Wednesday, August 03, 2005

What I don't have time to blog about Lots of things happening and not enough time to blog all of them in detail: --Revolutionary Lying: For two years we have been told the country is producing 3.3 million barrels of oil a day, but in Sunday’s release of the financials of PDVSA, it clearly says that production in 2003 was 2.7 million barrels per day. Of these, 1.8 million were produced by PDVSA and 429 thousand by the partnerships in 2003. --Bizarro scene of the week: The Minister of Information and new President of Telesur was complaining that with all of the extra hours at the official TV channel VTV, the budget would not last the year. Funny, I thought he was the boss of the Head of VTV. Has she been fired? No. Wonder how long the Telesur budget will last. Nobody is reponsible for the circus, that is why the clowns go wild. --Helping the needy: Venezuela will subsidize oil exports to poor Uruguay. That country will purchase up to six shipments of 900,000 barrels paying 67% up front and the rest financed with very low interest rates. Funny, Venezuela with a GDP per capita of $4,000 per inhabitant will help out those poor Uruguayans who have a GDP per capita of $12,600. Did I mention that Venezuela will issue a bond in US$ at not such a low interest rate in the next couple of weeks? --Wasting time and money: Caracas under piles of garbage but the Mayor of the Metropolitan District came out today with his third spread in the newspapers explaining why he wants to change the name of Caracas and the anniversary of its founding. In a four page spread in Caracas’ most important dailies, the Mayor explained the reasons, correcting the orthographic mistakes of the previous ads. Hopefully those doing the research on the history of the city will not be the same ones that don’t know how to spell. Obviously, the taxpayers pay for these ads. --10th. Milestone. Yes, Venezuelans now have ten million cell phones in their hands in the latest statistics by telecom regulator CONATEL. Amazing for a country of 25 million where half the population is under 18. I still remember a telecom exec explaining to me in the mid-90’s why it would never go above 5 million in the next decade. I heard the same about Internet users three years ago. I did mention the cell phone anecdote too. --Revolutionary Justice: The Electoral Hall of the Supreme Court denied tonight the injunction requested by opposition groups against the electoral registry, in the face of the election next Sunday. Of course, the registry is perfect as claimed by the Head of the Electoral Board, if not ask “Henri Charriere” better known as “Papillon, still registered to vote after being dead for only 32 years. --UVE’s legality approved: The Electoral Board announced today, only three days before the election, that the UVE party is legal. Hey! It is illegal to campaign since Sunday, but you can legalize a party fielding thousands of candidates three days before an election. Makes sense, no?. UVE is just an electoral trick by Chavez’ MVR party created as front to clearly violate the Venezuelan Constitution. The party simply does not exist. Another day. Another trick. Do I hear the word democracy? The word Justice? We will have to appeal this one to the Celestial Hall of the Supreme Court. 10:05:11 PM    comment []

MINFRACASO (MINFAILURE) by Teodoro Petkoff MINFRA is the Ministry of Infrastructure. Today Teodoro Petkoff blasts the Government, saying things similar to some that I have raised, but in his sometimes more blunt and much better style. He entitles it as MINFRACASO, making a play on the name of the Ministry and FRACASO which means failure in Spanish MINFRACASO by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual The mega hole in Paracotos, in the Central Highway of the country, has served to corroborate dramatically the every day more frequent complaints by Chavez about the inefficiency of his own Government. All of a sudden, as if it were the blow up of a picture, the country has perceived with one stroke, that in the administration of daily life, the Government screws up daily. A country that used to gloat of having the most important asphalt road network of the continent, lives today the frightening deterioration of many of those highways. Holes, failures of the edges, landslides, fallen bridges, sections that remain unfinished, are the testimony to the lack of attention and negligence that now have lasted more then six years. The Minister of Infrastructure, Colonel Carrizales, admitted today that they have been careless about maintenance. It was inevitable, we add. That Ministry was dismantled. Civil Servants with years of experience were fired and replaced by people with no qualifications, many coming from the Armed Forces and there we have the results. An organization that can’t handle its load. The Government spends its time and money in organizing international meetings, in Congresses for “revolutionary” tourism, in costly youth festivals, while Vargas state, for example, languishes since almost six years ago, a victim now, more than of the landslides, of the monumental incapacity of those who had to take care of them. Vargas has been the permanent warning that disasters like the one in the Central highway were foreseen. Disasters not caused by nature, but by the incapacity of those that should prevent them. That the Government expresses its solidarity with countries hit by natural tragedies can not be objected, the terrible thing is it can not also express its solidarity with its own people. It donates millions of dollars to an African country but has not been able to rebuild the sewers of the miniscule town of Camuri Grande, in the Central Coast, destroyed by the rains in February. What better proof of the incapacity of the Ministry of Infrastructure that the East Tower of Parque Central, where, ironically, it had its headquarters? There it is, that giant monolith, destroyed by the fire, the promises of recovering it in a few months now forgotten. Up to now, the skillful trick of marking distance with his incapable Ministers. has worked well for the President. When you hear him reprimand the Minister of Infrastructure (“Carrizales, I came by and from Maracaibo to Coro, that road is horrible”), people think that Chávez is concerned for the state of the roads, but there it is, that useless Minister, he does nothing. But it so happens that at least five people have been through the top position in that Ministry, without any improvement in how it works, in such a way that it gives way to the following question: Could it be that the mother of all incapacities is in the Presidential Palace of Miraflores? 8:21:52 PM    comment []

A post I am proud of, linked for that same cause I thought that today was the three year anniversary of my blog and was planning to celebrate it with a post about it and tell you how happy I was to find out today this link to my page on a page named Justice for Linda, sponsored by the International Planned Parenthood Federation's Western Hemisphere Region, to support the case of Linda Loaiza. It turns out the anniversary of the blog is Saturday, but it does not change my satisfaction at being linked to promote Linda Loaiza's cause. The link is to this post that I wrote explaining the case and why it bothered me so much about what it meant in the context of my country. I was quite mad that day at the case, at the Government and at our joke of a Judicial system. Somehow being upset leads to good posts. If that post in any way contributes to Linda Loaiza’s cause, the three years minus two days of blogging would have been definitely worth it. Please help! 7:33:37 PM    comment []

Caldera Infante is back in the ethical revolution It is now official, the man who was removed as head of Fogade for suspected curruption, investigated by Congress, who admitted using Government property and airplanes for personal use, but never charged is now the General Secretary of Carabobo State. Kudos to the Chavista workers of that Governorship who protested the nomination. Another step forward for corruption under the revolution. 8:49:49 AM    comment []