Spreading The Love In Latin America

Fernando Lugo has got quite the resume: Roman Catholic archbishop, president of Paraguay AND mack daddy. The Washington Post reports:

The clamor over Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo's behavior is getting louder, one crying baby at a time.

For the third time in less than a month, a woman came forward yesterday saying that Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop, is the father of her child.

***

The scandal broke this month when lawyers for Viviana Carrillo, 26, said they were bringing a paternity suit against Lugo, claiming that he had fathered her child, Guillermo Armindo Carrillo Cañete, who will turn 2 next month. Carrillo said she was 16 when their relationship began.

Lugo shocked the country by publicly admitting that he was the boy's father and saying that he would "assume all responsibilities."

"I recognize that I fathered the child," he said at a news conference in the capital, Asuncion.

Lugo, 57 and single, became a bishop in 1994 but resigned a decade later from the diocese in San Pedro, a province in central Paraguay. In December 2006, he said he was renouncing his bishop status to run for president, but Pope Benedict XVI did not accept his resignation until last July -- before he took office as president.

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On Monday, the second woman to speak out, Benigna Leguizamón, said that she began working at the San Pedro diocese in 2000 when she was 17 and that her son with Lugo was born in September 2002.

***

The woman who came forward yesterday, Damiana Morán, a 39-year-old divorcee, said in interviews with the Paraguayan media that she had only compliments for Lugo, whom she met in 2006, after he left the diocese. Morán, a social activist and director of a childcare center, called him "phenomenal" and said their relationship "was driven by a great love." She said that her son, Juan Pablo, is 16 months old but that she, unlike the other women, does not plan to file suit against Lugo.

***

Morán said at a news conference yesterday that she was forming a team to deal with these paternity cases. She said she has information that Lugo could have as many as six children.

(The photo above is of Paraguayan Olympic javelin thrower Leryn Franco, who unfortunately is not involved in the scandal - as far as I know - but may very well be the hottest thing to ever come out of Paraguay.)

Carnival time in Rio

It's 22 degrees in Washington DC this morning with the wind chill knocking it down to 12. Meanwhile in Brazil they are celebrating Carnival. Guess where I'd rather be. More photos of the good times other people are having can be found here. And no, I am not bitter. Not at all.

Well, I Have A Position For Her ...

Meet Melody Morales. This caliente seniorita is suing a New York restaurant, for, ummm, not letting its customers stare at her tits and pinch her ass. For reals:

The 21-year-old Latina lovely is the latest woman to sue over working conditions at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone, where employees in skimpy beachwear parade nightly before diners.

"Not to brag, but I look good in a bikini," Morales said Tuesday. "I could have done a perfect job there."

The suit says Morales went with her mother to the restaurant last March in search of a job. It claims a manager told her to get lost, saying, "I am not going to ruin my business with your Latin accent."

This really hurt poor Melody because, umm ... well, let her explain:

"It was kind of like my dream to work at the [Hawaiian Tropic Zone]," she said. "It's the bikini, I guess."

Damn, what a coincidence. It's my dream to have her serve me beers and nachos, then rub my shoulders. Slowly. And then faster.

Wow, small world isn't it?

Having said that, why is this lawsuit necessary? The owner may be a dickhead for not hiring her, but it still should be his call. And I'm having a hard time believing this is a real civil rights milestone either. Tell you what Melody, I'll vote with my feet and patronize whatever place you're working at, bueno? Donde esta su casa?

That's a Shit Load of Coke

Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Peruvian police made their biggest seizure of cocaine in three years, daily La Republica reported.

Police impounded a 4 metric-ton (8,820-pound) shipment headed for Holland in an operation in Lima, the daily said, citing Interior Minister Luis Alva Castro. Peruvian authorities have seized 20 tons of drugs so far this year, La Republica said.

Police arrested 20 people, including five Mexicans and three Colombians during the operation on Sept. 5, according to the newspaper. The drugs, hidden inside a shipment of steel barrels, would have been worth $400 million in Europe, La Republica said.

The shipment was organized by Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, the Lima-based newspaper said.

Somewhere, someone is asking the question -- Where is 9,000 pounds of coke when I need it?

Story here.

Kermit the Frog Should Help the Sun-Sentinel Write Editorials

War on Drugs insanity from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel editorial:

U.S. should help Guyana fight drugs

ISSUE: Guyana's president wants a U.S. DEA office in his country.

English-speaking Caribbean countries have become transshipment ports for drugs headed to North America and Europe. So it's not a bad idea to have a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration office in the region to help combat illegal trafficking.[...]

Stronger relations with countries like Guyana could go a long way in fighting the flow of drugs here on the home front. And with Guyana and the United States having a history of cool relations due to the country's socialist leanings during the Cold War, having a DEA office in the country could help usher in a new era of cooperation, which is much needed at a time when national security is a concern.

BOTTOM LINE: The State Department should grant the South American country's request.

Excerpt from soon-to-be-published TtP editorial:

ISSUE: South Florida Sun-Sentinel editorial board is made up of dim-witted retards.

Editors of Florida newspaper show stunning lack of knowledge concerning the effectiveness of the US to police drugs within its own borders; let alone abysmal failures in foreign countries such as Afghanistan, Colombia, Jamaica.

Establishing a DEA office and working closely with the South American country would contribute greatly to corruption in the country, alienate much of the local population, and achieve exactly none of the stated goals -- such as reducing the flow of drugs into our country.

BOTTOM LINE: The editors should all find new jobs that require much less intellectual curiosity, and reasoning like washing cars, or cleaning monkey cages, and quit "journalism" for good.

Watch Out for Toothless, Rotten Gummed, Iron Lunged, Szichophrenic Pot Heads

Rotten gums, the latest medical consequence from smoking pot:

An international team tracked the dental health of 1,000 people born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1972 and 1973.

They found heavy cannabis smoking was responsible for more than one-third of the new cases of gum disease among the group by the age of 32.

Right. Buried down at the end of the article is this:

Overall, 29% of the sample showed some signs of gum disease.

29% showed some sign of gum disease. Don't forget that most of the smokers were smokers; of both tobacco and marijuana, and that gum disease is a very common ailment.

More on drugs: Check out this article in the Washington Post on cocaine trafficking out of Columbia using submersible vessels. Pretty cool stuff. Definitely read the whole thing, but let me excerpt the last few paragraphs that remind anyone with an ounce of common sense of the futility of the prohibition exercise.

Here in the navy yard, in addition to the seized submersibles, there is a torpedo-like tube, designed to carry cocaine, that traffickers planned to attach by cable to a ship. There are also several "go-fasts" and an earlier mode of transport for drugs -- fishing trawlers -- now rotting in dry dock. Together, they could make up a Smithsonian exhibit.

Some officials say the submersibles should be destroyed.

"We've been debating what to do with them," Angel said. "I'm partial to keeping them because they are part of the history of our country. And when we put an end to drug trafficking, our sons and grandsons should know what these criminals did."

I Like My Bolivian Hookers Dirty and Agitated

Trouble in the streets of Bolivia:

LA PAZ (AFP) - Hundreds of outraged prostitutes are ready to fight a morality campaign targeting their trade by marching nude in the streets of Bolivia's capital, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

[...]

Lily, speaking on behalf of the prostitutes, warned that prostitutes would "march nude in the streets of La Paz" and threatened to forsake checks from health authorities.

[...]

Organizers of the morality campaign have demanded the mayor close several hundred illegal brothels and enforce a ban on minors visiting them. The activists have also called for ensuring the houses of prostitution operate a good distance from churches, schools and hospitals.

The police have sent in reinforcements to the turbulent area but the campaign has spread to other towns and provinces.

Protecting protesting prostitutes. A military action we could all get behind. Full article here.

Thanks to Sean Higgins for the link, who btw, has a delightful article, well worth a read, up on Modern Drunkard on the U.S. Prohibition Party. From the piece on scheduling an interview with the party's presidential candidate:

Scheduling an interview with a presidential candidate usually takes a lot of negotiation and many phone calls. Not so with Amondson. A Google search turned up his e-mail address, and about half an hour later he agreed to an hour-long interview on the following day.

“I have all the time in the world,” he explains.

His campaign headquarters? He doesn’t appear to have one. It turned out that the phone number was for a local public library where Amondson spends a lot of his free time.

Full article here.

Evo Morales on the Daily Show

Bolivian President Evo Morales (not to be confused with Cuban-American Eva Mendez, or my own favorite Bolivian) was on Jon Stewart's show the other night. Mostly it was a discussion on consumerism, capitalism, and western culture -- and how it was responsible for pulling millions out of poverty, feeding hungry people everywhere and creating tremendous wealth that has been used for good throughout the world......See? I can do this whole satire thing....No trick to it at all. You guys need anyone over at the Onion??? I'm available. Really, I can start anytime, and if you need me to dump this blog, I will. In a second. Like To the People never existed.

Video of the appearance below -- Warning, it's about 9 minutes long and uses terms like "agrarian revolution".



P.S.: Props to anyone who still watches the Daily Show. I choose not to get my news from a guy who was in Big Daddy and Half Baked, but for hundreds of thousands of lefty college students, it makes sense. I dunno, some people might also find him funny. I sure don't, but then again I make jokes about fucking horses and trannys...So maybe my opinion doesn't count for much.

America Running Out of Continents to Fuck Up -- Antarctica said to be On Alert

Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos met with the editorial board of the Houston Chronicle yesterday, and presented a side of the US drug war that anti-prohibitionist know all too well. Unfortunately he wasn't in Houston to tell us to legalize the stuff already and get off his country's back. More like -- "We've co-operated with you and done everything you've asked, please pass a free-trade agreement....Oh, and keep those billions in aid flowing too."

Some excerpts: [emphasis mine]

The drug cartels are looking to Peru, Bolivia and other countries to expand their coca crops, he said, and Mexico, now home to the world's most powerful cartels, had better fortify itself.

"You need to be tough, really tough, because they are tough criminals and the business is so big that they will try to fight it out to the end," Santos said.

[...]

Santos held out his country's efforts to extradite drug traffickers to the United States and spray poison on crops as evidence of its policies, but conceded it has not had much success in reducing the supply — a problem many say is caused by the United States remaining the world's biggest cocaine market.

John Walsh, a senior associate at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights and foreign policy monitoring organization, said that although the amount of Colombian cocaine has not dropped, the Bogota government is doing more than any other country to eradicate coca crops.

That anyone can see the results of our own domestic drug policy both at home and on the world stage, and not concede that what we are doing is failing miserably is serious cause for concern. Full article here.

Violence? In Columbia? Drug Lords Adapting to Aggressive Policing?

Shocking news, all of it...AP did a story over the weekend re-capping the effects of arrested kingpin Montoya, and the current situation in the Colombian drug underworld. Worth a read.

The drug trade has become increasingly compartmentalized — the era of vertically run cartels that controlled everything from the coca plant to U.S.-bound planes and speedboats ended a decade ago — and authorities doubt any would-be cartel leader can maintain the 250-strong private army and intelligence network that helped Montoya evade capture for so long.