Honduras, Between the Lines

"He can no longer return to the presidency of the republic unless a president from another Latin American country comes and imposes him using guns."

So spoken by new established President of Honduras….Roberto Micheletti.

So for those who haven’t paid much attention to Honduras over the past thirty years….generally, when a Honduran says guns are involved….it’s the end of the discussion. If you go to Honduras….every male over the age of eighteen tends to have a rifle and people tend to carry weapons with them in the truck, the car or on horseback.

I sat and watched the former President….give his speech at the UN yesterday. Former President Manuel Zelaya, who was kicked out of the country just a couple of days ago gave a fine speech. There were various curious parts about it that I felt he lessen the truthfulness about what was going on.

Manuel never mentioned that he had a 30 percent approval rating within the country as of a month ago.

He didn’t mention that the Honduran constitution laid out how changes would take place, and a popular vote by voters was not the accepted fashion.

He failed to mention that when he wanted to ballots made for this illegal vote, he had to go to Venezuela to have them printed.

He did mention that he ordered the military to carry out his illegal ballot distribution but their head said “no” and was immediately fired for insubordination.

He didn’t want to explain how the Honduran Supreme Court was involved in this entire effort and at the end…told him that his efforts didn’t meet the constitutional requirements for change.

He didn’t want to mention that a majority of his supporting party had issues with the way he was handling this.

It was a pretty good speech that he gave at the UN…..except he left a lot of stuff out and probably looked more like a third world dictator chatting on TV than a real Honduran President.

How was this entire event supposed to end? Well….at some point, an extra 2,000 ballots here, and an extra 10,000 ballots there….would have popped up. So if seventy percent of the voting public would have voted “no”….the end result would have been “yes” anyway. That was the reason for Venezuelan printing. They likely published an extra three or four million ballots….to make sure things go right.

This is a great script for a movie….”How I Became a Banana Republic Dictator”. With barely 30 percent of the public approving of you….then trumping the Supreme Court, the military, and your own party…..to let some other dimwit dictator help you get to be dictator of your own republic (naturally voted in). Toss in some dimwitted US Honduras relationship Czar, a CNN reporter, a couple of UN kingpins, and it’s a great Woody Allen movie.

The curious thing about this whole episode….is that CNN keeps repeating the same seven facts over the own episode. The CNN “truth”? (1) It was a military coup, (2) It was illegal, (3) The people are uprising against the coup, with massive street riots, (4) The UN is siding with the people, (5) The ballot measures were totally legal, (6) The new president is hated by an overwhelming majority of the public, and (7) President Obama is putting pressure on the illegal government.

If you listen carefully, CNN will never mention the word “Constitution”. They also won’t mention that the ballots in question were printed in Venezuela…which ought to make you laugh and wonder why you need to import ballots. CNN also won’t mention massive disapproval rating that the guy had before he was told to leave.

I would advise the CNN crew to either grow up and get a brain….or just stick with global warming….because in foreign affairs….they are mostly losers.

The KMCC

So I’ve waited almost five years now for the KMCC to wrap up and finish. For those not familiar....the KMCC is this grand Taj Mahal that the AF built on Ramstein, for about $170-odd million. It's a hotel, mall, etc. It went on the fast pace for construction...meaning that they screwed up big-time, and corruption got to be a problem. So it's 3 years past schedule to be completed.

Today, phase one completed and opened its doors….the hotel and west-end. Phase two, the BX portion, is 100 days away.

My honest opinion? Crap! I walked in and was amazed at the tremendous waste of open space….to be heated or cooled (it's all 24-ft ceilings). I could jam three thousand people into the open hallways of phase one.

The prices? $12.99 for a grilled ham and cheese with fries? A coke at the sports bar for $3.99? A tall big boozey drink…..$5.99? Who will pay this price?

I didn’t go into the Grill resturant….I’ll wait a week or two for that. The German bakery? Probably the only plus. But I’ll admit that $7.00 for a cup of coffee and two German pastries is a bit too much. I kinda laughed because the guy running the bakery is some Chinese guy (not German or American).

Parking? Well….you will have to park a good 250 feet away from the entrance, and walk a good five minutes inside to get to the bakery.

My long term thinking….the place will probably rent rooms but I have serious doubts about folks stopping in and paying $16 for a sandwich and drink. I’m guessing that a number of folks….retirees and Army included….will be making weekend reservations and staying at Ramstein to have the “experience”. Maybe that’s the best long-term trick out of this deal. Maybe the occupancy rate for the 300 rooms is a constant 80 percent….and works well with the BX.

The Real Question

In today’s Stars and Stripes, there was an interesting article of how the military intends to crimp and dump smokers from the military over the next twenty years. They are apparently going to have meetings and discuss the actions they can take....to make this happen.

I kinda laughed over this. These are people who don’t smoke and have worked themselves into a fit and sweat over smokers. They eagerly cite reports and trends....always discussing the effects of cancer. They believe that a process can be developed to make this miracle of sorts occur.

Somewhere along the way, they will eventually determine that allowing the “wrong” people to enter the military (the smokers)....is one of the problems....so they will make a simple rule that you can’t be a smoker and enlist. Then they will cut sales at the commissary and BX over a pack of smokes. The number of folks interested in joining? It’ll gradually decrease.

Years ago, I worked for a crusty old Master Sergeant. We got into a discussion one day over the necessary requirements of people who were to join the Air Force, or the military in general. As he put it....there is only one real requirement in determining who will join the Air Force.....are you willing to kill someone if necessary....and are you willing to kill a bunch of folks if directed?

Sarge was right. Once you start filtering things, and making funny rules about “we don’t want smokers”, “we don’t want drinkers”, etc. Then you start to run into problems.

So in twenty years....it’ll be a handful of guys who join.....and the last possible question that you might ask is “ would mind killing someone?”, and we really don’t care how you answer....as long as you were not a smoker.

VP Joe and His Woes

Apparently, VP Joe Biden got orders to look important and make a speech or two...but not to do it too publicly. So VP Joe showed up in Wattsburg, Penn to make a big speech over stimulus relief, and upcoming high speed internet being brought to Wattburg to improve porn-downloading services in the local farming community.

It was an amazing speech....which somewhere between one hundred and two hundred folks heard. Some locals noticed that numerous chairs (maybe over three hundred) were quickly removed from the site, to ensure that the empties didn't draw unneeded attention.

To be kinda honest, this is a farming community and most guys have better things to do.

As for how to prevent something like this in the future.....I have several suggestions. First, you could offer a six-pack of beer for each attendee over 18. This helps to draw teenagers who drag their crazy grandma down to the event to get the free beer.

Second, you could offer a couple of containers of Turtle Wax. That's always appreciated.

Third, you could have offered a country and western singer at the beginning.....to get folks there, and then pumped.

Fourth, you could have offered free Jiffy-Lube coupons as part of the attendee deal.

Fifth and final, you could have announced that VP Joe was going to get a nipple piercing immedately after the speech, and lots of folks would have sat around....waiting for that event.

Frankly, I liked the old days when Senator Snuffy or Represenative Karl showed up in neighborhood.....you had a free catfish fry, and everybody got a few bottles of booze to drink from.

As for VP Joe? I'm feeling like he deserves better...but it's difficult to follow the greatest VP who ever lived.....Cheney. (Just joking)