Posted on 12/09/2007 9:14:19 AM PST by blam
Hugo Chavez invents new half-hour time zone
By Jeremy McDermott, Latin America Correspondent
Last Updated: 3:35pm GMT 09/12/2007
Venezuela has created its own, unique time zone on the orders of President Hugo Chavez, setting clocks back half an hour and putting the oil-rich nation out of step with its neighbours.
"I don't care if they call me crazy, the new time will go ahead," said Mr Chavez.
Hugo Chavez has already changed the national flag and coat of arms
The president said the change would improve health, as the sun will rise before most Venezuelans get up ensuring all go to work or school in daylight.
"These children have to get up at five in the morning... they arrive at school dead tired," said Mr Chavez. "And why? Because of our time."
Government ministers lined up to support the president's theory.
"The human brain is conditioned by the light of the sun," offered Hector Navarro, the Minister of Science and Technology, assuring that the health and productivity of the nation will improve thanks to the change.
Many Venezuelans were not impressed with the change or bamboozled by the technical jargon coming out of the Science and Technology Ministry.
"The only thing this will do is inject yet more chaos into our lives," said John Marulanda, a young executive. "This president believes in change for change's sake." President Chavez has now changed the flag, the national coat of arms, the salute of the armed forces and the constitution.
He sought to change Venezuela's political system on Dec 2, when he proposed a referendum to enshrine socialism in the constitution and grant the president indefinite re-election and even greater powers.
Fifty-one per cent of Venezuelans said no, delivering Mr Chavez his first electoral defeat in nine years.
However the president has vowed to press ahead with his changes and has enough power through his control of the armed forces, the National Assembly, the judicial system, the Central bank and increasingly of the media, to introduce change without recourse to another referendum.
Hmmm...couldn't be because they're getting up at 5AM, could it?
Next, he will turn the calendars back to 1937!
Would that be B.C. or A.D.?
Smells like sulfur.
This little midget assclown never ceases to amaze me.
BCE Before the Chavez Era and may it be a short one.
Uhhh....why doesn't he just change the time the kids have to be at school?
"I don't care if they call me crazy,..."
He's crazy.
What are we paying the CIA for? This guy should have been wormfood a long time ago.
Hello, Newman
Keep it up, Hugo. We've got plenty of fawning pics and statements from our homegrown moonbats that we're dying to drag out when you really go over the edge. Don't fail us, nutter--we're all counting on you!
Just like our Dems!
And they'll still be getting up at 5 AM, but it's the new time, see? It's much, much better. The Supreme Leader says so.
The little caudillo is genuinely, barking-at-the-moon nuts. Most of the people this project impacts are not "his" people anyway, but "his" people are getting tired of bread and milk lines and stayed away from the last election in droves. Huey's going to need to bribe them and amuse them pronto - yep, I'm talking "bread and circuses" - or he's going to be joining a long line of ex-dictators at the crap tables in Monaco wondering where it all went wrong.
The Kommies, the Huffies, and DUmmies will find this to be a brilliant move.
CAN SOMEONE Post a “Cookoo Clock”??
Fielding Mellish: What’s the Spanish word for straitjacket?
We should ask our favorite leftist from Hollywood what they think of Chavez latest move..?
“I don’t care if they call me crazy, the new time will go ahead,” said Mr Chavez.
You asked for it, little dictator who smells like smoke: You are crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, ad infinitium...
Since he is their hero, they will probaby ask that we change the entire U.S. to match the “Puko Chavez time zone.”
Newfoundland time is three and one half hours behind Greenwich Mean Time(UTC) during summer and two and a half when daylight savings time is selected. So Venezulea will simply be in the same time zone as Newfoundland.
All they have do adjust a Windows based computer is select Newfoundland time and unselect “Automatically adjust clock for daylight savings changes.” Done.
Darwin and Adelaide, Australia are nine and a half hour offset from UTC.
Until the late nineteenth century, every city and town in the U.S. was on a different time zone. Every degree of longitude west of Greenwich results in a four minute lag in in local mean solar time. The railroads used standard time zones before they were adopted for general use.
That being said, the impact of this “reform” will be minimal at best. It’s bad politics, it reinforcers Chavez’ image as a meddler.
Hugo is bat$hit crazy, but turning the clocks forward and then backwards 1 hour every year isn’t too smart either.
Not only that, bar time in Nicaragua has been totally screwed up.
However the president has vowed to press ahead with his changes and has enough power through his control of the armed forces, the National Assembly, the judicial system, the Central bank and increasingly of the media, to introduce change without recourse to another referendum.
LOL! I expected this. The people be damned.
It’s true. This nut does not have a brain.
Next step is to make the time change retroactive. Think of all that time you’ll have on your hands then!
Thank You!
You couldn’t make this stuff up!
It reminds me of the dim bulb who wrote to the LA paper complaining about daylight savings time. He said the extra hour of sunlight was killing his grass. No doubt the gentleman was/is a registered Democrat.
Caracas is between New York and Buenos Ayres. Sure simplifies things.
The U.S. time zones do not run smoothly with longitude but veer wildy for political reasons.
Pretending it is the same solar time over the width of 30plus degrees like the Chinese is not nutty?
The rule by dictatorial fiat is the more disturbing factor.
Hugo Chavez invents the Half Hour time zone....
Why does this surprise anyone. It is like the Dictator who renamed the months of the year in honor of his Mom in Law.
Absolute power corrupts...and makes one as mad as a rat in a coffe can.
During the recent San Diego fires, a TV reporter said that the firefighters would benefit from the ‘extra hour of daylight.’ because of daylight savings time.
(The Simpsons) Principal Skinner: Not only are the trains now running on time, they’re running on metric time. Remember this moment, people: 80 past 2 on April 47th!
You know, at the time I thought I heard a reporter say that, but I thought, “Nah, they couldn’t be that dumb.”
Well, I guess stupidity is just rampant.
In a Bible passage in Daniel, speaking of the ultimate antichrist, speaks of him as one who changes the times... just a thought... Hugo just has the spirit of antichrist...
Dan 7:25 And he shall speak [great] words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.
Once again life imitates art.
In Woody Allen’s movie Bananas Woody’s character becomes president of a banana republic when the communist rebel leader loses his mind, decreeing that the official language is now Swedish and that everyone must wear their underpants on the outside of their clothes.
Chavez has become that commy revolutionary nitwit.
“makes one as mad as a rat in a coffe can.”
Or as a cop friend of my son’s said about a guy during a domestic disturbance call, “He’s crazier than a s***house rat.”
"Don't say anything about his scar . . . You'll see it but don't say it, you follow my drift? The other thing, be sure to compliment his art collection."
Last night I was watching a spanish talk show which had a guest on who met Chavez back in ‘97. He said that Chavez came on another talk show and told a story about how would sit every morning at the breakfast table with am empty chair beside him because he felt that Bolivar’s spirit was with him eating breakfast. The audience was laughing along but this guy knew that he was just plain crazy.
Common time zones for large regions was necessary. Chaos reigned before the change.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.