Happy Days Are Here Again

1)
Suicide rates in the US Army are at a high. A 26 year high. That's since shortly after Vietnam, early in the Reagan years, during the height of the Cold War.

That's when I was in school, learning to jump underneath my desk to protect me from the almost inevitable nuclear blast and its radioactive after-effects.

Last year, there was "a significant relationship between suicide attempts and the number of days deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan or nearby countries where troops were participating in the war effort," according to the Washington Post article.

Now, only a quarter of the suicides (about 100 in all) were of those deployed in Iraq. But still, the growing strains this is taking on our military, our troops, our economy (the cost is gAstronomically high to maintain this effort), not to mention the cost we've battered on the Iraqis... I just think it all adds up to one enumeration:

Get our troops out now!

But, that's just my opinion. (How about Iraqi bloggers? They have opinions. too, interestingly enough.)

2)
You know, despite all the hoopla, I was just not caring either for or against President Hugo Chavez. In some respects, honestly, I at least admired his chutzpah, standing up against big oil consumerist America while selling it big oil.

But this new call to end term-limits for Venezuelan presidents is... familiar. Like I've heard these words before: "It's not that I want to enthrone myself"... "This is a transfer of power to the people"... private property owners risked confiscation if their operations "damaged" communities... Critics charge that by creating federal districts and giving new power to the communal councils, the populist president seeks to bypass governors and mayors and extend his personal power.

Yeah, Cuba and China all over again. Not to mention countless Central American and African despot rulers who started out with similar people-based promises.

Thank God this one's rule is over in eight years.

3)
Idjits. Gotta love 'em. And their vote.


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