Observations focused on the problems of an underdeveloped country, Venezuela, with some serendipity about the world (orchids, techs, science, investments, politics) at large. A famous Venezuelan, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, referred to oil as the devil's excrement. For countries, easy wealth appears indeed to be the sure path to failure. Venezuela might be a clear example of that.
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I will break my rule not to talk about other countries to show you this picture in Libyia taken within Gaddafi’s compound, which has me mesmerized.
That is what autocrats do in the name of the “revolution” and the “people”.
Does it get more ridiculous than that in Barinas?
The Devil's Excrement 
September 22, 2011 at 11:52 pm
Middle-Eastern oil-rich countries are noted for a “tacky” sense of style. Expats in Saudi Arabia long ago coined the phrase “Saudi Gaudy” to describe the phenomenon. It is what tends to happen when previously poor and uneducated people suddenly become wealthy.
September 22, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Doesn’t surprise me. I’m sure Chavez would do the same.
September 22, 2011 at 7:16 am
Kind of off-topic: just this week venezuelans created the Libya Resistance News Agency. WTF?
September 22, 2011 at 7:48 am
Another O/T -did you hear about the 10 Colombians
(FARC) executed in Libya by the rebels-they were tried
and convicted “on the battlefield” for being
mercenaries. (Along with several others
from European countries-83 total I think.)
September 22, 2011 at 8:45 am
Surely, another true beacon of objective chavista journalism in the works!
September 22, 2011 at 5:34 am
Honestly: it may look tacky but if that is for the children of the country, it’s just that, tacky. I have seen similar things in opposition municipalities in Venezuela, payed by Venezuelans’ taxes…imported from Europe or the States. Quite a different thing are the palaces of the Gaddafi clan. That is not just tacky but a huge, really huge waste.
September 21, 2011 at 9:57 pm
was he a friend of Michael Jackson?
September 21, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Strange I hve always thought there was some sort of connection
between Qadaffi and Michael Jackson. Their fashion-maybe they
copied each other in some ways..Qadaffi the stronger twin…