I'm reading this morning in Cyberpresse that the European Union plans on slapping visa requirements on Canadians wishing to visa any of its member countries.

This is all part of the fallout from Canada's decision to force visitor visas for both Mexican and Czech travelers a few days ago in an effort to lower refugee claims from those two countries. In the first 3 months of 2009 Canada received 3648 refugee claims from Mexico and 653 from the Czech Republic.

So, because we don't feel like processing these refugee claims and having these people stay in the country while we do so, we'd rather have them fill out visa applications which will take time to process and anger our trading partners? Sounds like flawless reasoning on the part of our government.

Just to put this in perspective, over 250,000 Mexicans travel to Canada each year and, according to Statistics Canada 705,000 Canadians traveled to Mexico in 2004. It we're ready to jeopardize this mutually beneficial industry to stop a few bogus refugee claims.

As for Canadians potentially needing visas to enter the EU? by the same Stascan 2004 survey almost 2,500,000 million Canadians travelled to Europe that year... So we stop the "flood" of applications from the Czech Republic (see my second paragraph) and required its citizens to request visas in order to come here regardless to the inconvenience this may cause to almost 2,500,000 million Canadians.

We'll wait and see what the EU does in response to Canada's change of stance on Czech travelers; they have already been quoted as talking about retribution and the Czech have recalled their ambassador to Canada. In the meantime, don't make any travel plans because you never know what might happen!

Chavez is at it... again... and again...

Today is another day of voting for the people of Venezuela, in yet another attempt to extend his stronghold on the oil rich country, Chavez has called another referendum that would allow him to remain in power as long as he can win elections. As a Canadian, I can't really complain about this, because this system is exactly what we have here in Canada, but as an outside observer I can't help but think that the people of Venezuela have told him no before and he should let sleeping dogs lie. IN fact the slogan of the opposition is "No is No!"

According to Reuters Chavez has deported an independent European lawyer who was in Caracas to observe the voting process. Showing yet again that Chavez has no interest in a fair democratic process and he fears that an independent observer might expose questionable practices in the voting process.

It has also been reported that Chavez's supporters have taken to calling him "El Comandante" the name once reserved for his mentor, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. If this nickname and his having kicked out an observer aren't enough to make any sane person cringe there is also the case of his campaign fliers that list the two reasons people should vote in favor of Chavez:
"Chavez loves us and love is repaid with love."
"Chavez is incapable of doing us harm."
I'm guessing that there will be a special 6 hour episode of "Hello President" today where Chavez proves his love for his country, bad mouths the US and scares people into voting for his reform.

The larger question is: Are the people really propping up the government of this Castro doppelganger or (with the lack of independent observation) is this government being kept in power by lies and votes that never happened?

Muchacho Enfermo

"Build your little home" Raul Castro

Yesterday Fiona Govan of the Telegraph reported that Raul Castro, younger brother of Fidel, has declared that Cubans can now build their own while giving a speech in Santiago de Cuba.

"OK, here you can build. I've given you this amount of space, that amount of room for a street, and that amount for a sidewalk. Now build your little home with whatever you can."

Excuse me did he say? Build it with whatever you can. AND Build your little home.
What kind of condescending thing to say is that for the leader of a nation that is supposed to be all about "cooperation for the revolution" and "for the humble by the humble"? This sounds to me like the State has finally run out of ideas and realizes that it can't provide for its citizens the way it has promised to for the last 50 years.

This is another great reform Mr Castro... First you allow your people to buy computers they can't afford, share hotels with tourists that they also cannot afford, let people buy DVD players and cellphones that most of them can't afford. Now you're assigning them a tiny parcel of land and are saying: Fend for yourselves. What about those who can't afford the black market materials you are encouraging them to buy? Will the state refuse to provide materials to fix their existing homes because the new rules is "build it with whatever you can"?

Oh yeah I forgot the State can't even provide the materials... This isn't a reform at all isn't it? This is because you're screwed for money and can't afford materials so now you're screwing your people even more by abandoning them, their families, their crumbling homes and throwing them to the wolves!

How about the Cuban people "build a little" prison "with whatever they can" and put you and your cronies in there and take back their island?


Muchacho Enfermo