Blogging the democratic revolution
Freedom House has just released its latest edition of “Freedom in the World,” and 2006 doesn’t look to have been a good year for the advancement of freedom. In fact, in many cases, freedom has declined significantly in areas where just a couple of years ago great gains were being heralded. In it’s press release,…
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,…
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…
Do you ever wonder what power it was that made Ronald Reagan victorious during the Cold War? A new history book, compellingly reviewed by Herb Meyer, casts amazing insight on what really happened during Reagan’s great rise to crush communism – and the secret was, Reagan was a … union boss: Like Lech Walesa after…
On Sunday December 3rd, the British newspaper The Observer published three stories about Alexander Litvinenko (pictured above right with slain hero reporter Anna Politkovskaya and Chechen rebel leader in exile Akhmed Zakayev in London a few weeks before Politkovskaya’s murder — eerily, the Chechen is the only one still alive). All three stories were based…
The Spanish are known for doing their protests big. Everytime they’ve had an anti-ETA or anti-terrorism march, it’s been huge. They’ve been dealing with terrorism for decades like few developed countries have, and with nearly a thousand deaths accumulated over the years, the airport bombing two weeks ago have been them over the edge. Tonight,…
You can kind of hear it in the distance, the tolling bell for Chavez as his regime spirals into ever louder lunacy. But there is a real tolling bell that will get him, the bell of plunging oil prices. That bell is starting to ring so you can hear it. This week, oil prices fell…
Bolivia is edging ever closer to civil war, with armies forming and violence being returned from violence on both sides – the independent, industrious, freedom-loving Bolivians of the four Media Luna provinces in the east, and hardcore socialist cocalero regime of dependency in the Evo Morales-controlled remainder of the country. If you need a primer…
It’s a little thin on the ground for polls in this election season, but Boz at Bloggings by Boz has gathered up a few interesting tidbits, such as one on the attitudes of Latin America’s elites toward the new elected governments around the region and found some interesting stuff. Read the whole thing here.
Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon at a funeral for an assassinated official Source: Notimex, via Yahoo! Mexico Felipe Calderon is determined to take back his country. His war parallels that which the U.S. is fighting for Iraq’s freedom but he doesn’t have the luxury of fighting it in another country. He’s fighting the same caliber of…
Charles at Little Green Footballs has happened upon the latest in sexy Saudi swimwear, with the New Zealand-designed ‘burkini’ – something which could keep a whale afloat. Which is just the thing. Islamofascist women are getting fat under all those bedsheets and Islamofascists want them to get swimming to slim down. Which is kind of…
Yelling “Fatherland, socialism or death!” Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez was sworn in for his third term, to the sound of crickets chirping. Not one world leader showed up to this Caracas spectacular to witness it – not a single one. Chavez says he didn’t invite anyone, but given his need for adulation, I leave it…
ON DANIEL TREISMAN AND HIS “NORMAL COUNTRY” . . . AND WHETHER PIGS HAVE WINGS The Walrus and the Carpenter walked on a mile or so, And then they rested on a rock, conveniently low: And all the little Oysters stood and waited in a row. “The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk…
A car near the Cochabamba governor’s office being burned by Evo Morales’ Marxist militants Source: Miguel Buitrago at MABB Marxist militants like to set things on fire, and these days none moreso than those in Bolivia, who’re burning down the town – of Cochabamba, so to say. That’s why they began massing on a Bolivian…
Socialism, in various forms, ranging from democratic to totalitarian, is as natural as breathing in most parts of the world. From Indonesia to Tanzania, from Russia to Congo to Algeria, from Libya to Sweden to Canada to Mexico to Argentina, practically every nation out there has some variant of socialism. The odd thing is, the…
Just over a year ago, Russia cut off natural gas supplies to Ukraine due to a standoff over whether the country would pay full “market price” over the subsidies that it had been receiving. Consequently, given that a large amount of Western Europe’s gas flows through Ukraine’s pipelines, there were a lot of German and…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has signalled his true intentions with more clarity than ever today, announcing that he would expropriate: 1. All the phone lines 2. All the electricity As this happened, a provincial governor from Bolivar state down south let it all hang out, simply saying he wanted to confiscate the entire media, forcing…
After the departure of Donald Rumsfeld, it is no surprise that President Bush would seek to reshuffle the rest of his war cabinet. It leaves a vacancy that begs that such a void be filled wherever possible. According to the latest news, Bush will be sending Negroponte back over to State while appointing a retired…
Like a rotting jungle, redolent of every odor and fetid color, yet utterly impassable in viney tangles, nothing seems to stop the spreading corruption that has now gripped Hugo Chavez’s communist caudillo hacienda known as Venezuela. Daniel in Venezuela, at Venezuela News & Views has an excellent Venezuela corruption roundup, with links to several sources…
Is there any such thing as a Marxist regime without an invasion for territory? The Soviets did it – in Chechnya and elsewhere inside the marginally consolidated Tsarist empire, including the vast booty they took in one quarter of the Ukraine in the aftermath of WWI. Then they moved on to other territories, including forays…
In a December 6th installment of his column ???????Subjective Evaluation??????? for National Interest, Russia scholar Dmitri Simes of the Nixon Center purports to critique ???????highly simplistic and sometimes even misleading coverage??????? of the murder of Alexander Litvinenko. Simes argues that although Litvinenko was an employee of the FSB (successor to the KGB) is not appropriate…
Will Cuban dictator Fidel Castro ever die? Or will he just disappear into a miama of rumor? Val Prieto at Babalu blog has compiled a great list of all the dead Castro rumors as they multiply and explained how and why they are originating. He lays them out as anecdotes, gives them a good roughing…
In 1938, when President Lazaro Cardenas nationalized the oil industry in Mexico, everyone said it was the right move. After all, there were some pretty gamy capitalists from the U.S., Britain, France and Spain operating in the country, and getting them out and creating a national oil company, even if it meant expropriations, seemed like…
It was a weekend of a lot of explosions. Outside of the bomb attack at the Madrid airport, nine blasts went off across Bangkok, killing and injuring dozens of people. It is another question of why and who, as essentially both the former government as well as the opposition is out of power following a…
A large reason for my absence here from Publius, beside a hectic end to the year, has been that I’ve been enjoying my vacation time with my family here in Madrid and Andorra. Since I’ve been in the latter for the past several days, it’s been nearly impossible to get on the internet without forking…