So this must clearly be the work of the Chavez government? I mean, it definitely has all the characteristics of a professional hit job, right? Two assholes on a motorbike who couldn't even get a shot on target?
And this is proof that the Chavez government is a brutal dictatorship that deserves to be overthrown?
So this must clearly be the work of the Chavez government? I mean, it definitely has all the characteristics of a professional hit job, right? Two assholes on a motorbike who couldn't even get a shot on target?
And this is proof that the Chavez government is a brutal dictatorship that deserves to be overthrown?
Who said anything about overthrowing? That certainly wouldn't be necessary in an open democracy. Have you read anything about the Wilson Ramos situation?
Have you read anything about the Wilson Ramos situation?
Yes I have. Why? What does this have to do with the Chavez government?
What? It illuminates quite a different quality of life than what you have cut-and-pasted in this thread. MLB teams have either closed or passed on opening new academies for fear of seizure of the property by the government. Despite a beautiful landscape and abundance of fossil fuels, crime is through the roof and kidnapping is a cottage industry. The police are often involved in kidnapping plots and/or act as intermediaries for the ransom exchange. The extremely wealthy have gated off their homes and secured access to their roads while the majority of the country is relegated to dealing with the threats. With the abundance of stories and firsthand accounts, how the hell can you argue that it's not institutional?
Equality
Tremendous improvements for poor. Society still machista, individualist, and discriminatory. Treatment of non-Chávez supporters questionable: some government institutions do not employ people who supported 2004 Recall Referendum.
Transparency
Chávez fairly transparent, but many government officials are not. Little progress curing government and police corruption inherited from past. One of highest crime rates in the world; no improvement under Chávez. Prison conditions still abusive.
Despite a beautiful landscape and abundance of fossil fuels, crime is through the roof and kidnapping is a cottage industry. The police are often involved in kidnapping plots and/or act as intermediaries for the ransom exchange. The extremely wealthy have gated off their homes and secured access to their roads while the majority of the country is relegated to dealing with the threats. With the abundance of stories and firsthand accounts, how the hell can you argue that it's not institutional?
Was the government involved in the Ramos case? Yes, or no?
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/a ... ng_ordeal/
'...Once investigators thought they had found the general area where Ramos might be, President Hugo Chavez personally authorized an aerial search mission and teams also set out on foot in the mountainous area, El Aissami said. He said the teams searched most of Friday and finally came upon the remote house where Ramos was being held. Chavez followed the operation “minute by minute,’’ the justice minister said.'
In regards to the academies, the words came right out of the mouth of Brian Cashman, GM of the Yankees, and I heard them firsthand last night. Additionally, I've heard other executives describe how they have been extracting Venezuelan players out of the country to work them out (primarily) in the Dominican Republic. Teams that have done business there in the past are refusing to do so currently.
I never said the government had any direct involvement with the Ramos kidnapping. For the second time you seem to be projecting. They were quick to act because it became a global story. There is a pattern of kidnappings that have affected MLB players; some have made news, many others unreported. Read what happened to Henry Blanco's brother and Victor Zambrano's mother and cousin. For some reason there were no government sponsored search-and-rescue missions.
Seriously, what's your agenda? Venezuela has become one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America. I have no horse in the race and have been astonished at what I've read over the last few months.
In regards to the academies, the words came right out of the mouth of Brian Cashman, GM of the Yankees, and I heard them firsthand last night. Additionally, I've heard other executives describe how they have been extracting Venezuelan players out of the country to work them out (primarily) in the Dominican Republic. Teams that have done business there in the past are refusing to do so currently.
I never said the government had any direct involvement with the Ramos kidnapping. For the second time you seem to be projecting. They were quick to act because it became a global story. There is a pattern of kidnappings that have affected MLB players; some have made news, many others unreported. Read what happened to Henry Blanco's brother and Victor Zambrano's mother and cousin. For some reason there were no government sponsored search-and-rescue missions.
Seriously, what's your agenda? Venezuela has become one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America. I have no horse in the race and have been astonished at what I've read over the last few months.
In other words, you have no evidence. Just hearsay and supposition. Pretty much like all I've ever gotten when I've asked people to explain their opposition to Chavez.
Venezuela isn't the only country with a high crime rate. How's the U.S doing on that score lately?
I'm not closed-minded when it comes to Venezuela. I just haven't heard anything to convince me otherwise. The country has many problems, but I see nothing to suggest it's the brutal dictatorship that many Americans like to portray it.
In other words, you have no evidence. Just hearsay and supposition. Pretty much like all I've ever gotten when I've asked people to explain their opposition to Chavez.
Venezuela isn't the only country with a high crime rate. How's the U.S doing on that score lately?
I'm not closed-minded when it comes to Venezuela. I just haven't heard anything to convince me otherwise. The country has many problems, but I see nothing to suggest it's the brutal dictatorship that many Americans like to portray it.
Firsthand accounts from people who have worked there, visited there, and lived there are the exact opposite of hearsay and supposition. Short of getting on a plane and meandering around yourself, what more are you looking for?
I had no formed opinion on the state of Venezuela six months ago. Since then I've heard an avalanche of stories from baseball executives, scouts, writers, and players, both native and non-native. These aren't love-it-or-leave-it hayseeds that have an axe to grind about his politics. They are people who have been immersed in the culture to varying degrees and for a variety of reasons. That's how I come to form an opinion. By keeping an open mind and listening. Again, I don't understand what your agenda is to just dismiss all of this evidence out of hand.
Venezuela isn't the only country with a high crime rate. How's the U.S doing on that score lately?
People don't need armed security details to travel freely around the U.S. If you're attempting a comparison, you're either using hyperbole to make a point you can't back up or truly are woefully uninformed about what's happening over there.
Noam Chomsky pleads with Hugo Chávez to free judge in open letter
Linguistics professor appeals to Venezuelan president to 'correct injustice' over Maria Lourdes Afiuni, who is under house arrest
Virginia Lopez in Caracas and Tom Phillips
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 December 2011
Hugo Chávez's long-time supporter Noam Chomsky has issued a renewed appeal to the Venezuelan president to free a judge who was controversially jailed two years ago, prompting criticism from human rights activists and academics.
Maria Lourdes Afiuni, 48, has been imprisoned since December 2009 and is currently under house arrest in the capital, Caracas.
In an open letter to the Venezuelan president, Chomsky, a linguistics professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, urged Chávez to "correct an injustice".
"This is an appeal for the release of Judge Afiuni on humanitarian grounds after two years," Chomsky told the Guardian on Wednesday in a telephone interview. "As the letter says I hope President Chávez will release her. Presumably these are regular Christmas pardons."
Activists, including Chomsky, have made repeated calls for Afiuni's release, partly on the grounds of ill health. Afiuni is a cancer patient who underwent an abdominal hysterectomy while in jail.
But a series of high-profile interventions – including a previous Chomsky letter, published in July – have so far fallen on deaf ears. On 13 December a judge in Venezuela extended the house arrest by two years, leaving supporters and relatives despondent and prompting the latest appeal.
"President Chávez himself is in a courageous fight against cancer. For this reason, he is certainly in a position to personally understand the importance of receiving adequate treatment and marshalling your inner strength for survival," Chomsky writes in his latest letter.
"The Christmas-time pardons are an appropriate occasion for President Chávez to correct an injustice and avoid greater damage to her health by a humanitarian release," he added.
Afiuni's troubles began on 10 December 2009 when she granted bail to Eligio Cedeño, a businessman and banker with ties to the Venezuelan opposition. Cedeño had been jailed on charges that he had evaded currency controls and, on release, fled to the United States.
Afiuni's ruling triggered a furious public reaction from the president. Chávez took to the airwaves claiming the judge deserved 30 years in prison and suggesting that in another era she would have been hauled before a firing squad.
"This judge should get the maximum penalty … that judge has to pay for what she has done," he said.
Afiuni was arrested and packed off to the Los Teques female prison on the gritty outskirts of Caracas where she was reportedly met with squalid conditions and death threats from inmates she had sent to the jail.
In February this year – following a barrage of criticism from human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – Afiuni was transferred from the prison to her home, where she has remained under house arrest.
"We don't expect much because this country's justice system is biased," the judge's brother, Nelson Afiuni, said this month. "Most prosecutors and judges respond to the interests of the government, and it's clear the government wants my sister to remain isolated."
In his latest letter Chomsky highlighted the physical suffering that Afiuni, who is a single mother, is said to have undergone in jail.
While in prison Afiuni "experienced grave abuses that led to a severe deterioration of her physical and psychological condition", the American linguist wrote.
While the judge was now under house arrest, "she is prohibited from speaking to the press and from receiving solar rays".
Chomsky added: "After more than two years in custody, there are no guarantees of a fair trial. I am convinced that Judge Afiuni has suffered enough and should be released."
Chomsky's letter is part of a renewed but diplomatically worded push for Afiuni's release.
Speaking to the Guardian on Wednesday, Charlie Clements, director of Harvard's Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy, said: "We hope that given that this is the time of year that the president makes pardons, and that he himself was released under this same scheme, he decides to free her."
"I sincerely hope that the judge and her daughter don't have to suffer any longer," added Clements, who said he was speaking in a personal capacity. "For the Venezuelan judicial system this should come as an international embarrassment."
Leonardo Vivas, a fellow at the Carr centre, described the latest appeal as "a very cordial call for Afiuni to be freed on humanitarian grounds".
"We don't know what the reaction will be," he added.
Despite his appeal for Afiuni's release, Chomsky has been critical of the media's coverage of the case. On Wednesday he suggested the case had received so much media attention only "because Venezuela is an official enemy" [of the United States].
"I am involved in these appeals all the time but I get no calls unless it is an enemy of the US," Chomsky said. "This is more a comment on the media than on the case."
Sean Penn blasts fellow actors for putting money before art
Campaigning actor hits out at Hollywood contemporaries for contributing to 'consumerist mosh pit' of modern movie business
Ben Child
guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 December 2012
The Oscar-winning actor and director Sean Penn has laid into Hollywood stars for being more interested in selling perfume and jewellery than shooting decent movies.
Interviewed in the new issue of Esquire, Penn lambasted his fellow thespians for taking up commercial endorsements and agreeing to shoot films that he clearly believes are below acceptable quality levels. "I just did this picture that I enjoyed doing – [forthcoming Ruben Fleisher film] Gangster Squad. But I do think that in general the standard of aspiration is low," he told the magazine. "Very low. And mostly they're just doing a bunch of monkey-f*ck-rat movies, most actors and actresses. And I blame them just as much as I do the business. I know everybody wants to make some money, everybody's got a modelling contract, everybody's selling jewellery and perfume."
Penn, who largely avoids commercially oriented films and most recently starred as an ageing goth rock star who goes on a road trip in the indie drama This Must Be the Place, compared the current state of Hollywood unfavourably with the early 70s, pre-blockbuster era of risk-taking and adventurousness on the part of studios.
"When I was growing up and somebody like Robert De Niro had a movie come out, it was a cultural event," he said. "Because he had such a confidence and a single mission that was so intimate. But when people start using themselves as instruments of a kind of consumerist mosh pit, they're helping that take over. I mean, you are a soldier for it or you're a soldier against it. That's all there is to it. And we have so little of that intimacy left, it's no wonder that interpersonal relationships have become text relationships. It's a texting orgy. When is somebody gonna sit there, with their mate or their child, and just look them in the eye and say, 'I love you'? When is that life?"
Penn is not alone in his assertion that the Hollywood studio system increasingly steers clear of films it deems unlikely to achieve spectacular blockbuster success. Actor Rashida Jones, whose recently released film Celeste and Jesse Forever touched on the issue, has said she believes it is a "two-way street", with the onus also on audiences to demand more unorthodox fare. "I would say there is some feeding of some – as my character says in the movie – 'pretty garbagey stuff', but we're also eating the garbage," she said. "So people have to show that there's a mature, complex moviegoing audience that wants to see – we have to see, we have to demand the better stuff.
"I'm not against an action movie; I'm not against a big-budget movie," Jones continued, "but the ones that I like are the ones where it's obvious they took the time to develop characters, develop jokes, develop storylines. Like, don't waste my time and don't insult me, is how I feel."
Sean Penn is no fan of the paparazzi, and it looks like he's passed on his distaste to his son Hopper. The19-year-old was caught on tape in Beverly Hills Tuesday hurling racist and homophobic insults at a photographer while with his famous father.
While the elder Penn ignored a videographer who was trailing him into a building, his son apparently took issue with the paparazzi invading his space.
In a video obtained by TMZ, Hopper pushes the unidentified photographer before following his dad. The footage shows Hopper shouting obscenities at the paparazzo.
"Fuck you, you're a f
g f----t," Hopper shouts. "Shut up, you f
g n
r."
Note on the hikers and if this was perhaps switched around a bit. Iranian hikers on the canadian/american boarder. Can you imagine the outcome? They would probably get sent to gitmo or some secret US base for some torture and whatever else happens.
They would have been shot,and the report would say,"They were reaching for what was believed to be a gun./I.D.
Note on the hikers and if this was perhaps switched around a bit. Iranian hikers on the canadian/american boarder. Can you imagine the outcome? They would probably get sent to gitmo or some secret US base for some torture and whatever else happens.
They would have been shot,and the report would say,"They were reaching for what was believed to be a gun./I.D.
that is the standard justification isn't it?
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Comments
So this must clearly be the work of the Chavez government? I mean, it definitely has all the characteristics of a professional hit job, right? Two assholes on a motorbike who couldn't even get a shot on target?
And this is proof that the Chavez government is a brutal dictatorship that deserves to be overthrown?
Who said anything about overthrowing? That certainly wouldn't be necessary in an open democracy. Have you read anything about the Wilson Ramos situation?
Yes I have. Why? What does this have to do with the Chavez government?
What? It illuminates quite a different quality of life than what you have cut-and-pasted in this thread. MLB teams have either closed or passed on opening new academies for fear of seizure of the property by the government. Despite a beautiful landscape and abundance of fossil fuels, crime is through the roof and kidnapping is a cottage industry. The police are often involved in kidnapping plots and/or act as intermediaries for the ransom exchange. The extremely wealthy have gated off their homes and secured access to their roads while the majority of the country is relegated to dealing with the threats. With the abundance of stories and firsthand accounts, how the hell can you argue that it's not institutional?
Are you referring to this article that I posted above?
http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/latin ... ising/1743
Equality
Tremendous improvements for poor. Society still machista, individualist, and discriminatory. Treatment of non-Chávez supporters questionable: some government institutions do not employ people who supported 2004 Recall Referendum.
Transparency
Chávez fairly transparent, but many government officials are not. Little progress curing government and police corruption inherited from past. One of highest crime rates in the world; no improvement under Chávez. Prison conditions still abusive.
Do you have any evidence to support this, or not?
Was the government involved in the Ramos case? Yes, or no?
http://www.boston.com/sports/baseball/a ... ng_ordeal/
'...Once investigators thought they had found the general area where Ramos might be, President Hugo Chavez personally authorized an aerial search mission and teams also set out on foot in the mountainous area, El Aissami said. He said the teams searched most of Friday and finally came upon the remote house where Ramos was being held. Chavez followed the operation “minute by minute,’’ the justice minister said.'
I never said the government had any direct involvement with the Ramos kidnapping. For the second time you seem to be projecting. They were quick to act because it became a global story. There is a pattern of kidnappings that have affected MLB players; some have made news, many others unreported. Read what happened to Henry Blanco's brother and Victor Zambrano's mother and cousin. For some reason there were no government sponsored search-and-rescue missions.
Seriously, what's your agenda? Venezuela has become one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America. I have no horse in the race and have been astonished at what I've read over the last few months.
In other words, you have no evidence. Just hearsay and supposition. Pretty much like all I've ever gotten when I've asked people to explain their opposition to Chavez.
Venezuela isn't the only country with a high crime rate. How's the U.S doing on that score lately?
I'm not closed-minded when it comes to Venezuela. I just haven't heard anything to convince me otherwise. The country has many problems, but I see nothing to suggest it's the brutal dictatorship that many Americans like to portray it.
Firsthand accounts from people who have worked there, visited there, and lived there are the exact opposite of hearsay and supposition. Short of getting on a plane and meandering around yourself, what more are you looking for?
I had no formed opinion on the state of Venezuela six months ago. Since then I've heard an avalanche of stories from baseball executives, scouts, writers, and players, both native and non-native. These aren't love-it-or-leave-it hayseeds that have an axe to grind about his politics. They are people who have been immersed in the culture to varying degrees and for a variety of reasons. That's how I come to form an opinion. By keeping an open mind and listening. Again, I don't understand what your agenda is to just dismiss all of this evidence out of hand.
People don't need armed security details to travel freely around the U.S. If you're attempting a comparison, you're either using hyperbole to make a point you can't back up or truly are woefully uninformed about what's happening over there.
Noam Chomsky pleads with Hugo Chávez to free judge in open letter
Linguistics professor appeals to Venezuelan president to 'correct injustice' over Maria Lourdes Afiuni, who is under house arrest
Virginia Lopez in Caracas and Tom Phillips
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 December 2011
Hugo Chávez's long-time supporter Noam Chomsky has issued a renewed appeal to the Venezuelan president to free a judge who was controversially jailed two years ago, prompting criticism from human rights activists and academics.
Maria Lourdes Afiuni, 48, has been imprisoned since December 2009 and is currently under house arrest in the capital, Caracas.
In an open letter to the Venezuelan president, Chomsky, a linguistics professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, urged Chávez to "correct an injustice".
"This is an appeal for the release of Judge Afiuni on humanitarian grounds after two years," Chomsky told the Guardian on Wednesday in a telephone interview. "As the letter says I hope President Chávez will release her. Presumably these are regular Christmas pardons."
Activists, including Chomsky, have made repeated calls for Afiuni's release, partly on the grounds of ill health. Afiuni is a cancer patient who underwent an abdominal hysterectomy while in jail.
But a series of high-profile interventions – including a previous Chomsky letter, published in July – have so far fallen on deaf ears. On 13 December a judge in Venezuela extended the house arrest by two years, leaving supporters and relatives despondent and prompting the latest appeal.
"President Chávez himself is in a courageous fight against cancer. For this reason, he is certainly in a position to personally understand the importance of receiving adequate treatment and marshalling your inner strength for survival," Chomsky writes in his latest letter.
"The Christmas-time pardons are an appropriate occasion for President Chávez to correct an injustice and avoid greater damage to her health by a humanitarian release," he added.
Afiuni's troubles began on 10 December 2009 when she granted bail to Eligio Cedeño, a businessman and banker with ties to the Venezuelan opposition. Cedeño had been jailed on charges that he had evaded currency controls and, on release, fled to the United States.
Afiuni's ruling triggered a furious public reaction from the president. Chávez took to the airwaves claiming the judge deserved 30 years in prison and suggesting that in another era she would have been hauled before a firing squad.
"This judge should get the maximum penalty … that judge has to pay for what she has done," he said.
Afiuni was arrested and packed off to the Los Teques female prison on the gritty outskirts of Caracas where she was reportedly met with squalid conditions and death threats from inmates she had sent to the jail.
In February this year – following a barrage of criticism from human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch – Afiuni was transferred from the prison to her home, where she has remained under house arrest.
"We don't expect much because this country's justice system is biased," the judge's brother, Nelson Afiuni, said this month. "Most prosecutors and judges respond to the interests of the government, and it's clear the government wants my sister to remain isolated."
In his latest letter Chomsky highlighted the physical suffering that Afiuni, who is a single mother, is said to have undergone in jail.
While in prison Afiuni "experienced grave abuses that led to a severe deterioration of her physical and psychological condition", the American linguist wrote.
While the judge was now under house arrest, "she is prohibited from speaking to the press and from receiving solar rays".
Chomsky added: "After more than two years in custody, there are no guarantees of a fair trial. I am convinced that Judge Afiuni has suffered enough and should be released."
Chomsky's letter is part of a renewed but diplomatically worded push for Afiuni's release.
Speaking to the Guardian on Wednesday, Charlie Clements, director of Harvard's Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy, said: "We hope that given that this is the time of year that the president makes pardons, and that he himself was released under this same scheme, he decides to free her."
"I sincerely hope that the judge and her daughter don't have to suffer any longer," added Clements, who said he was speaking in a personal capacity. "For the Venezuelan judicial system this should come as an international embarrassment."
Leonardo Vivas, a fellow at the Carr centre, described the latest appeal as "a very cordial call for Afiuni to be freed on humanitarian grounds".
"We don't know what the reaction will be," he added.
Despite his appeal for Afiuni's release, Chomsky has been critical of the media's coverage of the case. On Wednesday he suggested the case had received so much media attention only "because Venezuela is an official enemy" [of the United States].
"I am involved in these appeals all the time but I get no calls unless it is an enemy of the US," Chomsky said. "This is more a comment on the media than on the case."
surprised they didnt say it was a love trist
he is beginning to look alot of my exhusband... ISH
Sean Penn blasts fellow actors for putting money before art
Campaigning actor hits out at Hollywood contemporaries for contributing to 'consumerist mosh pit' of modern movie business
Ben Child
guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 December 2012
The Oscar-winning actor and director Sean Penn has laid into Hollywood stars for being more interested in selling perfume and jewellery than shooting decent movies.
Interviewed in the new issue of Esquire, Penn lambasted his fellow thespians for taking up commercial endorsements and agreeing to shoot films that he clearly believes are below acceptable quality levels. "I just did this picture that I enjoyed doing – [forthcoming Ruben Fleisher film] Gangster Squad. But I do think that in general the standard of aspiration is low," he told the magazine. "Very low. And mostly they're just doing a bunch of monkey-f*ck-rat movies, most actors and actresses. And I blame them just as much as I do the business. I know everybody wants to make some money, everybody's got a modelling contract, everybody's selling jewellery and perfume."
Penn, who largely avoids commercially oriented films and most recently starred as an ageing goth rock star who goes on a road trip in the indie drama This Must Be the Place, compared the current state of Hollywood unfavourably with the early 70s, pre-blockbuster era of risk-taking and adventurousness on the part of studios.
"When I was growing up and somebody like Robert De Niro had a movie come out, it was a cultural event," he said. "Because he had such a confidence and a single mission that was so intimate. But when people start using themselves as instruments of a kind of consumerist mosh pit, they're helping that take over. I mean, you are a soldier for it or you're a soldier against it. That's all there is to it. And we have so little of that intimacy left, it's no wonder that interpersonal relationships have become text relationships. It's a texting orgy. When is somebody gonna sit there, with their mate or their child, and just look them in the eye and say, 'I love you'? When is that life?"
Penn is not alone in his assertion that the Hollywood studio system increasingly steers clear of films it deems unlikely to achieve spectacular blockbuster success. Actor Rashida Jones, whose recently released film Celeste and Jesse Forever touched on the issue, has said she believes it is a "two-way street", with the onus also on audiences to demand more unorthodox fare. "I would say there is some feeding of some – as my character says in the movie – 'pretty garbagey stuff', but we're also eating the garbage," she said. "So people have to show that there's a mature, complex moviegoing audience that wants to see – we have to see, we have to demand the better stuff.
"I'm not against an action movie; I'm not against a big-budget movie," Jones continued, "but the ones that I like are the ones where it's obvious they took the time to develop characters, develop jokes, develop storylines. Like, don't waste my time and don't insult me, is how I feel."
I'm guessing he wasn't a fan of the movie MacGruber overtly pushing the Blaupunkt brand upon us.
:think:
(i do agree that movies like transformers and movies based on board games have dumbed us down)
While the elder Penn ignored a videographer who was trailing him into a building, his son apparently took issue with the paparazzi invading his space.
In a video obtained by TMZ, Hopper pushes the unidentified photographer before following his dad. The footage shows Hopper shouting obscenities at the paparazzo.
"Fuck you, you're a f
g f----t," Hopper shouts. "Shut up, you f
g n
r."
http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1300565
His son must be in the tea party
They would have been shot,and the report would say,"They were reaching for what was believed to be a gun./I.D.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."