The US has committed the vast resources of its military and treasury to establish democracy in Iraq. Has anyone looked at how democracy works in Venezuela? Believing in your own BS can have interesting consequences.
Chavez seeks end to term limits
By James Ingham
BBC News, Caracas
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has confirmed that he will try to change the law to allow him to remain in power indefinitely.
Under the current constitution, Mr Chavez will have to leave office at the end of his term in 2012.
But he says he wants to remain in power for as long as Venezuelans continue to support him.
The constitution is under review and Mr Chavez is expected to make changes to cement in law his socialist revolution.
'People decide'
The details have so far been kept under wraps, but Mr Chavez has confirmed what many people expected - that he will be seeking to remain in power continuously.
"It will be the people who make the final decision about how long I stay," he said on his weekly TV show Hello President.
He said this is something that happens in many European and Asian countries and that it should not be seen as a threat.
But opponents disagree. They are concerned that this could lead to abuse of power.
The new constitution will be put before parliament within the next 10 days.
Later this year, there will be a referendum allowing Venezuelans to decide whether to accept the changes.
Rollins needs to sit his LA-leftist, millionaire, candy-ass down and STFU.
ReplyDeleteWhat an idiot.
He should move to Venezuela since he thinks Chavez is such a great guy.
power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutly.
ReplyDeleteThe Venezuelaeans will vote away the freedoms, for a percepeption of security. As is their right.
We are doing it here, in the US, with nary a wimper of complaint. Those that do express displeasure with the Federal course, branded unpatriotic defeatists, or xenophobic vigilantes.
While the US continues to placate the Latin American and communists, while expressing some occasional rhetoric of displeasure.
It's the "boner" in US that allows, even encourages such feckless behaviour, like allowing poppies in Afghansistan to fund the Talabani insurecction in Pakistan and Afghanistan, if an insurection that Wahabbist moverment may be. Hard to tell whether the jihadi are at war with Pakistan's Army, or are Pakistan's Army.
Since the official motto of that 1,500,000 man force:
"Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah". Translated into English, it means "Faith, Piety, Jihad in the path of Allah"
Our best ally in the War on the Jihadi, the founders and suppliers of those self-same jihadi. Who the Pakistani now cannot find, in the mountains of Pakistan.
Here is a sad story, one that will have ash calling upon US to disarm the local police, for our safety.
ReplyDeleteThe cop shold go to prison, though, for negligent man slaughter. Such stupid RoE, in OK. To not know what was "down range" before shooting at a snake, in a tree.
That cop should be in prison, not a doubt he's both stupid and negilgent.
Obama Stands Firm on Pakistan Position
ReplyDeleteSen. Barack Obama told a group in Nevada that he was standing by earlier comments that he'd use military force to hunt down suspected terrorists in Pakistan, if America's ally failed to do so. (Aug. 6)
Mr Obama-sama sounds more and more like Mr Bush, in 2002, with everyday that passes. No wonder Ms Clinton describes him as naive.
But who here at the Bar, or amongst the reactionary right will second Obama's call to action against the jihadi. Few, if any.
Partisan politics and personal dislike, an Obama Dementia Syndrome, much like BDS strikes without concern to the victims Party or ideology.
But if someone supported the Bush rhetoric of January 2002, then Mr Obama is the man, for he has taken a up mirror image of that plan of action, calling it his own.
Give the people of Venezula, Gaza, Iran what they want, "democracy"
ReplyDeleteIn posts on arab blogs i am told that the problem is ours, we do not allow true democracy.
Personally i find majority rule to be overrated.
(since i am NEVER in the majority)
But we have done a poor job in explaining to the world what we are trying to do, the problem is that most americans dont KNOW that we LIVE in a republic, not a democracy.
One man, One vote, One time aint "D"emocracy, nor is 51% of the population voting to exterminate the other 49% .
problem is we live in a soundbite country that exists within a nano-second soundbite world!
solution? no clue, except kill the bad guys when we can, develop solutions that will make those we cannot kill irrelevant (such as a manhattan project to replace fossil fuels, not to JUST replace middle eastern oil but to render it WORTHLESS)
We have a President that seems to be more enamored with democracy than republicanism.
ReplyDeleteWhat is striking about these places (Venezuela, Gaza, etc.) is that there seems to be no opposition in existence. This is highly unnatural in a democratic system, which tends to fracture even highly similar political sentiments and into smaller voting blocs.
ReplyDelete"The Venezuelaeans will vote away the freedoms, for a percepeption of security. As is their right.
ReplyDeleteWe are doing it here, in the US, with nary a wimper of complaint. Those that do express displeasure with the Federal course, branded unpatriotic defeatists, or xenophobic vigilantes."
[...]
"But we have done a poor job in explaining to the world what we are trying to do, the problem is that most americans dont KNOW that we LIVE in a republic, not a democracy.
One man, One vote, One time aint "D"emocracy, nor is 51% of the population voting to exterminate the other 49%."
Voting ourselves into bondage because we unlearned the teachings of the Founding Fathers.
We chide the Venezuelans for falling for the utopian lies of one megalomaniac, but the utopian lies of our 537 megalomaniacs are much more "democratic".
The Fruits of New Labour
ReplyDelete4000 Brits a week are leaving the home isles for AUS, CAN and South Africa.
The rats voted themselves a socialist system. Now the ship is sinking and they are leaving.
I hope people in the US are seeing the UK as test site for what happens when you start to believe the BS that is socialism.
"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Obama said.
ReplyDelete************************************
This is already the policy, Rat, for the high value targets. And such is the (political) division of labor between us that under no circumstances will any high value target be (a) found by the Pakistanis or (b) killed by the Pakistanis.
So what Obama is talking about is sending in a single team for a single target for a very small fraction of a single day. Like the set up we have...under the present administration.
And that's not worth the universal health care and other mush that comes with it, now is it?
I can get a continuation of or perhaps an improvement on the current Waziristan policy, without the universal health care, thank you very much, with a Republican candidate.
ReplyDeleteHmm,..
ReplyDeleteThe congressional investigators' report indicates that the U.S. military command's records do not account for 110,000 AK-47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 pieces of body armor and 115,000 helmets. In all, it says that is about 30 percent of such equipment provided to Iraq.
Much of the discrepancy came during 2004 and 2005, when General David Petraeus was in charge of the effort to train and equip Iraq's new security forces. General Petraeus is now the top coalition commander in Iraq.
A pick me up for any Lilly-Livered Leathernecks at the bar:
ReplyDelete---
These Men Are Marines
- Steve Schippert
(USMC Ret)
Surge in Immigration Laws Around U.S.
ReplyDeleteHighly recommended, this one covers a lot of the issue.
(with a NY Times/Ivy league slant, of course)
Largest businessman requires English-only at his business, but calls those working for English-only in the village racist demagogues!
Insists he is unbiased, as he pays assembly workers $7/hour, and veterans of 20 years $10/hour!
Nobody, Hispanic or otherwise, that lives in a traditional setting appreciates 20 people living next door, along with their cars, men urinating outside (1 bathroom for 20 folks, remember) Spanish only, etc etc.
...a long time Hispanic resident asks a simple question:
ENFORCE THE FRIGGING EXISTING LAW!
to wit:
"She told me that across the street, there were 20 people living in a house no larger than hers, and that there were cars parked up and down the street and loud music late into the night.
But why not enforce housing codes, she suggests, recalling that when they first moved here in the 1980s, code enforcers would ticket homeowners who had too many people living in a house."
Too easy (racist) for modern multicult "American" Govt Employees.
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Repeat:
Original post was swept down the Marble River, and then run over by traffic from the two lane PAVED Road!
Bush and Afghan President Differ Over Iran’s Role
ReplyDeletePresident Bush pointedly disagreed with Hamid Karzai’s characterization of Iran as “a helper and a solution” today during their two-day summit.
Bridge Replacement on Fast Track
ReplyDeleteHope the Federal "experts" are able to divine why that bridge collapsed:
In just the picture below, we see one of the new Jumbo-Sized Concrete Trucks, what appears to be a load of Asphalt or gravel, a Concrete Pumping Truck, a pile of sacks of cement, pile of gravel, freshly poured concrete, and etc!
Well DUH!
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All on a corroded, worn out by Nafta, stupidly designed bridge where one failure brings down all the spans.
BRILLIANT!
...Perhaps a NASA Creation?
Funny that Mr Karzai and Mr Bush's perception of reality differ so.
ReplyDeleteSame as with Mr Maliki.
Mr Bush and his allies, they just cannot agree upon who the "enemy" is.
Check out Reocon's comment at Belmont.
ReplyDeleteThe Brooklyn Bridge stands strong at well over a hundred, built before more clever engineer/bureaucrats took over.
ReplyDeleteReporting rhetoric as fact, keeps US laughin', giggles and grins all around.
ReplyDeleteAnother funny, at BC, the acknowledgement that if the Iraqi militias have weapons from Iran, then Iran is guilty of stoking the violence in Iraq.
Compared to the abject denial that if the PKK is utilizing US weapons then the US bears responsibility for the actions of those terrorists.
Differing standards of behaviour and guilt, depending upon the suspect. Just hubris, I guess.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHot Air Video: The speech that CAIR didn’t want you to hear
ReplyDelete---
Is Al-Qaeda terrorism "jihad martyrdom" or "irhabi" lawlessness?
During the question period after my notorious YAF talk last Thursday, it came up again: one of the students asked if we weren't conferring legitimacy on Osama and Co. by calling them jihadists instead of something like mufsidoon: evildoers.
That is just one small indication of how influential this idea has become -- and of course it enjoys great influence in the State Department.
Now one of its foremost proponents, a man named Jim Guirard, who called me up a few hours ago and spent a great length of time trying to convince me to get on board with this idea, writes in its defense in Accuracy In Media.
He's responding to this excellent column by Walid Phares, about which I commented at some length here.
Guirard affects a cutesy, folksy writing style, beginning with the three question marks and hapax legoumenon he uses in his title,
"Is AQ-style Terrorism 'Jihadi Martyrdom' or 'Irhabi Murderdom' ???"
Perhaps it is unsporting or invincibly crabbed of me to note such a thing, but I must say I found it incongruous that a man who has the Pentagon's ear and confers with the highest American military officials writes like a lovestruck teenage girl.
With all his cuteness and misspellings, Guirard seems practically to be begging not to be taken seriously. But since he is taken seriously, and his ideas are taken seriously, they are worth dealing with again.
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South Carolina: 2 Muslims charged with felonies in explosives scare
Megahed and Mohamed
Update. "2 charged with felonies in explosives scare; Authorities tightlipped on what was found in car," by Noah Haglund and Andy Paras for the Charleston News and Courier (thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist):
GOOSE CREEK — Two men pulled over Saturday in Goose Creek and detained for carrying explosives in the trunk of a car have been charged with possession of an incendiary device, Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt announced today.
Misspelling in the age of word processers, doug, for hard copy publication, is purposeful.
ReplyDeleteAt a Bar, it's just like a conversation, but for serious publication, purposeful.