Pro-Evo or Anti-Evo?....go on...take a wild guessIn Ecuador, President Studmuffin yesterday said that if the 28th September referendum vote goes against him he'll resign. Or in other words, he won't resign when (not if) the thing is ratified. The Muffin man is like me..only likes to bet on certainties. Talk about a total lock....
In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez (you might have heard that name before) plays straight into the hands of his slavering opposition by throwing Human Rights Watch (HRW) out of Venezuela after HRW publishes a report condemning his country and its "descent into intolerance". There are plenty of valid arguments that you can throw at HRW for its report, from bias to the HRW funding background to political grandstanding to the two questions Justin Delacour correctly poses at LANR. All fine. However there are two other basic things to say:
a) HRW pisses everybody off, not just Chávez&Co. As just one example, last year at a private dinner in the US, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe ended up having a near apopletic fit while arguing with HRW chief Vivanco over the the things he'd written about him, his gov't and his country. HRW is an equal opportunities pain in the ass.
b) Chávez (well, officially minister Maduro, but you know what I mean) is a total dumbass for rising to this bait. All he had to do was to let HRW have its 15 minutes and this report would have been filed next to the rest of the guff written about Venezuela. But no, Chávez had to cause a drama and boot 'em out. Now we can "look forward to" endless months of righteous indignation from the rabid right. A really basic dumbass error, Hugo.
In Bolivia, Abiding in Bolivia posts the official letter sent to Conde Nast(y), who is some dudette who works the US State Dept, by 90 US brainypeople who all say "Butt out of Bolivia...please."
Meanwhile, it's not just the US that is fed total crap on Bolivia. It took numerous complaints from people who know better to get Spain's "El Pais" newspaper (that believes itself to be the journal of record in Spain, but is woefully poor compared to even the NYT) to change this caption....
....to the corrected caption now shown here. For around three days, Spain was told that the racist, fascist scum depicted were actually supporters of Evo Morales (the caption translated saying "Party Members of the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales"). I suppose this is why Abiding has been getting praise heaped upon his blog by all and sundry...he does this weird thing called "telling the truth" and also stuff like "fact checking". Semi OT: Note to Simon Romero; please check on both phrases before next opening your laptop.
UPDATE: Borev's take on the HRW report is totally, totally unmissable.
In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez (you might have heard that name before) plays straight into the hands of his slavering opposition by throwing Human Rights Watch (HRW) out of Venezuela after HRW publishes a report condemning his country and its "descent into intolerance". There are plenty of valid arguments that you can throw at HRW for its report, from bias to the HRW funding background to political grandstanding to the two questions Justin Delacour correctly poses at LANR. All fine. However there are two other basic things to say:
a) HRW pisses everybody off, not just Chávez&Co. As just one example, last year at a private dinner in the US, Colombia's Alvaro Uribe ended up having a near apopletic fit while arguing with HRW chief Vivanco over the the things he'd written about him, his gov't and his country. HRW is an equal opportunities pain in the ass.
b) Chávez (well, officially minister Maduro, but you know what I mean) is a total dumbass for rising to this bait. All he had to do was to let HRW have its 15 minutes and this report would have been filed next to the rest of the guff written about Venezuela. But no, Chávez had to cause a drama and boot 'em out. Now we can "look forward to" endless months of righteous indignation from the rabid right. A really basic dumbass error, Hugo.
In Bolivia, Abiding in Bolivia posts the official letter sent to Conde Nast(y), who is some dudette who works the US State Dept, by 90 US brainypeople who all say "Butt out of Bolivia...please."
Meanwhile, it's not just the US that is fed total crap on Bolivia. It took numerous complaints from people who know better to get Spain's "El Pais" newspaper (that believes itself to be the journal of record in Spain, but is woefully poor compared to even the NYT) to change this caption....
....to the corrected caption now shown here. For around three days, Spain was told that the racist, fascist scum depicted were actually supporters of Evo Morales (the caption translated saying "Party Members of the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales"). I suppose this is why Abiding has been getting praise heaped upon his blog by all and sundry...he does this weird thing called "telling the truth" and also stuff like "fact checking". Semi OT: Note to Simon Romero; please check on both phrases before next opening your laptop.
UPDATE: Borev's take on the HRW report is totally, totally unmissable.