The Devil's Excrement

The photo below is a picture of:

i) A group of naked people waiting with Simon Bolivar to see the Viaduct fall
ii) The members of the Anglo-Saxon Conspiracy (TAC) being rounded up by the Venezuelan Government
iii) The opposition trying to get on Chavez’ nerves by undressing in the middle of downtown in front of the statute of his zambo heroe

No, it is the work of art
of Spencer Tunick

Tunick came
to Caracas financed by the Chavez Government, surprisingly enough.
It took place this morning very early and 4,000 people had registered to
attend, but only 1,500 showed up. There is a prize if you recognize me in the
picture.

I have to take my hat off to candidate Roberto Smith, the only one that showed up at the viaduct today and retold the whole story ofhow  this could have been avoided and the proposal he handed over to the Government a month and a half ago, asking himslef why the Government spent US$ 15 million in what was a hopeless cause.

But Smith’s best pot shot, was when he was asked about what the Vice-Minister of Infrastructure had said minutes earlier, that all of the technicians that built the viaduct has approved of what the Government was doing to stop its collapse. Smith, who is not a favorite of mine, replied with a very straight face:

“My dear, all of those technicians are dead by now”

Revealing yet another lie by the cynic revolution. Hats off for the answer and for showing up!

PDVSA announced this week that it will call all of its outstanding bonds according to the call features in them on April 10th. This is being done so as not to have to file the company’s financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This is being ostensibly done to protect the country’ sovereignty. However, given that PDVSA no longer holds its yearly shareholder meeting or distribute its financials on time, other than the SEC filing which has been substantially delayedin 2002,2003 and 2004, it means that there will be no transparency to the company’s financials , let alone its operations. PDVSA had promised to deliver the 2004 financials to the SEC by the end of February (they were due on June 30th. 2005), but once again it failed to deliver them on time.

One of Hugo Chavez’ big campaign themes was that the “people” needed to know what was going on at the oil company. So much for transparency and the people under the revolution!

And the Tyromaniac has this cute story (which he saw in Blogueandito)about how the Venezuelan polarization and confrontation has now made it it into the X-Men Marvel comics, including confrontational scenes like this one:

and our own Venezuelan heroine Sofia Mantenga, alias Wind Dancer, whose mother was killed in a demonstration:

Oh yes, I almost forgot to reiterate what Government officials always say: There is absolute freedom of speech in Venezuela, Napoleon Bravo, Ibeyise Pacheco, Marianella Salazar, Patricia Poleo, Gustavo Azocar, Marta Colomina, Globovision, Venevision, Televen, RCTV etc, etc.. have never been charged, persecuted, banned, investigated or otherwise interfered with, by the Venezuelan Government or its judicial system.

Sure, I just imagined it!

I am sure my colleagues will write about the report on the December elections by the European Union, Quico has already done so. In fact, there is not much difference between what is being said now and what was said by the EU in December. The difference? In December the autocrat was outraged at the conclusions, called them an intromission into the country’s affairs and said the observers were: Liars, cosnpirators and rightwing. This time around there has been nothing of the sort on the part of the autocrat. He has said absolutely nothing.

But more surprising is the take by the Minsiter of Information on the report which says the report states that there is no reason not to trust the Venezuelan automated system, which is not quite what it says, but obviates all of the rest, inlcuding the questioning of the Electoral Registry, the fact that the information on the votes was stored in the memory of the machines, that the fingerprint machines should not be used and that the CNE has to be changed. How can anyone think this was a positive evaluation of the Electoiral Board? This si simply revolutionary idiocy.

But even more remarkable is how the coreepondent of the EFE press agency Emilio Arrojo has essentially become a branch of the Minsitry of Information (MINCI), as he wrote basically a verbatim version of the MINCI. In fact, I read the EFE version in unionradio before I even saw the MINCI one. Unfortunately in the EFE website if you search for Venezuela you get a database error and I can’t find the link. This is not the first time that Arrojo has shown his partiality to the revolution, always writing pro-Government reports that do not convey a true view of what is happening in Venezuela.

But what is amazing is hwo the Government gives it the typical spin, twsiting the report to favor it and forgetting the undiplomatic criticism of December which so upset the Ambassadors from most of the EU in December.The question now is: Will the be invited back for the December elections? If the CNE is not changed, will they accept if they are invited?

We shall see…

Where are the Chavistas to defend this putrid revolution when you need them?

Today we learn that the nice revolution rather than build the sugar plant for the Sabaneta agricultural workers coop with the more than US$ 277 million allocated to this “flagship” project of the revolution, did other things like build the  building below for Chavez MVR electoral campaign, well known as Comando Maisanta, the same name given to the now infamous and perverse software, both named after Chavez’ great grandfather the un-hero (more of a murderer and a traitor) Maisanta. Curiously, the Committee of the National Assembly somehow bypassed this small detail, not even including it in its final report:

The Mayor that diverted the funds was actually separated from his position by General Gomez Parra, who has been charged by the Prosecutor’s office for corruption, but, surprise, surprise, was reinstated by the then President of the Sugar Plant project Antonio Albarran, who later became Minister of Agriculture, was dismissed by Chavez, charged with corruption by the National Assembly Committee last Thursday, only to be magically exonerated on Monday by the General Prosecutor, which was ratified, get this, the next day by the Head of the same Committee of the National Assembly Pedro Carreño. Only in the revolution do they change a story in four days and get away with it!

Thus, in the revolution, there is no separation between Government and Chavez’ party and when this is pointed out to the President, he did nothing about it! As noted in today’s paper, the accused, Gral. Gomez Parra wrote to Chavze about all this only 14 months ago and the President simply ignored it. Anywhere else this would be grounds for impeachment. Moreover, the same information was also handed out to the then Minister of Defense Garcia Carneiro, who somehow, also forgot about it and did nothing!

But there is more, these nice soldiers of the corrupt revolution also did things like: A Captain bought a home for, who else, himself, and not happy with it, used a small amount of money (US$ 6,000) to help build another house for his family and Sergeant outright stole some Bs. 150 million (US$ 79,000)

What a putrid revolution!

Michel reminds me via email that today is a special day. It is the birthday of the amazing Gonzalez family from Zulia state,with 2002 of them being born on the same day, March 15th. 1974 according to Venezuela’s pure and perfect Electoral Registry. I imagine there will be quite a party as 1887 of them are registered to vote in Zulia state and can easily get toghether.

Happy birthday to you all!

Retired General Muller Rojas, who was reincorporated into the Armed Forces recently, made the following statement yesterday:

“From now on the revolution will be called a primitive revolution”

Well, I don’t know where he has been the last seven years (other than at the Venezuelan Embassy in Chile), but it has been clear to me from the beginning how primitive all of the ideas of this revolution are..

–Prosecutor
General Isaias Rodriguez said in his testimony in the National Assembly at the
end of February that he had a witness that would certify the charge made by the
super witness in the Anderson case, ratifying the involvement by Patricia
Poleo. Well, is
yesterday’s El Nacional Rodriguez “revealed” that this person exists only
in rumor. Reporter: Have you been able to talk with that person that knows as
much or more that Geovanny Vasquez? Rodriguez: It is a person of Colombian
nationality. The name and last name has not been given to me (!), they gave me
his telephone and a keyword with which he would use to tell us whether he would
in touch with us, where and when. We have tried to make the contact, but have
been unable to get it.

Thus, this
“uberwitness” has not even been contacted, interviewed or found, but they
already know what he is going to say, they believe him and he is better witness
than the liar they already have (Which gave them the useless keyword). Some
Prosecutor!

–Before
the December elections, the Head of the CNE would always tell us not worry
about the audits not being live, because in “only” five weeks he would present
the results of the audit to the nation. The opposition always argued that it could
be done that same day. Today, three months and a few days after the elections, he presented the
promised results that were supposed to give us confidence in the system.

I guess,
it is not easy to fudge so many races at once!

–Yesterday
I was saying that there were many unanswered questions in the corruption case
of the sugar plant. One of them was why Chavez removed Minister of Agriculture
Albarran for his involvement in the case, but he never said it was because the Minister
was corrupt. This inconsistency has been magically fixed by the Prosecutor
General who, despite the conclusion by the Comptrolling Committee of the
National Assembly that Albarrran was guilty, in only two days has reached the
opposite conclusion and stated
with a very straight face “Albarrran does not appear to be penally compromised”.

Thus,
Chavez’ perfect record of no corruption within his Cabinet has been preserved
by the Prosecutor’s intervention!

–The Secretary General of Chavez’
MVR party, soon to be Minsiter of Information (?), 
rejects the possibility of the CNE handing over the electoral registry including street
addresses for an audit, because this would “violate the Constitutional rights of the voters”.

He must be
autistic, where was he (and those same Constitutional rights!) when his party and supporters got exactly that same
information from the same CNE and compiled it into the so called Tascon/Chavez
fascist list, later evolving it into the perverse Maisanta software?