Friday, April 11, 2008

Chavez pitches Africa on Nationalizing the Oil Industry

 
Venezuela's deputy foreign minister has counseled African governments to emulate Venezuela and nationalize the oil industry.

...Reinaldo Bolivar speaking in Senegal has advised African nations to nationalize their oil resources in order to fight poverty and follow the example of Venezuela.

Africa currently produces 15% of the world’s oil and according to Bolivar “Africa's oil is plundered by multinationals: they sell it very expensively even here" he suggested that by pooling resources Africa could supply its own market.

Bolivar went on to say "There are some things for (African countries) to learn: the principal of nationalization of our basic industries, our natural resources in Venezuela, is something we consider necessary for our riches to benefit the people..."

Rather than look to Chavez' failed economy -- which has nationalized the oil, steel, and cement industries, to name but a few -- Africans should closely examine Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. Mugabe nationalized a far simpler enterprise than oil: land use for farming. The result was an utter disaster.

Mugabe's land reform program was supposed to redistribute among poor blacks large commercial farms owned by about 4,500 whites that covered 80 percent of Zimbabwe's best land. Instead, he used the farms to extend his patronage system, giving them to ruling party leaders, security chiefs, relatives and friends.

Zimbabwe had been a major food exporter until then, but its agricultural sector collapsed and the economy started unraveling. Today, a third of Zimbabweans depend on international food handouts, and another third have fled abroad looking for work or political asylum...

AlertNet adds:

Zimbabwe is in the grip of its worst humanitarian crisis since independence. Twenty years ago the country was hailed as an African success story and dubbed the "breadbasket" of southern Africa. Now its economy is in tatters and the World Food Programme (WFP) estimates a third of the population faces food shortages...

...Zimbabwe now has one of the lowest life expectancies in the world and one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates. Just under 25 percent of people aged 15-49 are HIV-positive, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

And with the economy in shreds, unemployment is running at an estimated 70 percent. Inflation is also rampant, standing at 164.3 percent in the year to June 2005...

Yes, it's another success story for socialism!

And remember: when Democrats advocate ever greater government control -- of the oil industry or increased taxes -- they are putting America on the road to economic disaster.

How many case studies do we need before Democrats get the point?

Why women live longer than men: a photo essay

 
A man stands on a bucket supported by a ladder. Stability is assured by the other man -- also standing on a ladder -- who holds the bucket.

The odds of all these connections all being right? About the same odds that Jean-Claude Van Damme will pick up an Oscar next year.

Doesn't look like anything can go wrong here.

It's not a violation of the seatbelt laws if it's a dead body.

Yes, that's a canoe sitting unsecured in a moving flatbed truck. And the occupant isn't wearing a life preserver.

I hope this excavation was worth it. Like digging up platinum-covered diamonds for instance.

Trucks are overrated.



These must be the same guys who did the junction box.

Who needs a jack when we've got rocks?

Note the sign that says Clearance (inset). Maybe it was too high to be read.

The force of the bungee cord is strong with you, my son.

Hey, there was no warning sign on the bridge that said trucks not allowed!

Hey, there was no warning sign on the chair that said not to stick my head through it!

Here's the plan: you hold it real still while I pound it in with a sledgehammer while standing on the 'dozer.

New stackable bucket-ladder from Ronco!

And they say women are bad drivers?

Heavy Duty Chainsaws: they're not just for experienced professionals any more!

Hat tip: Sean

Larwyn's Link Explosion: "You, sir, should be NOT running this committee!"

 
Dan Rather says I'd Probably Just Sit Here And Drink" If I Had To Read CNN's News: does that mean Rather's given up huffing glue? Well, I just figured he huffed glue because that would be about the only substance powerful enough to convince him he could foist the Bush Air National Guard scam on the American people.

Obama's other spiritual mentor and the Catholic Church: Christopher Hitchens uncovered a years old newspaper article in which the candidate named "three spiritual mentors or counselors: Jeremiah Wright, James Meeks, and Father Michael Pfleger."

Has global warming stopped?: "The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly." Related news: ICECAP discusses the Wilkins Ice Sheet break-up.

A well-meaning, liberal Philanthropist makes a stunning discovery.

Code Stink gets kicked out of the Petraeus hearing by Slow Joe Biden, no less (that won't please MorOn.org). Hilarious dialogue: "You, sir, should be NOT running this committee! ...Did you hear me speak? Did... you... hear... me... speak??"

Michelle Obama Describes American Gleichschaltung. Gesundheit!

• Saudi Cleric Muhammad Al-Munajid Warns: Freedom of Speech Might Lead to Freedom of Belief. Indeed it might.

Vogel and Krauthammer

 
In Germany, parliament marked the destruction of the democracy by the Nazis in 1933.

Germany's parliament on Thursday remembered the Nazis' swift destruction of democracy after Adolf Hitler took power 75 years ago, and paid tribute to those lawmakers who held out against the Nazis' drive to extinguish political opposition... Hans-Jochen Vogel, 82, a former justice minister and Social Democratic leader:

"Those who look away and just shrug their shoulders weaken democracy; those who speak up strengthen it."

"Never again: that should be the decisive motto for today..."

Meanwhile, Charles Krauthammer's latest echoes Vogel's point.

...Bush should issue the following declaration, adopting Kennedy’s language while changing the names of the miscreants:

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear attack upon Israel by Iran, or originating in Iran, as an attack by Iran on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon Iran.

This should be followed with a simple explanation: “As a beacon of tolerance and as leader of the free world, the United States will not permit a second Holocaust to be perpetrated upon the Jewish people.”

This policy — the Holocaust Declaration — would establish a firm benchmark that would outlive this administration. Every future president — and every serious presidential candidate — would have to publicly state whether or not he supports the Holocaust Declaration...

...For the first time since the time of Jesus, Israel is the home of the world’s largest Jewish community. An implacable enemy has openly declared genocidal intentions against it — in clear violation of the U.N. charter — and is pursuing the means to carry out that intent. The world does nothing. Some, like the Russians, are literally providing fuel for the fire.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

It's all in the party affiliation

 
Another instant-classic from Red Planet Cartoons:

Update: The Real Revo has the Chart o' the Day.

Hat tips: Anchoress and Larwyn

L.A. Mayor warns Feds against immigration raids

 
I'm no attorney, but isn't illegal immigration illegal? Apparently not -- as far as philandering L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is concerned. L.A.'s Daily Breeze reports:

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is asking federal officials to rethink their policy on workplace immigration crackdowns that involve established businesses and to focus on employers that mistreat workers instead.

The mayor said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that work-site raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement could have "severe and long-lasting effects" on the local economy, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday... ICE made more than 4,900 work-site arrests nationwide in fiscal 2007, a 45-fold increase over the number in 2001, authorities said.

More than 130 undocumented workers were arrested at a San Fernando Valley manufacturing company in February and over 60 workers were arrested for immigration violations at South Bay-area warehouses last week...

Villaraigosa accused federal officials of targeting "established, responsible employers" in industries that rely on "workforces that include undocumented immigrants... In these industries, including most areas of manufacturing, even the most scrupulous and responsible employers have no choice but to rely on workers whose documentation, while facially valid, may raise questions about their lawful presence..."

I wonder which laws the mayor chooses to enforce. Do citizens get to pick?

The Olbermann Gambit

 
Note: CBS has put the entire original Star Trek series online. I could think of nothing better to with it than this. Yes, I am a loser.

* * *


Captain's log, stardate one thousand, seven hundred forty-four point two and one-third.


During a routine patrol of the Gateway Nebula, we have discovered a strange ship broadcasting a powerful signal, the content of which has defied logic and reason.


Lt. Uhura, open hailing frequencies.


Aye aye, sir!

...Sir, a signal's coming through. I'll put it on-screen.


Well, well, well... if isn't Captain Kirk, the fascist war-monger?


Keith Olbermann? In an NBC Space Station? If we really were fascists, you'd already be atomized and floating in the Larwyn Particle Field.


Always quick with the... words, aren't you, Mr. Word... Quicker...? And I see you're still accompanied by your First Mate, Commander Spock. The brains behind your throne... the real Captain... the puppet-master... the master-planner...


We get the picture, Olby.


And another neocon, just like you. And he, too, landed a cushy Starship job and both of you avoided serving in the Space Infantry during the Bug Wars of '16.


Er, we serve in Starfleet, Olbermann, not with the Space Marines.


No matter, Kirk, the time for talk is done. It is time for me to unleash my greatest weapon...


Captain! Sensors indicate the NBC ship is powering all of its circuits on... preparing for something...


...


Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.


Its five-year mission to understand liberalism. Or progressivism. Or whatever it's called these days.


To seek out intelligence among the left.


To boldly go... where no sane person has gone before!

...

Captain! Sensors indicate the NBC ship is powering all of its circuits on... preparing for something...


Yes, that's right, Kirk. I'm turning my hit galactic show into a non-stop campaign commercial for Barack Obama...


Doesn't The O'Instapundit Factor get five times the HV viewers and ten times the number of subscribers to its holographic RSS podcast?


Enough! Obama will be the next President of the United Federation of Planets, thanks to me, and I will control him!


Not if I can help it, Olbermann.


Ha! Check your approval levels, Captain...


Captain! Our approval levels are sinking...


It's only a matter of time until they'll be unrecoverable.


Yes, that's right, Captain. All of us original space media types have agreed to collaborate... positioning your war on the Romulans as a "War-for-Dilithium-Crystals".


You know as well as I do that the Romulans attacked us first... an unprovoked attack, I might add.


But it was the Federation's involvement with Izar, which was right in the middle of Romulan territory, that ticked them off!


Olbermann, you're still as deranged as ever. We were at war with the Romulans hundreds of years before the Izaris colonized their tiny desert planet. And, then, they simply asked for our help. No one seemed to want that planet; nor did anyone come to the aid of the Izaris... until we stepped up. The entire Izari people would have perished had we not done so.

But go ahead and rewrite history. I've caught your broadcast before and you seem to be good at it.


Enough! You can't possibly stop me now...


Can't I? I may have an Ace up my sleeve. Mr. Spock, Mr. Scott, Dr. McCoy, report to the transporter room immediately and execute plan HR-69.


I anticipated your order and am already here, Cap'n, with the HR-69 package.


Excellent, Mr. Scott. Make sure the package is in suitable shape and then execute the plan.


Beaming the package to the NBC Space Station now, sir


What the hell are you up to, Kirk?


Just dropping off one of your dearest old friends to help you with your broadcast. The next supply ship will be here in two years, arriving from Surber 12. So I'm sure you'll enjoy each other's company 'til then.


But... but... you can't... you can't... leave me here with...


Oh, I can and I will, Olbermann. Enjoy the next two years listening to someone as whacked out as you are.


But I won't stand for this... I'll file a protest... I --


Kirk out.


Quite an elegant solution, Captain. Sticking two different kinds of moonbats together... that might cure them of their progressivism.

But you may have forgotten one tiny detail.


What's that, Mr. Spock?


What happens if they procreate?



Linked by: Denny at GOC and Don Surber. Thanks!