This graph of the recipients of Mel Zelaya’s 2009 publicity budget of 1.42 million dollars is from a recent entry in La Gringa’s Blogicito. The most important part is the lower right hand corner, which has a photocopy of the latest cashed check for, 2.5 million Lempiras (+-132 thousand dollars), made out to Esdras Amado Lopez from Zelaya’s government.

Why is this important? Because Esdras Amado Lopez’s and Eduardo Maldonado’s TV stations, who recieved more than half of Zelaya’s budget, were the ones shut down on June 28th. International human rights organizations, acting on mass Venezuelan media attention, have condemned Micheletti’s decision to temporarily shut down these media. But Micheletti’s defense is: “these channels were branches of Manuel Zelaya’s government.”.

Should we join the Venezuelan news sources in condemning Micheletti, when their hero, Hugo Chávez, is guilty of the permanent shutdown of Radio Caracas Television, scores of radio stations, and arbitrarily delays to renew licenses to all opposition media?

This WSJ Online article remembers the US’s role in Haiti, and exposes the corruption that prompted the US to back Jean Bertrand Aristide, much to the detriment of Haitians. Haiti is the only country in the hemisphere that is poorer than Honduras and Nicaragua.

Image by Danny Hammontree, used with a creative commons license.

Manuel Zelaya paid his supporters handsomely for going out in the street in his favor. Here is the security footage of the removal of 40 million Lempiras, some of whose serial numbers were traced to bags of cash used by members of the Zelaya government to pay supporters. Allegedly also, a 500 Lempira note found on the body of Isis Obed Murillo, the young man killed at the airport, was from this 40 million Lempira heist.

Marcelo Chimirri, a close friend of Mel Zelaya has been arrested today. You may remember Chimirri from the many blog posts giving attention to his corruption, and possibly even murder, in late 2007.

He has been wanted since 2007 by authorities for allegations of receiving tens of millions of dollars from telecommunications companies in the US in exchange for preferential tratment when he was the general manager of Hondutel. Hondutel is the state-run telephone company. Chimirri shut down several rival telecommunications companies by accusing them of selling international voice-over-IP calls. Most of these companies were acquitted a year later in the courts, but not before sustaining losses of millions of US Dollars.

Mel Zelaya defended Chimirri from the Honduran court system, and perhaps, by doing so, generated the waves of anger that crashed over when he was removed from office.

Today I am praying for the delegation from Honduras that is currently in Washington to be able to convince the US not to join the UN and OAS sanctions against Honduras. La Gringa, of La Gringa’s Blogicito, has posted a very encouraging statement by a US congressman, Jim DeMint, Rep, NC, defending the Honduran congress for standing up to the lawless Chavista ambitions of Mel Zelaya.

I also pray that the current leaders of Honduras and the people might remain calm even if Zelaya does decide to return to Honduras. His supporters are sure to try to provoke violence. It is crucial that no shots are fired, no stones thrown, why even no insults hurled, in order to show the world that Honduras loves peace.

Photo from Radio America

This is a video of Mel Zelaya Seizing the ballots for his intended referendum on Sunday to see if the constitution needs reform. If you look up “Honduras golpe” (Honduras cuop) on YouTube, you can see that the Chavez propaganda engine has been quick to pre-empt any action to uphold the laws of Honduras as a coup.

The most transparent thing about this is that the ballot material was printed in Venezuela and arrived by plane hours before this situation. Chavez, a skilled Orwellian autocrat, is the one who has had this all planned. His goal: to extend his power and create another satellite nation. By accusing the opposition of doing exactly what he’s doing, he can turn black into white, and turn the people against the rule of law.

God help us against this master strategist. The only good thing is that Mel isn’t the genius, Hugo is. My hope is that Mel will make more blunders, such as turning the armed forces against him. May his presidency end when the law says it will end. I am not saying it should end today. But I doubt Chávez or Mel will sit still and allow that to happen.

If there is a coup. May it be peaceful, and may the viper-tongued Chávez be defeated. Down with liars! Down with hypocrites! Down with the Stalinistic propaganda that has robbed us of Cuba and Venezuela.

Hugo Chavez accused the Honduran Congress and the military of staging a coup. Today they annuled Mel’s arbitrary decision to fire the chief of the armed forces (CNN) because he is against a referendum this Sunday. This referendum is about adding a fourth ballot box in November’s election to determine if sitting president Mel Zelaya could run for office again. Today, with a crowd of followers, he stormed the headquarters of the Air Force, to retrieve ballot boxes that had been removed after Congress declared the referendum illegal.

Congress is investigating Zelaya (El Universal), to see whether he is fit to govern, which could lead to his destitution. They have also passed a resolution to reinstate the Chief of the Armed Forces, Romeo Vasquez, a resolution Zelaya is ignoring (BBC). Therefore, Hugo cries wolf and says the efforts of congress and the integrity of the military in upholding the law against Zelaya amounts to a coup (El Universal).

God please confuse Hugo and Mel’s plans. I want to have a country to return to someday.

Congressional deputee David Matamoros, in an interview with El Heraldo, explained just how difficult it is for a constitutional reform to occur. He said the largest obstacle is the mass absenteeism common in Honduran elections. Only about 37% of Honduran registered voters bother to cast their ballots. But 51% of the electorate must vote for a constitutional referendum to be considered as valid. Thus, 14% of the apathetic electorate must be convinced to vote.

Zelaya has three options. Either he commits fraud again or he sets up a massive campaign or both. He candidly admitted on national television to have won his about 10% of his votes through fraud, and has already begun the campaign, even though the law explicity forbids the government from any publicity during a referendum. In both he incriminates himself, flaunting his complete disregard for the law, and, by comparison with Venezuela, shows how complete the breakdown of constitutional government can be expected to go.

The opposition must begin a massive campaign for a NO vote, and capitalize on Zelaya’s admitted fraud to further it. The peril is very great, but the people are blind. Even fraud can’t fake more than 10 or 15 percent. The victory must be overwhelming.

Image by, Guillermo Esteves, used with a Creative Commons license

In an ever more common occurrence, today a plane with a cargo of cocaine, crashed in Honduras. Most of the drug perished in the incident, together with the unfortunate pilot. In a similar incident a year-and-a-half ago, a plane crash-landed into a banana plantation where cars were waiting to usher the drug cargo and the crew away. Both planes came from Venezuela.

Why would planes carrying cocaine take off from Venezuela and crash land in Honduras? Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez is an active supporter of the Colombian guerrila group FARC, whose ties with the narcos are blurred to the vanishing point. Both countries have substantial rain forests and areas far from the scrutiny of the US government. Both are in line with the supply routes from South America, to the principal drug market, the USA. Both countries are led by people who have political predilection for leftist groups. The Honduran president even made a public statement saying that it was more practical to rehabilitate drug users than fight the narcos, whose pockets were deeper than the taxpayers’, and even suggested drugs should be legalized, before retracting his statements. Chávez is a self-confessed coca user.

Wars by proxy function by weakening the enemy indirectly, often by making them spend themselves into collapse. The nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States is an example. I believe the Iraq war was also a proxy war, to keep the radical islamists (i.e. Iran) busy in Iraq and not in Israel, or worse, in the US. Is Chávez is using the same tactics against the US by fueling the Narcos’ ongoing battle? The US is in no position to spend more, neither is Mexico, nor any country in the drug corridor. If this is indeed his strategy, it is genius, and is already succeeding wildly, to the detriment of the hundreds of millions of people between the warring states, the Mexicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, Honduras, Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans and Panamanians.

Image by Kyle May, used with a Creative Commons license

The Only Thing We Have to Fear is…

• The Chupacabras
• Phobophobia
• The Alarm Clock
• An Artificially Blanched Pop Star in a Bathrobe
• Terror Management Theory
• Panic and Greed

The current ongoing panic at Wall Street comes from a fundamental misunderstanding about the randomness of things. Optimistic and greedy capitalists see no end to their enrichment, and any loss threatens their vision and hope of becoming the next billionaire. It’s not a perverse impish demon delighting in stirring the financial anthill, it’s merely math. More specifically: chaos theory.

Have you noticed how slight imperfection is beautiful in nature? Ripples on a lake are more beautiful than a flat mirror. Uneven bark on trees, and their seemingly random branches, leaves, fruit and flowers are more inspiring than an orderly plantation. An uneven mountain is more beautiful than a perfect cone. But these things, while chaotic, still obey a mathematical rhythm, structure and balance.

Greed is unbalanced. What goes up must come down. The faster the rise, the faster the fall. You can’t get rich quickly. Lottery winners often lose all their prize money within a year or two. Wealth must be patiently cultivated. This is the principle that investors are stubbornly ignoring, to their peril

A celebrated mathematician, Benoit Mandelbrot, has studied stock market economics and mathematics, and has published books on such subjects as “The Fractal Geometry of Nature”, and “The (Mis)Behavior of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin, and Reward”. In those books he shows how randomness is not necessarily difficult to understand, and more importantly, that the models economists have been basing their wealth on are too optimistic; they are seriously and recklessly flawed. Sadly, no one paid attention to him in time to avert our current disaster.

When something is rhythmic and orderly, it tends to remain so. But, alter the system a bit, and randomness appears. Try to balance a broom in your hand. If you do it slowly, you will succeed. But, once you start to move too quickly, it becomes increasingly difficult to control.

By analogy, stock market rallies are doing exactly the same thing…moving too quickly. That’s why the gains evaporate just as fast as they came. The more violent the upswing, the worse the crash will be. The icon of the stock market should be a sheep, not a bull. They mindlessly stampede their false beliefs over the precipice.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his inaugural speech, in the midst of the great depression, called for truth, frankness and boldness. People only remember his trademark phrase about not being afraid of anything but fear, but ignore the rest of his speech. For instance:

“…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance…”

“…the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men…”

“…Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish…”

“…Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men…”

“…We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.”

Image by Marco Belli, used with a Creative Commons license

This can’t happen in America!

Last week, president Zelaya of Honduras admitted his election was rigged, and that up to 10% of the votes that counted for him in his election were bought. Zelaya won by a narrow 4% margin. Source: this Proceso Digital article.

He begun the conversation by stating that every single Honduran election in the past 30 years was fraudulent. He claimed insider knowledge of this by observing his own party.

This doesn’t bother him, seemingly, he said that fraud is part of the system, and that “if someone wants to participate in politics and thinks they can play like they’re in the Vatican, it would be better for them to choose a different job.” He also reportedly said: “That’s how I won, but I fit myself to it, what was I to do?”