Mexican cooking just got a whole lot spicier, thanks to someone who is VERY hearing-impaired:
Don’t you just love closed captioning sometimes?
News of the Restless A door at the end of a dead-end street…
Stupid Sex Tricks: Anybody for a little refried sausage?
November 30, 2009 — Sabina BeckerDon’t you just love closed captioning sometimes?
Exclusive! New drug developed in Gringolandia!
November 30, 2009 — Sabina Becker
It is made from the extract of a plant grown on the island of Borneo, and mixed with opium from liberated Afghanistan and a tiny dose of supermarijuana from various domestic plantations in the states of Ohio and Arkansas.Side effects include slight dizziness, pains in the neck, excessive intestinal gas, post-coital hallucinations, talkativeness, uncontrolled laughter, nightmares, urinary inhibition, heart palpitations, pain in the left arm, oppression of the chest, pre-infarct, post-infarct and rigor mortis.Just the thing for the oppos in Venezuela and Bolivia who have trouble accepting the will of the uppity peasants. Hooray!
Short ‘n’ Stubby: All Honduras, all day long…
November 29, 2009 — Sabina Becker
Economics for Dummies: Why Bank of America fired a good employee
November 29, 2009 — Sabina Becker
Listen to this young woman, and you will learn a lot. First off, you will learn what integrity really is; secondly, you will learn just why there is a credit crisis. (Yes, IS. Not WAS–IS. It’s still there, and we may not have seen the worst of it yet.) You will also learn a lot about human suffering and how money ties into it.Finally, you will learn what integrity is NOT, and why Bank of America doesn’t have it. When you praise somebody to high heaven even as you’re firing her, you’ve got major cognitive dissonance going on. And you’ve lost a big chunk of your soul. Good luck getting it back, BoA people, you’re gonna need it.Fortunately, this lady has hers intact.
More Music for a Sunday: Buffy Sainte-Marie takes on greed and wins
November 29, 2009 — Sabina Becker
“No No Keshagesh”, from her latest record, Running for the Drum. You can hear Buffy talk about this song and so much more with Amy Goodman here. This Buffy really IS a vampire slayer!
Music for a Sunday: Calle 13 no se calla
November 29, 2009 — Sabina Becker
Ever hear a rap song quite like this? No? Well, now you have!
Quotable: Montana Wildhack on “good” and “bad” US-Americans
November 28, 2009 — Sabina Becker“Good Americans don’t question the essential superiority of America. Many Americans boast that they have no desire to even travel to another country. They believe that it is a sign of patriotism to wallow in ignorance of the rest of the world. Not all Good Americans are quite that patriotic. Some are open to the possibility that there might be other places in the world that are nice to visit. Really open-minded Good Americans think that, if one is quite adventurous, one might even live in another country for a year or two.“Bad Americans not only think that it is possible to be happy in another country, they’re open to the possibility that there might be things about other countries that are actually nicer than America. Bad Americans would give up their right to own an assault rifle for the right to see a doctor without taking out a loan. They think that public transport shouldn’t just be for people who are too poor to own a car.”–Montana Wildhack, at the UK Guardian
Wanker of the Week: Singularly stupid edition
November 28, 2009 — Sabina BeckerA little mood music, maestro…
Yes, kiddies, this week’s post is gonna be a little different. This one will consist of only one wanker, but I’m sure you’ll agree with me that this wanker has it coming.Bright and early on Monday morning, when I usually start gathering links for this list, I opened my e-mail box and found six messages from the same address. They were all helpfully labelled spam by my mailbox, but they hadn’t been plonked by my blogware. (This is a problem I’ve had quite a bit with the latest edition of Movable Type; I’ve since managed to figure out what was the matter with the anti-spam function, and to set the filter for more aggressive action. Some still gets through, but I’m seeing fewer repeat offenders. That’s progress, I guess.) Now, this didn’t upset me much–at first. I was only mildly annoyed, because I figured that they would be the usual spammy pseudo-comments, the kind that peddle Viagra or its clones. There was, by coincidence, another spam from an entirely different spammer also waiting to be marked as such. So I prepared to flush them all en masse from my comment-management page. But then I took a closer look and realized that I wasn’t dealing with the usual crap merchants. Whoever had sent these messages, they had targeted not just any random viewer, but me and whoever reads my blog. They had all landed on this entry–fittingly titled Vampire Bat Report. The entry–which briefly mentions the murder, by terrorists, of Evo Morales’s elderly, defenceless aunt–had attracted a bat from no less vampiric a place than good ol’ Transylvania. The IP number from which the troll wrote is 89.133.131.83, which I traced to Budapest, Hungary. Those who’ve been reading me regularly will recall that since April, I’ve been tracking and translating news items (starting with this one) about the Bolivian federal police’s excellent work in busting a terror cell composed of foreign mercenaries. That’s where the Hungarian connection ties in. The mercenaries happened to be led by a Bolivia-born Hungarian national who had also been given Croatian citizenship after participating in the Balkan conflicts of the early 1990s–a conflict in which Croatia split off from what was then still Yugoslavia. (He was working as a mercenary then, too.) The cell’s objective was to spark a civil war, which their wealthy fascist financiers had hoped would enable the wealthy eastern part of Bolivia, known as the Media Luna (“Half Moon”) to separate from the rest of the country–much like Croatia from Yugoslavia, in other words. Unfortunately for them, but very fortunately for Bolivia as a whole, it was an epic fail–the federales surprised the heavily-armed mercenaries (who had the charmingly paranoid habit of sleeping with their guns) in a hotel in lovely downtown Santa Cruz in the middle of the night. A shoot-out ensued, and three of the mercenaries were killed, including their Bolivian-Hungarian-Croatian leader; two more were arrested and are currently awaiting trial. The arrested men have named several accomplices, who in turn have fingered the cell’s financiers. (You can read more about one of them, and their prominent spook pal–a former US ambassador to Croatia, as it happens–here.) The separatists’ hopes have been further crushed by the refusal of any legitimate international organization to recognize the Media Luna as a nation. And worst of all for anyone who still thinks balkanization can happen, there is the salient fact that Evo Morales–the most popular elected leader in all of Bolivian history–is popular throughout the country. Even in the Media Luna, he is extremely well liked by indigenous and white people alike. He is on his way to an easy re-election, which he will probably win by an even wider margin than his original election in 2005.Now, given that backgrounder, you can pretty well guess that the opposition are getting desperate. El Duderino has already noted that they have resorted to violence, knowing that none of their candidates are popular enough to make inroads against Evo. In Bolivia, that means beating up on anyone they can find who has a brown face and is dressed in some traditional indigenous fashion. It also means anonymous death threats, and other assorted forms of intimidation…
Which leads me rather nicely to this troll and what it’s been trying to do around here since early Monday morning. In case you can’t read Spanish, and you’re wondering just what the troll had to say, it’s all bullshit. I won’t bother to translate or rebut it; it’s not worth the trouble. I left the guano up just so people can see it (if they can read Spanish, and they’re of a mind to witness someone else’s mental breakdown), but closed the entry to prevent more of the same. Well, it didn’t.The troll, being the persistent little shit-stain it is, found other entries to leave its crap on. All of them had to do with Evo or the terror cell in one way or another. It pasted in what appears to be an English translation of the same shit that appeared in the six original spam posts. When I made it plain that I had seen and removed it, and saved the notification e-mails for evidence purposes, that’s when things got truly nasty–and personal. The troll went berserk, posting all kinds of vile abusive drivel, and claiming, even more vilely, to be the mother of one of the dead would-be assassins. A sampling of its hysteria follows:Bolivia and the shameful “president” Morales, a homicidal killerassasin feel soon a “hands of justice”!Muerte a asesinos!JUSTICIA!* * *Sabina C. Becker!You uneducated biach!I wish for you: the cruel, brutal death of your child!Soon!I wish for you: the cruel, brutal death of your child!Soon!I wish for you: the cruel, brutal death of your child!Soon!God help me!Mother of Árpád assassinated!Now, that just stinks to high heaven–a real grieving mother, one would think, would withdraw to heal, not cyber-stalk complete strangers and the president of Bolivia with death threats and intimidation and ineffectual curses. (I can just picture some old, wrinkled woman in a babushka saying that, in the same tone as she might say “Gypsy, ptuh!”)I removed all of these troll-posts except that one, which you can see here. That one was left, I later found out, using a forged Hotmail address; I had contacted Hotmail to let them know of the abuse, and they notified me that the address didn’t
exist. Sort of tells you something about the character of Internet trolls, doesn’t it?The troll also repeated the invective on Powers & Morrison, a progressive news site that syndicates me. I received the following notification, one of two, again, by e-mail:
You immoral, uneducated biatch!I whish you a death of your child very soon!I whish you a death of your child very soon!I whish you a death of your child very soon!Megátkozlak, dögölj meg, Isten engem úgy segéljen!Dögölj meg, és a gyermeked is!Classy, no? This is who Branko and Rubén hire to do their dirty work, intimidating complete strangers. Gotta love ‘em.And don’t you love how this “moral, educated” person can’t even spell what it so courteously calls me? (It’s B-I-T-C-H, and it stands for Bina In Total Control Here–bitch!) Yeah, God’s really gonna reward them for that. That was one; the other was a bunch of links to putrid oppo sites from Bolivia not worth reproducing here, full of false charges and dirty disinformation. I’m not going to bother disseminating any of that dreck. Oh yeah, and more charming Hungarian invective, which rolls off me like water off a duck, seeing as I don’t speak a word of the language and couldn’t care less what this classless cretin chooses to call me. (If this person were truly educated, s/he might recall that Hungary wouldn’t ever have gotten paprika if not for the indigenous people of the Andes–particularly Bolivia. They were the first ones to cultivate the stuff, which is certainly not native to Hungary. And s/he wouldn’t be such a fucking racist, either.)The final message from The Mother of Arpad the Assassin was this one:
Sabina, you disgusting whore, be a damned!I coming! You come with me into the cemetary!Be a damned you and your child, your family!All your base are belong to us! Booogaboogabooga!!!Yeah, whatever. You can go to the cemetery if you want; I’m staying right where I am. Your silly threats don’t scare me any more than your shrieks for “justice” (that is, MURDER) move me. The Europarliament isn’t listening to you, either. They are in Bolivia right now, observing the elections, which I can tell you will show no irregularities, just a decisive win for the man you futilely execrate here. The yelling of a lunatic is just a lunatic’s yelling, at the end of the day.Except for the one from the forged Hotmail addy, the droppings were all left by someone writing from this address: fiuka1@yahoo.com. So far, Yahoo has not been able to confirm or deny the existence of this account; they tell me there’s a problem with the headers (surprise, surprise). I do not believe that this person is who they claim to be, but on the slim chance that they are, they should be thoroughly ashamed. This is conduct entirely unbecoming. And yes, I dug out that vile crap explicitly to shame them. I do not believe in letting people get away with anonymous intimidation on the Internet no matter who they are. (Plus, I’m hoping that some English-speaking Hungarian cop sees this and acts accordingly. I’m going waaaayyyyy out on a limb and guessing that harassment and death threats are against the law over there, too.)Finally, another little musical dedication. If this person is really Hungarian, there’s a better than average chance that they understand German…Good night, and may you get arrested, whoever you are. Maybe then you’ll finally get the psychiatric help you so obviously need.
Short ‘n’ Stubby: A little bit of this, a little bit of that…
November 28, 2009 — Sabina Becker
Faceless Facebooker singles me out for “honors” re: Honduras
November 28, 2009 — Sabina Becker
Liberty Heights November 28 at 12:07amSubject: Honduras is happy with Mel out of power.I’m sorry that you have taken it upon yourself to criticize the situation and people of Honduras, i guess you do no believe in freedom against political bullying. Even in the United States there is a process to remove unqualified people who are breaking the law from office, its called impeachment. Manuel Zelaya was trying to annul our constitution. Are you familiar with Mel Zelaya’s corruption? I have read your blog, and it seems that you have a personal interest in helping Zelaya. Did you know about the massacre on his property where a Colombian priest, and American priest, and several nuns were murdered at Zelaya senior’s order? Los horcones. We are having elections, they have been planned for over 4 years, with the same candidates that we chose Democratically, to incite violence against people wanting to express their right to vote is unlawful, aswell as morally and ethically wrong. Even President Obama, has said he will recognize the elections, aswell as Peru, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Japan, and other Democratic nations. I guess you have never lived in a violent country that seeks peace, Blessed be the peacemakers. I support President MIcheletti, because he stood firm, our Democracy was strengthened, only 33% of the population voted for Mel, that in no way is the majority. Best wishes, please understand that we are all entitled to our opinions, but false accusations will not bring peace to our situation, it seems that you are deliberately misleading your readers bias media links and false information.My response to the troll, whose profile I could not access (hmm, funny dat):
Excuse me, but who the hell are you, and how do you “know” all this? I want names and dates, REAL ones, not just random nutjob accusations. Put up, or STFU, you anonymous coward.I’m not exactly waiting with bated breath for a response. I don’t know this person from a hole in the ground, but I know the general pattern of trolls like him all too well. They shoot a lot of highly questionable shit, but they don’t come out with real hard facts–and when challenged, they flee–or level ridiculous accusations and insults. They hide behind easily discarded fake identities, too. Which, as you can see from above, this one has already done…Since the troll has chosen to go long on lies and short on facts, I figured I might as well give you all a few real ones to chew on:Zelaya was elected with a little over 50% of the vote, not 33% as this troll asserts. He was in the last few months of his term when the coup occurred, and he was not looking for re-election, much less to amend the constitution in favor of it; in any case, he would not have been in power when the constituent assembly would have been convened. What he WAS doing, was seeking a referendum to see if the constitution should be amended. (The vote would likely have gone for the “ayes”, as this constitution was written in the not-so-democratic 1980s by the same bunch of thugs currently usurping Zelaya’s office–some wanting to abolish term limits for themselves and their chosen guy, some dude named Suazo. And the day Mel was spirited out of the country was the day the plebiscite should have gone down. Funny dat!)The “constitutionalist” excuse for Gorilletti’s putsch has been debunked ad nauseam here, so don’t anyone try to toss it up on this blog OR in my Facebook inbox. I’m not buying. The whole world is condemning this coup, not just little old me. Some of the most vocal condemners are Latin American experts who know of what they speak.The massacre in question was blamed on his father, who was later pardoned and who himself pointed the finger at the military. Given that the Honduran military of the 1970s was extremely fascist and had a nasty habit of just such killings, it lends credence to his assertions and makes his pardon plausible. Those generals were not in favor of liberation theology. They were, however, entirely in favor of killing peasants and throwing them down some landowner’s well, and then blaming him. (Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of killers deflecting blame before.)The same military, incidentally, is responsible for having dragged this legitimately elected leader–son of their scapegoat–out of bed and shipped him off to Costa Rica in his pajamas. Funny, no?And yet we are supposed to believe that this same military, acting on the command of putschist dictator Gorilletti (NOT “President Micheletti”, as he is not anybody’s president), did the “democratic” thing. Oh yeah, and Honduras is NOT “happy with Mel out of power”. A substantial majority want him back. How ’bout them apples?And now I’m supposedly the one who’s against freedom and democracy for declaring myself in favor of the restoration of elected leaders, and for being against military coups and unelected power-grabbing by law-breaking thugs like Gorilletti. That’s fucking rich.Someone has clearly been taken in by a carefully orchestrated media campaign (very ably dissected here.) Your humble scribe, however, is not so gullible. She is waiting for this troll, who ought better to be known as Depravity Depths, to explain himself HERE, and not try for ham-handed intimidation and high-flown bullshitting in the late-night “privacy” of my Facebook mailbox…if he can. And in the meantime, she’s off to bed. UPDATE, 9:04 am: The troll responds with boring predictability:
Debate with Real Hondurans, you are the only one insulting people.http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=37294115190Just as I thought. It’s not interested in debate. It only wanted to lecture me and throw up an oligarchic “peace” group in my face. My response:
Not interested in your astroturf. If you can’t refute me with real facts, you have no business claiming to represent anyone. And your hiding behind a fake identity and using this bogus group to lecture me (as if only oligarchs in favor of a fascist were “real” Hondurans!) is only a further sign of your weakness and lack of facts.Don’t bother replying, I’m blocking you from now on. Hasta la vista, bozo.Most. Boring. Troll. EVER.
