Hello, Rosines, Your Daddy's Company Needs You!

The Real Definition of 21st Century Socialism, at last!

Can this be a Bolivarian Social company? With the Mom and apple pie and Fourth of July imagery? With only the mention of "Access To The Largest Oil Reserves In The Western Hemispere" to hint at the fact that your Daddy, Hugo Chavez, controls the company? Really, Rosines, is that what Venezuela is to the Chavistas, a vast pool of oil to turn into cash so you and your sycophants can live large? For shame! Rosines, your Daddy ditched the nation's flag and emblems at your whim- speak to him, and tell him about this misguided attempt by CITGO to disguise its ownership. You can come up with something better.

CITGO "helping fuel our way of life"? This Dick Cheney looking guy as the face of CITGO? Whose way of life? CITGO isn't American, and surely you don't mean to endorse the American way of life that your Dad excoriates? Sure, it fuels your family's luxe standard of living, but the ad doesn't make that point. Maybe you can have a camera crew follow you and your half-siblings around, haranguing the gringos, as the voiceover tells us that American money fuels your way of life?

Galloway Gets his Dues, Friend Of Chavez Delahunt Alarmed by Abuse Of Executive Power!!

--just not that of his Good Buddy, Hugo:

July 25 (Bloomberg) -- A House panel cited President George W. Bush's top aide and former counsel for contempt of Congress over their refusal to cooperate with an investigation of the dismissal of nine U.S. attorneys.
The Democratic-controlled House Judiciary Committee, on a 22-17 party-line vote, approved citations against Joshua Bolten, White House chief of staff, and former counsel Harriet Miers. Bolten refused to turn over documents related to the dismissals, and Miers disobeyed a subpoena to appear before the panel and answer questions about her role in the firings.

Massachusetts Democrat William Delahunt said Congress must ``assert itself against an administration that has expanded executive power to a point'' that ``has become dangerous to our democracy.''

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, complained yesterday to Gonzales that Bush was trying to prevent Congress from obtaining a court ruling on his executive privilege assertion.
``Do you think constitutional government in the United States can survive if the president has the unilateral authority to reject congressional inquiries'' and bar courts from ruling on his assertion, Specter asked Gonzales.
Specter suggested that a special prosecutor be appointed by the Justice Department to prosecute the contempt cases. If the Bush administration refused to do that, the Senate could convene its own trial of the aides. Under such circumstances, any official found guilty of contempt could be held in a jail until the end of the congressional session.

here

LONDON: British MP George Galloway personally thanked Saddam Hussein for his
regime's financial backing in a campaign against sanctions on Iraq, and even
asked him to raise the payments, it emerged yesterday. Mr Galloway also offered
to help set up with Saddam an Iraqi satellite television channel, broadcasting
in English, months before the beginning of the Iraq war.

An account of their meeting, published for the first time in a House of Commons report into Mr. Galloway's failure to declare his financial backers, contradicts the MP's insistence that he was unaware of receiving money from the former Iraqi regime.

The record was unearthed by Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Commissioner
for Standards, during a four-year inquiry into Mr Galloway's activities. As a
result, he faces being suspended from the house for 18 sitting days.

In his report, Sir Philip is coy about how he obtained the document, saying only
that he "became aware" last year that a record might exist of a meeting between
Mr Galloway and Saddam, and he "began inquiries to see if I could obtain a
copy". He did so in November, he said.

The document says that during the meeting in August 2002, Mr Galloway praised Tariq Aziz, Iraq's deputy prime minister, who also attended, for helping to secure his financial backing.

Mr Galloway, addressing Saddam as "Your Excellency", tells him: "Mr
Tariq Aziz has helped us with his contacts ... But we are now suffering from the problem of the price of oil, which has resulted in a reduction in income and delay in receiving our dues."

There was also a reference to discussions between Mr Galloway and Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, Iraq's information minister, who earned the nickname Comical Ali for his surreal defiance as the regime was toppled.

After considering Sir Philip's findings, a committee of senior
MPs concluded that Mr Galloway had secretly accepted funding from Saddam's
regime

here

George Galloway has been officially suspended from the Commons for 18 days following an inquiry into his financial links with Saddam Hussein's regime in
Iraq. The Respect MP had earlier been ordered out of the Chamber after clashing with Speaker Michael Martin.

They rowed over a speech in which he denounced the Commons Standards & Privileges Committee as hypocritical and unjust.

Mr Galloway was sharply criticised by the committee over payments to an Iraq children's charity, the now-defunct Mariam Appeal.

MPs said he should be heavily punished for concealing funding from Saddam's regime and for unjustified attacks on the inquiry itself

here

From Quico's blog, The bomb in my editor's car ,linking to this on the Reporters Without Borders website.

The editor of a political website, who was regularly excoriated on the publicly funded Chavista state media, quits his post over threats made against his seven year old son, and his car spontaneously combusts on the eve of a national holiday/four day weekend when the media is traditionally Gone Fishin'? And this isn't newsworthy?

But, as Casto Ocando reports, what's to be expected? "Cuban Penetration Of Venezuelan Telecom Increases" here, in Spanish

* Venezuelan state-owned CVG-Telecom, a branch of the Telecom ministry,
contracted with Cuban state owned Cubatel for the wiring of new networks

* The Chavez regime acquired equipment and set-up services for all
"community" broadcasters from Cuba's Copextel, an enterprise founded and managed by Cuban Minister Ramiro Valdés

• The new Centro de Formación para Comunicadores, a center for the "development" of "mass communication specialists", under the aegis of the Info Ministry, will be staffed exclusively by Cuban instructors.

* The President of the network that replaced independent RCTV, Lil Rodríguez, worked at Radio Rebelde, one of the major Cuban propaganda radio stations.

• Cuban-Venezuelan consortium Cubaven will be charged with manufacturing the new national identity card and "smart" passports, to include RFT/radio frequency tags for the purpose of " storing data critically important for the Venezuelan State",
accordong to Pedro Carreño, Interior and Justice minister.

* Another Cubozuelan joint venture, Telecom-Transbit, intends to lay cable between La Guaira, in Venezuela, and Siboney, en Cuba, spanning 1,552 kilometres, able to
carry 160 gigabytes/second, "able to handle 20,000,000 concurrent telephone calls or 26.000 TV signals.

At the same time, the presence of Venezuelan military personnel specializing in intelligence work is ever more evident in key telecom circles, which were previously off-limits to them."

Handwriting, wall.

Returning to the theme that David Chase hammered on in The Sopranos closing arc, Yeats' "The Second Coming".

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Cinco De Julio, 2007: Venezuelans