Blogging the democratic revolution
I had long explained the way Mr. Romano Prodi won the Italian election. The slim margin with which he won offers, according to numerous international and italian analysts (from both the left and the right) little chances that his government will last 5 years. In an open violation of the democratic debate with the now-opposition…
President Lula da Silva of Brazil is not stupid. After a softie performance in the first week after Bolivia “nationalized” Brazil’s $1.6 billion in investments there, downplaying any opposition against the taking of it, or any animosity against Bolivian President Evo Morales, he unexpectedly came out and laid the blame for this mess right where…
I chatted with Rob last night, he’s got one big thing he’s got to get out of the way, but he’ll be posting soon, probably later today or by tomorrow. Stay tuned!
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames??????? is an explosive open-world action game set in a massive, highly reactive, war-torn world. A power-hungry tyrant messes with Venezuela’s oil supply, sparking an invasion that turns the country into a warzone???????” With a hat tip to Venezuela Today this new video game, showing a major street in Caracas on…
6:00 a.m. Greenwich Main Time City: London Brrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggggg!!!!!!!!!!! Brrrrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnggggggggg!!!!!!!!! Roy: Hullo, mate. William: Goddamn it, don’t you hello mate me, you oleaginous punk. This is Caracas calling. Roy: Wot’s up? William: You know what’s up, Swedish Wonder Kid. And boy you better have an explanation. R: Hunh? W: Haven’t you seen the London Times? We…
Every leftist and his chihuahua has seen fit to adapt the image of Che Guevara on his cheap mass-produced t-shirt. It’s an all-purpose “revolutionary” (and very fake revolutionary) insignia. Not only was Che Guevara a thief and a psychopathic killer, he was also a mercenary who took a special pleasure in ending the lives of…
Oh it’s a rocky road to socialism, the road to Chavismo. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has assured that, because the doggone donkey trail out of Caracas to the airport (the bridge to Socialism already collapsed) has been done in by a rockslide. So, the road to Socialism, the Sea of Happiness ever promised by Hugo…
BBC News: Russian President Vladimir Putin has used a Victory Day parade to issue a warning to neo-Nazis and other nationalist extremists. He said they were “leading the world to a dead end” and would not be tolerated in Russia. His comments follow a series of attacks on foreigners – some of them fatal. Ä…Å…
Cuba has secured a spot on the new United Nations human rights council, the board that replaced a previous one, which was intended to keep countries like Zimbabwe and Burma off these boards. Cuba is the biggest human rights violator in the hemisphere. It is one of the few tyrannies in the world that refuses…
Today signals the beginning of the end for Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. His oil-fueled pork-barrel project to buy off the Americas and secure absolute power is now showing signs of fraying badly at the seams. It has to tatter, of course, and the reason is simple: Chavez’s Cuban socialism does not work. Three powerful news…
Iran’s leader, Mahmood Ahmadinejad, Monday sent a letter to President Bush in some sort of effort to communicate with him, and to halt potential action over Iran’s nuclear program. It has a weird bloggerly quality to it, mulling over events, ranting and raving here, whining about always being a victim there, and it’s sort of…
A fearless Peruvian democracy revolutionary, Maria Elena Moyano, may finally see her killer brought to justice. An arrest was made of the Shining Path Marxist terrorist who most likely did it 14 unpunished years ago this afternoon in Peru. I wrote about her case about a year ago here. Source: Peru Hilfe Moyano was a…
In a little-reported story last week, Mexico experienced some fearsome riots, with Sweetness & Light reporting that they were about opposition to a new Wal-Mart. In San Salvador Atenco, in central Mexico state, not far from the capital, over 200 people were arrested, protesting a new Wal-Mart about to go up. One 14-year-old was killed,…
…the knives come out. On Saturday, the small city-state, and economic hub, of Singapore went to the polls to elect a new parliament. For the first time in years the ruling People’s Action Party faced a real challenge to its 47-year grip on power – with the opposition gaining a large chunk of the vote,…
Amid all the smoke and dust of urbanized Jakarta – motorcycles, white Islamic veils, clove cigarettes, blue jeans, smoking satay on the street grill – in a megalopolis of something like 21 million people – there is a real Java, Indonesia, too. This one isn’t revolutionary, but eternal. By eternal, I mean it seems to…
Blogger Boli-Nica, a Bolivian national who knows a load of baloney when he sees it, whales hell out of the newest development coming out of that Chavisticating country: The army of 400 auditors from Venezuela’s flamingly corrupt, incompetent, thieving oil company rolling in to inspect the books at Bolivia’s national energy company. Boli points out…
No poverty in ‘revolutionary’ Cuba? No people living in the streets? This is what Castro and its supporters on the extreme left keep on saying. The reality is quite the opposite. Contacto Cuba has a must-see video showing street people in Havana. The video, made in cladestinity, includes street people telling their daily life. Not…
It’s finally out. We knew he was a megalomaniac. We knew he was like Hitler in Paris when he strutted through to “congratulate” his newest colony of Bolivia. The signs are everywhere, and starting to come together: Hugo Chavez’s ultimate masterplan is to rule the world. Literally. He’s got it all mapped out in various…
Political temperature time for the Americas and Boz has a new collection of polls for the hemisphere this week. The lowdown on Mexico, and rightwing PAN party candidate Felipe Calderon’s growing presidential election lead is one thing, as well as the fascinating political lineup going on in Peru – which makes me think the worst…
This week, Evo Morales nationalized Bolivia’s natural gas industry. He didn’t do it as Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez did, by a hundred kisses of law, order, and win-win “people’s” baloney, but in the old 1960S style: with guns and goons. Like a pirate, he confiscated the assets of others and called them his own. Then he…
As I have written before, dinner table talk in Venezuela is ‘who got shot, who got kidnapped, who got murdered, when do we emigrate.’ That’s normal everyday conversation, every single day at every single dinner table in Venezuela. It’s that bad. You can imagine what the barbershop talk is like! One Venezuelan barber in the…
Happy May to everyone – it’s been flurrying all day in Ulaanbaatar! My family lives about 12km NNW of the city in the hills at the very edge of the city (great hiking!). We live in a one-room house, but most of our neighbors live in gers. The front window looks out over UB, which…
This is the question many would ask themselves after reading the news of a new terror attack against Italian troops. This time the fact occurred in Afghanistan. Just a few weeks after the attack on the Carabinieri in Iraq, that killed 3 of them, now it’s the turn of the Italian soldiers in Afghanistan. The…
That’s the question that Lee Harris asks in a column over at TCS Daily. He focuses on the unfolding situation in Latin America, where Axis of Subversion trio Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Evo Morales are undoing the democratic fiber of the entire continent. To explain the resurgence of state socialism in this wellspring, he…
Outside of following the politics of developing countries, I also like to follow the markets. Especially the markets in countries that are up-and-coming or not even on the radar. Markets where a lot of people don’t even know markets exist. Others they would. Places like Mexico have been booming. But so have many places in…