Tuesday, October 14, 2003
More news on the troubles in Bolivia.

1:21:49 PM  #  
Blaise Pascal. "Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything." [Quotes of the Day]
12:44:05 PM  #  
Dyslexia-friendly typeface. "Read Regular" is a typeface designed to be legible to people with dyslexia.  This is just the coolest!  I have friends with dyslexia, and if this thing does what it says it does than their lives just got a whole lot easier. (via boing boing via Blackbelt Jones)



12:42:51 PM  #  

More protests in Bolivia, as the people violently demonstrate against the president. Couple of interesting points here:

The secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Cesar Gaviria, issued a statement Monday saying: "The forces behind these events, which have already cost many lives, should know that the 34 states in the hemisphere covered by the Inter-American Democratic Charter unanimously condemn the use of violence and force to alter the constitutional order.

"Any government that arises anti-democratically is absolutely unacceptable in the Americas," the OAS statement said.

I read that statement as, "we do not support the violent protests against a democratically elected president. If a coup is undertaken and the president is overthrown, we will act against it. The continuation of democracy in South America is much too important to be given up because you people can't deal with an oil pipeline."

In a news conference earlier Monday, Sanchez de Lozada announced the cancellation of the gas project.

"There will be no gas exports to new markets," he said.


...

But protest leaders said shelving the project would not stop the demonstrations. "We will not stop until he (the president) goes away," Roberto de la Cruz, a union leader in El Alto, said Monday.


I read that statement as, "These protests were never really about the gas pipeline project, we just used that as an excuse to gain popular support. Now that we have popular support it is time to start altering our goals slightly until we convince the mob that their real purpose for these demonstrations was your overthrow, which, in fact, it wasn't."

Opponents are especially upset that the government might pick a port in Chile to ship the gas. Bolivia has been a landlocked nation since it lost its coastline in an 1879 war against Chile, and resentment against its neighbor is still strong.

I read that statement as, "Everyone around here knows that going through Chile would be cheaper than cutting them out of the process. And we understand that from an economic standpoint more money flowing into the country would be a good thing. We really appreciate you deciding to do the logical thing, because it makes our jobs as protest leaders and insurgents so much easier when we can use patriotism to whip the crowds into a fury. Thanks again."


10:18:40 AM  #  

This Page was last update: 3/1/2004; 4:43:06 PM
Copyright 2004 Edward Goodwin
Theme Design by Bryan Bell

Click here to visit the Radio UserLand website. Subscribe to "Incredible, Edible Ed" in Radio UserLand. Click to see the XML version of this web page. Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.