Search called off for Ryan Jenkins

…onaccounta he’s dead, Jim:

Fugitive Ryan Jenkins, wanted in the murder of his swimsuit model ex-wife, has been found dead in British Columbia, RCMP confirmed Sunday evening at a news conference in Surrey, B.C.

Sgt. Duncan Pound, spokesman for the RCMP’s federal border integrity program said the police force “is able to confirm that a deceased person that was found in a motel in Hope, B.C., is in fact Ryan Jenkins.” He said it appears as if Jenkins took his own life.

Hope is 135 kilometres east of Vancouver.

I could make all kinds of puns about that aptly named town, but I won’t. One dead sleazebag isn’t going to change the culture much.

Still, I’m honestly not sorry to hear about this.

Especially in light of this video I just found, posted by the suicide to his MySpace page on August 9:

Ugh. Yeah, I bet he “loved” both. To death.

The comments on this video are awesome, too–a lot of them are guys blaming HER. See why I say the sexist culture needs to die?

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Posted in Sick Frickin' Bastards | 1 Comment

Quotable: Glenn Greenwald on Lanny Davis and political sleaze

“Lanny Davis is just a face that reflects the grime and sleaze that lies at the core of our political culture. But it’s a rather vivid face for what is typically meant by Centrism (i.e., it’s shrill and irresponsible to suggest there’s anything fundamentally wrong with our political culture); Civility (it’s rude and disrespectful to highlight the oozing conflicts of interests and paid whoredom which animate our leading political luminaries); and Bipartisanship (the same narrow set of corporate forces always prevail no matter which party is in “control” by constantly paying those who control those parties). As unpleasant as it is, that’s why there’s value in casting one’s eyes on how Lanny Davis functions.”

–Glenn Greenwald, at Salon.com

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Foreign Policy finally says something vaguely un-sucky

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Quick, hide all the rapturists! I do believe the world is coming to an end, and I don’t want them to know that Jesus is about to disappoint them. Foreign Policy, Moises Naim’s neoliberal rag-o-shite, has actually blogged something vaguely (a) coherent, (b) sane, and (c) that doesn’t totally suck. Because (d) it actually has something to say in (modest) defence of a country and president it usually only attacks.

As El Duderino has found, the Guardian is moving steadily to the Stoopid, particularly with this throwaway travel piece by a Brit with wayyyyyy too many euros on his sticky little hands. And waaaaayyyyyy too many drugs on his sticky little brain.

Apparently, the Guardian’s correspondent, Jonathan Franklin, doesn’t care for what’s really going on in Bolivia right now, such as the big deal Evo signed with his Brazilian buddy Lula to jointly build a new highway joining the departments of Cochabamba–a deal worth $330 million US. Lula also had some rather nice things to say about Evo and Bolivia–something about people struggling all their lives for the liberation they are realizing now. Something Jonathan Franklin couldn’t be bothered to listen to, probably because it was in Portuguese and that’s for wogs. There was also a lot of talk about regional integration–again, not interesting because it was in Spanish, and that too is for wogs. (And wonks.) And definitely, DEFINITELY to be avoided was all talk of the great success the Bolivian anti-drug police force, the FELCN, have been having against illegal coca growing operations and cocaine production labs (all, apparently, run by either well-known baddies of the Bolivian bourgeoisie, or foreigners–mainly Colombian and Peruvian.) The FELCN’s success has skyrocketed since the DEA was kicked out, something Mr. Franklin couldn’t be bothered even to google. I guess that stuff is just too boring. (Especially when cheap coke is on the menu and the tourists are just snarfing it up, eh?)

And let’s not even get started on that bunch of foreign mercenaries the federal police killed in Santa Cruz before those terrorists got a chance to kill Evo. That’s not boring, but because the “wrong” cops succeeded–and that pesky little coca-chewing Injun is still alive and chewing coca, just like his ancestors all did–this story, too, is off limits.

But hey, it’s not like there’s any shortage of other excitement in the region! He could have picked any number of colorful cultural things going on in Bolivia, like the catfight over the Diablada dance that’s broken out between Bolivia and neighboring Peru, or maybe something quirky which locals and tourists alike are lapping up, like cholita pro wrestling. But noooooo. Jonathan Franklin apparently thought the whole cocaine-bar story was just too sexy to pass up, and who is he to pass up such a line? (Oops, bad pun.) Hey, if it’s told to you in nudges and winks by a red-eyed gringo with powdery nostrils and a hyperactive tongue, it must be good, right? Right? Right???

Um, no.

This is the sort of story anyone staying in a luxury hotel could pick up. Just because a place is clandestine doesn’t mean it’s hard to find. And if it caters specifically to Eurotrash tourists with too much money and too few brain cells, how hard can it possibly be? Sure, it’s word of mouth, but talk is cheaper than coke. It flows faster when someone’s high on coke, too. This is not crack journalism. (Pun again!) This little fluff piece is as disposable as the packets the bar’s “menu” came in.

But what really proved the final straw (bad pun again!) for Foreign Policy’s blogger was the insinuation that Evo’s “coca yes, cocaine no” policy was actually helping, not hurting, the local Colombian marching-powder industry. So he wrote this response which, while not exactly kick-ass, was nonetheless rather decent. It could have gone into more depth, but hey–it’s blogging. And for Foreign Policy, it’s a start. Maybe one day they’ll get off their Kool-Aid trip altogether.

As for Jonathan Franklin, I have but one thing to say to you…

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Pls n thx.

PS: Don’t miss T’anta Wawa’s beeyooteeful takedown of the nonsense of the Guardian piece.

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Posted in All About Evo, Crapagandarati, El NarcoPresidente, Inca Dink-a-Doo, Isn't That Illegal? | Comments Off on Foreign Policy finally says something vaguely un-sucky

Another day, another march in Venezuela

Venezuela’s got a new education law in the works–the Organic Law of Education (“organic”, in this sense, refers to any law with a direct constitutional basis). To hear the screaming lamestream media up here tell it, there is widespread opposition to it. But what they keep neglecting to say is that the support for this new law is at least twice as widespread, as this march in favor (photographed by Arturo Alejandro for Aporrea) demonstrates:

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Just to give you some idea of the size of the crowd.

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Uncle Sam was there!

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So were these Peruvians, carrying their flag.

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This guy told the photographer he used to be an Adeco (supporter of the old Acción Democrática party, which is now but a shadow of its former self, thanks to four decades of corruption, murder, torture and toadying to the bankers.) He has since seen the light, as his appearance demonstrates. He’s even got a pocket-size Chavecito figure!

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“Ask the DEA and you’ll see–Uribe, the empire’s fool, is the US’s Narcotrafficker #82.”

No shit, the lamestream media up here has even reported that.

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Simón Bolívar ¡PRESENTE!

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And of course, no Chavista march would be complete without a larger-than-life cut-out of Chavecito. This one has arms that move, doing his signature palm-punching victory salute.

Finally, here’s some video to show how peaceful this demo was:

So what were the oppos up to, you wonder? Well, they too turned out for their own little march. But they weren’t having nearly as much fun, though apparently not for lack of firecrackers:

They threw rocks and bottles at the police, who were not carrying guns. Funny how those people just can’t ever seem to have a march without violence breaking out. And even funnier how the lamestream media up here can’t seem to report that part for shit.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

–attributed to Mahatma Gandhi

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Posted in Crapagandarati, Huguito Chavecito, Isn't That Illegal?, Law-Law Land | Comments Off on Another day, another march in Venezuela

Music for a Sunday: A little breeze from Cuba

A lively yet understated version of a great classic by Carlos Puebla.

And one sent to me by a friend who, like me, is waiting for another revolution of conscience and justice, this time on mainland North America. Since torture has happened/is happening at Gitmo (though not at Cuban hands!), it still relates to Cuba, too.

May the winds of change get blowing in earnest, now.

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Posted in Angry Pacifist Speaks Her Mind, Cuba, Libre (de los Yanquis), Music for a Sunday | 1 Comment

Wankers of the Week: Fascists and Apologists edition

First, a little keynote address by the Reverend Keith Olbermann:

Big breath. Yes, kiddies, Auntie Bina has a big, bad, UGLY mad…and these people are it this week:

1. and 2. Hal Fucking Turner and his (as yet unnamed) FBI paymaster(s). Why in hell would you pay someone to spout Nazism, racism and hate, hate, hate? In a word, ENTRAPMENT. I would sure love to see how many actual flies their sticky paper has caught. The current round of loonies cropping up at town-hall meetings with guns strapped to their legs tells me one thing for sure: They haven’t caught nearly enough. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve actually created a few fresh ones where none existed before. Good luck catching them, FBI, you’re gonna need it.

3. And while we’re on the subject of hate speech, all those freedom-of-screechers who defend hate speech as “free”, but don’t want to do a thing about it. Or its consequences. Other than defend it, that is. (I’m looking at you, Michael Fucking Orozco. BTW, you’re contradicting yourself when you say it was his job to get others acting out so the FBI could bust ’em, but at the same time, that he wasn’t telling them to take a gun and go shoot. Wha…?)

You people, you free-speech absolutists, absolutely sicken me. When you defend the propagation of hate, you defend murder. How many lynchings do there have to be before you people wake up to the fact that hate speech is oppression, not freedom? Auntie Bina is German, you see, and a bad one, too, so she knows from family experience about these things and what they can lead to.

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Weimar Germany had freedom of speech, too. Wonder what happened to it? One thing’s for sure: they never got it all the way back. Today, human rights trump the individual right to babble like an idiot, and that is as it should be. Now, if the government would only enforce the law properly (and the police would stop protecting the neo-Nazis!), there’d be no need for the anti-fa to do the job for them.

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3 1/2. And yes, the ACLU is absolutely wrong on this issue, too–this week, any week. When will they learn that it’s worse than useless to go to bat for anyone who only ever plays foul? The neo-Nazis are forever biting the ACLU hand that just goes on feeding them. Kindness hasn’t killed that monster yet.

Nice historical revisionism you got going there, too, ACLU. And would you kindly explain this to me? I thought you guys were about freedom. Why is it okay to be a Nazi in the US, but not a commie? Probably for the same reason it’s okay for the ACLU to get Weimar Germany’s well-known history of free-speech absolutism and weak commitment to democracy so terribly wrong. And why it’s also okay for the ACLU to go back on its noble tradition of free-speech-defending when its own members get too critical of, you guessed it, the ACLU.

4. This crazy teabagger bitch right here:

She yelled “Heil Hitler” at an Israeli Jew praising Israel’s national healthcare program. (Which, incidentally, is one of the few things Israel still has to be proud of.) Even more bizarre, she’s wearing an IDF t-shirt! Yes, folks, there’s now really such a thing as Jewish Nazis. And they have no idea how fucking cuckoo they are. (Someone please pass them a copy of Vonnegut’s Mother Night, wouldya? Or better still, remind them that free state healthcare also applies to the mental kind.)

5. And while we’re on the subject of crazy teabagger bitches:

Project much, Little Sister of Wanker #4? Fortunately, we’ve got Barney Frank to put you in your place. Well done, Barney.

6. And speaking of projectors, how about Glenn Fucking Beck? Basically, this is Hal Fucking Turner with a high-visibility job and a slightly more weaselly way with words. He may be losing sponsorships, but that’s nothing; he’s still got his job. He, too, is an inciter, and worse, he’s got a vast national news network behind him. Firing’s too good for him, unless you’re talking about the squad kind.

7. Tom Fucking Ridge. “Just following orders” didn’t work at Nürnberg, either, Rainbow Ridge. You and Dick and Tater all need to take your lumps the way you did everything else: TOGETHER.

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8. This blogging birther handjob right here. Newsflash: The more you love and support Sarah Fucking Palin, the more you’re wasting your fucking time. I don’t know why anyone would be supporting quitters who’ve done nothing but wasted public money, racked up ethics scandals, and spouted reams of fascist stupidity. And the more I see of blogs like yours, the more I’m glad I fired all popes of organized religion two decades ago. As I recall, Hitler and Mussolini were Catholics in a secular world, too…and threatened by it…and never, not even posthumously, excommunicated by the Vatican that still secretly loves them to this day.

And, BTW, Nanook of the Nazis is not Catholic, she’s a fundie who’d burn you guys at the stake because you’re not the “right” kind of Christers, and she’d probably crucify Jesus all over again if he came back because, let’s face it, he’s a socialist. How much support can you waste? Gawd, how sad to be born without two working brain cells to rub together.

9. and 10. The Fucking CIA and Fucking Blackwater. In bed together–what did you expect? The CIA has long been Corporate Amurrica’s enforcement arm in the world, and with the priv
atization of its functions by Blackwater (however inept), the snake has truly bitten its own tail. Most inadvertently revealing quote of the entire piece? Step right up, Jack Fucking Devine:

Jack Devine, a 32-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine operations office, said Thursday that the government should be extremely cautious about outsourcing lethal and sensitive CIA operations–in part because those are important capabilities the spy agency should be developing in-house, but also because it looks bad if the operation becomes public.

“If it won’t pass the giggle test, you don’t want to be involved in it,” Devine said.

Yeah, why let the private sector go around covertly killing people for profit when the CIA can do it just as well for at least an equally big bite out of the public purse? I mean, what have they been doing since their inception, anyway? And they’ve been doing it for the private sector’s benefit, to boot.

Why does the private sector hate Big Fucking Brother? Why does Big Fucking Brother hate himself? Buncha fucking ingrates.

11. The Fucking Dissociated Press, yet again. Christ, five reporters on a story, and none of them managed to get out there and interview some oppressed Hondurans who miss having an elected president and a working democracy? No word on the rising death count from the roving death squads, either. But they DO think it worthwhile to regurgitate fascist drivel from Bolivia’s second-ugliest douchebag, Rubén Costas–to demonstrate that there was a (nonexistent) “legal precedent” for the coup, or perhaps to create one for a bunch of Bolivian putschists who currently have nada? One might start to get the impression that the AP is being an apologist for something

12. Betsy Fucking McCaughey. Who she? Oh, only the bitch who gave Sarah Fucking Palin that “death panel” meme in the first place. Seems she’s had a little conflict of interest between her pose as a neutral policy reseacher and her true nature, as a rabid right-wing shill for a drug company. From the relevant press release:

CANTEL MEDICAL CORP. (NYSE: CMN – News) announced that on August 20, 2009 it received a letter of resignation from Ms. Elizabeth McCaughey as a director of the Company. Ms. McCaughey, who had served as a director since 2005, stated that she was resigning to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest during the national debate over healthcare reform.

Cantel Medical Corp. (NYSE: CMN – News) is a leading provider of infection prevention and control products in the healthcare market. Our products include specialized medical device reprocessing systems for renal dialysis and endoscopy, dialysate concentrates and other dialysis supplies, disposable infection prevention and control products primarily for the dental industry, water purification equipment, sterilants, disinfectants and cleaners, hollow fiber membrane filtration and separation products for medical and non-medical applications, and specialty packaging for infectious and biological specimens. We also provide technical maintenance for our products and offer compliance training services for the transport of infectious and biological specimens. For more information please visit http://www.cantelmedical.com.

Emphasis added.

Yeah, I can kind of see a conflict there. I mean, it’s very easy for one to appear like a right-wing shill for the for-profit health sector when one IS one. She should have been made to resign BOTH positions. Instead, she’s still in the one where she will end up doing the most damage.

And finally, to “Erin”, who expects an apology from me (ain’t gonna happen, because there’s nothing to apologize for): WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM, GIRL? If you don’t understand yet that what happened in Santa Cruz was the unravelling of a murder plot orchestrated by Branko and Co., do yourself a favor: Just shut the fuck up and read this blog first, THEN comment–when you have an INFORMED opinion. Till then, you’re nothing but a fascist apologist. And a damned sorry piece of racist human waste. (Figures your IP shows you’re at Regent University–the worst and most racist unaccredited brainwashing hole in the US of A!)

And that’s it for this week. I’ll let Bart here have the final word, since he knows what freedom of speech really is, and how to use it correctly:

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Posted in Wankers of the Week | 6 Comments

Ugh

Ryan Jenkins is even more grotesque than I had originally thought. Get a load of this:

When Jasmine Fiore’s body was found in a Dumpster in Buena Park, Calif., Aug. 15, her fingers had been cut off at the second knuckle and all of her teeth had been pulled out. But authorities were still able to identify the swimsuit model from the serial numbers on her breast implants.

“We actually have had several cases where we identified the victim or the defendant in that way,” Orange County District Attorney spokeswoman Susan Schroeder tells PEOPLE. She says implants carry serial numbers “because of the potential for recalls.”

Yeah, in Orange County just about every female over 16 has a boob job, so I can see how that would happen.

But–ugh!–the mutliation of the body is something you could only call sadistic–or, if you’re acquainted with criminal minds, you might call it sadistically devious. The killer seems to have taken great pains to make sure his ex-wife couldn’t be identified by the more usual means–fingerprinting and dental charts. Unfortunately, he forgot all about her gazongas. Those are a lot harder to rip out, especially if you’re in a hurry to get across the 49th Parallel.

But still, point taken: Ryan doesn’t like women, no matter how much he likes to schtup them. (He was in treatment for sex addiction, but they somehow missed the misogyny that was fueling the rush.) I’m sure he got a perverse pleasure out of disfiguring a pretty girl who had the audacity to deny him his every want and whim, all the more so since she was safely dead and unable to stop him anymore. Do I need to remind you that with misogynists and thrill killers, it’s the power, not the sex, that is the real addiction? And that rape, killing and dismemberment are the ultimate demonstrations of power and control?

BTW, if this is to be believed, the killer is apparently having a killer time in the clubs somewhere, most likely in Vancouver. Which is just a double ugh. So, ladies, here’s his picture again:

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And here’s another, so you can know just what expression you’re likely to see when you encounter him:

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Would you buy a used car from him? No? How about a new condo? Look into his eyes, and ye shall know all.

And if he approaches you ANYWHERE, politely excuse yourself and CALL. THE. POLICE!!! If it’s him, there could be a nice reward in it for you. (Besides the satisfaction of knowing you’ve helped save other women from a similar fate, of course.)

PS: Big boos to the Dissociated Press for misreporting that Jenkins was chased by the US coast guard. Only halfway down the piece do they finally get to the critical part where coastal authorities on both sides of the border say no, there was NOT a chase. Come on, guys, can’t you get even THIS story right?

PPS: No, he wasn’t arrested in Toronto, either. But word is his dad owns property in Honduras. I wouldn’t trust the putschists currently in charge there to put much effort into extraditing him, though, if he does show up–treaty or no treaty. They’ve kind of got their hands full trying to make out like they, too, are not sadistic killers.

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Posted in Crapagandarati, Isn't That Illegal?, Law-Law Land, Not Hiding in Honduras, Sick Frickin' Bastards, The Nausea | 2 Comments

Michael Moore is at it again!

This one promises to be even more explosive than the last…which was more explosive than the last…which was…

Jeez. Where is there left for this man to go? He’s taken the mick out of the Big Three, out of gun nuts, out of 9-11, out of the insurance industry, and now, capitalism itself.

And have I told you lately how much I love him?

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Posted in Artsy-Fartsy Culture Stuff, Good to Know, If You REALLY Care | 4 Comments

Festive Left Friday Blogging: Sorry, still no word on El Ecuadorable…

…because as far as I know, he’s still under observation after his security chief came down with the flu. (Sorry, Otto, I’m tryin’, but that studly muffin ain’t showin’!)

However, there’s plenty of other adorable out there today. Evo, as always, doesn’t disappoint:

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Who’s cuter, the little girl…or the Little Injun That Could?

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(I know. It’s quite the conundrum, isn’t it?)

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“I am not dumb now!”

A 1930 newsreel of Helen Keller and her teacher-companion, Annie Sullivan, explaining in brief how Helen went from a blind-deaf-mute to a woman with the power of vocal speech, the means of expression–and a remarkable eloquence that turned her into one of the foremost feminists and socialists of the day. The use of the word “dumb”, here, is the old one–meaning speechless, not stupid.

As one can see by her writings and speeches, Helen Keller was formidably intelligent. Many biographers now prefer to focus on the individualistic “miracle” aspect of her learning to communicate without sight or hearing, rather than the logical outcome of it–namely, Helen’s free and progressive mind. Her politics are often bowdlerized or misrepresented, if they are mentioned at all, because they are so unfashionable–and so threatening to corporate interests, now more than ever.

One wonders what she’d have said about the way the ‘wingers are now doing their stupid best to derail all hope of universal, publicly funded healthcare in the states. What would she say to their corporate-backed fascist “tea parties”, which are so contrary to what the REAL Boston Tea Party was about? I suspect she’d have blasted them.

How we need the likes of her today!

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Posted in If You REALLY Care, Socialism is Good for Capitalism!, Uppity Wimmin | 4 Comments