Leonardo Durán @[email protected]

Imagine - a bird crashing through the windscreen of your airplane into your face, taking out your left eye. And then being able to turn your head to deflect the blood in the roaring wind, and safely land. This man, my friend Syd Burrows, did just that. After the accident he changed his callsign to Cyclops and flew a full career. Syd passed away today at 95. He was proud to be the inspiration for the main character in my Apollo Murders thriller series. A long, beloved, good life, well-lived. Ad Astra, Syd. jalbrecht.ca/2.php?a=2&p=10

To tempt the US and Israel, they should probably do inflatable schools and hospitals too...

Truly the most unabashedly dumb government in history. (there are of course no penguins in Greenland or anywhere near the North Pole, they're exclusively a Southern Hemisphere bird)

Irán existe y Palestina también. Ni una sola mención sobre los derechos humanos de niños y niñas, población civil en general, reporteros y médicos asesinados en dobles ataques sobre hospitales y la demolición brutal de Gaza. Ni siquiera Hind Rajab y su familia mencionados antes.

Regalar un Nobel no es un gesto noble. Es una señal. Y la señal que se manda cuando entregas tu mayor símbolo moral a un político poderoso no es de dignidad, es de dependencia. El Nobel no se ofrece: se sostiene. Cuando se convierte en obsequio, deja de ser principio y se vuelve moneda. No importa que jurídicamente no se “transfiera” el premio. Lo que cuenta es el mensaje político: “necesito tu aval, necesito tu foto, necesito tu respaldo”. Eso no es liderazgo democrático, es súplica envuelta en épica. Y cuando una causa justa se presenta así, pierde fuerza, pierde autonomía y pierde autoridad.

Un contrapunteo de jalabolismo. El "gobierno" y su oposición (reflección especular) igual de malos como siempre.

Totally bonkers this present time.

When María Corina Machado spoke yesterday about her decision to present President Donald Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal, she drew a parallel between her gesture and that of General Lafayette, who gave a medal bearing the image of George Washington to Venezuela’s liberator, Simón Bolívar. But there is a much more troubling and disturbing parallel to her decision: that of Norwegian Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun gifting his medal to Joseph Goebbels, propaganda minister of the German Nazi regime, in 1943. Hamsun’s gesture appears to be the only historical precedent of a laureate presenting a contemporary political leader with their award. Hamsun was probably the greatest Norwegian writer of the modern era and his works reveal a profound empathy for human suffering. Yet Hamsun also became convinced that the Nazis had the potential to realize his vision of a good society. Among Norwegians, Hamsun’s decision is still remembered as one of the most troubling episodes in the history of the Nobel Prize. Many Venezuelans have expressed support for María Corina Machado’s gesture and have voiced valid reasons to do so. Nicolás Maduro was a ruthless and corrupt dictator, and Venezuelans are happy to see him gone. The possibility that the events of the past few weeks have opened a route to democratization is, to them, more than enough to outweigh concerns about the operation or the man who ordered it. But this argument misses the point. The person who now has in his possession the Nobel Peace Prize medal is not only someone who does not deserve it; it is someone whose political career embodies a project to undermine the very democratic institutions that Venezuelans are trying to recover in their own country. In the same way in which the Nobel Prize is intended as recognition of the recipient’s trajectory in fighting for the values of peace, democracy, and human rights, one cannot pretend that the decision to offer the medal to another political leader can be assessed independently from that leader’s trajectory. Some will defend Machado’s decision on the grounds of political expediency and realism. It is not her fault that the only country with the power to bring about democratic change in Venezuela is ruled by a leader willing to demand gestures of fealty and subservience from anyone who seeks his support. But understanding her decision does not make it any more acceptable. The Nobel Peace Prize is a symbol of values, of principles, and of integrity. It is not a token entitling its bearer to trade it in a bargain that corrodes the values the prize was meant to honor. Donald Trump does not stand for the values of democracy; he stands against them. He has falsely claimed that elections have been rigged against him, has unconstitutionally undermined the independence of the civil service and the judiciary, has stigmatized and denigrated his opponents and the media, and has blatantly abused the authority of the US presidency for his personal political and economic benefit. His avowed purpose in intervening in Venezuela was not restoring democracy but obtaining control of oil resources. Some have argued that the real purpose was to distract from one of the darkest scandals ever involving an American political leader. The Nobel Peace Prize medal should not be sitting in the office of a man who embodies the complete opposite of the ideals Alfred Nobel sought to promote with its creation. That it is there today stands as a reflection of a failure of judgment by both the Nobel Committee and the prize's recipient.

¡Amén!

Chávez no fue un accidente histórico sino la consecuencia de una democracia fallida. Desigualdad, crisis, partidos vacíos, élites rentistas, corrupción, medios antipolíticos y un Estado de bienestar inexistente. Cuando el sistema se vacía, cualquier “salvador” encuentra espacio.

Only ice can f*ck ICE. More ice please!

¡Totalmente! Y sin el apoyo de todas las fuerzas democráticas cuando más se necesitaban. El empuje de todos para la defensa institucional del voto no se dió; solo la difamación y acusación de colaboracionismo. Los que recibieron el apoyo grande se deslindaron y se fueron del país

This is a perfect illustration of how, ever so subtly, mainstream media like the NYT actually enable and normalize US aggression. So the question the NYT ask Trump (src: nytimes.com/video/us/polit…) is whether he doesn't think his actions in Venezuela set a dangerous precedent for what they frame as the genuine bad actors out there, namely China and Russia. Sounds relatively innocuous at first glance but, when you think about it, the entire premise of the question is positively obscene. It installs the notion that what the US did is exempt from moral evaluation. It only becomes bad to the extent it might encourage others - the real "bad guys" - to do the same thing. But, that's the thing, it'd be the *same act* and THEY presumably would be judged on it alone - no one would ask "fair enough, you did this, but aren't you afraid this might encourage the US to do the same?" All the more obscene given that China, for one, hasn't fought a single war in 46 years. In that same timeframe, the US launched well over 250 military interventions (geopoliticaleconomy.com/2022/09/13/us-…). Heck, in the first week of January alone, the US did two (Venezuela and Somalia). So this is effectively the moral equivalent of asking a serial killer, in the midst of yet another bloody rampage, whether he isn't setting a bad example for a neighbor who's been quietly gardening for half a century. Because that's the REAL bad guy we should all be worried about 🤦

¡Qué alegría me da! 🎉🍾💐

Dios mediante. Sinceramente, si él hubiese sido el candidato de peso en vez de Edmundo González Urrutia, otro gallo cantaría hoy.

Otra excelente noticia. Nunca debió estar en la cárcel.

Así es. Opino lo mismo.

Esta es una muy buena noticia

Desde el lado oficialista quieren narrar una épica donde en realidad hubo un desastre. No solo desde el otro lado de la acera se vende humo.

Hay personas que justifican lo ocurrido el 3 de enero diciendo que aquí ya se había intentado todo. ¡FALSO! Nunca se intentó un gran acuerdo nacional, nunca se intentó un gobierno de coalición. Jamás fue una opción asumida por quienes lo querían todo y quienes lo tenían todo.