Rick Raw: Chavez Seizes Control of Judiciary–Tin-horn Dictator Turning Venezuela into Cuba

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

That little commie tyrant, Hugo Chavez threw respected Judge Maria Lourdes Afiuni in jail when she made a ruling Chavez didn’t like–effectively seizing control of the judiciary. This is another step in Chavez’s campaign to turn Venezuela into a Cuba-like banana republic, where everyone is equal–wallowing in poverty-- while El Presidente lives the high life.

Not surprisingly, Chavez’s idol is Fidel Castro. In his last visit to Cuba, Chavez kissed Castro on the lips, like he was in love with the aged Marxist. It was a disgusting display of hero worship by

Castro’s yapping lap dog, Chavez the power monger.

Jailing the tenured judge for freeing a political prisoner is yet another example of Chavez’s iron grip on this once prosperous democracy with vast oil resources. After his election, Chavez nationalized the oil industry, which killed free flowing profit motivation by private companies.

Since my sister-in-law lives in Caracas, Venezuela, I take a more active interest in the politics of this country. She has lived in Caracas for 45 years and has seen the country steadily go down hill under Chavez’s rule. She writes my wife Elaine (her sister) and me with regular updates on the latest outrage committed by the communist tyrant with a nasty barking mouth. Last month they had a water shortage.

Funny, Hugo Chavez’s reign of power can be compared to that piece of crap car, The Hugo as being a complete cheap-ass disaster. The wily Chavez got elected by the poor majority that thought he would help them overcome their poverty.

Like other dictators in history, it was a trick. Now poverty is all these people will ever know without self-determination to start businesses for profit. Chavez’s idol Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, he demanded complete control of private industry, courts, press, and all other personal freedoms. These tyrants are all the same.

In 2007, Chavez attempted to consolidate his power by a sweeping overhaul of the country’s constitution, eliminating term limits, limiting the central bank’s autonomy, and other sinister measures to assure he could hold power indefinitely.

The original referendum was defeated. However, in 2009, Chavez won a referendum to eliminate term limits. The bellicose Chavez wasted no time eliminating freedoms of expression, press, imposing political intimidation, and engaging in human rights abuses.

Clearly, throwing judges in prison is an egregious human rights violation. What about the UN’s position on Chavez’s power grabbing initiatives? Well, the UN is quiet on the matter but the European Parliament passed a February 2010 resolution expressing "concern about Chavez’s movement towards ‘authoritarianism’ (a euphemism for dictatorship)."

The world should wake up and smell the vile odor of Chavez’s Castro-styled paradigm shift to total authority and his divorce from democracy to establishing a Marxist state. Chavez’s iron grip on the judiciary is the most serious loss of freedom. Judges will be puppets of Chavez’s desires to silence opposition and fill up his jails with political prisoners.

More distressing is Chavez’s secret intelligence service (Gestapo) that has arrested dozens of anti-government protesters and opposition leaders in recent months. Now, with no time limits and Chavez’s sweeping powers, he has achieved his goal–to be like his idol, Fidel Castro. Their relationship was sealed with the French kiss of absolute power.

Rick Raw: NASA’s Glory Days Are Over–Obama’s Bold New Vision for US Space Program

Proposes Doing More with Less

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

When I worked for United Technologies on the Apollo Moon Landing initiative,(1965-1976) NASA had a blank check as did the private contractors. Our determination to beat the Russians to the moon and beyond drove the Space Race, with carte blanche funding. America had already been embarrassed by the Soviet Union’s launch of the first satellite, Sputnik, and sending up the first astronaut to orbit the earth.

At the time, there was real hysteria that our arch-enemy, the USSR, would use the moon and satellites as bases to blackmail us into submission. NASA became a powerful government agency literally overnight as the money poured in.

Then in 1973, after the last moon landing in 1972, NASA hit a rough patch with thousands of engineers and workers laid-off until the Space Shuttle Program geared up in 1976. The Space Coast, including Coco Beach went bust for a few years.

Today, as the Shuttle Program is nearing its end, fear of layoffs has again spread through the Cape like the plague. Presently, there is no new government funded space program to replace the Shuttle.

In his long anticipated speech last week, President Obama laid out a new vision for the U.S. space program. The ill-conceived new moon landing initiative called Constellation was axed. And despite Obama’s optimism about his new vision, his speech hit the Cape like a dumb bomb.

Nonetheless, Obama was upbeat about America’s future role in space as a cooperative venture which, ironically, includes the Russian space port to launch astronauts to the Space Station. But the future space programs will depend on private companies to build future rockets and space vehicles for deep universe exploration.

The widespread use of robotic space vehicles is the new paradigm for exploring space. If we take the human out of the space vehicle, it greatly simplifies the engineering and the cost. Sending fragile humans into space means taking care of them with food, water, and waste disposal on very long missions.

Boredom and crew conflicts could also be a serious problem on long journeys. At the present time it’s not practical. There is initial planning for a Mars mission, which will be in the far distant future.

The thing is: How can the well educated engineers and other technical support personnel working at the Cape get excited about Obama’s vision when they are facing layoffs at the worst time in recent history.

Some ex-Cape workers will find jobs with private companies, but the majority of highly trained space workers will be the newest victims of the economic apocalypse, that drags on, now in its third year.

America has always led the way in advanced engineering in space. It turned out that the USSR were technically far behind us and our anxiety over their gaining superiority was unfounded. However, we accomplished great things when money was not an object and we were driven by the Space Race with the USSR.

It’s a new dawn in today’s world of our struggling economic reality, while funding two wars, which eat up resources. Obama’s vision makes sense and NASA needs to learn to be a lean mean machine without relying on massive funding. In other words, if NASA is to survive, it has to become more like a private company than a government agency.

Private companies are already leading the way into space. Billionaire entrepreneur, Richard Branson’s private space company will soon launch paying customers into space to feel zero gravity and get a spectacular view of earth.

When cost and competition become the driving motivation in building future spacecraft, it will produce amazing results. In the future, the Space Shuttle will be viewed as the Model A of space travel-- a big clunky space truck and a relic of past government overspending.

Rick Raw: iPods and The Internet Dilute Significance of Popular Music

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

During the late 1960s and 1970s, popular music was driven by the counter culture rock movement, led by Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and Neil Young. Today, the preponderance of alt-rock bands and aspiring singer/songwriters has overwhelmed the public’s ability to absorb it all.

Now anyone can join any of the paid music download sites like Rhapsody for $12.99 per month and check out any artist, listen to their latest music, and download it for a price. Yes, I use it and its great for checking out new artists. I used it much more when I was writing at least two music reviews every week. Nonetheless, it’s a boon to me and other entertainment journalists.

Back in counterculture era, when records were recorded on vinyl and the rock revolution was driven by exceptionally talented artists, listening to music was a sacred ritual. My friends and I would get the latest Bob Dylan or Beatle album, giddy with anticipation. We’d have a get-together to listen to the album, which always exceeded our expectations. Then we’d discuss it, smoke some marijuana until nothing we said made any sense. But an album release was a hip happening of the highest order.

Of course, there are those that would argue that the massive proliferation of pot smoking during that time fueled the movement. I disagree! It would have happened anyway because of the natural pendulum movement from the conservative 1950s to the beatnik awakening in 1960, and then the hippie subculture of the mid-1960s through the mid 1970s. I call it the swinging pendulum paradox.

The entire counterculture movement revolved around the evolution of rock’s unshackled creative renaissance. It was the voice of change as resistance to the war in Vietnam began to heat up and morph into the angry Anti-Vietnam War movement. Men grew their hair long in protest. Even bankers and lawyers had Beatle bangs.

Today, the pervasive iPods connected to the ears of just about everyone has pushed music into quasi-background music. Now music has lost its significance at stimulating new ideas and become part of a person’s private environment. The music is readily available for download on iTunes. There is no album release anticipation.

The Internet is saturated with new music. Anyone with a guitar and a song can produce an album and launch it on the Internet. Granted some of those artists have achieved fame just from their popular Internet sites, but that is the exception not the rule.

Every kid in suburbia has his or her own garage band with an album. It’s a right of passage for teenagers. Get the kid a Stratocaster and an amp in one box for Christmas. (It’s true, I saw the Fender box set at George’s Music.) For bonafide talented songwriters, it’s almost impossible to get noticed in the din of unmitigated musical dung on the Internet.

For at least five years back in the 1990s, brainy college students figured out how to download music for free, ripping off artists for millions of dollars before these sites were shutdown and the punks sharing the stolen music were prosecuted.

In today’s world, established artists’ new albums do not go gold or platinum right away, and they depend on touring to make money. Of course, a handful of mega-stars’, like Bob Dylan, catalogues are still commercially active. Occasionally, one of his older albums goes gold or platinum from catalogue sales.

Country music is still living in the past of radio play driving hits and albums. Country music artists nurture their fans more than rock or pop artists to keep their place in the king of the mountain game. Country stars stay after their gigs to sign autographs and chat with their fans. However, in country music, staying around more than one album and to continue creating hit music is the trick to survival..

Lately, rock and pop artists have been writing music for films and television which is a lucrative market. It’s a way of staying in the game and making money. But for the millions of wannabe rock stars, it’s a jungle out there with little chance of making a name for yourself. If an aspiring musical artist can write hit songs, or have a sound that appeals to the alt-rock fans, then his or her work will speak for itself.

Rick Raw: Dumbest Pirates of Somalia–Drug Addled Lowlifes Attack a U.S. Warship

By Rick Grant Commentary rickgrant01@comcast.net

The problem of pirates attacking commercial shipping in the Gulf of Aden off the coast of Somalia continues to be a scourge. For years now, they had seized many vessels and collected millions in ransom.

Most commercial ships sailing into the Gulf of Aden have taken precautions, such as hiring armed security or installing sound wave weapons that temporarily incapacitate the rag-tag Somalian pirates, driving them off suffering extreme ear pain.

However, now that piracy has become a money making profession among the dirt poor Somalians, a new class of pirates has set sail. These are the dumbest pirates in Somalia–illiterate and drug addicted lowlifes. This rabble had not even bothered to learn the basics of their trade.

The pirate morons set out in flimsy skiffs armed with AK-47s and RPGs thinking if they fire on a vessel it will comply. However, no one taught them about U.S. warships operating in the region.

They couldn’t tell the difference between a tanker and a heavily armed missile frigate. Idiots!

When the USS Nicholas was cruising along in the Gulf of Aden on a training mission, the first officer summoned the captain to the bridge. He couldn’t believe that three Somalian skiffs were firing on his ship.

"You’ve got to be kidding," the captain exclaimed, incredulously. He then ordered the .50 caliber machine gun operator to splash the skiffs out of the water. With three bursts of the mighty .50 cal, the gunner easily sank the skiffs. The captain then sent out a armed crew to fish out the hapless pirates and detain them in the brig.

Awhile later, the radar operator in command of the missiles got a lock on the mother ship and the captain ordered him to fire a ship killing missile at the old rust bucket. The powerful ship-to-ship missile blew the mother ship in half, sinking it in less than two minutes.

The captain was ecstatic that the crew got some action in a real case scenario. The more experienced pirates back on the Somalian beach were embarrassed by their lesser colleagues stupidity. It was the talk of the pirate contingent.

The pirates were formally arrested and remained on board the USS Nicholas until they could be scheduled to go on trial in the piracy court in Kenya. The USS Nicholas is based in Norfolk, Virginia. It is part of the U.S. military’s African Command.

Recently, the piracy problem has escalated off the coast of Somalia due in part to the country’s lack of a central government. The impoverished country is the wild west where anarchy rules and everyone is heavily armed with inexpensive AK-47s and RPGs. Rival warlords rule their gangs and fight each other for territory. Some of them have become wealthy using kidnaping and piracy as a means of raising cash.

Last week another piracy attack was thwarted against a Panamanian flagged cargo ship, the MV Almezaan. During the attack, the captain called a European Union naval force to drive off the pirates with heavy fire.

And so, the global shipping companies are fighting back by using escorts through the Gulf of Aden or hiring security companies to fend off the pirates. But the dumbest pirates of Somalia who attacked the USS Nicholas will be the butt of jokes for many years to come.