A few weeks back, president Calderón shut down one of the two state run electricity companies in Mexico, Luz y Fuerza del Centro. It was shut down because of its inefficiency. More than 40% of the electricity sold by this company was never paid for by its customers. Yearly subsidies reach some 4 billion USD/year and still they lose money.

One of the answers to its poor efficiency rate is the worker’s union. All workers have the right to free electricity for himself and family, school allowance, rent allowance, etc. At 55 years of age, a worker has the right to retire with 100% of his salary until the day he dies. When Calderón shut it down, 44 000 people were employed. Another 20 000 were retired (but with worker’s benefits, e.g. employed). Service has always been dismal. Corruption incredible. It’s a good thing that moneyhole was shut down.

Today a huge demonstration took place in downtown Mexico City. The worker’s union marched together with the telephone company worker’s union and the state university worker’s union. They call for a general strike. A general strike? For cutting off a cancer that is eating the society from within? Problem is, in Mexico nobody really wants to work. People want it all and want the government to pay for it. Recently, in a measure to save state finances, the government proposed a 1% hike to the VAT. From 15% to 16%. An additional 3% to telecommunications (except Internet). People are going crazy over this now. But what they don’t think about is that only 20% of the economically active Mexicans actually pay any kind of income tax. Incidentally, the people that complain the most about these tax hikes are the ones that don’t pay income tax.

At least something good came out of the demonstration today. AMLO wasn’t allowed (by the union workers) to speak to the people. That’s a victory for all of Mexico.

Today I was looking through my website, and saw that Adsense (that serves ads on this website) not only does context intelligence to serve ads, but also face recognition! I mean it! How else would it know that the slackermom in the entry below lives in Gothenburg? (see the ad beside the entry)…  It has to have some kind of face recognition technology built in. I am amazed at these Google guys. First image search, now adpublishing based on images shown. WOW. Technology is impressive!!!

In all fairness, Adsense works more on the client side than on the server side. Meaning that ads shown are more prone to contain information based on this person’s previous search history than just random ads. In this case, for instance, I would think it would be impossible that someone from New Delhi would be served this ad. I got it served since I do a lot of web surfing on Swedish websites.

Same goes for people that at one or other time have claimed I am for prostitution, especially from Asia… the ads were served to that person (while visiting this website) because of that person’s websurfing habits – not mine.

So how does Adsense work? Well… everytime you do a Google search, you leave your tracks. Stuff like “Who is it?”, “Where is he/she?”, “What do they look for?” After a while, Google search algorithms make a “user profile” and serve ads based on that person’s previous surfing habits. So anyone saying I am looking for whores in Thailand just got bit in the ass. Then again – I don’t really look for slackermoms in Gothenburg, seen enough of those.

Comision Federal de Electricidad, Mexico’s largest state power company, will take over Luz y Fuerza del Centro, the smaller money-losing state power company, Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont said in a press conference in Mexico City.

“This is a measure to preserve responsibly the fiscal resources of all Mexicans,” Gomez Mont said. Luz y Fuerza provides power to a metropolitan area of 20 million people and several states surrounding Mexico City, transmitting 30 percent of the entire country’s electrical output.

President Felipe Calderon issued a decree today ordering the liquidation of Luz y Fuerza, according to a notice published today in the nation’s official gazette. Local media outlets reported that federal police officers seized the power company headquarters and other facilities by 11 p.m. yesterday.

Calderon is seeking to bolster Mexico’s fiscal position as it faces the threat of a lower credit rating from Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings, both of which have a negative outlook for Mexico’s sovereign ranking.

Calderon is increasing taxes and closing three ministries, while also cutting some government spending. On Sept. 8, Calderon submitted to Congress tax law changes that would generate 176 billion pesos ($13.2 billion) in additional revenue next year and spending cuts of 218 billion pesos.

Unsustainable Situation

The financial situation of Luz y Fuerza is unsustainable, Gomez Mont said. If Luz y Fuerza were left to continue, the federal government would have to transfer to the company about 300 billion pesos by 2012, he said.

Between 2003 and 2008 Luz y Fuerza generated sales of 235.7 billion pesos, while its costs reached 443.2 billion pesos, according to the decree. By June of 2009 the company reported a loss of 30.6 percent of the power that it distributed.

“Almost no other power company in the world shows a percentage of power loss registered by Luz y Fuerza,” the decree said.

The severance costs for the federal government could reach 20 billion pesos, Finance Minister Agustin Carstens said at the same press conference.

The federal government will absorb the pension liabilities from Luz y Fuerza, Labor Minister Javier Lozano said at the conference. Mexico Anticipates to rehire “an undefined number” of Luz y Fuerza workers, Lozano said.

CFE, as the Mexico City-based company is known, and Luz y Fuerza are the only companies allowed to sell and distribute power in Mexico. Private companies are allowed to generate power and sell it to the state-owned distributors or export the electricity.

Under the government decree, the Secretary of Energy will have three days to publish the legal conditions to start liquidating Luz y Fuerza del Centro.

Reactions to this shutdown have been many. Positive reations from most if not all of Luz y Fuerza’s clients, tired of the corruption and the low quality of service. Negative reactions from the left and the union. The Electricity Worker’s Union have been protesting and do not agree with this decision (of course). AMLO and his gang are jumping on the wagon as well to denounce this action, which in my eyes seems to be pretty just. They claim it is against the constitution to dissolve this company, since – according to the constitution – only congress could do this. Problem is that Luz y Fuerza was conceived as a presidental decree, and as such it has no protection from the congress to be dissolved.

In order to enforce this shutdown, police and military took Luz y Fuerza’s installations in Mexico City, Cuernavaca and other places – to ensure the continuity in electricity supply – since the union said they would not be at fault if Mexico City and nearby communities ended up without electricity during this conflict.

Mexico has the worst electricity supply in the western hemisphere, and probably the highest prices. It is time somebody did something about it. Way to go, Calderón!

I found a really interesting article in Psychiatric Times. It deals with “stalking”, a phenomenom I am quite familiar with due to the experience of having being stalked for the last couple of years. This article really opened my eyes – I recommend it:

http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/display/article/10168/1426568?verify=0

His emblem is a headband dyed the red, green and white of Mexico’s flag and emblazoned with his one-word stage name, “Juanito.” From the working-class streets where he peddles used clothing and holiday decorations, he muses about running for president.

If anyone has spiced up the drab aftermath of Mexico’s July 5 legislative elections, it is Rafael Acosta, an exuberant hawker-turned-activist-turned-politician-turned-spoiler who may end up in charge of Mexico City’s most populous borough, which has more people than metropolitan Las Vegas.

For two months, Acosta has been the lead character in an odd political drama that has made Juanito a household name, while providing enough cautionary lessons to rival Aesop’s fables.

In the July elections, Acosta was elected chief of the teeming Iztapalapa borough, a kind of mayor in miniature, thanks to a maneuver orchestrated by Mexico’s main leftist figure, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

Acosta was supposed to be only a bit player in Lopez Obrador’s plan, whose main purpose was to block the election of a candidate from a rival wing of the Democratic Revolution Party, or PRD, after a disputed nomination process in the fractious party.

Under the plan, Lopez Obrador urged his supporters in the PRD to vote for Acosta, an ally who ran as a candidate of the fringe Labor Party. The script then called for Acosta to step down, if elected.

According to the plan, Clara Brugada, a former congresswoman in Lopez Obrador’s faction, would be put forward as a replacement. Brugada had been disqualified as the PRD candidate less than a month before the election by a federal electoral tribunal that found “irregularities” in the party’s primary.

The strategy seemed to work. With Lopez Obrador’s backing, Acosta won easily in Iztapalapa, a PRD bastion. Acosta publicly promised to step down after winning.

But it wasn’t long before the plan went awry: Acosta started having second thoughts about leaving.

He blamed Brugada, saying she wouldn’t answer his condition that at least half the key borough jobs go to his backers. Lopez Obrador warned him not to fall prey to the “siren song” of power.

The Mexican press was there every time Acosta got to mulling whether he should keep the job for himself. The street vendor was suddenly a media sensation. He has assumed the role with gusto.

During a television interview last month, Acosta declared that he didn’t need Lopez Obrador or Brugada.

“I would have won with any party by running only as ‘Juanito,’ ” he said. (He adopted the nickname years ago after coaching a youth soccer team in which 11 players were named Juan.)

Acosta said he planned to run for mayor of Mexico City in 2012, and hinted at a possible run for president. “If the people elect me, why not?” he told one journalist.

The drama over whether Acosta would relent — and the spectacle of a scheme blowing up in the faces of its makers — has been delicious grist for pundits eager to find a moral to the story.

“Juanito is the little Frankenstein who disowned his creator,” commentator Raymundo Riva Palacio wrote.

Acosta is new to electoral politics but long a fixture at leftist protests, including those supporting the claim that the 2006 presidential election was stolen from Lopez Obrador. Acosta noted proudly during the recent campaign that he had appeared, stripped to his underwear, in a Mexican fichera movie, a once-popular genre full of scantily clad women.

If Acosta keeps the job of running Iztapalapa, a crowded place of 1.8 million, he would inherit some of the most difficult problems in Mexico City, including deep poverty, infrastructure in disrepair and frequent water shortages. But the budget is big, about $280 million this year, and the borough chief makes about $90,000 a year.

Acosta sounded resolute about retaining the job the other day. The swearing-in is Oct. 1.

“The people have spoken,” he said during a visit to pray at the famed Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe, with a battalion of news cameras in tow.

But then Thursday, Acosta stoked the intrigue by meeting with Brugada over lunch. He said the two ate well, but did not reach a deal.

Juanito, vendor-activist-politician-spoiler, also played master of suspense: He promised more news in a few days.

Source: Ken Ellingwood/LA Times

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/09/14/yemen.childbirth.death/index.html

A 12 year old Yemeni girl died from labor… as well has her child. She was wed to some 24 yr old man.

12 years… that is totally horrible. I try to be open to religions and cultures, but this is really too much. Noone can rape a 12 year old girl, get her pregnant and see her die trying to give birth. This guy needs to be put away. Any religion that supports this kind of behavior needs to be really redone from the bottom… any religion that thinks this is cool, is just a sect. They should be put in jail, all of them. Anyone that supports this religion should do some real introspection.

Apart from the man that raped her, her parents should be sent to jail for life. Who would allow something like that to happen???? To a loved son/daughter?

Mehdi Muhammed Ghezali (Arabic: محمد مهدي غزالي‎) (b. 1979 (age 29–30)), in media previously known as the Cuba-Swede (Swedish: Kubasvensken), is a Swedish citizen of Algerian and Finnish descent who was held as what the United States termed an unlawful combatant at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp on Cuba between January 2002 and July 2004. Prior to his capture Ghezali attended a Muslim religious school and mosque in the United Kingdom before travelling to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and finally ended up in Pakistan where he was captured. Following his release from detention the Swedish government has not brought any further criminal charges against him for criminal misconduct prior to his capture.

A man bearing Ghezali’s passport was one of twelve foreigners Pakistani security officials reported were captured trying to cross into Afghanistan on August 28 2009. According to the Associated Press Ghezali was “reportedly part of a group of 156 suspected al-Qaida fighters caught while fleeing Afghanistan’s Tora Bora mountains.

So, the question goes… how many strikes do you get at being a presumed terrorist? In Guantanamo for a couple of years, released and – according to his parents – at some pilgrimage to Mecca. But no, he was back to the place where he was apprehended the first time around. Makes me think Swedes of Finnish and Algerian descent are pretty dumb.

According to CNN: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/08/14/cocaine.traces.money/index.html – 90% of all bills in the US are contaminated with cocaine… impressive… Why do they complain about mexican drug cartels when they are the reason there are drug cartels?

I downloaded RunKeeper (www.runkeeper.com) for my iPhone the other day. It’s free if you can stand some ads. For the ones that don’t like ads there is a $10 (USD) version with more functions.

So, what does RunKeeper do? It tracks your exercise on your iPhone. If you like running, just start the app and stop it when you are done. The built-in GPS tracks your every move, speed, elevation changes, etc. When you are done, you upload the information to RunKeeper’s website and you can also make your training efforts public (I don’t, just yet). It even pulls maps from Google Maps to show where you have been moving around! It even shows the amount on calories you have burned, based on age, weight, and type of exercise. This is simply said a completely brilliant application and I recommend it warmly to anyone wishing to get training motivation.

RunKeeper

AMLO – Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the looney that lost the presidential election in 2006 to Felipe Calderón just said he is going for it again in 2012. According to a speech he held in Oaxaca, he said “We won the presidency in 2006, but were robbed. We will seek the presidency in 2012 and win it once again”… “We” refers to him, obviously.

I just wonder how it all will pan out after his successor as Mexico City mayor, Marcelo Ebrard, was dubbed by him as his successor when he claimed victory in the 2006 elections. Ebrard still wants to run for president in 2012…

The fact that AMLO is about to get kicked out of the PRD party won’t help him either. He is (hopefully) going to be kicked out since he fought his own party – the PRD in the local elections 2009 by setting his own candidate in a Mexico City township. The party, PRD, presented one candidate democratically elected by the party. Not to his liking (since this candidate goes against AMLO’s different ideas), AMLO campaigned for another candidate, running for another party (PT). He made a deal with the guy, that if he won, he would step down and let AMLO’s candidate take his place… In essence, AMLO is playing games with democracy – just as long as he gets what he wants. Like this delusional character did in 2006, when he kidnapped the main avenue in Mexico City for months by paying people to protest, set up tents and live there. That little stunt amounted to nothing, except financial breakdown for thousands of business owners along the avenue that lost all due to no sales.

AMLO is like a Hugo Chavez on steroids – but without a country to run (thankfully)