Showing posts with label Rupert Murdoch. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rupert Murdoch. Show all posts

20120202

Facebook's Initial Private Offering

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

My Wall and Wall Street are about to become an item: we're all going public, and you'll have to issue a profit warning each time I unlike you nth kitten picture.

Yet Facebook Initial Public Offering remains a non-event: Facebook has been milking our relationship from the beginning, and even with his 11M+ friends, Mark Zuckerberg has never been much of a philanthropist. The question was "when", and the answer is "now".

Now the other question remains: until when?

It doesn't have to come from the next big thing (a 4D, 5G meshroom cloud? the SOPAtriot Act?): remaining at the top happens to be difficult, even for a free, pervasive platform. And even a 800 pound gorilla can get off your back (I recently mentioned the potential Tripodization of Facebook: "Cloud Portability"). Furthermore, money won't do you much good without a vision. Look at Rupert Murdoch, who after losing over half a billion bucks on MySpace, delivers his pearls of conservative wisdom* for free over Twitter. And speaking of doing good: Google started being evil after its IPO...

... Come to think of it: Zuck started as a bad guy.

blogules 2012
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
NEW: join blogules on Facebook!!!

*if such a thing exists.

20120118

Six Buffoons in Search of a Kingmaker

It takes a looney to know one: Palin just endorsed Gingrich.

And the only sane person in this nuthouse dropped out of the GOP race (not Stephen Colbert, the other one: Jon Huntsman*).

Which leaves us with 6 people: Romney, Gingrich, Paul, Santorum, Perry, and the future Guest Star.

Who knows from which asylum the nominee shall vet his Veep? And how about a third candidate? Say, from the INETP (INdependent Evangelical Tea Partisans), or from Sarah Palin's LGBT party**?

You know what's missing for GOP candidates this year?

Let me rephrase it: you know who's missing for GOP candidates this year?

Rupert Murdoch.

The Great Kingmaker is out of the race. Posing as a bald monk meditating on some distant hill, chain-twitting pearls of wisdom, but cut off from all wordly matters. Maybe a few eavesdroppings now and then - you can't kick the habit that easily.

Anyway, at Fox News, the whole crew seems to be running headless. Even Theocons need a Qibla.

Ideology-wise, surviving members of the nuthouse can only agree on their greatest common divisors:

1) They want to kick Obama out. On the grounds that...
... the guy's a sissy (he won a Nobel Peace Prize, only used two choppers to kill Osama, and didn't even invade Libya to get Qaddafi)
... he's screaming at oil diggers as soon as they spill a bucket or two in the Gulf
... he's a divisive figure: our dear GOP has never been so divided
... he was not even born in the United States of Amerika, and, for the Grand Wizard's sake, the place is called The WHITE House for a reason, duntcha think?

2) They want to Restore Amerikan Honor. In other words...
... restore the great Amerikan values (teaching creationism at school, and waterboarding at West Point),
... restore the sound economy of 2008
... restore budget orthodoxy by removing all taxes and launching an illegal war
... invest less on schools (to prevent the Steve Jobs of tomorrow from happening), and remove all regulations (to create a land of opportunities for the Kenneth Lays, Bernie Ebberses, and Bernie Maddoffs of tomorrow)

Six buffoons in search of a Kingmaker...

blogules 2012
Since 2003, nonsensical posts about noncritical issues in nonenglish (get your blogules transfusion in French)
NEW: join blogules on Facebook!!!

* who, eventually, didn't get a ticket to ride all the way to Florida (see "Grand Old Parting: fix your party before causing more damage to your country")
** see "Mid-Term Elections : Sarah Palin to run in West Dakota"

20110713

2004 inverted

Justice !!! Rupert Murdoch the amoral Kingmaker drowning in his own slime, George W. Bush the amoral Chief Torture Officer about to be indicted by Human Rights Watch...

Of course, neither Murdoch nor Dubya are in jail yet (heck, even Alberto Gonzales is walking free !), but the 'winners' of the 2004 elections have definitely moved closer to the 'losers' category. Note that the GOP joined the said category even before those doomed elections*, torn between classic conservatism and a cocktail of theocons + free market ayatollahs willing to destroy the Republic itself...

Of course, the US of A remain in danger of bankrupcy or worse, of a relapse into moral bankrupcy. Of course, UK politics remain under "Dirty Digger"'s spell, David Cameron prolonging Tony Blair as Murdoch's Prime Puppet.

But at long last, some fingers are being pointed to the right direction (and when I write 'right' I don't necessarily mean it literally).

Now France too has significantly evolved since 2004. But certainly not in the right direction (except maybe literally).

Remember France, that longtime US ally crucified for mentioning the risks that Bush's crusade in Iraq might fuel worldwide terror instead of taming it (yeah, France, that good friend of African and Middle Eastern dictators) ? Remember France, that herald of mutual respect denouncing the clash of civilizations imposture (yeah, France, that place where only sportsmen and sportswomen can succeed if their skin is too dark) ? Remember France, that country where Murdoch's Weapons of Mass Disinformation couldn't strike except for a one shot French edition of the Sun making fun of Chirac, or the infamous 'cheese eating surrender monkey' uttered in an episode of the Simpsons (yeah, the less unsung France, that country where medias consider off limits the dirty secrets of their most respected politicians) ?

Well that France is passed on ! This France is no more ! It has ceased to be ! It's expired and gone to meet its maker ! This is a late France ! It's a stiff ! Bereft of life, it rests in peace ! If you hadn't nailed it to the UN Security Council it would be pushing up the daisies ! Its metabolical processes are of interest only to historians ! It's hopped the twig ! It's shuffled off this mortal coil ! It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible ! This is an ex-France !

Over the past few years, Nicolas Sarkozy has been dutifully** following Dubya The Perfect Fundamentalist's to do list :
- undermining the republic's safeguards ? check.
- extending the executive power's sphere against all other powers (legislative, media, justice...) ? check.
- pushing for an end to the separation between the state and religion and palling around with Ratzinger ? check.
- widening all national divides, starting with his own party ? check...

And now, Presidential Elections that have Karl Rove's fingerprints all over them.

Well. As far as Dominique Strauss-Kahn is concerned, Sarko's diggers didn't have to venture too deep into the pigsty : DSK knew perfectly that they were coming at him, but apparently the guy is too sick to control his own behavior...

But for Martine Aubry, an Angela Merkel wannabe and now their main target, here's their story : the socialist mayor of Lille would be a lesbian and an alcoholic (I thought they would save that last one for Jean-Louis Borloo, a center-right contender with a solid reputation in that field), and her husband would be a dangerous radical Islamist.

Of course, just like Bush in 2004, Sarkozy decently cannot win the elections in 2012 : that would be an insult to the Republic and a tragedy for the country, and bring absolute shame on French voters.

Well fool me once...

blogules 2011 (see also in French blogules : "Un Novembre 2004 a l'envers")

* see "
GOP - Time to split"
** see "Traître à la nation"

20090716

Tony Blair : a newborn fundamentalist President of Europe ?

Unsurprisingly, Tony Blair came out in the open as a candidate for the Presidency of Europe.

The problem is that previously, he also came out in the open as a newly converted Catholic. Some - including yours truly - would rather say "born again fundamentalist".

After palling and praying around with a fundamentalist imposteur (George W. Bush), after courting a fundamentalist pope (Benedict XVI), The Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair will be welcomed by people like fundamentalist Luc van den Brande, the man who a couple of years ago censored a report denouncing creationist / Intelligent Design lobbies at governmental levels across western Europe.

So this man can campaign on consensual and noble causes as much as he wants on his website (he just published "Technology for a Low Carbon Future" -
tonyblairoffice.org), make no mistake : his job is to boost fundamentalism and to turn Europe into a safe haven for US style cults and megachurches.

Europe simply must not be represented by a Tony Blair - Jose Manuel Barroso ticket.

Other "political" news ? Former Solidarnosc Jerzy Buzek, the European Parliament's new President, is following the Lutherian Evangelical Church of Augsburg.

Amen.

20071117

Between reforms and indulgences - Blair and Sarkozy

I'd like to point out two key moves made by Tony Blair during his life. Two decisive acts of allegiance that may well explain a third one ; the most famous - allegiance to Bush and his suicidal crusade in Iraq. These two events didn't happen during his PM mandates but set a perfect frame around them :

- the first act of allegiance ? before taking power, and actually in order to take it : Blair made a pact with a curious devil named Ruppert Murdoch

- the second act of allegiance ? not long after leaving power : Blair clinched a deal with the most controversial Pope since WWII, to embrace the ultraconservative Roman Catholicism Benedict XVI dreams of restoring fundamentalism

As far as economy is concerned, Blair and Murdoch symbolise reforms and conservatism, but what strikes me most about Blair is the gap between his very pragmatic sense of reform and his very utopic mysticism... and Murdoch is not only obsessed by money but by the success of candidates with a messianic touch. This Citizen Kane didn't succeed with Pat Robertson in the late 80s, but earned his reputation of serial kingmaker with Tony and Dubya.

You want to keep an eye on Nicolas Sarkozy, a great admirer of Tony Blair the Reformer and Murdoch the Entrepreneur, a great friend of George W. Bush the Leader, a great echo to Ratzinger's theories about genetic determination or Europe's Christian heritage...

20070205

Red blogule to London calling... for trouble

Two days ago, 135 people were killed in a terror attack in Baghdad's Sadriya market. That one did make the headlines, unlike the other days, when terror claims only the equivalent of the 7/7 London bombings.
About the same day, many people were arrested in London in what appeared to be a plot to abduct and behead a muslim soldier. A great victory for counter terrorism being often followed by the revelation of a not so glorious news for the Government, I just sat and waited for it to pop up.
It didn't take long for UK's army to confess 15 minor soldiers had been sent to Iraq. Actually, underaged combattants happened to be one of the few disgraces lacking to Tony Blair's impressive collection. We'll have to scratch our heads to find the next one...

According to Saint Tony, 7/7 had nothing to do with Iraq and the invasion of Iraq had something to do with the war on terror.
According to me, Ruppert Murdoch had something to do with the election of Tony Blair and Fox News' broadcasting of the invasion of Iraq as "War On Terror".

Tony will leave power soon ; the next guy, either Gordon Brown or David Cameron, will also have to sign a pact with the Devil to get elected ; and the "Winner" will face a new kind of terror : a wave of youngsters trained in Iraq and ready to spread chaos across the United Kingdom and Europe.
They have the European citizenship and they are from all origins, not necessary "foreign". They won't need to strike with a bomb in a major touristic area to get their point. Any small IED (Improvised Explosing Device) or any single shot in any neighborhood will do. Random abductions and killings will make anyone feel insecure. Terror at its simplest, purest and scariest level.
Chirac and Blair gone, Merkel taking her marks, let's see what kind of leadership emerges in Europe. The fundamentalists may want to play a role in the coming elections : Europeans would be inspired not to put a Dubya look alike in front of them.
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