Dews Wednesday Round-Down

NITRO!!!

Just trying to kill time on this wet/rainy icy (Look OUT Mr. Gates!!!) day, so doing a quick run-down of the news of the day.

Quick shout-out though to Dr. Gonzo for his extensive work on the top 50 listings! That project was very time-consuming, but he pulled it together and gave us those wonderful listings that I'm sure we'll be oggling for a while :).

Ok then, on to the news...

Leading off, a quick tribute to a close friend's dog Nitro that unfortunately passed a few years back, by pointing out that this years winner of the Westminster Dog Show is "Snoopy" a Beagle!

The only breed consistently among the nation's most popular dogs for nearly 100 years, a beagle had never won in the 100 times the Westminster Kennel Club had chosen a winner. That changed when judge J. Donald Jones pointed to this nearly 3-year-old package of personality.

Beagles are one of my favorite breeds (besides Corgi or Lab I guess), so I'm glad to see them finally get their due.

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My boy Chavez has been busy! Venezuela looks to be stepping up their actions against US Corporations by stopping the sale of crude to Exxon Mobil Corp.

Exxon Mobil is locked in a dispute over the nationalization of its oil ventures in Venezuela that has led President Hugo Chavez to threaten to cut off all Venezuelan oil supplies to the United States. Venezuela is the United States' fourth largest oil supplier.

Looks like Chavez is not going to back down from this one. Gotta respect the tenacity and "Marbles" this fella has. Anyone that sells us Oil definitely has an upper hand in negotiations.

Short post today, as I'm watching the Clemens Congressional probe right now. Hope to be able to chime in on reactions soon.

Dews Monday recovery

Another strange weekend in the books and another long week started. It never ceases to amaze me just how short weekends feel on sunday nights (after catching Aqua Teen of course) knowing that work is only a few hours away...

Oh well, on to the news of the day.
Leading off, Venezuela has us by the cajones yet again for something one of our multi-national corporate buddies Exxon is doing in retaliation for the nationalizing of a certain oil field.

"If you end up freezing (Venezuelan assets) and it harms us, we're going to
harm you," Chavez said during his weekly radio and television program, "Hello,
President." "Do you know how? We aren't going to send oil to the United States.
Take note, Mr. Bush, Mr. Danger."

Quite honestly, it is refreshing for a rebel like Chavez to stick it to corporate America in the worst possible way. Not that I or anyone else is going to enjoy the repercussions of oil prices rising again, but if you draw a line in the sand, you have to back that up.

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In Primary news, it is looking more and more like Clinton's candidacy is having issues with not only money, but with the the supposed "Obama surge" that even I had been discounting over super tuesday (Sorry, the numbers just didn't support it I thought).

Clinton took another PR hit with this latest news of dismissing her Campaign Leader:

Mrs. Clinton, meanwhile, replaced Patti Solis Doyle, who led her campaign
since it began last year and whom she regarded almost as an adopted daughter. In
her place, she named another longtime aide, Maggie Williams.

Regardless of the realities of whether this person was doing a good job, this kind of illustrates a desperate and pretty sad push by the Clinton campaign to get this ship righted. Given that she has referred to this now fired individual as an "adopted daughter", you'd think she would perhaps assign someone to her duties, but keep the news of her firing from the press... To me this just smacks of desperation, so I can imagine it may to others that only hear that much of the story as well.

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In other Primary news, Governor Huckabee continues on as he seemingly is still quite strong with the party base and the more conservative portions of his party.

"The Democrats haven't settled their nominee either, so for us to suddenly
act like we have to all step aside and have a coronation instead of an election,
that's the antithesis of everything Republicans are supposed to believe," he
said on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "We believe competition breeds excellence and
the lack of it breeds mediocrity."

With victories in Kansas and Louisiana, it appears Huckabee really doesn't have a good reason to go anywhere anytime soon, so it really does make sense for him to hang on and hope for a McCain collapse (or perhaps a news story containing details about a votes for sexual favors scandal?).

I really think Huckabee is still in this thing. Its a long shot obviously, but the conservatives in his party just cannot stomach McCain and as long as that is a festering issue with the party base, I can't write off the Huckster.

Should be an interesting finish though, still looking forward to seeing how this ends...

That is all.

Iran fascinates me...

Ok, thought I had reached my limit for thinking for the day (hoped anyway, thinkin is HARD!), but I came across this on Drudge and had to comment...

First off, yes I read Drudge all the time. I enjoy reading how he words headlines to fit a certain "message" he is obviously trying to send out (ie, a bit conservative), but moreso I was counting down the days from when his articles were all Pro-Bush, to when they would eventually become more Pat Buchanan-esque (My Hero if he wasn't such a bible-thumper) and start to really criticize Bush while continuing his tirade against the Clintons of course (obviously the Anti-christ right?).

But, I also enjoy his sources too. Besides the Washington Times, which is just awful outside their Redskins coverage, and the New York Post, which I always confuse for the National Examiner...

Anyway, he currently has snippets from the interview with President Ahmadinejad referencing his desire to visit Ground Zero. Apparently him visiting it would cause a bit of an uproar here afterall, but he seems genuinely surprised at the interviewer bringing this up.

I am genuinely fascinated by him and current "leader" of Venzuela Hugo Chavez purely for their attitude towards Bush and company. I don't necessarily agree with what it is they are doing, whether it be wipe Israel off the map, or seize all private industry in their respective nations, but you gotta at least respect the underdog standing up to the cocky cowboy, don't you?

I mean, in Chavez's case, it is kind of a reaction to the destructive world bank policies that just about bankrupt South America, and most of Eastern Europe.

In Ahmadinejad's case, he walks a delicate line between a well-educated student population of western leaning minds and the hard-nosed Ayatollah following class.

Iran doesn't sound all that different then us now that I think of it... Just replace "Student population" with "coastal urban educated" and "Ayatollah" with "Christian Right" and you've got American politics reincarnated...