BoRev.Net

Yesterday Otto made this neat, counter-intuitive bar graph, showing which Latin American countries had seen big increases in direct foreign investment in 2008 and which didn't (sorry Peru!). The information, while interesting, was not particularly sparkly, and notably lacking in spinning daisies. Anyway, fixed now.

PS: Stupid logo. The two countries on the far right (haha) are Mexico and Peru

• After 30 long years, the FMLN have finally vanquished the yanqui imperialists.

• Hey it's that guy! That guy with the book! On Amy Goodman!!

• The Washington Post would prefer that Dr. Death Squad not run again because it would ruin his otherwise perfect human rights record, and besides there's another little pro-America terrorist waiting in the wings, so why bother.

• Miami judge awards $1 billion to some guy who says Che Guevara caused his dad's suicide, which is why we must never allow Iraqo-Afghan whatevers ACCESS to our COURTS.

• Hey look these guys will pay you lots of $$$$$ cash-moniez if you write for them! Great paid job (from home!) in this tough economy!! Email them now, again and again until they hire you. *Good pay!* Tell them BoRev sent you!!!!

Oh jeez:

ASSOCIATED PRESS: How do you expect the movie to affect those places in terms of tourism?

PETE DOCTER: I think, boy! When people see this ... When we have a feature of the documentary on the DVD they will want to go. I hope everybody is respectful of the location and don't ruin them 'cause they are really beautiful places.

After 47 years, and without preconditions, apparently. Also, FAIL:"Hillary Clinton worked through the day Tuesday trying to convince Latin American nations to allow some conditions but left before reaching agreement."

Famous old timey buttrocker Duff McKagan got a New York Times column thingy this week, because hey why not:

"I've had my share of foreign-soil adventures, like escaping a coup attempt by Hugo Chávez in 1992, when Guns N' Roses was playing in Venezuela. I didn't know what a coup was. I didn't even know how to spell it. All I knew was that it didn't bode well for us."

PS this part is fascinating: "That particular trip to South America also involved a bribe of $30,000 to another country's immigration service so we could play our show. Yes, this stuff does happen." Speculate away, people, in the comments.

• Iran doesn't even want Bolivia's stinkin' uranium anyway, so shut up.

• Check it out, the Cold War's over. Honduras called it.

• Sure you could outsource your business to Bogota, but then you'd just be DEAD.

• Vargas Llosa is the Rush Limbaugh to Hugo Chavez's Barack Obama. Bear with me here.

• Hey have you been following that crazy story about how Guatemala's president has been accused of murder "from beyond the grave"? Catch up.

Oh Jesus. Remember the Craigsist ad for "anti-Hugo Chavez writers" wanted for some edgy new right wing humor blog? So exciting, the suspense was! But now it's over because the site, it's up, and it's really, really, um, wow...is that a GeoCities homepage, circa 1994? Is it asking too much to want people to try a little?

Oh and by the way, the whole thing is apparently the brainchild of some guy in Virginia named Clarence Stiehm, who is either a former US Army Defense Attaché, or an autistic son, maybe? Congratulations to all involved.

PS: I'm not sure which article to read first, the one about how Chavez is a big homo, or the one titled "Chavez craps out of his mouth." Honestly, people.

By Revolter

It was a huge red-clad celebration for the Latin American left on Monday, as Mauricio Funes became the first FMLN President of El Salvador. With Chavez's absence at the inauguration, Hillary Clinton was able to suck up to Funes while pushing some weird, two-faced agenda.

Hillary came dressed to pander, sporting a Bolivarian red pantsuit and talking up the US's "new approach" to the region. She even invited Funes to Washington to meet with Obama, whom "some may say . . is left of center". Yeesh.

Of course she'd already undermined her own messaging earlier that morning, when the Miami Herald published a genuine White House-issue Hillary Clinton op-ed, laying out the cornerstone of this new approach: the "re-launching" of the Bush administration's Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas (PPA) initiative. Pathways, or Caminos for the brown people, is comprised of of the United States, the 10 countries with active U.S. trade agreements, the 2 countries Washington's got a hard on for (Colombia & Panama), plus Uruguay for some reason.

How's this for change? The PPA is vigorously supported by the Heritage Foundation because it "could result in new momentum for concluding a broader Free Trade Agreement of the Americas." Yikes.

Finally. America's last remaining legitimate news service takes on the Organization of American States' decision to readmit Cuba after 47 years.

Well obviously we, the internet reading public, applaud your brave decision to take down your charming blog for renovations or whatever. That thing was ugly, girl! Here's hoping you guys are back up and spouting off your (unintentionally?) hilarious brand of poorly-written homophobic nastiness again soon real soon, maybe this time with a blog platform from this century!!

And dude I totally understand why you went and removed your name as the point of contact for the site, especially if your dad w/ the same name really is a US government operative based in Latin America, as the Daily Sketch's investigation found. That could be awkward with the Google searches!

Best wishes,

PS: Commenter "Big Al" sends along his regards, too. Fucking screen captures!

Oy to the vey, people! Orange-skinned South Florida Congressputz Connie Mack got his little tuckus handed to him by Venezuela's Jewish community last week. Mack had thought that by introducing a Congressional resolution condemning a recent synagogue robbery in Caracas, he could pander to his district's two main political forces (crazy Cubans and nice old Jewish ladies) at the same time. What could go wrong with that?

Feh. Turns out the dumb schmuck never bothered to consult with the country's Jewish leaders on the whole deal, and that they were by and large happy with the government's response to the robbery. As a spokesman for the Venezuela's largest Jewish federation noted:

All of our [religious] institutions are protected by the police -- we cannot complain about that," said Pressner, noting that "the government reacted well" to the earlier attacks. He added that the Jewish community has recently had some "informal communications with some top level officials of the government."

Though he pulled the amendment recently, Mack told JTA that he plans on "actively pursuing every opportunity to further this resolution," which he also introduced as stand-alone legislation before the full House in mid-May.

Peru celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square with a bloody massacre of its own! So far dozens of Indigenous and paramilitary forces have been killed. What the hell, right? Better bloggers have been giving the blow by blow over the weekend. We've just got a half-assed Monday morning roundup:

• Indigenous leaders are upset because the government forced through a series of oil, mining and logging deals turning over large swaths of the Amazon to multinational companies without ever consulting the tribes who actually live on the land.

• After weeks of peaceful protest, dipshit President Alan Garcia decided to respond "with serenity and firmness," which basically meant sending in 400 paramilitaries forces to fire on people from helicopters.

• Protesters took some of the paramilitaries hostage during the melee. Rather than negotiate, the government decided to bust them out, Steve McQueen style, except they bungled the operation, killing nine cops.

• Human rights groups claim up to 100 indigenous have been killed. Douchey government reports say: 9.

• President Alan Garcia has charmingly referred to the Indians as "barbarians," and argues that technically they are "not first class citizens."

• DON'T WORRY b/c the massacre is "unlikely to sour investors in the medium-term or threaten his presidency." Whew!

• The Wall Street Journal says Garcia can't concede to any indigenous demands because Peru's "free" trade agreement with the U.S. won't allow it.

• Average Peruvians (and the UN) have been shocked by the massacre, so the Government has started a hilarious media campaign to blame...Hugo Chavez! Christ nobody would buy that, right?

• Haha: actual headline from Today's Washington Times, "Suspicions Link Chavez to Peru Revolt"

• Here are lots of bloody pictures of the whole awfulness, in case you're into that sort of thing.

Today Newsweek explains how sometimes ending term limits can be good for democracy. You see it's all a very complicated algorithm involving whether or not they serve U.S. interests divided by the square root of bullshit rationalization:

"Take Uribe in Colombia and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela, both popular presidents. Uribe wrangled a constitutional amendment from Congress in 2006 allowing him to serve a second term; Congress has now authorized a referendum on whether he can run for a third. Chávez reset his term clock by enacting an entirely new Constitution in 2000, and he just won a plebiscite (on his second try) freeing him to run again." But there is a big difference, experts say, between negotiating an extension with the legislature (which means recognizing checks on presidential power) and harnessing popular passion"

Lest you hold out any hope that the European media is somehow more "sophistiqué" or "continentelle" or whatever than our own red blooded 'merican press corps, a German reader sent along this terrible clip from yesterday's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "Germany's most important newspaper." The photo, of course, is the Peruvian police massacring Indigenous protesters, and the headline reads "Indios Quit Their Blockade." Yeah that's one way of putting it, FAZ! Also in the past 24 hours:

• Indigenous leader Alberto Pizango has found refuge in Lima's Nicaraguan embassy

• President Alan Garcia's Minister of Women's affairs quit in protest of the massacre, and of this insane racist teevee commercial the government produced to justify it.

• Amazon Watch reports that the government is dropping bodies out of helicopters and burning corpses in order to conceal the death toll.

• For a second there it looked like the Washington Post condescended to actually cover the story, but it turns out that they'd just run this important story about a horse racer named Alan Garcia instead.

• Famous Irish movie person Colin Farrell is officially opposed to this killing of the Amazon people. How can Garcia not resign now?

It's a new world record for professional Wall Street Journal crazy lady Mary Anastasia O'Grady, who managed to get every fact wrong, about everything, in a groundbreaking new column on the OAS and TYRANNY. Kudos!

(hat tip: LANR)

I mean, really...on the very day Alvaro Uribe heads to Canada to salvage a trade deal stalled by his godawful human rights record, news comes out that Uribe's former ambassador to Canada, like everybody else in his insane administration, is now under investigation for ties to death squads. Apparently Jorge Visbal Martelo carried on "active communications" with right wing paramilitaries and narco-traffickers from Ottawa, "and often benefited from their activities." WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?

Turns out that global opinion is moderately opposed to the wholesale slaughter of native peoples! First there was Colin Farrell and Pocahontas, and then today a bunch of kids locked themselves to Senator Charles Schumer's New York office over the whole deal. The World Council of Churches has fired off a stern letter, and even the Washington Post finally bothered to write an, um...article?...about it (check it out: it's one sentence long!). This is almost as big as the time Hugo Chavez said the soft curse-word "pendejo" on teevee!

All of this scrutiny has prompted the Peruvian legislature to courageously "suspend" the stupid Amazon law for 90 days, or until the media goes away, whichever comes first. Victory!

• Sure the Washington Post hasn't gotten around to covering the whole Peru massacre thing yet, but in their defense they've been super busy investigating whether a Venezuelan teevee channel got invited to a government meeting once or not.

• Strapping young presidents "Barack Obama" and "Rafael Correa" have begun to "deepen" their bilateral relations, with hott telephone exchanges!

• In case you were wondering, Colombia is still the undisputed world leader in thrill-kill union murders.

• There goes crazy old Venezuela again, just cold banning the important American product "Coke Zero," for no good reason other than the fact that it contains a toxic chemical illegal in every other country in the world.

• Real-life journalist Joshua Kucera references some stupid blog as a "source," for "news." Sucka.

Alvaro Uribe was in Canada yesterday, getting grilled before Parliament about everything: ties to death squads, wiretapping opponents, the "false positives" murder scandal, and his frequent, crazy threats against international human rights monitors. So he was like screw this and headed down to Providence, Rhode Island, where he was given safe harbor and a key to the city, the end. Why are Canadians so mean?

One of the last remaining loose ends for the Venezuelan opposition is explaining that pesky 2002 coup, where Hugo Chavez was kidnapped, for democracy, while some skinny white guy from the local chamber of commerce declared himself "president." When this Einstein's first act was to dissolve the constitution, congress and the entire judiciary, even the Bush administration had a hard time defending him publicly. And after nationwide protests swept Chavez back to power three days later, the opposition's claim to democratic legitimacy was pretty much flushed down the toilet, forever.

So you can imagine how hard they've been trying to re-imagine the story of the coup for international audiences. For years, Clintonite douchebag Doug Schoen has been paid to float alternative storylines on the Fox News circuit, and even famous Venezuelan plastic surgery tragedy Maria Conchita Alsono has been trying to scrape together funding to make some half-baked revisionist movie.

In this proud tradition comes Brian Nelson, some professor from Miami University whose new book "The Silence and the Scorpion" promises to tell us the "truth" about the coup (hint: it was the brown peoples' fault). This masterpiece is so unsubtle that even Publisher's Weekly, the book industry magazine that likes everything, warned:

"For a fuller and fairer picture of the events, the book should be read in conjunction with other accounts of the coup, since Nelson is admittedly biased"

The, uh, "book review" concludes with this important literary point: "Those who truly care about human rights may hope that one day Mr Chávez will face trial for his role in the bloodshed of April 11th," THE DAY HE WAS KIDNAPPED. The Economist has officially been taken over, by retards.

Remember those rumors about the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency officials in Colombia trafficking cocaine & arms, and then laundering the proceeds through front companies run by paramilitary death squads? All true, and you'll be thrilled to learn that these assholes are all still on the payroll, just cold doin' their thing in Colombia. At least one of them has even gotten a fancy promotion, and is "now in charge of numerous narcotics and money laundering investigations." Awesome.

We know all this because the agency insiders who tried to blow the whistle on the whole thing in the first place, are now talking publicly, only this time they're focused on the media cover-up. According to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition, they'd risked their necks to expose the DEA drug ring, but just ended up getting jacked around by the press instead.

After working out an exclusive deal with Time Magazine in 2005, four DEA agents spent hours with reporters and editors walking them through the layers of corruption. They even turned over a Department of Justice internal investigation, complete with phone transcripts linking DEA and US embassy officials to the drug runners and paramilitaries. But after poking around for a few weeks, Time editors decided to kill the story, and nobody in the main stream media ever picked it up. If you heard about it at all, it was from the Narco News Bulletin, the invaluable drug war news site, which published the internal documents in 2006.

Some conspiracy theories are true, turns out. Meanwhile enjoy this sampling of snide news reports about crazy old Bolivia and Venezuela "not cooperating" with DEA in the War on Drugs.

(Hat Tip: Justin)

• How could the Colombians have possibly known that their brilliant "cash for corpses" incentive program would lead to a deranged government-sponsored murder spree? Live and learn!

• And when he's not hosting kill parties, President Uribe likes to relax on the telephone, although mostly he just listens.

• Peru celebrated the one-week anniversary of its Indigenous massacre by closing down the local radio station that dared to report on it and arresting a human rights activist called in to help.

• In case you were wondering, the Peruvian government's official counts still say only 9 Indigenous were killed last week, although in their defense it's probably hard to count all those bodies they dumped in a mountain crevice.

• And the biggest Latin America story of the week? The great Venezuelan Coke Zero scandal of 2009! So autocratic, that health ministry.

Last week we all had a good chuckle when famous glossy trade circular "Newsweek" made an idiotic rationalization important distinction between countries that end term limits democratically, in Congress (Colombia), and those who do the same thing through a dictatorial national voting process (Venezuela). Apparently the Colombian model "recognizes checks on presidential power" and blah blah blah INSTITUTIONS, blah.

Now today we find out that a full 33 Colombian congressman are under investigation for selling their votes on the matter, in exchange for political favors and cash money from the Uribe administration. Thirty-three. This system is obviously so insanely democratic that it defies human comprehension.

Christ how did we miss this? In response to the protests held outside the Peruvian Embassy in DC last week, the Garcia administration published a very special message to the American public Friday about the Bagua massacre. Turns out the only reason the government sold off the Amazon to multinational industries in the first place was to protect it from the stupid Indians, who were BREAKING IT with all their "timber smuggling" and "coca growing". But then:

"... extremist political movements have convinced some of the indigenous population that they would be robbed of their land. This led to the blockading of roads and the interruption of production plants. As required by law, the police proceeded to clear the roads and were attacked with firearms, with the result of 24 casualties. The elevated number of civilian deaths reported by sensationalists is thus inexact."

Yet somehow the this craftily-worded memo didn't totally 100% do the trick, so today the Peruvian government went for plan B, which consisted of, let's see... canceling the Amazon selloff outright, forcing the Prime Minister to resign (soon!) and, um, breaking down diplomatic relations with Bolivia, for criticizing them, for all the murder. Alan Garcia is not at all desperate.

Bolivia. Land of tall mountains, charming Indians, and OMG ISLAMIC JIHAD! Hey everybody, Fox News has a special report on the one one-thousandth of one percent of Bolivians who are open, avowed Muslimz. Turns out the whole country has become, quote, "a hotbed of Islamic extremism in the Western Hemisphere," since that Morales guy took over. Prepare to be SHOCKED.

Did you know that virtually all of Bolivia's Muslims harbor extremist views of the United States, such as not liking when we invaded Iraq? It's true! Others have even pointed out that the U.S. used to fund Osama Bin Laden back when he was fighting the Russians (This belief, while technically "accurate," has known terrorist tendencies). And then there is this shady character:

"Another Muslim leader in Bolivia, Husayn Salgueiro, is a staunch supporter of the Palestinian government and a known critic of Israel."

Well I'll be...let's see how "critical" these bastards are when they are rotting with the Uyghur terrorists, in Bermuda! Freedom is Not Free NEVER FERGIT etc., etc.

• Against all odds, Colombia has managed to beat out Congo, Somalia, even Iraq in the internally displaced population sweepstakes.

• The new State Department Human trafficking report is out, and our allies miraculously have perfect records again, still.

• Hey look we found Alvaro Uribe's "disbanded" paramilitaries. They're murdering sex workers in Venezuela.

• Alan Garcia is apparently killing horses now, in Miami.

• Bill Clinton got a lapdance in Argentina, maybe. He will never go away.

There go Lydia Guevara, just cold goin' commando and leading the naked vegetable revolution for PETA. Grandpa Che would be just thrilled.

Special Rapporteur Philip Alston just wrapped up a 10-day United Nations investigation into the hundreds (thousands?) of innocent Colombians murdered by the military to meet government kill quotas. The report is out, and it's devastating. The Uribe administration naturally still claims that most of the dead were a real live guerilla rebels, but duh they're just lying

:''The evidence that shows victims wearing newly ironed camouflage garments or wearing field boots four sizes bigger than their feet, or left-handed individuals holding a pistol in their right hand . . . negate even more the suggestion that they were guerrillas killed in combat.''

On the up side, they found "no evidence" that Alvaro Uribe ever personally lured some kid out of the slums with the promise of a summer job, then strangled him and dressed him up, so the whole government is off the hook, probably! Trade deals for everybody.

Whoa did we just (almost!) manage to make it through an entire weekend without posting anything to this stupid blog? Lucky you! Let's make up for that nonsense by going all two-point-oh interactive with a "MEGA" web survey, hooray! Below are two recent triumphs of the written word, and your task is to vote for the one that's dumber. WHO. WILL. WIN? Let's meet our contenders:

MEGA SHARK: A Miami Herald "Other Views" column by Inter-American Dialogue Vice President Marifeli Perez Stable talking about all those "changes" happening in Central America these days, and how, um, changey they are. Her rhetorical victory opens with the sentence, "Politics is hardly ever boring," and ends with the sentence "Politics is hardly ever boring," and in between she manages to cram in five (Googled?) bullet points, each noting a current event in one of five Central American nations. Inspired! This is literally the most cogent analysis the Dialogue has ever produced, on anything.

GIANT OCTOPUS: Here we've got a Fox Business News piece about Citgo. Apparently the Venezuelan oil subsidiary is doing lots of terrific work for U.S. communities (Heating Oil, United Way, Jerry's Kids etc.) but STAY AWAY because Hugo Chavez is a noted socialist and once called George W. Bush a name. But also: Citgo may be owned by Socialist Venezuela but DON'T STOP SHOPPING THERE because the gas stations are technically franchises so the money you spend doesn't even make it back to Venezuela anyway. Capitalist directive and anti-socialist propaganda collide to cause total cognitive meltdown. Plus: the title is "Put a Terrorist in Your Tank," because socialist, communist, terrorist, homo whatever, right?

It's going to be close I can feel it, but who's the bigger idiot?

OMG remember that terrible Air France crash off the coast of Brazil last month? Well some Bolivian teevee station "PAT," found some exclusive photographs from its tragic last minutes. And holy crap it turns out that everything we've been led to believe is a LIE. The crash was all an elaborate HOAX, a terrible ruse set up by zillionaire investor Charles Widmore to cover up the fact that Flight 447 actually landed safely on a small island in the South Pacific, an island with mysterious powers, a creepy smoke monster and...um...sleestacks, maybe? Who can keep up?

Anyway never believe what you see on Bolivian TV news is the point.

• With literally dozens of his top allies under investigation for their work with death squads, Colombian president Alvaro Uribe has this awesome new idea: "parliamentary immunity."

• Venezuelan cops managed to nab one of the most wanted drug lords on earth yesterday. McClatchy reporter Tyler Bridges almost says something nice about it...but succumbs.

• Rafael Correa is many times más macho than the Invisible Hand.

• Perhaps this drop in job approval ratings will cause Peruvian President Alan Garcia to reconsider the wisdom of massacring his own people?

• Sixteen months after the magic laptops were...found?, the Colombians are still leaking random, edited passages to their journalist friends, only now they're sort of scraping the bottom of the barrel.

It's a jungle mystery. A full two and a half weeks after Peruvian cops killed dozens and dozens of "9" protesters in the Amazon, a full sixty of the lucky survivors have not managed to find their way home yet. Maybe they stopped for a beer or got lost??

On the up side, the whole tragic episode has destroyed Alan Garcia's political career forever, which is nice. Also it didn't cost Peru much in the way of money, because the murder tab was largely picked up by U.S. taxpayers. Oh and this charming photo? It's the police beating an "indigenous male nurse who had been in the ambulance," part of a cringe-y photo series the Independent ran over the weekend. Eesh.

I'm sure it was super fun for Venezuela and the United States to have "suspended" diplomatic relations for the past ten months, but you know how these things go (hope, change, PETROLEUM, etc.) so as of today famous hip hop artist Patrick Duddy is allowed to return to Caracas and Bernardo Alvarez is once again exiled to world-renowned thousand-degree mosquito-laden sweat pit, Washington D.C. Congratulations, fellas!

So yesterday Chile's president met our president in the White House. Readers will recall that back in the day, Michelle Bachelet and her entire family were detained for many months and tortured repeatedly by Augusto Pinochet and his evil squads of awfulness. Her father, in fact, was tortured to death because he'd been an official in the government of Salvador Allende, who was, of course, overthrown in 1973. And murdered. By the U.S. government. So you can imagine how this whole White House meeting thing had the potential for a little...awkwardness.

But hey, these guys are pros! And Obama and Bachelet never batted an eye even when a Chilean reporter asked if Obama wanted to, like, apologize for all that mess, or when Obama politely declined, "looking to the future" and all, blah blah blah. Whatever.

Not so smooth were English language reporters, who had a heck of a time explaining the whole situation to their ding-dong-dumb readership without rehashing all that unpleasantness or otherwise sounding unpatriotic. Here's how AFP took a stab at it:

"US President Barack Obama on Tuesday declined to apologize for a past CIA interventions (sic) and alleged coup attempts in Latin America, after talks with Chilean leader Michele Bachelet."

"During a photo opportunity in the Oval Office on Tuesday, a reporter asked Obama if he cared to apologize for CIA interference in Chilean elections."

Honestly, it's all such a mindfuck sometimes.

As we noted yesterday, the United States and Venezuela have decided to bury the ol' hatchet, engage in a couple of manly bear hugs and restore the diplomatic relations that broke down in the Bush administration lo so many months ago.

The decision was taken after many high-level discussions and negotiations over matters involving mutual state interests and diplomatic norms. Naturally this has sparked much high minded debate and conversation...in the Michelle Malkin comments section! Here's a sample:

"....Syria and Venezuela are just some more Boyz from da Hood doing their Thizzle Thang. But please do not confuse Hussein Obama's Marxism/mohammedism with being stupid. All too many people thought Hitler and Stalin too stupid to be dangerous and paid a horrible price."

Colombian news stations are so awesome that regional powerhouse teevee network RCN even has its own English language channel now, so you can watch all the big news of the day, from Colombia! In English! This is especially valuable today, b/c now we here in the United States may truly understand how Colombians are dealing with the tragic death of Michael Jackson (they are sad).

Also! There is this important breaking story about authority and why it should always be respected. The seemingly innocent girl in the video is obviously a FARC terrorist, a fact which will be 100% proven next week when her cold dead body turns up wearing fatigues. Poor president!

Another awesome story has been DESTROYED, by reporting ; (. Late last night the Washington Post published a very exciting piece with this opening line:

"Out of fear that history might repeat itself, the authoritarian regimes of Cuba, China, Burma and Venezuela have been selectively censoring the news this month of Iranian crowds braving government militias on the streets of Tehran to demand government reforms."

In other words the Post started out with this terrific opening thesis, then somebody investigated and found out it wasn't true, but the editor was like, "fuck it, let's run it anyway." Then sometime in the middle of the night somebody else decided it was all a bit much, even for the Post, so they removed the word "Venezuela" from the opening paragraph: voila. Of course, Venezuela still remains in the story as published in WaPo partner sites like the Huffington Post and, um, the Winnipeg Free Press (which helpfully changes "Burma" to "Myanmar," for accuracy).

Fortunately, the Washington Post is laying off most of its foreign correspondents so they won't have these little crises of conscience to contend with any more. Next year at this time every international story will be based 100% on Scott Wilson's imaginings of what life in other countries must be like. There will be many wars.

Geez guys I leave the shop unattended for a few hours and all hell breaks loose. Acknowledging the fact that better bloggers have been doing this all day, here are the lowlights as far as I can tell. Feel free to fill in the blanks in the comments or on the Twitter or wherever it is you people post unconfirmed rumors and speculation these days.

• So this morning Hondurans were all set to vote in a to referendum on whether or not to hold another referendum allowing lefty president Manuel Zelaya to serve more than one term in office. This upset the democracy purists within the Honduran military so much that they just cold stormed the presidential palace, kidnapped Zelaya and shoved him into a plane bound for Costa Rica. As if this wasn't all international incident-y enough, they also went ahead and beat the crap out of the foreign diplomats from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.

• Then on to congress, where the coup leaders waved around an insanely fakey "resignation letter" they claim Zelaya signed, and the Honduran congress votes to accept his resignation, because fuck it, right?

• Meanwhile in Costa Rica, Zelaya talks to CNN and is all like, yeah if I'd been planning to resign and move to Costa Rica I would probably have bothered to changed out of my pajamas first, ding dongs. IT WAS A COUP, duh.

• After spending the day hemming and hawing and refining their statements, some unnamed source in the Obama administration finally told the press that the U.S. government "recognizes Zelaya as the duly elected and constitutional president of Honduras. We see no other," even as some phony coup president was being sworn in in Tegucigalpa. The OAS shortly follows up with a powerful statement demanding the immediate return of Zelaya to office. The whole thing was also condemned by the EU but like who cares, right?

Whew. Ok that's um...over? Can I go back to my birthday party now?

Update I: Simon Romero finally files his story. Turns out the universal coup condemnation only underscores the "good left" / "bad left" blah blah blah.

Update II: The Inter-American Dialogue explains the downside of kidnapping a democratic leader and replacing him with a military dictator: "This gives Chávez the high moral ground to go on with his narrative about right-wing oligarchs who don't tolerate leftist governments."

Update III: Noted Wall Street Journal crazy lady Mary Anastasia O'Grady explains how the military coup is actually a defense of democracy, and urges Obama administration to respect Honduras' unique system of "checks and balances."

Update IV: Actual Miami Herald headline--"Hondurans in South Florida express support for shake-up."

It's day two of the Honduran coup, and the brand new military dictatorship is winning the hearts and minds of the people by, let's see... cutting off teevee feeds and electricity throughout the capital and putting an "indefinite" curfew in effect, for freedom! Thousands of Zelaya supporters are apparently dodging bullets in the streets, which is sort of like Twittering, for poor people. But the salient question remains: "WTF?" There was going to be a referendum, sure, but about what? For more insight we turn to the English language press corps, after the jump!

Let freedom ring, bitches! The U.S. has just come out with some whacked policy statement explaining that while the situation in Honduras is like totally a coup d'état, we are technically going to refrain from calling it that. How lame is that? Super lame! But it's really just the latest of all the bizarre ways people have decided to described the violent overthrow of a democratically elected government in the last 24 hours. All this begs the question: Whose description is the most tortured, Orwellian, or otherwise insane?

• Candidate 1: Interim dictator Roberto Micheletti describes how he found himself in this new role: "I did not reach this position because of a coup. I am here because of an absolutely legal transition process."

• Candidate 2: The WSJ's Mary Anastacia O'Grady describes the military overthrow as all part of a country's democratic system of "checks and balances."

• Candidate 3: Ed Morrissey at Hot Air invents an awesome new concept. This was "less of a coup and more of a military impeachment."

• Candidate 4: At the Corner, Ray Walser praised the way "Congress, the courts, and the military joined forces" in a "deliberate, bipartisan manner."

• Candidate 5: Rick Moran at the American Thinker doesn't care if it's a coup, only who it serves: "Does the fact that the coup is in the interests of the United States even matter to our president?"

Your turn starts...now!

• At long last, Honduras is saved from autocracy, by its brand new military dictatorship!

• So far 2 dead, 60 injured in street protests, which is like five hundred in Twitter years.

• "The few local television and radio stations still operating played tropical music, ran soap operas and aired cooking shows on Monday."

• Naturally, this is all Hugo Chavez's fault, according to the WaPo ed board.

• Determined to win our stupid poll, Honduras' pretend "president" calls himself a "right-wing progressive"

• Meanwhile the actual president Manuel Zelaya, plans to return to his homeland, Thursday, to die.

• Oh Christ now John Negroponte, the Butcher of Honduras, is a commentator on Honduras for Fox News the Washington Post.

• Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador & Bolivia have shut down diplomatic relations.

• And the condemnations keep on coming in. So far we got the U.S., the OAS, the E.U. the United Nations, and, um, ALBA.

• Oh it's on now! Fuckin' BELIZE is not going to recognize your ass. WHAT NOW, bitches?

• Or, as the Washington Times puts it, "In criticizing the coup, the U.S. joined with leaders of nations ranging from Venezuela to Cuba."

• Oh and pictures. Awful, awful pictures.

Department of awesome priorities...Click 'em to read more.

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Deutsche Press reports that the democratically elected leader of Honduras plans to return home Thursday with a "high profile escort," which is a sexist thing to say about Presidenta Vicky Cristina Buenos Aires! OAS president Jose Miguel Insulza will join them too. Who could shoot or otherwise detain such a classy escort service?

Meanwhile the United Nations general assembly just approved a resolution demanding "the immediate and unconditional restoration of [Zelaya's] legitimate and constitutional government," which was co-sponsored by Latin American governments and the Obama administration. As Otto put it, this coup is toast.

So far everyone in the world has condemned this terrible coup in Honduras, including the United States, the U.N., the OAS, the EU, Amnesty International, The Inter-American Press Association, Human Rights Watch, christ even Reporters Without Borders.

But! Did you know that Hugo Chavez has also opposed this violent overthrow of a democratically-elected government? Does that change your mind? Ha ha of course: now it is your patriotic obligation to get behind this "military impeachment." So it is written, by nutty old Charles Krauthammer on the right, NPR's Mara Liason on the...left?, and Bill Kristol, on the hair. Hitler is evoked.