The Devil's Excrement

Before leaving for the march wanted to make sure I Posted the website for one of the discoverers of Quaoar Mike Trujillo. The page has lots of interesting information including a comparison of Quaoar to Pluto, the Earth and the Earths’ moon. It has a discussion of why they dont think it is a planet, its orbit and even a picture of the planet (or some pixels indicating there is an 800 mile in diameter planet there!). Very cool stuff!!

This article appeared in page 9 of today’s TalCual newspaper and was written by Fernando Luis Egaña. To me it describes quite well the cinicism of the Carter Center with regards to Venezuela. Translated liberally by me:

Three months ago, on July 10th. to be exact, Jimmy Carter issued in Caracas a declaration about the 12 types of compromises that Chavez and his Government had formalized with the mission from the Carter Center. Let’s look at the fullfillment of the most important promises: 

1.-“The President said that he would call on all citizens to avoid violence”.Nevertheless the official sector, including the Bolivarian Circles, has never been as aggressive as they are today.

2.-“The leaders (of the Government) assure us that the permits for the transmission through radioelectric media will not be revoked”. But Conatel sanctions against legal media continue and so do the “permits” under the “community” figure.

3.-“Leaders of the Government say that the CTV is recognized as the legitimate representative of the workers”  Nevertheless Chavez just proclaimed in a public act that the (imaginary) “bolivarian central of workers” is legitimate.

4.-“All 49 bills approved under the enabling bill would subject to revision and amendment” Since Carter’s declaration only two legal changes to these bills have been sanctioned by the National Assembly and none have been published in the official gazette.

5.-“The President said that he has decided not to repeat the confrontational or incendiary statements”. No comment as they would say in Atlanta, Georgia.

6.-“Any member of the Bolivarian Circles that were armed illegally will be arrested and tried” The Courts and jails are still waiting.

7.-“Both the leaders of the Government and the National Assembly assure us that they will designate rapidly the new members of the National Electoral Council” No way, No way, as they say in Sabaneta, Barinas State.

8.-“The President expressed that he would accept what is contemplated in the Constitution for an amendment to shorten the Presidential period” If I told you so I don’t remember.

9.-“The Government said that the Attorney General, the Comptroller and the People’s Defender were legitimatelly elected and would end their term”  At last a promise fulfilled!

10.-“Chavez denied any attempt to politicize the Armed Forces” A promised that died at birth.

11.-“The Government and the opposition back that the National Assembly establish an effective and impartial commission abouth April 11th.” Thanks to the Government and its supporters the “Truth Commission” shines by its absence.

12.- The President reiterated his compromise to accept the decisons of the Supreme Court”. “Resounding” respect for that of the accused military officers. At least he did not have the strength to ignore it.

To live is to remember. Specially when Chavez has just reiterated the same promises to Cesar Gaviria the Secretary General of the OAS.

My comments: I wonder where Jimmy Carter and his Center are today? What do they think? Were they so innocent to be taken in by this snake charmer named Hugo Chavez? Do they even care? Did the Carter Center receive a donation from the Venezuelan Government? In a carefully worded statement they said they had not received it in connection with the visit to Venezuela. This opens the possibility that they received it for something else. It will come out inevitably as Venezuela gets out of this nightmare named Hugo Chavez. Jimmy Carter has only a few days to try to save his reputation by publicly denouncing the lies of Hugo Chavez. Will he do it? 

Tension continued to increase as the date for the “takeover” of Caracas approached. The Government seemed to be intimidating people to stop them from going to Thursday’s march as rumors spread around Caracas (and the US) of an imminent coup agaisnt President Chavez. Stratfor said it might be a matter of even hours in a report today. Meanwhile, Enrique Tejera Paris testified at the intelligence police yesterday and basically laughed at the charges against him. Separately the homes of two other active military were visited by military and intelligence police. Meanwhile a former military officer, who exiled himself in April, returned today to Venezuela to participate in  the march calling for Chavez’ overthrow. Meanwhile in teh National Assembly opposition leaders told Chavez’ MVR party that yes, they were conspiring to get rid of the “thief”, “dictator”, “clown” , “failure”, “coupster”, “liar” that was President Chavez. Another slow day in paradise…..

Lula Da Silva appears to have garnered 49% of the vote, a resounding victory for the presidency of Brazil even if it is not enough for him to win it in the first round. A runoff election against Jose Serra will be necessary. Seems like he will surely win that second round as Mr. Serra has receieved only 20% of the vote, followed closely by the other two candidates.As usual people in Rio de Janeiro used this as an excuse to party.

Speaking of which, while both the US and Venezuela have problems counting votes, Brazil uses 406,000 voting machines made by Procomp, a Diebold subsidiary. Diebold bought Brazilian Procomp in 1999 and this is not the first time that the machines are succesfully used. The exact results will be known tonight due to the automation process

(Disclosure: The company I work for has a joint venture with Diebold but not on election machines)

Was a little concerned when I read this article on Yahoo about the fact that the sun’s temperature is going up significantly and some scientist from Holland named Piers Van der Meer saying the sun may go supernova in six years. From my perspective this would be, to say the least, undesirable. However, Google solves the probelm quickly when I found this more reliable source, from Cornell saying that Dr. Van der Meer is not an author of any papers on astromony and better yet, our sun does not ahve the mass required for a supernova. There is also no mention of the good Dr. on the European Space Agency website and no news on the SOHO website. You would think the sun exploding in six years would rate at least a press release, no? It would make important science even if it reveals no new novel physics.

Today elections will take place in Brazil and one of the specters being raised by the possibility of a victory by left-wing candidate Lula Da Silva is that somehow there will be a new alliance between Hugo Chavez and Lula which will destabilize the region. I do not belive in this. Lula Da Silva and Hugo Chavez are very different. Chavez is a self-centered, egotitistic and militaristic  incompetent who does not believe in democracy and thinks that he is the only one that has the truth. Lula, on the other hand, is not a newcomer to politics and knows that you have to negotiate in a democracy. In fact perhaps the differences between the two are best described by Lula himself in an interview:

“Chavez has a little more than 40 years. His background is military. He is not a politician in the essence of the word. Venezuela does not have progressive parties, nor unions nor a progressice church like the Brazilian one. It is a state with fragile institutions, where the oil company can overthrow the President. When I was with Chavez I had the opportunity of giving him advice: You have to talk to everyone….You need a channel of communication with society and reestablish calm to be able to execute the policies that you want. You have no alternative, you have to negotiate with society, with the private sector and even with those that are the harshest with you, with the owners of TV stations, with the owners of newspappers, in order to govern the country. Nobody can live with everyday tension…That is not my style, I am a negotiator. I have done that all my life : reaching agreements, negotaiting. The same will not happen here because even when someone does not want to talk with me , I will do the utmost to talk.”

According to a Cornell psychologist’ research:

“most incompetent people do not know that they are incompetent”

Now, this explains soooooooo much about the world….I don’t even know which category to put it in….it certainly fits at least Venezuela and Latin America.

Quite cool to be quoted in The Financial Times for my opinion on where the Caracas Stock Market is going:

“We’ve had a brutal devaluation, so steep that no one was looking at the stock market, but now we are seeing some catching up as investors look for value,” said Miguel Octavio, director at local investment bank BBO Servicios Financieros. “In what’s left of the year, these companies will continue marking up their prices.”

Hope I am right so that my friend Andy Webb-Vidal who reads this blog keeps thinking that I know what I am talking about and quotes me again in the future. This is not the conventional view locally due to political unrest, but everytime a big devaluation takes place stocks rise as real assets of good companies like plants and production facilities keep most of ther dollar value.

Well, tomorrow’s showdown between the demonstrators and the Chavez Governemnt may have been averted or postponed but it is unclear at this time what is happening or why.

Basically, the opposition had challenged the Governemnt by scheduling a demonstartion in an area designated last week by the Governmnet as “special area”. Today the Mayor of the municipality where the demosntration is to take place gave a permit to it. The Minister of Defense wrote to the Mayor telling him that the President had “graciously” approved the demosntartion from 4 to 6 PM. (It was scheduled to last longer). Later the Vice-Minister for Internal Security said the demonstration is from 4 to 10PM and there will be security.

The Government clearly appears to have backtracked but it is not clear why. Some say the military forced the President to allow the demonstartion. Others say it is a trap (I doubt it). The Mayor of Chacao where the demosntration is to take place will go tomorrow to the Supreme Court to hand in a copy of the letter as proof of the unconstitutionality of the decree given that the Constitution gives no power to the President to give permits for marches or demosntration. Furthermore, the decision violates municipal autonomy.

I will certainly be there with my gas mask and camera……..

Another rough day in Venezuela:

–Press groups warn of verbal and physical attacks to reporters by President Chavez and his supporters.

-What is effectively an illegal demonstartion is called for Thursday afternoon  at 4PM by the opposition coordinating commission. (The Governor of the State says he will give permission to the demonstartion, but clearly this is somewhat gray given the decree issued by the Government a week earlier) 

–S&P downgrades all Venezuelan debt a notch. This includes sovereign, private, banking and PDVSA’s debt as being downgraded.

–US Ambassador to Venezuela says jokingly that the energy that runs the country is rumors not oil.

–Lawyer denounces to the Attorney General the violation of Human Rights that took place when the National Guard attacked the demonstartion last Thursday.

Any good news? Yes, the price of oil went up.