The Devil's Excrement

For some reason I do not understand my posts appear with the date wrong, they have a date one day earlier than they really are. Should this continue I will start posting the correct date on the post itself.

For some reason I do not understand my posts appear with the date wrong, they have a date one day earlier than they really are. Should this continue I will start posting the correct date on the post itself.

For some reason I do not understand my posts appear with the date wrong, they have a date one day earlier than they really are. Should this continue I will start posting the correct date on the post itself.

Very good article in Adorama about when does a digital camera becomes as good as a 35 mm camera. More importantly, the article is not qualitative but actually quantitative, for those like me that are scientifically inclined. Additionally, there is a very good discussion as to how pixels in a digital cameras work and why there are artifacts. The discussion includes the Foveon technology that I have posted on before. The conclusion is that digital cameras are already as good as a 35 mm film camera, but those that are that good are very expensive. You can actually see the correlation between resolution and price. There is a very good link to a japanese website that compares pictures taken with the top of the line Canon EOS digital cameras where one can see that the quantative results correlate with the quality of the pictures.

 While many countries in Latin America turn to the left, I have always found it intriguing that the so-called neoliberal policies are criticized as having failed, but little mention is made of the success of economies like that of Singapore, Malaysia, Korea or closer to home, that of Chile. I have written a couple of articles pointing this out in El Universal, a Caracas daily on my impressions on Malaysia as well as the success of dollarization in El Salvador. Below, I translate freely a good article by Luis Henrique Ball “The Failure of the Left” which in very clear and succinct fashion points similar concepts out:

Since 1958 Venezuela has not had anything but left-wing governments. The ideas of Romulo Betancourt and Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo dominated the national political agenda during the first decade of democracy and state capitalism, oil production limits, price controls and protectionism made their appearance in our country. During the seventies, the social justice of Rafael Caldera came accompanied by more controls, more protectionism, the nationalization of foreign-owned electrical and telecommunications companies and the limitations to foreign companies in the banking business. Then came Perez I and left us with labor legislation copied from Peronismo, a Central Bank and an oil industry in the hands of the state, with both local and foreign capital expelled from all the profitable areas of the economy and planting the bases for the fiscal drain of the Guayana companies. Herrera and Lusinchi practically eliminated free trade with Recadi (the office that managed exchange controls) and controls of all kinds.

Perez II was the first Latin-American politician to attempt the juggling which since then many have imitated: a market economy with a controlled society. Perez, much like later Menem, Cardozo and others did, tried to obtain the benefits of the capitalistic system without dismounting the cronyism of a regulated economy and fundamentally leaving intact the capitalism of the state. Caldera II emulated Lusinchi during his first years, while later trying an about face without conviction.

Thus, we arrive at Chavez who never hid his political tendencies or his revolutionary fervor. In only three and a half years of his Government he has increased poverty and street-peddling to levels never thought possible as recently as five years earlier, and even worse, has presided over the disassembling of the productive fabric of the nation to such levels, that it will likely take a generation to recuperate it.

This is the legacy of a shared vision of society, a vision that has been more radical in some cases than others, but that in its origins it all originates in Marx.

In this moment, when Venezuela may be seeing some light at the end of the labyrinth, it is worth analyzing which have been the successful countries during the last forty years, which countries have been able to generate wealth and more well-being to their populations. Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia were dirt poor nations compare with Venezuela in 1958. Today they are richer and more prosperous nations than ours, and coincidentally, in those countries academics and intellectuals were never seduced by socialism. Chile, the most successful nation in Latin America, was the only one to completely disassemble the legal and institutional structure that the left had built during decades and Great Britain, which thanks to Margaret Thatcher; the same was done and is a symbol of European prosperity.

Today, Venezuelans should be attentive and insure that once the current nightmare is overcome we will not return to the past.

Press reports indicate that at least ten people were injured today when supporters of Hugo Chavez attempted to stop the march that was going to the Electoral Commission to hand in two million signatures to ask for a referendum. In the best democratic spirit, the Chavistas threw rocks and burned tires to block the demonstration. The National Guard used tear gas to stop them and the march reached the CNE succesfully. Once again, the true colors of Chavez and his supporters comes through. Anyone that has doubts as to who was responsible for the deaths in April should just look at the events today and think back. It is crystal clear. Now we have to sit back and as General Medina said, see what type of legal maneuvering Chavez does to stop the opposition.

Via my friends at Siflay Hraka I learn that the anti-war movement in the US is proposing to hold a very undemocratic referendum. Referenda are supposed to have clear cut questions with Yes-No answers that the electorate can decide on easily. Here is their question to try to stop the war in Iraq:

“The U.S. Congress did not represent me when it voted to authorize George W. Bush to carry out an illegal war against Iraq.

Thousands will die needlessly unless the people stop this war drive. I join with millions of people who believe that the $200 billion planned for war against Iraq should be spent instead to fund jobs, education, housing, health care, child care, assistance to the elderly and to meet people’s needs.”

I guess by saying YES all you do is join those that believe in that.  I thought that the Chavez Government was bad enough but this guys are actually worse, maybe they could advise each other. The question being proposed by the opposition for a possible refrendum is very simple:

Do you agree in asking the President of the Republic, Hugo Chavez Frias that he should immediately resign?

Couldn’t be simpler….

From Today’s El Nacional an article by Jaime Requena

Dr. Pepper’s Justice

On October 17th. President Chavez announced from the city of Oxford that he had designated Dr. William Pepper, Director of the International Human Rights Seminar of that University as Head of his commission to study the events in April. To that effect, the American lawyer was invited to start his work with a visit to the country starting next November 5th. There are abundant reasons to think that Dr. Pepper is not the ideal person to carry out an independent and impartial investigation of those crimes, which Venezuelan society has been clamoring for. They have nothing to do with his ideological conceptions or his academic credentials. The objection has to do with the objectivity that Dr. Pepper has shown in those matters relating to the analisis of the actions of the Government of Hugo Chavez Frias and the imprudence of namingm someone, for such a delicate position, without consultation or approval of other more interested in knowning the truth.

Last week, many, among those the writer of these lines, saw our efforts to raise our voice of protest in front of the academic community of Oxford for the nomination of Hugo Chavez Frias as a speaker on human rights simply bypassed. The moderators of the forum led by Dr. Pepper, rejected our electronic messages of protest and in a gesture that says very little about their proclaimed respect for freedom of speech, they made all possible efforts to block public access to their electronic forum, filtering only those that showed backing for the official initiative.

This is given as background as a live example of the impartiality that, we are sure, will dominate the conduct of Dr. Pepper. However, as if this small story were not sufficient, I invite the readers to look at the rest of said statement, justifying the invitation of President Chavez to speak at Oxford, which is an apology for the law of the funnel and an ode to the epic statistics of those that have seen the light in the command of the revolution. It forgives Chavez for his coup on February 4th. 1992 on the basis of a legitimate right that assisted him to rebel militarily, from the moment he was convinced that public institutions were rotten by corruption. Today, when a large part of the population covets an equal sentiment, not only about the Presidency and those that surround it, but about the new public powers and thousands of other things, Dr. Pepper condenms as coupsters the civic protests of the opposition and qualifies them as insignificant, when he compares them with the magnitude of the attendance to the mass acts convoked by the Government, a matter which he appears to be the only one to see. Much like our President, in his virtual Sunday program, Dr. Pepper ends blaming the local media for broadcasting the social, economic and political malaise, which should not exist, since according to him, the levels of indebtness and the standard of living have never been better.

Since this is the way things are, it is obvious that Dr. Pepper, having already taken sides, would never be able to issue a just and impartial judgement about the actions and conduct of the Chief of State. And that, in my opinion, disqualifies him from judging who was responsible for each of the visceral massacres of the month of April.

Finally, with that designation our Chief of State ends recognizing that neither the legislators nor justice work. As a Venezuelan, I am interested in learning the reasons that could assist the members of the Supreme Court to allow Dr. Pepper to act as their replacement.

While I did not want to prepare a proper response to the statement made by the International Human Rights Seminar of Oxford University, Antonio Guzman-Blanco and Anibal Romero have taken the painstaking task of replying in detail to the statement. The response is included within the Requena Files and shows the poor knowledge of said Seminar about Venezuelan issues and the huge mistake in judgement that represented the invitation of Hugo Chavez to speak at a reputable Seminar on Human Rights. Once again I challenge the IHRS to deny recieving any donation or contribution from the Venezuelan Government or any Government institution. 

Sergio Ramirez, who was Vice-President of the Sandinista Government in Nicaragua, who wrtote the very interesting book Adios Muchachos, had these very interesting things to say in yesterday’s local newspaper El Nacional:

 “I have given many opinions about Chavez. I think he had his moment, his first moments, and very important ones for the history of Venezuela. But the society is divided. And that to me is a failure. A million people here, another million there. And for a country to be divided, in strictly democratic terms does not matter. That can be resolved at the time of elections. But around some goals that are called revolutionary, of profound changes in society, it is not easy to resolve.

To me it looks that there lies the great mystery and the great challenge for politicians: to be able to carry out profound changes with a consensus. Someone, from the left, may tell me that that is impossible, because there will always exist concrete interests that will oppose it. But I believe that in these societies you will never do anything more without a consensus. That is what Lula is doing in Brazil. To me that is important

The other thing that seems important is that an elected officer, like Lula, should know that he will be in power for only five years and not his whole life. Maybe ten years, but no more. But those that prepare themselves to always be in that position would fail beforehand. There are no Government officials forever in Latin America”

Well said, I hope all our politicians read it.