Are You Kidding?

By Shane Finneran
Hilarity ensues as Shane pokes fun at everything from fine art to Facebook. Check out his satire and other attempts at humorous commentary for progressives and residents of Ocean Beach and San Diego.

“!Te amos, Carl!”: DeMaio earns endorsement from union of undocumented workers in Mexico

May 15, 2012 by Dixon Guizot
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TIJUANA, MEXICO — The signs at the union rally were lettered in red and green on a white background, reminiscent of the Mexican flag.

“!Con DeMaio al Norte!”
(“With Demaio to the North!”)

“!Si, se puede, jefe!”
(“Yes, we can, boss!”)

“!Te amos Carl!”
(“We love you, Carl!”)

The setting was a south-of-the-border parade on Tijuana’s famous Avenida Revolucion, where a union representing undocumented workers hoping to migrate to the United States endorsed Republican candidate Carl DeMaio for San Diego mayor.

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The OB Rag’s Voter Guide for the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary

May 11, 2012 by Dixon Guizot
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In the spirit of bipartisanship, compromise, and reaching out to our friends and fellow citizens on the other side of the aisle, here The OB Rag offers its Voter Guide for the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary.

See you at the polls!

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OB Rag purchased by Fox News

April 1, 2012 by Dixon Guizot
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OCEAN BEACH –Bankers representing News Corporation announced that its Fox News division had agreed to purchase The OB Rag, a local news website based in San Diego.

“With this acquisition,” News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch said in a prepared statement, “News Corp silences an increasingly important voice for social justice and expands its local coverage to boot.”

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Flush with cash, Apple unveils plan to shift 700,000 jobs to United States

February 28, 2012 by Dixon Guizot
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CUPERTINO, CALIF. — Giving new meaning to corporate social responsibility, Apple Inc. announced it is “bringing home” more than 700,000 manufacturing jobs currently held by workers in foreign countries.

“As a leading corporate citizen of the United States,” the company said in a press release, “Apple can’t help but feel some sort of responsibility to its fellow Americans. So why not start hiring them?”

Apple plans to spread the employment across ten different U.S. cities, bringing each city an average of 70,000 new jobs, all with full benefits, by the end of 2013.

“We basically just gave our outsourcing team a different task,” Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook told The OB Rag. “Instead of scouring third-world countries to find where workers come cheapest, we surveyed America to find areas where these new jobs would make the most sense.”

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Morphing the San Diego Mayoral Candidates

January 10, 2012 by Dixon Guizot
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Hey, local politics geeks, to celebrate this New-Hampshire-primary Tuesday, let’s morph the candidates for mayor of San Diego with the candidates for president of the United States!

Carl DeMaio seems akin to Ron Paul: a conservative outsider with a quirky personality who seems to enjoy rattling cages on both sides of the aisle.

As a candidate, CarlPaul would sport a perpetual disdain for the effectiveness of government, an admittedly eyebrow-raising characteristic for someone seeking more time as a government employee. Because government sometimes is ineffective, and sometimes worse, CarlPaul’s cranky message would carry more than a little truth and earn the support of a diverse range of disenfranchised folks with axes to grind, including many axes of the not-very-sharp variety.

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Underage employee at iPhone sweatshop fired for 10-second pause honoring Steve Jobs

October 6, 2011 by Dixon Guizot
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Xiang Jo — a 14-year-old laborer on an iPhone assembly line in Suzhou, China — just wanted to pay homage to someone whose vision transformed the world.

Jo had no idea the homage would cost him his job.

The trouble started Thursday morning, when word of Steve Jobs’ death spread through the factory where Jo and dozens of other young Chinese use the toxic chemical N-Hexane to clean iPhone touch screens.

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From Arnold and Weiner to LSD: more OB Rag fun with fine art

June 18, 2011 by Dixon Guizot
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Following up on our first foray into the wonders of Google Art Project, we once again stroll a gallery of classic paintings, their names re-imagined by The OB Rag:                    

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Browsing Fine Art Collections and Finding Ocean Beach

March 15, 2011 by Dixon Guizot
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If you haven’t checked out Google Art Project yet, you’re in for a treat. The site uses a technology similar to “street view” to enable virtual strolls through the halls and rooms of 17 famous art museums, from London’s National Gallery to Madrid’s Museo Reina Sofia to New York’s MoMA. Recently, while using Art Project […]

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“Lots of Iraqi kids up here” says Christina-Taylor Green in email from Heaven

February 3, 2011 by Dixon Guizot
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In an email recently reviewed by The OB Rag, nine-year-old Tucson shooting victim Christina-Taylor Green confirmed that she is in Heaven and described life on the other side of the Pearly Gates. “I’ve been learning lots of games from the Middle East, because there’s lots of Iraqi kids up here,” Green wrote. “They’re everywhere in […]

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“Globalize This” Corporate Hiring Job Jam Dance Party

January 31, 2011 by Dixon Guizot
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Here’s an audio/video project cobbled together from publicly available information… a reaction to President Barack Obama’s emphasis on job creation in his “State of the Union” speech last week.

Just want to point out that American corporations are creating plenty of jobs all the time!

Click the title to see the video…

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Republican National Committee staffers flustered by strange requests from new chairman Reince Priebus

January 20, 2011 by Dixon Guizot
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Editor: Here’s the latest from our chief satirist Shane Finneran and his ongoing research into the strange doings of Republican politicians.

Employees at RNC headquarters expressed bewilderment after receiving an expansive, 286-page document outlining the needs and demands of incoming Chairman Reince Priebus.

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Newly Formed PAC for Poor People Lobbies San Diego Politicians

January 7, 2011 by Dixon Guizot
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“For too long, poor people haven’t had a seat at the table in American politics,” said Newt Gingrich. “Now, thanks to their new political action committee, the voices of the poor will be heard.”

Newt Gingrich

Gingrich was speaking in his new capacity as executive director of Poor People of America, a recently formed PAC that visited San Diego to lobby local politicians. Gingrich said the group will be focused on advancing the interests of the nation’s poor and has already raised “a substantial amount of revenue.”

“It’s true that each individual poor person doesn’t have that much money to donate,” Gingrich said. “The thing is we have 47 million Americans living in poverty today, so even tiny little donations add up.”

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Mayor Sanders says San Diego should subsidize stadium by selling sun

January 1, 2011 by Dixon Guizot
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“When people think of San Diego, they think of sunshine,” said San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders. “I’m here to tell you we can make money off that.”

At a press conference held in his City Hall office, Sanders said the city could raise “a substantial amount of cash” through a “sale-leaseback” arrangement focused on the sun.

Under Sanders’ proposal, San Diego would receive a large, lump-sum payment for its sunshine rights. A year later, the city would begin paying a daily sunshine royalty — but only on days when the sun comes out.

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OB Rag Exclusive: New Wikileaks release details CIA surveillance of Ocean Beach

December 23, 2010 by Dixon Guizot
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The ongoing drama surrounding leaked diplomatic cables came to Ocean Beach today when the Wikileaks organization released a report from an American intelligence agent sent to OB to investigate “possible revolutionary sentiment.” The report, which the unidentified agent submitted to CIA higher-ups in mid-2010, seemed to downplay reports of a secessionist movement in the area. […]

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Our country can’t afford to tax the rich

December 17, 2010 by Dixon Guizot
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Originally appeared in the Dec. 14 issue of City Times, the campus newspaper of San Diego City College. Admittedly, the USA needs money to help pay for vital American programs such as Medicare and foreign occupations. But the push by some Democrats to let tax cuts expire for America’s highest earners is too much audacity, […]

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Ocean Beach vs North Park: A migrant’s observations

December 15, 2010 by Dixon Guizot
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In early 2010, my wife and I packed up our Brighton Street apartment — all 450 square feet — and moved from Ocean Beach to North Park. We were drawn by the lures of a bigger place and a new neighborhood experience, and after about a year on the other side (of Interstate 5), North […]

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Hey, Obama, here’s some stuff we can cut in San Diego

December 7, 2010 by Dixon Guizot
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As everyone knows, President Obama is a gifted orator who has voiced several rousing, meaningless, and unmemorable riffs on abstract concepts like hope and change. But he’s never been as inspiring as he was yesterday, when he told the nation how we won’t be raising taxes on our super-rich. To hear the president, in a […]

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