Sorry, no weekly wankapedia tonight…your humble scribe is all holidayed out and therefore, too weary to worry about wanks. Plus, with all the boring and lazy end-of-year lists floating around the Internets, it just felt like overkill. Do you want to see one more of those? Me neither. So, put your feet up and enjoy this kitteh, with my compliments…
…and I’ll have more wankers for you next year, ‘kay?
Good night, and don’t get fucked.
…Madurito, the president who undoubtedly had the toughest first year of government ever, and who is closing out the year on a high note nonetheless:
2014 will be “a year of more socialist revolution, of the people, of real democracy,” said Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro during the handover of 40 homes in the Cacique Caribe subdivision of Catia La Mar, in Vargas State, where he ratified the commitment of his government in conducting a constant battle to preserve the legacy of the Supreme Comandante, Hugo Chávez.
He reiterated that one of the first tasks of the year 2014 will be the return of the Efficient Street Government sessions, which will be intensified during the first trimester of the year, when he will hand over the final group of homes to families displaced by the rains of 2010.
“We will go ahead with the seven objectives of the Street Government. With recharged batteries, recharged with love, hope and the absolute faith in the energy of a people determined to be free,” said the head of state, who was accompanied by the National Assembly president, Diosdado Cabello; by the First Combatant, Cilia Flores; and the state governor, Jorge Luis García Carneiro.
Translation mine.
It’s been a rough year for Venezuelans, losing their beloved president and then having to go through two more elections to secure the Revolution. But they’ve pulled through in spite of all the machinations of the opposition and its gringo puppetmasters, even picking off opposition votes in many areas. It’s no small feat, and it’s nice to see that Madurito is not only continuing in his predecessor’s footsteps, but expanding the work he did to include everyone. This is what participatory democracy looks like.
Nice, too, to see loyal Bolivarian fighters like Diosdado Cabello, who was Chavecito’s vice-president during the coup of ’02, who gave the army its orders to return Chavecito to Miraflores, and who presides over the National Assembly now, while General García Carneiro — another counter-coup hero — is the governor of Vargas, working boots-to-the-ground to make sure the displaced flood victims of that state get new homes. They help to provide revolutionary continuity, and their track record is proven.
As is that of Madurito himself, who we know has been a politician almost literally all his life, as well as a union leader and an early civilian supporter of Chavecito when the latter was imprisoned after his failed uprising in 1992. Madurito, in fact, rallied leftists and unionists behind the uprising…and was there for Chavecito when the latter first took up the task of canvassing the entire land, setting a pattern of street-level participatory politics that Madurito is carrying on today, with his Street Government sessions.
The people of Venezuela may have lost their Supreme Comandante to cancer, but they have not lost his ideas…or the will to carry them forward. And they certainly haven’t lost the unity he inspired.
So much for the literally outlandish idea that the Bolivarian Revolution is just a one-man affair.
“When I blew, I blew a 2.1”? Silly gringo, that’s nothing. Check out what these Mexicans did:
The Secretariat of Public Security for the Federal District admitted 43 drivers to the Centre of Penal Administrative Sanctions, a.k.a. El Torito, on Christmas Eve, after catching them at various points through the “Drive Without Alcohol” program with blood alcohol levels of 0.4 percent.
[…]
In one of the locations in Iztapalapa, a driver in an advanced state of drunkenness flunked his blood-alcohol test, and upon being informed that he would be sent to El Torito, he faked a heart attack so that paramedics would come to his aid. But when they saw that he was in good health and only in an advanced state of inebriation, he was arrested and had to stay 36 hours in the centre.
Translation mine.
A BAC of 0.4 should leave one comatose, if not dead, and yet these guys were conscious enough to drive…though not to pass the local equivalent of the R.I.D.E. program. They also blew this epic drunken twit away.
I have to ask what the hell they ate for Noche Buena.
I don’t know, and neither do you. But I bet the Koch Brothers do…
Conservative groups may have spent up to $1bn a year on the effort to deny science and oppose action on climate change, according to the first extensive study into the anatomy of the anti-climate effort.
The anti-climate effort has been largely underwritten by conservative billionaires, often working through secretive funding networks. They have displaced corporations as the prime supporters of 91 think tanks, advocacy groups and industry associations which have worked to block action on climate change. Such financial support has hardened conservative opposition to climate policy, ultimately dooming any chances of action from Congress to cut greenhouse gas emissions that are warming the planet, the study found.
“I call it the climate-change counter movement,” said the author of the study, Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle. “It is not just a couple of rogue individuals doing this. This is a large-scale political effort.”
Billionaires spending billions to keep the gravy train rolling…and rolling right over any pesky government that would stand in their way. And how exactly does that work?
“This is how wealthy individuals or corporations translate their economic power into political and cultural power,” he said. “They have their profits and they hire people to write books that say climate change is not real. They hear people to go on TV and say climate change is not real. It ends up that people without economic power don’t have the same size voice as the people who have economic power, and so it ends up distorting democracy.
“That is the bottom line here. These are unaccountable organisations deciding what our politics should be. They put their thumbs on the scale … It is more one dollar one vote than one person one vote.”
Apparently, in the United States of Amnesia, any billionaire can set himself up as a charitable cause, hiring mouthpieces so that the money keeps on rolling…right back to him.
The vast majority of the 91 groups on Brulle’s list – 79% – were registered as charitable organisations and enjoyed considerable tax breaks. Those 91 groups included trade organisations, think tanks and campaign groups. The groups collectively received more than $7bn over the eight years of Brulle’s study – or about $900m a year from 2003 to 2010. Conservative think tanks and advocacy groups occupied the core of that effort.
The funding was dispersed to top-tier conservative think tanks in Washington, such as the AEI and Heritage Foundation, which focus on a range of issues, as well as more obscure organisations such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and the John Locke Foundation.
Funding also went to groups that took on climate change denial as a core mission – such as the Heartland Institute, which held regular conclaves dedicated to undermining the United Nations climate panel’s reports, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which tried and failed to prosecute a climate scientist, Michael Mann, for academic fraud.
AEI was by far the top recipient of such funds, receiving 16% of total funding over the eight years, or $86.7m. Heartland Institute, in contrast, received just 3% of the total, $16.7m. There was also generous support to Americans for Prosperity, the advocacy group affiliated with the conservative Koch billionaires, which received $22.7m.
And if you thought Conrad Black was adept at setting up shell corporations to funnel money back into his own overstuffed coffers, that’s nothing…just look at these guys, who money-launder their own “charitable” donations:
The leading venue for those underground donations was the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, which alone accounted for 25% of funding of the groups opposed to climate action. An investigation by the Guardian last February found that the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund had distributed nearly $120m to more than 100 anti-climate groups from 2002-2010. The Donors group has now displaced such previous prominent supporters of the climate denial movement as the Koch-affiliated foundations and corporations like Exxon Mobil, Brulle said.
Other conservative foundations funding climate denial efforts include: the Searle Freedom Trust, the John William Pope Foundation, the Howard Charitable Foundation and the Sarah Scaife Foundation, which also promote a free-market approach on other issues.
The sad part is, all this chicanery is apparently perfectly legal. Nobody has closed the loopholes on them…yet.
And in a comic twist, the climate-change deniers are even in the business of denying that they’re all paid hacks:
A number of the groups on Brulle’s list – both as funders and recipients – refused to comment on his findings or disputed his contention that they were part of a movement to block action on climate change.
Whitney Ball, the president of the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, said the organisation had no say in deciding which projects would receive funding. However, Ball told the Guardian last February that Donors offered funders the assurance their money would never go to Greenpeace. “It won’t be going to liberals,” she said at that time.
“We do not otherwise drive the selection of grantees, nor do we conduct in-depth analyses of projects or grantees unless an account holder specifically requests that service,” Ball said in an email. “Neither Donors Trust nor Donors Capital Fund as institutions take positions with respect to any issue advocated by its grantees.”
Why do I get the feeling that Whitney Ball is lying through her teeth? Oh, maybe because that’s what they all do. That’s what they’re all paid to do. They are being paid extravagantly to lie. And the lies are downright risible:
“Each of the scholars that work on any particular issue speaks for his or hers own work,” said Judy Mayka Stecker, director of media relations at AEI, in an email. She went on to write, however, that most of the AEI scholars who have worked on energy and climate change have moved on and would be unavailable to comment.
Well, that’s convenient!
“We do believe that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that man-made emissions will lead to some warming,” said David Kreutzer, an energy and climate-change fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “We are opposed to mandatory greenhouse gas emissions cuts.”
He said many conservatives saw a carbon tax, cap-and-trade and other climate policies as a government takeover by stealth.
“What we are not interested in doing is a huge shift of power to the government under the guise of preventing some climate problem,” he said.
Even though the government is the one entity powerful enough to effect any change that would actually stick — and work? Again, how convenient.
The Hoover Institution, which received about $45m, claimed to produce no work on climate change – while displaying on its website an article by a Hoover research fellow on an August 2013 Hoover poll on economic, energy and environmental issues.
“Hoover has no institutional initiatives on climate change,” a spokeswoman, Eryn Witcher, wrote in an email. “Individual Hoover fellows research and write on a wide variety of topics of their own choosing, but we’re not aware of any who are working in that field at this time, nor are we aware of any gifts or grants that have been received for that purpose.”
In the article, the Hoover fellow, Jeremy Carl, who works extensively on energy and climate issues, discussed climate change and fracking, concluding: “Many Democrats and liberals are in denial when it comes to reality on energy and climate policy, endorsing both science and political fiction.”
Funny, Mr. Carl, but any reputable scientist would say the same about YOU.
And, unlike you, they would be right.
PS: Barry Ritholtz has a very helpful map here. It’s a little out of date now, as it leaves the Donors’ Trust layer out of the picture. It would be located between the top tier and the conservative think-tanks (and maybe also between them and the front groups). Perhaps an update would be in order.
Oh dear, oh dear. Looks like the former unelected “president” of Paraguay is not exactly as upright as he pretended to be. Whatever could this mean?
The Attorney General of Paraguay will conduct an investigation against ex-president Federico Franco (2012-13) for suspected acts of corruption. Franco was in office for a little over a year after the toppling of Fernando Lugo.
As well as Franco, his wife, senator Emilia Alfaro, will be investigated, and attorney Victoria Acuña has been placed in charge of the case, which is based on a denunciation by liberal politician Domingo Laíno.
Laíno presented accusations against the ex-president and senator last August, and Acuña is collecting information in order to establish whether an official charge will be laid.
The case concerns irregularities committed during the reign of Franco, in the administration of the bi-national Itaipú hydroelectric plant, and some requests made from the office of the then-First Lady, which was later eliminated.
Laíno detailed that the presidential couple favored involved businessmen in bidding for Itaipú, as well as bringing about irregularities during the contraction of services by that entity.
Attorney Acuña has requested documents and the list of functionaries who worked at that time in Alfaro’s office, as well as special information over the cases denounced by the complainant.
Independent of his denunciation to the Attorney General, the liberal politician recently published a book in which he makes strong accusations against Franco and calls for investigation of these and other supposed illegal business dealings during his 14 months in power.
Translation mine.
So, to recap…a popular, elected leader (Lugo) got toppled by a bunch of right-wing senators in a parliamentary putsch. They put this guy in office. Guy’s a fascist; that much we already know. He’s a disgusting necrophiliac shit; we already know that, too. Surprise, surprise, guy also turns out to be a crook. As does his wife, who is one of those same right-wing senators who toppled that elected, popular president (Lugo). Golly whiz, what are the odds?
Stay tuned for more, kiddies, things are about to get awfully hot down in Paraguay..and not just because it’s summer there, either.
What with an 18-hour power outage out my way (started at around 2:00 in the morning), I’m sending this one out to the great guys who fixed the downed wires on my street. You guys are right up there with fire and ambulance crews for life-saving.
Crappy weekend, everyone! And crappy holidays! And a crappy, crappy Yule it is for me today, what with the freezing rain piling up on every wire and tree. Ah well, it’s only global warming running amuck. Might as well keep warm and make the best of it, eh? So join me in a cup of something hot and boozy, ’cause you’re gonna need it to deal with these wankers:
1. Conrad Fucking Black. Far back in the day, nay, in the Jurassic period, I seem to recall him starting up a certain far-right rag whose televised advertising made much of how hard-hitting and incisive it was going to be, simply because Lord Blah-Blah ran it, hard to starboard. Well, the baron ran into a reef of trouble, the paper got sold to Quebecor, and Con-rad himself went to jail in Florida, where — shockingly — he was forced to mingle with all manner of riffraff. But never fear! Since then, he hath redeemed himself by providing cautionary lessons to young students of journalism in how NOT to interview a fellow famous fathead (even fatter than himself, mirabile dictu!) So much for journalistic incisiveness. Ironically, that’s the province of all the reporters and columnists he’s ever sued (and insulted) for telling the awful truth about him and his endless schemes for scaling the ladder of “magnophiles” (translation: suck-ups). It figures that a fraud would interview a Frod, fraudulently. Did I mention fraud yet? Oh yeah, I forgot: Also LIBEL. For once, he’s not the one doing the suing, but getting sued. What a novel turn of events!
2. Ross Fucking Douthat. What happens when a whiny, wanky ‘winger whose dick goes limp at the first sign of female sexual agency becomes, through some malign miracle, a parent of daughters? He starts making noises to the effect that little girls just inherently drive their parents to conservatism, because who and what else is gonna protect those poor widdle dears from guys who like it but don’t want to put a ring on it? Some day soon, his teenage daughters are gonna hate him…and he won’t have the foggiest idea why.
3. James Fucking Moore. Whatever happened to being thy brother’s keeper? Conservatives eated it. And then giggled about it, and demanded seconds, and got mightily offended when their greed and gluttony was pointed out to them. And then apologized too little, too late…and no doubt expects to be forgiven and forgotten. NOT A FUCKING CHANCE.
4. Devyani Fucking Khobragade. It’s one thing to tout women’s rights when abroad; quite another, it seems, to recognize that they actually start at home. And especially in one’s own home, where one’s nanny is working for sub-starvation wages.
5. and 6. Elisabeth Fucking Hasselbeck and Ken Fucking Ham. Poor dumb straw-man creationists, they are obviously under siege from all sides. Why else thank one for getting knocked around by unbelievers, without actually refuting a thing?
7. Rush Fucking Limbaugh. Again with the tired old “liberalism is a mental illness” bullshit. Never mind the REAL common denominator behind every school shooting, i.e. guns too easily, and LEGALLY, available to people who shouldn’t be getting their hands on any. Never mind, either, the fact that it’s been consistently conservatives who’ve been touting legal firearms for everybody, even the clinically insane. Never mind, indeed, the fact that the Pigman is a sloppy walking soup of cognitive dissonance. Speaking of which, why the hell is he still even on the air?
8. Neal Fucking Boortz. Know why Martin Luther King is always portrayed as black? Because he’s a real person who happens to BE black. Know why Santa’s always portrayed as white? Because he’s a fictional character favored mainly by white people. And why is Neal Fucking Boortz so worked up about that? Because he’s a dumb fucking flibbertigibbertarian who can’t tell truth from fiction, or racism from freedom.
9. George Fucking Zimmerman. He’s an artiste, now? How cute. What does he paint with, blood? PS: Oh, fuuuuuu. PPS: Surprise! He’s not just a crap artist, he’s a crap artist who plagiarized a STOCK PHOTO for his “art”. Feel stupid now, whoever bought that waaay overpriced painting?
10. Mark Fucking O’Mara. Meanwhile, #9’s lawyer is in deep shit with an ethics complaint…over the Trayvon Martin case, no less. Glad to see that someone on that side is getting hit with some repercussions, at last.
11. Rob Fucking Ford. He’s embarrassed us again, this time with a “come to Jesus” moment. Considering the rather convenient timing of this move, I’m forced to conclude that he’s not being straight with us…AGAIN. PS: And he also embarrasses his poor long-suffering wife…AGAIN.
12. Rupert Fucking Murdoch. I almost mistyped that as “Nurdoch”, and I can’t imagine a more Freudian slip. Oh yeah, and LADIES! He’s single again! Line forms on the far right. Good luck to you if you can fucking stand him. (Or perhaps I should wish you my sincerest condolences?)
13. Michael Fucking Bloomberg. Well, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. Straight from the soon-to-be-former mayor of New York, absolute confirmation that God is a complete and utter dick. No, wait, that’s just Bloomy…mistaking himself for God again. And his shitty policies on poverty and homelessness are, apparently, “God’s will”.
14. John Fucking Bolton. Oh, look who popped his head up from his long winter’s nap to bark bullshit at the world. Dubya’s sheepdog is mad at Edward Snowden for telling some hard truths! About time that ol’ bowzer got both barrels, I’d say.
15. John Fucking Nienstedt. Every time a right-wing churchman prattles about how being gay is evil and same-sex marriage should be illegal, a pedophilia scandal gets its wings. And come Yuletide, it flies straight out of the cassock closet and into you-know-whose face.
16. Justin Fucking Bieber. Looks like the Bieb is too busy whoremongering to make any more music. Sez he’s planning to retire at the grand old age of 19. Gee, do you think this announcement is just another way of pimping his own latest record, which is literally due out the night before Christmas? PS: Stupid pants get you “bitches”? Well, I suppose that if you keep all the money in the drop-crotch, then yeah.
17. Tyler Fucking Smith. If you’re too lazy to walk a dog, swinging it by a leash from an apartment balcony does NOT count as exercise. (And claiming you were doing this so the dog could go to the bathroom? Yeah, falling shit and urine — GREAT idea.)
18. John Michael Fucking Farren. What four magic words turn a seemingly respectable, law-abiding dude into a raging psychopath? Yep, that’s right…I WANT A DIVORCE. Oh, and did I mention this guy was one of Dubya’s lawyers? Nice vetting process you got there, Dubya, you fucking schmuck.
19. Greg Fucking Whiteley. There’s a Mitt Romney doc coming out? Exactly what has Mittens done that’s worth documenting? He lost an election for being an out-of-touch rich wanker, as I recall. File this one under Movies Not To Watch, Ever. PS: Bwahahaha.
20. Phil Fucking Robertson. And in other Things Not To Watch, Ever, there’s this supposedly popular show called Duck Dynasty. Why the hell it’s popular, I don’t know, but I’m guessing it’s only so with teabaggers. Because it looks like these guys cooked all the crystal meth and then eated it. Because homophobic dumbassery. Because erased racism. And because Redneck Fucking Jesus, man. PS: Ha, ha. PPS: And you know you’ve gone too far when even Icky Ricky Buttsploodge tells you to tone down your language. Oh, is THAT all?
21. Peter Fucking McKay. You think homeless people have any property that they could sell off to pay their court fines? You’re a DUMB one, Mr. Grinch.
22. Ezra Fucking Levant. Why?
That’s why. That pipeline in Arkansas? Been there for more than 50 years. And that neighborhood is STILL unlivable. PS: You were saying???
23. John Fucking Hembling. While other Men’s HUMAN Rights Asshats were scrambling to distance themselves and deflect blame after a certain Reddit thread calling for the spamming of a college rape study went viral, John the Bother proudly went the other way…which is to say, he found himself in a hole and didn’t give a shit, he just kept right on digging.
24. Brian Fucking Schwanke. Would it surprise you terribly to learn that a guy using the e-mail handle “h*rnypastor” is a kiddie porn swapper who fantasized about “counselling” preadolescent girls at his backyard swimming pool? No? Oh good. Because he’s a teabagger too. Oh, and get this: He’s not even a real pastor. Shocking, I know!
25. Mike Fucking Slater. And in other shocking news, a right-wing radio host whom nobody but FUX Snooze cares about is defending that dick from Duck Dynasty, likening him to the unlikeliest person ever: Martin Luther King, Jr. His main argument? Tolerate our intolerance, you intolerant tolerators of homo-sex-you-alls!
26. Deepak Fucking Chopra. No, not the New Age health guru. This guy here:
On second thought, maybe he IS a New Age health guru. Who else would cut postal service, then have the gall to suggest that seniors risk breaking their necks on winter ice for the sake of a “healthy” long walk just to get their mail?
27. Glenn Fucking Beck. As usual, Biff is unclear on the concept of fascism. He thinks he’s speaking out against it, but actually, he’s babbling a blue streak in favor of it.
28. Peter Fucking Schiff. Flibbertigibbertarians…can’t live with ’em, can’t just line ’em up and shoot ’em. But fortunately for me, you can still ridicule the shit out of ’em. And with the bad math on this one, not to mention his despicable laugh at the expense of the genuinely impoverished (who got that way by working for WallyWorld), well…let’s just say we’re all laughing AT him, not with him.
29. Scott Fucking Bloch. Another of Dubya’s legal hires, along with #18, turns out to be a real piece of shit? Color me SO shocked. And of course, this one would make a point of shipping gay employees to depressing ol’ Detroit. Was he maybe hoping they’d get whacked by gangs, or something?
30. Sarah Fucking Palin. Why?
That’s why. Fancy her being such a hypocrite on freedom of speech…oh wait. She’s a hypocrite on EVERYTHING.
31. Bristol Fucking Palin. Her fifteen minutes were up long ago, but she’s still determined to stretch them out to an hour by talking about some dick in a duck blind and how he wuz SILENCED!!! Like mother, like daughter — she’s obnoxiously clueless about freedom of speech and what it does and does not mean. Go the hell AWAY, both of you.
32. Bobby Fucking Eubanks. Theocracy, anyone? Since when do preachers get to dictate abortion law to state lawmakers? And would it surprise you terribly to know that this South Carolina shitheel is also a raging racist and a tinfoil-card-carrying conspiracy freak? No? Oh good.
33. Bradlee Fucking Dean. And speaking of tinfoil-carded conspiracy theocrats, there’s him. Never mind that nobody is even teaching kids what bestiality IS, much less how to do it; no, just the mere mention of Teh Ghey in any context of normality will somehow magically bring that forbidden curiosity about. Because that’s how HE became a pigfucker, no doubt.
34. Michael Fucking Carey. What can you do with an unemployed general, earl-eye in the morning? Start questioning the chain of fools — er, COMMAND — who hired the drunken fucker in the first place.
35. Peggy Fucking Noonan. Never mind snakes on a plane; Peggy fears Teh Niggruhs! And she’ll devote any number of rambling, incoherent column inches to that fact. Thanks for sharing, dear.
36. Geraldo Fucking Rivera. How many weeks ago was it that I wanklisted Alec Fucking Baldwin for homophobic slurs? Well, Geraldo is STILL not over it. Because he thinks anyone who grew up in a certain hyper-homophobic era should get a free pass for homophobic insults. Newsflash, Gerry: We ALL grew up in a homophobic era, and we’re still living in one. It doesn’t excuse a goddamned thing.
37. Camille Fucking Paglia. She has an awful lot to say, as usual…about Duck Dynasty, Teh Ghey, feminism and the whole shebang. Unfortunately for her, as usual, nobody wants to hear it. PS: Vintage ha-ha.
38. Justine Fucking Sacco. An “accidental” racist? Um, no. It would appear that she has an ongoing pattern of assholery to her name. And now the whole world knows it, and her company has canned her just in time for Xmas. Sucks to be you, Justine.
39. John Fucking McCain. Once again, welcome to the wrong side of history, old man. Bad enough that he once picked #30 as his running mate; now he’s shaking hands with Ukrainian neo-Nazi goons. Funny how every time he takes his foot out of his mouth, he ends up sticking it into a big steaming pile of freshly laid dog shit.
40. Stephen Fucking Harper. Oh, who the hell do you think you’re kidding, Harpo? Everyone knows that nobody even farts in the PMO without your permission. You may be trying to evade responsibility for the whole Mike Duffy scandal, but sooner or later, it’s gonna land right on your doorstep. Everything else always does.
41 and 42. Ricardo Fucking Martinelli and Silvio Fucking Berlusconi. What’s worse than a coking, whoremongering, crooked head of state? Two of them…coking, whoremongering and crooking it up together. On video, no less!
43. Dennis Fucking Gabryszak. Call me weird, but I don’t think squicking ladies out is a very effective seduction technique. Pro tip: If they run away screaming, ur doin it rong.
44. Joseph Fucking Epstein. WASP dudes no longer rule the world? You could have fooled me. Oh, you mean you seriously think that black guy in the White House runs the whole show? Bwahahahaha, please.
45. Kanye Fucking West. Meanwhile, on the other side of WTF ethnic stereotypes, did you know that all black dudes, even the ones with, shall we say, very modest equipment, are well hung? And that all Jews, even the poor ones, have pots of money? It’s totally true!
And finally, to the fucking media. Who do you think you’re kidding, making all these stupid people and their ginned-up lives famous? Nobody gives a shit about douchebags in drop-crotch pants, douchebags who make duck calls, douchebags who are only famous for their boring sex tapes, or douchebags who are only famous for quitting midway through everything they do. And above all, nobody gives a shit about douchebags who whine all the time that their freedom of speech is being infringed just because someone pulled the plug halfway on their stupid fucking “reality” show. You want real free speech infringements? Try NSA spying. Or the passing of the NDAA, which by coincidence, just happened today. While no one was looking, and everyone was squawking about the uninfringed speech of some duck-fucking wanker who hates queers and thinks Jim Crow was A-okay.
Good night, and get fucked!
What’s Evo doing in Beijing this week? Oh, nothing much…
Bolivian president Evo Morales signed three economic aid agreements, totaling 204 million yuan ($35 million US), in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, at the Great Palace of the People in Beijing.
The agreements were also signed by Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca, and the Chinese minister of commerce, Gao Hucheng, in a meeting lasting an hour and a half. They include a non-reimbursable offer of economic aid from China to Bolivia valued at 80 million yuan ($13 million US).
They also signed a zero-interest line of credit for 50 million yuan ($8.2 million US) and a donation of transport and dump trucks to Bolivia, valued at 74 million yuan ($12 million US), according to the Minister of Planning, Viviana Caro.
In the ceremony, they also signed a memorandum of understanding for Chinese co-operation in the Bolivian national program of preventative technology for citizen security, although no details were given over this portion of the agreement.
Before the signing, Morales was received with military honors in the north wing of the Great Palace of the People, the legislative seat next to Tiananmen Square, by President Xi, who called his Bolivian counterpart “an old and dear friend of the Chinese people”.
“I have not the slightest doubt that we will inject new vitality into the development of ties uniting China and Bolivia,” said Xi to Morales, and praised the “sane, intelligent and hard-working people” of Bolivia, “a land with a great abundance of natural resources”.
“Under your direction, your government and people have shown a heightened enthusiasm for showing a strong and prosperous plurinational state,” said the Chinese leader, assuring that, with Morales in charge, Bolivia is undergoing “a transformation on the political, economic and social levels”.
Morales confessed to feeling surprised at the great reception he received, and that he “salutes and admires the global leadership of China and its people, a great country receiving a small one like Bolivia”.
The Bolivia president recalled for Xi his childhood, in which he read Mao’s “Red Book” while herding flocks of llamas in his native Orinoca province, and compared the transformation “from country to city” in the Great Helmsman’s China with what he was trying to achieve in Bolivia.
After recalling the old revolutionary times of Maoism, Morales also praised the current economic growth, “those great works accomplished not only in benefit to China, but for the whole world as well.”
He also expressed “respect and congratulation” for the “conquest of space” achieved by the Asian giant, a country that last week achieved its first controlled Moon landing — with an unmanned spacecraft — and in the early morning hours of the coming saturday (1 p.m. Bolivian time; 17:00 GMT), they will launch the first Bolivian communications satellite, “Tupac Katari”.
Translation mine.
Yeah, just a little something to make Gringolandia soil its collective drawers in surprise and dismay. All in a few days’ work for Evo!
UPDATE: And we have lift-off.
The first Bolivian satellite, Tupac Katari, launched successfully from the Chinese base at Xichang and is already in space, as confirmed by the Chinese central command of space operations.
The launch, using a Long March 3B/E propulsion rocket, took place at 12:42 Bolivian time, and went off without a hitch.
At the Amachuma earth station, in La Paz, it was confirmed that the rocket transporting Tupac Katari completed its phases, and the satellite had already opened its solar antennae to receive energy, said technician René Michel.
It will be a week before the satellite is in orbit, 36,000 kilometres above the Earth.
“The prophecy of Tupac Katari, his final message, when he said ‘I will return, and I will be millions […] Tupac Katari is now converted into a communication satellite, a star to light the way to freedom for our people,” said president Evo Morales upon confirmation of the successful launch.
[…]
The satellite will be operated from two control stations: one in Amachura, La Paz, and the other, inaugurated on December 19, in La Guardia, Santa Cruz.
Personnel operating these bases were trained in China, as part of a bilateral program of technological co-operation.
The satellite was built by the Great Wall Industrial Corporation, a subsidiary of the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, and cost $302 million US.
Tupac Katari weighs 5200 kg and has a 15-year lifespan. It will benefit rural areas especially with Internet access, as well as supporting distance education programs. The satellite will also be used for security and defence purposes, as well as telemedicine.
It will carry three communication channels, which will operate on three frequencies. One will cover Bolivia, another will be used for radio and television, and the third will cover South America, according to the EFE news agency.
Tupac Katari will take 14 days to stabilize its orbit and connect to the two Bolivian control stations, and will begin full function in late March or early April 2014.
The government estimates that it will save Bolivia some $15 million in costs for renting the services of foreign satellites, and could also attract income if its signal is picked up by other South American nations.
Translation mine.
Looks like the mayor of Bogotá will get a second chance at holding on to his elected office, after all. And, fittingly, it will take place in another democratic vote:
The national registrar, Carlos Sánchez, informed that the electoral authority of Colombia announced on Wednesday that it would call a referendum to define the mandate of the mayor of Bogotá, Gustavo Petro, after the signatures of those who support the initiative are validated.
[…]
He announced that “the recall referendum will come before the end of the month of February” in 2014, in compliance with the deadlines of established law.
[…]
In total, the national registrar stated that 353,330 signatures were validated in request of the recall referendum, when “in order to call a vote, only 289,263 signatures were necessary,” corresponding to 40 percent of the votes obtained by Petro when he was elected mayor.
The recall request had already been approved in July of this year by the district registrar’s office of Bogotá, but Petro disputed the signatures, which had to be reviewed by the national registrar.
This process against the mayor of Bogotá, elected to the 2012-2016 term, was begun by the parliamentarian Miguel Gómez, close to the right-wing ex-president, Álvaro Uribe, a harsh critic of Petro.
[…]
On Wednesday, Petro was in Washington to meet with the Inter-American Human Rights Commission over the sanction imposed last week by the Procurator General, which accused him of “irregularities” during a reform of the city’s garbage-collection system. What is known is that with this reform, Petro did away with contracts to private companies, and created a public sanitation service, which the Procurator’s office deemed to “place in danger the right to free enterprise”.
The sanction against Petro generated much debate in Colombia, and unleashed demonstrations in the streets of Bogotá all last week.
The mayor has recently confronted several parallel initiatives against his rule. In one of them, the State Council decided in October to clear Petro for public duty, throwing out a suit which sought to disqualify him for an old sentence for illegal possession of a weapon, in 1985.
For his part, the vice-president of Colombia, Angelino Garzón, spoke out against the decision of procurator Alejandro Ordóñez Maldonado, against Petro.
In fact, to Garzón, it was an error to give so many powers to the procurator’s office in the National Constituent Assembly.
“I believe that all the constituents of all the political parties were wrong when we gave full powers to the Procurator and the Comptroller, and we forget that a basic principle of human rights is that public servants who are the object of disciplinary sanctions, must be guaranteed the right to a [legal] defence and due process,” said Garzón.
Translation mine.
Perhaps this is how Petro knew there was a conspiracy against him…this referendum to come is actually the product of a prior one, which he disputed. It’s very likely that he’ll win it, which would be a fine finger in the eye to those who called for signatures against him. It’s also more than a little reminiscent of Chavecito, who won a similar recall ten years ago.
¡Buena suerte, Gustavo!
