Peter Thiel. Modern Vampire.

Submitted by pale on

Gawker.com is going out of business this week. They were killed by a Billionaire with a personal grudge. 

Peter Thiel. I can only say that in my opinion- and this part is important- My opinion......Peter Thiel is a krazy fuck with entirely too much money and very little morality. None in fact. :)

This is one of his investments. Perhaps turning the blood of the young into a commodity may in fact be a thing of the future. Nothing can go wrong there, hey? Will 1%ers be ordering Extra virgin-vegan-Episcopalian blood for lunch in the future? It's a FRESH menu item daily! Don't look at what is hanging in the coolers in the back.  Seriously. 

Elizabeth Bathory, one of the world's first known serial killers was a rich woman in a "noble" family. Some legends say she tried to find the fountain of youth by bathing in the blood of young women, Peter Thiel just wants to inject it into his veins.

Creepy shit hey? But there is a lot more stuff about this asshat that is not as speculative.

Peter Thiel is perverting the courts of law in many other ways.

Investing in frivolous lawsuits that jam up the courts is probably one of the worst forms of grifting.   

He is also a Trump supporter. You knew that though, right?

Thiel has also postured as a libertarian, and even as his ideology shifts toward something more nihilistic — The Economist now calls him a “corporate Nietzschean” — he continues to rail against government programs like Medicare and Social Security. Meanwhile, he is chairman and co-founder of Palantir Technologies, a mass-surveillance-software company that makes a good deal of its money selling to the government; Palantir’s clients reportedly include the Department of Defense (including the NSA and various military branches), the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the CIA. Thiel is, inexplicably, pro-monopoly

And of course, Peter Thiel, fake libertarian is anti free speech, anti freedom of the press. Again, my opinion- Supported by the death of Gawker and many other projects this asshat works on. 

He has been purported to be gay, but is against gay rights. Self loathing much? Read the reason that he hates Gawker here. Was it an "outing"? or more of a fact that people didn't find the need to talk about? (Here in Canada there was an MP in the con party that was more of an open secret too)  The last line in that story about Thiel?

That's why I think it's important to say this: Peter Thiel, the smartest VC in the world, is gay. More power to him.

That article is still up yanno? He never went after that one in the courts.  Thiel just decided to be sneaky underhanded and evil instead.  Disclosure: I don't always like what Gawker has posted. I do disagree on occasion. I am however a huge Gizmodo fan. I have a much bigger issue with media that acts like this....The supposed grown ups in the room who have helped facilitate the deaths of so many.......

Somehow, it had become the case that the world was discussing whether a perennially profitable and growing publication could “hope to survive at all.” In one span of a little more than a year, not very long ago, the New York Times mistakenly accepted (and cheered for) a failed Venezuelan coup, printed falsehoods that helped carry the case for invading Iraq, and saw its top editors resign after a humiliating plagiarism scandal. No one suggested the paper had signed its own death warrant.

But it comes down to this: Ruthless, thin skinned people with money running and ruining the world.  

Gawker? They have run some things that I would find distasteful. But if one dumbass fake libertarian can ruin a huge media outlet using the courts and other nefarious ways....Oh. Right. Donald Trump.

Why not a president? 

In November, we may see just how far a thin skinned, tiny shrimp fingered, badly coiffured, reactionary, nationalist pissant- may go. 

Modern Vampires, they can suck the life out of pretty much everything. 

 

 

That game of chicken that selected a Presidential candidate.

Submitted by pale on

 

So as was apparent from a few weeks ago, Clinton is the candidate running under the dem ticket. 

Despite a party dead set on who was going to be the candidate, despite some really hardcore propaganda by the corporate media, Bernie got about 43% of the total support. 

Not bad for a man with far less name recognition, and all those powerful forces against him.  Imagine if this had been fair and impartial? 

So now Clinton, who is a war-hawk and also supports the banks and corporate interests is going to bring the US back from the abyss. Hallelujah! Everyone is now supposed to veer out of the way and forget how shitty this all went down.  The Democrat bigwigs are just going to keep down the road they are on, unblinking and unthinking. You know what to do? Right?

In the meanwhile the Bernie or Busters are all over the map. They recognise that if Trump wins, it's a bad deal. 

Many Bernie people who only came out because it was Bernie and his message, are saying Fuck you. Can't blame them. They were not Obama Democrats, or Clintonistas. They were independents or just plain not registered anywhere. 

Some Bernie people were brand new voters, drawn to an actual campaign that spoke to them, and their issues. They have no interest in supporting the status quo. They may disappear, and it will be up to the next generation then. 

Long term Republicans are hating both candidates, they will not be voting for either of them. Jill Stein is gaining interest, it will be kinda like the legend of Nader. A third party that will give it to Trump. 

I am a believer in voting, strongly.  This is making me be a lot more nuanced in my thinking, I feel their pain. I also know the stakes if Trump gets his new reality show off the ground.

The Dems are playing chicken with this, and since they have been doing it for so long....I think no one is going to blink however, and there will be a cataclysmic crash come November 2016. Oh yes. We will hear that grinding of metal all over the world.

We will feel it. 

 

When everybody is acting like an asshole. Canadian Parliament daycare.

Submitted by pale on

This weeks hijinx in the House of commons just shows why it is hard to get anyone to take our political process seriously. 

Here is what I think....I may swear. I know this offends some more than the real stuff I will say.

First off. The ruling Liberals are attempting to fast track, ram, force and limit debate on important legislation. I am not saying that the end of life legislation is bad either. Its the best we have seen, especially compared to the Harpercon ideology. But yanno.....These are Harpercon tactics.  You can always be better than the Harpercons. Its not difficult, they set a pretty low bar.

We all need to be better than the Conservatives. 

The NDP. FUCK OFF with the kiddie games. Blocking an Mp and having a giggle fit? OMG. Grow the fuck up. This included you Mulcair and Ms Brosseau. 

Trudeau. He MARCHED down there in his too small suit,  (I know its the style, but it looks like his clothes were shrunk in a random drive by laundry accident)  and was a gonna fix it. Grow up already. *stop *Any * full stop physical contact is inappropriate, and you are not a bouncer in a bar. 

The elbow. Nikki Ashton....I'm so sorry. (not really) I do not see this as aimed at Ms Brosseau because she is a woman.

"I want to say that for all of us who witnessed this, this was deeply traumatic," she said to her House of Commons colleagues. "What I will say, if we apply a gendered lens, it is very important that young women in this space feel safe to come here and work here."

"He made us feel unsafe and we're deeply troubled by the conduct of the prime minister of this country."

I see the elbow connecting with her because Trudeau was careless and rude and wrong... and she happened to be standing in that spot. While playing the blocking game which was predicated by the Liberals trying to make a massive power grab. :) Turning it into more than it was simply makes it harder for the rest of the worlds' working women to be taken fucking seriously when it does happen for reals thousands of times a day. 

We do actually have a National Daycare program. Its called the Fucking Canadian House of commons daycare. We pay a lot of money to send these fucking children to play together and learn. Perhaps we need to call in some child experts on sportsmanship and just being nice. 

I am not surprised on the reaction of the Harpertwits. They really need to sit down and STFU because they totally embraced, and instigated this kind of crap for 10 long years. They had playbooks that look like the GOP manuscripts on how to cause gridlock. 

Twitter (and other social media) asswipes attacking Ms Brosseau? OH do go straight to hell. Yours, is an attack on a woman, just because she is a woman. And yanno what? You should all have your internet privileges removed. 

The partisan peanut gallery: Fuck off. Your party is just as wrong as the other one.  Look beyond your own chosen affiliations.  

I can send my kids to their rooms when they act like this, and they would actually learn something. With the bunch in this mess? I doubt they even know right from wrong anymore.  And they are in charge of making the laws and keeping our country safe. 

 

Really inspires confidence, now don't it?

Edit: Elizabeth May sounded sane and grown up in all of this. Let's put her in charge of the kiddie tables. 

UC Davis, Pepper spray and Linda Katehi.

Submitted by pale on

So. The story is that UC Davis has spent $175,000 buckaroos on attempting to scrub the internet of bad press.

UC Davis contracted with consultants for at least $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative online postings following the November 2011 pepper-spraying of students and to improve the reputations of both the university and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, newly released documents show.

I think they should have spoken to Ms Streisand. Cause sure as hell, this kinda just makes the internet go boom. Now we also know how wasteful they can be on a pretty worthless attempt at revisionist history. :)

This is just going to be another hit on the google for 'em. Always so happy to do my part. 

Rachel Notley is just another selfish Albertan Premier.

Submitted by pale on

"To be clear, this document has not been adopted. It's simply going to be discussed," Notley said. "And we will engage in that discussion and we will make darn sure that the points I made at convention are heard from Nanaimo to Cape Breton and everywhere in between."

I think that Notley is under some sort of delusion that we have not heard the side of Alberta, and the Oil industry. Of course we have. For many years now the country has been living under the rules set out by big oil and asshats elected from Alberta.

We have to leave much of the tar sands exactly where they are if we are to survive as a species. By building more pipelines, we are not really working on any realistic goal. Just taking more risks instead of being more intelligent and moving along to something more sustainable that also creates jobs all over the country. 

But yanno......Alberta. Its the center of the fucking universe and all that. 

The Leap Manifesto is simply a working document that lays out what we actually need to do to survive. 

Alberta's short term oil sales over the survival of Humanity. Geeze. I know what side I am on. 

"They are naive, they are ill-informed, and they are tone-deaf."

Holy shit what condescending projectionist bullshit. 

 

 

Did anyone think the cable companies were gonna play fair?

Submitted by pale on

Last year, there was an announcement to great hoopla from the CRTC that they had mandated "skinny" cable packages for Canadian consumers.

photo no fucks_zpsswyv6slu.jpg
A cable company employee explaining their new packages......

Here in Canada we pay a lot of money every month for things like Cell phones, Internet and cable tee vee, more than many other countries as a matter of fact.

Could be the fact that everything is controlled by VERY few companies, and competition is highly discouraged. If by saying discouraged, you mean squashed like a bug.

Anyway, as many of us predicted, the skinny basic packages look rather amusing? I looked this morning simply because the article on CBC gave me such a great chuckle? And a groan.

Eastlink, the company I pay my pound of flesh to every month has a new "entry level" package, it includes three pay per view channels, (um. ya. I know!, you pay, and then pay AGAIN to watch em) Their own channel where they sell ads usually along with the channel guides, and a lot of french only channels. SEVEN!
In BC. Oh hell ya. You have to know that is a massive smack upside the head from the Cable companies.
In all there are only about 5 channels, that have actual content that we can understand.

The BC legislature channel is part of this package, the BC Legislature channel used to be on the air for about an hour a month it seems, since the BC legislature doesn't actually meet too often between golf games and dinners with companies that want to do biz with Christie Clark and her merry band 'o' corporate lackeys.

Yes, the cable companies are not going to play fair or nice. They give no fucks really.

The CRTC has received 600 complaints since March first with the new mandate. Now, what is their response?
Wait for it........

Despite receiving hundreds of complaints , spokeswoman Valladao says the CRTC is taking a wait-and-see approach while it monitors the situation.

And for those cable customers not happy with the new packages? Valladao advises them to seek out something better.

"We encourage Canadians if they're not satisfied to shop around, to try to negotiate a deal," she said.

That is in itself an amazingly dense and horrifically uninformed comment....NEGOTIATE with the cable companies. The same ones that crush small start ups, and consolidate on a regular basis so there are like 4 in the whole country now? In the boonies, we have two companies that provide tee vee/internet/phone services, and they are two of the behemoths. Do you really think they will negotiate anything?

Here in the batcave, we had the tee vee cut off three years back and went to a package deal a year or so back on the internet and phone. Yup, there are still a hell of a lot of adding ons and we somehow lost a lot before the data cap kicks in.

The only way for the companies to listen, will be to totally cut off the cable tee vee, if enough of us did that, it may persuade. Or, it may just allow them to jack up the fees on the other items so they can recoup their "losses".
Since no one is actually in charge of this stuff, as the CRTC is asleep in time in 1990, this will only get more expensive.

"We encourage Canadians if they're not satisfied to shop around, to try to negotiate a deal,"

Um. Ya. I have a set of rabbit ears. It gives me three channels I can actually watch for free, which is way better than the 25 dollar pack offered by Eastlink.
The cable companies are having a good giggle about this.
Consumers will simply have to keep bending over, or go without.

Thanks CRTC! Go back to your Parker Lewis Can't Lose episodes. Parker also thought nothing was impossible! He wasn't dealing with Canadian cable companies.

Pages

Subscribe to A Creative Revolution RSS