Technophobiac News

It would seem that the lack of spontaneous popular support about the desire of Chavez to go and invade Honduras is having an effect. Not to mention that the constant barrage of adds to defend private property sponsored by CEDICE since the Vargas Llosa spat seems to be irking chavismo big time.

So, what do they do?

They decide to review the operating license of all folks that passed these adds and in parliament attack the "cartelization" of the press on Honduras reporting. Let's start by the later one.

Tal Cual today offers us a whole survey on how the march toward censorship keeps going on in Venezuela. In a report on the workings of the Nazional Assembly we read, with picture in hand, that representatives accuse El Nacional and El Universal have formed a cartel in order to unify their criteria on how to discuss the Honduras news. I suppose that this blogger should also be included in this cartel, no? What surprises me more is how chavistas who seem unable to have an individual thought or opinion are surprised that the opposition coincides on Honduras. I mean, can we not be sheep like they are? But the explanation is to be found elsewhere for such a preposterous charge: the Nazional Assembly is rewriting laws on journalism and media and need any excuse they can to introduce ways to limit freedom of information and expression.

Back to our first, and more worrisome, observation. Diosdado Cabello, second man of the regime as a compensation for his ignominious defeat in his reelection attempt in Miranda, has decided to review the operating license of nothing less but 86 AM stations and 154 FM plus a few TV stations. From his declarations we can sense that most if not all are already condemned and that sanctions include confiscations of equipment. Legal robbery for those who do not get it.

But that is not all. CEDICE has been carrying a campaign to defend private property in Venezuela at a time when the government is trying to add unsuitable adjectives to the word "property", as a way to weaken it. Considering the multiple take overs without due compensation that we have observed since 2004, the fear of CEDICE , and the Venezuelan people and this blogger, is certainly not misplaced. Well, the ads must have hit a raw nerve because Cabello has also announced that the advertising campaign must be suspended and that the media who transmitted it will be investigated/sanctioned.

I have watched these ads and I can personally assure readers that they are not any worse than the garbage the state forces media to transmit free of charge in defense of a so called socialism. What we are seeing now is a simple censorship, repression, limitation of information about a truth that the government does not want us to know about. And this comes, sublime irony, from the people that bemoan the closing of media in Honduras.

To add insult to injury Tal Cual also reports that the two papers of Valencia, Notitarde and Carabobeño, have been attacked one after he other by red shirt hordes, directed at least one by nothing less than Valencia mayor, just as Los Teques mayor was directing the painting of swastikas on the walls of Miranda's governor's office.

It seems that the pressure on free media is not going to ease anytime soon. In fact, since recent polls show that Chavez personal popularity is going down as more and more people are finally starting to put the blame for bad things on him, we can expect the government to act once and for all and risk closing down a few media/paper outlets to see if the rest will tone down.

-The end-

Watch video link below and see that the Islamists in Chicago, the hometown of our islamist supporting president who has no problem with Muslims proposing the taking over of America (Hat tip - Sybil).

Related: Hizb ut-Tahrir: A Threat Behind a Legal Facade?

You have to admire the gumption of nearly destitute Caracas Metro Mayor, Antonio Ledezma. The guy went on a US of A trip where he nearly met with Obama, rumor having that Chavez avoided such an embarrassing meeting by calling US ambassador Patrick Duddy back. Si non e vero, e ben trovato.

Back in Venezuela, with many important endorsements from the US including from mayor's association, Ledezma has found a way to attract more attention to his plight, which is no other than our own plight since Caracas gauleiter Farias has proved herself totally unable to tackle the city problems since she was imposed on us, not even able to meet payroll for her public employees.

Taking advantage of going to the OAS office in Caracas to offer a a formal complaint about constitutional violations in Venezuela, Ledezma decided to stay and stage a hunger strike. You might think this slightly ridiculous but think again. At a time the OAS is all up in arms about alleged constitutional violations in Honduras, Ledezma points out to what are also real constitutional violations in Venezuela that the OAS under Insulza the clown is totally ignoring.

The OAS might or might not do something about it but at the very least it will be a possible embarrassment for Chavez if he keeps screaming a little too much at upcoming OAS meetings on Honduras. And certainly an embarrassment for Insulza since not only he did not do anything for the local election frauds in Nicaragua but he is not saying anything about the attacks on opposition duly elected officials in Venezuela. Wait until they receive him in Tegucigalpa and remind him of these things....

You can look at Google news and observe by yourself how effective is Ledezma in staying in the news. During last year elections in Venezuela I was the first one to predict that Ledezma could actually win the Caracas Metro office, and he did. I do not want to hazard further predictions on Ledezma but I am sure that we can all agree that 1) he is showing folks onw way Chavez can be tackled and 2) that it is a constant battle, not just a matter of appearances at Globovision talk shows. For this, even if he is not one of my favorite politicians, too linked to old AD practices, I must still admit my admiration for the man's fight. Half a dozen more Ledezmas and the Venezuelan opposition would not be in such a weak state.

-The end-

It's a good one:

Boehner says: "At a time when Americans are looking to Washington for leadership, the trillion-dollar 'stimulus' isn't working. Americans were promised the 'stimulus' would keep the unemployment rate from going above eight percent. It's now at 9.5 percent, and rising. Where are the jobs?"

HT - Gateway Pundit

It's a good one:

Boehner says: "At a time when Americans are looking to Washington for leadership, the trillion-dollar 'stimulus' isn't working. Americans were promised the 'stimulus' would keep the unemployment rate from going above eight percent. It's now at 9.5 percent, and rising. Where are the jobs?"

HT - Gateway Pundit

Why in the hell would Barack Obama want to block Iran sanctions at the upcoming G8 summit!

The only answer is that the decision is based upon a much misguided and extremely naive foreign policy. As Rich Lowry wrote at RCC, Obama should have learned from N. Korea:

Obama has gotten a preview of what extending his hand to a clenched fist looks like in North Korea. Six months into the era of Obama's irenic, world-calming diplomacy, Pyongyang has tested a long-range missile and a nuclear device, and announced it's going to weaponize its plutonium stock and proceed with a uranium-enrichment program. Kim Jong Il's family dynasty shows no sign of realizing that the advent of Obama was supposed to change its nature, interests, and behavior.

Why will the mullahs?

The answer, of course, is that they won't. And we'll have lost valuable time to stop Iran's development of nuclear weapons. Timesonline reports that Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, said this week (to the BBC) that it was his "gut feeling" that Iran's leaders wanted to put nuclear weapons within their reach "to send a message to their neighbours, to the rest of the world: don't mess with us".

Not a very promising scenario, from an ideologh hell-bent on world domination.

Related: Obama's Iran Policy is Dead

Why in the hell would Barack Obama want to block Iran sanctions at the upcoming G8 summit!

The only answer is that the decision is based upon a much misguided and extremely naive foreign policy. As Rich Lowry wrote at RCC, Obama should have learned from N. Korea:

Obama has gotten a preview of what extending his hand to a clenched fist looks like in North Korea. Six months into the era of Obama's irenic, world-calming diplomacy, Pyongyang has tested a long-range missile and a nuclear device, and announced it's going to weaponize its plutonium stock and proceed with a uranium-enrichment program. Kim Jong Il's family dynasty shows no sign of realizing that the advent of Obama was supposed to change its nature, interests, and behavior.

Why will the mullahs?

The answer, of course, is that they won't. And we'll have lost valuable time to stop Iran's development of nuclear weapons. Timesonline reports that Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, said this week (to the BBC) that it was his "gut feeling" that Iran's leaders wanted to put nuclear weapons within their reach "to send a message to their neighbours, to the rest of the world: don't mess with us".

Not a very promising scenario, from an ideologh hell-bent on world domination.

Related: Obama's Iran Policy is Dead

A bit of trivia now being passed around the blogs, emails,and forums:

At 5 minutes and 6 seconds after 4 A. M., on the 8th of July this year, the time and date will be : 04:05:06 07-08-09. This will not happen again until the year 3009 !!!!!

I know, I know, who the hell cares!

HT - Douglas

A bit of trivia now being passed around the blogs, emails,and forums:

At 5 minutes and 6 seconds after 4 A. M., on the 8th of July this year, the time and date will be : 04:05:06 07-08-09. This will not happen again until the year 3009 !!!!!

I know, I know, who the hell cares!

HT - Douglas

Uh-Oh; Stan Liebowitz writes that evidence from a huge national database containing millions of individual loans strongly suggests that the single most important factor is whether the homeowner has negative equity in a house -- that is, the balance of the mortgage is greater than the value of the house. This means that most government policies being discussed to remedy woes in the housing market are misdirected:

[...] We are at a crossroads where we can undo the damage to the housing market by strengthening underwriting standards in a reasonable way. But to do so political leaders must face up to the actual causes of the mortgage crisis, not fictitious causes that fit political agendas and election strategies.

In other words, we're in deep trouble and headed deeper.