Happy Birthday Magic Laptops!!

Wow, it seems like just a few weeks ago that Raul Reyes' magic laptops were about to finish off all the FARC sympathizers, including that scallywag Hugo and his pal Studmuffin.

But here we are a year later, Correa and Chávez have both won key victories in elections and the laptops have been largely (bar the rabid right) consigned to the dustbin of history. Why so? Probably because they were clearly doctored and those that would charge the world have been telling porkies all this time. Ahhh...I remember the day that Andres Oppenheimer told us about all the e-mails he'd read from the laptops. It took nearly the full year to find out that, when under oath, the Colombian police officers involved knew there were no e-mails ever found.

Never mind...there's always the traditional method of bombing, guys. So happy birthday, magic laptops! Enjoy your redux of fame this weekend.

Tourist attractions, Colombian style

In the town of Piedecuesta in northeastern Colombia, a local waxworks exhibition has been packing them in over the festive season with the dead body of Raul Reyes, the FARC leader bombed to death in the now infamous cross-border attack in Ecuador on March 1st 2008. The body is under glass and is said to be a faithful reproduction of the images of Reyes as shown by the Colombian army to TV and press cameras after the attack. You get the beard, the T-shirt covered in blood and the underwear (as he didn't have time to get his khakis on before dying). No word on the laptops, though.

Also on display are other figures modelled by the same local artist, Luis Augusto Martínez Ramírez. The eclectic collection includes Álvaro Uribe, Hugo Chávez, Ingrid Betancourt, Adolf Hitler, FARC leader Manuel Marulanda, paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño, Pablo Escobar, Simon Bolivar, Princess Diana, Che Guevara, President Kennedy, Mother Theresa of Calcutta and three images of Pope John Paul II. Here are a few more images from the museum's collection:

Simon Bolivar

Álvaro Uribe(!)

This is too bizarre for words

For the grande finale, here's Telam news agency on the "personal touch" that Martínez has brought to his sculptures (translation Otto):

"Another of the interesting aspects of the exhibition is that the figures of Martínez, who is a dentist, move and smile, showing off teeth that the author elaborated by taking advantage of his professional knowledge."

Even in the mondo bizarro that is South America, Colombia beats 'em all hands down. Applause for dentist, wax artist and museum owner, Luis Augusto Martínez Ramírez (below):

The sign translates as :
"Augusmar wax museum presents personalities from history, politicians, artists, monsters, guerrillas, child phenomena, victims of crimes and much more".

Quite incredible

I find it amazing that yesterday's revelation (no other word will do) there were no e-mails on the Raul Reyes FARC laptop computer hasn't made any headlines this morning. I've just checked on Google and nobody's running this story outside of fringe media in the Spanish language.

Surely you remember how world publications up to and including The Economist told us about the "huge caches of e-mails" that implicated the world and his wife (most notably Chávez, but natch natch and thrice natch, yeah?). In fact that Economist note is shown to be a very large crock, as it makes constant references to e-mails that (and get this very clear) do not exist.

This is, of course, precisely why the media won't be dwelling much on this story. The news that the "thousands of e-mails" they used to whack those nasty lefty people over the head with do not exist is rather embarrassing. So in true style, the story will be ignored and spiked in newsrooms around the world. Not a single apology, not a single correction.

It does remind me of the pristine condition of those laptops, as shown by Colombia to the world in May. That's the official police photo above....I mean, just look at it. There's not a scratch on those machines. Don't you find that slightly weird for three pieces of computer equipment carried round the jungle by a bunch of terrorists? Don't you find it weird after Reyes and his cohorts had the crap bombed out of them by several bombing runs and then commandos piling in to give them les coups de grace a few minutes later? And then there was this story uncovered by Daniel Denvir....the one about how the photos that Colombia leaked as from the FARC machines were proven to be Colombia intelligence snaps.

Welcome to the blogosphere. Raw news, unfiltered, undumbed-down, treating you like a thinking human being.

Andres Oppenheimer apologizes

WORLD EXCLUSIVE!!! IKN has got its grubby hands on tomorrow's Andres Oppenheimer column to be published in the Miami Herald and syndicated media. This is hot!

December 4th, 2008

Dear loyal Miami Herald readers,

On many occasions I have tried to make out I get privileged information from high ranking authorities and pass this information on as exclusives. There are many examples of this, but one was on July 9th 2008 when I wrote that:

"...According to thousands of e-mails found in the laptop computers of slain FARC commander Raul Reyes, which Interpol forensic computer experts certified were not tampered with by the Colombian government, Chavez and the FARC were pursuing a two-tier strategy.

Dozens of e-mails in the rebel computers show that the FARC commanders and Chavez were building what they referred to as a "strategic relationship" to strengthen the Bolivarian movement in the region."

It has now emerged today that the Raul Reyes computer contained no e-mails at all, this confirmed under oath by the head of the Colombian investigation team.

I have misled you, my audience. I apologize for indulging in my own anti-Chávez fantasies and pretending they were real. I also offer my apologies to President Chávez of Venezuela for having misrepresented him for all this time.

Sincerely, Andres Oppenheimer