News of the Restless

It’s December 6. Look who decided to forget…

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Well, who else…the SupposiTories, who never met a gun nut they couldn’t pander to. Or an international convention they couldn’t break:

The Conservative government has quietly shelved rules on serial numbers for guns that would have helped keep Canada in compliance with its international conventions on arms smuggling.

The decision came through an order-in-council — a cabinet decree — that was not formally announced by the Harper government but has been posted among dozens of other orders on the Privy Council Office website.

A single paragraph on the website states the long-delayed regulations, which were scheduled to come into force on Dec. 1, “are being deferred.”

A spokeswoman for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews confirmed, following an inquiry by The Canadian Press, that the regulations have been pushed off to December 2013.

However Toews’ spokeswoman, Julie Carmichael, would not comment on why the gun lobby was apparently told of the move more than a month ago — even though the order-in-council decision was approved only last week — and why no news release accompanied the policy change.

Isn’t it obvious? They knew there’d be an outcry. Especially today, when 14 women’s deaths in the Montréal Massacre will be remembered, and mourned, as the basis for the very gun laws these evil motherfuckers are now busily rolling back.

And who exactly are they aiming to please? Well, the usual suspects, of course:

Some gun enthusiasts objected to the regulations because they said they would increase costs for manufacturers, who would pass the increase on to gun buyers.

Ah yes. Heaven forfend that the gun nuts should have to pay more for their widdle bang-bangs. Or that they should have to go through the proper legal channels, instead of just buying them from that nice shady cross-border arms smuggler who obligingly brings ’em up from the armed madhouse to the south of us and sells ’em for cheap so that paranoid idiots can have their violence fix.

In the meantime, it’s worth noting that yet another young Floridian — black, of course — has lost his life to the “stand your ground” laws that make the armed madhouse what it is. Namely, a place that Canada doesn’t want to become, but is being dragged into, kicking and screaming, by you-know-who.

The same dirty bastards, of course, who hope we forget all about these women:

Not a chance, motherfuckers. Not. A. CHANCE.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Fascism Without Swastikas, Guns, Guns, Guns, Isn't It Ironic?, Isn't That Illegal?, Isn't That Racist?, Law-Law Land, Not So Compassionate Conservatism, Sick Frickin' Bastards, The United States of Amnesia, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off

Guess who’s joining MERCOSUR!

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Sabina Becker

W00t.

The president of Bolivia, Evo Morales, will ratify on Thursday during the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR) Heads of State Summit that Bolivia wants to join the regional bloc.

The Bolivian minister of communications, Amanda Dávila, informed that Morales would travel to Brasilia, Brazil, where the summit will take place, to express his country’s wish to be a full member of the organism. At the moment, Bolivia is an associate state.

“The meeting in Brasilia is very important, because there, president Evo Morales will thank MERCOSUR for its invitation and secondly, that we wish to join [the bloc],” said Dávila, according to the ABI news agency.

The minister said that Bolivia’s intentions of accepting the invitation “does not mean we will abandon other processes of integration, such as that of the CAN [Community of Andean Nations].”

Dávila explained that the Bolivian announcement is the beginning of a process that will take about a year, during which the legislative assemblies and congresses of the MERCOSUR member states will debate approving Bolivia’s official participation.

President Evo Morales announced the decision to accept the invitation to join MERCOSUR two weeks ago.

In a speech he listed the reasons for joining the bloc: MERCOSUR “does not have a free trade agreement with the United States”, and within the bloc “there is a productive complementation, a politics of complementarity, not competitiveness.”

He also emphasized that “MERCOSUR is a market much larger than the Andean Community; the Gross Internal Product of the CAN is $279 million, whereas that of Mercosur is $1.932 billion.”

At present, MERCOSUR consists of Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Venezuela and Paraguay; the last is suspended as of last June, since the coup d’état against president Fernando Lugo.

Translation mine.

Apparently the formal invitation for Bolivia to join MERCOSUR went out in November. Nobody told me nothin’. I just translate ’em, folks.

But seriously: This is great news. It’s a formal recognition that Bolivia is on the up-and-up. For a large common market like MERCOSUR to consider Bolivia worth including means Evo is doing something right. And sure enough, the Bolivian economy is flourishing. Even without a free-trade agreement with the US, they’re holding their own. And no DEA, either. How ’bout them apples, Gringolandia?

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Posted in All About Evo, Brazil is the Bomb!, Don't Cry For Argentina, Economics for Dummies, Free Trade, My Ass!, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't It Ironic?, Paraguay, Uruguay, Socialism is Good for Capitalism!, The United States of Amnesia | Comments Off

Paid provocateurs in Mexico City? Yup.

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Sabina Becker

A video taken over the weekend, during protests against the inauguration of Mexican president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, reveals that a lot of so-called “anarchists”…aren’t:

Members of an “anarchist” group arrested at 7:00 in the San Lázaro Metro station were paid 300 pesos each for committing violence and breaking up the occupation in protest of president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto, according to police.

The revelation comes from investigators of the Mexico City police headquarters. At least eight members of the Mexico Union of Revolutionary Youth were detained on Saturday.

However, the radicals won’t say who paid them, although they did tell the agents their objective was to destroy whatever lay in their path.

The capital police said that after they left the Metro station on their way to the Legislature, the hooligans set fire to the first patrol car they found, a PGJDF vehicle marked with the numer 3087, whose windows they broke and bombarded with Molotov cocktails.

Police spokesman Jesús Rodríguez Almeida said that the acts were planned ahead of time, although the intellectual author is not known at the moment.

“In light of all the objects and instruments they used to do these things, the gas cylinders for lighting fires, the fragmentation grenade and the various Molotov cocktails we seized, clearly this indicates that there was premeditation, a specific plan to do violence, and disturb the peace of the city,” Rodríguez Almeida said.

Most of the information about the disturbances could be found on social media networks over the weekend.

In the video [above], several persons can be seen in connection with the group of grenade-throwers now in custody at San Lázaro, who withdrew immediately when they realized they were being recorded, and who are accused of belonging to a shock troop.

Translation mine.

Did anybody get their badge numbers? Those “anarchists” look pretty well fed to me. In other words: highly UNlikely to be the real thing.

And whenever “anarchist” violence has the effect of breaking up a previously peaceful demonstration, or providing cops with a pretext to break it up, you have to start asking the old, but very useful question: Cui bono? Who benefits? Because if it’s not the protesters, then it must be those they’re protesting against.

Like I so often say: It’s never a riot until the cops show up.

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Posted in Mexican Standoffs | Comments Off

The Ugly Canadian

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Yves Engler talks with The Real News about Stephen Harper’s foreign policy and Religious Reich connections, particularly as to how they relate to Israel. As Canada (very much under protest) became one of just nine to oppose UN recognition of Palestine as a country, it’s more than a little pertinent. And more than a little worrisome.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Gazing on Gaza, Pissing Jesus Off | Comments Off

Why women go back to shitty men

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Robin “Rihanna” Fenty, making the mistake of her life. Let’s hope it doesn’t actually COST her her life.

Okay. So lots of people are asking why women who seem to otherwise have everything going for them keep going back to shitty men who only abuse them, put them down, and take advantage of them. Recently, one of them became yet another sad statistic in the annals of domestic violence. You’d think that these women could learn to stay the fuck away from these Bhad Nhews Boyz, and yet they keep going back. And the body count just keeps on growing.

So why IS that?

Well, I’m not an expert of any kind, so take this with the obligatory heaping teaspoonful of salt. But I’ve been one of those women, and so have several others near and dear to me. And so I’ve gleaned a bit of insight into what keeps us going back to guys we ought to put behind us for good. I’ve listed ten reasons — some rational, some not, and some just plain fucked up, but all powerful and compelling:

1. Traditional family values. You married him, for better or for worse. And it turns out you got “worse”. He drinks, he’s mentally unstable, he beats the shit out of you. But since divorce is either verboten or extremely difficult to get, or considered shameful, you strive to love, honor, obey, and stick it out until death does you part. And if death comes by his hand, so be it. You are property of your husband and there is not a damn thing you can do about that. You were raised to believe this, and you do, devoutly, even to your own detriment. If your religion values female martyrdom, you might even go to your grave this way…and gladly. Your deeply held values leave you no other choice.

2. You are a Nice Girl. I suffered badly from this one myself. Couldn’t say no, couldn’t say boo to a goose, couldn’t say shit if I had a mouthful. And when my drunken on/off boyfriend of five years got too deep into his beer, which he did every time I went out with him, he wound up the evening not with sex or kisses or a promise to see me again soon, but with ugly insults. I was a “candy-ass”. For being a Nice Girl. And I took it, because if someone I cared about told me so when he was drunk and his inhibitions were down, it must be true. In vina veritas, etc. I sat there and took it until he passed out. Then I would walk home, holding back my tears all the way. And sometimes, NOT holding back. And wondering why I could never work up the nerve to at least tell him to sober the fuck up. Why not? Because Nice Girls never tell guys what to do. And because if they try, they get shouted down and told to stop being such a fucking cunt. Which is the absolute worst thing anyone can call a Nice Girl. And short of actual physical violence (which, mercifully, I was spared), it is the most painful thing in the world to have the very good thing you are trying to be thrown back in your face.

3. You’re afraid to be alone. You’d rather be with the wrong man than no man at all. You’ve totally internalized the idea that a woman without a man is nothing. And, so as not to be a loser yourself, you put up with one instead. And you put up with whatever he dishes out to you, too.

4. You are codependent. He’s hooked on booze, drugs, or some combination of the two, and you are hooked on him. Sober, he’s the nicest guy you ever met; loaded, he’s a goddamn motherfucking piece of shit. But since you see the good side of him as well as the bad, you think that the one MUST eventually win out over the other. So you keep hanging on, trying to get him to detox and get into recovery. Even if he doesn’t want to go. You haven’t yet realized that until HE realizes he’s got a problem and needs to do something about it, all your pleas are falling on chemically deaf ears.

5. He is a master manipulator. This is the kind of dude who could teach the MRA/PUA “community” a thing or two about fucking with a woman’s head and yoinking her around like a yo-yo. He knows exactly where all her weak spots are, and he exploits them callously and without shame. He undermines her self-esteem until there’s nothing left. Then, when she’s just a hollow shell and sucked dry, he leaves her, forcing her to chase after him, and ignores her…at least until he finds something new that he can suck out of her. Then, suddenly, he just yoinks that ol’ yo-yo string, and boom, she’s back in his clutches. Some guys do this to several ladies at once. All of them notably lacking in self-esteem and the wherewithal to say no to him. Strong, assertive women don’t interest this guy, except maybe for the perverse thrill of bringing down an especially bitchy “high-value target” and turning her into a terminal Nice Girl. Low-hanging fruit is more his style. Pimps usually fall under this rubric.

6. DRAMA. Love and suffering, writ large! One or both of them may thrive on it, and consider a relationship “dull” unless it’s constantly on the rocks. This is especially true of basically insecure people who are only mildly to moderately talented, and whose careers therefore depend on keeping their names in the headlines as much as possible (hello, young lovers!). Normal sex isn’t thrilling enough; it has to be angry and violent, or else it has to be the make-up kind. Adrenaline rushes take precedence over feelings of warmth and security. Other chemical (co)dependencies may also feed into this.

7. You take a tremendous pride in your own “strength”. You are an awesome woman, with talent to spare and a résumé to prove it. Instead of using all that to help you get away from him, though, you tolerate and conceal his abuses. Running away from him spells failure and weakness on your part. Besides, what would others think if they knew that you, a strong woman immersed in a good career, were abused? Better just to daub an extra layer of makeup on those bruises and hope nobody notices.

8. He is so violent that you don’t dare try to escape. When he threatens to hunt you down and kill you, you know he means to make good on that. So you don’t call the cops; you don’t report it; you don’t press charges; you don’t do anything that you fear might set him off. It is a perverse sense of self-preservation that keeps you hanging on. Or that sends you back to him, rather than staying in the women’s shelter and filing for divorce.

9. Economic dependency. This one is blindingly obvious. When you’re paid only 70 cents to every dollar he makes, or are not allowed by Mr. Macho (or your #1 or #2 upbringing) to work for a living at all, you have every reason to go home to him and stay there, and none at all to strike out on your own. And if he’s a pimp-type (refer back to #5), chances are he’s taking every buck you make for himself, and beating you if you don’t hand over enough money to him at the end of a working day. Again, self-preservation takes a perverse turn here.

10. Love. Or rather, “love”. Note the quotation marks! If you are in love with him, or at least are convinced that you are, and have no better frame of reference to tell you differently, you’ll put up with just about anything…and go back to it, too.

I’m sure there are more reasons; these are just the ones that occurred to me off the top of my head. (Please feel free to fill me in on anything I may have missed in the comments!)

Bear in mind, too, that usually it’s not just one reason or another, but several at once, that keep women ensnared. The more often she goes back to Mr. Shitty, the more complex the brangle of causes. In addition to #2, I fell victim to #3, #4, and #10. Luckily, I was able to overcome them all; it took me five years to sort myself out and find the wherewithal, but when I dumped the drunk, I dumped him definitively. That was 20 years ago. I’ve been in sporadic contact with him since then, but never once did I look him up; it was always him contacting me, not the other way around. And when I did see him, it only reminded me of how much better my life is without him.

Today, I’d rather have no man than the wrong man. I still dream of falling in love — who doesn’t? — but I have no intention of landing under anyone’s thumb ever again. That’s not love, that’s misogyny.

And there is no greater hindrance to real love than that.

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Posted in Confessions of a Bad German, Good to Know, If You REALLY Care, Isn't It Ironic?, The "Well, DUH!" Files, Uppity Wimmin | Comments Off

Music for a Sunday: Let the record show…

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Class consciousness never sounded so good.

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Posted in Music for a Sunday | Comments Off

Wankers of the Week: Remember, remember, the First of December

Posted on December 1, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Crappy weekend, everyone! And a crappy World AIDS Day to all. Do you know where YOUR dickheads are? No? That’s okay, I’ve got them riiiiiight here…and in no particular order, here they are:

1. Stephen Fucking Harper. Yeah, sure, go right ahead and suck up to apartheid Israel by suppressing Palestine (and FAILING, ha ha). I’m sure that will do wonders for your global image. It’s also got those of us who actually give two shits about humanity standing here hanging our heads in shame and shaking them in disbelief.

2. Sacha Fucking Dratwa. And while we’re on the subject of Israel, and more specifically, the Fucking IDF, how about their fucking social media director? Yeah, posing as Barack Obama, with mud smeared all over your face, is a terrific idea! Prove to the world that your Likudnik apartheid government isn’t racist after all. Are you going to take that minstrel show to the gala that Stevie Wonder just begged off of? Good thing he’s (a) not going, and (b) blind. Because if he WERE going, and he could see you, he’d tilt your head back, yank your mouth open, and puke down your throat.

3. Carly Fucking Fiorina. So, she thinks public-sector union workers are too rich, and that’s “not fair”? Well, Carly, life isn’t fucking fair. And I’m sure you and your millions of unearned (and largely unTAXED) dollars, made when you damn near ran Hewlett-Packard into the ground, are well aware of that. If not, consider this your wake-up call, you stupid fucking wingnut. Honestly, I’ve seen two-year-olds with a better grasp of the fact.

4. Ana Fucking Gloria Fucking Garcia Fucking Gutierrez. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. And really: Riding a manatee? In what parallel universe is that ever a good idea? The sea is NOT a fucking Marineland, lady. (And don’t anyone get the idea to sneak in there and ride captive marine mammals uninvited, either.)

5. Suzanne Fucking Venker. Her name is so close to Wanker, how could I NOT list her? Especially since she seems to be of the strange impression that feminists have nothing better to do than wage war on men all the fucking live-long day. Um, no. The struggle for equality is a war on misogyny, not men. There is a long fight still to be fought. And Ms. Wanker, sorry, Venker, is Tokyo Rose. If she seriously thinks that women working for a living, for reproductive rights, and for equal pay are some kind of social problem, then maybe she should set a “good” example. Let her turn in her voter registration card, quit her crapaganda job at FUX, and go back to the kitchen and make Hubby-Dear a motherfucking shit sandwich. Go on, Suzie, and be a good girl, now! (And tell your crabby ol’ auntie Phyllis to do the same. She’s made quite the tidy cottage industry out of telling women what to do, and neglecting her home and family shamefully as a result.) PS: Ha, ha.

6. Chris Fucking Brown. Dude, this shirt is just for YOU:

And, that said: Your dick is probably microscopic. Why else would you work so hard to compensate? PS: And speaking of compensating, he’s off the tweeter now. Pity the damage is still done. PPS: Oh, UGH. PPPS: Ha, ha, ha…BULLSHIT.

7. Danny Fucking Ayalon. When heaping on the collective punishment, always blame ALL the victims. Including the most completely innocent ones, like the children of Gaza.

8. Ron Fucking Vezina. Is it 1984 all over again? It is if you’re collecting blood donations, apparently. Why else the stupid, discriminatory ban on gay male donors? It’s not like they are any more likely, in this day and age, to be HIV carriers. In fact, the greatest risk is more likely to be monogamous straight women who have no idea their husbands have been cheating on them. And isn’t ALL donated blood supposed to be tested for HIV anyway, thus making stupid, intrusive questionnaires unnecessary? But yeah, let’s go on perpetuating that stereotype of the gay man as AIDS menace. And let’s turn away potentially great donors at a time when blood banks are in crisis. And maybe, just maybe, do it all to cheap out a bit on the testing, thereby also endangering public health. To do less than that would be Politically Correct!

9. John Fucking Baird. Joy, joy, joy, Squealer went to the UN. To oppose Palestinian statehood. Hasn’t he done this before? Why yes, he has. He’s a one-trick piggie, what can I say? Meanwhile, Squealer FAIL. Ha, ha.

10. Rand Fucking Paul. “Freedom for me, and fuck-you to thee” just took on a new, ugly, misogynous dimension. Fetuses are persons to him, and women are not. But hey, why should HE care? It’s abundantly clear to everyone that he’ll die a virgin. And he’ll never need an abortion either, seeing as he’s a penis-holder and all.

11. Rob Fucking Ford. Buh-bye, Robbo, you big boorish wanker. Don’t let the City Hall doors hit you where your mama done split you. (And STFU about the left. They’re not the ones who made you abuse your mayoral powers. YOU did that.) PS: Ha, ha.

12. Rick Fucking Warren. If you’re not bothered by the prospect of a “gay gene”, why would you be squicked out by the prospect of same-sex relationships? And why would you call them “unnatural”? That’s a bit like saying gays can’t have parents or siblings. And THAT is unnatural!

13. Richard Fucking Cohen. No, the latest iteration of James Bond is NOT the reason young ladies won’t date you. The reason is, quite simply, that you look like their grandfathers (and are probably old enough to be it, too). Also, it’s kind of off-putting to women of ANY age that you’re an icky-poo sexual harasser. And it doesn’t help that you have an also-icky-poo taste for Sean Connery, the macho pigoon who thinks it’s A-okay to slap women around. (In case you’re wondering who MY favorite Bond is, it’s Roger Moore. Not that I’d sleep with him, mind you; I just like that that he was far less self-serious and looked like much more fun to be around. Wit, brains and humor are sadly underrated, especially by the machos and macho-wannabes.)

14. Brad Fucking Staats. Family matters to him. So much so, in fact, that he just had to leave an angry red handprint on his wife’s face. It doesn’t get much more mattery than that. And hey! Nice racist death threat on your Facebook page there, too, dude!

15. and 16. Kimberly Fucking Yee and Will Fucking Humble. What’s more insulting to a woman’s intelligence — “informed consent” websites that rely on sentimental bullshit language to misinform women about the “risks” of abortion, or the same, with woman misspelled? And did the Fucked-Up Government of Arizona seriously think women were too dumb to notice all that?

17. Glenn Fucking Beck. Andrés Serrano Flattery FAIL.

18. Sue-Ann Fucking Levy. Oh look, #18’s biggest hypocritical, racist schlong-sucker has piped up again. Good thing her mouth is so big and his dong is so small. Or rather, not good at all. Unless, maybe, this is the last of the Frodulent talking points we hear out of her before that aneurysm goes pop.

19. Michael Fucking Clemente. And in other presstitution news, FUX Snooze is clearly getting desperate. It’s losing control of its guests, pardon the expression, left and right. Or right and right-er-er, rather, since they don’t believe in letting the left speak. When it has to put “apologies” in people’s mouths that they didn’t utter and have no intention of uttering ever, you know that it’s never going to be able to keep them on message again.

20. Mitt Fucking Romney. How does it feel to be a 47%er, Mittens? And considering that those who voted for you came from the welfare-dependent “red” states, that “government-dependent moocher” analogy is more fitting than you ever realized. Ha, ha.

21. Thomas Fucking Matheson. Gawd. How many twists does it take to detach a human nipple from the underlying tissue and surrounding skin? I don’t know, but I bet HE does.

22. Bill O’Fucking Reilly. Psy is from Seoul, not Pyongyang. Get your Koreas straight, you fucking moran. PS: Hey Billo, watch THIS.

23. Franklin Fucking Graham. No, we don’t need the Immoral Minority resurrected. We need it all to die. Die. DIE!

24. Steve Fucking Taylor. It’s no surprise that criminal defence attorneys often use slimy tactics to git ‘er done (particularly when their clients are guilty as sin), but calling an 11-year-old rape victim a “spider” and intimating that she lured all 20 of her abusers into a “web” is surely some new low. When will the guys who roped her into this be seen as the perpetrators they are, instead of “victims”? (And, really, that “spider” metaphor suits THEIR role in this a lot more.)

25. Hunter Fucking Moore. I knew his promise to take down his revenge-porn filth site was too good to be true. He’s planning on resurrecting it, this time with Google mapping information so stalkers can find his site’s victims — most of whom are female — and make their lives miserable. How much longer before he’s party to a murder with this shit? Time to drive a stake through this one. FBI, get on it.

26. Gustavo Fucking Valencia Fucking Gómez. There’s nothing wrong with being a witch…but pretending to be one, for extortion and profit? Oh yeah: That’s illegal. Halloween’s over, buster.

27. Courtney Fucking Stodden. Yes, tasteful nudity is a concept. Just not when it comes to the Teen Queen of Tackyland.

28. Rush Fucking Limbaugh. Yep, trotting out Suzanne Wanker’s widely mocked article on Teh Poor Widdle Oppwessed Menz is a terrific way to justify three fucking decades of calling women Nazis. Or to cement your irrelevance once and for all. Take your pick, prick.

PS: Know who believed exactly as the Pigman does what the proper role of women is? Take a wild guess!

29. Stephen Fucking Lennon. England’s biggest bigot is also a fraudster? Shocked, SHOCKED.

30. Lindsay Fucking Lohan. Hollywood’s biggest fraudster is also a bigot? Shocked, SHOCKED.

31. Alberto Fucking Fujimori. It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything from El Chinito, and he’s not happy about that. So now, even though he’s in prison for human rights abuses, he STILL insists on being interviewed by the “fair and balanced” right-wing media. Just, you know, so no one ever forgets he was dictator of Peru. Alberto, how can we miss you when you won’t go the fuck AWAY?

32. The Fucking Trolls of WorldStarFuckingHipHop. Because women of double-digit dress size (a) don’t get laid, and (b) should never be treated like serious human beings. Especially when (a) they do get laid, and (b) what they also do is demand of the world that everyone be treated equally and, you know, like serious human beings.

33. Jason Fucking Kenney. Is anyone struck by the irony of him suddenly waxing all concerned about “hateful, xenophobic nutbars” (his exact words)? Because this is the same Jason Fucking Kenney who dissed the Roma people. The same who also had no problem letting Ann Fucking Coulter in, and keeping George Galloway out. AND whose party used to boogie with real live neo-Nazis back in the day, and still draws that vote like no other. Man, that irony just hits me like a steel-toed boot in the guttiwuts.

34. The unnamed fucking wanker who tried to blow up a government building in Arizona. If this was some kind of attempt to replicate the work of Tim Fucking McVeigh, it was an epic fail. No one was in at the time, and all it did was frighten the neighbors. But hey! Thanks for pointing out just what fucking buffoons right-wing domestic terrorists can be. We could all use the comic relief.

35. Eric Fucking Hartsburg. Before the election, I predicted that he’d be using the money he got for renting out his face as a Romney/Ryan billboard to remove that ink. And sure enough, he’s gonna do just that. But the kicker? He thinks that Mittens has no dignity. He’s got a bit of a point there, but still…pot, kettle. Enjoy your laser burn, dude. You’ve earned it!

And finally, to all the fucking asswipes who care more about the ruination of their fantasy football lineup than about domestic violence, suicide, and what causes them. The (alleged) Mayan Apocalypse is now 20 days away. And this is what you’re gonna be bringing to it? Fucking FAIL.

Goodnight, and get fucked!

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | 4 Comments

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Because there’s no such thing as too much Ecuadorable

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Sabina Becker

And because this is a nice shot, and I like it…

…and there’s a nice bit of news behind it, too:

The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, urged his counterparts at the 6th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) to put in practice established conventions to give concrete results to their respective peoples.

“One proposal that hasn’t been sufficiently developed, but we believe it is of utmost importance, is the harmonization of salary policies, among them the establishment of a regional minimum wage. Also the new regional financial architecture which is advancing,” said the president.

“Our peoples will get tired of listening if they don’t get tangible results from the integration,” Correa added.

The president mentioned how, for example, his Chilean counterpart, Sebastián Piñera, proposed the creation of a Regional Secretariat of Risk Management, which would permit the bloc to act in the face of eventual disasters which might affect member countries.

Ecuador, for its part, has proposed harmonizing public politics in order to prevent South American countries from becoming victims of transnational capital. In this sense, he said, if each country negotiates on its own, international financial organisms would be the ones to propose the conditions; whereas, if the nations acted together and in a co-ordinated manner, it would be they who could impose the conditions.

Translation mine.

Oh Rafa, you sly minx. You’re talking from personal experience here on how to kick the World Bank’s, the IMF’s, and numerous other vulture capitalists’ asses. And you just neatly went Piñochetera one better, too, with a nifty rebuke of his own financial policies, which are oriented toward, and dictated by, international capitalism. You give me the weirdest ladyboners, dude.

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Posted in Chile Sin Queso, Economics for Dummies, Ecuadorable As Can Be, Festive Left Friday Blogging, Filthy Stinking Rich, Law-Law Land | Comments Off

Clip ‘n’ Save: All you needed to know about today’s UN vote

Posted on November 29, 2012 by Sabina Becker

I am sorry to say that my home and native land is one of the yellow ratbastards. Thanks a lot, Harper Government™. You don’t fucking represent us. Just so the world knows.

Meanwhile, here are some mighty happy people who allegedly don’t exist:

And here is a conversation I hope really DID happen today, in some form:

I hope Bibi, and Harpo, and John Baird all have a huge gut-ache tonight. That is all.

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Posted in Canadian Counterpunch, Clip 'n' Save, Gazing on Gaza | 2 Comments

The “art” of being an asshole

Posted on November 28, 2012 by Sabina Becker

Yesterday, I chanced across the funniest, saddest, and weirdest shit I ever saw on Wonkette. Apparently there are all these dudes who’ve been creating “inspirational” propaganda — oh sorry, “art” — for the so-called men’s rights movement. But if what Wonkette has sifted out of the sludge of the “Manosphere” is any indication, I don’t think they’ll be gaining many converts of either sex to their way of thinking. Just take a gander at these little beauties:

Oh dear. Where to start with THIS hot mess?

Well. Let’s take it from the top. Have you ever seen a seven-year-old’s head perched on top of a woman’s body? No? Well, you have now! Those weird, wide, naïve eyes…that mouth, apparently missing a couple of teeth…yikes. This is the Manly Man’s ideal bride, I guess. A CHILD.

And then there’s that “provocative” pose. Which adds a whole ‘nother level of WTF. We’re supposed to believe that she saved that for her wedding night? That she’s so virginal, she doesn’t even have all her adult teeth yet? And yet there she is, the grown woman with the face of an idiotic little girl, somehow managing to strip off her elaborate gown without dislodging her headpiece (quite the feat, that; she must have had a dozen dress rehearsals to get it right!) And she’s turning her hindquarters in the classic, splay-legged “come and get it” pose. Which shows that she has, in fact, been around the mulberry bush before.

Several times.

Just not, alas, with her bridegroom. Of whom she would be absolutely terrified if in fact she were really a virgin, ignorant of sex until a Manly Man teaches her all about his big, bad, brutal, hymen-wrecking Manly Manhood. She’d be covering up and cowering under the bedsheets. Which, if we’re gonna take this madonna/whore complex nostalgia to its logical end, would have an embroidered orifice in the middle, to preserve her modesty while proffering her virginity for the obligatory wedding-night catastrophe. During the grand finale, she would not be smiling invitingly, but squinching up her eyes and thinking of England (per her mother’s helpful guidance, given just five minutes before the ceremony. That’s all the sex-ed they had back in the imaginary Golden Age of Manly Masculinity, poor things.) The next morning, her mother would be parading those bloodied bedclothes around the town to show what a Good Girl her daughter had been before the Big Bad Wolf debauched her. Ah, wedded bliss!

As for those big ol’ bloomers, which are more granny than my grannies’ grannies, best we say no more.

Here we have another fine exemplar of MRAsshat cognitive dissonance. We have a lovely, windy tirade of a caption explaining, in Reader’s Digest Condensed Book form, why we need to accept that we’re nothing to these guys except, of course, BOOBS.

So, we’re supposed to give up trying to think for ourselves and just submit to ravishment (there’s that Big Bad Wolf again!) We’re supposed to just naturally assume the subordinate pose this guy has already oh-so-helpfully mapped out for us in his mind. The one that reassures him that he’s The Man, we’re just the little women, and he has us all squirming in his ha-ha POWER!!!

But there’s something wrong with this picture. An unconscious projection of how these guys really see themselves in relation to us. He’s on his knees, but she’s still standing. If this is supposed to communicate absolute male dominance to us, it’s a little short of the mark.

As is his mouth, which is sucking on her luscious, juicy ribs. Foreplay FAIL, dude.

And finally, we have this touching tearjerker. Poor Carol is about to get dumped because she’s not young, dumb, and submissive enough.

She could, of course, take her cues from the lady in the second picture; she could turn around, fix him with a knowing smile, and start undoing the top buttons of her blouse, and that would be it for poor, penis-driven Bert. He’d be on his knees in a heartbeat, transfixed by her spectacular boobage and heading south fast.

But Carol has other ideas. The Zumba instructor? Nah. Little does Bert suspect that the Other Man in Carol’s life is really Alejandro, her tango teacher. Now there’s a guy who knows how to work his hips! Ale is so lovely, a real gentleman. His manners are impeccable; he makes her feel like a queen. He encourages her interests, unlike Bert; he’s thrilled that she follows the leftist political movements in Argentina, and that she understands what caused the crash of 2001. They have long, passionate conversations over coffee and cake in the little Argentine café below his dance studio, after class. He’s been teaching her the finer points of his dialect, too; she’s almost fluent now. He swears she’s starting to sound more like a porteño than he is. He’s often begged her to come back with him to Buenos Aires — “¡Carolita, aléjate de ese pelotudo, por Dios!” — but Carol has been putting him off because of Bert. Poor, poor Bert. She didn’t have the heart to tell him, or the nerve to end it. What a mistake! Bert doesn’t share any of her interests. He hates music, is stiffer than Mitt Romney, and can’t even do the Twist. He’s no fun to talk to; he’s constantly shushing her. He always was a dud in bed, and he’s been getting worse ever since he joined that “men’s rights” group. He’s been putting up hateful propaganda posters all over town; the university kids know who he is, and they laugh at him behind his back. Carol is ashamed to be seen with him. Two weeks ago he started withholding sex to “punish” her for any slightest infraction against his poor, fragile ego. At the encouragement of his Iron John study group, of course.

Now this? And he seriously thinks that at his age, he can find a 24-year-old…who likes anal? Yes, that sounds just like Bert, all right…immaturity and asininity, all rolled up into one stuffy, self-involved bundle. Suddenly, Buenos Aires is looking mighty seductive.

And Bert? He’s looking more and more like this: