Elections in Mexico, 2018

Election time is coming, all parties are starting the share of money, the “crickets” start their fight to get a nomination and they end up “jumping” to another party, even though they are accepting the nomination they rejected in their last party; everything is chaos, the attack from one to the other, the disqualifications increase in quantity and quality, no one is clean, but everyone attacks the opponent.

Scandals flow out as springs of water and social media are overflown with videos and memes, it is an all against war.

People are “politicized” for a couple weeks, each one selects its own winner; for one attack, 10 responses, for the disqualification of a candidate, aggressions, the name-calling and accusations “rain”; in the absence of arguments from one side, grievances, vilified attacks and even humiliation for the one who had the guts to give a different opinion.

While people fight and is aggressive, politicians feast on the patent divisionism of the people and for the distribution of the financing of money to parties (thousands of millions of pesos), money that comes from taxes of the Mexican people; the financing of money to parties is increasingly exaggerated every year.

Politicians count on Mexican divisionism and the bet on it to continue making it bigger, creating confrontation; the most effective weapon they have to control masses; the premise "divide and conquer" in Mexico becomes more a reality in Mexico; for the political herd of pigs in Mexico, the country is not important, Mexicans are not important, what matters to them is continuing having the control of Mexico and destiny in of their lives and their families.

We Mexicans have not understood that the union creates the strength (we have proven several times, before natural disasters, that together we are the greatest, that united we are one voice, a single effort and one Nation), however, at the moment of arriving to election time, when decision taking for the country is important, when choosing our “authorities”, of the near future and the future we will leave to our children, then, there, we simply divide ourselves. We have not understood that for the government and the political parties it is convenient a divided country; they are interested in keeping us divided, fighting al against all, because they know once the storm is gone, we (the citizens) go back to complaining in social media, some citizens take the streets and with the time, we forget everything, until the next election.

It is time that Mexicans raise our voices, it does not matter what candidate or political party we supported, it does not matter who wins the election, what is important and should matter to us is the post-electoral process. There is where we are going to make the change, there is where Mexico is going to grow, and there is where we Mexicans are going to recover the power¡

How can we do it? With work, pressing our authorities (it does not matter if we voted for them or not, they “represent” us anyway); going to their local offices (All Representatives and Senators have an office in their District which is paid with our taxes) and giving them CONCRETE PROPOSALS, so that PROPOTIONAL REPRESENTATION and the FUERO (protection that Congress Members, the President, Secretaries of State, Governors and in general politicians in office have so they cannot be persecuted for any criminal act) can disappear; to improve the quality of life in our cities, to make them build roads and streets properly instead of doing them with poor quality so they can continue robbing money; to develop the proper infrastructure and the investment in tourism, that small businesses (called mipymes in Mexico) get all the support they need so that they can generate jobs not only taxes; for people to get trained so they can get better jobs and better income; to make the government invest in clinic and hospitals (in order to have the equipment, the materials, the chemical reactives and medicine in all of them), so that health services can improve. To press our authorities in Congress to create an INDEPENDET ORGANIZATION of CITIZENS which can be in charge of regulating the budget for the Electoral National Institute (INE), to eliminate the financing of political parties and that could regulate the salaries of all public servants, as well as their bonuses and their benefits, without the interference of the Congress (nowadays Congress is in charge of the country’s budget, including their salaries, vacations, medical services and bonuses), because a poor country does not deserve rich politicians; to punish corruption as fast as it is proven and corrupted politicians can go to jail.

This represents a titanic job, it is not going to be solved in social media, nor with street protests and neither will be solved by showing up to the offices of politicians begging for things as if it were a HANDOUT, as it happens today: We are not going to be able to do it in 6 years either, it will take longer (it has taken them 89 years to bring us to today’s situation, so it will take us time to make them work for us); this will be done, one step at the time, district by district, state by state.

The government and the political parties know that if they “giveaway” stuff and pretend that they care, people in Mexico calm down; the promises of the political herd of pigs are always, the characters and words change, but not the speech. Politicians are counting on the divisionism and the indifference of the citizens. It is time to change things, each one of us from its own trench, united as one, it does not matter who we voted for, and if our candidate won or not. Great democracies have that in common, they cry their losses (loser candidates) on Election Day and then, as one person, they work in the benefit of society and they supervise their representatives so they fulfil their jobs.

It is a titanic job because it is not only focused on Representatives and Senators we have to have presence at the Municipalities and State Governments. No more thieves like Humberto Moreira (Coahuila), Javier Duarte (Veracruz), Juan Sabines (Chiapas), Manuel Velasco (Chiapas), Roberto Borge (Quinta Roo), Cesar Duarte (Chihuahua), Jorge Herrera Calda (Durango), Guillermo Padres (Sonora), Egidio Torre (Tamaulipas), Rodrigo Medina (Nuevo Leon), Andres Granier (Tabasco) and thieves that are with them.

It is time for Mexicans to work for Mexico, no matter what our ideologies are, no matter our political differences, our economical and social differences; it is time to unite aas a whole and show these herd of pigs from the Mexican politics, who live from our taxes, the solidarity we Mexicans have.

No more crooks in the Government!!!

  

This is very important. Please watch it and share it. It might save someone´s life.

Global warming

For at least three decades scientists and environmental activists have been warning that the world is on the verge of a global warming “apocalypse” that will flood coastal cities, tear up roads and bridges with mega-storms and bring widespread famine and misery to much of the world.

The only solution, they say, is to rid the world of fossil fuels — coal, natural gas and oil — that serve as the pillars of modern society. Only quick, decisive global action can avert the worst effects of manmade climate change, warn international bodies like the United Nations, who say we only have decades left — or even less!

Of course, human civilization has not collapsed, despite decades of predictions that we only have years left to avert disaster. Ten years ago, the U.N. predicted we only had “as little as eight years left to avoid a dangerous global average rise of 2C or more.”

This failed prediction, however, has not stopped the U.N. and others from issuing more apocalyptic statements.

To celebrate nearly three decades of dire predictions, The Daily Caller News Foundation put together this list of some of the most severe doomsday prophecies made by scientists, activists and politicians:

1. Apocalyptic warnings on repeat

A group of 1,700 scientists and experts signed a letter 25 years ago warning of massive ecological and societal collapse if nothing was done to curb overpopulation, pollution and, ultimately, the capitalist society in which we live today.

The Union of Concerned Scientists put out a second letter earlier this year, once again warning of the dire consequences of global warming and other alleged ecological ills. Now numbering 15,000, the group warns “soon it will be too late to shift course away from our failing trajectory, and time is running out.”

“We must recognize, in our day-to-day lives and in our governing institutions, that Earth with all its life is our only home,” the scientists and experts warned.

It’s a terrifying warning — if you ignore the fact that none of their 1992 warning has come to fruition.

2. The planet will be “uninhabitable” by the end of the century

New York Magazine writer David Wallace-Wells published a 7,000-word article claiming global warming could make Earth “uninhabitable” by “the end of this century.”

Wallace-Wells’s article warned of terrors, like “Heat Death,” “Climate Plagues,” “Permanent Economic Collapse” and “Poisoned Oceans.”

“Indeed, absent a significant adjustment to how billions of humans conduct their lives, parts of the Earth will likely become close to uninhabitable, and other parts horrifically inhospitable, as soon as the end of this century,” Wallace-Wells wrote.

3. Prince Charles’s global warming deadline passed…and nothing happened

Prince Charles famously warned in July 2009 that humanity had only 96 months to save the world from “irretrievable climate and ecosystem collapse, and all that goes with it.” That deadline has passed, and the prince has not issued an update to when the world needs to be saved.

Though the recently-released “Paradise Papers” show Charles lobbied U.K. lawmakers to enact policies that benefited his estate’s investment in a Bermuda company that does sustainable forestry. So, there’s that.

4. ‘Ice Apocalypse’ Now

Liberal writer and climate scientist Eric Holthaus claimed manmade global warming would set off the “ice apocalypse” at a pace “too quickly for humanity to adapt.”

Holthaus warned the wholesale collapse of two Antarctic glaciers — Pine Island and Thwaites — could happen sooner than previously believed, resulting in “flooding coastal cities and creating hundreds of millions of climate refugees.” Sounds terrible, but his conclusions aren’t really backed up by the science.

“I think his article is too pessimistic: that it overstates the possibility of disaster. Too soon, too certain,” Tamsin Edwards, a scientist who’s studied Antarctica, wrote in The Guardian about Holthaus’s article.

5. 2015 is the ‘last effective opportunity’ to stop catastrophic warming

World leaders meeting at the Vatican  issued a statement saying that 2015 was the “last effective opportunity to negotiate arrangements that keep human-induced warming below 2-degrees [Celsius].”

Pope Francis wants to weigh in on global warming, and is expected to issue an encyclical saying basically the same thing. Francis reiterated that 2015 is the last chance to stop massive warming.

But what he should really say is that the U.N. conference is the “last” chance to cut a deal to stem global warming…since last year when the U.N. said basically the same thing about 2014’s climate summit.

6. France’s foreign minister said we only have “500 days” to stop “climate chaos”

When Laurent Fabius met with Secretary of State John Kerry on May 13, 2014 to talk about world issues he said “we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”

Ironically at the time of Fabius’ comments, the U.N. had scheduled a climate summit to meet in Paris in December 2015 — some 565 days after his remarks. Looks like the U.N. is 65 days too late to save the world.

7. Former President Barack Obama is the last chance to stop global warming

When Obama made the campaign promise to “slow the rise of the oceans,” some environmentalists may have taken him quite literally.

The United Nations Foundation President Tim Wirth told Climatewire in 2012 that Obama’s second term was “the last window of opportunity” to impose policies to restrict fossil fuel use. Wirth said it’s “the last chance we have to get anything approaching 2 degrees Centigrade,” adding that if “we don’t do it now, we are committing the world to a drastically different place.”

Even before that, then-National Aeronautics and Space Administration Goddard Space Flight Center head James Hansen warned in 2009 that Obama only “has four years to save Earth.”

8. Remember when we had “hours” to stop global warming?

World leaders met in Copenhagen, Denmark in 2009 to potentially hash out another climate treaty. That same year, the head of Canada’s Green Party wrote that there was only “hours” left to stop global warming.

“We have hours to act to avert a slow-motion tsunami that could destroy civilization as we know it,” Elizabeth May, leader of the Greens in Canada, wrote in 2009. “Earth has a long time. Humanity does not. We need to act urgently. We no longer have decades; we have hours. We mark that in Earth Hour on Saturday.”

9. United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown said there was only 50 days left to save Earth

The year 2009 was a bad time for global warming predictions. That year Brown warned there was only “50 days to save the world from global warming,” the BBC reported. According to Brown there was “no plan B.”

Brown has been booted out of office since then.

10. The U.N.’s top climate scientist said in 2007 we only had four years to save the world

Rajendra Pachauri, the former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said in 2007 that if “there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late.”

“What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment,” he said.

Well, it’s 2017 and no new U.N. climate treaty has been presented. The only thing that’s changed since then is that Pachauri was forced to resign earlier this year amid accusations he sexually harassed multiple female coworkers.

11. Environmentalists warned in 2002 the world had a decade to go green

Environmentalist write George Monbiot wrote in the UK Guardian that within “as little as 10 years, the world will be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world’s animals or it continues to feed the world’s people. It cannot do both.”

About 930 million people around the world were undernourished in 2002, according to U.N. data. By 2014, that number shrank to 805 million. Sorry, Monbiot.

12. Global warming apocalypse 1980s edition

The U.N. was already claiming in the late 1980s that the world had only a decade to solve global warming or face the consequences.

The San Jose Mercury News reported June 30, 1989 that a “senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000.”

That prediction didn’t come true 17 years ago, and the U.N. is sounding the same alarm today.

BEAR EFFICIENCY

These pictures are said to have been taken by a guy from Grande Cache, Alberta, 1.5 hours south of Grande Prairie, by the Bareland River on Highway 40.

Take a look at the time frame in the bottom right-hand corner of each picture ... notice the time stamp.

It took him just ten minutes to pick her up, take her to dinner, feed her a terrific meal and then get laid. 

Is this guy good or what? 

PEMEX overweight

Imagine a chubby guy in love with hot dogs, hamburgers and pizzas that is fed up with his rashers and determined, he shares his personal diet to lose a few pounds.

Starting today, I’ll drink diet coke only, I’ll sleep eight hours, I'll be 4 hours a day in front of the TV only and I’ll think about only in healthy things.

As the kid in the TV adds, you sure would ask the chubby guy, hey and the hotdogs, the hamburgers and the pizzas, dad?

I thought that when listening on the radio to new named Pemex director Jose Antonio Gonzalez, talking about the savings plan of the under a lot of problems oil company:

"What we are talking about, is not setting staff itself. Certainly it will be part of the process. I do not discard it, but we have not defined it yet, either in what place or in what amount. But we will always work hand to hand with the union and respecting the worker’s rights."

No, wow, I just have only one question, Mr. González: and the hotdogs, the hamburgers and the pizzas, dad?

If the obese Pemex want to lose weight there’s no turning back, you have to cut staff and benefits.

Regarding the overstaffing, Sergio Sarmiento has recently made an excellent comparison between Pemex and Statoil. While the Norwegian company has a sixth part of Pemex workers, in 2014 it sold only 26% less than the Mexican fatty.

Another example: Chevron. The American giant produced a daily average of 3 million barrels in 2014, 25% more than Pemex; and what about its employees? At the end of 2014 Chevron had less than half of our fatty did (47%, in fact).

Due to the oil crisis during 2015 Chevron’s revenue plummeted 35%, and of course, it already has cut 12% of its workforce (7,500 workers). Now it employs only 42% of the employees Pemex has.

Let me tell you this, between January and September 2015, the accumulated income of Pemex has fallen almost 38% compared to 2014 (in dollars) and although it has announced that the goal is to cut just over 10,000 workers, many of these “savings” are only in retirements.

Here comes another big problem of our Mexican fatty: the union benefits of Pemex. I’ll just highlight some beauties. It’s crazy:

a) Vacation Days: From day one and up to 10 years, 21 paid days. After 10 years, 30 days, and of course, I have to mention the vacation bonus: 186%, you and I receive 25%.

b) Yearly bonus: 60 days. For you and me: only 15.

c) Settlement: 5 months 40 days per year worked.

d) Waiver: If the employee has worked for more than 15 years, 40 days per year worked! Really? I cannot believe it...

e) Retirements:

· 25 years or 55 years of age: 80% of salary.

· 30 years or 60 years of ag: 90% of salary.

· 35 years without age limit: 100% of salary.

· All retirees receive medical care, inflation adjustments and yearly bonus of 60 days.

· After dying there are four types of postmortem pensions: starting from 3 years with 100% of salary retirement to lifetime. In addition, 15 years of medical care for dependents.

f) Up to two loans. The first at an annual rate of 1% and of 5% second. Oh and a single aid for remodeling and other items up to $ 125.513.40.

And I am leaving the most incredible fact for last. Each worker is entitled, on average, to receive the equivalent of $300.00 pesos per day of gasoline if they show a commercial invoice of a vehicle. If this provision were to apply to the 135,000 workers of Pemex, the spending would be $40.5 million pesos every day, $14.782 million pesos per year!

Oh, they also receive a daily average of $70.00 pesos as a small help for gas, about $9.5 million pesos per day, or $3.450 million pesos per year!

These are the rashers of Pemex: an excess of workers and their irrational benefits. No private company would survive this way.

Pemex has done it due to the economic boom of oil prices that we have had for decades. The consequence of its fatness was noted in its inefficiency and ineffectiveness to explore and thus sustain or grow its production volume, as all the other oil companies in the world do.

But there is no doubt that, in the lean times you and I we'll have to maintain PEMEX. That is why the Government is already creating its "Fobaproa" (Banking Fund for the Protection of Savings) for Pemex in order to rescue its pension crisis. And who will pay the bill?

José Antonio González is preceded by a reputation for being rational and efficient. We better. There is no other way: In order for Pemex to lose weight it has to leave the hotdogs, the hamburgers and the pizzas. PEMEX must cut its workforce in a minimum of 50 % and it has to use large scissors to cut down its benefits, or not?

In a few words...

"My doctor told me, stop having intimate dinners for four if you are to eat dinner by yourself."

Orson Welles

The Origin of Thanksgiving's Turkey Dinner

Even though this tradition is merely from the Unites States, its gastronomic origin goes way back to the ancient Aztec Culture.

Although this animal is from the American Continent, it was re-introduced into the United States through England.

The most representative dish of the Thanksgiving dinner in the United States, without a doubt is the turkey; however, this food is original from Mexico, where, in Pre-Hispanic times, it was consumed by the Aztecs.

Even though it is a completely American tradition, the reason for eating turkey during Thanksgiving has its origins in the trading originated after the discovery of America.

It is well know that several foods “invaded” the world after Christopher Columbus arrived to the “New World”, among them, corn, tobacco, chocolate and of course turkeys; in Mexico they are also known as “Guajolotes” (waholotes could be its closest pronunciation in English).

But how did this bird became the central dish for the Americans in one of the most important celebrations?

According to an article published in The Collegian, a publication belonging to California State University, Campus Fresno, the Pre-Hispanic bird, called “hueholoti” (pronounced in English weholoti), was transported from Mexico to Spain in order to motivate its commercialization in Europe.

Then it arrived to what was the Ottoman Empire, nowadays a great part of what we know as Turkey, where the animal became chubbier and meatier, thanks to their farming practices the people from that region had developed.

Later, in 1540 the “Turkish turkey” arrived to Western Europe and to England and around 70 years after that, it was brought to America again, says the article which had the collaboration of the Historian Brad Jones.

It was precisely in 1614 when the bird arrived to Jamestown, Virginia and where the first group of Englishmen settled in the US in 1607.

A Century Old Tradition.

The first Thanksgiving dinner in the United States was held in 1621, when the Pilgrims, British Citizens, held a celebration with the Wampanoag Tribe Indians, in Plymouth, Massachusetts.

When a fighter trains to face the best and the best trains for another fight...

There’s a difference, of course, with this latest redirect in fighting history. 

The thing about Georges St-Pierre’s loss to Matt Serra back in the day was that he didn’t appear on Good Morning America to announce the fight to begin with. Nor was he the first male to hold a UFC title, nor the catalyst for the very existence of the 170-pound division. It wasn’t him who gave Serra the platform. He wasn’t undefeated, nor considered by the wider world at large as novelistic and invincible. He didn’t have Beyoncé quoting his inspirational utterances during concerts, or host SportsCenter. There was no Jimmy Kimmel, or WWE cameos, or New York Times best-selling books. His words didn’t send a ripple effect through pop culture. He didn’t alter thinking on body image and sexuality, nor did he crash through gender barriers. He wasn’t a pioneer or a savior of the sport. People (outside of Canada) didn’t cry in hysteria when he entered a room. 

No, when Matt Serra caught him, it just went to show that anything is possible in a fight. 

When Ronda Rousey got knocked out by Holly Holm on Saturday night in Melbourne, it was possibility itself that took the blow. This was the brightest star in the game being dimmed before our very eyes. It was profoundly different. All the falsehoods of immortality came crashing back down not just on Rousey as she fell to the canvas, but on the mesmerized public. The collective shock was not just in the historical aspect of what was playing out, but in the sheer gullibility of having let ourselves get so carried away. Greatness will never stand for long in perfect conditions. We know this. Yet it was fun to ignore!

And of course, sports are at their best when they reach such levels. When the narratives bend reality, and people share in an illusion for as long as it lasts.

Everybody knows there’s no such thing as invincibility, especially in prize fighting, but with Ronda we were willing to play dumb. This was a different kind of star, leagues ahead of her contemporaries. She’s been nothing other than intoxicating since she inherited the UFC title after the Strike-force buy out. Joe Rogan said she wasn’t a once in a generation fighter, but once in an ever fighter. He almost cried when she appeared on his podcast when he got to actualizing her historical value. 
The spell extended to his partner, Mike Goldberg, who right in the middle of Holm’s dismantling of Rousey, cried out awkwardly, "it takes a lot of energy to be a rock star!" Such was the blissful oblivion of those six minutes before Rousey fell. It must have been a long, long flight back to the States for UFC executives and staff. You have to suspect the profound nature of all that was lost was a slow dawning, showing up in nauseating wave upon wave. There goes this, there goes that. Holy sh*t. Rousey is no longer the perfect storm. She can never be marketed the same way again. 

A perfectly executed game plan was all it took to humanize Rousey, who was on the cusp of entering the pantheon of all-time sports greats. If she has already crossed over, time will tell. But Holm now holds the belt, which was an idea that was unthinkable in the lead up. She stayed mobile and punished Rousey’s aggression, of which there was plenty. When the time came to unload, she did. Holm was brilliant. She was everything people thought she was not poised, opportunistic, superior. That head kick will last forever.

And the devastation of that head kick changed everything. The women’s bantamweight division is now open for business again. The warden is out. There was rejoicing from everybody from Cristiane Justino to Miesha Tate to Amanda Nunes afterwards. The small picture took on a bunch of color.

UFC 200, a foregone conclusion for Rousey’s next title defense in July, is now hanging out there as her date of redemption. Even when she gets her next crack at it, the life-blood of her transcendence  — that she is the fight game’s nonpareil — is no longer in play. How does she respond? That’s the new drama, but it’s going to be different. The diehards will care more about her response than the casuals, who’ve now seen the unthinkable become thinkable. The essence of her big picture allure now belongs to Melbourne. It can’t be the same again. Things will narrow.
Not that there wasn’t plenty of poetry at UFC 193. There is inspiration in seeing an underdog like Holm show up in her best form at the exact moment when everything is heightened beyond measure. If Rousey inspires young girls to be like her, Holm inspires the ones who’ve been daydreaming of beating her. 
And it’s hard not to appreciate the UFC’s matchmaking model in all of this. Sean Shelby and Joe Silva book challengers that they believe can beat the champion. They don’t protect anybody, at least not for long. This isn’t boxing. The UFC makes its champions vulnerable at all times. It’s in that gamble that the essence of those letters stands out. The UFC sells vulnerability as much as it does invincibility. Holm was booked to face Rousey.