Blogging the democratic revolution
This time, avalancha in Barquisimeto, Venezuela Source: Aleksander Boyd, VCrisis How does one explain this? The huge ‘avalancha’ crowds of Venezuelans from end to end of the vast South American nation the size of three Texases, all seeking an end to Chavismo is the rainbow swirling edge of pure democratic revolution. The photos – and there are a ton of them in Alek’s new photo album from several cities here signal that people are tired of tyranny, they are tired perpetual warfare, they are tired of hostility to free trade, they are tired of economic horror shows. They want peace,…
Vietnamese wave as the motorcade of U.S. President George W. Bush makes its way through the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Monday, Nov. 20, 2006. (AP Photo/Nghat Le) Vietnamese onlookers react to the arrival of U.S. President George W. Bush at Ho Chi Minh Museum in Ho Chi Monh City, Vietnam, Monday, Nov. 20, 2006. (AP Photo/David Longstreath) Vietnamese cheer U.S. President George W. Bush as he arrives the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange Monday, Nov. 20, 2006, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. (AP Photo/David Longstreath) A volunteer waits to get a glimpse from leaders dressed…
Half a million people marched against Hugo Chavez in a campaign rally for rapidly rising challenger Manuel Rosales in Caracas on Saturday Alek Boyd of VCrisis, who was obviously at the gigantic 15-mile rally, has taken some spectacular photos of the gargantuan march against Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who vows to Cubanize the country and force anyone with brain in Venezuela to flee to Miami. His 28 or so photos are bigger and more vivid than the TV screen-grabs I posted yesterday. Go see them all here. Daniel Duquenal at Venezuela News & Views has a fascinating discussion of which…
Alek Boyd has been doing some fantastic reporting on the state of poor society in Venezuela, actually talking to people and seeing what it’s like in their often ignored world. Are you aware that Venezuela’s poor are poorer than any other western hemispheric nation’s poor? I mean places like Haiti, Nicaragua, Brazil and Bolivia? I sure wasn’t. But apparently, it’s true. And it’s not surprising. Take a huge oil economy that drives out all other trade. Couple it with unchecked illegal immigration, rendering millions of people without legal papers. Add onto it layers of socialism which preceded Chavez, which taxes…
Now this is gross! Feel the love! Smell the sulphur! UPDATE: Miguel has some barf-alert Chavista poetry to complement some additional repulsive Chavista images here and here UPDATE: Daniel has some excellent thinking analysis of the barf-alert Chavista ‘love’ campaign and a great roundup of the other blogs that are disgussing this in this must-read post here.
An Avalancha. You don’t even need to speak Spanish to know what it means. Source: The Devil’s Excrement, which has tons more, keep scrolling. Too busy to write anything but the Avalancha presidential election rally in Venezuela over the weekend has yielded some unbelievable photos. Manuel Rosales of Venezuela is mounting a ferocious challenge to brutal leftist dictator Hugo Chavez in the December elections and this past weekend, hundreds of thousands of battered Venezuelans rallied in a dramatic show of force. They covered Caracas. I’ve never seen so many people in once place at once! These honorable democratic revolutionaries are…
Alek Boyd has an excellent new photo show of scenes from the Chavista political “base” around Caracas. He shows dilapidated housing and garbage flung all over the place, in pictures that make Tijuana look like Beverly Hills. Check it out, here.
There’s such great blogging going on in Venezuela these days that I almost feel I have been remiss in keeping track of it all. Ahmadinejad of Iran is in Caracas, Chavez is running for reelection, and Venezuela’s economy is falling apart. Here is a brief blog roundup from some of the finest: Daniel, of Venezuela News & Views has a great bloggy mishmash (or since he is in France now, let’s say ragout) of acid comments about Chavismo with several pearls of observation, like this one about current condition of Chavez here: The historian in this blogger has seen too…
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.
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…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez broke off diplomatic relations with Israel this week in a bid to grandstand with various Arab states, saying he was doing it to protest the war in Lebanon. Now, Chavez could care less about dead bodies, given the far-higher murder rate that has overtaken Venezuela. Deaths don’t bother him. This move instead is part of a geopolitical game he’s playing. He’s doing it because he’s seeking Arab support for a seat on the UN Security Council, and despite having all the extremist credentials, he’s apparently having a terrible time getting it. In a way, it’s not…
The Italian national team landed yesterday evening (Italy local time) at Pratica di Mare airport, Rome. They have been awarded by the Italian institutions (it was hard to me to see Prodi and company to award my players). Then, they walked in the streets of Rome on board of a bus, waving Italian flags and inciting the 600 thousand people who were waving flags and singing. Regarding Materazzi, we can never know the truth behind the claims of Zidane. Already, several arab and Islamist websites are ‘condemning’ Materazzi. Here is a list of what is circulating in the arab and…
French fans celebrate their World Cup victory in Paris Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! The French team accomplished a beautiful victory against the Portuguese team today, putting it in the World Cup final match versus Italy on July 9. The French took it very well and were out celebrating the penalty-kick victory match in the streets of Paris. It sure beats burning Citroens and kicking in shop windows, no? Maybe the game did not entirely have a satisfactory endimg but it was a fine thing for France, because their team had been so underestimated, so dismissed as ‘all washed up’ and…
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…
Lots of cars here in Cagliari. Lots of people in the streets and at the beach. The situation is the same in many Italian cities, where people is going out to celebrate a well-deserved victory against Ukraine. Everyone can admit now that Italy today deserved to win. A vindication for the insults against the Italian players, from Der Spiegel. Insults that, I am sure, are not shared by the majority of the German people. Next time will be very hard. Italy will play against Germany. A very difficoult game, for both the teams. Toni I’ve just seen a photo showing…
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…:)
Romanticized mercenary and psychopathic killer, Che Guevara Source: Le Blogue du LFG – Guadalajara If a thug has a pretty face, does that justify his mass murder? That’s an issue the Academic Elephant explored after a firsthand look at images of Che after Che after Che after Che after Che after Che at a fancy London Museum, which was putting on a Che Display for the radical-chic set. Elephant explores the images of Che and how their use is designed to manipulate viewers. All of that has culminated in the hideous situation we have today, where Che (a two-bit tramp…
Following on from Stefania’s post, the World Cup match between Iran and Mexico went on, and Iranian exiles, though they didn’t win the match, did a good job cheering their team. As Stefania noted, many of the exiles were making a political statement about Iran’s regime by waving the old Iranian flag, which featured a lion and sun emblem. You might argue that there’s something off about politicizing a soccer match by waving politically loaded flags, but I see something very different – the babes are cheering the Iranian team (and I am sure it’s a state-sponsored team) even though…
You know I’ve posted pictures and referred to other sites where the reality and ugliness of Castro’s Cuba can be seen in whole, but there’s just something about these new pictures from Val Prieto at Babalu blog that say something unlike anything else anyone can describe about the Castroite hellhole. What a hellhole. What a dump. Communism in action. What communist could ever justify Castro’s regime within sight of such pictures? What a revolting sight. See the whole thing here. UPDATE: Fausta‘s take on this is a short swift brilliant item here.
Daniel in Venezuela has taken more photos on the road from Yaracuy state to Valencia, and he’s noted the rising tide of human misery along Venezuela’s barren, decrepit highways. Instructure is crumbling while scavengers grow around the dumps in the rural landscapes. I saw this myself in Venezuela on my way through the countryside. It was bleak and saddening. This is Chavismo in action. He also saw a lot of nighttime horror in Caracas, and did not close his eyes to it. Nobody is reporting this. He wrote about it here. His unique photos are here.
Source: Daniel’s Venezuela News & Views What do 70,000 unsolved murders look like? That’s what Venezuelans tried to show today in a unique and passionate protest in Caracas. The most visible legacy of Hugo Chavez’s regime is murder. As the entire governmental infrastructure becomes politicized, one hard hit section is the police. Bad cops, so long as they are Chavistically loyal, are the ones hired, while the ethical cops get thrown out. Not only that, the government is focusing its resources on prosecuting political, not criminal, cases. That leaves the cops who could make a difference out of luck. Lastly,…
The spectacular decline in the visual appearance of Caracas, Venezuela, once one of South America’s smartest cities, continues to be noted. Caracas under the Hugo Chavez dictatorship is getting that telltale ‘Havana‘ look, as a result of the same types of policies that made Havana the heap of rubble it now is. We’ve recently noted this slideshow from The Real Cuba, and now Daniel at Venezuela News & Views, fresh from an eye-opening trip to Caracas, notes the decline and rubbishification of Caracas – as well as its new signs of massive Stalinist propaganda – in an informative and interesting…
I noticed this photo on the Yahoo! site, listed as one of the most frequently viewed and emailed. It’s interesting because at my workplace, the photo editor was struck by the strangeness of the photo, too, and called me over to look at it as something disgusting. He pointed out that the hackneyed peace symbolism, the dictator-pleasing dance concept, and the scary topic – nuclear uranium – all combined to create a surprisingly Orwellian image. The phony joy of the lobotomized culties just happens to match the ayatollahs’ announcement of “happy news” about Iran’s new uranium enrichment program. Kim Jong…
Miguel Octavio has a couple of new pictures up showing the extent of Chavista vulgarity. Chavez’s so-called Bolivarian “revolution” has come to this here.
Jacqueline Mackey Paisley Passey in Costa Rica now has a tremendous gallery of photos on Costa Rica’s cliffhanger presidential election that are beautifully taken and beautifully laid out. That election has about 3100 votes’ difference now between Oscar Arias and Otton Solis, 40.5% to 40.3%, and 12% of the votes still to be counted – that’s getting really close! See Jacqueline’s pictures here.