Resurgent Royalty and Declining Socialism on the International Front

Interesting developments in the international arena.  Venezuela and North Korea have held elections! 

Sort of.

While Venezuela's fashion-plate "president" Chavez is trying to spin the results of last weekend's legislative elections, it looks like the good people of Venezuela (at least, those without government jobs and those who have their own food sources)  have grown weary of living under a virtual dictatorship.  I suspect that they have grown wearier still of socialism and government-run everything, including media outlets and golf courses.  Hugo sported a snazzy track suit as he cast his ballot, but I expect he'll be shifting  to "statesman" attire PDQ as he strains to re-position the stranglehold he has held on the good people of his oil-rich nation -- you know, the ones who have no control over their own lives.

North Korea, on the other hand, apparently having come to like living in poverty under a multi-generational dictatorship, has tacitly approved turning its government into a modern monarchy.  "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Il has revealed his heir-apparent, a 28-ish, newly frocked 4-star General and vice chairman of the Central Military Commission: youngest son, Kim Jong Un the Unknown.  Daddy Kim's sister and her husband will serve as "regents" until the backsides of Baby Kim's ears dry out.  If it walks like a monarchy and quacks like a monarchy, I'd say that it's a fat royal duck.  Even feudal, maybe.

I told Pepper that he obviously had the wrong bloodline -- his military career could've been so much easier if his father could've just signed off on a pay grade quantum leap like Daddy Dear Leader did for Baby Unknown.

I can't say that I'm terribly comfortable with the Korean Nukes being under the control of a twenty-something egomaniac NorK.


You gotta wonder what Japan and China are thinking.  Especially Japan.