Blogging the democratic revolution
It’s one thing to use multiple IDs as a mere blogger, and quite another to use such devices in real life explicitly to scam a pedastalled world organization to line one’s silky pockets. But that’s what a top United Nations official has been caught doing, just like some seedy barrio gangster, using multiple id’s in a bid to extend his retirement date and collect fatter pensions from the UN money stream. The creep’s name is Kadir and he works at the World International Property Office in Switzerland. Being from Sudan, his contribution to invention resides not in industrial innovation but…
Venezuela: Where products are generic – and customers are branded Source: Anibal Barreto, Correo de Caroni, via Feathers In the slums of Caracas, Chavista grocery patrons are now being branded on their bellies (food goes into your belly, right?) with indelible ink by store personnel to ensure that they do not buy more chicken than the government arbitrarily allows. Since at least the beginning of the year, Venezuela’s groceries have been wracked by food shortages due to Chavista price controls and controls on foreign currency. Beef, sugar, pork and coffee have disappeared from store shelves. Meanwhile, at state-controlled Chavista stores,…
Speaking before an annual conference on international security in Munich recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin said this of the concept of “unilateralism” in an attempt to complain about the allegedly hegemonic position of the U.S. in the world today: It is world in which there is one master, one sovereign. And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within. He was talking without listening to himself, the signal hallmark of the old Soviet state that soon collapsed and disappeared.…
Do you recognize the gentleman in the foreground? Unless you are an avid follower of Russian politics, you may not. He’s Sergei Mironov, a high-ranking figure in the Kremlin’s power structure. He’s the leader of the “Russia of Justice” political party (a sham entity subservient to the Kremlin) and the Chairman of the Federation Council, equivalent to being the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. If, that is, George Bush personally selected all the members. Even if you are not an aficionado of Russian politics, you likely do recognize the gentleman in the background, with the red square around his…
Fausta has an impressive piece at Pajamas Media on how and why Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez was able to rise to absolute power as a dictator of Venezuela, which he announced on Jan. 9 and consolidated on Feb. 4. If you’re new to Venezuela, or if you just want to read something summed up perfectly, make sure to have a look at Fausta’s flawlessly written piece, one of her very best and that is saying a lot. Read the whole thing here.
Ziva at Babalu blog has found a Miami Herald exclusive, buried deep, about young Cuban conscripts who just blew away their senior commissar officers in Cuba. It’s a stunning development. Read it here. There are several interesting implications: 1. There may be more to come. People are less afraid to rebel these days and challenge communist authority. 2. A power void is being sensed. Obviously, Castro’s demise is creating less and less sense of direction, and people in leadership positions don’t know what to do, because they don’t know whether Castro will get well or not. If they make decisions…
After years of braying about ‘food security’ – Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has accomplished the opposite of that: widespread empty shelves for basic food stocks like meat and sugar, throughout Venezuelan grocery stores, duplicating Soviet-style food shortages. The next step will be rationing. As of now, only chicken feet can be bought, according to this AP report. The brutal dictator is repeating the failures of Castrodom in Cuba, as he completely politicizes the economic realm. Chavez is also yelling about ‘speculators’ when the fact is, these food shortages are the natural result of Chavista control over the economy. This goes…
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Source: AP, via Yahoo! News U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came out with strong and unambiguous language for Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, warning that he was trashing democracy and destroying his country. She went after him with a sledgehammer. Naturally, the Venezuelan thug will response with those weird kissing noises or perverse and undignified gibberings about his own sex fantasies, but that doesn’t reduce the power of the condemnation emanating from Washington. Rice warns that Chavez is a dictator, says he is wrecking Venezuela politically and economically and notes he is a menace…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez assumed power to dictate by decree today Source: EFE, via Yahoo! Mexico Never let it be known that Hugo Chavez is not a dictator now. Anything he says, goes. The Venezuelan rubber-stamp assembly passed a legislative bill to let Hugo “rule by decree.”He will continue to expropriate property, devalue the money, levy punitive taxes, indoctrinate Marxism in the schools and install block committees for neighbor to spy on neighbor, creating a Cuba. He is nothing but a brutal leftist thug who’s stolen power in a democracy and used its means to create a dictatorship, and the…
Two democracies collapsed in South America today – Venezuela’s, where Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has now crowned himself ruler by decree, and Ecuador, where rabid red-shirted mobs aligned with President Rafael Correa, drove the democratically elected opposition congress out of power and into the streets, leaving only Correa with any power and who, as of this writing, is also a dictator in the Chavez-Hitler mould. Is it any coincidence, then, that Hugo Chavez has seized absolute power on almost exactly the anniversary of Hitler‘s assumption of power? What a coincidence. Amid this democratic horror show in South America, at the…
Breaking news – Russia’s elite spetznaz goons uses poisoned Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko’s photo at the center of their targets during shooting practice. The Times of London has the story here. But they’re still denying that they had anything to do with killing Litvinenko. My my, how hollow their elaborate protestations of noninvolvement in Litvinenko’s poisoning death ring today! These Putinites lie like thugs.
On October 13, 2006, Human Rights Watch reported on a Russian trial court’s ordering the closure of an organization based in the Russian city of Nizhny Novogorod and known as the “Russian-Chechen Friendship Association.” The RCFA is a nongovernmental organization established by Russians to inform the public about the dire plight of Chechnya and Russian human rights abuses there. The decision came just after the group announced its intention to conduct its own formal investigation into Russian war crimes in Chechnya. Time magazine reported that Amnesty International had characterized the Kremlin’s action as one that “appears to be the latest…
Australian patriot babes celebrate National Day on Friday Source: Tim Blair Hat tip: Instapundit More Aussie freedom babes Source: The Daily Telegraph of Australia Australians were told by their nanny-state minders that their beautiful blue Australian flag was nothing more than nasty gang colors and something to be put out of sight, for fear of offending precious Islamofascists and tribal rights special interest groups. Tim Blair in Sydney has one account of this leftwing lunacy right here. More Australian patriot babes celebrate Source: News.com.au Aussie patriots by the dozen Source: The Telegraph Little did they realize, it was AUSTRALIANS they…
You know the story so far: Russia suddenly drops an oil price bomb on impoverished Belarus, dramatically increasing the price Belarussians are charged because the country was insufficiently slavish in its obedience of the Kremlin, and Belarus responds with a massive tax on Russia’s Belarus oil pipeline transits to Europe, whereupon Russia threatens to cut off all oil shipments to Belarus, and Belarus then bitterly backs down from its tax. Where do we go from here? What does it all mean? Lionel Beehner, a staff member at the Council on Foreign Relations, has an article on the New Republic website…
RCTV workers in Caracas today protest Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez’s vow to shut them down Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! News Venezuela’s oldest television station is under the gun from the Venezuelan dictatorship of Hugo Chavez. When I say ‘under the gun’ I mean that literally, and you’ll see if you read further. Chavez has vowed to shut down the 53-year old station and throw its workers onto the streets. Never mind what its workers want, what its advertisers want or what its millions of viewers want. Chavez wants this television station destroyed. He not only wants revenge on a political…
Gisele Bunchen in Esquire, 2004 Source: Thomas Hawk blog Beautiful Gisele Bundchen of Brazil has always been my favorite supermodel. Her regal good looks, her tall physique, and her unusual grownup features have always made her a natural for the camera and great photographs. Now she’s given me a reason to really like her – by telling Hugo Chavez he’s repulsive. In fact, she pretty much screwed up her stately nose, narrowed her feline eyes, and sweetly told the fat, leering Venezuelan dictator that he was the Swamp Thing. The Venezuelan dictator had been ogling her like a pervert, in…
Charallave airport west of Caracas Source: Globovision I am getting weary of the words ‘expropriation’ or ‘confiscation’ – what’s going on in Venezuela right now is outright stealing. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez stole himself an airport today, taking over the Charallave small airplane airport well outside Caracas, which is where all the small planes in Venezuela were diverted after Chavez helped himself to Carlota airport in the center of the city in 2004 or so. Of course he has no intention of paying – he didn’t pay any of the oil companies for his thefts and there’s no way he’s…
Freedom! Some of the 19 Cuban freedom seekers who washed ashore in America this week. Welcome, amigos! Source: Babalu Yesterday I had a long conversation with a source in the U.S. foreign policy establishment. I told him Ecuador was making me sick, but I asked him what the foremost concern of the U.S. was in Latin America. He told me two things: Chavez’s declaration that he would dictate by decree … it was really bothering them … and Cuba. He wanted to know why the media was ignoring Cuba because he said they shouldn’t be. Those two matters were preoccupying…
Got a slew of dead-Castro rumors today, this time from people with ties to Washington types who say that the end is extremely near for Castro. The next three days or so will see a new power struggle as communists fight over the dead carcass of Castro in a bid to seize absolute power. What a pathetic scenario the U.S. must prepare for. The real beauty of a dead Castro will be in the rising revolution in people’s democracy – if it happens. But no one knows what the real Cuban people think, so no one knows what will occur.…
The Russian media has challenged the Putin regime’s peculiarly atavistic style of governance – its standing practice of rule through murder. Kim Zigfeld at La Russophobe has professionally translated a long and insightful piece from Novaya Gazeta called ‘Spare Organs’ on the Kremlin’s ruling killers. If you follow Russia affairs, it well worth a look here. Komersant has another backgrounder to the current scenario, readable in English, in this post here.
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who now rules by decree Source: AP, via Yahoo! News So how’d you like one man making all your decisions for you? He’d pick your legislator, or dump him, as he pleased. He’d decide your food security – what you would eat. He’d decide whether you get housing or whether you’d own what you thought was your own house, you’d not make any such decisions as yourself. He’d decide how much of your money you could keep or he could take, just like that. Anything he said, would go. He’d be the law of the land.…
In Cuba, instead of using democratic decision-making conventions, like voting, governance is done through the screams and hurled objects of swarming Castroite mobs. Any time a dissident becomes known, the mobs which carry out actos de repudio – acts of repudiation – are right there on the scene, howling communist slogans, throwing rocks, and wielding fists. That’s what passes for governance in Cuba, which calls itself a ‘revolutionary democracy.’ Nature’s bullies never had it better. Today, that Castroite practice has been imported to Venezuela. Miguel Octavio, writing on The Devil’s Excrement posts a passage from an article about a terrifying…
No one relishes the idea of getting into a verbal spat with the likes of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The Venezuelan president is a thug, a dictator, a caudillo and atrociously violent and vulgar with words, not even counting spit flecks and dog breath. Fighting with him is like wrestling a pig – you both get dirty and the pig likes it. George Bush won’t do it. Condi Rice wouldn’t do it. Neither will Vicente Fox or Felipe Calderon. Alvaro Uribe won’t, and lately, neither will Alan Garcia (although we hope that will change; Alan knows how to mop the floor…
Iran’s Islamofascist barbarians have either come to their senses or caved in to international pressure on the infamous case of Nazanin Fatehi, an unjustly accused Iranian girl whom we’ve blogged about here at Publius as a worthy freedom cause. Nazanin, age 17, was walking in the park with either her little sister or her boyfriend, when she was beset by a pack of brutal thugs who sought to rape her. By Iranian Islamofascist law, she was supposed to just lay back and enjoy it (being a temptress and all), and then take 100 lashes from the state for getting raped…
Aussie Girl, the lovely writer of Ukraine affairs at Ultima Thule, including her wonderful coverage of the Orange Revolution, has died this weekend of cancer. She was only 59. She was one of the sunniest and most insightful presences on the Internet. She was also one of the best bloggers – sharp, to the point and on target. She always was interested in my Russia coverage, which I blogged occasionally on due to my interest in the origins of communism. She always was on target on her observations and she occasionally sent me just the nicest notes. Losing her is…