Showing posts with label Hugo Chavez. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hugo Chavez. Show all posts

Monday, December 3, 2007

Don't Celebrate Yet



El Presidente Hugo Chavez lost in a referendum election to change the Venezuelan Constitution and allow him to run for a third term, eliminating term limits completely. The referendum would also have allowed him to suspend the constitution whenever he felt like it. In order to garner support, the referendum also would have shortened the work-day to 6 hours and would have given pensions to street vendors and housewives.

The referendum was defeated 51% to 49% and Chavez quickly called admitted defeat and called for calm ... earning him some statesmanship points. He had promised last week to cut off oil to the United States if the referendum passed and the US objected to the outcome of the election, so I was wondering what would happen if he lost.

But do not pop the champagne corks yet, Chavez will still be in power till 2010. In that time, I'm sure that this referendum will once again (maybe twice or thrice) rear its' ugly head. It only needs to be passed one time for the possibility of a President for life. Chavez has pledged to find another way to pass his reform plans.

But for now, we can take solace in the fact that 51% of Venezuelans don't want to give up democracy. I'm thinking that it is probably a bigger number ... but Chavez underestimated how much he had to stuff the ballot box in order to win.

Sphere: Related Content

Saturday, December 1, 2007

CAFE Standards And Other Assorted Energy Stuff



An agreement among Congressional Democrats has paved the way for an increase in the CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) Standards of 40 percent to 35 miles per gallon by 2020. As a person working in the auto industry, I have always been a firm believer in letting the market dictate what kind of vehicles the consumer buys. But I am going to shock everyone by actually supporting this increase. Here are my reasons why:

  1. The United States needs to decrease its' dependence on foreign oil, and this will save over a million barrels a day.
  2. A million barrels a day at $96 a barrel equals $3.5 billion a year of our cash that we don't put into the pockets of Hugo Chavez, Armagedonijihad et al.
  3. There is enough time for our auto companies to work out the technology to accomplish this feat. In fact, with the fuel cell and advanced dual-mode hybrid technologies that General Motors is already putting into production, 40 miles per gallon is not too far away.

My problem is in a couple of other parts of this energy bill.

This bill mandates a seven-fold increase in the production of ethanol for use as a motor fuel. Are they nuts? We currently subsidize ethanol to the tune of $1.45 per gallon. With the new requirement to produce 36 billion gallons of ethanol a year by 2022, subsidies would amount to almost $54 billion of our tax dollars. We are already seeing an increase in the price of corn and meat (corn is a staple in most animal feed). With the increased farm land that would have to be dedicated to corn production, we will also see an increase in just about every farm product.

Another part of this legislation that sticks in my craw is the requirement for non-public electric utilities to produce at least 15 percent of their power from renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. I can understand the desire to slow down our use of coal. Even if you don't believe in global warming, spewing all that crap into the air just can't be good. But unless they consider the atom a renewable energy source, they aren't attempting to use the cleanest energy available.

Sphere: Related Content

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Why Won't He Listen?



I was overcome with the desire to steal this cartoon from http://irritableelephant.wordpress.com

Now that confession time is over ... have you heard the latest stupidity to come out of Hugo Chavez's mouth? El Presidente is accusing CNN of instigating his murder. Chavez has called for a probe by the Venezuela State Prosecutor and is considering a civil case against the company.

This all began when, during a CNN news broadcast, a picture of Chavez was shown with the caption "Who killed him?" written below. The caption was supposed to go with a picture of a dead football star, but during a production error (or as a result of a production assistant with a great sense of humor), the captions apparently got switched. The picture was taken down after a few seconds when the news anchor realized the error.

Well, at least we now know where Hugo Chavez gets his news. Besides El Presidente's insanity, why would he make such an idiotic claim? Well, it seems that the US government has been ignoring his statements recently, and his attacks on the King of Spain have back-fired ... so he needs somebody new to attack. An election battle is fast approaching on a referendum to allow Chavez to run for re-election indefinitely, and polls have the race at a dead heat. History has shown that whenever an election is approaching ... Chavez attacks someone to distract voters from what he is doing burnish his Nationalistic credentials.

In a related subject, the most popular ring-tone in Spain is now a recording of Spanish King, Juan Carlos yelling at Chavez, "Porque no te callas?" or "Why don't you shut up?" So far the ring-tone has made 1.5 million euros ($2.2 million), and coffee cups and t-shirt sales with the saying are really taking off.

Sphere: Related Content