#the netsy nation is here

[loadednachosao3]

Betsy enjoys big booty latinas (nacho)

signed sealed and FUCKING delivered

[toldnews-blog]

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/venezuela-crisis-frustrated-opposition-await-next-opportunity/

Venezuela crisis: Frustrated opposition await next opportunity

Image copyright EPA

Image caption Mr Maduro says he still has the support of the armed forces

Venezuelans woke up to a show of military strength broadcast on national TV after two days of opposition protests.

President Nicolás Maduro, surrounded by troops at the Caracas military base, held forth on the theme of absolute loyalty amidst claims that some in the high command were prepared to turn on him.

“To the traitors, detain them,” he intoned. “To the coup plotters – reject them and detain them as well. And to the armed forces: (they are) united, cohesive, under the command of our laws and constitution.”

The defence minister, Vladimir Padrino, also weighed in.

Trump administration officials had said he’d been in negotiations with the opposition but, if so, not anymore. He rejected those who sought to “buy us with dishonest offers” as though military officers were “mercenaries.”

At Altamira Square traffic flowed as usual and people sat quietly on the benches enjoying the breeze. There was no sign that this had been the main gathering point for opposition protesters the day before.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Altamira Square was the scene of clashes on Wednesday

“I am here because I thought there would be another march,” said Nelson Gavidia, an appraiser of irrigation systems. “I left my work and I’m sitting here but everything is back to normal as if nothing happened.”

“We need to be out on the streets to get the country’s liberty,” he told us. “We want to be the Venezuelans that we were before.”

But that prospect seemed even more distant now with the opposition in retreat. The main leader Leopoldo Lopez took shelter in the Spanish embassy after winning brief freedom from house arrest, and the self-declared interim president Juan Guaidó was nowhere to be seen.

Image copyright Getty Images

Image caption Opposition leader Mr Lopez has taken refuge in the Spanish embassy

Mr Guaidó has admitted that he didn’t get enough support from the military for his call to rebellion earlier in the week. Now he’s talking about a general strike.

It’s not clear, though, how that would play out in the midst of this economic crisis where people are scrounging for every dollar they can find, and the state controls the big industries.

“You can’t just hope that public workers will say: I’m against you,” said one man who identified himself as Raul. He was watching to see what both sides would do.

“The government is preparing itself in an intelligent way for what is coming,” he said, “as it’s always done in the past. The opposition unfortunately, is still all over the place. Guaidó has good intentions but I’m not sure he’s doing the right thing. I am more radical, I believe… that a military intervention is necessary.”

Image copyright AFP

Image caption Mr Guaidó has urged troops to rebel and is now calling for public workers to strike

Students at the Central University of Venezuela weren’t ready yet to give up on civil protests, including street theatre.

Art Student Itzia Netsi told me some were going to dress like dead people and lie in the street to highlight the dangers of demonstrating against this government.

She and others had defied their professors and refused to come back to class: “People died, there were gun shots, and you tell me to go to classes?” she said. “Come on! How can I think of my future when people are being killed in the streets, what if tomorrow it’s me?”

She grasped for hope at the sight of at least some military personnel who’d stood with Mr Guaidó as he’d called for others to defect. We need that, she said, “because you can’t win a war without guns.”

Police armed with tear gas cannisters stood by as the students surged into the street and blocked an intersection. “Police listen to us”, they chanted, “unite with us for the fight.”

[birding2point0-blog]

Desert National Park

The desert teems with life in the most unexpected ways. An arid expanse, perhaps seen most often in films and photographs is not the place where you would expect to see vultures as large as a small child, or delicate gazelles running through the short grasses. It is hot in the day and chilly at night and it’s a far cry from the camel-in-the-sand-dunes stereotype of the desert in Rajasthan.

We spent about two and a half days here as part of a birdwatching trip with Nature India. One of the specialties of this park is the small but significant--and possibly the only large viable population of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard. It is scary to think that there may be less than 100 individuals left in the wild. The bustard’s habitat; large, arid grasslands with short and scant trees will resemble ‘wasteland’ to most people, but this is deceptive.

The grasslands support an amazing array of life forms, many of which have specialized to live life in a dry and hot climate. Gerbils, desert foxes, spiny-tailed lizards and once, just half a century ago, the Asiatic cheetah. Living its life in the open desert, it was hunted to extinction from the subcontinent (though it still survives in Iran in small numbers [source]). But with a bit of imagination, one can imagine the ecosystem of this desert in all its glory, with bustards, cheetahs, wolves and chinkaras.

The first stop was at Kheechan, a small village which has a famous, long-standing tradition of feeding the migratory Demoiselle Cranes. On a patch of open ground in the middle of the village, the cranes are fed grains when they visit during the winter. In exchange, they bring luck and prosperity to the village people. Cranes are special birds; Other Asian cultures also believe in their auspicious power and good luck. One thousand folded paper cranes are given to a newlywed couple in Japan and are a symbol of longevity. [source]

Our hotel/resort was near the Khuri village, on the outskirts of Jaisalmer. While it was nice to enjoy the hot water and meals in the middle of the desert, nature tourism is a negligible source of income for hotels such as these. Most guests from Jaisalmer came to enjoy the camel ride and desert sunset, stayed for a night to drink/eat and were entertained by a local band of musicians. On reaching the hotel in the evening, we were treated to one such performance, the LED lights and sound drowning out the stars and the quiet of the desert night.

Most of this was forgotten when we left for birding in the early mornings. On our very first day we were treated to the sight of 7 Great Indian Bustards (GIB) albeit in the far distance. Our local guide Uroos was an expert on the local movements of these birds and he took us to the best areas to see both GIB and other interesting species. We saw an amazing number of birds of prey on this trip, the commonest of them was the Long-legged buzzard. But the real treat also were the Cinereous, Egyptian, Red-headed and Griffon vultures. Surely this is still a healthy habitat if it can support large birds such as the Griffon vulture?

While GIB prefer the open grassland areas of the Desert National Park, other species like the Red-tailed Wheatear were found in open, stony country in the company of other Wheatears like the Isabelline Wheatear and the Black crowned sparrow-lark.Yet others like the Cream coloured Courser/Desert Courser prefer flat, treeless expanses where they can hunt for insects. They look like the waders of the desert, the flat plains of their home shimmering with heat rather than actual water. We also watched birds at two waterholes, one for the special Trumpeter Finches and the other for Sandgrouse. While the sandgrouse did not choose to visit the waterhole that day, the Trumpeter Finches were present in good numbers. They are really cute birds with pink bills and their calls do sound like toy trumpets, though we only heard small chirping calls. They were shy and wary, only stopping to take quick sips at the waterhole before flying off.

The second day, at Netsi village near the Indo-Pak border, the Water Pipits with their orange-yellow supercilium were present in good numbers, as well as several Hoopoes, little Ringed Plovers and Bimaculated Larks. The most interesting sighting of the day though was the Greater Hoopoe-Lark, with its compulsive running habit and its long downcurved bill to dig for insects inside the hard ground. We must've walked alongside this bird for a few kilometers at least. At one point, it crept inside the burrow of some other animal--perhaps a spiny-tailed lizard? Sometimes, they are known to shelter against the heat in their burrows. [source]

It was pretty hot at this point, but we stopped at a promising area with a number of Acacia trees in sandy soil. This was the right sort of habitat for the Plain Leaf Warbler, which resembles a Common Chiffchaff, except for its complete lack of green in the plumage and its peculiar call. After some time, we were lucky to have a very good sighting for several minutes.

It had been an intense day so far, but on the way back, things got even more exciting when we saw two bustards in golden evening light in full view! It could not have been a more satisfying sighting of these birds and we felt special and privileged to have seen them. We have to hope that they continue to thrive in India, and more urgent attention and money is needed for conservation efforts for these birds.

On our last day, we had but half a morning left before leaving for civilization but this yielded a glimpse of the elusive Desert Cat. We had seen the Desert Fox a couple times from the vehicle on the previous days, but the cat did not show itself again despite locating a fresh burrow on the side of the road. The Asian Desert Warbler gave us some great views from the Capparis bushes. We clicked the last few photos of Chinkara and prepared to leave.

The desert had one last surprise in store: a Punjab Raven feasting on the remains of a mongoose on the way back. It was a distinctive corvid and yet another speciality of the region. Then it was time to race back to Jodhpur to catch the train and drink the final cup of masala chai on the highway.

Our experience here showed that stereotypes about the desert as a lifeless or even treeless expanse are so misleading. Instead, one sees a complex and multi-faceted landscape where many species survive and thrive. The biodiversity of this region is probably its best kept secret; most Indians know about the desert as a place for camel-rides or as a site for Indo-Pak battles but it is so much more, and deserves to be celebrated for its natural heritage.