Thursday, May 18, 2006

All in a day’s work in the revolution ---Deputy Iris Varela will sue Colombia’s President Uribe in international human rights courts for protecting the Colombian paramilitary. Makes sense, relations between the two countries are going too well lately. ---Nicaragua’s Liberal’s party rejects oil agreement between PDVSA and Sandinista mayors, saying that it will make the Sandinista Mayors rich and is a violation of the law. The law? You expect revolutionaries to follow the law? (They do know they get rich and wear fancy glasses over in Nicaragua) ---Inhabitants of Paraguana participated in an exercise of asymmetric war in which the soon to be sold F-16’s participated. There you go; this makes it very clear that the Government and the military have their priorities straight in how they spend their money and their time. My only question is: If the F-16’s are sold will the war be called super-asymmetric or hyper-asymmetric? (Note: The soldiers really did not take part in the exrecize, the pictures is here to scare the gringoes and make the Venezuelans laugh) ---The man with the two jobs, one with the Government as its official spokesman as Minister of Information and the other as official spokesman of Chavez ‘MVR political party said that “not one cent of the Nation will be spent on Chavez’ political campaign”. Jeez, they make it so easy, that I don’t know which of the following to use: 1) Starting when? 2) Weren’t you the one that said that the Maisanta database (Chascon database) does not exist only two days ago? 3) Isn’t your nickname Pinocchio? 4) Should I start a counter every time public funds are used on the campaign? (It would soon make my number of visitors look puny) 5) Does the budget belong to the Nation or the party? ---Below is my own schematic of Chavez looking at the construction of the second Ciudad Bolivar Bridge which has been stalled since last fall, despite all of the funds being paid and all the money spent. I heard today it is still stalled. They told him it is the Caracas-La Guaira viaduct replacement which was almost ready ---Venezuela wins world championship of dominoes. Well, dominoes and baseball are just about two of the few things we are very good at, even if we had the home court advantage, which we all know is very important in dominoes. The question is: Did Chavez play? 8:12:44 PM    comment []

In from the cold: Can Venezuela really unload the F-16's? Via RogerSimon, I get to this apparently very knowlegable take by In from the Cold on the possible sale of Venzuela's F-16's: "Well, if those countries want continued access to U.S. military hardware, they can't afford to get caught in an illegal arms transfer involving a pariah state. True, there are some exceptions to this rule (Israel's transfer of F-16 technology to China in the Lavi/F-10 program comes to mind), but it's doubtful that any current U.S. customer--especially those with a desire for future arms sales--would accept the risks entailed in supporting an illegal sale of the Venezuelan jets." "Additionally, the Iranians and Cubans already have access to fourth-generation fighter technology, thanks to their acquisition of MiG-29 FULCRUMs from Russia. The FULCRUMs y in the Iranian and Cuban inventories are, in some ways, more sophisticated than the early-generation F-16s that Hugo is trying to unload. Iran and Cuba have something else in common, too: both have had difficulty in keeping their FULCRUMs in the air, despite full access to Russian training and technical support. Without similar assistance for the F-16s, those jets would become little more than ramp decorations at some Iranian or Cuban base, slowly rusting in the sun." "Mr. Chavez may be having a fire sale down at the ol' used fighter lot, but he's going to find a dearth of serious buyers, even among our adversaries." "One year from now, you're likely to find Hugo's F-16s in the same spot they currently occupy--on the tarmac at a Venezuelan Air Force base." 5:59:48 PM    comment []