Puppet Show Continues

Hugo Chavez continues to rave against President Bush, using every opportunity to do so. Chavez is back in Venezuela now and ranting to his captive media. Now he's calling on the President to resign.

CARACAS, Venezuela - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez launched yet another verbal assault against President Bush upon returning from a highly charged U.S. visit Friday, calling on the American leader to resign.

Chavez also suggested that New York city police were behind a electrical disruption during his speech Thursday in Harlem, but police denied the allegation.

"He should renounce the presidency if he has any dignity. The president of the United States has failed completely," Chavez said at the inauguration of a natural gas project in northwestern Venezuela.

Chavez does not understand how foolish he looks. He's made average Americans very angry at this point as well. Antics like his actually end up alienating people, not making friends. Frankly, I hope he gets a major surprise when the election for the open seat on the UNSC is held later this year.

US Army Meets Recruiting Goal Early

The US Army has reached its 2006 recruiting goal a fews days ahead of schedule. 80,000 new recruits joined the service in the past year. A combination of new incentives and more aggressive recruiting are being credited with the success.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army is ending its best recruiting year since 1997 and expecting similar success in 2007, despite the weight of grim war news from Iraq, Army Secretary Francis Harvey said Thursday.

In an Associated Press interview, Harvey said the Army will enlist its 80,000th soldier on Friday, reaching its goal for the year with eight days to spare. That is a considerable turnaround from last year when the Army missed its target for the first time since 1999 and by the widest margin in more than two decades.

At the start of this recruiting year, which began Oct. 1, 2005, many questioned whether the Army would reach 80,000, given the many alternative career options available to young people and the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war. But a package of new financial incentives, new recruiting approaches and a bigger recruiting corps did the trick.

Harvey said the Army would stick with the formula it used over the past 12 months, while adding a few new wrinkles for recruiters.

He described himself as “moderately optimistic'' about reaching the 80,000 goal again next year. It is too early to know the final number for the current recruiting year, which ends Sept. 30, but Harvey said it would be the highest in nine years. Last year the Army fell short of its goal by the widest margin since 1979.

Harvey was flying to New York to personally enlist on Friday the 80,000th recruit - Shirley Salvi, 23, a Rutgers University graduate who will report to Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., to become an Army linguist or intelligence analyst.

There are still people willing to serve this country despite the relentless negativity of an increasingly hostile media. That's good to know, isn't it?

Notice Anything Missing?

Reading about the compromise reached between the White House and McCain's group of Senators, one is struck with one undeniable fact. The Democrats got caught, and caught badly by the deal. The Washington Post story quotes exactly one fairly obscure Congressman Representative Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), attacking the deal and he's not really strident about it. None of the usual bellowing from the usual camera hungry suspects. Despite all the noise from the left, the Dems appear to be in no position to oppose the passage of the bills in either the House or the Senate.

With Congress planning to adjourn by Sept. 30, it is possible that last-minute snags could complicate or even prevent the bill's passage. But top Democrats in both houses indicated that they will not stand in the bill's path and risk being blamed for its demise.

"I will need to look at the final bill carefully, but elements of the compromise I have seen are promising," said Ike Skelton (Mo.), the Armed Services Committee's ranking Democrat.

Republicans, meanwhile, signaled plans to trumpet their newfound unity and attack Democrats even if only a handful oppose the bill. The office of House Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) released a statement saying that "while Democrats talk out of both sides of their mouth, Republicans are working together . . . to provide predictability and clear guidance to both our military and civilian personnel so they may continue to keep Americans safe."

Until the breakthrough was announced Thursday, Democrats had let Republicans fight among themselves as they backed McCain and Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.) in their struggle with the White House. Now that McCain and his fellow dissidents have joined hands with Bush, it will be difficult to attack the deal, Democrats acknowledged.

That is not sitting well with liberal activists, whose energy will be important to Democrats on Election Day. Caroline Fredrickson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Washington legislative office, called the legislation a "get out of jail free" card for the administration's "top torture officials." She said it would render the Geneva Conventions' protections "irrelevant and unenforceable."

Democratic political strategists at Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research encouraged Democrats to challenge Republicans on national security issues. Jeremy Rosner, senior vice president, said polling suggests that Bush's focus on security matters in the past weeks may have helped his personal approval ratings, but it has harmed Republican lawmakers by elevating anxieties over Iraq.

"There is much more room than people have guessed for Democrats to engage on this issue, to get heard and even to win," he stressed.

A few liberal Democratic lawmakers attacked the bill yesterday, but none signaled all-out plans to try to kill it. "By using legal mumbo jumbo to obscure the fact that the CIA will continue to be allowed to use torture and will actually be insulated from legal liability for previous acts of torture, President Bush is proceeding ever further down the slippery slope that Colin Powell warned us will endanger American troops in the field by encouraging other countries to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).

The White House, the Post says, is almost daring Democrats to try to block passage. I doubt they will.

Grain Of Salt

Reuters has a report that a French newspaper has announced unconfirmed reports that Osama bin Laden has died. It's a sort of "I know a guy who knows a guy who heard" type of report and nobody else is reporting this, so don't go breaking out the bubbly.

PARIS (Reuters) - A French regional newspaper quoted a French secret service report on Saturday as saying that Saudi Arabia is convinced that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden died of typhoid in Pakistan last month.

L'Est Republicain printed what it said was a copy of the report dated September 21 and said it was shown to President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and France's interior and defence ministers on the same day.

"According to a usually reliable source, the Saudi services are now convinced that Osama bin Laden is dead," the document said.

"The information gathered by the Saudis indicates that the head of al Qaeda was a victim while he was in Pakistan on August 23, 2006, of a very serious case of typhoid which led to a partial paralysis of his internal organs."

The report, which was stamped with a "confidential defence" label and the initials of the French secret service, said Saudi Arabia first heard the information on September 4 and that it was waiting for more details before making an official announcement.

Officials contacted by Reuters in Chirac's and Villepin's offices had no immediate comment.

A senior official in Pakistan's interior ministry said: "We have no information about Osama's death."

I'm not getting my hopes up. This is still raging speculation even if the report the paper has is genuine.

UPDATE: Plancke's Constant will be saddened if the news is true. After all, what will he do with all those goat jokes. Don't worry, Bernie, goat jokes are endlessly recyclable.

UPDATE: See also All Things Beautiful and bRight And Early. For a description of thyphoid fever see here. It would be a very cruel way to die. I find it hard to feel any sympathy whatsoever.