Red Mosquito

Rob wrote:The Puerto Rican guy talking back to her is my favorite thing today, haha.

dimejinky99 wrote:Minor earthquake in Southern California and activity the past few weeks around Yellowstone

This is the apocalypse and its still 2020 if you’ve been following closely.

Stickman wrote:Hoooooly shit. An entire chunk of land with homes on it was dragged into the sea by a massive mud/landslide in Alta, Norway Wednesday: 8 homes lost but no deaths or injuries

Spoiler: show

Mickey wrote:

theplatypus wrote:

Mickey wrote:

96583UP wrote:Evo Morales: the latest in a seemingly endless line of far-left South American leaders to take office in a parade of righteousness and leave office in a flaming clown car of corruption

Unbelievably fucking wrong on this one, bub.

Bumping for Mickey's take on this

It's not a particularly hot one. I don't think you have to be a supporter of Morales or the pink tide more broadly to think that what happened in Bolivia is disturbing. You don't even have to dispute the neutrality of the OAS and their allegations of inconsistencies (the majority of which are explained entirely by the difference between the quick count and the official count insofar as it pertains to rural areas, which both overwhelmingly support Morales and are historically slower to report their votes). Leaving that aside and accepting that the elections were fraudulent and that Morales should never have been allowed to run for a fourth term (this means disputing the sovereignty of the Bolivian Supreme Court, but okay), there's still the fact that Morales was run out of office by the military, that protest leaders called for his arrest even after he abdicated the Presidency, that his house was ransacked, and that the new interim regime is explicitly racist and anti-indigenous (burning the Wiphala, bringing the Bible back to the Presidential palace, etc.). We should also note that no one disputes the idea that Morales got more of the vote--only that he didn't get the sufficient 10% lead necessary to win outright--and that he had already agreed to hold new elections. This isn't to say that Morales is not, to a lesser or greater extent, corrupt or authoritarian, or that his presidency was the right move for the Bolivian people--we don't need to go down the Telesur rabbit hole. But the idea that he was run out in a "flaming clown car of corruption"--as if this is a populist and ethical response to the abuse of executive power rather than, say, a violently racist right-wing backlash supported by international business and with chilling similarities to Bolsonaro's rise in Brasil--suggests that you might not have a clear idea of what's happening in Latin America.

Amid suspicions of fraud, protests broke out across the country, and the international community turned to the Organization of American States, which had been invited to observe the elections, for its assessment.

The organization’s statement, which cited “an inexplicable change” that “drastically modifies the fate of the election,” heightened doubts about the fairness of the vote and fueled a chain of events that changed the South American nation’s history. The opposition seized on the claim to escalate protests, gather international support, and push Mr. Morales from power with military support weeks later.

Now, a study by independent researchers, using data obtained by The New York Times from the Bolivian electoral authorities, has found that the Organization of American States’ statistical analysis was itself flawed.

The conclusion that Mr. Morales’s share of the vote jumped inexplicably in the final ballots relied on incorrect data and inappropriate statistical techniques, the researchers found.

“We took a hard look at the O.A.S.’s statistical evidence and found problems with their methods,” said Francisco Rodríguez, an economist who teaches Latin American studies at Tulane University. “Once we correct those problems, the O.A.S.’s results go away, leaving no statistical evidence of fraud.”

But the idea that he was run out in a "flaming clown car of corruption"--as if this is a populist and ethical response to the abuse of executive power--suggests that you are misinformed and didn't see all the pictures of happy people wishing him well for his vacation to mexico. Everyone loves him, especially after the term limits thing; and his girlfriend, especially chinese engineering firms. He left for a vacation in Mexico, which was depicted wrongfully as him being expelled from the country; and then while he was out skinny dipping (he is a naturalist indigenous deity and prefers to swim nude) a Venezuelan military operative backed by soviet money stole his swimming suit and all the towels and he has been unable to leave the resort pool ever since.

To be sure, the authors said their analysis focused only on the O.A.S.’s statistical analysis of the voting results, and does not prove that the election was free and fair. In fact, there were a lot of documented problems with the vote.

Spoiler: show

Six former eBay executives and employees are facing federal charges after they allegedly led a cyberstalking campaign against a Natick couple they believed was critical of the company in an online ecommerce newsletter.

U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said the eBay employees’ harassment included sending the couple “disturbing deliveries” that included a bloody pig mask, a box of live cockroaches, and a funeral wreath. The employees also allegedly sent anonymous threatening messages and traveled to Massachusetts to conduct “covert surveillance” of the victims.

E.H. Ruddock wrote:The Fenn treasure has been found.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/07/us/forre ... index.html