October 28, 2008
October 22, 2008
Colombian police fire on indigenous people
Story from Radio Mundial, Venezuela:
Two indigenous were killed and five more injured on Tuesday in an incident at the beginning of a large march on a road in southern Colombia. The incident occurred at the beginning of a national day of protest against president Alvaro Uribe, who some weeks ago decreed a state of emergency due to a strike by judicial-sector workers.The indigenous affirmed that the police shot them as the demonstrators tried to block the Pan-American Highway. The police denied responsibility, and claimed that the victims had been shot from within the indigenous march, and that they were attacked with gunpowder. Initially, the police said that the indigenous died when an explosive they were handling went off, but later it emerged that the dead had bullet wounds in the head and back. The indigenous leaders denied the authorities' version and assured that their members died in a confrontation with the police, who fired upon them.
After the incident, CNN showed a video taken by an indigenous activist, which showed the police allowing a person in a green uniform, with his face covered in a ski mask, to fire an M-16 rifle three times, apparently against the demonstrators.
Colonel Jorge Enrique Cartagena, of the Colombian federal police, confirmed that an M-16 rifle only fires lead ammunition, and assured that the incident would be investigated. But President Uribe called the denunciations a "fairytale" and claimed that the uniformed officers did not fire against demonstrators.
Translation mine.
Anyone who's read Forrest Hylton's dense, informative Evil Hour in Colombia knows better than to trust the Colombian authorities on this. El Narco's reign has been a trail of blood wherever he's been in office. Whether as mayor of Medellín, governor of Antioquia, or president of all the land, he's been an authoritarian murder-monger, and the violent-crime rates don't lie--contrary to the relentless media hype, he has not been good for Colombia at large. The murder rates have not decreased. The only thing that's changed is that there is more plausible deniability, probably because the evidence is being destroyed more thoroughly.
I don't dare hope that this incident will finally bring him down, because his support base is foreign business and the local landowning class, and since they're looking to grab up all the land they can, they are no friends of the indigenous themselves.
And neither, for that matter, are El Narco's handlers in Washington, who are giving the tacit nod to all this insanity.
October 17, 2008
Look who's buttering up Barack Obama
The Venezuelan equivalent of the KKK, no less. Alberto Nolia, on his VTV show "The Devil's Papers", uncovers an online chat session between two prominent "youth leaders" of the Venezuelan opposition, Yon Goicoechea and Freddy Guevara, in which they talk about burning crosses on the lawn of a prominent black politician, Aristóbulo Istúriz--AT THE SAME TIME as they discuss liaising with "Democratic" friends in the US to plant anti-Chávez crapaganda:
"Yes we can fuck the black people who takes our oil"? Not only is that bad English, it's also racist. AND anti-American, to boot, since they're referring to poor black folks in the US.
I sure hope those guys at the Cato Institute enjoy seeing a half-million of their not-so-hard-earned dinero going to blatant little racists like this. Way to do yourselves proud, motherfuckers.
October 7, 2008
Last week of the election campaign panic button edition
What do you bet that all these were the doing of Conservative supporters?
So far, 34 acts of vandalism and threatening phone calls have been reported in the Toronto ridings of St. Paul's and Parkdale-High Park--all directed at persons with Liberal party signs on their lawns. 17 victims have had their cars' brake lines cut. One of the victims, a father of two (ages 22 months and 6 months), sums up the magnitude of the vileness succinctly: "You have to crawl under someone's car and cut the brake line, knowing that it could kill someone, or their whole family."
Really, is the re-election of a bad prime minister worth the deaths of two babies in their car seats? I thought Conservatives were supposed to be "pro-life", but I guess that only refers to fetuses.
Scott Tribe, my fellow Progressive Blogger, has amassed some pics of similar grotesquery in Guelph, Ontario, at his site. (No, it's not just a Toronto thing.)
In case no one has said so yet, this kind of behavior is most unCanadian.
October 2, 2008
Ooooo, this is a juicy one
Hmmm, whatever could this mean?
At least 26 barrels of chemical agents were stolen from a military airplane on September 5 by groups of violent "civics" and vandals apparently promoted by the Prefecture of Pando.The departmental chief of police, Col. Ricardo Heredia, informed that the group assigned to this case is conducting investigations responsibly, and made these finds on Wednesday, October 1, at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. On the Bajo Virtudes road, some six kilometers from the Brazilian border, on the property of Mauro Soria, brother-in-law of the ex-prefect, Leopoldo Fernández, they found nine drums of chemicals.
Heredia said that in this location there were no people, but it was evident that there had originally been 10 drums on the spot.
The police chief did not rule out that the chemicals were used against peasant demonstrators, as on September 11, when the marchers were ambushed, presumably by "civic" groups and assassins.
"We are close to finding the rest of the chemical agents, the investigations are well under way, and we believe that in the next few days we will have more news and will have recovered the remaining barrels of chemicals that had been stolen in the airport," Heredia said.
Translation mine.
No word on what the chemicals were, or how they might have been used by the hired thugs. But frankly, I'm not surprised at any of this. Thuggery and thievery is how the Media Luna-tics operate all around. Thuggery is how they maintain their power; thievery is their reason for this power-grab move of declaring their bogus "autonomy" in the first place. Remember, they don't even want little old ladies getting a teeny, tiny pension out of "their" gas revenues.
Quotable: Bartcop on voter stupidity
"Poor people, year after year, vote to make the rich richer and that's crazy.
The way America votes, you'd think 2/3 of us are Fortune 500 CEOs.
Poor people could vote themselves out of poverty - but they choose not to.
and that's why we don't win every election - because American voters are so f-ing stupid."
--Bart of Bartcop.com, really putting the finger on what's wrong with Kansas (and anyplace else where people think voting for a rich wingnut will magically turn you into one.)
Tories = cowards
Debate, schmebate--how do you debate someone who refuses to be debated? You call him by his right name: COWARD!
While Prime Minister Stephen Harper was readying to take on opposition leaders in last night's nationally televised debate, several of his Conservative candidates were making themselves scarce at local debates.From the North to the Atlantic provinces and the Prairies, Tory candidates have been missing at a number of encounters.
The latest Conservative no-shows covered four Ottawa-area debates, sponsored by Canada's largest public service union and a weekly newspaper, at least one debate in Saskatchewan and two others in Winnipeg and the Northwest Territories.
The scarcity of one Conservative at a riding debate prompted a Calgary CBC radio station to launch a contest to locate Rob Anders, the Conservative incumbent in Calgary West, to prove he was still alive.
A Liberal party list of Tory candidates who have refused to participate in debates had grown to 17 across Canada by yesterday, before the no-shows registered this week.
Why do I get the feeling they had to be summoned with a loud, derisive "BAWK, buk buk buk buk"?
This, people, is what happens when you get a smug, self-satisfied party that relies more on the cult of personality and stupid, standard soundbites than on a willingness to campaign, and debate, on the merits of an actual platform. Maybe it's because when it comes to platforms, the Tories don't seem to have one--but they do have a crappy-ass record. About all they CAN run on is image and soundbites, because if they had to do it any other way, they'd lose.
They want a parliamentary majority, but with the repeated contempt the Conservative candidates (most recently, and notably, Maxime "Biker Babe Boinker" Bernier) have shown for everything from the Parliament to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, to the church/state separation, to journalists, to their own local ridings, they don't deserve even a minority.
September 1, 2008
Something is very wrong with this picture
From Aporrea, some shocking facts about soap operas in Mexico:
Each episode of the soap opera "Fire in the Blood", one of the most-watched in Mexico, contains an average of 50 scenes of violence against women, according to a study presented by an association of Mexican non-governmental organizations (NGOs).The tracking, which ran for ten episodes between July 14 and 25, detected a total of 498 scenes "in which various forms of violence against women occurred or were justified", according to the study, conducted by the Citizens' Council for Gender Equality in the Media.
Of the 498 scenes, 313 enacted acts of psycho-emotional violence, 66 physical violence, 17 femicidal violence, and 5 sexual violence, according to the EFE news agency.
Continue reading "Something is very wrong with this picture" »
August 21, 2008
Who writes these dumbass editorials?
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:
August 17, 2008
Oh, those "pro-life" Catholics!
First, they made an attempt on the life of the president of Ecuador:
August 2, 2008
Another young Ecuadorian attacked in Spain
El Ecuadorable is so not going to like this:
Translation follows:
The Spanish civil guard is investigating a video made on a cellphone in which one can see the beating of an Ecuadorian teenager by a Spanish girl. The hair-raising recording was taken on July 25, in the Colmenarejo neighborhood of Madrid.In the video, the aggressor's friends can be heard egging her on amid laughter. The phrases "kill her" and "hit her hard" are repeated several times.
According to sources, a group of girls between 14 and 16 years old lured the Ecuadorian victim, Maria Jose, to a vacant lot. Once there, Belen, one of the teens, began to punch and kick her all over her body, up to the head.
"Kick her in the head" can be heard as the aggressor drags the South American victim to the ground by her hair. Also, while the victim lies semiconscious, Belen keeps hitting her.
The video circulated on cellphones throughout the town, until one person recorded it onto a CD and brought it to a police station.
This isn't the first time this sort of thing happened in Spain; in October of last year, a 16-year-old from Ecuador got beaten up on a train in Barcelona by a racist thug, aged 21, who called her a "piece of immigrant shit" and told her to go back where she came from. It comes at around the same time two Gypsy girls in Italy drowned before the indifference of hundreds of beachgoers at Naples, amid a climate of anti-Gypsy sentiment perpetrated by the right-wing government of Silvio Berlusconi. Racist, xenophobic and anti-immigrant sentiment are all on the rise in Europe, and the new anti-immigrant legislation tabled by the EU has only made it worse. Economic migrants will now have to fear that gangs of thugs like these will act with impunity, seeing themselves as doing a job that the police won't or can't.
July 28, 2008
No surprises here...
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.
July 16, 2008
M-13 terrorists kill their own
The Venezuelan opposition is so rabid and so bloodthirsty, they'll stop at nothing to get Hugo Chavez out of office. They'll stage violence as a way of "protesting" it. They'll even kill their own. We saw that already on April 11, 2002, when they staged a coup in which rooftop snipers and undercover sharpshooters, in concert with Metropolitan Caracas police officers (controlled by an anti-Chavez mayor, Alfredo Peña) fired on Chavista and anti-Chavista demonstrators alike. In the final death toll, there were more Chavistas than anti-Chavistas killed, but the point of my mentioning it is this: They will even kill their own if it "helps" them politically. They have absolutely no compunctions about it.
Here, however, is one example of such terror tactics backfiring, badly. In recent violence at the University of Los Andes (ULA), a young anti-Chavista demonstrator, Douglas Rojas, was fatally wounded by shrapnel. 48 hours later, he was declared dead. His fellow M-13ers were quick to blame the death on the police, who they say fired on them with shotguns full of the stuff.
But the following video tells a different story:
June 23, 2008
Why the EU wants to punish economic migrants
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" »
June 22, 2008
It's not just Evo or Chavecito...
...it's all of Mercosur rejecting that draconian, disgusting European "Return Statute"--you know, the one that deprives undocumented immigrants of all legal rights, including recourse to an attorney before the country they're in decides to boot them out--after a prison stay of up to a year and a half?
On Friday, the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) and its associated countries expressed their "firm repudiation" of the discrimination supported by the European Union's directive of return for irregular immigrants, approved this past week by the Europarliament. The law decrees incarceration of 18 months for the undocumented."The governments of the participant and associate states of Mercosur deplore the approval on the part of the European Parlilament of the "return directive", announced a communication from the Argentine Chancery, which heads the South American union at this time.
Argentine diplomatic sources say that the EU's measure will be debated at the Summit of Heads of State of Mercosur, which will take place on July 1 in the Argentine city of Tucumán.
May 26, 2008
Harper, Harris--what's the diff?
Not a dime's worth, apparently, beyond the fact that the one is federal and the other provincial. The one's from out west, the other's from up north. Our "new Conservative" PM is well known for his penchant for recycling right-wing failures from other hardline Conservative governments-that-failed. Apparently, in Harpoland, the fecal matter falls up--just as in BushCo's Amurrica. And my, how the sewage flows uphill here in Ontario lately--more specifically, all the way from Walkerton to Parliament Hill. Meet the New Tory, same as the Old Tory (not to be confused with the respected Red Tory, now alas a Dead Tory).
A certain failed premier of Ontario is obviously the template for the "new Conservative" Harpo. His latest environmentally dubious recycle? None other than a goober from the late and unlamented Mike Harris regime:
April 18, 2008
This is her baby
Auntie Condi's double-talk just jumped up to bite her.
Now, when will it do the same for Dubya and the Big Dick?
April 10, 2008
It wasn't the coroner, it was the kitteh
I guess now we know who's mightier than the NRA's late shill.
And frankly, a cute widdle orange tabby kitteh is more to be trusted with a firearm than any old racist far-right demento who ran away from a picture of a little girl killed by a gun-totin' classmate.
April 2, 2008
Somebody's boilerplate is missing a few screws
Poor John Yoo. Once BushCo goes, he'll be out of a job, I'll bet. And what do you suppose he will have to white out from HIS résumé before he starts sending it out again?
The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.The 81-page memo, which was declassified and released publicly yesterday, argues that poking, slapping or shoving detainees would not give rise to criminal liability. The document also appears to defend the use of mind-altering drugs that do not produce "an extreme effect" calculated to "cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality."
Continue reading "Somebody's boilerplate is missing a few screws" »
March 25, 2008
I got your gratitude right here, Pat...
Pat Buchanan is always good for shits 'n' giggles, if your idea of shits 'n' giggles is blatant racism, ethocentrism, xenophobia and general kookoobananarama. It's a mystery to me why this guy gets any media play at all, but I've come to the conclusion that the US mainstream media is just basically a Barnum & Bailey bigtop without the sawdust, greasepaint, and tutu-clad girls doing handstands on prancing Percherons. How else to explain the fact that a sucker there is born every minute, and a clown who says things like this gets no laughs?
In a March 21 syndicated column headlined "A Brief for Whitey," conservative commentator and MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan asserted, "America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known." Buchanan was discussing Sen. Barack Obama's March 18 speech addressing race and controversial comments by his former pastor, Jeremiah A. Wright. He continued, "Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American." Buchanan then asserted that "no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans." Later in the column, Buchanan added: "We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?"
No gratitude? Well, how do you like that--Pat thinks those uppity niggruhs are ingrates. Hey Pat, since none of them will thank you, maybe a white Soviet Canuckistani can do it in their stead. So, I got your gratitude right here:
Continue reading "I got your gratitude right here, Pat..." »
February 20, 2008
No, you can't.
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.
February 14, 2008
Mad Mel and his thirty shekels
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?
February 10, 2008
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies
Hard home(boy) truth about FUX Snooze:
...and a shout-out to Barack Obama at the end. Let's hope that if nominated and elected, he'll be able to make REAL change to all this.
February 8, 2008
The brain-dead are walking the Earth
Either that, or they really, REALLY hate democracy.
Bush spoke to a boisterous crowd shortly after 7 a.m. EST. The ballroom erupted in cheers when someone shouted "Are there conservatives in the house?" When the president walked on stage, they clapped and chanted "Four more years! Four more years!"
Way to go, CPAC dumbshits. You are aware that term limits still apply in the US, right?
One more black eye for the Jesus Lobby
See what happens when you stand in the way of progress...but haven't got a leg, either of law or logic, to stand on?
A DEVOUT Christian who resigned as a family magistrate over the Government's refusal to allow him to opt out of cases in which gay couples adopt children has had his human rights challenge dismissed.Andrew McClintock sat on the family panel of Sheffield Magistrates Court for 20 years before recent legislation enshrining the right of same-sex couples to adopt.
The 63-year-old went to court over the Lord Chancellor's refusal to allow him to continue in his role on the family panel, whilst "opting out" of cases involving same-sex adoptions.
He claimed the refusal discriminated against him for his Christian beliefs and said there was also a risk to any children involved because there was little research about the potential effects of such actions.
Today, after already lossing his case before an Employment Tribunal, and again before an Employment Appeal Tribunal, his legal campaign hit the buffers at London's Appeal Court.
Lord Justice Mummery said Mr McClintock's challenge was not a case of pure religious discrimination as was claimed. Although he had religious objections to the new family policy, his concerns focused on the alleged lack of research into the effects on children of gay adoptions.
Aha, there's the rub: there is, in fact, no shortage of research into the effects of gay adoption on children. The problem is, this ever-growing heap of research overwhelmingly points to the fact that gays are just as good at parenting as straights. And furthermore, that children adopted by same-sex parents don't turn out any worse than children adopted by conventional straight couples. There is also evidence showing that there's a crying need for adoptive families, and that straights, by implication, aren't stepping up to the plate--this, as their gay counterparts who want to adopt are being debarred though their parenting capabilities are no longer in question. Even the "they'll be tormented by peers because they have two moms/dads" argument doesn't wash because the more commonplace gay couples are seen to be, the more accepted they will be--yes, even as parents. And by logical extension, the homophobic bullies will be more isolated and ridiculed for their intolerance--and more visible for who they are. So any attempt to play the anti-gay-adoption card (including this cheap, literal attempt) will just end up backfiring on the player.
Long story made short: the only thing gay parents can't do that straight parents can, is conceive their children the old-fashioned way. And an awful lot of gay parents have still managed to do that--by living in the closet for waaaaaay too long. Volumes of research have also been written about the psychological ramifications of that--as have a number of comedies.
Personally, I find the "religious persecution" argument hysterical. There was a time when the Christians could claim it legitimately, but it was 2000 years ago, and Roman emperors were throwing them to lions for the sheer hell of it. Nowadays, apparently, it's enough just to find yourself suddenly and inexplicably contradicted by science, logic and all that other inconvenient cal. No more lions necessary. Even better, before anyone charges you with religious persecution (be it the Muslims, the Jews, the Witches, the atheists or the homo-sex-you-alls), why not just pre-empt them by claiming they're the ones doing it to the Christians?
And in other news today: Earth found to be spherical, rotating upon an axis, and revolving around the Sun! Sky falls for creationists! Ship of Fools falls off edge of planet! Film at 11!
February 5, 2008
Q. Why does Stormfront hate human rights?
A. Because Stormfront hates everything and everyone except their fellow neo-Nazi whackjobs, duh.
What's really funny is that they're now holding up two people they would otherwise look upon as sworn enemies as champions of their, uh, "right to free speech".
A Liberal MP is being hailed as a poster boy for free speech on a white supremacist website.Victoria MP Keith Martin was praised Friday on stormfront.org, a website that proudly displays the logo "White pride world wide" and links to radio addresses by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Martin earned the dubious distinction after giving notice that he plans to introduce a private member's motion calling on the government to repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
[...]
The extreme right adherents at Stormfront were clearly thrilled to find a member of the Liberal party, which introduced the act and prides itself as the party of the Charter of Rights, joining their crusade.
"The sordid Soviet-style reign of terror by the Canadian Human Rights Commission is now out in the open," declares Paul Fromm in a posting on the website.
"The CHRC reign of thought control looks like a drying pool of vomit on the dirty floor of some dingy dive. Yes, it stinks and good men are beginning to speak up."
Fromm, a controversial anti-immigration and free speech activist who has been linked to neo-Nazi groups in the past, predicts it "may be easier" for Conservative MPs to back the motion because it's being introduced by a Liberal of "white and Indian (India) parentage."
The website urges readers to join a campaign to pressure their MPs to support Martin's motion.
For Martin, receiving praise from a white-supremacist group was both unwelcome and ironic.
"I'm a brown guy," he quipped in an interview.
Wait a second, you say--that's just one of them. Who's the other?
Continue reading "Q. Why does Stormfront hate human rights?" »
February 4, 2008
Neal Boortz: Useless, worthless parasite
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.
January 21, 2008
A letter to Mike Malloy
I decided to get busy with the e-mail tonight. Let's see if this gets read on the air.
To: mike@mikemalloy.com
Subject: Maybe it's not my place to say this, but...
Hey, Mike...
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.
January 20, 2008
I hereby declare war...
...on greed.
You can fight this war too. Click here to learn how.
January 8, 2008
Third World invades First World! Film at 11...
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.
January 1, 2008
My new year's resolution? To be Perfected!
Of course, it might take me longer than it would this Jewish singer. You see, I'm Wiccan.
And I must say, as a Witch, that I've always wanted to be a homicidal, homophobic bitch with a long, scraggly turkey neck like the Coultergeist. Maybe, if I were stretched from my natural height of five-foot-six to Coulter's height of five-ten (on an Iron Maiden torture rack?), I would look like that too...and my disposition would be as rotten as hers.
(She can keep the bleached hair, though. Mine's much nicer.)
December 27, 2007
More proof that Dubya doesn't read
...and neither does he, nor any of his lackeys, have the slightest concept of a little thing known as reading comprehension.
Think Progress has ferreted out the real source of Dubya's antipathy to embryonic stem cell research--a total misinterpretation of an improbable scenario from Aldous Huxley (read aloud to him, of course, by one of his loyal flunkies, since Dubya can't be bothered to bestir himself):
December 15, 2007
See how they love one another?
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.
December 13, 2007
Richard Pombo's ba-ack...
...and for some strange reason, the above image was the first thing that came to my mind after reading this:
December 9, 2007
Christian, yes. Charity, no.
Outcome, inevitable. Sorry to say it, but it's true:
A gunman opened fire in a training center dormitory for young Christian missionaries early Sunday after being told he couldn't spend the night, killing two of the center's staff members and wounding two others. No arrests had been made by afternoon.The shooting happened at about 12:30 a.m. at the Youth With a Mission center in this Denver suburb, police spokeswoman Susan Medina said.
A man and a woman were killed and two men were wounded, Medina said. All four were staff members, said Paul Filidis, a Colorado Springs-based spokesman with Youth With a Mission.
The gunman came to the door of the dormitory seeking shelter, asking if he could spend the night, said Peter Warren, director of Youth With a Mission Denver.
When told he couldn't stay, the man walked inside, opened fire, then left on foot, Warren said.
November 26, 2007
Fine allies Dubya has, part umpteen
Oh, Saudi Arabia. The problem with that country isn't the general insanity of its theocracy--it's where to start. A few posts ago, I blogged about a rape victim getting punished for being a victim. Now, it gets even worse--the authorities have decided to heap defamation on top of abuse and humiliation, no doubt in an effort to make themselves look better.
Saudi justice officials say a woman who was sentenced to prison and flogging after she was gang-raped has now confessed to an extramarital affair.The case of the unidentified woman, 19, drew international criticism after an appeal increased her 90-lash sentence to 200 lashes and six months' jail.
The justice ministry statement rejected "foreign interference" in the case.
It insisted the ruling was legal and that the woman had "confessed to doing what God has forbidden".
November 24, 2007
Quotable: Robert Higgs on crackpot realists
"Crackpot realists never learn anything, even when the lessons are cuffing them roughly about the head and shoulders. They continue to pile on more of the same actions that got them into trouble in the first place, expecting to be seen as Churchillian heroes for staying the idiotic course they have set.
"They keep spinning the bad news, year after year after year, wearing out entire battalions of press officers, until they finally escape from the morass by leaving office. Afterward, they heap blame on their successors for "losing China" or "cutting and running."
"Although the crackpot realists are neither wise nor honest, they are politically shrewd and personally vicious. When their malfeasances are exposed, they toss subordinates to the wolves and prepare the ground for their own pardons, understanding that the political winds may shift sharply against them later on.
"They are not squeamish: they digest mass murder as easily as they consume their eggs and toast, and they do not lose sleep by agonizing over the cannon fodder they sacrifice in the service of their own aggrandizement. Other people's children go to war; theirs go to Harvard and Yale.
"Being busy people, they cannot waste time on pity, except when a photo op requires its feigned expression.
"Imperialism appeals to them: if controlling the economic heights at home is good, controlling them throughout the entire world is better. Once ExxonMobil, Shell, Citigroup, J. P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Halliburton, and Bechtel have made their multinational arrangements, everything else will fall into place nicely.
"If it doesn't, because some uppity mullah or tin-pot dictator has created a snag, the U.S. Marines are always available, in the immortal words of the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen, 'to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.'"
--Robert Higgs, "The Triumph of Crackpot Realism"
November 21, 2007
Sunsara Taylor owns Laura Ingraham's ass
Give Sunsara credit, she never backs down. And she brings out the ugly bitch who is never far below the surface of one carefully bleached mediablonde:
BTW, get how the students cheer when the World Can't Wait protestors interrupted Tortureboy Gonzales. I bet that's more applause than Bush's Little Tejano ever got in all his slimy career. And FUX could not edit that out! I bet that was especially galling.
As for "good news out of Iraq", Sunsara missed a golden opportunity to get a good laugh at Ms. Dark Roots' expense. I'd have said something like "Yeah, I hear Blackwater's making a killing there--literally!" But she did stick to her guns, which is not easy to do with a barking mad harpy like Ingraham trying to ridicule her (and failing miserably.)
November 19, 2007
The Warning
Trent Reznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame) has created a powerful video that rings all the right alarm bells. Crank your speakers.
November 15, 2007
Stupid Sex Tricks: Don't just blame the victim...
And increase the number of whiplashes she gets, to boot.
That'll teach her to be such a jezebel...and to reveal to the media what's wrong with the insane laws that segregate the sexes, but then allow THIS:
Continue reading "Stupid Sex Tricks: Don't just blame the victim..." »
November 8, 2007
Ghouliani fer Prez!
Because heaven knows, we just haven't been tortured enough.
Asked about his views of waterboarding this weekend, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said that as President he would support the use of "enhanced" interrogation techniques. In an interview with Bloomberg's Al Hunt, Giuliani claimed such techniques are effective and that he used "intensive questioning" as a federal prosecutor in New York to elicit information from the mafia:"I do know a lot about intensive questioning and intensive questioning techniques. … Now, intensive questioning works. If I didn't use intensive questioning, there would be a lot of mafia guys running around New York right now and crime would be a lot higher in New York than it is. Intensive question has to be used."
November 1, 2007
...but he's OUR sonofabitch!
Democratically elected, ratified, signed, sealed and delivered Hugo Chavez of Venezuela: BAD.
Despotic, nasty, homophobic real, live dictator of Uganda: GOOD.
President Bush met at the White House on Tuesday with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni for talks that focused on trade, HIV/AIDS but seemingly ignored alleged human rights abuses of gays and lesbians.The two emerged from the meeting to appear for a camera opportunity with Bush praising Museveni for his push to lower the AIDS rate in the African nation by emphasizing abstinence until marriage.
"Uganda is the epitome of how one can implement a comprehensive ABC strategy to achieve concrete and specific results for the sake of humanity," said Bush.
October 31, 2007
Oh those uppity Chilean women!
They dare to defy the Catholic church? And to order pharmacies to fill orders for the Morning-After Pill? What next, a female president?
Oh wait. They have one already. Never mind...
The Chilean government has warned pharmacies refusing to sell the morning-after contraceptive pill that they could face stiff fines or closure.Major pharmacy chains have not been selling the pill recently, arguing they could not buy stocks locally.
The government responded by importing supplies and said the stores now had no excuse for not selling the pill.
October 29, 2007
Stupid Sex Tricks: Straight is the new gay
And for confirmation of the above, check out Wonkette's account of what sex with Larry Craig was like 20 years ago, at least for one then-young, naive lad unfortunate enough to experience it.
(Actually, it rings rather true, given that this IS a deep-closet toilet troller we're talking about. He and everyone around him are still in ye olde denial mode.)
October 26, 2007
The Big Dick's little nap
Yup, nothing like sleeping on the job to let displaced Californian fire victims know you care.
October 22, 2007
It's National Character Counts Week!
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.
October 20, 2007
An election issue, you say?
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."
October 8, 2007
Larry Craig's strange habits, pegged
Really!
October 5, 2007
Festive Left Friday Blogging Too: Unloading on the Pigman with Mike Malloy!
"Way to support the troops, Boil Butt!"
Anthony from Sweden, aka Malmo Blue, calls in at about 5:30 in this YouTube (which he made and posted.)
Way to give ol' Boil-Butt the red-ass, Anthony and Mike!
September 30, 2007
The Shock Doctrine
Actually, this dovetails rather nicely with The Secret Government, don't you think?
September 29, 2007
Don't tase the penguin, bro!
Once again, I am in awe of Tom Tomorrow. He sure knows how to hit Alan "Ayn Rand's Little Disciple" Greenspan where it counts.
One question for you, Mr. G: Why did you not say it was all about oil back when something could still be done to stop this train wreck? Oh wait, I guess that would have something to do with the evils of regulating capitalism, which should just be free to run unfettered and roughshod all over fucking everything. I guess that ideology tied your First Amendment's tongue. In other words, a false and illusory freedom trumped a genuine one. Now it makes sense...
Actually, here's another, just for good measure: If you're so libertarian (and libertarians are, according to their own prattle, so individualistic), why did you sell your soul to the L. Ron Hubbard of political philosophy? Seems such a collectivist thing to do.
And, in light of the job you just left, rather dangerous to boot.
September 28, 2007
Hello, operator? I think I've been framed.
Could you please put me through to Dr. George Lakoff? I have a really bad case of brainwashing I'm trying to overcome.
New research confirms that repetition of "myths" and slogans helps lodge them in the minds of the public and that refuting them often leads only to the public remembering falsehoods better. Instead, they tell us that "education campaigns with an 'affirmative' message," even if it is a negative message, are far more effective in defeating an adversary's frame.University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz has done experiments showing that people remember things they hear repeated often enough, regardless of its source, and even if it's from a single source.
"Hearing the same opinion from several sources is more influential than hearing it only once from one source. This is as it should be," he wrote in an email exchange with HarperIndex.ca. "But, as we showed in a recent paper, hearing it multiple times from the same source is nearly as influential. 'A repetitive voice sounds like a chorus.' So a single person or small group can create the impression of broad consensus through sheer repetition."
Continue reading "Hello, operator? I think I've been framed." »
September 23, 2007
SupposiTory takes aim at Native people
It's not hard to guess who he's really targeting here, is it?
Anyone directing, participating in or financially supporting an illegal land occupation in Ontario would face harsher penalties under a Progressive Conservative government, leader John Tory said Sunday as he paid a visit to one of the province's current cauldrons of aboriginal unrest.Tory took his election effort to this southern Ontario community, where Six Nations protesters have been occupying the site of a now-moribund housing development since February 2006, to denounce the way Premier Dalton McGuinty's government has handled the conflict.
John Tory: not racist. Honest, Injun!
September 9, 2007
Irony escapes them
You can't make this up.
Police said Sunday they have broken up a cell of young Israeli neo-Nazis accused of a string of brutal racist and anti-Semitic attacks, videos of which were played on television to a stunned national audience.The eight suspects, all immigrants from the former Soviet Union in their late teens or early 20s, are seen in the videos kicking victims on the ground to a bloody pulp, hitting a man over the head with an empty beer bottle and proclaiming their allegiance to Adolf Hitler with a Nazi salute.