Blog terminated

Freelancerhans.wordpress.com has moved to blogger!

This is my new blog! All old articles have been uploaded and i will start blogging soon once i settle some minor problems. Wall Street's dramatic crash... AIG's bailout by the Feds...implications Mccain/Obama there's a lot to talk about.

I moved from Wordpress.com as it provided no capacity to open up the funding that this project needs. Thanks for supporting the previous blog and allowing it to enjoy up to 700 hits/day in merely a week. Do continue to provide the support for this blog as well. Thanks.

-Mr Hans

Chavez Tells United States To Go To #$@%* Hell, Sh*t Yank*es

While everyone has been dissecting whether Obama called Palin a pig, or whether Palin insulted Obama's community organizing, we've missed some rather massive mud-flinging in the United States' backyard.

Last night, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez told the United States to "Go to hell a hundred times." In front of an applauding crowd, he yelled "We have had enough of so much s**t from you, s**t Yankees!" as he expelled the U.S. ambassador, giving him just 72 hours to leave. Watch him here:

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[ TRANSCRIPT: HUGO CHAVEZ, PRESIDENT OF VENEZUELA SAYING (SPANISH):

"The has seventy two hours to leave Venezuelan territory. Immediately, Mr. Chancellor Maduro, immediately, send for our ambassador before they throw him out of there. Our ambassador, the great companero Bernardo Alvarez should return to his country. When there is a new government in the United States we will send our ambassador, a government that respects the people of Latin America and Simon Bolivar's America. Go to hell, shit Yankees, we are a dignified people, go to hell 100 times." ]

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I know: Chávez has always been something of a loose cannon (he enjoys calling President George W. Bush a donkey, the devil, and other colorful names). But to think this is nothing more than his usual Yankee-bashing would be a mistake. Minor crisis would be a better interpretation.

The Venezuelan strongman's outburst comes after his neighbor and left-wing soulmate Evo Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador earlier this week, accusing him of backing conservative opposition movements now protesting in the streets. The United States in turn kicked out Bolivia's ambassador.

Bolivia is in far more trouble than just having a few picketers on the street. Morales has proposed drastic energy and government reforms, to be voted upon in December, that would consolidate his power and allow him to redistribute agricultural land. Protesters, demanding a greater autonomy from the government in the natural gas industry, have shut down much of the country and dozens have been killed in street fighting. Perhaps emboldened by joint exercises with Russia, Chávez promised to militarily intervene if his buddy Morales is lifted from power.

But the U.S. government is in no mood for such funny business. Not only has the State Department sent the Venezuelan ambassador packing, but the Treasury Department today called out Venezuelan officials for helping the cocaine-trafficking rebel group FARC in neighboring Colombia.

"Today's designation exposes two senior Venezuelan government officials and one former official who armed, abetted, and funded the FARC, even as it terrorized and kidnapped innocents," said Adam J. Szubin, director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, in a toughly worded press release. Interpol accusations that Venezuela -- and even Chávez himself -- aided the FARC first surfaced this summer after Colombia got its hands on a FARC laptop, but this is the first time the U.S. government has formally charged any Venezuelan officials.

No doubt Chávez has a response up his sleeve.

Sarah Palin’s Hot Photos (& Interview)

By BILL TANCER
Time Magazine
Tuesday, Sep. 02, 2008

I doubt that any of us have ever considered any of our past vice-presidential candidates a sex symbol. But if recent Internet searches are any measure of the average American's current interest in politics, that may be changing.

On the Richter scale of Internet search energy, Republican presidential candidate John McCain's announcement on Friday that he had chosen Sarah Palin, the current governor of Alaska, as his running mate measured a magnitude 10. If you compare the number of searches for "John McCain," "Barack Obama" or "Joe Biden" with those for "Sarah Palin," there's no contest. In just two days, the number of U.S. Internet searches for "Sarah Palin" reached a peak greater than any other political personality in the past three years. In the week ending Aug. 30, 2008, searches for Governor Palin were almost four times as popular as Obama searches, eight times as popular as McCain searches and over 10 times more popular than searches for Biden.

So, what exactly are Palin searchers seeking?

Of the 1,323 unique search queries containing "Sarah Palin" over the past four weeks, there were many that you'd normally expect to see regarding a newly named vice-presidential candidate: queries about Palin's biography, for example, her voting record and her stance on abortion. The No. 1 search was simply "Sarah Palin." The next nine most popular search terms that appeared in conjunction with "Sarah Palin" were:

2. Vogue Magazine
3. Photos
4. Beauty Pageant
5. Bio
6. Biography
7. Pictures
8. Scandal
9. Alaska Governor
10. Hot

And if you look more carefully at the 1,300 searches Hitwise tracked, one of the most commonly entered search topics surrounding Palin was "hot photos." (Hitwise search data updates weekly on Mondays, so information on searches related to the news of Palin's pregnant teen daughter, Bristol, were not yet available.) Other queries common to the American public: "Sarah Palin Bikini Photos," "Sarah Palin Naked," "Sarah Palin Nude." People also searched frequently for Palin's physical stats - particularly her age and height - as they did with the other candidates and running mates. Internet searchers also appear to be fascinated by and confused about her religious orientation, with several queries such as "Sarah Palin Religious Beliefs," "Sarah Palin Christian," "Sarah Palin Catholic," "Sarah Palin Mormon" and "Sarah Palin Jewish."

Examining which of their search results Internet users click on provides additional clues on searchers' intent. Of those searching for information on the Republican Veep candidate, 28.5% continued on to reference websites such as Wikipedia, indicating that a large portion of searchers were either interested in finding out general information or simply answering last weekend's common question: Who is Sarah Palin?

Given that the most popular searches surrounding the candidates include queries about Meghan McCain's lunch with Heidi Montag, Web videos of Obama Girl and slogans like "Alaska: Coldest State, Hottest Governor," it's getting harder and harder to distinguish news about the 2008 presidential race from the latest chatter from celebrity gossip magazines.