UN Venezuela Megathread - Mercenaries 2 references galore! Cubanodun is MVP

With the news of an attempted army uprising ending in many arrests happening in the troubled nation, I think now is the time to just say 'Post all Venezuela related news here'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-40843494

The civil war is upon us.

 

[kcbbq]

With respect to transformer stations exploding, "the grid" is exactly like your house, only at a meta level. There are electrical lines going through it, and shunted through key nodes. Like your fuse box. If you plug your computer, your TV, coffee maker and Stove into one single electrical socket you know what will happen. Everyone knows what will happen. Either the safety breaker blows, or the socket catches fire.

An electrical grid functions under the same principles. In the United States, we have three separate grids, (necessitated by the physical speed of light and the need for Texas to Special) That are supported by primary power stations all over America and Canada. In the event of an Emergency (i.e, a power station shutting down) the other power stations within the grid or in an adjacent grid can pick up the slack. And this is done in much the same way you throw a circuit breaker in your house. They are already running, but the power is not flowing until the breaker is engaged and the electrons can flow. This is done automatically by computer in America which is why you almost never see random black outs that are the norm in the third world who do not have redundancy built into the system or computers running emergency algorithms.

So what happens with a grid like Venezuelas where 80% of their power is reliant on a single location? Well if something happens at that location the system hard crashes. There is no redundancy. Worse, after it crashes it cannot be restarted without power flowing through the system. The US has three separate grids for this reason. If one of the three goes down it can rely on the other two to jump start the system that crashed, or even better, mitigate the spread of the blackout by throwing emergency breakers to isolate the emergency and rerouting power through the hard line to the separate grids. Which is what we did in 2003.

Venezuela does not have a diffusion of power supply. Its self contained with no links to any other power grids. So when their primary power supply went down, their auxillary plants blew as well. Much like how your own circuit breaker would blow if you plugged 6 items into the same socket. After those plants hard crashed Maduro, in his infinite wisdom demanded that his state owned power company get the power back on RIGHT FUCKING NOW!. So they tried to do just that. But due to the blackout, Everybody in Venezuela had turned all their electrical shit on. Their fridges, computers, air conditioners, coffee makers, lights, etc etc etc. So as the system was attempted to be brought back online ALL AT ONCE, the power surge got fed through a few key nodes and immediately exceeded their tolerance levels for the amount of electrons flowing and KABOOM. This also helps to crash the system AGAIN, only with dramatic twitter videos this time.

If Maduro says the US secretly hacked his power plant, it must be true. He's an ex-bus driver high school dropout, for God's sake. He knows these things.

 

[Imnus]

I've got a question that, maybe, our friends in Venezuela can answer.

My curiosity about Venezuela has made me notice a certain trend. Venezuelan YouTubers are often traveling all around the world, one, in particular, is even showing off eating food in other countries. But, right now, they are making videos exposing the current crisis with their iPhones and somehow able to afford mobile internet, with these blackouts, to upload data heavy youtube videos. It's expensive to manage videos with cellphone data, isn't it?

So, how can they afford to do this in the middle of this crisis?

I mean yeah, I get, it's obvious they're from middle-class families. But, if I were them, even if had the money to travel around the world, I wouldn't be using the money to move the hell out to another country. Or if I decided to stay in Venezuela, I would be saving as much money as possible to, you know? survive?

You would think that times were your country isn't even able to properly provide food and clean water, and with a huge risk of a civil war or of having a military intervention, it would be the worst time for wasting money like that.

What am I missing?

Well, for starters are you sure they're living in Venezuela? Expatriates, specially the ones living in the US follow the situation in Venezuela even more than people actually still living in Venezuela, basically because for the people actually living in the country it's just too depressing to follow the news and they have to worry about actually surviving. Then Venezuela still has plenty of rich people that live part time in other countries like let's say they live 6 months in the US and 6 months in Venezuela, remember that you can't stay more than 6 months in the US as a tourist.

Now the problem is that like 80% of Venezuela's population and by poor I mean starving poor, like they have 1 maybe 2 meals a day and not very good meals (very little protein) a day. But even then go abroad but to Colombia and Brazil, like for example the parents leave their children with the grandparents and go to Colombia to work shitty jobs or sell crap on buses.

When it comes to data it's actually super cheap, like nothing. When I was still in Venezuela I payed like 5 cents (USD) for my Internet connection, it's not very reliable or fast but super cheap. Mobile Internet is not that much expensive either maybe like 20 cents.

 

[Ahriman]

Translation:

They were furious after being without electricity for 4 days, a group went to a government managed bank, broke in, took all the bills out and just dumped the money on the street, they took nothing, they just wanted to demonstrate to the regime that the current money bills aren't worth anything.

 

[AnOminous]

View attachment 695025

If you threw a bunch of pennies on the ground in any street in the U.S., they'd be gone within a couple minutes.

 

[Ghostse]

Also, because of the blackout, we haven't heard back from @Cubanodun since last sunday... feels bad, man. Hope he's doing okay :/

Agreed. I told him a while back that I hoped he had a bolthole or an exit strategy.

With impending reform of the Venezeulan justice system to reflect the reality of the country, I hope that when two men enter, @Cubanodun is the one man who leaves.

 

[DeadwastePrime]

If you threw a bunch of pennies on the ground in any street in the U.S., they'd be gone within a couple minutes.

yeah but at least pennies are actually worth something

 

[Far Queue]

The bills probably make okay toilet paper if nothing else, especially considering that actual toilet paper is probably expensive assuming you can find any of it the stores there.

 

[XYZpdq]

yeah but at least pennies are actually worth something

penny and a slingshot to hunt a varmint, then burn the money to cook it, then use the money for tp after you eat it
circle of life basically

 

[Ghostse]

The bills probably make okay toilet paper if nothing else, especially considering that actual toilet paper is probably expensive assuming you can find any of it the stores there.

There is non-negliable amounts of precious metals in sewage. If silver were to hit $30/oz, you would be able to refine shit to profitably extract silver, as well a small amount of gold.

So what I'm saying is that Bolivars that have been used as asswipe will contain minute specs of silver and gold, making it worth about double the value of a non-asswiped Bolivar.

 

[Bob's Ghost]

The August plot to kill Maduro with drones

New videos obtained by CNN provide chilling insight into a mystery drone attack against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last year—the world's first known attempt to kill a head of state with a retail drone, purchased online and armed by hand with military grade explosives.

www.cnn.com

Someone claiming to be behind the drone attacks that occurres months ago, which is generally considered to be a false-flag stunt done by Maduro's people.
It looks like it's just one guy telling CNN that he was behind it. Are we going to have a repeat of the Operation Tailwind fiasco?

 

[Cubanodun]

Agreed. I told him a while back that I hoped he had a bolthole or an exit strategy.

Yeah im fine, thanks for all the messages, i got hit by the worst part of the big blackout because it was so terrible that also nuked the signal of two of the mobile companies in my state (Movilnet and Movistar i have Movistar), and CANTV got nuked too, all the phones did not connect so besides the internet dying no one could buy anything because everything is with debit cards, i did not have any way to connect to the internet until a hour ago that they decide to finally repair it because people were preparing to riot because there was no way to buy food

I took it as vacations and cleaned my vidya backlog, could not even work because almost 70% of the my clients could not pay me and the rest paid in $ that is practically the official currency in this place even when Maduro try to deny it

 

[JosephTX]

Cuban doctors on mission in Venezuela say they were forced to tie medical treatments to votes for Maduro | Fox News

Cuban doctors dispatched to Venezuela as part of Cuba’s mission to help the South American nation’s medical needs were pressed by the host government to tie crucial treatments and medication to a patient’s promise to vote for President Nicolas Maduro and his candidates in last year’s elections...

www.foxnews.com

“You arrived with vitamins and some pills for blood pressure," said Ramírez, who defected to Ecuador. “And when you started to gain their trust, you started the questions: ‘Do you know where your voting place is? Are you going to vote?

:With [late President Hugo] Chavez it had been hard, but with Maduro, starting in 2013, it was worse,” another Cuban doctor told the paper.“It became a form of blackmail: ‘You’re not going to have medicine. You’re not going to have free health care. You’re not going to have prenatal care if you’re a pregnant woman.’ ”

Venezuelan authorities kept close watch over the Cuban doctors to ensure they were complying with the mandate, the Times reported.

This is enraging

 

[Coleslaw]

Yeah im fine, thanks for all the messages, i got hit by the worst part of the big blackout because it was so terrible that also nuked the signal of two of the mobile companies in my state (Movilnet and Movistar i have Movistar), and CANTV got nuked too, all the phones did not connect so besides the internet dying no one could buy anything because everything is with debit cards, i did not have any way to connect to the internet until a hour ago that they decide to finally repair it because people were preparing to riot because there was no way to buy food

I took it as vacations and cleaned my vidya backlog, could not even work because almost 70% of the my clients could not pay me and the rest paid in $ that is practically the official currency in this place even when Maduro try to deny it

Do you have any friends you could speak with?

 

[Cubanodun]

Do you have any friends you could speak with?

Yes but almost all of them dont live in this state, they also told me when i managed to communicate with them that they had the same problem, no internet and no cell phone so they were bored as hell it did not help that Maduro was so much of a jackass that said in TV that the super blackout was a good thing that was "Uniting families now that they cant use their fancy cell phones", he forgot to mention that more than 100 people died in the 103 hours of the blackout because the hospitals did not have any kind of backup power generator and the ones that had it a) dont work or b) did not have fuel

Funny thing they vowed to fix the problem in 3 hours and still today there are places that dont have power

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

Yeah im fine, thanks for all the messages, i got hit by the worst part of the big blackout because it was so terrible that also nuked the signal of two of the mobile companies in my state (Movilnet and Movistar i have Movistar), and CANTV got nuked too, all the phones did not connect so besides the internet dying no one could buy anything because everything is with debit cards, i did not have any way to connect to the internet until a hour ago that they decide to finally repair it because people were preparing to riot because there was no way to buy food

I took it as vacations and cleaned my vidya backlog, could not even work because almost 70% of the my clients could not pay me and the rest paid in $ that is practically the official currency in this place even when Maduro try to deny it

Glad to hear it, man. While I take the news with a grain of salt, it looks like Venezuela's about to go full on Mad Max at this rate.

 

[AlexJonesGotMePregnant]

Yes but almost all of them dont live in this state, they also told me when i managed to communicate with them that they had the same problem, no internet and no cell phone so they were bored as hell it did not help that Maduro was so much of a jackass that said in TV that the super blackout was a good thing that was "Uniting families now that they cant use their fancy cell phones", he forgot to mention that more than 100 people died in the 103 hours of the blackout because the hospitals did not have any kind of backup power generator and the ones that had it a) dont work or b) did not have fuel

Funny thing they vowed to fix the problem in 3 hours and still today there are places that dont have power

In 2008 hurricane Ike hit the florida coast so damn hard that it blew out chunks of the power grid as far north as Ohio. Downed power lines and some general substation damage left parts of the rural areas of the midwest without grid power for up to a week.

Ie, it's not surprising that grid power is still spotty but I'm glad to see you back and hope that you continue to stay safe.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Cuban doctors on mission in Venezuela say they were forced to tie medical treatments to votes for Maduro | Fox News

Cuban doctors dispatched to Venezuela as part of Cuba’s mission to help the South American nation’s medical needs were pressed by the host government to tie crucial treatments and medication to a patient’s promise to vote for President Nicolas Maduro and his candidates in last year’s elections...

www.foxnews.com

This is enraging

When Chavez was alive, this was common in South America. They donated food and services whenever a natural disaster happened, but his people also made propaganda for the Bolivarian Revolution.

Funny how most Americans who support Maduro do so because they're anti-Imperialism but they don't mind Cuban imperialism. Soft-key racism believing Cuba can't be Imperialist maybe, but IICR, they have meddle in the politics and governments of 78 countries. That's how Che died, trying to start a revolution in Bolivia after the current president won by 60%. They were mad it wasn't their guy.

 

[Cubanodun]

In 2008 hurricane Ike hit the florida coast so damn hard that it blew out chunks of the power grid as far north as Ohio. Downed power lines and some general substation damage left parts of the rural areas of the midwest without grid power for up to a week.

Ie, it's not surprising that grid power is still spotty but I'm glad to see you back and hope that you continue to stay safe.

Yeah but that like you said required a hurricane, here it was more that they refused to make repairs and stole the money that was assigned for it, the collapse of the Guri was foretold for MONTHS by people that worked there, apparently the main cause is that they forgot to clean the big ass cables used to send power to the main grid, they were full of tree branchs and grass when the thing went down it was apparently because a short circuit happened and immediately shut down everything, not the "lel that hacker called 4chan hacked the dam and fucked us woe is me"

Cuban doctors on mission in Venezuela say they were forced to tie medical treatments to votes for Maduro | Fox News

Cuban doctors dispatched to Venezuela as part of Cuba’s mission to help the South American nation’s medical needs were pressed by the host government to tie crucial treatments and medication to a patient’s promise to vote for President Nicolas Maduro and his candidates in last year’s elections...

www.foxnews.com

This is enraging

I knew a few of them, is weird that they are still here, when Chavez died the first ones that bailed from here were them because they were paid in $, they did whatever they could with the meager supplies the government provided so no one blamed them for being Chavez shills, far as i know they are only in Caracas now because the rest of the pseudo mini hospitals that chavez created are closed or were destroyed when the doctor leaved

 

[Silence of the Troons]

Lol https://twitter.com/anyaparampil/status/1106964821973577733

When Chavez was alive, this was common in South America. They donated food and services whenever a natural disaster happened, but his people also made propaganda for the Bolivarian Revolution.

Funny how most Americans who support Maduro do so because they're anti-Imperialism but they don't mind Cuban imperialism. Soft-key racism believing Cuba can't be Imperialist maybe, but IICR, they have meddle in the politics and governments of 78 countries. That's how Che died, trying to start a revolution in Bolivia after the current president won by 60%. They were mad it wasn't their guy.

Do you know where I can read about this? (I don't mind sources in Spanish)

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Lol https://twitter.com/anyaparampil/status/1106964821973577733
View attachment 699971Do you know where I can read about this? (I don't mind sources in Spanish)

I know of this a friend talked me about.

Gestión | EL DIARIO DE ECONOMÍA Y NEGOCIOS DE PERÚ

archivo.gestion.pe

Chávez envió tres millones para la campaña argentina

Chávez envió tres millones para la campaña argentina. Un testigo clave relata cómo transportó el dinero venezolano para los Kirchner.

elpais.com

Denuncian injerencia del partido de Chávez en la campaña electoral de Ecuador

Este domingo la plataforma Creando Oportunidades (CREO) que apoya al candidatura de Guillermo Lasso para las presidenciales de este 17 de febrero en Ecuador, anunció que denunciará ante las autoridades la presunta injerencia del Partido Socialista Unido d

www.elimparcial.es

From first link (using google translator):
The document suggests initiating actions for the Judicial Power to order the dissolution of these organizations. The plenary session of the Congress approved the final report of the commission that investigated the actions and financing of the so-called Casas de Alba, which recommends the closure of said organizations. The document suggests that the Government instruct the Minister of Justice, Rosario Fernández, so that the necessary actions can be taken to ensure that the Judicial Branch disposes of the dissolution of such organizations. The report, which was approved by 45 votes in favor, 33 against and four abstentions, indicates that "Chavista propaganda" was found in the Casas de Alba, according to the Andina news agency. Also, that 40 leaders of these have judicial, police or criminal records. In addition, it was found that they made several trips to Venezuela and Bolivia within the framework of Mission Miracle, and participated in acts of violence in the south of the country. It was also determined that some radio stations in the interior of the country, linked to the Casas de Alba, incited violence among the population. The investigations carried out by the investigating commission concluded that in the country "there are 148 Casas de Alba, of Friendship and others similar that have different denominations at a national level". In addition, the document details, the so-called "Operation Miracle" in Peru was used to promote leaders, movements and political parties. Regarding the ophthalmological surgical operations performed on Peruvians captured by such organizations, the report states that there were several cases of false medical diagnoses, controls were evaded for the trip of these patients to Venezuela, and postoperative complications were detected. According to the commission, there would be evidence that the ambassador of Venezuela in Peru and the official of that diplomatic headquarters, Virly Torres, "intervened directly in these trips." Therefore, he concluded that they would have engaged in political proselytizing through the Bolivarian thinking of Hugo Chávez.