The Devil's Excrement

Two from the news:

1) I don’t know if this is true or not, but the Miami Herald has an article about corruption  in the agricultural development fund Fondafa in the town of Zaraza, Guarico state in central Venezuela, whereby local crop producers would hire locals to sign for credits and pay them for doing it. As a result, among those participating were a group of prostitutes. According to one person interviewed for the article “The brothels closed down because the women got credits from Fondafa”.

Must be the first time that prostitution goes down thanks to corruption. Maybe Freakonomics should study the case.

2) The day after the sister of former President of the CNE Jorge Rodriguez calls for an investigation of Clinica Avila, because she claims they did not want to treat her brother, the tax office shuts down the administrative office of the clinic. Government denies any connection.

Sure, just a coincidence!

According to page A-4 of today’s El Nacional, the Vice President of the CNE Janeth Hernandez said “we want, that this Saturday, when the period to register candidacies from August 5th. to 24th, begins, that the rules be completely clear. Anyone that registers would know the rules, there will not be changes in rules”

The first question is why say that?

Because in the past rules were changed over and over, up to the day of the vote and even afterwards. (Remember the audit that would be known five weeks after and we learned only some of the results eight weeks after? Or how about the rule changes on voting procedures on the day of the RR? Or the audit that never took place on the day of the RR? Or not allowing people to go in the audits, despite the rules saying that would be the case? Or polls staying open for hours, even though there were no lines? Or how about voting machines would not talk to the servers until polls were closed in the rr and they chatted all day?)

The curious thing is, the meeting to approve the rules was cancelled, so she will not be able to keep her promise on day one, as candidates will be able to register starting tomorrow, without even knowing the rules.

Par for the course…