chicot

I see. So democratically elected governments, even if they were elected with a mandate to nationalize these companies, are not supposed to nationalize them because to do so would somehow be undemocratic?! Bizarre.

There is such a thing?

Hah! No way that I could think of

Fair comment about the TV station licence but how exactly are his nationalization plans an attack on democracy? And I know that anything associated with the name "Carter" is automatically derided on this board, which is why I didn't mention the Carter centre. There were also observers from the OAS and EU.

Most unexpected would have to be a gorgeous blonde I played in a quickplay chess tournament a few years back (As far as I can tell, females are only interested in chess before puberty or after retirement age). Unfortunately, I had made a terrible start to the tournament and was in no mood to go easy on her, no matter how hot she was. She lost in about 5 minutes and 15 moves and seemed a bit embarrassed about it. Later, I saw her surrounded by a mob of lusting chess geek-types ...

Never said his new powers were "fine and dandy", but I still think that announcing the death of Venezuelan democracy is somewhat premature. I also think all this ranting and raving about Chavez undermining democracy is highly hypocritical when there was no such outcry when his democratically elected government was almost forced out by a military coup in 2002. For some reason, the media, even the US government seemed to regard that as some sort of "victory for democracy"?! I guess military coups are all fine and dandy as long as they get rid of elected governments that the US doesn't like. Reporting the 2002 coup attempt As for his socialist bullsh--, it's very easy for people enjoying a high standard of living in the US to pour scorn on Chavez's social reforms. I think, however, that if you happened to be a Venezuelan peasant receiving access to decent healthcare and education for the first time, you may see things somewhat differently. In fact, it's quite likely you'd be placing an "X" next to the name of Chavez at the ballot box (there is actually a reason why Chavez enjoys massive support amongst the poor).

"Fischer noted that the process the OAS monitored saw a 75% voter turnout and noted that this represented “a high percentage of citizen participation, considering that in Venezuela the vote is not mandatory.” He affirmed that this is “a clear result that determines President Chávez as the winner, with an open recognition of the same by the opposition candidate, Governor Rosales." OAS report on Venezuelan elections Is it so impossible to believe that maybe, just maybe, quite a few Venezuelans actually want Chavez to be their president?

If you're going to post sarcastic one-line comments, don't be suprised by a one-line sarcastic comment reply Which of Chavez's numerous election victories were "shams"?

Yeah, because Chavez can be compared to Stalin

Dictator level powers? Has he abolished elections then?

Hopefully, we never get to find out.

Obviously, if you can prevent the flying sharks with lasers from being launched in the first place then you have no problem. However, this idiot is not quite as confident as you seem to be that that is necessarily a given.

But would the Phalanx system be able to handle a Sunburn flying at mach 3?

I may be wrong, but my recollection of the Falklands war is that the Argentinians simply ran out of exocets - I think they only had five to begin with.

Good grief. I never claimed to be an expert in military matters. I freely admit that you know more about this sort of thing than I do. No need for you to go nuts. I'm sure the US Navy does have defenses against anti-ship missile strikes. However, technology has moved on since World War II. The British navy had defences during the Falklands war too, but they were found to be not all that effective against exocets. It may be (don't throw a fit - I'm just suggesting this, not stating it to be a cast-iron fact) that the US Navy defences may turn out to be not so effective against the latest Russian anti-ship missiles. The link that yall provided stated that the carriers were being deployed to "the Gulf" not the Arabian Sea (again, calm down - I'm just stating what I read).

True, but don't you think it would be a bit complacent to assume that Iran, having spent the money to acquire state-of-the-art anti-ship missiles, wouldn't have bothered to find out how to use them properly as well?

"I didn't call it an insurgency, because it is mostly foreigners doing it, not Iraqis. " No, that's just plain wrong.

Wasn't sure whether the US had or not, but in that case they will have to worry about Iran's anti-ship missiles.

Where would the US launch it's aircraft from? If it plans to sail a fleet into the gulf then it needs to worry about Iran's anti-ship missiles (SN 22 Sunburns as well as hundreds of exocets). If it's going to use bases in neighbouring countries then I think it would need those countries permission as well as the permission of countries whose airspace they were overflying.

The US support of the Contras is slightly more recent than the battle of Hastings. If they captured them and executed them in cold blood, then that is indeed different. However, the quote you provided just says they were killed "in a deadly ambush". I think troops being killed in an ambush (and most especially when they are occupying another country) would certainly come under the definition of "combat deaths". I think you're being somewhat unrealistic if you honestly believe the US can completely cripple Iran militarily without many civilian deaths, though I suppose that would depend on what your definition of "many" is.

"Lit the f*ck up like a Christmas tree". So how many Iranian civilians would you like to see killed as retaliation for an attack that killed five US soldiers? Five hundred? Five thousand? Five million? Assuming Iran is supporting Iraqi rebels, it is not doing anything the US has not done many times in many different countries for decades. Should the US have been "lit up like a Christmas tree" for their support of the Contras in Nicaragua? Silly me, I forgot that when the US does this sort of thing it's "good", whereas if anyone else does it, it's "evil".

So easy to be tough on the internet.

They're not disagreeing with him because they're answering a different question. You can say that the elections were a "success" but still think that the situation was better before the invasion, because of the present lack of security. Elections are all well and good but the problem of being killed if you leave your house (or perhaps even if you stay there) tends to be a somewhat more immediate concern.

Her fiance would certainly be suprised if he found out how she managed to get those tickets!

Molson's has cost less lives though.