News of the Restless

Another epic fail brewing in Idaho

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Sabina Becker

nazi-building-fail

Poor Idaho. What have you and your potatoes done to deserve this?

A group of survivalists wants to build a giant walled fortress in the woods of the Idaho Panhandle, a medieval-style city where residents would be required to own weapons and stand ready to defend the compound if society collapses.

The proposal is called the Citadel and has created a buzz among folks in this remote logging town 70 miles southeast of Spokane, Wash. The project would more than double the population of Benewah County, home to 9,000 souls.

Locals have many questions, but organizers so far are pointing only to a website billing the Citadel as “A Community of Liberty.”

My guess is that this one is never going to get far beyond that website. It’s kind of hard to feel truly convinced that you are living in a “Community of Liberty” if you have to wall it off from the world at large:

The website shows drawings of a stone fortress with room inside for up to 7,000 families. The compound would include houses, schools, a hotel and a firearms factory and museum. The gun factory, the website said, would manufacture semi-automatic pistols and AR-15 rifles — which would be illegal if Congress reinstated the 1994 ban on assault weapons.

Applicants must pay a $208 fee, and the website claims several hundred people already have applied to live in the Citadel.

The site also warns that not all would be comfortable at the development:

“Marxists, Socialists, Liberals and Establishment Republicans will likely find that life in our community is incompatible with their existing ideology and preferred lifestyles.”

Yup, it sure sounds free to me. But then what would I know? I’m one of those booga-booga evil socialists they think they have to wall themselves away from.

And by the way, the not-leader of this (cough) project sure sounds like a winner, too:

Kerodin, who declined requests for a telephone interview, was convicted in 2004 of federal extortion charges and illegal possession of a firearm in a case in which he posed as a counterterrorism expert and attempted to coerce shopping mall owners in the Washington, D.C., area to hire him to improve security, according to court documents. He served 30 months in federal prison.

So, yay! What better way to show how “free” you are now than to build a bigger prison wall, and make sure everybody conforms precisely to YOUR ideology, toting guns and being prepared to use them should society ever collapse? Yeah, that’s got “Community of Liberty” written all over it, for sure.

And yeah, I’m sure that stocking enough food and water for a year will be plenty. I mean, after all the major corporations who produce that food (and metal, and plastic, and so on) go under, this toy army is gonna be totally self-sufficient and up to speed for growing and manufacturing all it needs, right?

That is, if it doesn’t go belly-up first. And “communities” like this have a funny way of doing just that, even in mostly-white Idaho:

Such communities are hardly new, especially in northern Idaho, which has long been a magnet for those looking to shun mainstream society because of its isolation, wide-open spaces and lack of racial diversity. For three decades, the Aryan Nations operated a compound about an hour north of here before the group went bankrupt and the land was sold.

Then came another community known as “Almost Heaven,” founded in 1994 by Green Beret-turned-“patriot” movement leader Bo Gritz for those wanting a refuge from urban ills and Y2K concerns. That project crumbled when large numbers of buyers failed to move to the development, located 100 miles to the south.

The number of so-called patriot groups has grown since President Barack Obama was first elected, and the renewed debate over gun control is further deepening resentment of the federal government among such factions, said Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center. The SPLC tracks such groups.

Nevertheless, Potok noted, plans for these sorts of communities rarely come to fruition.

“The people behind the Citadel are like 12-year-old boys talking about the tree house, or the secret underground city, they’re going to build some day,” he said.

Good thing I don’t believe in this kind of “liberty”. I kind of like living in a world not composed of dead-end dingbats, don’t you?

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Posted in Fascism Without Swastikas, Guns, Guns, Guns, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Isn't That Racist?, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Chile offers Bolivia sea access…but…

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Sabina Becker

pinera-evo

So, Chile finally decided to do Bolivia a favor in its demand for access to the sea. (You may recall that the latter lost that during the War of the Pacific.) Only, as with all things Piñera, there’s a catch:

Chile offered Bolivia an enclave with autonomy but no sovereignty to the north of the city of Arica, near the Peruvian border, to resolve Bolivia’s maritime demand, Chilean president Sebastián Piñera told the daily newspaper, La Tercera.

“Chile has offered to give Bolivia autonomy in a territorial enclave in the border region, where they can build a port, a beachfront, but without ceding sovereignty,” Piñera said.

However, the sticking point of the case is that the zone is located north of Arica, and this is included in the territory which Peru sued Chile over in The Hague, and which is considered a no-man’s-land to this day.

In this sense, President Piñera indicated that if The Hague decides in favor of Peru, the solution to Bolivia’s maritime demand “will lose validity”.

Translation mine.

Yeah, I can see why Evo always looks skeptical when he’s photographed with Tatán. I would too. He’s a shrewd piece of nasty, that man.

On the plus side, he gets on better with Ollanta, anyway. Maybe the latter would be more agreeable to Bolivian sea access, if things go that way.

Edited to add:

Looks like Tatán was, as I suspected, talking out his ass. Here’s his foreign minister to confirm it:

The Chilean foreign minister, Alfredo Moreno, affirmed on Tuesday that his government has no official proposal over “pending issues” with Bolivia, and called for Bolivia to come back to the discussion table, which is where, in his opinion, these propositions are to be debated “together”.

Moreno responded thus to the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, who said on Monday that he was awaiting an “official proposal” from the Chilean government as to how to advance in order to resolve “pending issues” between the two countries, including the Bolivian maritime demand.

Moreno assured that Morales had committed “a grave error” and that “he has to know that Chile owes nothing to Bolivia.”

For his part, Galo Bonifaz, Bolivian deputy of the ruling “Movement Toward Socialism” party (MAS), considers the negative response of the government of Chile to be a political calculation in order not to resolve the century-old dispute between the two countries.

“I believe Chile is playing with the emotions of the Bolivian people, and is making political calculations in accordance with its interests,” Bonifaz told Bolivian state news agency ABI.

The president of the Bolivian senate, Gabriela Montaño, stated that the responses coming from Chile show no predisposition toward any concrete proposals.

“They keep calling us to a bilateral dialogue, but one in which they show no proposals to discuss and debate,” Montaño said in declarations to the press.

Bolivia lost 120,000 square kilometres and 400 kilometres of coast during the War of the Pacific, which it fought against Chile near the end of the 19th century.

In 1904 both countries signed a treaty which fixed the border, and in 1978, Bolivia and Chile cut off diplomatic relations.

In March 2011, Evo Morales announced Bolivia’s decision to sue Chile before an international tribunal for the restoration of its seacoast, after a sustained resultless dialogue with Santiago on the matter, following an agenda of 13 points agreed on in 2006.

Translation mine.

BTW, here’s a map showing that lost territory from that long-ago war:

war-of-the-pacific

As you can see, the territory “offered” to Bolivia is in the orange zone that once was Peru (and is now the northernmost end of Chile). Yeah, I’d say Piñera was talking with a deeply forked tongue here, wouldn’t you?

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Posted in All About Evo, Chile Sin Queso, Inca Dink-a-Doo, Law-Law Land | 2 Comments

Quotable: Rosa Parks on how to overcome fear

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Sabina Becker

rosa-parks-on-fear

Today marks the 100th anniversary of Rosa’s birth. Happy Birthday, you truly awe-inspiring lady.

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Posted in Quotable Notables, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off

Now is the winter of our discontent…

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Sabina Becker

king-richard-parking-ticket

So, it appears that the long missing skeleton of King Richard III, the last Plantagenet king of England, has finally been found. And, in a creepy parallel to the case of Che Guevara, he was found in a rather ignominious location (in Richard’s case, a parking lot in Leicester; in Che’s, it was the airstrip at Vallegrande, Bolivia.) In a further creepy parallel, the skeleton was incomplete; the feet were missing, probably having been dug up by mistake in the Victorian era, when an outhouse was erected near the grave. (Compare to Che, whose hands were cut off just after his death, presumably for “identification”, but I suspect it really was more of a grisly trophy for his killers. They were some sick sons of mafiosi.) The skeleton’s pronounced spinal curvature indicates advanced scoliosis; Richard was inaccurately described by Shakespeare as hunchbacked. In fact, his body was twisted sideways in a C curve. This deformity was probably what led to the DNA testing that confirmed, via a distant Canadian descendant of Richard’s sister, that the skeleton was indeed that of the defeated, humiliated monarch.

And while the serious research into the facts of Richard’s brief reign (and his horrifying death) rages on, please enjoy a bit of levity, courtesy of the Onion. And the wag who photoshopped the picture above.

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Posted in Fun With Photoshop, Merry Old England, She Blinded Me With Science, Spooks | 5 Comments

Day of Dignity in Venezuela

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Sabina Becker

It was 21 years ago today:

dia-de-la-dignidad

“February 4, Day of Dignity. On February 4, 1992, a civilian-military group commanded by President Hugo Chávez opened the doors to a new patriotic awakening. Our people, full of national feeling, set loose a revolutionary process that changed history. Now, more than ever, we are with Chávez!”

The civilian-military uprising of that day may have failed initially, but it launched a much larger groundswell of democratic and socialist movements, who grew in strength during the two years Chávez was in prison.

And if anyone doubts the effectiveness of this movement in the interim, consider this: The so-called “global economic downturn” that has had the First World in a slump since 2008, hasn’t touched Venezuela. Or Bolivia, or Ecuador, or Cuba…all countries of the ALBA alliance. Sheer coincidence, you say? It’s not:

In contrast to the United States, Venezuela continues to make tremendous strides in eradicating poverty from a nation that, for decades, had been one of the poorest and most exploited in the Americas. Despite vast oil wealth and abundant resources, Venezuela was characterized by extreme poverty, particularly among the indigenous and peasant populations. This was the product of the colonial and post-colonial system wherein a small, light-skinned elite dominated the country and kept the rest of the people in abject poverty. This situation began to change with the ascendance of Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution. Immediately Chavez, already a hero to poor Venezuelans, set about implementing his socialist model that would make the fight against poverty the centerpiece of his public policy. Indeed, this is precisely what has happened in the fourteen years since he took office.

As mentioned previously, Venezuela uses a comprehensive set of criteria to measure poverty including access to education, clean drinking water, adequate housing, households with more than three people living in a room, and households where the head of the household had less than three years of education. Using this rubric, known as the Unsatisfied Basic Needs system (NBI), the statistics are intriguing. In the last ten years, the number of Venezuelans living in extreme poverty (those who experience two of the five indicators of poverty) has decreased from 11.36% to 6.97%, a reduction of almost one half. At the same time, life expectancy and total population have increased significantly, showing the impact of better and more comprehensive health care services. One particularly important piece of data has to do with indigenous people, the group most marginalized historically. In the last ten years, their numbers have grown significantly as well, now making up almost 3% of the population.vii This shows that, not only have the quality of health programs and related services increased, but access to them has grown as well, particularly for those traditionally disenfranchised segments of the population.

It should be noted that one of the centerpieces of the anti-poverty programs of the Chavez Bolivarian government has been the exponential increase in construction of public housing and affordable units. President Chavez announced the Great Housing Mission (GMVV)viii in 2011 to combat the extreme poverty that so many Venezuelan families faced as they lived in inadequate or unsafe homes. As of September 2012, more than 250,000 homes had been constructed and given to poor Venezuelan families.ix This number is surely set to increase in the coming year as the program continues to expand and housing becomes ever more accessible and plentiful.

In the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, the Chavez government continues to expand spending on anti-poverty programs such as housing construction and health care while much of the so-called developed world engages in the mass hysteria of austerity. The Bolivarian Revolution set before itself the task of reducing and ultimately eradicating poverty in a country where poverty was a historical tradition and a seemingly immutable reality. The post-colonial era of Venezuelan history is one fraught with domination and oppression by the United States and subjugation to multinational corporations while the poor and working classes lived in wretched conditions. Chavez’s commitment to reversing that legacy is what has, more than anything else, enshrined his legacy in the hearts and minds of Venezuelans.

Conversely, the advanced capitalist economies of North America and Europe are desperately trying to maintain their hegemony and economic survival by means of austerity programs which shift the burden of the depression from the wealthy financiers and speculators who created it to the poor and working class who must pay for it. Draconian cuts to necessary social services upon which millions of Americans depend for their very survival serve to illustrate this point further. Unlike in Venezuela, the Western imperial powers seek to destroy the social safety net and drive their populations into further destitution and desperation. This is, to put it another way, the crisis of advanced, post-industrial capitalism – an economic system which must expand the divide between rich and poor, create extremes of wealth and poverty and generally perpetuate itself on the misery and poverty of the lower classes. Seen in this way, Republicans and Democrats, President Obama and House Speaker Boehner alike are culpable for the massive suffering and despair of the poor in the US who can look to Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution as a model for a truly progressive vision of the future.

Could North America become the next Venezuela? Will WE have a Bolivarian uprising here, commensurate with the Riel Rebellion, but on a much larger scale? The rich elites shudder to think of it. But those lower down the totem pole, like yours truly, are taking notes…and filing them for not-so-distant future reference.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Huguito Chavecito, The United States of Amnesia | 1 Comment

Why anti-choice is NOT pro-life

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Sabina Becker

A half-hour documentary by the ACLU of Pennsylvania, showing what really happens when anti-abortion laws come up against unwanted pregnancy. Far from stopping abortion, draconian laws have only ever succeeded in driving it underground, and forcing women and girls to take their chances with unscrupulous, unsavory, and often untrained “doctors”. The result was maternity wards full of women not giving birth, but dying. The cost to the public healthcare system was immense.

Anti-choicers nowadays make much of supposed “abortion survivors”, namely live births following failed abortion attempts (or botched late-term abortions, which they are trying to use as a wedge to get all abortions outlawed). They call themselves “pro-life”. They forget that sometimes, a woman dies of illegal abortion…and leaves already existing children behind. Their hypocrisy is nothing short of murderous.

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Posted in Fascism Without Swastikas, Fetus Fetishists, Isn't It Ironic?, Law-Law Land, Not So Compassionate Conservatism, The United States of Amnesia, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off

Music for a Sunday: God says I should love you, I don’t love you….

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Sabina Becker

I’m so happy to see that someone uploaded this lost Canadian gem to YouTube…crackling vinyl, ’80s overproduction and all!

BTW, this song is about Mark David Chapman, the deranged fan who killed John Lennon. It came out two years after the assassination.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Guns, Guns, Guns, Music for a Sunday | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Groundhawg Daze

Posted on February 2, 2013 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! Happy February, the month with two Rs. Which should both be pronounced, unless you’re the kind of fucking cretin who also says “liberry” for library or “vanella” for vanilla. Stop that shit at once! Ahem. Where was I? Oh yeah…fucking cretins. I got all kinds of ’em for you this week. And here they are, in no particular order…

1. Chris Fucking Brown. Yes, he’s back in the headlines again…and this time it has nothing to do with which woman he’s dating/beating (gosh, it’s hard to tell with him, innit?) Nope, this time it’s about how this no-talent beat up a dude…who happens to be R&B’s current biggest talent, Frank Ocean. Over a parking slot. Stupid, violent, no-good motherfucker. PS: Oh, fuck. Go away, NOW. Both of you.

2. David Fucking Mamet. Hasn’t he got a script to write, produce, direct, etc.? Guess not, because he’s trying to wag the political dog with projected racism, strawman arguments, and the rote dose of gun insanity. I guess he must also be trying to telegraph something sad and embarrassing about his brains and/or and the size of his penis. PS: Oh noes, some pesky widdle facts got in the way of his oh-so-clever argument. Karl Marx!

3. Glenn Fucking Beck. Oh look, he’s got another crappy book out! And it’s a pathetic, er, PROPHETIC “warning” about the UN and its evil, communistic world takeover plan that isn’t! I’m sensing a nefarious hidden pattern here, one that will lead straight to the remainder bin…where Biff and his ghostwriter can jockey for pride of place with Sarah Fucking Palin and her ghostwriter.

PS: Oh, LORD. Yeah, the Branch Davidians were such nice guys! Child abuse, rape and polygamy, and a desire to see the world burn (which, for them anyway, was fulfilled). How dare the evil, evil BATF barge in and interfere with THAT?

4. Angela Fucking Merkel. How embarrassing is it to find out that Hermann Goering once stole the rug that now adorns your office? Considering the efficiency of the German bureaucracy, and its meticulous cataloguing of wartime atrocities, pretty damn embarrassing. And, for a conservative chancellor widely reviled in the rest of Europe as a “fiscal Nazi” — unexpectedly emblematic, too.

5. Jon Lee Fucking Anderson. It really pains me to list him this week, because he wrote the most awesome book on Che Guevara (outside of Che’s own circle of compadres, including Fidel Castro and Alberto Granado). But list him I must, because he simply does not know jack-shit about Venezuela. And it seems that he has decided to join the national anglo-whore media fraternity of presstitutes; the hazing rite apparently includes writing a nasty hit-piece on Chavecito (who he seems to think is the mayor of Caracas, not the president of the Bolivarian Republic). Sorry, Jon, but that is simply inexcusable. The Fourth Republic was NOT a time of “dynamic and stable democracy” OR prosperity, it was a time of oil-driven puppet dictatorship with a rotating roster of uglies at the helm to make it LOOK like democracy. There was a political police force, the DISIP, whose job it was to round up, torture, and “disappear” leftist dissenters. There were guerrillas in the hills, and they weren’t just there because they were trying to make like Che; they wanted to liberate Venezuela from the petty tyrants and torturers who had taken up where Marcos Pérez Jiménez left off. (Read all about Cantaura and Yumaré if you don’t believe me. And the Caracazo, of course.) And Chavecito has NOT been in charge for “decades”, much less reduced the buhoneros (informal street vendors) to their current state of poverty. They, like the slums of Caracas, were there before him, and they were poorer then, too. The difference is that now, they feel empowered to protest when they feel the local police (who are NOT under Chavecito’s jurisdiction) are treating them unfairly. And they do it with the same Bolivarian constitution that Chavecito gave them when he convened the elected assembly that wrote it. Go back and do your fucking homework, Jon, for Christ’s sake. It’s not as if you’re not fully capable.

6. Rory Fucking Carroll. On the other hand, it doesn’t pain me to list him in the least. I’m only surprised I don’t get to do it more often, because this little jackanapes has been wanking over Venezuela pretty much continually since the Grauniad put him on it. Boooooring. Well, just assume he’s here every week, even if I haven’t listed him, ‘kay? PS: Ain’t even gonna contemplate buying his book, because I already know what’s gonna be in it. Booooooooooooring.

7. John Fucking Schnatter. Looks like someone has egg all over his face…or in his case, greasy pepperoni. But when he tried to wipe it off, he just ended up spreading the grease around. Looks good on him!

8. Jane Fucking Kelly. There is no such thing as a “reluctant racist”, because there is no reluctance about it. If anything, your racism was just dying for a chance to air itself in a fresh new way that sounded legitimate. Too bad there is none. Instead of sounding like just any other racist, you come off sounding like a whiny, self-justifying, defensive one. And, oh yeah, one cowardly wanker.

9. Chris Fucking Christie. Why?

That’s why. Yeah, that’ll speed that hurricane recovery RIGHT up.

10. Dick Fucking Cheney. The Big Dick’s worried about gun control, and he should be. After all, his old hunting buddy hasn’t forgotten that regrettable drunk-shooting incident. And he probably still hasn’t gotten all the birdshot out of his face yet, either.

11. Peter Fucking Johnson, Jr. Speaking of dicks, I know it’s like shooting fish in a barrel to make fun of a man whose name is doubly synonymous with penis, and a small penis at that. But quite aside from his name, this guy is a walking joke. I seriously doubt His Barackness is going to make FUX Snooze illegal…although one could hardly blame him for being sorely tempted. Just imagine how much cleaner the airwaves would be without crap like this clogging them!

12. Louie Fucking Gohmert. And while we’re on the subject of walking jokes with names that just write themselves, Gomer’s come up with a real lulu this week. It seems that he and fellow Repug gun nut Marsha Fucking Blackburn have appointed themselves constitutional law experts, and are now trying to gin up a class-action lawsuit among His Barackness’s former students. Yeah, good luck with that…snurk.

13. Salvatore Fucking Cordileone. What a terrible temptation it must be, living in San Francisco among all those hot gay guys and still trying to stay in the world’s biggest closet, namely the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. It must be so hard…like, oh, say, his dick at the thought of some young, cute dude sucking his nipples? Yeah, that must be it. They give away so much every time one of them squawks up about the evils of same-sex marriage, don’t they?

14. Phyllis Fucking Schlafly. Every time I hear a noise coming out of her, I’m impressed that an embalmed corpse can be so animated, and make sounds so much like intelligible speech. Too bad that nothing this one says is actually intelligible at all. I mean, holding a male rapist responsible for sexual assault upon a female victim is just common sense, right? Well, sure…in every world but hers. Which, I think, really must be the realm of Cthulhu.

15. Jason Fucking Rapert. And back we go to people whose names just seem to fit them so well! This one would like to see abortion banned whenever a fetal heartbeat becomes detectable — in other words, as early as six weeks’ gestation. Which is too early for some women even to know they are pregnant! At this rate, all women who don’t want to be pregnant will have to take RU-486 the day they expect their periods, or be charged with a felony. Which would be very ironic, as I’m sure that very early abortions, like all others, are just what this little punk-ass hillbilly is trying to outlaw. PS: Oh look, he’s a racist and a Koch-sucker, too. What were the odds?

16. Bryan Fucking Fischer. I’m surprised that he’s not dead of apoplexy yet, because the Boy Scouts of America have finally lifted their ban on gay scouts (and scoutmasters). Contrary to what he’s said, though, that’s not an open invitation to pedophiles, because over 90% of those actually happen to be straight men. Or at least men who identify as such…like oh, say, Bryan Fucking Fischer.

17. Tom Fucking Flanagan. Why?

That’s why. I’m not an anti-fur activist, but for him I’ll cheerfully make an exception and hurl red paint. Some people are just not meant to wear animal hides, and nasty old right-wing men (who whisper in the ears of Stephen Fucking Harper) are among those people.

18. Michael Fucking Bloomberg. Casual sexism is not a garment. And wearing yours in public is just plain tacky.

19. Justin Fucking Bieber. No, you won’t get a Grammy. Would you like some cheese with that whine, Buttcrack Boy?

20. Rand Fucking Paul. He doesn’t “understand” same-sex marriage? Well, that’s obvious. He doesn’t understand a great many other things, either. But then again, you don’t NEED to “understand” basic human rights; you just need to support them. Do you think he’ll ever understand THAT?

21. David A. Fucking Clarke. Yay, let’s all go get drunk and shoot — the sheriff said to do it! See, this is what happens when law enforcement quits enforcing the law and gets Teh Stoopid about guns. This is also why I’m glad to be Canadian…our police chiefs are NOT this fucking stupid.

22. Gayle Fucking Trotter. Call me gun-shy, but I fail to see how becoming dependent on gun MANufacturers is going to make me an “independent” woman. And if I were the mother of a passel of small children, I would also fail to see how my owning a fucking submachine gun would increase their safety. I’d be more worried that one of them would accidentally shoot the others (and/or his/her own eye out). PS: And if you need a really good reason to despise this fucking idiotess, how about her opposition to VAWA? After all, gun MANufacturers must have their pound of female flesh…and small dead children, too.

23. Antonin Fucking Scalia. The constitution is “dead, dead, dead”…and he is nuts, nuts, NUTS. That is all.

24. Alison Fucking Redford. Democracy? What the hell is THAT? In Alberta, it’s plutocracy all the way. Government by the money, of the money, for the money, baybay.

25. Foster Fucking Friess. Yes, ol’ Aspirin-Between-Yer-Knees is back, and still obsessing about sex. This time, though, he thinks that women were “seduced” into believing that right-wingers didn’t give a shit about them. I don’t know if “seduced” is quite the word I’d go for; blatant, overt misogyny is about as seductive as rotting garbage in open sewers.

26 and 27. Patrick Fucking Brazeau and Royal Fucking Galipeau. To the former, I have nothing to say but “Yes, you are SO colonized — you are a Conservative, DUH.” And to the latter, I have nothing to say except “You, sir, are a cowardly fucking douchebag — you are also a Conservative, DUH.”

28. Stacey Fucking Campfield. “Don’t Say Gay” is ba-ack, and dumber than ever. So, apparently, is its author. If “the act of homosexuality” (whatever THAT may be) is “very dangerous”, why are there so many gay senior citizens coming out of the woodwork…among them, Gomer Pyle himself? Oh dears, an inconvenient fact…gays can live as long as anyone else! And they want to do so happily and in peace, with equal marriage rights, too! Horrors! PS: Ohhhhh, Teh Stoopid…it really DOES burn! And just think, this is the guy who wants to kick underperforming kids off the welfare roles. Sheer fucking genius.

29. Kevin Fucking Swanson. And in other homophobic news, I have some sad news for this silly preacher-dude: We’ve had same-sex civil marriage up here for nearly a decade now, and not only do we NOT have an upsurge in “NAMBLA pedophilia”, we also don’t have “gays burning Christians at the stake”! What we do have are gays, some of them Christian, marrying other gays and/or performing wedding ceremonies for gays and straights alike. And outside of an occasional desultory kvetch from the local Religious Reich, things are actually pretty quiet up here in Soviet Canuckistan. So sorry to disappoint!

PS: No, the Pill does NOT turn women’s uteri into “graveyards for lots and lots of little babies”. It prevents ovulation so that conception never occurs, you fucking idiot! Learn some science, for the love of God!

30. Jerry O’Fucking Neil. This ‘winger, on the other hand, is downright fucking kinky.

31. Sobrino Fucking Valdecir Fucking Picanto. Why the double Fucking? Because most rapists who claim religious exemption from guilt would say the devil made them do it. This guy, by contrast, claims it was the Holy Spirit that got into his gonads and caused him to demand oral sex from his female parishioners, presumably to spread sanctity and the Holy Sperm around. Yeah, that’s a new one on me, too.

32, 33 and 34. Maurice Fucking Vellacott, Leon Fucking Benoit, and Wladyslaw Fucking Lizon. Welp, it looks as though the anti-choice SupposiTories of the House of Commons have finally tipped their hand as to when they think a fetus becomes a “person”. They’re now trying to get the Mounties to waste their time persecuting women who’ve had abortions after the 19th week of gestation. Ergo: 20 weeks = “person”. The only problem with this, aside from it being a waste of law enforcement’s time and resources, is the fact that most abortions in Canada take place before the 12th week…and those few that do take place after 20 weeks, tend to come as a result of severe fetal deformity, fetal death, or serious health risks to the woman. Yeah, that means that these three are not only clueless gits, they’re sadistic assholes trying to punish women who, in all likelihood, wanted to be pregnant but couldn’t carry to term because of health issues. Oh yeah, and they’re also inconsistent, seeing as how they’ve been trying to winkle in the idea that a fertilized egg is a “person” from the very start, and force a “debate” on what is actually a long settled matter of law. MASSIVE wank, in other words. PS: Ha, ha.

35. Alois Fucking Bell. Yes, Reverend, you certainly HAVE brought embarrassment on yourself with the above. For being unable to distinguish between tithing and tipping, for starters; for failing to recognize that restaurant servers are poorly paid and thus forced to rely on gratuities for a living, for another. And for just plain being selfish, which is exactly what Jesus said NOT to be. And you got a perfectly good waitress fired for simply pointing out what a clod you’ve been. Shame, shame, shame.

36. Ronaiah Fucking Tuiasosopo. Mary, please — you’re not “confused”, you’re just gay. And if you think you can “recover” from that, forget it…that’s just where the REAL confusion comes in. Because being gay is not a disease, and therefore not something needing a cure. There is nothing wrong with being gay. How about some acceptance and moving on, instead?

37. Manis Fucking Friedman. Child sex abuse is nothing like diarrhea; it’s not a momentary embarrassment, but a life-altering secret anguish. Now, saying stupid shit about child sex abuse…THAT would be a LOT like diarrhea.

38. Rob Fucking Ford. Unbefuckinglievable: How the hell is the Frodster still allowed to be mayor of Toronto? Violating elections law ought to be good for an automatic disqualification, not a free pass to go back to City Hall.

39. Jenny Fucking McCarthy. Fake science and fake tits. What better “star” to appear at a breast-cancer fundraiser? If they ever invent a vaccine that prevents 100% of breast cancers, I bet she’d be against it. The only person dumber than McQuackery is whoever invited her and signed off on this. PS: Aaaaaand she’s out. Good!

40. Ezra Fucking Levant. I wonder how much longer FUX Snooze North, a.k.a ScumTV, is planning on keeping him around. He’s gonna lose them a lot more money if he keeps getting sued (and rightly!) for libel.

41. Steven Fucking Crowder. Oh joy, oh bliss. The Man Who Discovered Married Sex is back and wanking about it all over again…and giving “advice” cribbed from right-wing crapaganda sites! What were the odds? (Wake me up when your divorce is final, Stevie.)

42. Jeff Fucking Allen. I don’t know what’s the worst thing about him: his awful “pick-up artistry”, or the fact that he actually makes a living teaching it. Saddest of all, there are even bigger losers out there shelling out money for “advice” from a guy who’s ugly and whose mother dresses him funny…and lets him drive around in a shitty “rape van” coated with misspelled sloganeering. Gentlemen, if you want to get with the ladies and some douchey guy offers to teach you how, walk away quickly. And make sure he didn’t pickpocket your wallet, ‘kay?

43. Eliana Fucking Johnson. “Sensible Germans” supported the Nazis? Uh, no. FUCK no! And I would know, because my family, both sides of it, is comprised of sensible Germans. Even my grandfather who was conscripted into the SS was not a party member, much less a party voter. And my other grandfather got called on the carpet by the Gestapo just for casually complaining about Hitler! Holy shit, this bitch is CRAZY. But yeah, chalk up one more fascist dunce for the National Review. At this rate, they should just change their name to the National Revisionist, because that’s what they are.

44. Vladimir Fucking Putin. While Pussy Riot’s Nadya and Masha languish in Siberian prison camps, Pooty-Poot is hoping a certain ’90s boy-band will get the Russkies making babies. Dude, how about fixing your economy, getting rid of the mafias, and ending the fucking oppression? That might put a lot more people in the mood…

45. Stephen Fucking Perry. Racist much? Why else ASSume that your black co-worker “knows people” who can help you bump off your estranged wife?

46. Rush Fucking Limbaugh. Why?

That’s why. Actually, maybe we should thank the Pigman for spelling out the far-right’s economic and political strategy. (Not that we hadn’t guessed it already.)

47. Bob Fucking Grisham. Racist, sexist, and homophobe much? Oh wait, he’s a football coach “of the year” (!) in Alafuckingbama. That’s kind of par for the course.

48. Diane Fucking Finley. While she’s sanctimoniously haranguing the jobless about how much they’re “cheating” the system by claiming money that THEY paid into it, her own goverment is handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars. To “third party consultants”. For “auditing”. In Attawapiskat. And they don’t want to be held accountable for THAT, either.

49. Sam Fucking Harris. Gun nuts have “many good points”? Sorry, the tops of their heads don’t count. They’re called gun nuts for a reason. If you’re gonna trash the NRA, for fuck’s sake, trash ’em properly, and don’t give them an inch of ground! PS: Newark, could you please trade mayors with Toronto? I like the cut of Mr. Booker’s, uh, jib. (Yeah, that’s it.)

50. Aaron Fucking Klein. Same-sex couples are “abominations before the Lord”? No, only to YOU. And you’re not God. How hard is it to just sell them a fucking cake, already?

And finally, to all the right-wing idiots who basically ripped off Facebook’s interface so they could start their own widdle echo chamber, where hate speech could run rampant and unchecked (rather than subject to reporting and deletion, as is the case on you know where). I shouldn’t wonder if it ends up just as moth-eaten as your sad-ass dating site.

Good night, and get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | 4 Comments

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Evil, wicked Cuba does it again…

Posted on February 1, 2013 by Sabina Becker

cuban-anticancer-vaccines

This is big news. In other words: Don’t expect to find this in any major English-language media outlet soon.

That Cuba has already developed four vaccines against different types of cancer is undoubtedly an important bit of news for Humanity, if we recall that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 8 million people die of this illness every year. However, the major international media have ignored this almost completely.

In 2012, Cuba patented the world’s first therapeutic vaccine against lung cancer, CIMAVAX-EGF. And in January 2013, the second, called Racotumomab, was announced. Clinical trials in 86 countries demonstrate that these vaccines, though they do not cure the disease, have succeeded in reducing the tumors, and permit stabilization of the illness, increasing hope and quality of life.

The Centre for Molecular Immunology in Havana, owned by the Cuban state, is the creator of these vaccines. In 1985 it developed the world’s only vaccine against meningitis B, and later, others, such as those against hepatitis B and dengue. As well, scientists there have been working for years to develop a vaccine against HIV/AIDS. Another Cuban state centre, Labiofam Laboratories, developed a homeopathic medicament against cancer: VIDATOX, made from the venom of the Cuban blue scorpion.

Cuba exports these pharmaceuticals to 26 countries, and participates in joint ventures with China, Canada and Spain. All of this completely destroys a very widespread stereotype, reinforced by media silence regarding the advances of Cuba and other lands of the global South: namely, that the vanguard of medical-pharmaceutical research only occurs in so-called “developed countries”.

[…]

The Nobel laureate in medicine, Richard J. Roberts, recently denounced that pharmaceutical companies orient their investigations not to the cure of illnesses, but toward the development of medications for chronic illnesses, which is much more profitable. He also stated that the illnesses endemic to the poorest countries were simply not researched, due to their low profitability. For this reason, 90% of all research budgets are earmarked for the illnesses of just 10% of the global population.

The public medical/pharmaceutical industry of Cuba, though one of the key sources of income for the country, is governed by radically different principles.

Firstly, its research is directed, in large part, to developing vaccines to prevent diseases and, in consequence, lower the cost of medicaments for the population. In an article in the prestigious journal Science, Stanford University researchers Paul Drain and Michele Barry stated that Cuba has better health indicators than the US, while spending almost twenty times less. The reason: the Cuban model’s lack of commercial pressures and stimuli for pharmaceutical manufacturers, and a successful disease prevention/education strategy for the general population.

Also, natural and traditional therapies, such as herbal medicine, acupuncture, hypnotherapy and others, while unprofitable for pharmaceutical companies, have been integrated for years in the island’s free public health system.

On the other hand, in Cuba, medicines are distributed primarily through the national public hospital system, either for free or heavily subsidized, thanks to their earnings from the export market.

The Cuban pharmaceutical industry also barely spends anything on publicity, which, for multinationals, exceeds even the amount invested in their own research.

Finally, Cuba leads the production of generic pharmaceuticals, which it provides to other poor countries and the WHO, at a price much lower than those of multinationals.

But these agreements, alien to the rules of the market, have come under great pressures from the pharmaceutical industry. Recently, the government of Ecuador announced that it would buy several important medicaments from Cuba, in “exchange” for the scholarships granted to Ecuadorian students on the island, and for the aid of Cuban specialists in the program, “Manuela Espejo”, for disabled persons. The protests from the Ecuadorian Association of Pharmaceutical Laboratories immediately became a media campaign, spreading the message of the supposedly poor quality of Cuban pharmaceuticals.

As well, numerous analysts see the giants of the international pharmaceutical industry behind the coup d’état in Honduras. The government of the deposed president, Manuel Zelaya, in accordance with the ALBA agreement, intended to substitute generic Cuban medicaments for those of the multinationals.

The US blockade against Cuba imposes great obstacles to the international sale of Cuban pharmaceuticals, but it also directly affects the people of the US. For example, 80,000 diabetic US citizens a year suffer the amputation of their toes, and have no access to the Cuban vaccine, Heperprot P, which prevents precisely this condition.

Nobel-winning chemist Peter Agre recently stated that “Cuba is a magnificent example of how scientific knowledge and research can be integrated.” Irina Bokova, director general of UNESCO, said that she was “greatly impressed” by the scientific achievements of Cuba, and expressed the willingness of the UN organization to promote their use in the rest of the world. The question is inevitable: Can Cuba count on the indispensable collaboration of the big international media to spread the news?

Translation mine.

Cuba really is a giant when it comes to preventive medicine, and the cost savings to healthcare systems cannot be underestimated. Its vaccine program is an integral part of that. But since vaccines are cost-savers, rather than cost-generators, they are deemed unprofitable in Big Pharma. The result: antivaxxer nonsense running rampant while corporate non-cures rack up the big $$$ale$$$.

And if you ever wonder just how dangerous and destructive the (corporate-benefiting) anti-vaccine hysteria is, read this. It’s too long to meaningfully excerpt here, especially after that huge whack of translation, but it lays bare the absurdity at the heart of antivaxxer phobia. (Hint: PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS!) The only part I’d disagree with is the bit about GMOs, which are clearly a corporate bastard and NOT an acceptable answer to Third World poverty and hunger. (Read up on the Vavilov Centres if you don’t believe me. The most genetically diverse, pest-resistant, and nourishing food crops of the world all originated in those same poor countries Monsanto et al are trying to exploit for their GMOs now.)

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Posted in Cuba, Libre (de los Yanquis), Ecuadorable As Can Be, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Filthy Stinking Rich, Isn't It Ironic?, Not Hiding in Honduras, She Blinded Me With Science, Socialism is Good for Capitalism!, The United States of Amnesia, The WTF? Files | 1 Comment

Teh Heterostoopid: The Great Purge

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Sabina Becker

conservative-only-dating

Yeah, this sure sounds like a winning proposition:

ConservativeOnly.com, a U.S. dating site that promises to “purge your personal dating pool of liberals, progressives, socialists, marxists, communists, feminazis and democrats” — has just announced it is expanding into Canada.

“Founder Craig Knight realized that conservatism was not just limited to the United States … it was clear the next step was to expand his dating website to include Canada, United Kingdom and Australia,” reads a January 29 release by the company.

First launched in January, 2012, the site reportedly came into being after Mr. Knight had trouble “finding conservative prospects on mainstream dating sites,” according to an inaugural press release.

Gee, that’s sad. But you know what’s even sadder? Oh, how about this:

Conservatives Only even welcomes same-sex relationships, but the gay pickings are rather slim. A Wednesday search showed only 16 entries in the “men seeking men” category and a rock-bottom three entries in the “women seeking women” category.

For heterosexuals, the ratio of men to women is roughly 3.5 to one — with 215 women to 706 men as per a Wednesday night count.

Yep, that sounds like a real swingin’ hot spot you got there, Mr. Knight.

But wait…it gets sadder:

Many of the profiles are from conservatives claiming to be “trapped” within liberal centres. “I find it very hard to meet a conservative women …living in Los Angeles does not help either,” wrote a 57-year-old man.

“I’m a social and fiscal conservative computer engineer born and raised in the People’s Republic of Iowa City,” quipped a 26-year-old woman.

“Willing to lie about where we met,” wrote a 28-year-old woman from the progressive stronghold of Austin, Texas.

Not all the profiles are looking for romantic love, however, such as a 38-year-old woman searching for a “friend to watch Glenn Beck with” or a 63-year-old woman looking for a friend to ride motorcycles with.

And just to get truly pathetic, let’s look at how the Great Canadian Conserva-Dating Expansion is going so far:

As of January 30, the site’s Canadian offerings were almost non-existent, with zero men and only two women; a 47-year-old woman in Oshawa, Ont. looking for a husband and a “very busy person” from Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

Sadface.

But seriously, folks, by all means, go Galt from the mainstream dating scene, if you really hate the majority of humanity so much. You won’t be missed, I suspect. Just don’t reproduce, ‘kay?

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