Stalinist Calvin Tucker ridiculed by Marxist

It appears that someone else has got Calvin Tucker's number. It turns that a Marxist fellow, called Louis Proyect, has taken the trouble to ridicule Stalinist Tucker, well known in the Venezuelan blogosphere for his threats of physical violence, open support for Hugo Chavez's violent attempt to overthrow democratically elected Carlos Andres Perez, admirer of Fidel Castro, and all round apologist of about any leftist totalitarian regime, and fundamentalist and narcoterrorist 'insurgent' movements.

Mind you Calvin Tucker is the sort of person who takes pride in having disfigured someone so badly that it needed reconstructive surgery to his face, and then turns indignant when someone else questions his mental sanity. However there is one allegation by Tucker in the comment section of Proyect's blog that caught my attention:

No doubt Proyect is unaware that Hugo Chavez has quoted me at great length on prime time Venezuelan TV.

So here's a public invitation to Calvin Tucker, or to any chavista for that matter, to provide evidence that Hugo Chavez has quoted crackpot Calvin Tucker at great lenght on prime Venezuelan TV. At a time when the Venezuela Information Office is allegedly being dismantled owing to its sheer uselessness in crafting a positive media image of the dictator in the USA, it seems that Chavez apologists are losing all sensible relation to reality. Now Tucker is meant to be worried that current (?) and future employers can access his questionable past and dirty little connections with rogues online, but he does not think of that when he spreads all over the web baseless allegations against me. What a hypocrite.

Global Warming debate: some scientists are more equal than others

A while ago I wrote this post, which sent my detractors into a frenzy. It seems that time and science are proving my arguments right.

Venezuela's finance minister comes out of FONDEN closet

For some time Hugo Chavez, his officials and assorted apologists have maintained that FONDEN, meant to be a rainy day/development fund of sorts, had $57 billion. Today the truth has been revealed: Ali Rodriguez, Minister of Finance, has said that the fund had "accumulated" $57.8 billion worth since 2005, of which $44.5 billion have been 'invested."

Does that mean that FONDEN's balance sheet shows only $13 billion in cash now? What investments are those? Who valued those investments at $44.5 billion, Dick Fuld? Is that the reason, shrinking of cash account, why Venezuela has accepted $3.5 billion from the IMF?

Spin that shit Weisbrot!

Hugo Chavez's credibility tally...

So Hugo Chavez latest is that he added Oliver Stone to the list of useful idiots that cheer for him. Who do we have on our side (whereby we refers to the camp of rule of law and democracy-supporting people)? Let's keep a tally of the score, shall we? We have:

1. Human Rights Watch,
   
2. Amnesty International,
   
3. Inter American Court of Human Rights,
4. The European Union,
5. Colombia,
6. Brazil,
7. Mexico,
   
8. Sweeden (and basically all the countries that consider Colombia's FARC narco-guerrillas as a terrorist organization),
9. The US of A,
   
10. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton,
11. Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State,
12. U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control,
13. US Government Accountability Office,
    
14. International Labour Organization,
15. The Church,
16. The WaPo, the NYT, The Guardian, El Pais, Le Monde...
    
17. and now, Robert Morgenthau.

While Hugo has the clowns mentioned above and:

1. Robert Mugabe,
2. Fidel Castro,
3. Aleksandr Lukashenko,
4. Vladimir Putin,
5. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
6. Muammar Gaddaffi,
7. FARC,
8. Omar al-Bashir,
9. The Kirchners,
10. and Bashar al-Assad among other terrorism-supporter governments outside the Andes.

Hugo has military muscle, no doubt. He is friends with about every rogue, fundamentalist, dictator and terrorist organization, no doubt. But credibility he ain't got. How about his mates, are they anymore credible?

Now then, shall we worry about some propaganda film by Stone, or shall Bolivarian Transnational Crime Groups come up with creative financial architecture to be able to triangulate stream of illegal, or stolen, funds into allied countries, after Morgenthau's warning about money laundering in Venezuela? There's precedent of him catching some Venezuelan criminals in the past...

Hat tip: Pedro B.

No Mas Chavez? Think again...

A group of Colombians are meant to be behind the organization of a worldwide protest against Chavez, aptly named "No Mas Chavez" or no more Chavez. This is the same group that organized in 2008 a similar, and very successful, protest called "No mas FARC" against Colombia's narcoterrorist group. There's so much wrong with this event that I will give a bit of context.

1. Colombia has a trade surplus with Venezuela that runs north of $7 billion per annum. How many of today's protesters have thought about raising the issue with Colombian companies, and, more importantly, what are the chances of those companies to stop trading with Venezuela over political issues?
   
   
2. President Uribe of Colombia is sitting on a pile of evidence that demonstrates, beyond reasonable doubt, that Chavez supports, aids and abets the FARC. Given that organizers first rallied around the issue of FARC, how many of them are pressuring President Alvaro Uribe to use that evidence against Chavez once and for all, instead of dosing it in private dealings like bargaining chips?
   
   
3. What power, real and tangible, to change things internally in Venezuela has a facebook collective, same as twitters in Iran perhaps?
   
   
4. In light of the release by Scottish/English authorities of the Lockerbie bomber on the basis of oil/gas deals to be had with Libya's dictator, can anyone with a modicum of understanding of realpolitik contemplate goals of event as anything more than a catharsis opportunity?
   
   
5. Did those protesting in London's Trafalgar Square arranged, at the very least, an appearance in the Fourth Plint?

No more Chavez is akin to no more Venezuela. Only those ignorant of our contemporary history and idiosyncrasy can come up with such an impossible to achieve motto. The fight against Chavez won't be won by standing in the Fourth Plint or handing petitions to his Chilean minister at the OAS. That much is certain.