News of the Restless

Who are they? Well, they look normal enough. It's what they DO that's not so normal:

Police are looking for a suspect after a woman says another woman poured a liquid on her and told her she was going to set her on fire.

"She came in the store and I came out from behind the counter and I greeted her she asked for bath salts."

That's how Crystal Basler Payne, owner of The Country Goddess, says her Saturday on September 13th started. Payne says things went wrong when she started ringing up the sale.

"And I turned to look at the register and I turned back and that's when she threw the kerosene on me," Payne said. "She had it in a Dante water bottle."

Payne says at first it didn't register what was going on until she saw the lighter.

"She actually had the lighter at that point and she was flicking it, the lighter, in front of me and the lighter wouldn't light."

She began screaming for her life and ran for the front door. But she never made it, she says she lost her footing and fell in front of a stack of posters.

"She said 'Be still and let me light you on fire.' There was no emotion in her voice. At no point did she yell," Payne said.

What do you bet that this woman will never be charged with terrorism?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No shit, some lame-ass homophobic pervert actually said this:

Investigators said their two-year probe into allegations of child pornography and abuse focused on convicted tax evader Tony Alamo and his ministry, described by its critics as a cult.

Alamo claimed in a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Saturday that the investigation was part of a federal push to legalize same-sex marriage while outlawing polygamy. He also said for girls having sex, "consent is puberty."

Funny, up where I live, you have to be past puberty before you can consent. Maybe this strange manner of inducing anatomical maturation is an Arkansas thing?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...who craved a used screwin' machine.

Himself he amused.

The thing, he abused.

And the vendor? She found him obscene:

Warning: Serious man-boobs. May frighten your cat.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...so to speak:

Actually, it's Mike's wife, Kathy Bay, doing Palin. That's why this "Idaho-born Alaskan" sounds suspiciously like a southern belle.

Hey, the higher the hair...

Posted by Sabina Becker at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Now, who could this be?

Hmmmm...his cap says "Venezuela", so clearly he's from there. And he's wearing a red t-shirt with famous communist faces all in a row. He must be a Chavista, right?

Um, sorry. No.

According to Aporrea, this is Henrique Capriles Radonsky, the treasonous right-wing mayor of the municipality of Baruta, spotted on a recent trip to Beijing. Apparently he thought he was going incognito. But in fact, he's violating the conditions of his release from prison four years ago. And the fact that Capriles Radonsky was jailed for attacking the Cuban embassy in Caracas during the coup of '02 surely makes his t-shirt that much more ironic, no?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Of all the odd places for God to show his celestial wrath, this one in Venezuela has to take the cosmic cake:

Jesús Martinez was walking in the rain by the Plaza del Obrero, in Punto Fijo, Falcón, when he saw lightning strike the cathedral, according to the daily Ultimas Noticias' Sunday business edition.

The stroke, according to the report, fell on the church steeple and shattered the head of the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus which had kept watch over the city for more than 50 years. It was three o'clock in the afternoon and it had been raining in the city for over an hour, amid strong winds and electrical discharges.

"It's nothing to be afraid of, these are things of nature. Now we have to evaluate the damage and rebuild the statue," said priest Eladio Bedoya of the parish church of Our Lady of Coromoto, Cathedral of Punto Fijo.

Translation mine. Picture of the church at the link, probably taken before the lightning strike.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

No, not the lady who won this year's title. She's just another innocent victim. The pageant itself is what gets the new orifice. And it deserves it:

Continue reading "Mike Malloy rips Miss Universe a new one" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Only one paragraph from the head of a news item in Venezuelanalysis, but oh my...

A notoriously violent Venezuelan student organization aligned with the Venezuelan opposition known as the March 13th Movement (M13) fired gunshots and threw Molotov cocktails at police officers, blockaded streets using seized university buses, and ransacked sections of the Andean town of Mérida on Thursday and Friday, to protest crime and insecurity in the city.

Did you get that? The M-13 "students" are "protesting crime and insecurity"...by resorting to crime and creating insecurity.

And just to compound the irony, there's this: the murder rate is down, and drug interceptions are up. Uh, what's that the M-13 thuggies were saying about crime and insecurity, again?

Meanwhile, in other utterly unironic news, we get this snippet from the BoRev guest blogger, El Catire:

Opposition Just Can't Decide: One day they call Chavez's government corrupt, next day they march to criticize a measure that would stop corrupt people from running for public office. What gives?

Hey Blond Guy, I'll tell you what gives: This is just more made-for-the-media whackjobbery from a faction that is entertaining to watch sometimes, if only for its utter lack of a sense of irony. The fact that nearly half of the "blacklist" consists of crooked, opportunistic and coattail-riding "Chavistas" (in name only, not in spirit) goes forever unmentioned in the lamestream media.

But hey, at least Chavecito's drama-queeny ex is predictably down with all the latest ruckus. So I guess that means they must have a point!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How do you say "Ouch" in Italian? (I know how you say "son of a bitch"!)

The White House has apologised to Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi for a briefing describing him as a political "amateur" who is "hated by many".

The "insulting" biography was included in a press kit distributed to reporters travelling with President George W Bush to a meeting of world leaders in Japan.

Continue reading "A kick in the Berluscoglioni" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 1:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

This one just speaks for itself:

U.S. Ambassador James Cason's singing isn't music to the ears of one Paraguayan senator.

Cason released a CD two weeks ago of himself singing Paraguayan folk songs in the local Guarani indigenous language.

Cason tells the newspaper ABC Color he recorded the CD titled "The Field of Promises" because his wife says he has a beautiful voice.

But opposition Sen. Domingo Laino begs to differ and has asked Paraguay's Congress to denounce the diplomat.

Laino told Uno Radio on Thursday that the ambassador "sings horribly and his pronunciation of Guarani words is stammering. It is an offense to the Paraguayan people."

Cason's term as ambassador ends in August.

Which will undoubtedly be a great relief to Guarani ears. Just as no longer having to listen to John Ashcroft's croonings was a great relief to my US friends.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ha ha, Boris Johnson cracks me up. First that undead haystack cancels the London public transit system's cheap-fuel deal with Venezuela, out of some idiotic desire to punish the poor with fare hikes. Now, get a load of what he keeps on his desk--or used to:

Police have forced London Mayor Boris Johnson to hand over a cigar case belonging to Iraq's former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.

The ex-MP, who obtained the red leather case from Mr Aziz's bombed-out home while visiting Iraq as a journalist in 2003, said the situation was "stupid".

He said: "The police have no choice but to investigate this ludicrous affair."

Under the Iraq (UN Sanctions) Order 2003, anyone possessing Iraqi cultural property must give it to the police.

Granted, it's not much of a "cultural property", seeing as it's not exactly a first edition cuneiform scroll of the Code of Hammurabi or anything like that. But it's not rightfully his, either, and keeping such a grotesque trophy on his desk speaks of extremely poor judgment on his part.

Not, I hasten to add, that his sentiments regarding the president of Venezuela say anything better.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Remember how I said the newly elected leftist president of Paraguay was by no stretch of the imagination a moderate, and even posted proof?

Well, guess what the Dissociated Press's own hilariously named Christopher Toothaker wrote. And if you guessed "complete bullshit", pat yourself on the back--you are absolutely correct!

Paraguayan President-elect Fernando Lugo was all smiles as he and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez embraced, talked of a revolution for the poor and pledged to build a united Latin America.

But as the former Roman Catholic priest ended a three-nation tour Thursday that also included visits to Venezuela's leftist allies in Bolivia and Ecuador, political analysts predicted he will take a less radical approach to governing.

Continue reading "My head just exploded." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

He's done two things that are very decent, all things considered.

First, he's put a freeze on food prices so that poorer Mexicans can quit dying of NAFTA-induced starvation (or at least, slow it down a bit.) If he's smart, he'll decree a price rollback and make it permanent. And if he's REALLY smart, he'll tear up NAFTA. (Oh 'Bina, you really are a dreamer, aren't you.)

He's also advocated that Europe lift its sanctions against Cuba. Meaning Cubans can also quit starving for lack of Euros. Yay!

Now, if only he'd admit that his "election" was a sham, and cede to AMLO like he should have done in the first place, things could really get rockin'.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I seem to recall that he stepped down. He's now signing all his Granma articles as Comrade Fidel, rather than Comandante, too.

So why, then, are "experts" trying to analyze the latest video of him to assess his "viability"? Are they really so stuck as to how to turn Cuba into a capitalist hellhole? Do they seriously think it's all about Fidel, and only Fidel, when in fact it's all about CUBA?

BTW, they do have elections there, too. They just don't have right-wing parties. Which, if you ask me, is no loss. It already looks like they're holding their own without a charismatic leader in charge. Which begs the question: Why does the CIA still give a shit, and why are they still trying to kill him at this late stage of the game?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So here I am, listening to a test-cast by my mega-talented friend Tony "T-Bone" Jones. It's called "Song of Bobby Kennedy", and it's about 20 minutes of trance-dance electronica interspersed with a rousing and cautionary speech by Bobby Kennedy. "A time of change and a time of sorrow." It's about racism and violence and senseless bloodshed--it is on the assassination of Dr. King.

But another friend, R. A. "Deck" Deckert, sent me this link, and guess what's the first story at the top?

The columnist Steve Lopez, writing in The Los Angeles Times about Juan Romero, the busboy who knelt down to help Robert F. Kennedy after he was shot at the Ambassador Hotel. The paper's Daily Mirror blog reprinted the column, first published five years ago, last week on the 40th anniversary of the assassination:

Continue reading "Synchronicity works in mysterious ways" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is too juicy to pass up. Aporrea.org, the Venezuelan news/opinion site I enjoy most, has uncovered some skulduggery published at an opposition forum called Noticiero Digital. It's an e-mail from Alfredo Rangel, the director of the "Security and Democracy Foundation" in Colombia. According to Aporrea, "this organism is a facade for the intelligence community of the US in that country." The e-mail is to Juan Manuel Santos, the defence minister of Colombia.

Full text follows, translated by Your Humble One:

Continue reading "Well, well, well. What have we here?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I mean really. What else is there to say to this?

Laptop computers have become treasure troves of evidence for Colombian investigators probing crimes committed by far-right militias and leftist rebels.

So many Colombians were dismayed to learn that prison authorities didn't immediately secure laptops and cell phones belonging to most of the 14 paramilitary warlords who were yanked from cells on May 12 and extradited to the United States to stand trial for drug trafficking.

The mishandled evidence has become a national scandal, and the prisons director only made matters worse when he told Colombia's leading newspaper that he had no way of preventing the warlords from continuing to lead criminal networks from their cells.

Oh, I know. I know! How about bombing the fuck out of paramilitary encampments on the Venezuelan side of the border, where Manuel Rosales (the imperial stooge with whom Chavecito mopped the floor in the last presidential election) is said to be harboring them? Then, I'm sure, we can put to rest once and for all the question of whether there is actually such a thing as a bomb-proof laptop (which the whore media won't ask).

And of course, we could also clean up a LOT of right-wing paramilitary narcoterrorist scum that way.

Oh, I know. I KNOW. It's a modest proposal, but it will never happen. And we all know why.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"In today's America, speech is only 'free' when you are talking down to someone less powerful that you. Speak 'up' — and look out.

--Barry Nolan, who was fired for telling the awful truth about Bill O'Reilly at an awards banquet where the latter was undeservedly honored for being a professional liar

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ah oui, cher(e) ami(e), Tante Bina a trouvé beaucoup d'histoires bien scandaleuses pour toi!

Ahem. En anglais:

Maxime Bernier, our beleaguered and blundering foreign-affairs minister, has finally resigned. The reason? His ex-girlfriend, the erstwhile biker babe Julie Couillard, is in fact something of a security risk--a fact that Bernier and the Harper Tories repeatedly denied. When questioned (very politely) on the matter of her questionable ties by the opposition, the Tories cried salaciousness.

And considering that Bernier left confidential documents at her house, there seems to be some validity to the line of questioning on her potential for security risks. Meanwhile, we find out that somebody bugged her bedsprings.

She also accompanied him to his swearing-in spilling major cleavage. And she's now spilling her story.

Who's salacious again?

Now, for a scary thought: I called Bernier on his cowardly putziness regarding torture earlier this year. He's also well known for his out-of-line remarks on Afghanistan. Now I wonder if he and his ex-GF were actually the official conduit for Afghan heroin--the only cash crop Afghanistan is actually cashing in on--to the Hell's Angels. You have to admit Julie's credentials are ideal for the job.

Meanwhile, Maxime is going down in history--like a sack of solid lead bricks.

Quel fromage.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Never-before-seen footage from the actual finding of Raul Reyes' computer! Indisputable evidence linking Chavecito to the FARC! Exclusive to Globoterror, the 24-hour crapaganda channel! Absolutely (and I do mean absolutely) unedited!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...in response to a guy named Ed, from Miami, who tootled all the lines we know only too well from the loco anti-Chavez contingent, plus one new one: "Bush is a populist."

WTF???

Well, I couldn't let that stand, so I fired off:

Continue reading "I wrote Mike Malloy another letter..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Because it just might explode from the sheer incongruity and hilarity of it all:

Bill Oh-Really, race-baiter extraordinaire, tries to distance himself from his fellow hatemongers (Limbaugh and Hannity), as does Dick "Election Fucker, Toe Sucker" Morris. Is it just me, or does the Little Dick sound EXACTLY like Templeton the Rat?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, you read correctly. He says so himself:

There are two flaws in his logic:

1) If "they kill you", why ain't he DEAD?

and

2) If pregnancies are all invited, why don't they show their papers at the door--to confirm that their presence was in fact requested, as real invitees must do?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Giving new definition to the term "God botherer", we have the luvverly folks at "GodTube", who think it's not enough to merely broadcast themselves; they have themselves conflated with "Him":

Strangely, though, there's nary a biblical reference in this video treatise. Just a reference to some (alleged) Chinese philosophy comparing fruits and vegetables to various parts of the human body.

The variety of fruity comparisons here is impressive. Carrots are compared to eyes, tomatoes to the heart, avocados to the womb, grapefruit to the breasts. I can't help noticing one glaring omission, though: Why no comparison of zucchini to penises? After all, squash and pumpkin seeds are supposed to be great for helping to maintain male reproductive health, fertility and sexual potency!

Actually, I notice another glaring omission here: a comparison of creationists to vegetables, period.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There are all kinds of sensitive issues begging to be covered by a children's book. Is this one of them, or is it just another sad sign of times gone mad?

Dr. Michael Salzhauer said so many moms brought kids to their appointments that he was motivated to stock up on lollipops in his Bal Harbour, Fla., office. In "My Beautiful Mommy," he explains mommy's recuperation, changing look and desire for plastic surgery.

"Many parents don't explain to their kids what's going on," said the father of four, with his fifth child on the way. "Children are very perceptive. You can't hide a major surgery from them. When mom goes down for two weeks after a tummy tuck it affects them."

Yeah, and when she dies on the operating table, or from an embolus afterwards, it affects them even more. Just something for all the Mommy Makeover patients out there to mull, along with how much of their children's college education fund is going to get eaten up by Beautiful Mommy's buying in to a patriarchal construct of feminine beauty.

And no, the good doctor who wrote this deathless prose is not shilling for his own practice at all! Perish the thought, you vulgar thing!

Illustrations show a crook-nosed mom with loose tummy skin under her half shirt picking up her young daughter early from school one day and taking her to a strapping and handsome "Dr. Michael."

Strapping and handsome...and one helluva chiseler. In more ways than one.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sam Seder gets a drunken dialer from a former Florida secretary of State:

Continue reading "Katherine Harris phones in" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Who's dumber here, the drunken can-stuffer, or the doctors who YouTubed his subsequent operation to remove the foreign object from his rectum?

You tell me...

A Philippine hospital recommended penalties Friday, including possible dismissal, for three doctors and a nurse who conducted a rowdy operation on a patient that was videotaped and posted on YouTube.

Continue reading "Stupid Sex Tricks: Doctor, how did this spray can get up my ass?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 4:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

From the But We're Doing It For The Children! files:

Venezuela has forced U.S. cartoon "The Simpsons" off its airwaves, calling the show a potentially bad influence on children, and filled its morning slot with reruns of the beach-and-bikini show "Baywatch."

"The Simpsons" satirical take on a dysfunctional American family had been shown, dubbed into Spanish, on the Televen network at an 11 am slot.

"Today I believe they started broadcasting something else," said a spokesman at Venezuela's broadcasting regulator Conatel. "They were infringing many things in the television and radio social responsibility law."

Conatel said it started proceedings against the morning airing of the show after complaints from viewers.

Televen has replaced the long-running and popular cartoon with "Baywatch Hawaii," late seasons of the "Baywatch" series that made actress Pamela Anderson a household name.

Please hold the jokes about Pam's silicone udders somehow being more wholesome children's entertainment than The Simpsons. (Which, I agree, is not a kiddie show; you need an adult brain and sense of humor to appreciate it fully. But at least it's not built around a massive, hoo-honkin' pair of fake titties.)

What's really ridiculous here is that Televen's action is somehow being shoved off onto all of Venezuela, or else CONATEL or the government, I'm not sure which. (You're probably not sure either, eh?)

What I am sure of, is that this apparent confusion is not an accident. After all, the petulant actions of one anti-Chavez channel must not be held accountable in the lamestream media up here, no matter how patently ridiculous they are. Especially since all this petulance and immature fake-boob fetishism came in response to the complaints of actual, TV-aware Venezuelan parents.

D'oh.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sadly, it's an April Fools joke.

Would be brilliant if it were for real, though.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...très different from the Americans when it comes to public-service ads. They take health a lot more seriously than they do censorship, and they certainly believe in making sure the kiddies are thoroughly informed. Le voici, c'est le gai:

The bit at the ends says: "Live long enough to find Mr. Right. Protect yourself. AIDES."

Et bien sûr, it's always a good idea to use condoms faithfully when you're looking for love in all the wrong places. Unfortunately, they won't protect you from one thing here: the sappy earworm, which made Your Humble Scribe cry (almost as much as all the horrible misadventures our cute hero has before he finds Dr. Le Bon.) Consider yourself warned.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, right...

April Fool!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, at least on Iraqi TV...where the local chapter of the Flat Earth Society is finally free to speak its mind:

...and you are finally free to laugh your ass off at them. Especially when you consider what great strides in astronomy were made in the Muslim world, by people who kept their scriptures in perspective and didn't treat them as scientific gospel.

Ain't freedom grand?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Guess what, America...you're a monarchy. And your king is a crazy old Korean with the weirdest sexual hangups ever.

The question is, why did elected officials (and the Bush Crime Family, who are not actually elected, though they pretend to be) bow down to him and participate in this insane mummery?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ahem. Now that I have your attention:

As usual, you learn a lot from your ol' Uncle Jay.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yes, you read that correctly. Dubya, that great champion of freedom, is a would-be censor, making sure the people of the United States stay in the dark about what's really happening in Iraq. Here's the video:

Ahahaha...I think I know why he doesn't want you to see this. The Iraqis want the Dems to win, and they like both Hillary Clinton AND Barack Obama. They have nothing good to say about the situation the war has plunged their country into. And it is SO OBVIOUS from this that the Iraqis are not the backward stupidheads BushCo wants us to believe they are.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And they've committed two hacks. One on the website of a certain Ecuadorable president:

The official website of the Presidency of Ecuador (www.presidencia.gov.ec) was blocked today for the second time by a hacker who left it out of service.

The info-pirate left a message, "Don't mess with Colombia", and blocked all access to infromation on the portal, which remained disabled for several hours until, around 2 p.m. local time (7 p.m. GMT), it came back online but with error messages.

Continue reading "Uribe's thugs are on the Internets" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 1:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's hard to imagine anything more offensively asinine than the legendary WMD pub crawling incident, but Dubya has finally outdone himself:

The only thing left for him now is to mimic this guy. (Warning: do not click that link if you're at work, or easily grossed out.)

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Because it sure as hell rings true to me...

...all except for the Diebold "apology", of course.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Okay, you wingnuts--you screamed about Muslims protesting against inflammatory 'toons in Denmark. Where's your outrage over this? Last Sunday, the YouTube videos all over the Internets went dark, and nobody said boo...and now we know why:

Pakistan has blocked access to the popular YouTube website because of content deemed offensive to Islam.

Its telecommunications authority ordered internet service providers to block the site until further notice.

Reports said the content included Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that have outraged many.

But one report said a trailer for a forthcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, which portrays Islam in a negative light, was behind the ban.

"They asked us to ban it immediately... and the order says the ban will continue until further notice," said Wahaj-us-Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers.

Hmmm. I guess the reason for this strangely selective lack of outrage is over the fact that Pervez Musharraf, who is STILL, er, "president" of Pakistan, is the one behind all this. And since he's Dubya's good buddy, of course anything he does is all right. After all, Pakistan is Teh Bestest Democracy Evah!

And besides, the Muslims in Denmark only protested. They didn't actually censor anything. Everybody knows that dissent, not censorship, is the real evil! When in Denmark, your duty is to conform to the American global standard, Citizen!

Now, for another round of "look how brave we are, fighting Islamofascism with IslamoBASHism!" Coming soon to a wingnut site near you...

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Department of Unfortunate Juxtapositions:

Today's special: Sweet & Sour Kitten Balls.

Meow meow!

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 5:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Well, that's flattering. I'm glad to know we bloggers have been upgraded from a mere nuisance!

The laundry list of fictional catastrophes -- which include hundreds of people on "No Fly" lists suddenly arriving at airport ticket counters -- is significant because it suggests what kind of real-world trouble keeps people in the White House awake at night.

Imagined villains include hackers, bloggers and even reporters. After mock electronic attacks overwhelmed computers at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an unspecified "major news network" airing reports about the attackers refused to reveal its sources to the government. Other simulated reporters were duped into spreading "believable but misleading" information that worsened fallout by confusing the public and financial markets, according to the government's files.

The $3 million, invitation-only war game simulated what the U.S. described as plausible attacks over five days in February 2006 against the technology industry, transportation lines and energy utilities by anti-globalization hackers. The government is organizing another multimillion-dollar war game, Cyber Storm 2, to take place in early March.

[...]

The AP obtained the Cyber Storm internal records nearly two years after it requested them under the Freedom of Information Act. The government censored most of the 328 pages it turned over, marked "For Official Use Only," citing rules preventing the disclosure of sensitive information.

Including the most sensitive information of all, which becomes blatantly obvious from reading the above--namely, that the US government is full of loopy, paranoid yahoos. They see threats in everything, even the blogosphere and the news media. And no wonder: Guess who's most likely to report that the US government is full of loopy, paranoid yahoos?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 3:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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)

...then whose revenge is the clap?

The first recorded epidemic of syphilis happened during the Renaissance in 1495. Initially the plague broke out among the army of Charles the VIII after the French king invaded Naples. It then proceeded to devastate the continent.

"Syphilis was a major killer in Europe during the Renaissance," said researcher George Armelagos, a skeletal biologist at Emory University in Atlanta.

In the centuries since then, controversy has raged over whether Columbus and his men introduced not only the New World to Europe, but a new sexually transmitted disease as well. In the 20th century, critics of the "Columbian theory" proposed that syphilis had always bedeviled the Old World but simply had not been set apart from other rotting diseases such as leprosy until 1500 or so.

Continue reading "If diarrhea is Montezuma's revenge..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, according to the Navy Times, he could be anywhere in the world. Including, as luck would have it, a recent "sighting" alleged to be in the Strait of Hormuz:

The threatening radio transmission heard at the end of a video showing harassing maneuvers by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz may have come from a locally famous heckler known among ship drivers as the "Filipino Monkey."

Since the Jan. 6 incident was announced to the public a day later, the U.S. Navy has said it's unclear where the voice came from. In the videotape released by the Pentagon on Jan. 8, the screen goes black at the very end and the voice can be heard, distancing it from the scenes on the water.

"We don't know for sure where they came from," said Cmdr. Lydia Robertson, spokeswoman for 5th Fleet in Bahrain. "It could have been a shore station."

Continue reading "Where in the world is Filipino Monkey?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Gather 'round, kiddies, 'cause here's a fine example of just how desperate the Bush Crime Family is to start a war on Iran. First, here's a video from the Pentagon, supposedly detailing a menacing move by Iranian patrol boats in the Strait of Hormuz:

It doesn't seem terribly conclusive, except towards the end, when the screen suddenly goes black, and a menacing voice with a heavy accent drones out over the radio, "I am coming to youuuuuuu...going to explode after a few minutes."

Booga, booga, booga!

Now, after you're done scrubbing the skidmarks out of your underpants, watch this video, which was taken from one of the Iranian patrolboats in question:

Continue reading "I am NOT coming to youuuuuuu!" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Zut alors. He's just proposed to Mick Jagger's old mistress (and Eric Clapton's sloppy seconds).

Nicolas Sarkozy will marry his supermodel lover Carla Bruni next month - in time for the two to enjoy a state visit to Britain.

The wedding will take place in Paris on February 8 or 9, according to a newspaper owned by a close friend of the French president.

This will be two weeks after Mr Sarkozy celebrates his 53rd birthday, and less than four months after his divorce from his second wife, Cecilia, also a model.

Nice to know he's not superficial or anything.

Superficial-as-anything update: The French are not amused. The Beeb has the deets.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Happy New Year! Aporrea has the latest presidential caper from Venezuela, and it's a stunner:

Continue reading "Chavecito--WTF???" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gol-dang, if that Osama isn't the most talkative spook or the most animated corpse you've ever seen. Now that everyone is talking about his death (thank you, Beni!), he has to pipe up via audiotape and claim that the rumors of his demise are premature...

Most of the 56-minute tape dealt with Iraq, apparently al-Qaida's latest attempt to keep supporters in Iraq unified at a time when the U.S. military claims to have al-Qaida's Iraq branch on the run.

The tape did not mention Pakistan or the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, though Pakistan's government has blamed al-Qaida and the Taliban for her death on Thursday. That suggested the tape was made before the assassination.

Or by someone who isn't in fact Osama.

This is hardly the first time we've seen an impostor being fobbed off as him. Or heard one, come to that. Apparently, since we aren't overly familiar with his voice (are you? I'm not), and all Arabic-speakers are supposed to sound alike to our western ears, we are meant to take it on faith that if a Pentagon "expert" says it's him, it must be him. Never mind that the Pentagon has had a problem with Arabic translations, since it refuses to let perfectly qualified gay people do the job even in the face of an acute shortage.

So...how are we to know if this latest "Osama" is, in fact, the real Osama? Or, come to that, if any of the rest of them were?

Continue reading "Messages from beyond the grave" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 12:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

An intriguing David Frost interview from last November, shortly after a failed assassination attempt on Benazir Bhutto, who was killed today in Rawalpindi, Pakistan:

At 6:13 in this video, she mentions an "Omar Sheikh, who murdered Osama bin Laden" (italics mine).

Continue reading "Did Beni know something we don't, but should?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 11:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...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):

Continue reading "More proof that Dubya doesn't read" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sadly, this was a foregone conclusion:

Meanwhile, Dubya still thinks Musharraf is the world's best democrat. Right up there with Alvaro Uribe of Colombia. Surprise, surprise.

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yeah, tell it to the Beeb. It seems to have been bending over to prove the opposite lately. Especially with "reports" like this:

This so-called reporter, John Sweeney, is absolutely incredible. As in, "not credible". As in, "like a three-dollar bill". As in "Is he carrying water for Big Oil and that crazy Boris Johnson? Smells that way to me!"

Continue reading "So much for state media being "socialist"..." »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 7:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seriously, people, I want a Caganer for Christmas. Those kitschy little Catalan caca-makers are the shit!

Anybody know where I can get a Caganer in Canada?

Posted by Sabina Becker at 1:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

And given that the president of the United States is apparently suffering from it, doesn't that make him unfit for office?

US President George W Bush has said he has "no recollection" of the existence of video tapes of CIA interrogations and the plan to destroy them.

The CIA says it wiped two tapes of interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects to protect the identities of its agents.

But human rights groups accuse it of destroying evidence of practices that may be tantamount to torture.

And most importantly: if he is unfit for office, isn't it time to remove him and all his administration too, for aiding and abetting a criminally negligent dictator?

Oh, you think I'm exaggerating when I call him a dictator? Exaggerate THIS:

Continue reading "Isn't amnesia a disability?" »

Posted by Sabina Becker at 5:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)