Satan…socialism…and SOCCER! Yes, SOCCER!
And oh, shit…so does my first name! And so does SHIT! Oh shit, I’m going to hell for liking socialism! And Uruguay! And Chavecito! Oh shit, shit, SHIT!
(Of course, SATIRE also starts with S…let’s hope this is it. And if not, well, let me remind you that STUPID is also an S-word. And so is SUPERSTITION.)
Although…heh…this week, if you’re in Britain, you’ll have one less. In which case, a little consolation may be in order. So, here you go…an old Spitting Image sketch of Rupert Murdoch conferring with two of his “reporters”:
Enjoy!
Crappy weekend everyone! My, the wankers just keep coming, do they not? And so do the revelations from the world of hacks who hack. And here, in no particular order, come some of the hackingest hacks, and the wankingest wanks…
1. The self-congratulatory “journalists” at News of the World. Yes, all of you. You make me sick, taking pride in being the most immoral and unethical bunch ever to disgrace an already ill-reputed profession. You were all more than happy to rely on hacked cellphones and bribed police to get your panty-sniffing “scoops”. You probably made much better money at it than any honest reporter in the alternative press. (Just ask Greg Palast what a struggle it is to live as a REAL journalist, ferreting out REAL scandals — the kind your filthy boss probably ordered you never to touch.) And now you’re bitter because you’ve been let go from the worst news organization in the world? Cry me a fucking river. If you were really such hot shit, you’d have left the instant you realized your bread was being buttered with graft and smears, and never looked back. Instead, you were all complicit to the end. You were happy to take Rupee’s money while you made hay on the misfortunes of murder victims and their families. And you apparently saw nothing wrong with it until the shit — that’s YOU — hit the fan. And now you’ve put your rag to bed for the final time without even an apology to the family of Milly Dowler? At long last, people — HAVE YOU NO FUCKING SHAME??? Oh yeah, that’s right…you’re not sorry because Rupee’s not sorry, either. What a bunch of fucking poodles you are! Which brings me to…
2. Rupert Fucking Murdoch. Yes, again. And now the scandal is widening to the families of 9-11 victims, too! There really is nothing sacred to the over-rich and over-powerful except, maybe, the almighty dollar. If nothing else, this should reassure the families of Milly Dowler and all those dead soldiers that they are not the only innocent, non-famous people to have been used and abused and spat out by Rupee for profit, eh? But what would really be a comfort to all of them, I’m sure, is if FUX Snooze went the same way as News of the Screws. Which could very well happen if the FBI turns up what I think it will. Here’s hoping…
PS: Yes, a libel lawsuit in New York looks damn good on him, too. Especially since the “facts” of the New York Post story were all made up, rather than the product of any kind of phone hack.
PPS: Oh, UGH! (Warning: Cannot be unseen!)
3. The fucking wingnut who created this very literal piece of trailer trash. Must be seen to be believed. Clicky the linky! (Warning: Cannot be unseen, either.)
4. Lori Fucking Klein. I don’t know what’s dumbest: Owning a gun, owning a PINK gun with no safety (because you’re such a fucking girly girl!), or aiming it at a reporter. Oh wait, I DO know what’s dumbest: Saying your Ruger pistol is “so cute”, and carrying it in your purse all the time. Because, you know, if someone shoots questions at your bigoted little overly-made-up girly-girl head and you’re too easily rattled to simply answer, the best thing to do is shoot first and ask questions later.
5. Patrick Fucking Brooks. If his facial tattoos are any indication, he’s a two-time murderer (two black tears by the outer corner of his right eye), and one with very poor judgment at that (the inscription on his forehead). Sorry, dude, but tattooing shit on your face doesn’t make your shaven head look any less like the dome of a dick. (Dick. Head. DICKHEAD. Geddit?)
6. Stephen Fucking Harper. To those who wonder if he looks as much like a knob dressed as an Indian as he did when duded up as a cowboy, the answer is NO. He looks even more like a knob:
Meanwhile, his record on aboriginal peoples’ rights is still fucking abysmal. Hence he becomes Mr. Dressup, in a vain attempt to distract us all. Ain’t workin’!
7. The Fucking “National Association for Marriage”. (Note the quotes.) It’s not really marriage that they care about, or they’d spend more time tending to their own and leaving others alone. No, it’s all about killing the queers. And they’ve finally made their agenda visible as such, and linked it to the Teabag Party. Nice to see them all coming out of the closet as eliminationists, eh?
8. Joe Fucking Arpaio. He’s not racist, but his pink underwear is. Thanks for clearing that up, Amurrica’s Worst Fucking Sheriff.
9. Erica Fucking Jong. No, dear, sex isn’t passé. (And your generation didn’t invent it, either.) If you want your theses, or at least your name, to stay relevant, it might be worthwhile to stay abreast of sex in the real world, not just wallow in a morass of half-baked theories swirling around your head.
10. Michele Fucking Bachmann, again. She can dish it out, but she can’t take it? Surprise! Meet Quitbull 2.0. And speaking of Quitbull…
11. Sarah Fucking Palin, again. She “can win in 2012”, but she hasn’t even decided IF she’s going to run yet? I guess she’s trying to change her image from Quitbull to Mrs. Dithers. PS: Hey Sawah, if you can win, how come you lost the last federal election, where you were only the VP candidate? PS: Look who inherited the dithering gene from her mother. Kinda sorta.
12. Linda Fucking Harvey. Wow, talk about creative! She figured out a way to combine homophobia, wacky superstition, and union-busting — all in one big fugly package of willful misinterpretation! Now, if only she could learn how to découpage…and STFU.
13. Raymond Fucking Wieczorek. Birth control is a “party”? Hardly. It’s ordinary, mundane, daily, bread-and-butter stuff, no more party-like than brushing your teeth. Unwanted pregnancy, on the other hand, is like a jail sentence. But what would a man (who is totally sexually unappealing) know about that?
14. Laura Fucking Fotusky. She had to choose between doing her job…and being superstitious and presumptuous. She chose the latter. Well, GOOD. Because by refusing to perform same-sex marriages (newly legal in New York) on grounds of religion, she freed the job up for some willing soul who’s actually QUALIFIED to do it! Now, if she could only do so without a parting sermon. THAT was the wank.
15. The Fucking Knesset. You know you’re losing the war when you haul out the big guns to kill the mosquitoes. And their anti-boycott law is just that: the Big Bertha of free-speech repression. Israel may call itself the only democracy in the Middle East, but at the rate everything’s going, it’s going to end up being the only dictatorship.
16. James Fucking Moore. What kind of Canadian heritage minister thinks cutting an actual Canadian heritage’s budgetary allotment by 5% is a good idea? One from the Harper Government™, who else? After all, they are NOT the Government of Canada. What does it matter to them if Canada is further starved of honest, unbiased information?
17. John Robert Fucking Mester. What a coinkydink…his name rhymes with “pester”. Or “horse molester”. Because that’s exactly what he is…and a serial one, at that. Ugh!
18. Darnell Fucking Hardware. Yes, that’s his real name…and yes, he’s really a wanker. Of the most literal kind. The kind that trolls the subways, looking for women to jack off on. How appropriate, then, that this other serial molester got caught with DNA evidence taken from his own jack-off, eh?
19. The Fucking Republican Party of Wisconsin. Yes, the entire party…because they are all complicit in a dirty scheme to try to sow confusion by planting fake Democratic candidates in a state where everything with an R after its name is now in trouble, thanks to the teabagger governor and his ugly henchmen. And those henchmen are…the Fucking Republican Party of Wisconsin, who else?
20. Sun Fucking Media. Yes, folks, the Sun newspaper chain (Canada’s MurdochCo., in case you wonder) has finally dropped all its false fronts of being a legitimate news purveyor, and has withdrawn from the Ontario Press Council, because it just can’t meet its “politically correct” standards. And by “politically correct”, read “committed to accurate, unbiased and BS-free information”. Bravo, Sun Crapaganda Corp.! Finally, a rare moment of honesty from you. Now, all we need is to see you saying, on the front page, in bold type, what we already know to be true: “WE’RE JUST MAKING ALL OF THIS SHIT UP BECAUSE NEITHER WE NOR OUR NUTTY RIGHT-WING READERS CAN FACE REALITY!!!”
21. Eric Fucking Bolling. In his haste to exculpate Dubya from all blame for things that happened on his watch, he developed a mysterious case of amnesia where 9-11 is concerned. (The August 6 PDB? Didn’t happen either, and neither did Dubya’s response to the CIA briefer who fed it to him.)
22. The Fucking Tea Party, alias the Republican Party. Yes, all of the teabaggers and Repugs out there, with no exceptions, because they are all one and the same. Once more, the hypocrisy of libertarianism shows its socially conservative ass. Turns out, it’s “liberty for me, but none for thee”, as usual; why else the anti-choice laws? Oh yeah, sure, it’s all about the taxes. Riiiiiiiight. Funny how wingnut tax cuts always come on the backs of those most vulnerable.
23. Barry Fucking Ardolf. Good thing he’s going to jail for 18 years, so I can wank-list him without fear. Otherwise, I’d be terrified of him trying to hack me and wreak who knows what havoc, like he did to his neighbors.
24. Herman Fucking Cain. The latest Uncle Tom to emerge from the Teabagger Party thinks that the freedom of religion doesn’t apply to Muslims…and that in the name of “freedom of religion” (note the quotes), Muslims must be barred from building their houses of worship anywhere in the US, even if it’s nowhere fucking NEAR Ground Zero. Because he’s afraid of a nonexistent plot to replace the law of the land with Sharia, didn’t ya know?
25. Rebekah Fucking Brooks. Oh, BARF:
“Rupert’s wisdom, kindness and incisive advice has guided me throughout my career and James is an inspirational leader who has shown me great loyalty and friendship,” she said.
Once more, with feeling: Oh, BARF!
26. Chris Fucking Brown. Homophobia and misogyny aside (and why SHOULD they be set aside? Those are some serious character flaws there!), a violent piece of shit who wouldn’t even be a “singer” if not for lip-syching and autotune deserves NO respect. Much less a crowd of 18,000 fellow wankers with piss-poor taste in music.
27. Sara Fucking Roseberry. If you ever wonder what drugs those crazy bible thumpers are on, now I can tell you the definitive answer. It’s crystal meth, otherwise known as Hitler’s drug of choice. (His doctor used to shoot him up before every rally where he had to give a sermon, er, speech. Not kidding. And the drug was also given to his armies.)
28. Anthony Fucking Garcia. What a wanker — LITERALLY. He shot his wad in a cup of yogurt, then pushed it on a woman shopping in the grocery store where he was handing out free samples. And yes, the worst happened, and she spat it out. The story’s gross, but the comments at the link are often priceless. Free sample:
(I’ll spare you the rest.)
29. Rupert Fucking Murdoch. Too fucking little, too fucking late. How about apologizing not only to the family of Milly Dowler, but also to the families of all the soldiers killed from the Falklands War onwards? Because this right-wing media cheerleading has led to a lot more deaths, and the hacking of the dead soldiers’ phones is far from being the only crime Rupee has committed here.
30. Adrian Fucking Lamo. Yes, he’s been listed here before…and he should be considered a lifetime member of this infamous list by now. Because not only did he turn in Bradley Manning, he specifically LIED to him, promising confidentiality to get the latter to spill his guts, only to snitch on him. And if you think what Lamo did was A-okay and that Manning “deserved” what he got, here’s what one of the commenters on the article had to say about the matter: “I have 3 active duty service members in my immediate family, two of whom are on their umpteenth millionth redeploy to that sh*thole that is Afghanistan. They’re also Marines. Their take on this: Whatever gets us the fuck out of here fastest is OK by me.”And here’s another: “I have family in the military. Being obediant and going along with a government who could give fu*k all about their lives is worse for them than the radical changes transparency like this leak may bring. I dont know what world you live, but in mine the US government has fought numerous wars of choice, killing hundreds of thousands of people, costing trillions of dollars. The US government acts directly in contrast to the will or interest of the people. Anything somebody does to bring that to light has my support.” Isn’t it funny how those who one would think SHOULD be crying “treason” the loudest, those with military members in the family…aren’t? Adrian Fucking Lamo, for all his talk of patriotism, treason and the like, somehow never got around to entering military service, yet he’s perfectly willing to let US soldiers and foreign civilians die for lies, lies and more lies. Draw your own conclusions as to who’s the bigger patriot.
And finally, to Jake Fucking Pearson, who left both the above carefully gilded turds in my spam filter. Stupid hasbaroid motherfucker’s so dumb he can’t even spell his own last name…or thinks I can’t tell it’s really him. Sorry, but I can; the Briticisms and the bullying and the sexist insults, taken in combination, are all a dead giveaway. Now you know why he landed there, and why everything else of his is there to stay. PS: This impotent drivelling, which landed in my spam filter during his last previous foray here, is also his handiwork. Thought I’d resurrect it so you could all enjoy a good laugh at Jakey’s expense…AGAIN.
Good night, Jakey — and please, for the sake of your sanity, TRY to get fucked!
Courtesy of Roger Ebert, a gem from the past. The BBC’s original adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novel. Enjoy!
“Anarchists try to identify power structures. They urge those exercising power to justify themselves. This justification does not succeed most of the time. Then anarchists work at unmasking and mastering the structures, whether they involve patriarchal families, a Mafia international system or the private tyrannies of the economy, the corporation. […] As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesn’t matter to me. […] This world is full of suffering, distress, violence and catastrophes. Students must decide: does something concern you or not? I say: look around, analyze the problems, ask yourself what you can do and set out on the work!”
— Noam Chomsky, interview with Zeit Campus
Guess who was in Venezuela today:
Yup, Ollanta was in the house today. He met with vice-president Elías Jaua in this video, and gave a short press conference in which he expressed a wish to visit Chavecito, to see him “as a friend”, and to talk at length about the “common past and common future” of Venezuela and Peru. Which, of course, they did:
This visit comes at a delicate time for Chavecito, as he’s between recovering from his emergency surgery, and preparing for chemotherapy and possible radiotherapy in Cuba. Initially there was some talk of his going to Brazil for the treatments, at the same hospital — the Syrio-Lebanese Hospital in São Paulo — where Chavecito’s Paraguayan counterpart, Fernando Lugo, was also successfully treated for lymphoma awhile back. The invitation reportedly came from Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who is also a cancer survivor herself. But it looks like it will be Cuba after all, and likely Chavecito will visit again with the same Havana doctors who operated on him recently. He has asked the National Assembly to grant him a medical leave, and is bound to receive it.
In the meantime, this nice friendly visit with Ollanta is certainly not inopportune. It will give Chavecito the morale boost he needs as he prepares for the next phase in his treatment, and that can only be a good thing.
Pa’lante, Comandante. ¡Arriba Ollanta!
UPDATE, Saturday, 10:45 am: Here’s the official video of the request to take leave and continue treatment in Cuba. He will be travelling there today.
One chapter ends and another begins in the ongoing mystery of baby-theft and illicit adoptions in Argentina. This one, unfortunately, offers no easy answers for the time being:
The DNA tests recently performed on the Noble Herrera siblings, the adopted children of the president of the Clarín media group, Ernestina Herrera de Noble, did not match those they were compared against by the National Genetic Data Bank; a fact which demonstrates at least that of the genetic branches selected, the youngsters are not related to those particular disappeared persons from the last dictatorship.
[…]
After these preliminary results, a second round of testing will take place, which will consist of a comparison of Marcela and Felipe’s genetic material with all the profiles in the National Genetic Data Bank (BNDG), as requested by the organization of the Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.
However, by request of Belén Cardozo, current director of the BNDG, the second round should be suspended, because Judge Arroyo Salgado had ordered the comparison of the samples against those of all persons born in 1976 (the year in which Marcela and Felipe were born) and, though they are registered in the BNDG, it is not possible to determine which individuals correspond to that date.
Judge Arroyo Salgado had ordered to testing in various phases. The first was completed upon comparison of the samples with those given by two plaintiff families, the Lanoscou-Mirandas and the Gualdero-Garcías.
These DNA comparisons gave negative results, and for that reason, the magistrate ruled that later in the week, more DNA comparisons would follow, this time for all families of kidnap victims of the dictatorship in the years 1975 and 1976, and who are searching for babies born in clandestine detention centres in those years. This would be the second step of the procedure of DNA comparison ordered by the magistrate.
[…]
The two adopted children of Ernestina Herrera de Noble, widow of the Clarín media group founder, Roberto Noble, have repeatedly insisted that the DNA testing they were subjected to be compared only to those of the two families who brought suit nine years ago, suspecting that Marcela and Felipe might have been babies stolen from their parents by the military in a clandestine prison.
It was suspected that Herrera de Noble, who supported the military dictatorship, adopted the two possibly-stolen children in 1976, in an irregular manner.
The theft of babies born in prison was a very common practice during the military dictatorship, and is considered a crime against humanity.
Translation mine.
Some might want to let sleeping dogs lie, but that’s been going on far too long in Argentina. The longer the military dictatorship’s crimes against humanity go unaddressed, the longer a deep and corrupting rift within Argentine society will go unhealed. So far, only a fraction of the missing babies have been identified. If these two, whose adoption was indeed suspicious, prove to be among them, it will represent one small step towards the truth in a country where too many have been living a big lie for too long.
Sing the choirs of cacophony:
And like the good band says: La Guillotine will claim her bloody prize…
A new survey from Insite Security and IBOPE Zogby International of those with liquid assets of $1 million or more found that 94% of respondents are concerned about the global unrest around the world today.
Fully 90% of respondents have a negative view of the current global economic climate and 41% say they have little or no faith that the U.S. will be able to right itself in this fiscal climate.
More than a third said security concerns have negatively affected business or investment plans.
“The survey found a seismic shift in the attitudes of the wealthy and how they are living their lives, the way they travel and how they are running their businesses,” said Christopher Falkenberg, President of Insite Security.
Of course, Insite has an interest in getting the paranoid rich to beef up their security. Still, the numbers are backed up by other trends seen throughout the world of wealth today: the rich keeping a lower profile, hiring $230,000 guard dogs, and arming their yachts, planes and cars with military-style security features.
Granted, America isn’t a country conducive to class wars in the streets (even a mention by the President of rolling back the private-jet tax breaks sparked denunciations of class warfare). But at a time when most of the country is mired in unemployment, weak housing prices and a stack of bills from the bailouts, the rich have reason to fear public resentment. And some fear even worse.
Be afraid, ye 1%ers…be VERY afraid. No amount of armaments and overpriced guard dogs can save you from the inevitable. And no amount of “let ’em eat cake” is going to help either when your bad economics come home to roost:
Lessons taught but never learned
All around us anger burns
Guide the future by the past
Long ago the mould was cast
For they marched up to Bastille Day
La guillotine claimed her bloody prize
Hear the echoes of the centuries —
Power isn’t all that money buys.
You may squawk about class warfare now, but guess what? It’s already happening, and every millionaire and billionaire who spends tax moneys on private armies and the like is waging it against the peons. A stupid move, too, because it will cost you much more later if you don’t pay up and shut up. There is no guarantee that your loyal mercenaries won’t turn on you when it comes down to the crunch. And at the rate things are going, that crunch is gonna come…SOON.
And you won’t be welcome in any of your traditional tax-shelter hideaways, either. Even small, traditionally abject countries can only take so much of being pissed on by foreigners who care nothing for their languages and cultures, and who never seem to come out of their oversized compounds. And when nothing trickles down but the sewage, they won’t take it anymore. Guess what happens then?
In the meantime, enjoy all the overspending you’re doing on “security” that won’t secure a thing…SUCKERS.
Oh, and VIVE LA REVOLUTION!
Yes, that IS a colander on his head. And yes, that is a real, official Austrian driver’s licence.
Praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster! For lo, he hath touched a man with his Noodly Appendage…
An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as “religious headgear”.
Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.
Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.
The Austrian authorities required him to obtain a doctor’s certificate that he was “psychologically fit” to drive.
[…]
A self-confessed atheist, Mr Alm says he belongs to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, a light-hearted faith whose members call themselves pastafarians.
The group’s website states that “the only dogma allowed in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is the rejection of dogma”.
In response to pressure for American schools to teach the Christian theory known as intelligent design, as an alternative to natural selection, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster wrote to the Kansas School Board asking for the pastafarian version of intelligent design to be taught to schoolchildren, as an alternative to the Christian theory.
I have seen the spaghetti! And the macaroni! And the lasagna, and the cannelloni! The linguine and the fettuccine, yea, they call unto me. And the vermicelli and the capellini, forever and ever.
Ramen.
The Manx just let out a really plaintive, piercing yowl at me, and I don’t think it’s just because of this god-awful desert-like heat we’ve been having lately, either. I think she wants me to stop sitting on something, and just haul it out into the light of day for you.
And sure enough, there’s plenty…on Rory Carroll’s recent, despicable twisting of the words of Noam Chomsky, who, as we all know, is good friends with the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and heartily approves of the way he runs the country. But, to hear Rory the Roaring Liar tell it, you’d think Chomsky had suddenly turned on his amigo Chavecito, and all over the case of one stinkingly corrupt judge who’s in the jailhouse now (and, says the Manx, quite rightly so.) Of course, the truth is very different, and here’s all the poop you need to know…
Venezuelanalysis, as usual, is terrific. They have both the facts on the Afiuni scandal, and a hilarious piece titled “Rory Rory Jackanory”, an exposé of the ridiculous Mr. Carroll, both of which you’d be a fool to miss. Ms. Manx gives ’em two paws up.
There was so much controversy over Carroll’s bullshit version that the UK Guardian decided to release the transcript of what was actually said. The Stumpie says it could not be more different from the story the lazy dreck-writer went to press with, and wonders why the Guardian still bothers with him at all.
Meanwhile, over at Dissident Voice, the good folks of Media Lens, the UK media watchdog organization, have offered their usual super-close analysis. Two paws up for that one, as well, says the Manx…especially the part where Chomsky hands another dishonest “dissident”, the infamous Alek Boyd, his ass.
Meanwhile, a bit closer to home, a Facebook amigo and fellow Canadian, Rick Kurt Gunderman, has written a terrific analysis of his own. He makes the valid point that even Chomsky, the best and most progressive of US intellectuals, is still a gringo at the end of the day and still bound, to some extent, by bourgeois gringo morality. He also sets out the real facts of the case (including, significantly, the fact that the arrest order for the former judge, Maria Lourdes Afiuni, did NOT come from the president, as we are being misled to believe) and warns that the kinder, gentler but still capitalist values of mainstream liberalism present constant stumbling blocks for the leftists who have given up on capitalism. While Rick is a communist, and the Manx is only a garden-variety socialist kitty herself, she can’t honestly disagree with any of that. Two paws up!
And finally, for those who can read Spanish, here’s a great piece in Patria Grande that should lay all doubts to rest. Its title: “Noam Chomsky ratifies his solidarity with the Bolivarian Revolution and explains that his declarations were twisted.” The Manx is very satisfied with that, and gives it four paws up. She adds that she would now LOVE a tummy rub.
