Posted on 03/02/2008 10:35:00 AM PST by MeanGreen2008
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is sending 10 battalions of troops to country's border with Colombia.
He's also ordered the Venezuelan embassy in Bogota closed and say all embassy personnel will be withdrawn from Colombia.
The announcements by Venezuela's leftist leader pushed relations with its neighbor to their tensest point of his 9-year presidency.
Chavez is also warning that Colombia could spark a war in South America, calling its U.S.-allied government "a terrorist state" and labeling President Alvaro Uribe (oo-REE'-bay) "a criminal."
Thanks again. When I get things going I’ll let you know how I faired.
You’re welcome. And thank your soldier for his/her honorable service.
I will send my son your thanks.
Who? The students? They buried a beautiful aerospace classmate this past Friday who was killed walking in a crosswalk in Blacksburg at 6:30 p.m. on a Saturday evening. It's unrealistic to believe any where is safe.
No not them.... whomever came up with the idiotic idea of sending them into hell as children. Also those with not a wit of sense thinking it was a good idea.
Idiots!
Those commies [and I include the donkeys in that commie group] teach each other their BS...
“You should try getting sick without their products.”
The major drug companies should stop bribing the generic drug companies not to produce equally effective, but much lower cost, generic versions of life-saving drugs so they can continue to rake astronomical profits on them.
Why do you think the drug companies come up with these lifesaving drugs? Where do you think the money for the research and development comes from? How many failed attempts - at a cost of tens of millions of dollars each - does it take to produce one successful, profitable drug? And how many new lifesaving drugs do you think will be brought to market when there's no longer any real money in it?
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been visiting countries such as China, Iran and Russia as part of an effort to build a 'strategic alliance' of interests not beholden to the United States. He considers the United States his arch enemy.":
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5729764
From the Russian News and Information Agency:
"'I am determined to expand relations with Russia,' Chavez, known as an outspoken critic of what he calls the United States' unilateralism, told the Russian leader, adding that his determination stemmed from their shared vision of the global order.":
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060727/51913498.html
From the Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
"The two sides [China and Russia] shall, in the spirit of partnership, strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HI29Ag01.html
Putin warns Kosovo will 'come back to knock' the West, as NATO envoy lashes out
"Moscow might be forced to use "brute military force" to maintain respect on the world scene."
The Associated Press
Published: February 22, 2008
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin on Friday issued a sharp warning to the West about the consequences of recognizing Kosovo's independence, saying the decision would "come back to knock them on the head."
The comments, made during an informal meeting of leaders from ex-Soviet republics, were the strongest by the Russian leader since Sunday when Kosovo made its declaration of independence from Serbia.
They followed statements made earlier Friday by Russia's envoy to NATO, who warned the alliance against overstepping its mandate in Kosovo and said Moscow might be forced to use "brute military force" to maintain respect on the world scene.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/22/europe/EU-GEN-Russia-Kosovo.php
Putin will be long-serving, powerful premier
By Michael Stott Thu Feb 14, 2008
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he intended to become a powerful and long-serving prime minister after leaving the Kremlin but rejected suggestions he would dictate orders to his likely successor.
Putin, giving his last annual news conference before his second term ends in May, said he fully trusted the Kremlin's candidate for president, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, and would have no problems working with him.
Medvedev enjoys blanket coverage on state-controlled media and is widely expected to win a big poll victory next month.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080214/wl_nm/russia_putin_dc_6
Russian leader Vladimir Putin on the collapse of the [former] Soviet Union:
the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'
"World democratic opinion has yet to realize the alarming implications of President Vladimir Putin's State of the Union speech on April 25, 2005, in which he said that the collapse of the Soviet Union represented the 'greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.'
http://www.hooverdigest.org/053/beichman.html
From the Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
"The two sides [China and Russia] shall, in the spirit of partnership, strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order."
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/HI29Ag01.html
Russia and China prepare for war against the United States
June 4, 2005:
"Growing ties between Moscow and Beijing in the past 18 months is an important geopolitical event that has gone practically unnoticed. China's premier, Wen Jiabao, visited Russia in September 2004. In October 2004, President Vladimir Putin visited China. During the October meeting, both China and Russia declared that Sino-Russian relations had reached "unparalleled heights". In addition to settling long-standing border issues, Moscow and Beijing agreed to hold joint military exercises in 2005. This marks the first large-scale military exercises between Russia and China since 1958.
The joint military exercises complement a rapidly growing arms trade between Moscow and Beijing. China is Russia's largest buyer of military equipment." :
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/GF04Ad07.html
Russia, China in first joint war games
Reuters, Aug, 2005:
"Relations between China and Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, were strained by decades of mistrust during the Cold War, but the two nuclear powers have found much common ground in recent years and the military relationship has been blossoming, Reuters points out. Both are leading members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which in July called for U.S.-led troops to fix a date to pull out of bases in Central Asia. Russia is also a major supplier of weapons to China." :
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411366/601479
Russia, China flex muscles in joint war games
Reuters: Aug 17, 2007
CHEBARKUL, Russia (Reuters) - Russia and China staged their biggest joint exercises on Friday but denied this show of military prowess could lead to the formation of a counterweight to NATO.
"Today's exercises are another step towards strengthening the relations between our countries, a step towards strengthening international peace and security, and first and foremost, the security of our peoples," Putin said.
Fighter jets swooped overhead, commandos jumped from helicopters on to rooftops and the boom of artillery shells shook the firing range in Russia's Ural mountains as two of the largest armies in the world were put through their paces.
The exercises take place against a backdrop of mounting rivalry between the West, and Russia and China for influence over Central Asia, a strategic region that has huge oil, gas and mineral resources.
Russia's growing assertiveness is also causing jitters in the West. Putin announced at the firing range that Russia was resuming Soviet-era sorties by its strategic bomber aircraft near NATO airspace.
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-29030120070817?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
U.S. Navy Intercepts Russian Bombers Flying Near Ships
Monday, February 11, 2008
WASHINGTON (Associated Press) U.S. fighter planes intercepted two Russian bombers flying unusually close to an American aircraft carrier in the western Pacific during the weekend, The Associated Press has learned.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,330362,00.html
“And how many new lifesaving drugs do you think will be brought to market when there’s no longer any real money in it?”
If there’s no money in the generic drugs, then how do they manage to get to market? It’s because even the much cheaper generics bring considerable profit. The more profit the CEO’s of the major companies that do the bribing bring in, the higher their bonuses and the more money their stockholders make. That’s what drives them.
The R&D is already done for them. That's the expensive part of bringing the drug to market. But keep up the socialism.
“The R&D is already done for them.”
That’s true, which leaves no excuse for the major companies to continue the high prices after the R&D spent on a drug has been long paid off. Most of that profit doesn’t go back into R&D, it goes to the stockholders and CEOs. And they make sure to rig things their way to maximize how much they can line their pockets off of the sick and elderly.
In your world, Barry Bonds making millions per year for playing a game is just fine, but if you make millions per year and a bunch of lives are saved, you're some kind of villain. That doesn't sound like conservative thinking to me; it sounds like what I would hear at DU.
“....but if you make millions per year and a bunch of lives are saved,...”
Not if the lives saved are bankrupted in the process by unnecessarily high prices. With those prices essentially fixed high through bribery and underhanded tactics directed at the generic drug companies. The law should be modified to consider any payment or other compensation to generic drug companies to prevent a generic form of drug from going to market to be a form of price-fixing.
“In your world, Barry Bonds making millions per year for playing a game is just fine,..”
As long as taxpayers money is not used to subsidize it, in the form of taxpayer funded stadiums etc...
And nobody has ever died from lack of watching sports, or been bankrupted because they can’t watch sports.
OK, just to be clear: you think it's OK to make millions of dollars in business, as long as you don't save any lives in the process?
You might be interested in the exchange toward the end of this thread...
“OK, just to be clear: you think it’s OK to make millions of dollars in business, as long as you don’t save any lives in the process?”
Not very clear. More like it’s ok to make millions of dollars in a life-saving business as long as you aren’t RIPPING PEOPLE OFF while doing it. When life-saving medicines are artifically fixed high through bribery or underhanded tactics, it’s no different than if you stuck a gun to their heads (”Pay up, or no meds and you pay with your life”), cleaned out their savings, and then expect them to be thankful after you take the gun away (give them the meds).
It's VERY different from putting a gun to their heads. But you socialists tend to confuse metaphors with reality.
So should we just go ahead and put some bureaucrat in charge of medicine prices? That's what Canada does. How many lifesaving drugs are invented in Canada?
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