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Venezuela Falling Behind
Christopher Frank writes "Seems Venezuela's lack of power has finally caught up with them! MSNBC has the story: 'If you thought Venezuela's political crisis seemed to be dragging for an impossibly long time -- you were right. In a bizarre mass-malfunction, Venezuela's clocks are ticking too slowly due to a power shortage weakening the electric current nationwide. By the end of each day, the sluggish time pieces still have another 150 seconds to tick before they catch up to midnight.'"
It's not the lower power / current / whatever. It's the lower frequencies on the AC lines.
And besides any quartz clock won't be affected anyway. The ones that will suffer is those bedside alarm clocks you plug in - those red / green ones that are oh-so-common in the US.
Any idea why there are 0 of them in Japan? Japan runs on 50Hz east side and 60Hz west side, which would make clocks like that completely fall over itself. (something about buying geneator equipment from siemens (europe) for the east side and from US for the west-side - and stuck)
Interesting, but I don't think it's really that much of a "news." should at least up the "it's funny" icon
My life in the land of the rising sun.
That my friends, is an understatement.
How do I know this? Well, I am from there ;o)
Excuse me, I must go a have a nap before I finish this post...
will work for Karma
finland leads the world in overclocking
;-P
and venezuela leads the world in underclocking?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The town of Highland Illinois had a company that made motors that shipped all over the world. At night the local power company would slow down the frequency from 60HZ to 50 HZ for testing of the motors and then catch up all the clocks in town by running at 62HZ for 5 times as long as the elapsed test sequence. This whole process had to be completed before people had to get up for work in the morning.
This was about 20 yesrs ago so things have probably changed by now.
And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make
If you think the American media has been silent, then you need to listen a little closer.
Do a 90 day search for Venezuela crisis in New York Times and you get 1102 hits.
It's mentioned in almost every financial article there is about the price of oil and oil production.
Typing "Venezuela crisis" in Google news brings up recent articles in...
Washington Times
Boston Globe
Austin American Statesman
Miami Herald
South Bend Tribune
Forbes
Troy Daily News
BusinessWeek
Daily Oklahoman
Corpus Christi Caller Times
They mention it here in Portland on the local news everytime they do a piece about the rising gas prices.
If you have missed the coverage, it's not because the US media is ignoring it.
Cesar Chavez was a Mexican union activist in the 1960's. Hugo Chavez is the man you want, a man who attempted his own coup in 1992. When that didn't work, he ran for el Presidente. And won.
About 70% of the population is in poverty, the base from which Chavez draws his support. The middle class (and upper class) seemingly hate him, which is why his communist ideas resonate with most poverty-stricken Venezuelans.
First post...FUCK, I'm an hour late. Goddamn clock.
The link below discusses not just the Iraq war, but the how oil is tied to the world economies at a very low level and how Venezuela is in some sense at the heart of the matter with their use of oil as a fiat currency in lieu of the US dollar among their latin american trading partners. http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html
Although completely suppressed by the U.S. media and government, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking -- it is an oil currency war. The real reason for this upcoming war is this administration's goal of preventing further Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard. However, in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves. This essay will discuss the macroeconomics of the `petro-dollar' and the unpublicized but real threat to U.S. economic hegemony from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency. The author advocates reform of the global monetary system including a dollar/euro currency 'trading band' with reserve status parity, and a dual OPEC oil transaction standard. These reforms could potentially reduce future oil currency warfare.
My DVD and Game Collection Tracking L
The Country of Venezuela is now the property of the United States government.
The nation and it's inhabitants were surrendered to U.S. law enforcement pursuant to a federal prosecution and felony plea agreement for conspiracy to violate criminal copyright laws.
Venezuela pled guilty to conspiring to violate federal copyright laws by illegally "modifying" the digital time-keeping mechanism of clocks. Under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Clockwork Act), the modification of clocks to display an unauthorized time is illegal, no matter what American or non-American police state you live in. "If people were allowed to make their clocks show whatever time they wanted, it might allow them to read a time that the manufacturer never intended, like 14 o'clock" declared Ayatollah Ashcroft in a press conference today. "Not only is that illegal, it's wrong, and naughty. Next thing you know they'll be bathing in the nude or teaching women to read."
As a result, the country of Venezuela is now the property of the United States government. The country and it's people will immediately be put to their rightly intended use: the production of inferior quality candles to be used in Catholic rituals.
there was an attempted coup, in which the US was allegedly involved.
whether involved or not, Bush was pretty delighted at the replacement of the elected president with a dictator. and there were at least talks between the white house and the coup plotters in which the white house obviously didn't do a very good job in discouraging the coup plotters.
for a collection of references to articles giving a good background on this issue, see my website (comments, additional info much appreciated).
also provided on the same page is a history of similar coups over the past 50 years in Latin America which occurred to governments in response to actions similar to what Chavez has been doing (land reform, nationalisation of oil/industries). basically anything to alleviate the poor majority. it is this historical pattern which gives the biggest indication that the CIA may be behind it. however, the difference in venezuela is that the CIA supposedly stopped performing these coups.
perhaps the failure of the coup indicates how much harder it is for them to pull them off today (they have to be much more careful to leave no fingerprints, as the public is much less likely to support them without the cold war excuse).
Amusing. While your general point is correct, I would have to disagree with a few things you say there.
'This does NOT matter'
So endless rants on DMCA, Microsoft's evils, the latest tech toy matter more than issues like war and the exploitation of the third world? Maybe this stuff doesn't belong on slashdot, but that it doesn't matter????
'If i wanted to read about the failure of modern civilization to provide resources for its citisens, i'd read stuff at CNN/BBC/Local papers.'
I think if you read the stuff at CNN, local papers etc you won't really be getting much of the story. Want to read why Latin America really is screwed up? Why the CIA overthrew so many democratic governments there (thus explaining why the idea that it tried to otherthrow the Venezuelan govt. is at least plausible), or (just as an example) why the US waged covert war on Nicaragua and still refuses to honour the World Court ruling adjudging it to owe Nicaragua $17 billion in damages, and instead sucks the life out of Nicaragua by strangling it with debt payments. Or a real discussion regarding the war on Iraq. Try finding that on US media etc with their 'selective amnesia'. I do admit however that BBC, which you also mention is better (not being corporate owned always helps).
Forgotten History