force experts who have been flown in to back up Army explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team operations. "A team leader's first priority is getting his team home in one piece."
But that doesn't mean the movie doesn't have its fans among bomb disposal experts serving in Iraq.
"While it was sexed up quite a bit, I really enjoyed it," said Tech Sgt. William Adomeit, 31, of Las Vegas, Nevada. Adomeit saw the movie for the first time at his base in the southern Iraqi town of Nasiriyah.
Other than the best picture prize, the movie earned five more Oscars, including best director honors for Kathryn Bigelow — the first woman in the 82-year history of the Academy Awards to earn Hollywood's top prize for filmmakers.
The movie's title can mean different things — from GI slang for severe injury to a place no one wants to go, to a tricky, locked-in space a bomb expert finds himself in when a blast goes off.
Most bomb technicians accuse the movie of taking cinematic liberties that would never occur in a war zone, such as hunting bomb-makers down dark alleys alone, or riding around Baghdad unescorted by U.S. Army vehicles.
"The one vehicle going out by itself, that would not be realistic at all," said Senior Airman Katie Hamm, 23, of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Six years after the film takes place, bombings remain the primary threat to Iraqis. Bomb disposal teams are still finding weapons caches and responding to rocket attacks, but the nature of their mission has changed dramatically since 2004, when the film takes place.
With the U.S. military preparing to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by September, American EOD teams are teaching Iraqis to do a job American technicians usually spend years training for.
This new task moves American bomb technicians from the field into the classroom, where they pass on their knowledge to Iraqis who will take over the high-risk job.
"We weren't really trained to be teachers necessarily, or advisers," said Staff Sgt. Andrew Krueger, 24, of Greeley, Colorado. "It's something you kind of have to learn how to do as you go."
Collecting intelligence on bomb-makers is one duty of explosive experts' that hasn't ebbed over the years — but trophies from disposed bombs are not exactly souvenirs you can take home.
The movie's lead character, played by actor Jeremy Renner, keeps bomb parts under his bed as keepsakes of the bombs that nearly killed him. In the real world, he would be accused of withholding evidence.
American bombs technicians take care to preserve pieces of bombs so they can use that intelligence to track down and identify bomb-makers.
"Each bomb maker has his own way of doing things, it's like a hard-wired routine — they all have a signature, they all use a certain kind of tape, or they use a certain kind of battery," said Phillips.
Reality is at odds with the movie when it comes to the film's iconic bomb suit. Most of the time, it sits unused on a shelf in the teams' vehicles. Even the robots — the workhorses of bomb-disposal teams — rarely see action nowadays in Iraq since the Americans use them only when called in for a response to a planted bomb.
The explosives experts say they never go for the suit first but use it as a last resort, preferring to do everything as remotely and safely as possible. So the movie's idea that they show up every day and throw on the suit first thing is unusual, they said.
But one thing the movie got down pat, the experts in Iraq say, is a bomb disposal expert's love for the adrenaline rush of a job well done. Now, with improved security across Iraq, their missions are rare.
"If we're slow, and nothing's going on, it means something is going right," said Dobbins.

David Mikael Taclino
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