Monthly Archives: January 2010

Alright, people, it’s time to get quantitative about September’s elections. Exactly how many seats are we likely to get? What are the real, not hypish-effects of gerrymandering? What would happen if we got the same share of the vote in … Continue reading →

"Practically speaking, the totalitarian ruler proceeds like a man who persistently insults another man until everybody knows that the latter is his enemy, so that he can, with some plausibility, go and kill him in self-defense." -Hannah Arendt, The Origins … Continue reading →

(No, I am not being facetious) The opposition umbrella group Mesa de Unidad announced today that it would not meet its January 31st deadline to announce its unity candidates. Instead, it pushed the deadline to February 10th. In a carefully-worded … Continue reading →

Juan Cristobal’s last post – particularly that one-liner about there being "no one normal left in chavismo" – made a few people in the comments section, myself included, pretty uncomfortable. Of course, I’m in no position to go around casting … Continue reading →

http://globovision.weall.tv/device/WeAllTVPlayer.swf Today Hugo Chávez sat down with some of the few businessmen left in Venezuela to convince them, in between cites to Lenin and Mariátegui, that his Revolution can  peacefully coexist with private property and that he would never, never, … Continue reading →

Yesterday, the world saw the unveiling of a tool that awed millions. Hugo Chávez’s National Guard unveiled a high-tech little toy they are currently employing in their friendly encounters with the nations’s protesting students. Its intended goal is to revolutionize … Continue reading →

The first month of the new decade is almost gone. With everything that’s going on, it’s easy to forget the opposition leadership promised that, before the month was through, a strategy would be in place for selecting candidates, and we … Continue reading →

Longtime reader Vinz reports:  "I’ve been watching the baseball games and it is completely insane.   -Venevisión seems to have recieved orders to cut out the protesters in the back. Their editing is complete lunacy: Sunday, as soon as the … Continue reading →

Venezuela’s opposition students have unveiled a clever campaign slogan: "Electricity, water, crime: tas ponchao!" The expression, which draws on Venezuelans’ love for baseball to call three strikes for the President, is being unveiled in ball games as our season draws … Continue reading →

Some longtime readers are up-in-armsabout the CNE’s (predictable) decision to Gerrymander the hell out of the constituencies ahead of September’s legislative elections, which will ensure chavistas get many more parliamentary seats than their share of the vote would entitle them … Continue reading →

Last week, 36 of you logged in to write comments…thanks! The top four contributors last week, as judged by the community, were: Bilis Negra Edgar Brown dagoberto Roberto N Congrats! You’ll have Trusted User status for this coming week.

This is a story about two friends of mine: Carola and Andrea. Carola is doing pretty well for herself. Born to a reasonably well-off Caracas family, she nevertheless enjoyed a free university education in La Cuarta and ended up taking … Continue reading →

Considering how grotesquely it has been abused, it’s easy enough to forget that, in its original guise, the concept of a broadcasting "Cadena"  has a solid basis in constitutional law. Broadcasting, by definition, involves using a publicly owned medium – … Continue reading →

At times, the sheer volume of lunacy oozing out of the Chávez Cult is almost more than I can bear. What can I say, it gets to me. It’s things like Chávez’s contention that the CIA and Colombian paramilitaries are … Continue reading →

The election yesterday of Chile’s first right-wing President since 1990 is being hailed as a monumental shift. As former President Ricardo Lagos so eloquently put it, the governing Concertación coalition leaves after twenty years of unqualified success. But in spite … Continue reading →