It's hard out there for a Princeling

Here's an awesome illustrated guide to Chinese politics from KPC friend Dave Tufte, and an informative interview (at least informative to me) with Cheng Li on the Princeling Bo saga.

Mugabe, the gift that keeps on giving

I thought this awesome "Zanu PF" twitter feed was a satire, but now I'm not so sure, as government ministers are denying Mugabe's illness in more traditional news outlets.

Word is that the 88 year old is finally on his way out, but has a poison pill in place to ensure that he can continue to torment Zimbabweans from beyond the grave.

Yes, he's hand-picked a successor,  and it's "The Crocodile"; aka Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Allegedly, the plan is to keep Mugabe alive for one more election later this year. Then after he wins, he hands power over to the Croc, who is widely credited with orchestrating the violence and chaos that let Mugabe hang on to power after the debacle of the 2008 elections (Mnangagwa has a long and distinguished resume of violence and intimidation, read the article).

In related news, it seems like Bobby M is a Florida State fan:

David Stern is a TERRIBLE GM

"The way it looks now, the Hornets will have traded their franchise point guard (Chris Paul) for a player who’s leaving (Kaman), a guard who’s played only two games and also could leave in the summer (Eric Gordon), underachieving forward Al-Farouq Aminu and a 2012 first-round pick that might not end up in the lottery.


Imagine how different it would be if NBA commissioner David Stern hadn’t vetoed a trade that would have given the Hornets guard Kevin Martin, forward Luis Scola, forward Lamar Odom and guard Goran Dragic."

~Marc Spears

Hugo Chavez: doin' work

People, Hugo is getting it done down in Venezuela. It's only September (and he's taken some sick leave) but he's already "nationalized" 401 companies this year. Plus he's withdrawing from the World Bank's dispute settlement forum used to deal with claims by foreign investors.

He's also working to get Venezuelan assets in friendlier hands, transferring billions of dollars in deposits from US and Euro banks to banks in Russia, China, and Brazil (wow, Brazil, nice work to make Chavez associate you with Russia and China and not the "free world").

And of course there's his plan to airlift Venezuela's gold back to Caracas.

The idea is to make Venezuela's financial assets un-freezable.

I feel very sorry for the younger people of Venezuela. But the older ruling elites of the country brought Hurricane Hugo down on themselves and their descendants with their decades of incompetent, corrupt, short-sighted & elitist governance.