The Devil's Excrement

Lots of
things happening and not enough time to blog all of them in detail:

—Revolutionary
Lying: For two years we have been told the country is producing 3.3 million
barrels of oil a day, but in Sunday’s release of the financials of PDVSA, it
clearly says that production in 2003 was 2.7 million barrels per day. Of these,
1.8 million were produced by PDVSA and 429 thousand by the partnerships in
2003.

—Bizarro
scene of the week: The Minister of Information and new President
of Telesur was complaining that with all of the extra hours at the official TV
channel VTV, the budget would not last the year. Funny, I thought he was the
boss of the Head of VTV. Has she been fired? No. Wonder how long the Telesur
budget will last. Nobody is reponsible for the circus, that is why the clowns go wild.

—Helping
the needy: Venezuela will subsidize
oil exports to poor Uruguay.
That country will purchase up to six shipments of 900,000 barrels paying 67% up
front and the rest financed with very low interest rates. Funny, Venezuela
with
a GDP per capita of $4,000 per inhabitant will help out those poor
Uruguayans
who have a GDP per capita of $12,600. Did I mention that Venezuela will
issue a bond in US$ at not such a low interest rate in the next couple
of weeks?

—Wasting
time and money: Caracas under piles of garbage
but the Mayor of the Metropolitan District came out today with his third spread
in the newspapers explaining why he wants to change the name of Caracas and the
anniversary of its founding. In a four page spread in Caracas’ most important dailies, the Mayor
explained the reasons, correcting the orthographic mistakes of the previous
ads. Hopefully those doing the research on the history of the city will not be
the same ones that don’t know how to spell. Obviously, the taxpayers pay for
these ads.

—10^th.
Milestone. Yes, Venezuelans now have ten million cell phones in their hands in the
latest statistics by telecom regulator CONATEL. Amazing for a country of 25
million where half the population is under 18. I still remember a telecom exec
explaining to me in the mid-90’s why it would never go above 5 million in the
next decade. I heard the same about Internet users three years ago. I did
mention the cell phone anecdote too.

–Revolutionary
Justice: The Electoral Hall of the Supreme Court denied tonight the
injunction requested by opposition groups against the electoral registry, in
the face of the election next Sunday. Of course, the registry is perfect as
claimed by the Head of the Electoral Board, if not ask “Henri Charriere” better
known as “Papillon, still
registered to vote after being dead for only 32 years.

—UVE’s
legality approved: The Electoral Board announced today, only three days before
the election, that the UVE party is legal. Hey! It is illegal to campaign since
Sunday, but you can legalize a party fielding thousands of candidates three days
before an election. Makes sense, no?. UVE is just
an electoral trick by Chavez’
MVR party created as front to clearly violate the Venezuelan Constitution. The party
simply does not exist. Another day. Another trick. Do I hear the word
democracy? The word Justice? We will have to appeal this one to the Celestial
Hall of the Supreme Court.

This entry was posted on August 3, 2005 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Venezuela.