Power Outages

 We lost our power two nights ago. We have been having electrical problems here in the house due to some faulty wiring and I at first assumed that was the cause for the power outage. I went outside and noticed that all our neighbors, and for as far as I could see, were also without lights. Then I worried that perhaps our problem had caused a local outage by blowing the transformer or something.  No, it was not caused by little ol' me!

Later we learned that the entire country of Paraguay had lost power, as well as much of Brazil, and all of Rio de Janeiro, one of the largest cities on earth. Estimates are that 60 million people were without power. The cause of the outage was a fail safe of the Itiapu Dam, the world's largest power plant, equivalent to 10 nuclear power plants. Itiapu is here in Paraguay and provides most of Paraguay's and Brazil's  electrical supply.

In Paraguay, our power was restored in under an hour but Rio was in the dark for 3 - 4 hours Good thing this did not happen during the upcoming Olympics, huh?.

All this brought to my mind the situation many Venezuelans are living with. Due to the Chavez Bolivarian regime's ineptness, the country is experiencing power and water problems. This has led the government to ration electricity and there are planned outages lasting 48 hours on a weekly basis. This also causes water outages as most water arrives via electric pumps. People are storing water in barrels in their Caracas homes and having to take the 'Bolivarian Bath'.


 What is the Bolivarian Bath ??? The President himself informed the populace, on national television, of their patriotic duty to limit their showers to only 3 minutes. He explained that one minute was for soaping up, one for scrubbing and hair, and one for rinsing! OH! And it must be with cold water!

 A few days later, the President also informed the comrades that the patriot must  not use lights in the home at night while visiting the bathroom but should keep a flashlight handy for such times. And then, the warning was issued that window unit Air Conditioners were  to become illegal to use! Not that they do much good without power anyway...

And there you have it folks! Beautiful socialism revolution! In only 12 years, an oil rich country has progressed to such heights of equality! Now, just as the President had promised, the indians living in the jungle are truly equal to their fellow citizens in the capital city! Both live without power and running water! Socialism  has brought about equality, everyone has become equally poor.

Its a beautiful   thing to behold... well, when the lights are on so that you can see it, that is!