Autopia / Distopia Weekend

Super Saturday is here, and it's a sweet combo of high-performance racing and awesome music.

After a work exile in Palm "hot as balls" Springs, Rybot is back and hosting the screening of the missed F1 races as well as the apt-themed Mad Max series. It's unclear if everybody will manage to get through The Road Warrior or the three prior races, but there will be much in the way of cars. And then there's Mogwai. The Scots return and are playing the Orpheum Theater downtown, which is a sweet venue. Scartoe is in for another round with them, and Scarlett will be getting her first taste. I'll give the review afterwards...

Busiest of all this weekend are the Sri Lankian armed forces (how's that for a 180?). Sri Lanka's president vowed to end the decades-old war against the Tamil Tiger rebels within 48 hours. Gee, that's not ambitious.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa said thousands of civilians still in the war zone will be quickly freed from a tiny slice of the country's coastline still controlled by the guerrillas, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. "The freedom of the Tamil civilians held hostage by the LTTE is near at hand and the rescue of all civilians in the small patch of land held by the LTTE will be done in 48 hours".

As the fighting raged, hundreds of desperate war refugees escaped the conflict zone and a top U.N. official headed here on an urgent mission to safeguard the tens of thousands of civilians still trapped amid the heavy shelling. The government has forced the rebels out of the de facto state they once controlled in the north and cornered them in a 1.5-square mile strip of northeastern coastline.

As of this morning, two army units were fighting their way down the coast from the north and up from the south in an effort to link up, severing the rebels' last remaining sea outlet and completely encircling them. That's a pretty baller move. The two units were only 1.1 miles apart.

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama said that Sri Lankan soldiers were probably fighting their final battle against the remaining rebel fighters, and reports indicated that even the relatives of top rebel leaders are starting to flee the war zone. At least 1,800 more civilians managed to flee rebel-held territory today, joining more than 3,700 who waded across a lagoon to escape yesterday. Rebels had fired on those leaving Thursday, killing four and wounding 14 others. Families packed onto inner tubes floated across the water, past rows of coiled razor wire.

About 200,000 civilians have escaped the war zone in recent months and are being held in overwhelmed displacement camps. The rebels have denied accusations they were holding the civilians as human shields and were shooting at those trying to flee. Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government has barred most journalists and aid workers from the conflict zone. International concern has grown for tens of thousands of civilians under threat from the heavy artillery bombardments shaking the war zone, and the Red Cross warned of "an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe" for the hundreds of wounded trapped without treatment.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, to Sri Lanka for a second time to try to bring the conflict to a peaceful conclusion. Nambiar is expected to meet with top government officials after he arrives Saturday and push for ways "to secure the safety of the 50,000 to 100,000 civilians remaining inside the combat zone". The U.N. says 7,000 civilians were killed and 16,700 wounded in the fighting from Jan. 20 until May 7. Since then, doctors in the war zone say more than 1,000 civilians were killed in a week of heavy shelling that rights groups and foreign governments have blamed on Sri Lankan forces. Sri Lanka denies firing heavy weapons into the war zone.

Hard to say who will have a more relaxing and pleasant couple of days, but I think it's going to be me.