Even the New York Times features the Kenya sex and drug scandal!

OK, so it is just the "condensed" version of an AP dispatch but the NYT felt it worth a tweet...

If you want details go to an African release which will tell you how sordid Venezuela's "diplomacy" has become. In Kenya's embassy we had an ambassador dismissed for gay sexual harassment, a replacing ambassador murdered within days of her arrival and an embassy secretary charged with the murder, linked to drug traffic through his use of diplomatic privilege and his local friend/lover on the run. It cannot get any better than that for scandal. Unless you want to add to it the ease in which Venezuela relinquished the diplomatic immunity of the arrested secretary in a country where death penalty exists.....

But then again what can you expect? Venezuelan old experienced diplomatic personnel has been ditched and replaced by a chorus of people whose main to lone function is to promote Chavez and not Venezuela.  It has been years that there is no such a thing as Venezuelan foreign policy and now we see the consequences.

By the way, why on hell do we need an embassy in Kenya?

Sean Penn backs Chavez who backs Ameliach: how to lose an election

Woman breaking CNE rules, Sean boy, Chavez and booed Ameliach

UPDATED
The Chavez campaign is not doing very well.  And it keeps adding errors. One does not need to read polls to sense that the ship is adrift, unable to land anywhere.  Even BBC's new man in Caracas (a woman this election, Sarah Grainger) senses it as opposed to the now discredited cheerleaders of, say, Reuters who have bought Chavez putative victory bait, hook and sink; and today once again! Proving that Reuters is the lone species to trip over and over the same fake polls.  A brief analysis of what happened in Carabobo state today will illustrate my point.

We are now in the middle of the campaign and Chavez has all the trouble in the world to make a couple of outings a week when Capriles is hitting the roads daily, for miles and miles.  Not only that, but Chavez is isolated from the scant masses on top of a float of sorts which makes him look sillily distant. Bad enough as it is, his cross current initiatives make things worse, while without any logical explanation Sean Penn is watching as if he were a big star bringing votes in Carabobo....

Friday funnies

Since it is Friday a couple of pictures to amuse you

Now we know why Chavez was such a defender of Zelaya in Honduras.  As you can see in the below self explaining picture, there is/was a drug shuttle between Honduras and Venezuela (courtesy NYT).  Note: not Nicaragua, Honduras.  The Sandinista beloved leader might be a child abuser but he is not crazy enough to go into drug traffic full speed....  The more so when booze seems to be enough for him......

The other picture is too good to pass. In an era of Photoshop, no matter what the regime tries to do to impress the uncouth masses, the humorists find a way to trash it, and fast... See a couple of post before if you do not get the humor.

No wonder Chavez is pissed even further at Capriles now that it has been revealed that Capriles is a distant relative of Bolivar....

Ah!  Venezuela!  never a dull moment....

Can Capriles campaign square the circle?

Well, he is trying but he will not succeed at it since like for the famous mathematical problem his own problem has its own transcendental π number that cannot offer a finite solution.  Capriles transcendental number is the chavista nomenklatura, too corrupt, too impregnated of Cuban nincompoopness and violence to be able to surrender power just through the ballot box.  Still, he needs to try and hope to find a good enough approximation to the solution and hope that it will pass.  The good news is that in my 10 days observation since I came back, he has made great progress.  At least as seen from his sweat drenched shirt today in Barlovento.

The game rules

La degradación de Simon Bolívar

No voy a entrar en una larga discusión de como la figura del Libertador ha sido degradada aun mas, hoy en el día de su cumpleaños. El divertido y ácido @ChavezOfficial nos da el mejor balance con su brillantísimo fotoshop, amablemente reproducido en esta página (observen bien si no lo captan a primera vista).

Digamos que ofrecer la recreación en 3D de la imagen de Bolívar basada en sus violados restos es una pobre excusa para tal profanación. Y no debería ser necesario insistir en que Bolívar fue ampliamente retratado en vida y por lo tanto el ejercicio chavista fue algo absolutamente innecesario.

Lo que Chávez está haciendo concienzudamente desde ya 13 años es alabar para mejor despachar. Nada es sagrado para el: todo se cambia, se tergiversa, se reinterpreta, se agranda hasta el ridículo o se minimiza al grotesco. El objetivo es bastante claro, hasta podríamos decir simplista y obviamente infantil. En la historia de Venezuela habrá solamente una etapa memorable: cuando Chávez nos tuvo bajo su bota. Si después de 13 años usted no estaba claro con esto, espero que la “imagen” de Bolívar y del pavosísimo mausoleo, que en realidad fue hecho mas para Chávez que para Bolívar, le despeje la mente de una buena vez.

The degradation of Simon Bolivar

I am not going to get into a lengthy account on how the figure of Simon Bolivar has been further degraded today, on his birthday. Funny @ChavezOfficial makes the best case with his brilliant photoshopping, graciously brought by this blog on the right (look closely if you do not get it at first).

Let's just say that offering the recreation of a 3D image of Bolivar based on his desacrated remains is a poor excuse for such desecration.  Never mind that there is a substantial iconography of Bolivar during his life time that makes such an exercise one in futility.

No, what Chavez is doing consistently through the years is to heap praise to better dispatch.  Nothing is sacred for him: all is changed, reinterpreted, magnified to ridicule or minimized to the grotesque.  The objective is quite clear, even if simplistic and so obviously childish.  There will be only one thing of value in Venezuelan history: the period in which Chavez held us under his boot.  If you still did not get that after 13 years, I hope that this "picture" of Bolivar and the ghastly mausoleum, who is really made for Chavez more than Bolivar, will set you straight.

Tasconian musings....

The current mayor of Washington DC is under fire because during his 2010 campaign he, or his staff, used a database of 6,000 public housing recipients so as to contact them for whatever electoral purpose his campaign wanted.

Let's think about this for a few seconds, shall we?