News of the Restless

....because while her husband semi-languishes in jail, Barbara Amiel is having a crisis.

She has been shunned by other wealthy families in this exclusive area of Florida, and is hardly seen outside her mansion.

One of the few with whom she has remained in contact says: 'Barbara's presence on the social scene is absolute zero. She did not have that many friends here to begin with, but with her husband in jail she has even fewer.'

At the Palm Beach Daily News, one reporter who covers the social scene in Palm Beach told me that Amiel's name was no longer on any of the regular invitations that are sent out.

'She was always considered something of an outsider, who did not participate in the charitable scene. Now she is even more so.'

She will not have endeared herself to former friends and associates either with her recent activities. In a rancorous and self-serving article in a broadsheet newspaper last week, Lady Black unleashed her fury on both the American criminal justice system and those she still insists abandoned her and her husband in their hour of need - the 'rats who left the ship' as she calls them.

She went on to denounce her husband's 'judicial murder', as well as the treachery of his former colleagues.

Her husband had, she wrote, been 'baselessly smeared, wrongfully deprived, falsely accused, shamelessly persecuted, innocently convicted and grotesquely punished'. If, she asks plaintively, the rich and well-connected cannot get justice, 'what chance for anyone else?'

Please, people, try not to laugh too loud at that last howler. Lady La-de-Da's silk-upholstered fainting couch is already sopping wet. And why not, since her dear husband has been adverbially verbed in every vile, cruel, baseless way...

Continue reading "Call the Waaaaaaambulance..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:43 PM | Permalink

More tired old "21st century socialism looks just like 20th", courtesy the Financial Times.

More tired old "Chavez is a dictator", courtesy the Richmond Times Dispatch.

And in the grand (tired) old tradition of unsigned editorials, the authors are not named (to protect the guilty, of course.) It would be nice to know, for a change, to whom one must hand back their lying ass. Accountability is such a buzzword these days, so why not there?

Well, at least one truly outstanding Brit twit has the courage to put his name and his tired, defeated old mug at the top of his even more tired, defeated old stupidities at the UK Telegraph. He maunders on about how marriage has "crumbled" since 1979 (really? then why all the married couples, including my parents, who are still together for over 40 years now?) He also rambles about the misleadingness of the Gini coefficient, which is actually rather reliable. He blathers on about how poverty is "elective" and based on "dependency" (name one person outside a monastery who has freely chosen poverty, sir). Oh yeah, and he calls Venezuela "Marxist", as though Simon Bolivar were just some equestrian statue covered with pigeon droppings. Could it possibly get more tired and derivative?

This old dobbin is just ripe for the glue factory; his carcass is hanging by a thread, but it's still a lot more coherent and less crumbly than his brittle arguments about how the rich lift up the rest of us, just by virtue of their "wealth creation". Gee, haven't thirty-odd years of fascist-imposed neoliberalism proved as much?

But hey, let's give him the No Bull Please Prize for this pronouncement:

Continue reading "Who writes these dumbass editorials?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 05:05 PM | Permalink

If you ever wanted to know about US mercenaries and just how low they can go, this is the guy who wrote the book. It's called Blackwater, and it's not pretty, but it's one compelling read. It will wake you right up to the dangers of privatizing everything--including the worst of the worst, namely war. So far, Blackwater and all its false fronts have been immune from prosecution, but that could all change if the government of Iraq manages to cut enough of its puppet strings.

Let's hope so!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:53 PM | Permalink

Ho, ditty, hum, ditty...why am I not surprised at this?

A man who opened fire inside a church, killing two people with a shotgun hidden in a guitar case, was frustrated at being unable to find a job and blamed liberals and gays, police said on Monday.

"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred of the liberal movement," Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen told reporters of Sunday's incident at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

Continue reading "No surprises here..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:39 PM | Permalink

Whoa--is the sky falling, or what? The Economist has finally gotten (partway) off its "rah rah, America" kick and published a (somewhat) honest assessment of what's going on in the States. And a thing of beauty it is, too:

One source of angst is the sorry state of American capitalism (see article). The "Washington consensus" told the world that open markets and deregulation would solve its problems. Yet American house prices are falling faster than during the Depression, petrol is more expensive than in the 1970s, banks are collapsing, the euro is kicking sand in the dollar's face, credit is scarce, recession and inflation both threaten the economy, consumer confidence is an oxymoron and Belgians have just bought Budweiser, "America's beer".

Wow! And that's only the second paragraph. It goes on in that vein pretty much throughout the piece, with occasional excursions into the silly (which I'll get to shortly.)

I think we can safely say this marks an epoch. Just a few short years ago, this self-same Economist was totally behind the Washington consensus. Rather like the woman in the famous picture, cleaning up after the elephant by catching its droppings in a big bag-on-a-stick as they fell, so they wouldn't hit the ground and be seen for the vast load of shit they are.

Unfortunately, this moment of truth shall pass, as does everything else in the transitory world of market capitalism. And in fact, within the same article, we see evidence that the editorial writer doesn't really get what's going on at all:

Continue reading "I could have told them so, but would they listen?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:29 PM | Permalink

Nestle CEO Peter Brabeck doesn't think water is a basic human right (he considers THAT position "extremist"); he thinks it should be owned by corporations and sold to the public for profit. I guess no one ever told him what happened to Bechtel in Cochabamba, Bolivia, for having the same idea.

And if you think Nestle is innocuous, take a look at how much of the world's water supply they're trying to buy the (cheap) rights to so they can sell it back to the people bottled (and expensive). And also, take a look at what they've done to a citizens' group in Switzerland that had the audacity to challenge their squeaky-clean public image.

Does a truly clean corporation need to feel threatened by a small protest group to the extent that it pays 65 million euros to a security firm, in violation of Swiss privacy law, to infiltrate and spy on such groups? Or is this just another case of corporate fascism refusing to brook any challenges to its own undeserved authority--especially in the face of sagging revenues?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 04:06 PM | Permalink

"Oh God, I won a rhinestone tiara for one whole year! All the torture has been worth it!"

Well, here's a foregone conclusion that I wish the world could forego: Once again, a totally un-Venezuelan-looking Miss Venezuela has been crowned a very un-universal Miss Universe. And some brave "independent" Australian kookaburra has seen fit to lay an egg on the Internets about it. (Insert obligatory reference to communism and tyranny anywhere you like, mate. And don't forget to totally ignore the distinctions between communism and socialism.)

Meanwhile, for the real lowdown on this ultra-hyped pseudo-event, we turn to Aporrea, which has the scoop on where the real tyranny lies--and no, it ain't communism or even socialism. Here goes my rough translation of selections from the article, with commentaries in between:

Continue reading "Hideous tanorexia strikes again!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

What a shame. Lord Blah-Blah has to serve out his full sentence:

Conrad Black's conviction on fraud and obstruction of justice charges has been upheld by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

The court said today that defence lawyers' arguments weren't strong enough to topple Black's conviction.

Black has been at a minimum-security prison in Florida since March serving a 6 1/2-year sentence.

Minimum security, such a light sentence--and he still appealed it? What a self-important wanker.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From Deutsche Welle, the German satellite TV channel, an interesting passage buried well down in the piece:

The Return Directive raises hackles not only because of possible human rights infringements, but because the remittances sent home by illegal workers to their poor countries of origin -- for example Ecuador and Bolivia -- are an important source of income there.

Last year, immigrants in Europe, the US and Japan sent money back to their families in Latin America and the Caribbean amounting to just under 43 billion euros ($66 billion), the EU Observer online newspaper said.

It is more than the region receives from foreign direct investment or development assistance combined.

"...more than the region receives from foreign direct investment or development assistance combined."

Sit back and let that sink in for a bit.

Okay?

Continue reading "Why the EU wants to punish economic migrants" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:31 PM | Permalink

Here, let Editor and Publisher clue you in:

In her Sunday column this week, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell responds to charges of improper money-making from special-interest groups against two of the newspaper's stars, David Broder and Bob Woodward. The allegations were carried in the current issue of Harper's by Ken Silverstein, the magazine's Washington editor.

Both Broder and Woodward recently took buyouts from the paper but remain as contract workers.

The Post Stylebook's ethics and standards section says only: "We freelance for no one and accept no speaking engagements without permission from department heads." Howell observes: "Broder and Woodward did not check with editors on the appearances Silverstein mentioned."

Continue reading "Ever wonder why I call them media whores?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:59 PM | Permalink

Found a little item on Aporrea and thought I'd translate it and follow up with a few thoughts of mine own:

Could it be that my black friends in the Venezuelan opposition don't feel that they are being alluded to when other oppositionists use words like "niches" (common, vulgar people), "monos" (monkeys), "macacos" (ditto), etc.? Could it be that they just don't say such things in front of my friends? It saddens me to say that in front of me, yes, they say those things.

The Venezuelan right-wing has trouble with its racism for two reasons, one bigger than the other. The smaller is that, as Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said, the main difference between Colombia and Venezuela is that in Colombia, the conservatives win all the wars, and in Venezuela, the liberals win. The conservatives lose the wars but win the peace and go on ruling, because the only visible gain left to the liberals is that racism had become shameful and official ideology camouflaged it. There was racism, stupid like all a priori segregation between people, but up until 1998 it was shifty and artful. The racists would surely blush to show themselves as much as they do in Bolivia. Because in Venezuela--this is the bigger reason--even the most "aryan" has an African grandmother, as Romulo Betancourt once said.

Continue reading "The myth of happy racism" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:45 PM | Permalink

I'm always amazed that the same people who bawl over baby seals in some other part of the world have so little regard left over for abused humanity coming to their own shores. Take (please!) the example of Brigitte Bardot, recently convicted of racist hatemongering:

A leading French anti-racism group known as MRAP filed a lawsuit last year over a letter she sent to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy. The remarks were published in her foundation's quarterly journal.

In the December 2006 letter to Sarkozy, now the president, Bardot said France is "tired of being led by the nose by this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts."

Bardot, 73, was referring to the Muslim feast of Aid el-Kebir, celebrated by slaughtering sheep.

Continue reading "Brigitte Bardot, phoquez-vous!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 05:07 PM | Permalink

Remember all those stories about mysteriously dying honeybee populations? Looks like we've got the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder all figured out, kiddies. Or at least, one very unsurprising chief suspect:

Germany has banned a family of pesticides that are blamed for the deaths of millions of honeybees. The German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) has suspended the registration for eight pesticide seed treatment products used in rapeseed oil and sweetcorn.

The move follows reports from German beekeepers in the Baden-Württemberg region that two thirds of their bees died earlier this month following the application of a pesticide called clothianidin.

"It's a real bee emergency," said Manfred Hederer, president of the German Professional Beekeepers' Association. "50-60% of the bees have died on average and some beekeepers have lost all their hives."

Tests on dead bees showed that 99% of those examined had a build-up of clothianidin. The chemical, produced by Bayer CropScience, a subsidiary of the German chemical giant Bayer, is sold in Europe under the trade name Poncho. It was applied to the seeds of sweetcorn planted along the Rhine this spring. The seeds are treated in advance of being planted or are sprayed while in the field.

Continue reading "Bzzzzzzzzzzzz--STING!!!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:49 PM | Permalink

One thing about that Old Grey Lady...she's one helluva madam. Yes, folks, the NY Times is pimping for Alvaro Uribe again. And look: there's one of her working girls now, out on the corner...

Tension between Colombia and Venezuela increased Sunday after Colombia's defense minister rejected an accusation by Venezuela's government that 60 Colombian troops had illegally entered a border region of Venezuela known to be a redoubt for Colombian guerrilla groups.

Yes, folks, that's the incomparable Simon Romero again, parading around in his miniskirt and high heels. Give that man a hand for his prowess at handjobbery!

Now, pay close attention, kiddies. Auntie Bina, a true lady despite her natural red hair and her plebeian origins, is about to teach you something about the difference between journalistic credibility and mere prostitution.

Continue reading "Simon Romero besmirches himself again" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 05:17 PM | Permalink

Colombian journalist and former TV anchorwoman Virginia Vallejo, now living in Miami, has written an explosive tell-all book about her lengthy affair with drug lord Pablo Escobar, titled Loving Pablo, Hating Escobar. Here, in an interview with a Brazilian TV reporter, she reveals Escobar's corrupting connections with a man you may recognize today. He used to be the mayor of Medellin, the cocaine capital of Colombia and the murder capital of the world. Later, he was the governor of the state of Antioquia. Today, Alvaro Uribe is the president of the land.

Video in Spanish and Portuguese.

Escobar's thugs murdered at least three presidential candidates who refused to take his drug money, including the liberal, Luis Carlos Galan. His saying was "Plata o plomo"--silver or lead. Bucks or bullets--those were your choices if you crossed paths with him. If you didn't take his money and do him favors, you were a dead man. He later crossed over into outright terrorism--exchanging bullets for bombs. Virginia Vallejo, fearing for her life, broke off all relations with Escobar and fled to Miami, where she sought and received federal protection.

And Alvaro Uribe, who is the US's "ally" in the "War on Drugs" today, was far from being the enemy of this feared and powerful drug lord. On the contrary, they were very buddy-buddy--to the point where Escobar lent him a helicopter after the death of his father (at the hands of the FARC, his pet hate today--whom Uribe, ironically, accuses of being "narco-terrorists", with nary a peep about his own considerable past in narco-terrorism.) Uribe, in his gubernatorial capacity of okaying aviation licences in his state, handed them out like Halloween candy to Escobar's lackeys. Guess what use they were put to. And all this while the crack-cocaine epidemic in the US raged at its height, and the War on Drugs made no progress. Gee, is it any wonder?

And Escobar's thugs were not the only ones who enjoyed impunity under Uribe. The right-wing paramilitaries, whom the drug lords and large landowners alike employed to terrorize whole communities and suppress the left, also benefited from Uribe's official string-pulling and lever-pushing.

Isn't Uribe a fine one to call the FARC "narco-terrorists", when some of his closest friends and allies...would fit that description even better?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:51 PM | Permalink

But of course, the US has the adults in charge of the government, so none of this would EVER happen. Right? RIGHT???

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:22 PM | Permalink

From the color-me-SO-not-surprised files, a little something on the kind of people who are eligible not only for hiring, but RE-hiring by Kellogg, Brown & Root...

In 2006, while working in Iraq for the U.S. military contractor now known as KBR, Ira L. Waltrip was caught in possession of suspected child pornography and fired, according to a federal court affidavit.

He returned home to Lampasas and by the end of 2006, the affidavit said, was rehired to work for the company, previously a subsidiary of Halliburton known as Kellogg, Brown and Root.

Continue reading "KBR = Kid Buggering Rapists" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:49 PM | Permalink

...let's have a CLASS WAR!

On second thought, says the National Pest, maybe not. Too bad for them that Linda McQuaig, Conrad Black's pet hate and Terence Corcoran's nemesis, is on the case. And, unlike Corcoran, she doesn't like to make lies and damn lies out of statistics:

Continue reading "One, two, three, four..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:59 PM | Permalink

You can always count on Conrad Moffat Black, His Lordship of Crossharbour (and lately, of the Penitentiary) to exemplify model behavior and propriety. And to illustrate, in graphic terms, just what conservatism is all about.

And now, you can also grin at the sweetness of the Lords of Karma, because the above photo won its shooter a prize:

A photo of former Canadian media baron Conrad Black giving the finger to reporters during his trial in Chicago has taken top prize for spot news at the second annual National Pictures of the Year awards competition.

[...]

The Conrad Black photo was taken by David Chidley of the Canadian Press during the businessman's trial, in which Black was convicted of obstructing justice and defrauding shareholders of his former newspaper company, Hollinger International Inc.

Black is currently serving a 6 1/2-year sentence at a jail in central Florida.

Couldn't have been more richly deserved, eh?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:26 PM | Permalink

Ever have one of those days when everything you hear and see just somehow seems...off? Well, I must be having one of those days. Because look what I found that's just so skewy and screwy:

Mexico yesterday condemned Venezuela's planned nationalization of the cement industry, which will affect Cemex, a major Mexican company.

"We can only condemn this action," Finance Minister Agustín Carstens said in the city of Acapulco.

"The property and rights of Mexicans are not being respected," by the leftist government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Carstens said.

Continue reading "Mexico's cement overshoes" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:09 PM | Permalink

Sadly, this is NO April Fool's joke:

If you know a returned Iraq vet who has been in contact with any facilities "serviced" by Halliburton, KBR, etc.--please, urge them to see their doctor to be tested for waterborne pathogens. You could save a lot of lives.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:02 PM | Permalink

And they should fire their corporate spinmeister, too. Here's what he said in response to yesterday's decision against his company:

Exxon Mobil spokesman Alan Jeffers said the company has no plans to appeal the ruling and that the judge based his decision on jurisdictional issues.

"The important thing, from our perspective, is the court did not question the merits of our underlying claim," he said.

And here's proof that he's talking out his ass:

Judge Paul Walker noted that such freezing orders are rare and occur in cases where there is "usually compelling evidence of serious international fraud."

"In the present case there is no suggestion whatever of fraud on the part of (Petroleos de Venezuela SA) or any entity or person associated with it," Walker said in a summary of conclusions released by the court.

During the court case, Walker also signaled that he agreed with PDVSA's argument that the case didn't fall under British jurisdiction since it isn't a British company and has no assets, businesses or bank accounts there.

No, that doesn't sound like he's questioning the merits of ExxtortionMobil's case at all. Actually, it sounds an awful lot like he's just saying they're a pile of shit.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:27 AM | Permalink

(Translation: "Gimme everything you got under your belt." The belt in question is the Orinoco Belt, a region rich with extra-heavy crude oil.)

Pardon me for the Schadenfreude, but this is just too sweet...

Continue reading "ExxtortionMobil fails!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Does this sound like the behavior of anyone you know?

Continue reading "Oh look, the world's #1 terrorism sponsor is projecting again" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:12 AM | Permalink

My guess is, it was the slick advertising. I mean, have you ever seen so much horseshit as this?

Golly gee, oh gosh wow...you'd almost dare swear it wasn't really about sex for pay, eh?

Sadly, it is. And here's what it would cost you to partake:

Continue reading "Exactly what was Eliot Spitzer paying for, anyway?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Well, some of them are.

Carlyle Capital shook financial markets last week after missing margin calls from banks on its $21.7 billion portfolio of residential mortgage-backed bonds. It said some $5 billion in securities held as collateral may have already been sold.

The fund, an affiliate of the U.S.-based private equity firm Carlyle Group, warned that if it fails to reach an agreement with remaining lenders, all of its securities may be liquidated.

"While these talks continue, the company has discussed and requested a standstill agreement whereby its lenders would refrain from foreclosing and liquidating their collateral, and we are awaiting responses," the fund said in a statement.

Okay. I'm gonna clench my eyelids here, chop some onions, think of kittens getting their cute widdle fuzzy mewy heads bitten off by Alvaro Uribe, and just try really really REALLY hard to squeeze out a few crocodile tears.

Nope, sorry, can't do it. Here's why:

Continue reading "The rich are about to get poorer..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

According to Aporrea, Fedecamaras is a day late and a bolivar fuerte short in denying they would do what everyone and their cat knows they have already done...

The business sector group Fedecamaras "repudiated" the crime committed against its head office and in a communique read by its president, Jose Manuel Gonzalez, assured they would not "politicize" this occurrence in the midst of their antagonism against the national government.

Translation mine. Video (in Spanish) at the link.

Anyone besides me not believing them?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:55 PM | Permalink

Un grand salut to a French supermarket chain for its efforts in going after the corporate greedheads...je vous admire, chers messieurs et 'dames!

The French supermarket chain Leclerc, one of the most important in the country, has decided to punish the big brands for raising the prices of their products too high, according to the daily Le Monde.

As of Friday, February 1, the chain plans to remove the following articles from its shelves: the 12-pack of the cheese "La vache qui rit", by Fromageries Bel; Ajax cleanser, made by Colgate-Palmolive; L'Oreal and Nivea facial creams; Orangina soft drinks; and Brossard cookies.

These products had raised their prices between 8.29% and 20.63% in recent months, which the chain does not consider justifiable in light of inflation.

"These items will not return to our stores until the suppliers agree not to raise their prices above the average of others of their kind," stated one of the owners of the chain, Miguel Eduardo Leclerc.

Translation mine.

Yowie zowie, that's positively shades of Chavecito!

As much as I love that Laughing Cow cream cheese, I've been finding it prohibitively expensive here in Canada, too. We could use this kind of price-fighting here.

Dis donc, Miguel Eduardo, ne pouvez-vous aller à faire la même chose ici?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:51 AM | Permalink

Remember Fedecamaras? The Venezuelan chamber of commerce that basically made caca all over itself during April 2002, when its then-president illegally declared himself president, not merely of Fedecamaras, but of the entire blessed country? Yeah, that Fedecamaras.

Well, Fedecamaras has changed presidents since then, but it hasn't really changed its stripes. According to the Canadian Press wires, it's still as eager as ever to present itself, not as a treasonous aggressor against the legitimate president of Venezuela, but as his hapless victim. And how better to do that than to plant in the media and the minds of the public a strangely pat conclusion about a terrible tragedy that just so happened to take place on Fedecamaras' own doorstep, so to speak?

A small bomb exploded outside the headquarters of Venezuela's leading business chamber Sunday, killing one person, police said.

The blast occurred near the entrance of the Fedecamaras business chamber headquarters in Caracas's middle-class district of La Florida at approximately 1 a.m. local time, killing an unidentified man and shattering windows, federal police Chief Marcos Chavez said.

"There's a person who was close by, and presumably could have been hit by the shock wave," Chavez told The Associated Press in a brief telephone interview. "We still have not identified the person."

The explosion could have been meant to scare business leaders who have been critical of President Hugo Chavez, said Fedecamaras President Jose Manuel Gonzalez.

"These actions do not intimdate us. They commit us to continue fighting for Venezuela," Gonzalez told Union Radio.

Continue reading "Fedecamaras: just as classy as ever" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:39 PM | Permalink

It's odious, and Ecuador won't pay anymore!

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa on Saturday said an ongoing government probe into the country's foreign debt has unveiled "illegitimate" credits that he has vowed not to repay.

Correa, a leftist former economy minister, has pledged to stop payments of "illegitimate" debt or credits which he said were acquired under unfair terms by past corrupt administrations and that forced Ecuador to lower social spending.

But the U.S.-trained economist had until recently lowered his tone and refrained from halting debt payments. Last year he created a special commission of government officials and international experts to investigate any illegalities in foreign credits.

"Their (commission) findings are scandalous... we are not going to pay some of this illegitimate debt," Correa said during his weekly radio address. "We are advancing in the investigation."

You can watch or listen to him talking about that and more with Greg Palast at Democracy Now.

And now we know why John Perkins raised the red flag. He undoubtedly saw this coming.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 03:38 PM | Permalink

In Venezuela, the neo-con rich bang pots to bring down a popular president, and bring back oppression of the poor. In Canada, the regular folks do it the other way around--to fight the rich neo-cons who are trying to cheat us all out of a good future.

BTW, the Fraser Institute is deeply un-Canadian and downright anti-Canadian. During the '90s, they faked a big debt crisis (in response to the overlords of international capitalism), falsely claiming that we could no longer afford a public social safety net, and the media bought it. The feds cut some social services and downloaded others onto the provinces; the provinces then turned around and did the same to municipalities. And right now, the municipalities are teetering on a brink, and taxpayers are still paying (through the nose) for all this Fraser treachery. When we're not having to pay through the nose for less efficient, more expensive private-for-profit DISservices. Meanwhile, poverty is worse--thanks to Fraser's loud hyping of a crisis-that-never-was. So it's good to see them get some bad publicity for a change, and on Global at that--the most right-wing of our major TV networks!

(Oh, and they're still at it, too...as recently as 2006, they were ringing the phony alarm bells about our national debt, AGAIN. Pfeh.)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A big-ass bucket of cold water on Barack Obama? Yes, it is.

But then again, it's also a pretty accurate picture of what conservatism really stands for.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Talk about your "no shit, Sherlock" moments. How long did it take them to realize that unequal distribution of wealth is a major killer?

Economic growth does not necessarily translate into improvements in child mortality, major new research suggests.

Ten million children still die every year before their fifth birthday, 99% of them in the developing world, according to Save the Children.

A study comparing economic performance with child mortality reveals that some countries have not translated wealth into improvements across society.

Survival is too often just a "lottery", said Save the Children's David Mepham.

He said that even the poorest countries can cut child mortality by following simple policies, but at the moment "a child's chance of making it to its fifth birthday depends on the country or community it is born into".

Continue reading "The rich aren't going to like this" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Sheesh. What IS it with these religiocrazies? First they make a suspiciously overtoned movie glorifying the torture-death of Jesus (and a whole slew of horrible, sadistic commercial kitsch to go with it), and now this...

Actor and director Mel Gibson is being sued by the scriptwriter of his film The Passion of the Christ.

Benedict Fitzgerald says Mr Gibson told him the movie would cost up to $7m, but the writer claims the 2004 film's real budget was set between $25m to $50m.

Mr Fitzgerald claims in court papers he took a salary which was "substantially less than what he would have taken had he known the true budget of the film".

He also says he was refused extra money when the movie became a blockbuster.

Mr Fitzgerald also alleges Mr Gibson promised he would not receive money from the film and that profits would be distributed to people who worked on the movie.

Mr Gibson stated he did not want "money on the back of what he considered a personal gift to his faith," legal papers said.

Hey Mel, whatever happened to rich men not entering heaven? As I recall, your movie was heavy on the death of Christ, but light on what he actually said and did in the rest of his life. What do you suppose Jesus would say to this?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:12 AM | Permalink

Warning: Extreme victim-blaming by someone who probably does EVERYTHING he accuses Those People (i.e. the poor and blacks of New Orleans, whom he calls "GARBAGE") of doing...

Malmö Blue writes:

YOU, the consumer can do something to protest this smut and get this guy off the air!

Do like Nancy, a regular caller to KPHX, who has already announced that she will cancel her cable service provided by COX Communications Inc., owner of WSB 750 AM! Good for you, Nancy!

Be sure to let them know in writing that you disapprove of such hate mongering and will not have any business dealings with any company who supports it...

Address:

Cox Communications Inc.

1400 Lake Hearn Drive

Atlanta, Georgia 30319 U.S.A.

Telephone:

(404) 843-5000

Cox subscribers, please exercise your wallet power. Get this racist scumbag off the air. He is a useless, worthless parasite of the public airwaves, and it is time to kick this pile of trash to the curb.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 05:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Forget the magic underwear; Mitt Romney is unfit for presidency for many important reasons that have nothing to do with religion.

For one thing, there's the little matter of his corporate ties. This is a man who became monstrously and obscenely rich off the same financial mess that is resulting in so many foreclosures across the US. He claimed he was "going to fight for every job", but his not-so-former firm, Bain Capital, is in fact responsible for massive job losses all across the Fruited Plain. He's right up there with Henry Kravis and all those other big-time highway robbers. Mitt, does your Heavenly Father like it when you lie through your well-tended teeth?

Then there's the little matter of his former aide, a College Republican and former student body president, who just embodies that family-values thing sooooooo well. Don't they vet these people for chastity and lawful conduct before they hire them to smear Democrats about their so-called lack of family values?

And of course, there's the tragic tale of the Romney family dog--a universal moral fable on the unwisdom of strapping an animal carrier to the roof of one's car with a live animal therein. Can a man who treats his own pet so callously be trusted with the reins of power? Ask "Seamus"--he knows.

But what really tells me this man is either callous or clueless--or more likely, both--is this little item:

Like other Republican presidential contenders, Mitt Romney favors a get-tough policy on illegal immigrants. But Romney's desire for tougher immigration enforcement doesn't apply to Cubans, who he says should be welcomed with open arms.

"I can tell you my inclination would be to say as many Cubans as want to come here should come in," Romney said in an interview Tuesday with The Tampa Tribune editorial board.

And in case you're wondering--yes, he's in favor of keeping up the embargo that is the real reason so many Cubans are so miserable. It hasn't democratized the island a whit, and if anything, has driven things in the opposite direction--but hey, what are a whole lot of impoverished Cubans when there's a capitalistic democratic principle at stake? And to hell with logic. All that matters is that more gusanos get to come in, so the Repugs get more votes. Mexicans and other Central Americans trying to get in without papers, however, are still "illegal" and, since they vote Democratic (when they do finally get their papers and become able to vote), can go hang.

I don't know how the Heavenly Father feels about such strange double and triple standards, but seeing as I come from a country that manages to love freedom and democracy while not embargoing Cuba in any way, well--perhaps I need some magic underwear myself, just to be able to follow Mitt's impeccable logic.

I'll bet Mittens, being an inveterate panderer, also loves those right-wing Venezuelan escualidos--they carry suitcases full of money with them wherever they go.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:10 PM | Permalink

From the man who wrote Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which among other things treats of his own experiences in Ecuador, a warning to the current president of that country: Watch your back! The jackals are circling!

Video in Spanish. Story from Aporrea:

Continue reading "John Perkins: Rafael Correa is in danger" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:52 PM | Permalink

I decided to get busy with the e-mail tonight. Let's see if this gets read on the air.

To: mike@mikemalloy.com

Maybe it's not my place to say this, as a white Canadian woman who was just a baby in diapers when Dr. King was killed. Obviously I have no grand and glorious MLK "experiences" to share. So I'll try to spit my bit without resorting to the usual media encomiums and pablum about him. God knows we've all heard enough of those today.

Continue reading "A letter to Mike Malloy" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

...on greed.

You can fight this war too. Click here to learn how.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:31 PM | Permalink

Well, actually, no film. Why? Because this isn't sexy enough for TV, compared to Britney's latest camera-friendly freak-out:

The United States ranks last among 19 industrialized nations when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented.

The report by The Commonwealth Fund, published in the journal Health Affairs, said 101,000 deaths per year could have been prevented by access to timely and effective healthcare. The top performers were France, Japan and Australia.

Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine looked at deaths "amenable to healthcare before age 75 between 1997-98 and 2002-03."

The researchers found that while other countries saw these types of deaths decline by an average of 16 percent, the United States experienced only a 4 percent decline. "It is notable that all countries have improved substantially except the U.S.," said Nolte, lead author of the study.

Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen said the finding that other countries are reducing preventable deaths more rapidly with less money "indicates that policy, goals and efforts to improve health systems make a difference."

Translation from Wonkish to plain English: Knock off with all the free-market shit, America, you are starting to eat your young! Get single-payer public healthcare already, and take some lessons from your neighbors to the north!

Of course, to say something like that would make one a socialist, and everyone knows socialism is evil. Milton Friedman said so. (So do some "Christian" wackos with obviously zero knowledge of the subject.)

Soon as I find out where they buried Friedman, I swear I will make a pilgrimage to piss on his grave. I think it's quite right to hold him responsible for the current mess, and I hate what he's done to my American friends.

What a pity we Canadians don't have another John Kenneth Galbraith on hand to lend our buddies to help them get themselves sorted out properly.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:38 PM | Permalink

I'm sorry to inflict this on y'all, but...

Continue reading "The face of fucking craziness" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:40 PM | Permalink

Remember how awhile back I blogged about Leopoldo Lopez, the mayor of a wealthy district in Caracas? And only yesterday, I had a little item about Yon Goicoechea? Well, now there's proof that Prettyboy Lopez and Playboy Yon-Yon are up to no good...

Neighbors of the most populous zones of Caracas have denounced Yon Goicoechea and mayor Lopez for coming into their communities to organize clandestine meetings there, with the intent of fomenting violent actions in the new year to get rid of President Chavez.

The meetings took place in the districts of Antimano, Caricuao and Los Cortijos; one took place this past week in the Colegio San Agustin in the UD4 sector of Caricuao, according to our source, and was attended by members of the "Comando de la Resistencia".

Continue reading "The Playboy and the Prettyboy stir up shit in the barrios" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 02:14 PM | Permalink

CNN: What do your initials stand for? Crap, Nutjobs and Nitwits? I mean, just look at the shit you print--and the shit you reprint. Granted, this crappy editorial is bylined to Investor's Business Daily, which explains a lot. Including the language:

High oil prices do squeeze the poor. But oil companies do not control them. Dictators such as Chavez do. Eighty percent of the world's oil is held by inefficient state oil companies. Venezuela is one of the worst, producing its oil with scab labor since a 2003 strike, and it has also confiscated at least $1 billion in U.S. oil assets since then. Some industry analysts estimate that Chavez adds as much as a third of the cost to world oil prices. No wonder he wants someone else, like Big Oil, blamed.

What ludicrous conclusions this fool jumps to! Big Oil companies don't set prices--but Chavez does? Where do they get THAT? Last time I looked, they are the price-setters. (When it's not the Wall St. traders, that is.)

Continue reading "CNN: Have I told you lately that I loathe you?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Nice to know that in Chile, some things just never change.

A great-grandson of the late dictator Augusto Pinochet was detained along with two other youths as they fled following a robbery at a store in Santiago.

The events occurred during the early morning hours last Sunday when Pinochet's grandson, a minor, and his companions threatened an employee at a store next to a gas station in the Santiago suburb of Huechraba. They escaped with a small haul of beers, soft drinks and candies.

The youngsters were detained by carabineros, who recovered the loot. Its contents are valued at 60,000 pesos (78 euros).

According to the daily La Tercera, the youth, who appeared to be under the influence of drugs, is the grandson of Augusto Pinochet Hiriart, one of the sons of the late dictator, who died last December. His name is not being released by authorities due to his being a minor.

Translation mine.

There is so much on the ill-gotten gains of Dictator Pinochet, it's hard to say where to start. He's received dirty money from England and the US. He got incredibly stinking rich. And he did it all by overthrowing a democratically elected government.

His great-grandson is nowhere near his grandpa's stature yet, but give him time. He's already off to a roaring start, as we can see.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 05:09 PM | Permalink

...when she wrote that profit is unpaid wages?

Well, in the case of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce alone, she was right to the tune of at least $600 million. And bear in mind that when this was written, the loonie was still BEHIND the greenback.

Not no more, it's not.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:48 PM | Permalink

"Christmas begins now in August. Christmas has become the Beast that just cannot be fed!"

--Lewis Black

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What--you thought rosaries and crucifixes were magically exempt from Chinese slave labor?

A labor rights group alleged Tuesday that crucifixes sold in religious gift shops in the U.S. are produced under "horrific" conditions in a Chinese factory with more than 15-hour workdays and inadequate food.

"It's a throwback to the worst of the garment sweatshops 10, 20 years ago," said Charles Kernaghan, director of the National Labor Committee.

Kernaghan held a news conference in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York to call attention to conditions at a factory in Dongguan, a southern Chinese city near Hong Kong, where he said crosses sold at the historic church and elsewhere are made.

Continue reading "Even Jesus can't escape the sweatshop" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame) has created a powerful video that rings all the right alarm bells. Crank your speakers.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:34 PM | Permalink

And these come straight from Chile. Enjoy!

Sen. Alejandro Navarro on Monday demanded an apology from Chile's Foreign Minister Alejandro Foxley for criticizing the behavior of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the XVII Iberian-American summit held last weekend in Santiago.

Continue reading "More truths the king can't shut up..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:43 PM | Permalink

Premier Stelmach paid attention!

First it was Venezuela. Now, Nigeria is reviewing its relationships with international oil companies and the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta is set to announce a decision Thursday on increasing royalties from the energy industry. It's a move the industry warns could devastate Alberta's oil patch.

At least once analyst compared Alberta to Venezuela last month after a government-appointed panel called for the province to boost its total take from the energy industry by 20 percent a year, or roughly $2 billion.

Continue reading "Well, whaddya know..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:40 AM | Permalink

"I once wrote a book called Hope Dies Last. I believe that. I might feel hopelessness, except for one thing: the young. I don't mean the young as they're portrayed in TV commercials: whores, bimbos and dummies. There are many who do not fall into those categories. The big problem is that there's no memory of the past. Our hero is the free market. People forget how the free market fell on its face way back in the Depression. And how the nation pleaded with its government and got help. Today, all these fat CEOs say we don't need government. And these fat boys get away with it, because of our collective Alzheimer's, and the power of Rupert Murdoch and CNN. There is despair in this country, sure. At the same time, we are waiting."

--Studs Terkel, interviewed in the UK Independent

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:17 AM | Permalink

Yes, it is!

Do you know what your wealthy right-wing media robber barons are doing this week? Well, one of them is getting divorced from Trophy Wife #2. It is delectably messy, and there's too much juicy stuff to excerpt here, so I'll just give you the linky to clicky. And remember, character counts!

Meanwhile, speaking of character, you may also want to check out what Jonathan Schwartz of Tom Tomorrow has found on the company King George the Dubya keeps. Not for nothing is Hosni Mubarak's crypto-dictatorship in Egypt credited (or blamed) for the rise of the terrorist wing of Islamism. When a country's leadership has no problem ordering the drugging, sodomy and execution of 13-year-olds, a backlash is just bound to arise. Character counts!

You might also enjoy Joan Walsh's laundry list, on Salon.com, of GOP flip-floppers. Once again, character counts!

Also on Salon: Gary Kamiya's devastating dissection of the real character of Dubya, by way of examining what he's done in the name of "moral clarity"--surely THAT has something to do with character, does it not? Remember, by their fruits shall ye know them--and character counts!

Finally, you know all you need to about the character of these people when they gang up to attack 12-year-olds. Character really counts there.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:12 PM | Permalink

Incredible!

It may be more than a year away, but Americans already think they know what the big issues of the 2008 presidential election will be.

On the thousands of web pages, acres of newsprint and hours of airtime already devoted to the long race to the White House, two subjects get most attention: how and when to end the war in Iraq and how healthcare should be paid for.

But another issue is gaining prominence, one which is of much greater significance to the rest of the world.

Indeed, it is one that could have profound implications for the global economy.

The issue is free trade.

President Bush devoted his most recent weekly radio address to lauding the benefit America gets from free trade deals.

"Millions of American jobs depend on exports," he said.

"More exports support better and higher-paying jobs - and to keep our economy expanding, we need to keep expanding trade."

Continue reading "An election issue, you say?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:50 PM | Permalink

Actually, this dovetails rather nicely with The Secret Government, don't you think?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:58 PM | Permalink

Awww, aren't boy crushes just so darn cute?

Just a pity that Steve Huntley's hagiography of the CIA's latest little plaster saint is all holus-bolus, unquestioning bullshit. Here's the real poop on Leopoldo Lopez, the not gutsy, but gusty (as in full of wind) mayor of Chacao. First, from George Ciccariello-Maher at Counterpunch:

In response to the Venezuelan governments non-renewal of RCTV's broadcasting license, a concession which expired on May 27th at midnight, a new student movement emerged that has since grabbed headlines domestically and internationally. Thousands took to the streets, some marching peacefully and some squaring off against the police with rocks and bullets, all in the name of "freedom of expression." But it's worth asking: who are "the students," and what do they represent? In recent days, it has become clear that these student mobilizations have been, in fact, largely directed and supported by sectors of the opposition, all in an effort to provoke, in Chávez's own words, a "soft coup" against the revolutionary government. The opposition's strategy vis-à-vis this student movement has consisted of two fundamental elements, both of which could only be executed mediatically. But now, after being revealed and discredited, that strategy is rapidly disintegrating.

Firstly, opposition parties made a clear decision to stay out of the spotlight, emphasizing the "independent" and "spontaneous" nature of the student protests. Beyond anything else, this gesture proves the degree to which the opposition has been discredited, garnering a reverse Midas touch through years of poor decisionmaking and supporting coups. From the beginning, the government was arguing that opposition politicians were behind the student mobilizations, and so when government-run channel 8 covered one of the early student demonstrations in Plaza Brion in Chacaito, the headline read "opposition demonstration disguised as a student demonstration."

This claim was perhaps justified by the appearance at the demonstration of Leopoldo López, mayor of opposition stronghold Chacao, formerly of far-right party Primero Justicia, which he more recently abandoned in favor of Manuel Rosales' nominally social democratic Un Nuevo Tiempo. Opposition news channel Globovisión countered with the thoroughly unconvincing claim that López, 36 years old and an established politician, was a "youth leader." López himself wouldn't help the situation when at a press conference he "accidentally" called for the students to employ "non-peaceful" tactics (he later claimed that he had meant to call for "non-violent" forms of protest).

Continue reading "A pretty boy with an ugly history" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 02:28 AM | Permalink

Once again, I am in awe of Tom Tomorrow. He sure knows how to hit Alan