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Was Venezuela's 5-Day Blackout Caused By Cyberattacks -- or Wildfires? (apnews.com)
What caused a devastating five-day blackout in Venezuela? Two engineers with expertise in geospatial technologies believe the answer lies in images from a NASA weather satellite showing thermal activity, which they superimposed onto Google Earth, the AP reports:
Within hours of the attack, the government of embattled President Nicolas Maduro began accusing the U.S. of a cyberattack. Maduro has stuck to that narrative, saying hackers in the U.S. first shut down the Guri Dam and then delivered several "electromagnetic" blows. Engineers have questioned that assertion, contending that the Guri Dam's operating system is on a closed network with no internet connection.
Several consulted by The Associated Press speculated that a more likely cause was a fire along one of the electrical grid's powerful 765-kilovolt lines that connect the dam to much of Venezuela. The transmission lines traverse through some of Venezuela's most remote and difficult to access regions on their way toward Caracas, making it difficult to obtain any first-hand information that could back up or pinpoint the location of a fire. Working with an expert at Texas Tech University's Geospatial Technologies Laboratory, Jose Aguilar, an expert on Venezuela's electrical grid, said satellite data indicates that on the day of the blackout there were three fires in close proximity to the 765-kilovolt lines transmitting power generated from the Guri Dam, which provides about 80 percent of Venezuela's electricity...
Engineers have warned for years that Venezuela's state-run electricity corporation was failing to properly maintain power lines, letting brush that can catch fire during Venezuela's hot, dry months grow near and up the towering structures.
Several consulted by The Associated Press speculated that a more likely cause was a fire along one of the electrical grid's powerful 765-kilovolt lines that connect the dam to much of Venezuela. The transmission lines traverse through some of Venezuela's most remote and difficult to access regions on their way toward Caracas, making it difficult to obtain any first-hand information that could back up or pinpoint the location of a fire. Working with an expert at Texas Tech University's Geospatial Technologies Laboratory, Jose Aguilar, an expert on Venezuela's electrical grid, said satellite data indicates that on the day of the blackout there were three fires in close proximity to the 765-kilovolt lines transmitting power generated from the Guri Dam, which provides about 80 percent of Venezuela's electricity...
Engineers have warned for years that Venezuela's state-run electricity corporation was failing to properly maintain power lines, letting brush that can catch fire during Venezuela's hot, dry months grow near and up the towering structures.
Not only is there no money to pay anyone anything, nor is there money to pay for maintenance, what would people DO with money if they had any to be paid?
Its not even like you can buy WATER now.
So instead of working, people are busy just finding food and water for the most part. How does the basic machinery that holds up civilization work long term under those conditions? It cannot.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The path to holding power in many Central and South American nations is holding onto the party line:
"Even if, and that's a big if, the power outage was caused by fires and poor service line maintenance, it was still the fault the Imperialistic Americans. The Yankee sanctions are killing us, and they probably set those fires."
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
AKA : Freischutz knows nothing of the situation and is throwing his shit from monkey island, hoping for a hit... What a dipshit. We should breed it with Kendall and set it loose on the Chinese internet.
I'm not generally opposed to Socialism, Social Democracy or Capitalism for that matter, in fact I'm basically a Social Democrat. However, the situation in Venezuela can be blamed completely on the incompetence and corruption of the Chavez regime and the even greater incompetence and corruption of the Maduro regime. I know for a fact that the a large number of the people running the various major tech industries in Venezuela have fled the country because they get better jobs, better pay and the rule of law elsewhere. Venezuela has bigger un-tapped oil reserves than Norway, Venezuela should be the Norway of S-America and yet it has the economy and political stability of the Weimar Republic. I don't like US foreign policy any more than the next guy and I most certainly despise the Trump admin but blaming everything that is happening in Venezuela on the US is naive in the extreme. I know the extreme Left is in love with Chavismo and would dearly like to salvage the reputation of that marxist experiment but I'm afraid it has proven itself to be a complete and utter failure. Trying to portray Maduro as some sort of martyr of US aggression is pointless. The man is manifestly incompetent, corrupt and has obvious autocratic tendencies. Having said that I sincerely hope that Venezuela will not have to suffer the Trump administration 'bringing them Democracy' because if that happens it will be brought by that butcher Elliott Abrams which would be a bit like bringing Oliver Cromwell back from the dead to negotiate an end to the conflict in Ireland. All in all I really feel too the people of Venezuela since it does not seem they have any good way out of the mess they are in.
Would that be enough to allow socialism to thrive?
There is no such thing as "thriving" under socialism. Socialism is legalized theft.
Socialism taxes working people to give to unworking people. Eventually, a few working people figure out they're getting a bum deal and switch to being unworking people. Those still working now have to pay higher tax rates to support all the original unworking people AND the people who recently decided to stop working.
As the tax rates increase, more people from the working class figure out they're getting a bum deal and switch to being unworking. Repeat, again and again, until finally there are no working class people left to tax and the whole system collapses.
Venezuela is in these final death throes of socialism. Not enough people working to maintain even the most basic necessities.
That, or maybe the US put economic sanctions on Venezuela to prevent them from trading their oil for replacement parts to keep the electrical grid functional. Did the US cyberattack the Venezuelan power grid? If not, did the US drop a couple flaming "Rods of God" on them in strategic locations to cause the wildfires that made the grid fail?
Victor Davis Hanson makes a good argument that the primary cause of WW2 was that Germany was allowed to surrender in France and thus were not forced to accept defeat the way they would have if Germany had been invaded. He isn't convinced by the theory that peace conditions were so onerous that they played much of a role.
See that "Preview" button?