Reading Between Yoani's Lines

This post in Yoani Sánchez's justly famous Generation Y blog strikes me as surreptitiously reassuring.  Sánchez notes that Cuban doctors sent to Venezuela are immediately forced to surrender their passports - lest they make a run for freedom - and are just as quickly issued Venezuelan Cédulas (National IDs) and instructed to vote for Chávez at the next election.

Decrying this as illegal would be handing out the proverbial speeding ticket at the Indianapolis

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When your morning newspaper reads like a hackneyed 50s comic book plot device (UPDATED)

Update: SEBIN has now denied this report.

Last night, Venezuela's new National Police's headquarters building was robbed. A gang of sixteen used a blowtorch to extract Bs.120,000 ($10,000-55,000, depending on the exchange rate you prefer) from the ATM of a bank branch housed within the Police headquarters building itself.

The building - the storied, retrofuturistic Helicoide

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Winning ugly



The opposition's election slogan - "¡pa que coja mínimo!" or "to knock some sense into his (implicitly: Chávez's) head!" - has come in for quite some criticism recently. The slogan stands accused of "preaching to the choir" - appealing narrowly to an opposition base convinced the guy needs sense knocked into his head at all. That's bad, right?

Not necessarily. The opposition's only plausible path to



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Fact-checkers of Caracas Chronicles: unite!



OK, folks, can this be right?

Is Tibisay Lucena correct in saying the opposition has 75% of all campaign TV ads? Or is she pulling these numbers out of her ass?

We need those of you on the ground to give us your opinion. Have you seen government ads in Televen? Opposition ads in Venevisión? And who the hell watches Tves

 

Chabuki watch #7

The bizarre play continues.

You know how playwrights talk about "the arc" of a character? They'll go on and on about a character's "inflexion point", the moment when they come to an important realization that changes them.

Here is Hugo

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Chavismo's Crap-o-rrific Swing-o-meter

Alberto Federico Ravell's leaky-as-hell La Patilla scores chavismo's electoral forecasting platform...and it's hysterical! Figured - unlike the election - on a statewide basis, the thing ignores the circuits, and is generally about as sophisticated as asking your aunt where Chávez is popular (bueno, more in the llanos than in big cities, me

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At war with the people (Updated)

It's really sad to write the headline to that post, but how else can you interpret what Hugo Chávez did yesterday?

The Pérez de León hospital in Petare is, by law, managed by the Sucre municipality. The mayor is Primero Justicia's Carlos

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Another ad - The Electoral Brothers!

The opening sequence to this latest Chigüire Bipolar video is sheer genius...

Tienes que agarrar las fresitas, y echarle la lluviecita de chocolate... 

ROFLcity...

Plus Juan thinks the bearded guy is hopelessly trying to look like this guy.

Turns out you can follow

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Oliver Stone-style Pendejos sin Fronteras like to make Venezuela out to be some beacon of democracy, complete with scrupulously fair elections.

Why just today, they might say, we learn of the CNE's Tibisay Lucena (aka Rojisbeth) threatening the State-run (Read: Chávez-run) Broadcaster with a fine (read: slap on the wrist to be

 

New Legislative Election Forecasting Tool Now Available

The new and much improved Caracas Chronicles Forecasting Tool for the 26S Elections is now available. You can download it here. (Users of older versions of Excel should download this version. Descárgala en español aquí.)

This new tool, developed with invaluable help from longtime-reader and professional-number-cruncher Omar, improves

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National Assembly 2010: It's on...

The most intriguing and volatile election campaign of the last six years officially kicked off yesterday, as Venezuelans prepare to pick the 165 members of our single-chamber National Assembly on September 26th.

With an increasingly unpopular government, and the country mired in stagflation, the opposition heads into this campaign stronger than ever: united, setting the debate, and mobilized

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Taking it out on seriously ill kids...



Caught up in chavismo's latest bizarre crusade is...the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Not the artery-clogging-burger peddlers, mind you, but the Social Responsibility arm of the operation, suspected of the heinous crime of...putting up the parents of seriously ill children who've had to travel to



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1 . Reading Between Yoani's Lines
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Total comments: 47

2 . New Legislative Election Forecasting Tool Now Available
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Total comments: 37

3 . The sinking aircraft carrier
Posted on: 3 weeks ago.
Total comments: 35

4 . "The world's murder capital"
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Total comments: 35

5 . Winning ugly
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6 . Coming Soon: Swing-o-Meter 2.0
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7 . What we're up against
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8 . The Rivetting Reactionary Rant of the White Man
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English Blogroll

The Devil's Poop: Miguel Octavio's comprehensive Venezuelan news blog
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Global Voices Online: Worldwide blog roundup: Venezuela page.
OilWars: Once chavista, now wobbly lefty blog.
21st Century Socialism: Calvin Tucker's cybershrine to chavismo and the Soviet model.

Spanish Blogroll

Blogs de El Nacional: Featuring Hernán Lugo Galicia's PSUV gossip blog Política de Ñapa.
Panfleto Negro:
Literary mass blog, open to all comers.
Los Cuadernos Azul y Marrón: Vicente Ulive-Schnell's cantankerous rambling.
Radar de los Barrios: Chuo Torrealba's innovative innitiative on Caracas's shantytowns.
Ana Julia Jatar's Blog: Wonkish stuff
Webarticulista Collective opposition opinion blog
Sin el chivo y sin el mecate: the students come of age
Capuchino: Father Jesus Garcia's unique perspective from Kavanayén, Edo. Bolívar
La Silla Vacía: The view from the sister republic

English Links

VenEconomy: Venezuela's leading bilingual business magazine, and Quico's former employer.
El Universal in English: Not very well translated news from EUD.
Google News: Top Venezuela stories.
The Latin American Herald Tribune: Successor to the venerable old, now defunct, Daily Journal.
Miami Herald: Venezuela Page.
Financial Times: Americas Page
Human Rights Watch: Venezuela Page
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Francisco Rodríguez @ Wesleyan: Top resource for economic research into the impact of the Chávez era
Organization of American States: Venezuela Page
Venezuela Information Office: Our tax-bolivars at work - government-run pro-Chávez blog aimed at the US
Venezuelanalysis.com: Most sophisticated pro-Chávez site.

Spanish Links

Noticias 24: The granddaddy of Venezuelan news aggregators, plus insane bulletin boards.
Twitter #Venezuela: Micro-blogging site's Venezuela stream.
TalCual: Newspaper edited by the legendary Teodoro Petkoff. Subscription required and worth it
El Universal: "Serious" Caracas daily, strongly opposition minded.
El Nacional: The other "serious" Caracas daily, strongly opposition minded
Globovision: Opposition run 24 hour news station. Text news free, Windows Media Video by subscription.
Union Radio Noticas: News portal and streaming audio.
GoogleNews Venezuela: Venezuela GoogleNews portal in Spanish.
Ultimas Noticias: Tabloid edited by Eleazar Díaz Rangel. Chávez-friendly. Subscription.
Descifrado: Opposition financial gossip site. Some items free, others by subscription.
El Chigüire Bipolar: Closest thing Venezuela has to The Onion. Very silly. And hysterical.
Notiven: News digest + links to dozens of Venezuelan newspapers.
ODH Grupo Consultor: News monitoring and economic analysis.
Urru.org: Massive oppo archive
E-lecciones: Fascinating selection of polling power points, international observer reports, and other election related stuff
Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias State news agency: all chavista propaganda all the time
Aporrea.org: Website of the Asamblea Popular Revolucionaria. Militant pro-Chávez site, occasionally critical of the government
VTV - Canal Ocho: State TV. Hardcore propaganda. Live WindowsMedia work only sometimes
Panorama: Maracaibo newspaper, privately owned but aggressively pro-Chávez
teleSUR: Hemispheric arm of the chavista propaganda machine
Viejas Fotos Actuales: Fun archive of historical pictures, films and audio recordings
Provea: One of Venezuela's two most respected human rights' NGOs
Cofavic: The other one of Venezuela's two most respected human rights' NGOs
Human Rights Watch: Venezuela Page
Central Bank of Venezuela: Good starting point for economic and monetary data.
Finance Ministry: data.
El Librito Azul: Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela - 1999

Frontline on Chávez

Frontline's genius 2008 documentary on the Chávez era. (Versión en español aquí.)

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Law of the Land

A documentary shot in 2002 and 2003, contrasting the experiences of two Venezuelan farms taken over in the name of the revolution.

Venezuela - Spanish with English Subtitles. Produced by Francisco Toro, Directed by Megan Folsom.


Click to watch full screen
Running time: 60 minutes.

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