Tareck does the New York Times

Everyday brings a new outrage with the Bolibanana revolution.  Today it was Venezuela’s vice-president the Tareck El Aissami publishing an open letter in the New York Times. Before I get into the outrage let's look briefly at said letter.

Left press review

On a slow Saturday night I decided to do what I have stopped doing long, long ago, to examine the misinforming to plain idiotic articles supporting the bolivarian farce. But two upset readers sent me these pieces and by sheer courtesy I read them and went ahead to comment below.

A slow fuse major embarrassment at Foreign Policy

There is an unwritten rule when dealing about information on Venezuela and chavismo: when you try to be objective you always end up with egg on your face. Respected magazine Foreign Policy is feeling the pinch and risks much discredit for its poor managing of a situation coming from a hatchet job text pretending to set the record straight on Leopoldo Lopez.

The bolivarian revolutionary army goes to war!

In a feat unseen since the first two decades of the XIX century the Venezuelan Bolivarian Chavista Army has gone on the offensive and decided to dispose of this major threat to our nation: smugglers. No expense should be spared as these people have been able to smuggle away 40% of our food without no one noticing for months of "economic war". But guided by Maduro and Fidel, the glorious revolutionary army has opened its eyes and from the twitter of the commander in chief himself we get accounts from the glorious battles fought. Next, choice tweets from Vladimir Padrino account with my most admiring appreciation.

Of course, we need to start from the field command, on top of a hill as it should. Apparently from this exquisitely chosen strategic position many smugglers path are visible and are being destroyed under the keen supervision of the fat robust generals, a wonder to all. You may appreciate the latest fashion in bullet proof jackets which I am sure were an urgent necessity on top of that hill as we can see from the very anxious facial expressions.

Observando desde Puesto Fronterizo "Cerro El Indio" inutilizacion de trochas usadas por el contrabando, en la Guajira pic.twitter.com/Ilgj8aDSV8
— Vladimir Padrino L. (@vladimirpadrino) August 18, 2014

And what are they catching?

Monica Spear is a crime too many

There are crimes that mark a society. I started wondering whether I should write this entry in Spanish. But there is enough local outrage on the web, and tomorrow on print, that English must be the vehicle. The affair started early when we learned that Monica Spear was murdered with her (ex?) husband inside her car, in front of her 5 year old daughter whose cries eventually alerted other passerby.

To understand how degraded Venezuela is, travel by plane....

Registration under Chavez

I left for a short holiday to Margarita and truly, it is an awesome experience. Not for the adventure, good food, beautiful scenery, but for the lousy service, the degraded infrastructure, the lack of basic items such as milk....  So there, a little summary.

It all started with the difficulty in finding a plane ticket. In Venezuela now, if you want to have a choice of travel dates, you need to buy a month ahead, even in low season, which is my case. By trying to get my ticket with barely three weeks notice, I could not find the adequate dates and I lost one day of my "package" while having to pay the full price anyway.  Not to mention the aggravation of useless web pages of Venezuelan airline companies which forced me in the end to go to an agency....

Proof that Chavez was a reactionary

But I got my ticket and on the set day I went to Valencia to take my flight.  To decorate this entry I have a collection of the airport political propaganda that I had to endure while at the airport: I had to be there two hours earlier to make sure I would not be bumped for a "waiting list" and my flight was 1 hour and a half late without any explanation. Click the pictures to enlarge for details.

When a president becomes certifiable: Maduro pre-loony-bin?

The Mardo thing is having deeper effects inside chavismo than inside the opposition.  After all, the apparent unity of the opposition, that no one, not even chavistas seem to buy the corruption charges against Mardo is having an unexpected tail spin. So I am pasting below the most recent tweets of @nicolasmaduro with a translation. [almost] No further comments will be needed for the reader to understand what I mean.

Vagabunderias y permanente subdesarrollo chavista en Venezuela

Este fin de semana vimos dos cosas que deberían dejar pensativo a muchos en Venezuela. De un lado nos decretan un tal Instituto de Altos Estudios del Pensamiento de Hugo Chávez y por el otro leemos que analistas piensan que Mexico es el mejor candidato para ser un líder en tecnología, un Silicon Valley Latinoamericano. Empecemos por el segundo que es mas prometedor de futuro.

The Post Chavez era of propaganda

Having an arepa at my occasional hangout in San Felipe I was forced to read Ultimas Noticias as the last "national" paper still available. And I fell on this so telling regime propaganda that I could not resist to take a picture of the full page advertisement and deconstruct here for your pleasure. Click to enlarge.

Let's start by the obvious: PDVSA, the state oil company is paying for that advertisement to glorify Chavez by attaching it tot he memory of Simon Bolivar, on the week of the anniversary.  Of course, if Chavez was born late July it could nto be possibly for any other reason but to his link to Bolivar. Take that you other Leo babies! At any rate, PDVSA breaks the law but who cares at this point....

SIBCI (Seebcee), rhymes with wheeeee!

The latest creation of the regime is a centralized portal to make sure that they all toe the line, stay in tune, and have the message reach all. Portable loud speakers are included in the deal.

The chavista May 1 parade

The S.O. had to go. A few pictures. The populists announcements as Chavez officially launched his reelection campaign will be dealt with other previous announcements in a future post. Let's say for now that he is trying to kill private enterprise once and for all.

The parade comes with folklore.  This one is supposed to illustrate the successful agrarian polices of the regime.  I do not know about you but what I am seeing is the celebration of the "conuco".

¿Nacen viejos los estudiantes "bolivarianos"?

Los estudiantes están marchando exitosamente en Caracas para sus derechos y ¿que hace el gobierno?  ¡Sorpresa!  ¡Cadena!

Musical Faustian bargains [Updated]

Surprise Quizz: what is the more offensive element in the picture on the right?

That Abreu and Dudamel show up on the same stage than Chavez?

That Abreu and Dudamel seem to have a frozen circumstantial smile?

That Chavez wears red tennis shoes?

Or should we be grateful that Chavez is speech-fying and not singing as he does in his Alo Presidente?

Second cadena of the day

The university Romulo Gallegos is graduating some medical personnel, surgeons we are told.  The kind of personnel that I do not want near me if I am sick or injured, now that we know the kind of education they are getting.  But the excuse is good enough for a cadena to silence Globovision, to silence the speech of Zulia governor that was passing as the cadena started.

But Chavez can do as many cadenas as he wants, the Sur del Lago is a battle that he is far from having won.


PS: I will spare you the new bolivarian socialist version of the Hippocratic oath according to Chavez....

There is really something wrong with the neuronal connections of hard core chavistas

We had the visit of a few PP representatives during the election.  The Partido Popular Español is certainly no friend of Chavez but it seems that it is now cured of residual Franco remains and has embraced democracy.  After all Aznar refused to run for a third term that he would have won without much trouble (though one can question why Rajoy is so determined to hold to the helm of the PP after two defeats, but I digress).

Chavez regime permanent propaganda machine, insults included

It is still amazing that to this day people outside of Venezuela still cannot comprehend the extent of the Chavez propaganda machinery at home, for the simple reason that such amount of propaganda is now inconceivable in democratic countries.  Thus people cannot believe what is happening in Venezuela.  That is, until they spend a week in a hotel room of Caracas...  To give you a sense of the degree of propaganda that we are subjected to I am posting this little video that I filmed myself from my TV set (explaining the poor quality).  Fret not, it is barely 45 second long.  This video is a report of a cell phone assembly plant in Venezuela, a "socialist enterprise", and it ends up insulting those who do not think such an endeavor is the latest cat's meow.



There is no need really to translate the video, I will just point out the salient moments.

The intro from Globovision

Little events that do not get the notice they should get

Eliot Engel is a Congressman from the Bronx and as such a certifiable Liberal.  Look at his web site and he is not one hiding away from his links with Nancy Pelosi.  Thus, even if Voice of America is a tad partial on the way it handles interviews over Cuba and Venezuela, the interview of Congressman Engel should be noticed.

CNN is again Chavez enemy, and along the way Izarra establishes the worthlessness of TeleSur

With an addendum of Ocariz versus Montiel

There has been a video made by some Spanish journalists that is circulating.  Its theme was the violence in the streets in Caracas and how in addition chavismo had organized "paramilitary" groups to support Chavez.  I have not been able to watch that video, neither the reprise that CNN "en español" did of it, a reprise that added to it a certain number of interviews, to the makers of that video,to people knowledgeable on Caracas violence and of course chavista officials.

This video has now become a major issue in Venezuela as Chavez stupidly mentioned it when he was in Santa Marta last Tuesday, sending everyone in Colombia at the very least to go and try to watch that video.

Now, before I get into the detail there are a certain numbers of FACTS that need to be addressed:

Oliver Stone, Tariq Ali, Marc Weisbrot and Larry Rohter

Do yourself a favor and start your week with a chuckle by reading how Larry Rohter trounces Stone's movie South of the Border and its script writers, Mark Weisbrot in particular, the darling of English speaking chavista whose economic predictions about chavismo prowess have all fallen flatter than the ocean's horizon.  Once again, wasted propaganda money as the movie only preached to the choir, if that.  Funny how any serious attempt at a movie flattering Chavez epic must always resort to quite a few misinterpretations and outright lies.  Remember " The Revolution will not be on TV" or something like that about April 2002 who has disappeared from the radar now that it has been proven to be mostly a fake?  Fortunately the word, in addition of diligent bloggers, provide great journalists able to finish off such people.

Hat tip Alek.

The "Ripley beleive it or not" Venezuelan health system

A casual look to Venezuelan news during my Seattle morning coffee break manages to leave me speechless, but not keyboardless.

It turns out that Chavez yesterday admitted that there are problems with the Venezuelan health system, that 2000, two thousands, barrio adentro joints were not working.... Besides the fact that if Chavez had been reading the newspapers he would have known long ago that a boatload of barrio adentro modules were closed, one can only wonder about that 2000 number. After all if we take it at 10 a city that would mean that 200 cities in Venezuela, 200!, would be out in trouble. Are they 200 cities in Venezuela? Or another way to rephrase the question, how many small communities in the boondocks have been left without any medical attention, as deficient as that one might have been in the first place?

But it gets worse. Chavez admitted that he was called to order by Fidel Castro who apparently learned before him about the deficient state of the mision barrio adentro. Chavez had no problem adding that it was Fidel who sent the inspection team.

One does not know whether to cry or to laugh at such inanity and lack of self respect, amen of respecting Venezuela.

But I know why Chavez is doing such a ridiculous show, where in addition he promised zillions of new doctors form Cuba: there was a terrible accident in Clarines where a chlorine gas truck hit another truck with scores of people injured or killed, in a World War I like trench cataclysm. This of course exposed the totally inadequate reply to emergency capacity of the state, as we learned that the renovation of the Clarines hospital was 10 years behind schedule. Add to this the recent weapon purchase and you will understand the desperate need of Chavez to make a ridiculous show to distract the opinion away from his absolute heath care failure, supposedly the bright success of the bolibanana revolution in the official propaganda.

Sigh... enough reading before it spoils further my vacation....

Note. In all of these news item I did not see the main point, the real main point addressed: how come it is so difficult to find people to work at barrio adentro. The bolibanana revolution cannot be bothered with such details...

-The end-