Dammit! I kept thinking–Netherlands, Netherlands–and then I couldn’t think WHY I was thinking that, so I didn’t put it in.
Guin–yes, but it would show more respect to be able to salute his smack down in his native tongue.
Chavez is an odd duck.
And neither of you mentioned Queen Margrethe II of Denmark or King Albert II of Belgium. Then there are the various European principalities, Andorra (Did you know that the President of France is also a prince of Andorra?), Liechtenstein, and Monaco, along with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (larger than the principalities), and Vatican City (Is the pope technically a prince of the Holy See?) (And is it scary that I actually knew those without looking except to check spelling and the exact name of the current monarch? Why isn’t my head full of useful things?)
Someone else can check the rest of the world (Japan, there that one is done for you. 
), but there are quite a few monarchies still floating around. But Juan Carlos is definitely one of the best.
I knew there were many others but I thought the fact that Holland had a Queen was the most surprising.
Nava: As the head of the Spanish military could King Carlos deploy the armed forces without authorization from the other branches of government? Not that he would, but could he?
Korea still at least one Prince wandering around, though the Royal family in that country were stripped of all of their properties and possessions, so he lives in an apartment in a small village somewhere working in a museum, IIRC. Hawaii also has a royal family, though the two branches of it were arguing over which was the more legitimate branch, IIRC.
And since she’s probably one of (if not the) richest woman in the world (‘Royal Dutch Shell’, for example), she could be pretty effective at being miffed!
[mythbuster hat on]
She is not even a major (much less majority) share holder in Royal Dutch Shell.
My goodness I’m learning too much from this thread! Here I was thinking Spain had no monarchy and that Shell was an American company.
Also, we can add Thailand to the list of ‘still have a monarchy’.
Here is a list of constitutional monarchies.
Apparently, Swaziland has the last ruling monarch.
The Pope is an absolute monarch.
Thechnically I think he is a prince, God being the monarch.
Actually I guess he is an elected monarch. Which is a little different than the hereditary monarchies we were discussing.
For the record, the United Kingdom (and the other fifteen Commonwealth realms, including Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), Spain, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Jordan, Thailand, Lesotho, Bahrain, Cambodia, Bhutan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Swaziland, and Tonga are all current kingdoms.
Other monarchies are Andorra (principality), Brunei (sultanate), Japan (empire), Kuwait (emirate), Liechtenstein (principality), Luxembourg (grand duchy), Malaysia (has a Yang di-Pertuan Agong or “paramount ruler” elected from among the nine hereditary rulers of the Malay states); Monaco (principality), Oman (sultanate), Qatar (emirate), United Arab Emirates (President is one of the emirs of the constituent states), and the Vatican City (papacy).
45 sovereign states currently have a monarchy (including the 16 Commonwealth realms), with more than 500 million citizens.
Yes. He’s both head of the military and of State; the President is head of the Executive branch but even though he’s chosen by Parliament it’s sort of “by delegation” from the King. The Legislative branch (Parliament and Senate) has no say about whatever the military do, beyond approving the laws that apply to them. And the Judicial branch again has no say on whatever the military do (and most trials of military personnel involve military law, therefore the military judiciary, which is a branch of the military and not of government).
Like I said, the only time he’s used those powers has been to send the 23F military golpistas back to their quarters. Many of the mid-level golpistas thought they had the king’s backing; low level officers, noncoms and soldiers didn’t have the foggiest what was going on.
The other prince of Andorra is the Bishop of Seo D’Urgel, in Spain. Andorra has been a defacto parliamentary monarchy for centuries, but they didn’t have a “constitution” called by that name, they just gave themselves one and changed some other nomenclature to make it easier to join the EU when they want to.
I’ll be honest, this education about the government and recent history of Spain is just freaking FASCINATING to me. For some reason, all I really knew about Spain until now was that back in the old days, the Muslims conquered it, then the Christians conquered it back (finishing that in 1492), that they got mixed up (along with the rest of Europe and even parts of the New World) in the Wars of French Revolution and the Napoleanic Wars), and then it’s one big blank until the Spanish Civil War, then another big blank punctuated by “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” being made there in the 60’s.
Isn’t King Juan Carlos the one who doesn’t wear his crown? Because you can only be crowned by the Pope, and there’s some longstanding policy in Spain that they don’t need the Pope to tell them who the King is… so they just never get around to putting the thing on?
Juan Carlos was born in exile; Sofia was thrust into exile by the Colonels’ golpe, she was able to go back to her homeland only recently. Juan Carlos spent much of his youth as a ward of Franco’s, a guarantee that his father wouldn’t attempt a monarchist coup (Franco knew he wouldn’t have been able to win the war without monarchist help, which he wasn’t able to obtain until he promised to restore the monarchy). Knowing that Franco would be able to accept Juan Carlos as his succesor but never D. Juan (Juan Carlos’ father, who’d had his share of headbutting with el Generalísimo), they convinced D. Juan to renounce the throne.
By insulting two of his Presidents (one by his words, one by not letting him speak), Chávez was insulting everything Juan Carlos has ever trained for, fought for and lived for. And Juan Carlos is old enough to tell brats to geroff his lawn. Heck, a student who behaved in a class discussion the way Chávez did would be expelled to the hallway and given Saturday morning detention - but of course, the class clown likes anything that puts him in the spotlight.
The only thing cooler would have been for KJC to punch Chavez in the face.
Well, not really. But *somebody *has to punch Chavez. Og, is that guy annoying!
Just to confuse matters, the head of the Spanish government is officially called the President, but this is sometimes translated as “Prime Minister” in English. This Wiki article gives more details.
Some of the Russian royals are still breathing and could probably give ol’ Pootie-Poot a run for his money if they wanted to return to power.
And I’m not really seeing the problem if Juan Carlos had jerkpunched Chavez. Admittedly, it wouldn’t be as humiliating as him getting his ass beat by the “Burger King,” but he obviously needs a good smack down.
Indeed-one of them was the mayor of Palm Beach. But I don’t know if he counts, since he died a few years ago.
Correction: hawaii had a royal family. Then they joined the United States, where such titles are constitutionally forbidden. Germany has no royal family, although some of the Kaiser’s descendants are alive.