Blogging the democratic revolution
When I went to Venezuela late last year, I came back with the impression that it was heading well into Jim Jones territory. There was too much cult of personality there, starting with the gigantic Hugo Chavez billboard that greets you from Caracas airport before you take the highway into the shantytowns, and within the city, all the ‘Chavez IS the people’ posters, with him looking soulful and thoughtful, if not nauseastingly adored by small children gathered around his side. This imagery went well beyond the political and deep into the cultural realm, and beyond even cultural, to the religious…
Scenes from Mexico’s Congress Source: El Universal, via StJacques at Free Republic Mexican Congress has opened, and supporters of failed presidential candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the ridiculous little man who could not take defeat like and man, and instead inaugurated himself president last week, are determined to not allow real electoral winner, Felipe Calderon, take office. It’s actually a constitutional requirement that he take office physically and these clowns and bozos – who are defying the will of 44 million Mexican voters – are determined to physically prevent that from happening. They want the second-place finisher to take office…
Hugo Chavez addresses the United Nations General Assembly Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! News If Hugo Chavez had wanted to repel the American public, he could not have done a better job than this morning, speaking before the United Nations. Waving a Noam Chomsky book like a late-night K-Tel salesman, he found time to hawk Chomsky tomes, which I am sure was effective – given that people will want to know exactly what he filled his head with after a rant like that. Next, the oily encyclopedia salesman began raving that George Bush was the devil. He yelled about the smell…
In Hungary over the past 48 hours it’s the Nika riots all over again. Sort of. First, political parties in Hungary do not immediately line up into conveniently-intelligible left-wing/right-wing definitions, though some are easily mappable for Americans (the SZDSZ are basically libertarians). See my previous posts here and here for some quick shorthand. What do we know? We know that Prime Minister Gyurcs????ny shot his mouth off at a private meeting of the Socialist Pary (MSZP), which was then leaked to the press, and the entire country fell into political paroxysms. But that’s what happens when the Prime Minister publicly…
Hugo Chavez is so detested by average Venezuelans that he’s reduced to passing out great big bottles of rum at his campaign rallies. Voters quaff these booze bottles full of liquor, pirate-style while they think it over. Evidently Chavez thinks this raises the odds of voters checking off his name on Venezuelan election day, Dec. 3. Naturally, this has attracted street drunks to Chavez rallies and fostered a new social phenomenon – Dancing Drunks for Chavez. Miguel has the must-be-seen-to-be-believed photos in this post here. More seriously, one commentatator on Miguel’s site notes that weird dancing public drunkeness is often…
Remember that the background on this subject was given on Part One. In this part we consider rulers who should be taken out of power, but whose crimes are less in the area of international terrorism and more in terms of the damage they have done to their own people. If we take seriously the idea that all peoples should have basic rights (a la UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights), then there certainly are rulers, usually called ???????Presidents???????, who have done much more harm than good for their fellow countrymen. ***** Fidel Castro So much has been said about…
In April two prominent observers of politics died. The first, John Kenneth Galbraith was an influential Canadian-American economist of the 20th century. He was a Keynesian and a leading proponent of 20th-century American liberalism and progressivism, died on the 29th. The second, Jean-Fran????ois Revel was a French politician, journalist, author, prolific philosopher and member of the Acad????mie fran????aise since June 1998. Unfortunately, Galbraith????????s death overshadowed Revel????????s: the later did not receive the attention he deserved. Galbraith had been a charming, immodest, outspoken fellow whose every word was taken seriously: he also was almost always wrong. Revel, not dashing, stable, firm,…
Netcraft claims that President Ahmadinejad is running NetBSD or OpenBSD — maybe he will have BSD tortured or killed. Also check out the blog, and don’t miss out on this opportunity to send Mahmoud some e-mail feedback — I’m sure he would appreciate receiving some “generous offers” and perhaps a “limited” amount of your honest advice… Actually, it looks like I got it wrong and ahamdinejad.ir is the blog, while president.ir has a bunch of other stuff. ahmadinejad.ir is apparently running Windows 2000 (infidel software from the Great Satan). Oh, and for readers as well as spam crawlers, please send…
There may be an Arabo-Iranian Cold War brewing, if the Arabs make themselves relevant again As the Arabs furiously try to guilt Syria into curbing Hezb Allah????????s activities and ???????rejoining??????? the Arab world, one cannot help but see an almost laughable, but certainly pathetic, last ditch attempt at salvaging what influence the Sunni Arab states have in the Middle East. Ever since the American invasion of Iraq, the strong men of the Sunni Arab world have become less and less relevant in a region that has become increasingly polarized on various fronts. On the one hand, with the liberation of…
For those of you who are eagerly awaiting the next round of “Islamist propaganda Clue,” our friend Jim at Gateway Pundit, along with some particularly acute commenters, has apparently busted the New York Times participating in a Hezbollah photo op. It’s unclear at this point who staged what… UPDATE: LGF has this obvious photoshopped fake, by the same NYTimes photographer. You can also see a slideshow of his photos, which he narrates, here.
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty is surrounded by a big barricade and guard station. I was looking for a tour or someone to interview so that I could write a piece about it for Publius, but the guard said exactly the above. Any readers here who work for RFE/RL who could get me in sometime Monday? Just email me at robertmayerÉgmail.com
Charles at LGF caught Reuters in what looks like an obnoxious faked photo, with lots of dissection and discussion. A special correspondent who works for Reuters sent me this photo from the series, which I believes corroborates Reuters’ story. Judge for yourself: UPDATE: Now that Adnan Hajj has gone public, I feel it’s ok to share the rest of this story. Some readers may have questioned the authenticity of the original photo, even after I presented the above evidence, but surely we can all agree with Adnan’s explanation: As a ÄformerÅ Reuters photographer, I deny having deliberately attempted to manipulate…
Between meaningful embraces with Iran’s leading U.S. hostage-taker and quality time frolicking on The Stalin Line at the Happy-Hitler Meadows, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez still finds time to hawk toothpaste, too. He’s a busy man, a man of the world, but the Pitchman Supremo still manages to get it all in. Last year he was hawking corn flake crunchies, this year it’s bright red communist toothpaste. Oh that Hyuug! What would we all do without him? How would this stuff ever get sold? And there’s nothing more important than getting teeth as pearly white as Chavez’s. Must be read to…
This is too funny! Is this the tragicomic end of the Glenn Greenwald saga? Greenwald is presently denying the claims, but I don’t think it helps his credibility that his own biographical blurb reads almost exactly the same as the alleged sock-puppet posts in question… UPDATE: He seems to have changed the tenor of his bio. I wonder what else he’ll be revising? Why Greenwald is probably doomed I believe Glenn Greenwald is probably doomed to relegation. If the suspicions around his online activity are correct — and judging by his response of frantic denial, personal attacks, revisionism, etc., it…
Yes, there is such a thing! Daniel at Venezuela News & Views has links and a great essay of his own describing this actual phenomenon. He explains that how the creepier you are, the more likely you are to think that toting a Kalashnikov is cool. He’s got the yucky photo of the foremost practitioner of this Kalashnikov-toting practice (take a guess who!) and links to photos examining this phenomena in this item here. He’s also got harsh words for Code Pink “Peace Mom” Cindy Sheehan who continues to extol the virtues of Venezuela’s dictator in a remarkably ignorant new…
I am writing this piece in response to the many allegations circulating in the Web regarding the Zidane-Materazzi case. One version has already been told, so I want the readers to read the other,too. There is an ongoing inquiry opened by the FIFA to find out what has really happened betwen the two players. In my opinion, everyone of us should refrain from expressing summary claims without having any proof. So far, the proof we have is that Zidane has committed a vile act of violence by head-butting a rival player. False claims have circulated according to which Materazzi would…
The last World Cup Italy won was on 1982 and I was only 3 months ! I am deeply believing that Italy can win the 2004 World Cup, regardless of whether it will be against France or Portugal! German newspapers such as Der Spiegel insulted the Italians these days, including headlined , before the match: “Goodbye Pizza”. And Pizza is still there! Just to clarify something: I am convinced that the majority of the German people are not supporting the insults written by a few misguided German media outlets. However, below are a few nice photos! Del Piero’s wife. Del…
Isn’t it funny that while Algerians are debating whether or not to abolish term limits for their presidents, Mauritanians have just approved a constitution that provides for term limits on presidents (and compels the president to pledge before God that he will not attempt to modify these limits), and other checks on the executive? 77% Mauritanians turned out for the referendum, with 97% of them voting “yes” to the Constitution. According to Al Jazeera, Colonel Vall, the main ring leader of last summer’s coup that deposed former president Ouled Taya, has also proposed the prohibition of coup members from running…
After much suffering and a red card for one of the Italian players, Italy won 1 – 0 against Australia. Yes, it was due to a penalty kick, but our Francesco Totti scored just a couple of seconds before the end of the match! Below some photos of this much-suffered match! Before scoring: Getting ready to score: The girlfriend of Italy’s goal-keeper ( clapping) and the wife of Francesco Totti right below (with the sunglasses ) Totti scored! Note: the writer is an Italian. If you want to see photos of Australian fans, I’m sorry but I cannot post them…:)
Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez unveiled thousands of cartons of rifles, bought from Russia supposedly to head off a U.S. “invasion.” Lovingly, his official press office released the dingbat photo above. What a bunch of slobs. Via a Bloomberg item found by Alek Boyd at VCrisis, here is what Chavez had to say about this new development, and I kid you not: “Soldiers, this rifle is your new girlfriend. A real soldier loves his rifle.” Miguel has tons more photos of Chavez posing with his “girlfriend” in this special link here.
A couple of months ago, after the golden domed Al Askari Mosque in Samarra had been attacked, I was asked by a friend why Muslims blamed the United States and Israel for this bombing. The Iranian president, his leashed Lebanese poodle Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and a few other folks issued statements and articles accusing the US of wishing to stir up sectarian tensions among the Iraqis. For instance, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the following in reaction to the tragedy: ???????These heinous acts are committed by a group of Zionists and occupiers that have failed. They have failed…
I hate Islamists. You know the deal. But if you don’t, it’s at the end of every news article about Algeria: “Algeria’s civil war between the military and Islamist militas began in 1992 after the military halted elections that the Islamist FIS was poised to win took over 150,000 lives . . . blah blah blah”. That’s why. Islamists come in many different forms though. Some are peaceful and practice a sort of social gospel. Others are irritable and beat women for not being covered. Others massacre entire villages. Still others advocate sectarianism and conflict between religious groups in countries…
I have previously remarked on Algeria????????s growing ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and President Bouteflika????????s fiery rhetoric towards France on the issue of colonial apologetics. Both of these issues is contrary to Algeria????????s national interest, though on different scales. The first is an issue of independence in foreign policy, which has been a hallmark of Algerian foreign policy since independence. That is, how to balance relationships with international heavy hitters, be they First, Second, or Third World nations, while still maintaining flexibility on the world stage. Today this issue is similar to Algeria????????s domestic politics; will Algeria side…
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 regions and on five fronts. His three-pronged strategy is “anti-capitalism, anti-Americanism and advancement of The Project.” Sound nutsy enough to you? Sound Hitlerian enough? If you don’t think so, you haven’t read this longer piece detailing Hugo Chavez’s very own goal for global domination at…
Yesterday, at a meeting with the Algerian speaker of parliament, Ammar Sadani (or Saadani), the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared that the years of “discord” among the Muslim countries was over. These years of discord had allowed Israel to occupy Palestine and for the West to dominate the lands of Islam. But, the “enemies” of the ummah had been weakened by recent developments in the Middle East, and, Ahmadinejad said, Iran and Algeria could change the balance of power in the Middle East against Israel and the United States. Sadani, in support of the Iranian president, responded, ever carefully, by…