News of the Restless

Venezuela to Twitter: You fucked us, now FUCK YOU.

Posted on November 7, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Twitter stats for Nicolás Maduro, president of Venezuela, showing a sudden drop-off and subsequent rise in followers due to a mass suspension and later reinstatement of Venezuelan Twitter accounts.

The other day, on my post about Rob Ford’s crack pipe, I received a comment from Peter (unfortunately, without a web link) concerning some big news in Venezuela about a certain very high-profile mass suspension of Twitter accounts. I was able to track the story down to Aporrea’s site today, and what a story it is:

Last Thursday, in an unprecedented move, Twitter suspended some 6,600 accounts belonging to followers of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, or functionaries or institutions of his government, including two communications media (the capital city newspaper, CiudadCCS, and the radio network, La Radio del Sur).

Among the blocked users were the minister of Communication and Information, Delcy Rodríguez (@drodriguezminci), the minster for the Office of the Presidency, Wilmer Barrientos (@patriaeficiente), the minister of Agriculture and Lands, Yvan Gil (@yvangil), the governor of the state of Anzoátegui, Aristóbulo Istúriz (@psuvaristobulo), as well as the official accounts of the ministries of University Education, Terrestrial Transport, Women, Corpomiranda, the Social Vice-Presidency, the Bolivarian University of Venezuela (UBV), the National Experimental University of Security (UNES), PDVAL, Mercal, and networks of Maduro partisans such as ForoCandanga, as well as numerous journalists, professionals and recognized individuals.

Some of the most important accounts, such as that of Minister Rodríguez, and those of CiudadCCS and La Radio del Sur, were restored on Saturday after the minister announced legal actions against the company. Other accounts had to wait until Monday, among them those of UBV, UNES and thousands of individual users.

The suspension occurred at a time of intense political debate in Venezuela, just five weeks before municipal elections, but also just days before extremists of the opposition were to announce the start of protests and a strike against the government. Problems of speculation and scarcity caused by private businesses, cobined with problems in the currency control system, have caused a sharp rise in inflation rates in Venezuela, reaching 38.7% in September 2013. The government has counteracted that with a 45% rise in the minimum wage over the previous year, and will announce measures against speculation and scarcity in the coming hours.

After having suspended some 6,600 Twitter accounts belonging to functionaries of the Bolivarian government, institutions of the state, social movements and sympathizers of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, it appears that as of November 4, the majority of the accounts were restored. Twitter did not issue any public commentaries over the reasons for the suspension, but some of the users received an e-mail indicating that their accounts were blocked “by mistake” by an “automated system used for finding and eliminating spam accounts.”

Jorge Pineda, graphic designer and part of the web team for the CiudadCCS newspaper, whose account, @jorgejjpg was one of the 6,600 blocked last Friday, said that he had received an e-mail from someone called “gobeee”, who was part of Twitter’s technical support team. It read as follows:

Hello,

Twitter uses automated systems to find and eliminate automated spam accounts. Unfortunately, it appears that your account was found to be one of them by mistake.

We have restored your account, we apologize for the inconvenience.

Please allow an hour or more for your follower count to return to normal.

Thank you,
gobeee
Twitter support
http://support.twitter.com
@Ayuda

Another user, Juan A. Carrizo, an information engineering student and resident of Bachaquero, Zulia, reported having received a similar note over the suspension of his account, @JACarrizo23RLD.

However, other Twitter users, such as Fernando Vera (@fernandoveragar), Freddy González (@freddyjo1992) and Alexis Zambrano (@ALEXPEZZZ) report not having received any such explanatory message or apology. Alexis Anteliz, a worker at the Ministry of Popular Power for Science, Technology and Innovation, also recuperated his account, @_Tauceti last Monday, and also reported not having received any message explaining the reasons for his suspension.

The account @Twitter_es made no reference to the denunciations in Venezuela over the massive suspension of Chavista accounts, but thanked anti-Castro Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez for her visit to their headquarters in its most recent tweet, on October 28. In the official Twitter blog, there is no reaction or response to the suspension of Venezuelan users, or to the denunciations of President Maduro or Minister Rodríguez.

The social network, property of the US corporation Twitter, has become an important mechanism for releasing news items in Venezuela. Frequently, the president, his ministers and other authorities release announcements by way of the social network, so that the state TV channel, Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) frequently interrupts programs in progress to reed tweets sent by the head of state. The network is also used to spread rumors and unfounded “news”, and it is habitual for government personages to have to debunk rumors on it. On October 21, the network was used to announce the supposed death of General Antonio López Ramírez, false information which was debunked a few hours later.

President Maduro announced last Saturday that his country would present a proposal before the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) and the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to create social networks of their own which would permit goverments and peoples of the region not to depend on networks like Twitter.

“We have to become independent, we have to think of profound and radical modalities to become independent of these transnational corporations which monopolize the social networks. Other countries in the world have done so already,” said the Venezuelan president that day. Addressing Manuel Fernández, minister of Science and Technology, Maduro announced: “I propose, comrade minister, that we go ahead and formulate a proposal with the experiences we have already had to do so officially in ALBA and UNASUR, and in MERCOSUR when we hold the December summit in Caracas. Let’s become independent of the technological bosses and the transnational corporations which are trying to manipulate and monopolize the social networks and the new forms of communication, and let us liberate them, so that they are truly free. Let the whole world communicate without being spied on, because they are using all these means for espionage.”

Translation mine. Linkage added.

This comes as Twitter has just gone on the stock market with its IPO. The P stands for Public, which is a laugh when you consider how they fucked over the Venezuelan public, particularly the organs of the government and public media.

And if anyone in the general public up here is thinking to get rich from tweeter stock, I’d firmly advise you to keep your wallet tucked away. Gawker has some interesting reading material on the subject, and it looks like the Twitter fuckery may extend to capitalists as well as socialists. Kind of ironic, that.

All the more reason for Madurito and colleagues to go ahead with a local anti-Twitter of their own…and if they’re taking any foreign joiners from the Great North, your humble pixel-stained wretch is eagerly looking forward to being one of them.

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Posted in Economics for Dummies, Fascism Without Swastikas, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, Socialism is Good for Capitalism!, Spooks, The United States of Amnesia, The WTF? Files | 1 Comment

Daft Tories!

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Best parody you’ll hear all year…and it’s topical, too:

(Does Shaun Majumder really need autotuning, or is that just for robotic effect? He seems a pretty decent singer to me…)

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Cool Beans | Comments Off

Rob Ford’s crack pipe speaks

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Sabina Becker

magritte-pipe

Note: The following is a message I received from an anonymous source. I have been asked to share it my readers as a public service, in the hopes that it will serve as a warning to anyone thinking of sampling the CIA’s pretext for keeping Latin America in misery, the DEA in Latin America, the black community in the ghetto, and Gary Webb in his grave. Or something like that.

Hello. You don’t know me, so please allow me to introduce myself. I am Rob Ford’s crack pipe.

I am that woman, Ms. Lewinsky. I’m the one who knows Rob Ford better than anyone, even his own wife. I’m the one who perks him up so that he can bumble, bluster, and bounce erratically all over the place, bewildering everyone with his undignified behavior and his unpredictable rages. I’m the one he strenuously denied having had relations with, from the moment Gawker first published a picture of him with a couple of young black guys who have since met some highly suspicious fates.

That picture was embarrassing, but the video that goes with it is even more so. Until recently, he denied that it existed. And with it, he denied me.

Well, no more. I have come forward to demand my rightful due. And that is that he come clean and admit that we have had a lengthy relationship, he and I. He didn’t today, as you’ve probably suspected. He claims I was just another drunken one-night stand. Something he did in a stupor.

He would say that, wouldn’t he? But he’s lying.

Nobody just smokes crack just because they’ve had too much to drink; if that were the case, the LCBO would have closed every liquor store in Toronto, so as not to let kids get their hands on that infamous gateway drug. No, he didn’t pick me up just because he’d staggered out of a bar and into a bad neighborhood. We go back way further than that. And if you’re going to talk about gateway drugs, you might want to look further into the entire Ford family’s past, as the Globe and Mail recently did.

The Brothers Ford are drug dealers, and their illicit business in Etobicoke is decades old. When they first started, it was marijuana and hashish. Pot and hash are no longer so fashionable (or so frowned on), but crack is. And it has the added benefit, from a drug dealer’s standpoint, of being highly addictive, as pot and hash are not. The come-down is harsh and desolating. Those who’ve tried crack can’t just take it or leave it; they are forever chasing their next rock. Nobody just does crack once in a while, on a lark, or in a drunken stupor. I don’t do hook-ups, honey. I’m a long-term relationship kind of gal.

That’s why my relationship with him has been so intimate, and why it’s so embarrassing. Like the toilet in the Russell Edson poem, I belong to an unfortunate association, one that he’d rather not publicly embrace. And like a toilet, he fills me with shit — literal shit that’s been carried in somebody’s ass. Fills me up, smokes me, then pretends it didn’t happen, but always comes back for more. Yeah, he’s a sick fucker.

And that’s why it mystifies me to hear all these Ford Nation types going on like he’s a good man who’s just had an unfortunate accident, or something like that. No. No, he isn’t. He’s a mayor who’s been running the city like someone on crack, which of course he is. His character is corrupted. His whole behavioral pattern is typical of a crackhead in denial. Cancelling already allocated monies and green spaces for his own pet projects, even though everything’s already been voted, budgeted, and settled. Sexist, racist, homophobic slurs and snubs in a city renowned for its tolerance and multiculturalism. Petty, petulant rages and abuses of power. Does that sound like a “good man” to you?

If it does, I have to ask what you’ve been smoking.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Do As I Say..., El NarcoPresidente, Filthy Stinking Rich, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Isn't That Racist?, Karma 1, Dogma 0, Law-Law Land | 1 Comment

What does the Fawkes say?

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Sabina Becker

let-the-battle-begin

I’m sure the real Guy Fawkes would be mystified at how his religiously motivated treasonous squib became the basis for secular, nonviolent rebellion. But whatever. This seems a much more constructive way to use this date than burning effigies of English Catholics, anyway.

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Posted in Environmentally Ill, If You REALLY Care, Isn't It Ironic?, The Bold and the Badass | Comments Off

Music for a Sunday: Don’t run away…

Posted on November 3, 2013 by Sabina Becker

…it’s only me:

Yeah, I know, this is totally cheesy. And the Day of the Dead was yesterday. I wanted to put this on last week, except that Lou Reed gazumped me. But hey! Remember when MTV played actual MUSIC? I do…just barely.

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Wankers of the Week: Día de los Pendejos

Posted on November 2, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! And a happy Day of the Dead to all who celebrate. This week, there’s much to celebrate, and some of it is actually dead: the creepy marriage of dubious convenience formerly known as Dourtney, for one thing. And for another, an awful lot of brain cells. And if you need someone to blame, look no further than the following, in no particular order:

1, 2 and 3. William Fucking Filene, Caitlin Fucking Cimeno, and Greg Fucking Cimeno. Because what could be cooler than putting on blackface and dressing up as a racist vigilante murder scene, with a little racist idiotess in between, for racist dumbfuck Halloween? And now the whole world knows what turds the three of you are. Be proud of your whiteness, kids. (And next year, just go as ghosts. They’re white, too.)

4. Herman Fucking Rowland, Sr. Good thing I’m not a big fan of jellybeans, because it looks like Jelly Belly is the brand not to buy. Unless, of course, you support discrimination against gender-variant people. Or you oppose the rights of trans kids to have a little privacy from the pants police when they go to the loo.

5. Chris Fucking Brown. Again with the assaulting-someone thing. Well, at least this time it was another man. I guess that’s progress…of a sort. PS: Or maybe not. He thought the other guy was gay, and that’s why he beat the shit out of him. Abusers are bigots. What a shock!

6. Dylan Fucking Grall. From the “How Fucking Dumb Do You Have To Be?” Files: I guess in ‘Murica, any language not English must qualify as “Spanish”. Even Hebrew.

7. Julianne Fucking Hough. Orangeface is the new blackface? Ugh. That shit’s still racist even if it DOES look like a mere self-tanner overdose. How hard is it to put some thought into your Halloween get-up before you put the damn thing on?

8. Matthew Fucking Papay. Excuse me, but that Confederate flag is not a civil right, it’s an ensign of slavery and treason. And the society it reflects is one in which civil rights for blacks were nonexistent, and one in which they are badly eroded in the present. But nice try at framing it as a free-speech issue, even when it’s clearly the opposite. And if you really think you can get away with that in New York, you forget who clobbered whom in the Civil War.

9. Céline Fucking Dion. Guess who supports the weirdly selective and strangely hypocritical Québec “Charter of Values”? Yup, THIS woman. Who, it bears remembering, renewed her wedding vows in Vegas a few years ago in an “Arabian Nights” themed ceremony. Yet there she is, prattling on about the need for foreigners (read: MUSLIMS) to “adapt” to Québec’s dress code and “not change our laws”, even though the only ones changing Québec’s laws are…les québécois themselves, to make them even more xenophobic than they already are. Zut alors!

10. Paul Fucking Elam. Never mind that feminists are not baby-dumpers, and in fact have gone out of their way for decades to make sure that unwanted children don’t even get conceived, never mind born (and dumped). Or that we have nothing against adoption, either, as long as it’s not coercive. No, the founding fuckhead of A Voice for Misogyny is convinced that we need to be TOLD. And again, it’s a “Don’t Be That Girl” campaign, to match the pro-rape campaign that AVFMisogyny has sponsored in the recent past. How fucking original! Meanwhile, as usual, not a word about all the menz out there abandoning pregnant wives, girlfriends, and their own kids in the name of “Men’s Rights”. Things that make you go hmmmmm…. PS: You mad, bro? You look mad. Ha, ha.

11. Max Fucking Moore-Wilton. So, stupid morning-zoo radio pranks that lead to suicides are just “shit” that “happens”. How are you still in the radio business? This asinine attitude encapsulates everything that’s wrong with the world.

12. Suzanne Fucking Somers. Obamacare is evil because COMMUNISM! And CANADA! And ooga-booga-booga-booga-ooga! Yeah, we up here in the Great North are shaking in our collective boots because Chrissie Snow fucking hates us. What did we ever do to her? And what did we do to deserve such an incoherent tirade? Too bad it all came out making sense only to Chrissie. Somewhere, Jack and Janet are scratching their heads. As for the actual situation: Up here, nobody lies bedridden for two months just waiting for a family physician; if it’s that bad, you go to emergency and get treated there. If you can’t get there yourself, you get an ambulance to take you. And if you need a regular doc and you’re not having a health emergency, the thing to do is contact your district health unit and ask who’s accepting new patients. That’s what I did, several years ago. Surprise! Even without a fancy private plan, I got me a doctor. Damn us Canucks, our “socialized” medicine, and our stubborn reliance on facts rather than high-priced hogwash. We must really freak her the fuck OUT.

13. Yaakov Aryeh Fucking Alter. Soybeans turn you gay? Um, no. Neither are they sexually stimulating, even for women. The worst thing that can happen to a guy who eats too many of them is that he could actually grow boobs. However, a mildly feminized appearance does not a change of sexual orientations make. Learn a little science before you try to use it in the interests of religious sexual repression.

14. Rand Fucking Paul. Which is dumber, his fear of eugenics, or his blatant plagiarism of the collectively-produced Wikipedia? And which is, in any case, a greater ironic indictment of his social-darwinist Objectivism?

15. Jim Fucking Wheeler. I doubt very much that he would bring back slavery simply because “voters asked for it”. Voters would NEVER ask for it, because no one could be that fucking stupid. More likely, he’d bring it back because he and his fellow teabags WANT it. More moneyz for them, duh…same motive as ever there was for slavery.

16. Tom Fucking DeLay. You may be back, but God doesn’t send corruptos on missions. Fuck off back under your rock, already.

17. David Fucking Spondike. Sorry, but use of words like nigger and ghetto does indeed mean that you have something against black people. And if you don’t understand that words mean things, especially in an insulting or separatist context, then you have no business teaching high school in a racially mixed district. Or any other school, for that matter. PS: Non-apology not acceptable. Again, words mean things. Doubling down on your shit does not an apology make.

18. Tom Fucking Coburn. Why?

That’s why. Go back to Oklahoma, you bastard. And may a tornado suck you up and spit you out somewhere over the Gulf of Mexico.

19. Ted Fucking Cruz. If “Stand Your Ground” were of any benefit to blacks, Florida would not have such a law. And Marissa Alexander wouldn’t have gone to jail, either. But really, the worst part is the insult to Trayvon Martin…unarmed, innocent, and killed by a racist who availed himself of that atrocious law as his defence. That is just inexcusable.

20. Pat Fucking McCrory. Smooth move, Ex-Lax. You picked on a 12-year-old girl. Who, I’m sure, will have forgotten all about your efforts to disenfranchise young first-time voters, as well as your insult, by the time she’s old enough to kick your ass out of office. (Yes, that’s sarcasm.)

21. Bryan Fucking Fischer. As the old joke goes: When did you decide to be straight? If it’s a choice, when did you make it? And why did you choose not to be gay? (Punchline: When he was born a dickweed, natch.)

22. Adele Fucking Allen. Giving birth unassisted is NEVER a good idea. And leaving the placenta, which dies off once expelled from the uterus, attached for six days? Could have resulted in a fatal case of blood poisoning. Also, what do chimps do when giving birth in the wild? They bite the umbilical cord in two, and eat the placenta, because they are nomads. They don’t have the luxury of leaving their kids lying there in a mass of decomposing bloody goop for predators to find. In other words, everything about that “lotus birth” article is Teh Stoopid. But what does one expect from someone who also falls for antivaxxer quackery? Lady, you’re just lucky your son survived your unscientific irresponsibility.

23. Diana Fucking Davison. Misogynist women exist. And what do they have that the rest of us don’t? Fart jokes, fat shaming, and a blithe idiocy when it comes to rape. Oh, and they also have Paul Fucking “Crazy Eyes” Elam. Congrats, lady, you just won the booby prize.

24. Rob Fucking Ford. Affordable housing on the rich-bitch waterfront? Anathema maranatha! And besides, Robbo’s counting on kickbacks from all the rich developers. How dare all you plebeian proles stand in the way of a big fat corrupto?Heresy! PS: Nice try, “Ian”. Did you honestly think no one would know it was you drunk-dialing? PPS: BUMBLEFUCK! Ahahahahahahaha.

25. Gavin Fucking McInnes, again. Having kids turned him from a reasonable, modern person into a total fucking troll. Moral of the story? If you’re easily swayed by religiofascist hipster bullshit, you shouldn’t have kids.

26. Jim Fucking Hochberg. Again with the “same-sex marriage will lead to bestiality!” canard. To use his own words, “It’s getting ridiculous!”

27. Jeff Fucking Goldstein. Keeping up the fight for civil rights (which are under threat of rollback in a number of states) is a “cottage race industry”? Only to an idiotic white racist with strange ideas of what “freedom” means. Pro tip, Jeffy: If you want to be a “sovereign citizen”, you’re in the wrong place. Go claim yourself a desert island in the middle of the ocean and see how long your sorry ass lasts.

28. George Fucking Zimmerman. Not a week goes by that he doesn’t wank, and sure enough, he’s done it again. This time, it’s a bullet-riddled paper target that was strategically left behind in the former family abode for his estranged wife (soon to be ex) to find. Whatever could it mean???

29. John Fucking Stossel. Again with the idea that women should pay more for health insurance, because we’re apparently hypochondriacs. Gee, that’s even worse than “because they have boobs”. I propose a very expensive mustache waxing for him. Then we’ll see who’s the hypochondriac.

30. Marsha Fucking Blackburn. I wasn’t aware that cheap shoes were a right; I always figured they were a very profitable way for some shitty corporation or other to make people’s feet hurt. And she doesn’t want to see that taken away? Bravo for her. Now you all know where to throw your quickly-worn-out cheap ‘n’ crappy shoes, eh?

31. Ray Fucking Comfort. Actually, school shootings aren’t even in the bible, so it’s kind of hard to say that they confirm the rightness of that out-of-date book of bad fiction. As for people being born evil, that’s not true either; they all have to learn it from someplace. And I have a sneaking suspicion that this evildoer got it from his crappily written, out-of-date book of bad fiction.

32 and 33. Rick Fucking Wiles and Joe Fucking Schimmel. Guys, why can’t you just be like everybody else and say that Miley Fucking Cyrus and Robin Fucking Thicke just plain suck? I know they’re talentless and awful, and that their sexed-up performances are stomach-churning, but the whole satanic theory is stretched thinner than that process-cheese bikini she wore to that “award” ceremony where she paid homage to Pedobear.

34. Dale Bryant Fucking Farris. Kids toilet-papering a house — even yours, which it was not — is no grounds for blasting ’em with a shotgun. Unless, of course, you’re an ignorant fucking redneck, in which case it’s standard procedure.

35. Robin Fucking Thicke. Sued by Marvin Gaye’s family for a bad plagiarism job? Sucks to be you, dude. PS: Ha, ha. Wattles!

36. Ted Fucking Nugent. Stop pissing on Rosa Parks’s grave, you disgusting pants-shitter. Anyone as racist as you has no business claiming a black woman to be your “inspiration”.

37. Orson Scott Fucking Card. Sorry, dude, but homophobes don’t get to claim that they are being religiously persecuted. The truth is, your bigotry is well known, and all the “ideas” on which it is based were debunked years ago. You don’t have a leg to stand on. Now STFU!

38. Ann Fucking Coulter. Ah, clearly the Coultergeist has no concept of the difference between making a joke and being one. Remember, people, this is the woman who seriously believes her own crazy shit. She’s just backpedalling on all the “Kenya” crap because she’s finally getting called on it.

39. Geraldo Fucking Rivera. So, stop-and-frisk is being done to “protect” blacks and Latinos? Well, let’s see how “protected” ol’ Gerry Rivers feels on the day the New York police pull him over and start feeling him up, then.

40. Tom Fucking Cowan. Well, now you get to realize your fantasy of leaving your family for the privilege of boinking a “glamour” model — your wife has made certain of that. The question is, will the model in question take you up on it? Oh, ha-ha, what am I saying? Of COURSE not. As long as there are soccer stars and rugby players just floating around with their cocks out, why would she?

41. Justin Fucking Bieber. Oh no, you don’t, you little motherfucker. #5 belongs in jail. And so do you, for defacing a wall in a foreign country. PS: OFFS, who the fuck are you trying to kid? Your voice hasn’t changed yet. Get outta there!

42. Greg Fucking Abbott. How does it feel to be almost disenfranchised by a law you signed on for? Stupid, I hope. Just like that law itself. Texas, how much longer do you plan on sucking so hard?

43. Brandon Fucking Carter. A police badge is not a licence for getting women to show you their boobs in the workplace. And neither is a Taser.

44. Janice Fucking Rogers Fucking Brown. Why the double Fucking? Because that’s how cruel it is for a woman to put other women at their employers’ mercy when it comes to birth control coverage. But then again, I guess she doesn’t have to worry about a little old thing like that. She probably makes so much that she’d never miss the cash out of pocket.

45. Ruben Fucking Santiago. Threatening to arrest someone just for being (understandably) incensed about a pot bust taking precedence over shootings? Something tells me this one won’t be an interim police chief for much longer.

46. Pamela Fucking Wallin. What? All that bluster and pomposity and innocence-protesting, and you’re STILL guilty as a fuck? Oh, Pammy. There goes that good image you spent all those decades crafting like an overly earnest piece of macramé. Ha, ha.

47. Suzanne Fucking McCarley. Again with the “women are privileged because men are protecting them” racket. And the “women should be grateful because men built all this crap we live in” racket. Lemme guess: Your favorite author is Camille Fucking Paglia, with her stupid, sexist “grass huts” theory? That noise is so fucking OLD. If you’re going to invent bullshit oppressions, how about inventing a new bullshit theory to underpin them, too?

48. Stephen Fucking Harper. Again with the “senate reform” racket. Remember, the last time Harpo pulled this shit, he was actually talking of ABOLISHING the senate. That is, before he got into power and packed it with cronies who would go on to embarrass him nine ways till Friday.

49. Bernie Fucking Kerik. Oh look, another “Road to Damascus” moment, fresh outta jail! Just like the one Lord Blah-Blah had when HE was incarcerated in Florida. Yeah, there are way too many young (and mostly non-white) guys in the clinker for drug possession. Fucking DUH! Thing is, he could have known that a long, LONG time ago, if he’d only been paying attention. After all, as a former police commissioner for New York City, it was kind of his JOB to know about things like that.

50. Chad Fucking Coughenour. So nice to see that your hooded sheet also doubles as a Halloween costume! And look! You can even wear it with a sombrero, to become a complete fantasy creature…the MexiKKKlan! Ay, qué bolas.

And finally, to all the fucking “Ford Nation” apologists out there. Unbelievably, they actually do still exist, and they’ve even started a pathetic little Facebook group in an attempt to save Dear Mayor’s jowly red vein-popping face (or cover his wobbly red vein-popping ass; same difference). The problem is, in an effort to repair Robbo’s (rightfully) tattered image, they’ve totally made asses of themselves. I have just one question for all of those who still support this fucking buffoon: WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SUBURBAN REDNECK DUMBSHITS SMOKING???

Good night, and get fucked!

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Festive Left Friday Blogging: Hasta la Patagonia siempre

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Sabina Becker

chavecito-billboard

It’s no news that Chavecito’s face is everywhere in Venezuela. But this isn’t Venezuela; it’s Argentina, where a lot of people have fond (and more than a little envious) memories of the Comandante:

With much joy, the Argentine collective Cartago TV paid homage to the memory and struggles of the Supreme Comandante, Hugo Chávez, in Neuquén, in northern Patagonia, Argentina.

A graphic campaign of 4.4 x 2.2 metre billboards was located in two central commercial areas of the provincial capital, one at the corner of Santa Fe and Independencia, in the so-called “banking zone”, and the other at the corner of Dr. Ramón and Argentina Ave., in the heart of the university area.

Each campaign will last for 15 days and the second one will last another 15. The campaign marks four years of Cartago TV in the region.

Translation mine.

It’s hard to miss Chavecito when he is literally everywhere, and that can only be a good thing.

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Posted in Don't Cry For Argentina, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Huguito Chavecito | Comments Off

Happy Halloween!

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Sabina Becker

robbo-mills-pumpkin

Surely the tweet of the day.

Now, if only we could see the video of Mayor McSleaze and his crack pipe…

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Isn't That Illegal?, Schadenfreude | 1 Comment

Fun With Photoshop: Instant Barbification

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Watch as a flesh-and-blood woman gets turned into a plastic doll:

Okay, so it’s not quite instant. The video is half a minute long, and the real-time process of “post-production” (read: RETOUCHING) takes a lot longer than that. But it really does make you wonder why anyone still bothers to shoot models; why not just computer-generate the perfectly unreal “model” of your dreams? That way, you don’t have to airbrush away all the vestiges of reality and naturalness anymore.

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The ironies of the Venezuelan opposition, part 36

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Oh, Majunche. The harder you try to bring down the elected president, the more it backfires on you. Case in point: The video above. And here’s the story:

On Tuesday, at 6 a.m., residents of Los Teques, capital of the state of Miranda, blocked access to the pan-American highway in protest against the absent governor, Henrique Capriles Radonski.

[…]

Elías Jaua, president of CorpoMiranda and protector of the region, said that according to information gathered by the Bolivarian National Police (PNB), the protests in Miranda are due to the suspension of classes ordered by the primary authority of the state:

“The suspension of classes ordered by the Governor of Miranda to oblige teachers to march has occasioned the protests by the communities.”

On his Twitter account, @JauaMiranda, Jaua informed that “the communities of Miranda were attacked by the governor’s fascist bands and resulted in incidents already under control by the PNB.”

He also stated that the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) is contacting all its social and political directors to peacefully resolve the situation and assist in unblocking the roads.

“Once again, the irresponsibility of Governor Capriles has occasioned anxiety and violence in the populace. Ungovernability in Miranda!” wrote Jaua.

Translation mine.

Imagine that. A fascist governor (seldom, if ever, seen in his home state, where he’s suppposed to be, you know, GOVERNING), trying to force teachers to walk out in protest against the federal government. He’s so desperate to bring it down that he’s rolling out the astroturf. But unlike the fascist trucker putsch of Chile in 1973, this one’s an epic fail. The roads got shut down by supporters of the federal government. And the same government is now peacefully resolving the situation. Which is exactly the opposite of what you’ll read in the anglo whore media, if you read anything about it at all.

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