News of the Restless

Let's hope so.

A $5000 dollar reward is being offered to any Auckland University student who can make a successful citizen's arrest of United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to the country this weekend.

Auckland University Student Association (AUSA) president David Do said the arrest would be for her role in "overseeing the illegal invasion and continued occupation" of Iraq.

"It is hard enough living as a student in Auckland these days without having a war criminal coming to town, so we thought we'd give our students a chance to make a dent in their student loans and work for global justice at the same time."

Dr Rice will be in Auckland on July 26, where she will meet with Prime Minister Helen Clark, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Opposition leader John Key.

Good luck, mates! You'll probably be rugby-tackled by some thug in a black suit and earpiece, but give it the ol' college try anyway!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:47 AM | Permalink

If you haven't seen this video yet, you simply must. In the space of five minutes, you get to see how Christopher Hitchens saw the light on waterboarding in an undisclosed location somewhere in North Carolina. Not only does he admit that it IS torture, he also admits that it's not "simulated" drowning, it IS drowning--of a particularly terrorizing kind. And it takes him just a few seconds to "break". He flings away the metal object (poetically called a "dead man's handle") that the torturers have given him to signal--simply by dropping it--that he can't take the torment anymore. It all looks so unceremonious, which makes you wonder how long anyone can withstand such a treatment.

Here's Hitchens in his own words:

Continue reading "17 seconds to moral clarity with Christopher Hitchens" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:03 PM | Permalink

Oh noes, indeed. What is it lately with all these otherwise decent independent news sites going over to the stinky? In the case of the latest from WW4 Report, it seems that a number of Tibetan prayer flags have landed on the eyes of the editors, blinding them to the obvious. They've gotten real snotty with their readers who take exception to them for uncritically publishing Nik Kozloff's "revolutionary" hit piece on Chavecito.

In all the back-and-forth between the WW4R snotballs and those who rightly take them to task, I found this...

From Russ Hallberg, somewhere in cyberspace (who slugs his e-mail "don't repudiate chavez"):

Hugo Chavez should be criticized for his support of China's occupation of Tibet. However, Tibetan nationalists and the Dali Lama are backed by the CIA. It is unlikely a "free" Tibet would be anything more than a puppet for Western interests. Tibetan nationalism is a psyops to solicit the support of the US left for CIA agendas.

World War 4 Report replies: You know, that's pretty paranoid, dude. But we're heartened that at least you think Chávez should be criticized (if not "repudiated").

...which made me wonder: Is it really paranoid to suspect such a thing, considering the CIA has had its tentacles around just about every anti-communist "freedom fighter" in the world since the end of World War II--many of them downright unsavory? In other words, could Russ Hallberg be onto something?

Continue reading "WW4 Report screws the pooch over Tibet" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 01:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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

The Venezuelan opposition, stoop to such undiplomatic and undemocratic vulgarities as this? Perish forbid! Everybody knows that they are the paragons of civil society. Right?

Right???

A dissident former general has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for bombing attacks on Spanish and Colombian diplomatic missions in Venezuela's capital.

The state-run Bolivarian News Agency reported Wednesday that former National Guard Gen. Felipe Rodriguez was convicted of conspiracy and aggravated burning of property for the 2003 attacks.

Rodriguez, who was sentenced Tuesday, was accused of planning the explosions at the Spanish Embassy and Colombian Consulate, which injured four people.

Venezuelan officials said at the time that the bombings were meant to destabilize the government of President Hugo Chavez, who shortly beforehand had warned Spain and Colombia not to interfere in Venezuelan affairs.

Rodriguez, also known by his nickname "The Crow," was among military officers who rose up against President Hugo Chavez in a short-lived 2002 coup.

He later helped lead a series of demonstrations in Caracas along with other military commanders opposed to Chavez's left-leaning government.

Folks, this is what we call a false flag operation. And had it succeeded, it might have become a classic one.

Too bad it backfired. That's what we call being hoisted on one's own petard, if I'm not mistaken.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:53 PM | Permalink

Here's how to do it, if you're a 24/7/365 "news" channel on cable TV:

Step 1: Hear right-wing flying monkeys screeching about how "liberal" you are.

Step 2: Panic and hire a second-string conservatard radio bloviator (who is also a walking, talking human hemorrhoid).

Step 3: Watch credibility, followed closely by ratings, go down, down, down.

Step 4: Panic some more and hire another second-string conservatard, this one from a third-rate conservatard channel. Oh and did I mention he's also a former White House press flack who quit not because he had cancer but because he wanted to make more money?

Step 5: Watch credibility and ratings go comma comma down dooby doo down down.

Way to go, Chicken Noodle Network. Keep circlin' that drain and pray it doesn't suck you down. After all, a proven formula for failure will work differently if you follow it twice, right?

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

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

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 gay pastor who broke the same-sex marriage barrier gets positively reported in the redneck-conservative Toronto Sun!

The Order of Canada was awarded for the first time to a gay activist at Rideau Hall yesterday.

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean presented Torontonian Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes with the country's highest civilian honour for his long-standing work as a gay rights champion.

"About 27 years ago, I was fasting to protest the police actions around the bathhouse raids," Hawkes, 57, said in a phone interview. "And to see how far we've come, that Canada is the first country in the world to give its highest award to a gay activist."

Continue reading "You know you've come a long way when..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 02:02 PM | Permalink

Okay, how embarrassing is this?

Team USA World Police undoubtedly thought they'd recruited a winning soccer team among the Peace Corps and the Fulbright Scholars currently living, studying and working in Bolivia. How sad and pathetic is it that their intended star players are already on the side of Integrity, with no intention of signing with any team owned and operated by BushCo's stinky State Dept.?

President Evo Morales declared a U.S. Embassy security officer to be an "undesirable person" on Monday after reports that the officer asked an American scholar and 30 Peace Corps volunteers to pass along information about Cubans and Venezuelans working in Bolivia.

Continue reading "Let's play Interference Futbol!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:03 PM | Permalink

Oh, those Christians. Specifically, those right-wing Republican Christians. Rather than joining hands around their hard-fought-for public manger scene in a show of seasonal brotherly love, it seems they are now about to eat each other alive, according to FireDogLake. The cause? Mitt Romney and his apparent need to pander to those all-importand "evangelical" voters. Suddenly, his doing so is cause for alarm in the punditocracy.

Four short years ago, the party was openly courting those people, and even crediting them with its success in stealing winning the election. And we were up to our eyeballs in "news" stories, and plaudits from the pundits, proclaiming them to be the grand influence in US politics.

My, how things change. All of a sudden, those evangelicals are poison to the party they so faithfully carried water for. And the pundits can't trip over their tongues fast enough, trying to disclaim them even as the candidates are still doing the old song-and-dance for them.

Continue reading "See how they love one another?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 06:30 PM | Permalink

...unless you just add dog.

A man out hunting in Iowa was shot in the leg after a hunting dog stepped on his gun, authorities said.

The accident happened after James Harris, 37, put his gun on the ground to retrieve a fallen pheasant.

One of a pack of hunting dogs following behind stepped on the trigger, and up to 120 birdshot pellets hit Mr Harris in the left calf at short range.

A local official told a news agency the injury was "not life-threatening, but will give him trouble for a long time".

Alan Foster, a spokesman for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, told AFP it was not uncommon for hunters to be shot by their dogs.

"I hear about it a couple times a year," somewhere in the country, he said.

"They'll step on the trigger assembly and, if the gun for whatever reason wasn't on safety, it doesn't take a whole lot to trip a trigger."

Harris was treated at Grinnell Regional Medical Center and later transported by helicopter to University of Iowa Hospitals in Iowa City, following the accident in Poweshiek County on Saturday afternoon.

I wonder if this man bit his dog for doing that to him.

Maybe he should kick himself for being so careless.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 09:22 PM | Permalink

Doesn't it just?

Cuban doctors working in Bolivia have saved the sight of the man who executed revolutionary leader Che Guevara in 1967, Cuban official media report.

Mario Teran, a Bolivian army sergeant, shot dead Che Guevara after he was captured in Bolivia's eastern lowlands.

Cuban media reported news of the surgery ahead of the 40th anniversary of Che's death on 9 October.

Mr Teran had cataracts removed under a Cuban programme to offer free eye treatment across Latin America.

The operation on Mr Teran took place last year and was first revealed when his son wrote to a Bolivian newspaper to thank the Cuban doctors for restoring his father's sight.

Continue reading "Irony bites!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 08:56 PM | Permalink