Another of Those Posts that My Mother Would Disapprove

Wouldn't you just love to be a fly on the wall of the hospital room where this picture was taken!  Hugo and those Krazy Kastro Boyz!  Ol' Hugo was even sporting his favorite track suit!

Being southern, my Mama always admonished me to hold my tongue if I couldn't say something nice about someone. Ordinarily, being southern myself, I heed that admonition.  But, there are just some folks that set my tongue to wagging, and Hugo Chavez is one of them.

Pepper forwarded me this link in an email this afternoon:

"From all available reports, Hugo Chavez is in critical condition in a hospital in Cuba. The Venezuelan communist dictator was taken to Cuba several weeks ago for an emergency surgery regarding pelvic swelling, which has led many to speculate that he is dealing with prostate cancer.

In the irony of ironies, Hugo Chavez was faced with the decision to have to leave his own nation, and the health care system that was supposed to be an example for other nations, to receive care from another questionable health care system in Cuba."

In the "Subject" line, he titled the email, "Apparently God Has a Sense of Humor."

It would appear so, indeed.

In my reply I suggested that he get together a group of retired Blackwater guys, invade Venezuela, and storm the golf courses to take them back from "the people" before Chavez comes home.  I haven't heard from him in awhile.  Hmmm, I wonder.  I'd better go check whether any of the jungle camo uniforms are missing . . . .

Venezuela Kills Off Its Next-to-Last Functioning Brain Cell

Today I have offered up a genuine prayer of thanksgiving.  I am truly thankful that I do not live in Venezuela.

What are they thinking?!?!  Who among the Venezuelan citizenry cannot appreciate that by giving him another decree power the Congress has set Chavez up as a despot -- a dictator with royalty envy -- before the opposition gains a foothold in January.  And who in his right mind could possibly want to achieve such a thing?!?! 

Next they'll change his title to Emperor.  We'll just have to call him Napoleon "Dynamite" Chavez.

Seriously.  He has declared the banking industry to be a "public service," has expropriated private property without compensation, and is now turning his eye toward regulation of the internet.  AP reports:

The law to grant Chavez decree powers, the fourth such legislation of his nearly 12-year presidenccy [sic], also will allow him to unilaterally enact measures involving telecommunications, the banking system, information technology, the military, rural and urban land use, and the country's "socio-economic system."




Among the planned decrees already announced, Chavez intends to increase the value-added tax, now 12 percent, to raise funds for coping with the disaster caused by weeks of heavy rains. The government is erecting tents to house thousands left homeless and is accelerating public housing construction.

But, NappyDyn doesn't view this latest power grab as setting himself up as a Cuban-style dictator.  He just wants benevolent control of Venezuela's entire "socio-economic system."  More details at Fausta's Blog.

I guess the denizens of the Star Wars saga didn't see it that way at first, either.

We'd better watch our backs until 2012.  I can think of someone else who might like to add a laurel wreath headpiece to his Nobel medal via appropriation of the banking industry, the energy industry, the healthcare system, the . . . .

Oops.

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.

Hugo Chavez: Economist and Unfortunate Fashionista

Not only do we have to worry about Dear Ol' Leader Kim Jung Il's threats, now the A.P. reports that Venezuelan "president" Hugo Chavez is rattling his very own saber. He told an adoring throng yesterday, "If there is any armed aggression against Venezuela from Colombian territory or anywhere supported by the Yankee empire, we . . . would suspend shipments of oil to the United States! . . . . We wouldn't send another drop of oil to its refineries, not a single drop more!"

Of course, that brutal embargo would send Venezuela's "thriving" economy further into the tank and could have the unexpected consequence of jump-starting our own American oil industry -- you know, that oil industry that's now languishing around in the in the Obama Gulf Doldrums.

Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing after all -- winter's just around the corner, and it should be heating oil season by the time election day rolls around. A nice shiver might shake some sense into some of those enviro-nut moratorium fans who can't see the energy forest for the oil spill tree.

Insofar as our neighbors to the south go, I'm not sure who's the bigger nutcake -- Hugo, Daniel O. who also rattled a saber at Colombia today, or those Krazy Kastro Boyz (now that Honduras has finally thrown Zelaya out of office).

One thing I do know -- I hope neither Michelle nor the Young President hooks up with Hugo's fashion designer. The resulting Obamaesque Imperial trappings and accouterments could be frightening. But really sparkly -- we could see the Young Prez sporting his Nobel on a fancy sash like Hugo's! And maybe his "necklace" could be made from the bottle caps from his beer summits!

Based on her fashion-past, though, I fear to contemplate what Michelle might dare to wear.

What is it with the belts nowhere near her natural waist?


And the horizontal stripes where horizontal stripes don't belong?


Okay -- I'll give her the see-through top, but . . . .

Egad.

Venezuela in Jeopardy

I've tried to keep it from him for as long as I can, but my husband may now be painting camo on his face and dusting off his jungle BDUs for a covert invasion of Venezuela.

He can sort of tolerate the state taking over television and radio stations. He can barely tolerate Chavez sucking up to the Castro brothers and demonizing Honduras. He can even kind of tolerate the newest cozy relationship among Venezuela and other OPEC nations.

But this he cannot tolerate: Hugo Chavez has declared golf to be a bourgeois non-sport played by lazy elitists, and anything but a "peoples' sport." Nine courses have been nationalized and closed so far.

I've done all that I can, people of Venezuela; I can't restrain him any longer. You'd better follow Cuba's lead of wooing golf tourists, get rid of Chavez, or prepare to face the consequences wrought by the Golf Avenger. You're on your own.