LEKARE

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.

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!

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

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)

The Pope’s spokesman, Rev. Federico Lombardi, said a couple of days ago that Joseph Ratzinger (alias: Benedict the 16th) had never been involved with Hitler or the Hitler Youth… some hours later, he retracted and said that he had been forced into the Hitler Youth…

How can one believe in the church? The Catholic church’s highest representative was (provably) member of a party portrayed to have killed 6 million Jews… simply amazing…

Who can believe in the Catholic church? Who can believe in ANY church?

The people behind The Pirate Bay were convicted and sentenced to jail (apart from a ridiculously high amount of damages to be paid)… but what happens next?

They have all appealed, and the appeal (which probably will be accepted and taken to a new trial) will take place in about a year… so – for now – the convicted won’t have to face jailtime.

Now, it seems the judge that handled the case might have been biased. He is member of two organizations: The Swedish Copyright Association and the Swedish Association for Industrial Legal Protection.

This makes him – in my eyes at least – totally biased and not suitable to judge in a case involving copyright. But if Judge Norstrom was truly an impartial, brilliant, expert judge, might he have not offered the following quote: “This is a sensitive case. So before I agreed to hear it, I asked some of my fellow judges whether they considered that I would be in a position of conflicting interests. Two judges said absolutely not. While a third said he wasn’t quite so sure. I went with the majority.”

This says it all, doesn’t it?

On another note, the people convicted actually had a website much like google (albeit much much smaller).. their site (www.thepiratebay.com) contains a search engine and listings to torrent files. They don’t host files. They were convicted for “facilitating” torrent files to the public. So what does Google do? The exact same thing.

That’s why some clever guy registered the name thepirategoogle.com. Where he (or she) uses google to search for torrents. This website has the exact same functionality as the Pirate Bay – it uses Google’s search engine to “facilitate torrent files” to people searching for torrents. It seems, however, that media companies are a bit afraid to sue Google, aren’t they?

The Daily Show is one of my favorite shows, together with Real Time with Bill Maher.

Recently, the Daily Show sent a reporter to Sweden, to see in what direction the US was heading, now that they are going “Socialist” according to right wing pundits:

And the second part:

Not quite the elect president... but he would love to be that

Mexico’s legally elected president, Felipe Calderón, flew to Washington to meet with predident-elect Obama. This caused the deranged and, frankly, sick Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, to send a letter to Barack Obama.

The letter said something along these lines: “Next Monday you will meet with Felipe Calderón, who claims to be Mexico’s President. This citizen has this post due to a huge electoral scam, made possible by corrupt politicians and lobbyists. In our country, there is an apparent republic: false and simulated. There are consitutional powers, but a group has confiscated these powers… that is a fact. This kind of veiled dictatorship hasn’t only erased the democratic lives of everyone. It has also caused an incredible inequality – both social and economic.”

He also said that the solution to the immigration problems that the US faces is not found in the Mexican Constitution, nor in the US Constitution. Not in the walls being erected nor the adding of more soldiers to the border. It is found in the economic and social development in Mexico.

In the letter consisting of two pages, AMLO concludes that: “it would be a great mistake for your future government to disallow the migratory flow between our countries. I think you will have the virtue and the luck to answer to the great hopes that you have awakened in your country and in ours”, this guy said…

Whaaaat? AMLO is completely and utterly crazy…. I’ve said it before and I will say it again… I actually feel a little bit sorry about him, since he seems to be so lost in his idea that he won that election. He didn’t. He sent a letter complaining about the 2006 elections to Barack Obama… Who was doing what in 2006?  He was a Senator for the state of Illinois. Mexico´s elections happened here, not in the US. If Mexico isn’t able to keep clean elections – why complain elsewhere about the results without working to reform the electoral process? It actually shows that AMLO himself and his party PRD are to blame… their own internal elections took 8 months to conclude, due to fraud.

AMLO is plain and simply: CRAZY

(CNN) — Oprah Winfrey once dubbed it the “greatest love story” she had ever heard: a boy held at a Nazi concentration camp during World War II and a girl on the outside who tossed him apples to keep him alive. They eventually married and grew old together.

Herman Rosenblat has acknowledged his Holocaust love story is fake: “I am sorry.”

It turns out the story of Herman and Roma Rosenblat isn’t true.

The two had told their love story for years and years, inspiring a book deal, an upcoming movie, and stories across the globe on television, in papers and on the Internet. A children’s book, “Angel Girl,” was also based on their love story.

When the couple appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” more than a decade ago, the famed host called it “the single greatest love story in 22 years of doing this show.”

But over the weekend, Herman Rosenblat issued a statement through his literary agent, Andrea Hurst, acknowledging the story of how he met his wife was made up.

“Why did I do that and write the story with the girl and the apple, because I wanted to bring happiness to people, to remind them not to hate, but to love and tolerate all people. I brought good feelings to a lot of people, and I brought hope to many. My motivation was to make good in this world,” he said in the statement.

“In my dreams, Roma will always throw me an apple, but I now know it is only a dream.”

Herman Rosenblat really was in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II — a subcamp of Buchenwald — and he really has been married to Roma for decades. Beyond that, the truth is murky.

Berkley Books immediately canceled publication of Rosenblat’s memoir, “Angel at the Fence,” which was set to be released in February.

“Berkley will demand that the author and the agent return all money that they have received for this work,” Berkley spokesman Craig Burke said in a statement.

A movie version of the Rosenblats’ story — even though now proven a hoax — remains in the works. Atlantic Overseas Pictures says the movie is a fictionalized adaptation and that “the story retains its power to grip audiences worldwide.”

Many Holocaust scholars had long cast doubt on the Rosenblats’ story.

Professor Ken Waltzer, the director of Michigan State University’s Jewish Studies program, said he began raising questions to the agent and publisher in November, suggesting that the story was fabricated. But he says his numerous queries went unanswered.

He says he told the editor that the story is “at best embellished and perhaps invented.”

“The idea of a prisoner being able autonomously to approach the fence not just once, but every day at the same time, … none of it seemed plausible,” Waltzer says. “That fence was right next to the SS barracks, so to go to the fence, which was also punishable by death, was to risk death.”

In a letter to “The New Republic,” which first began questioning the validity of the Rosenblats’ story, Waltzer said he was also disturbed about why few others had come forward to point out holes in the couple’s account.

“Less understandable is the widespread belief in their story — by the culture makers, including the publisher and movie maker and many thousands of others who have encountered it over a decade,” he said. “Second, such belief suggests a broad illiteracy about the Holocaust and about experience in the camps — despite decades of books, serious memoirs, museums, and movies. This shakes this historian up.”

“This memoir was at the far end of implausibility, yet until yesterday, no one connected with packaging, promoting, and disseminating it asked questions about or investigated it. Some actively resisted such investigation and tried to shut mine down.”

New Republic special correspondent Gabriel Sherman told CNN another disturbing element is that Herman Rosenblat really is a Holocaust survivor who “didn’t need to embellish his love story, because his own story is so powerful.”

Sherman said Rosenblat was shot during a robbery in the 1990s at his workplace. When he was was in the hospital, Rosenblat said he had a vision from his mother to tell his love story. “From that moment on, he started telling his story in public,” Sherman said.

In his statement released over the weekend, Herman Rosenblat said, “To all [who] supported and believed in me and this story, I am sorry for all I have caused to you and everyone else in the world.

Holocaust scholars say they hope the revelation that the love story is fictitious doesn’t distract from the reality of the Holocaust, when Nazi Germany killed 6 million Jews.

“On the far extreme, something like this could give fuel to those who are in the business of denying that the Holocaust ever took place,” said David Marwell, director of The Museum of Jewish Heritage.

Anyone surprised?