dixietraveller's blog

By BRUCE CRUMLEY / PARIS Sun Jul 6, 10:45 PM ET - Remember the tightwad tourist whose baggy shorts, frequent complaining and shouted questions about why none of the locals spoke any English made the ugly American the world's Visitor From Hell?

Posted on Sun, Jul. 06, 2008 - By ANICK JESDANUN, AP Internet Writer NEW YORK -- Rant all you want in a public park. A police officer generally won't eject you for your remarks alone, however unpopular or provocative.

Say it on the Internet, and you'll find that free speech and other constitutional rights are anything but guaranteed.

The Masked Loner By Gioconda Belli [Scoop] - Toni Solo's articles on Nicaragua are so lacking in objectivity that one has to wonder who this person is. His web page certainly seems like nothing but propaganda for the Ortega government. Cabinet members who routinely refuse to talk to the press in the country, grant him long interviews.

Tuesday, 1 July 2008, 12:37 pm - Scoop - Column: Toni Solo - The US State Department's little known but widely read propaganda sheet, the Foggy Bottom Cuckoo, has editions in the liberal press of most Western Bloc countries. In the US, it usually pokes its beak out of the Washington Post or the New York Times. In Spain, it mostly fools readers into thinking it is El País.

June 30, 2008 - (Angus Reid Global Monitor) - The majority of people in Nicaragua are dissatisfied with the leadership of Daniel Ortega, according to a poll by CID-Gallup published in La Prensa. 56 per cent of respondents rate their president’s performance as bad or very bad, up 13 points since February.

For the complete article and statistical tables, go to:

Opponents of Iran's deepening ties to Latin America are suspicious of its plans to build Nicaragua a new dam.

Posted on Sat, Jun. 28, 2008 - BY BLAKE SCHMIDT - Special to The Miami Herald

RIO BLANCO, Nicaragua -- Iran's plan to build a $200 million hydroelectric dam in this energy-starved country is raising concerns here and in Washington about its mounting influence in Latin America.

Maybe this should be titled, "Possible Mercury Pollution Warning for Nicaragua!"

ScienceDaily (June 29, 2008) — Scientists from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have discovered how volatile metals from volcanoes end up in polar ice cores.

. . . .

Sunday, 29 June 2008, 10:12 pm - Scoop - Column: Toni Solo - Anyone stepping back from the recent hyped-up drama engineered by the minority right wing parties in Nicaragua and their overseas allies will see all the tell-tale signs of yet another instance of NATO country government intervention in the region.

By TIM ROGERS - Time - 25 June 2008 - The ghosts of the past have an enduring power in Nicaragua, which is why the legendary nationalist guerrilla general Augusto Sandino has become the object of a political tug-of-war between the government and its naysayers.

25 June 2008 - Nicaragua accused Colombia Tuesday of practicing state terrorism and warned on a possible attack ordered by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe against two Colombian sheltered people in Nicaragua.