Green is the color of health, and Evo is drinking to yours.
He sure looks groovy in green, does he not?
News of the Restless A door at the end of a dead-end street…
The sad and pathetic condition of a certain opposition
February 27, 2008 — Sabina Becker
Once more, the FARC release some hostages in the Colombian jungle.
And guess who got them sprung? And, evil mean tyrannical bastard that he is, even sent Venezuelan search-and-rescue helicopters to collect them, with the Red Cross logo on board?
You’d think the Venezuelan lamestream media would for once be bursting with pride in the influential skills of their president, who really seems to have a knack for getting the FARC to play nice, but oh noooo. Instead, they’re reporting a completely irrelevant whimper from the Spanish prime minister (not president, Spain is not a republic, it is a monarchy–get a clue, El Luniversal!) saying you have to play nice with the opposition.
What a strange thing to say, considering they are fascists who refuse to play nice themselves. There they are, once again, trying so hard to draw attention to their own nonexistent oppression. What a pity it’s not very convincing. It’s awfully hard for them to argue that they are oppressed when this same president they so love to hate is now working to assure that Venezuelan players in big-league baseball are NOT oppressed, and is even hauling ass to make sure there’s milk in Mercal for the traditionally oppressed (who voted for him repeatedly because he’s the one guy who made good on his promises to un-oppress them).
Of course, the thing setting these fine young fascists apart from their predecessors is that the current crop have no sense of style whatsofuckingever. But hey! You can trust even their “educated experts” to get things oh, so wrong. With such a Simple Simon act to follow, is it any wonder the ol’ goose-step has turned into a bit of a limp?
Are we absolutely sure this is fake?
February 26, 2008 — Sabina BeckerBecause it sure as hell rings true to me…
…all except for the Diebold “apology”, of course.
Oh, and now they deny it.
February 26, 2008 — Sabina BeckerAccording to Aporrea, Fedecamaras is a day late and a bolivar fuerte short in denying they would do what everyone and their cat knows they have already done…
The business sector group Fedecamaras “repudiated” the crime committed against its head office and in a communique read by its president, Jose Manuel Gonzalez, assured they would not “politicize” this occurrence in the midst of their antagonism against the national government.
Translation mine. Video (in Spanish) at the link.
Anyone besides me not believing them?
Pakistan: Bestest Democracy Evah!
February 26, 2008 — Sabina BeckerOkay, you wingnuts–you screamed about Muslims protesting against inflammatory ‘toons in Denmark. Where’s your outrage over this? Last Sunday, the YouTube videos all over the Internets went dark, and nobody said boo…and now we know why:
Pakistan has blocked access to the popular YouTube website because of content deemed offensive to Islam.Its telecommunications authority ordered internet service providers to block the site until further notice.
Reports said the content included Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that have outraged many.
But one report said a trailer for a forthcoming film by Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders, which portrays Islam in a negative light, was behind the ban.
“They asked us to ban it immediately… and the order says the ban will continue until further notice,” said Wahaj-us-Siraj, convener of the Association of Pakistan Internet Service Providers.
Hmmm. I guess the reason for this strangely selective lack of outrage is over the fact that Pervez Musharraf, who is STILL, er, “president” of Pakistan, is the one behind all this. And since he’s Dubya’s good buddy, of course anything he does is all right. After all, Pakistan is Teh Bestest Democracy Evah!
And besides, the Muslims in Denmark only protested. They didn’t actually censor anything. Everybody knows that dissent, not censorship, is the real evil! When in Denmark, your duty is to conform to the American global standard, Citizen!
Now, for another round of “look how brave we are, fighting Islamofascism with IslamoBASHism!” Coming soon to a wingnut site near you…
Fedecamaras: just as classy as ever
February 24, 2008 — Sabina BeckerRemember Fedecamaras? The Venezuelan chamber of commerce that basically made caca all over itself during April 2002, when its then-president illegally declared himself president, not merely of Fedecamaras, but of the entire blessed country? Yeah, that Fedecamaras.
Well, Fedecamaras has changed presidents since then, but it hasn’t really changed its stripes. According to the Canadian Press wires, it’s still as eager as ever to present itself, not as a treasonous aggressor against the legitimate president of Venezuela, but as his hapless victim. And how better to do that than to plant in the media and the minds of the public a strangely pat conclusion about a terrible tragedy that just so happened to take place on Fedecamaras’ own doorstep, so to speak?
A small bomb exploded outside the headquarters of Venezuela’s leading business chamber Sunday, killing one person, police said.
The blast occurred near the entrance of the Fedecamaras business chamber headquarters in Caracas’s middle-class district of La Florida at approximately 1 a.m. local time, killing an unidentified man and shattering windows, federal police Chief Marcos Chavez said.
“There’s a person who was close by, and presumably could have been hit by the shock wave,” Chavez told The Associated Press in a brief telephone interview. “We still have not identified the person.”
The explosion could have been meant to scare business leaders who have been critical of President Hugo Chavez, said Fedecamaras President Jose Manuel Gonzalez.
“These actions do not intimdate us. They commit us to continue fighting for Venezuela,” Gonzalez told Union Radio.
Karl Rove: NOT welcome in Vancouver!
February 24, 2008 — Sabina BeckerIn Venezuela, the neo-con rich bang pots to bring down a popular president, and bring back oppression of the poor. In Canada, the regular folks do it the other way around–to fight the rich neo-cons who are trying to cheat us all out of a good future.
BTW, the Fraser Institute is deeply un-Canadian and downright anti-Canadian. During the ’90s, they faked a big debt crisis (in response to the overlords of international capitalism), falsely claiming that we could no longer afford a public social safety net, and the media bought it. The feds cut some social services and downloaded others onto the provinces; the provinces then turned around and did the same to municipalities. And right now, the municipalities are teetering on a brink, and taxpayers are still paying (through the nose) for all this Fraser treachery. When we’re not having to pay through the nose for less efficient, more expensive private-for-profit DISservices. Meanwhile, poverty is worse–thanks to Fraser’s loud hyping of a crisis-that-never-was. So it’s good to see them get some bad publicity for a change, and on Global at that–the most right-wing of our major TV networks!
(Oh, and they’re still at it, too…as recently as 2006, they were ringing the phony alarm bells about our national debt, AGAIN. Pfeh.)
You know you’ve come a long way when…
February 23, 2008 — Sabina Becker…a gay pastor who broke the same-sex marriage barrier gets positively reported in the redneck-conservative Toronto Sun!
The Order of Canada was awarded for the first time to a gay activist at Rideau Hall yesterday.
Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean presented Torontonian Rev. Dr. Brent Hawkes with the country’s highest civilian honour for his long-standing work as a gay rights champion.
“About 27 years ago, I was fasting to protest the police actions around the bathhouse raids,” Hawkes, 57, said in a phone interview. “And to see how far we’ve come, that Canada is the first country in the world to give its highest award to a gay activist.”
