'It's Not Time to Die. It's Time to Live'

Wishful thinking, pal. What does it say about your hellhole country when you can't even receive chemotherapy? What, you don't trust your own doctors?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez touched down last night at Havana’s José Martí airport in another twist in the tale of his newly public battle with cancer.

The fiery socialist leader will today begin chemotherapy there for an unknown period of time, raising questions as to the future of his presidency especially as elections loom in 2012.

“We're going to give it everything we've got,” Mr. Chávez said Saturday as he boarded his flight in Caracas. “It's not time to die. It's time to live.”

The slow release of information about Chávez's illness has led to much speculation on his health and, therefore, his ability to govern. And as he toys with how much decision-making power to delegate while he is treated in Cuba, analysts warn of a looming power struggle within his inner circle.

“Chávez still resists transferring authority to his vice president, and it remains to be seen how many important decisions will be made by others,” says Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. “It would be a complete break from the caudillo-style [quasi-dictatorial, top-down] governance that has characterized the Chávez regime.”

Mr. Shifter struggles to believe that an arrangement whereby Chávez shuttles back and forth between Cuba and Venezuela, maintaining his hold on power, will work smoothly.

“Either Chávez will refuse to give up real decision-making or, if he is incapacitated, his inner circle will engage in a fierce power struggle that could become quite chaotic,” says Shifter.

Bank on chaos. These Communists don't give up power easily.

Hugo Chavez Admits He Has Cancerous Tumor

What a shame. On the upside, he's receiving medical care in the worker's paradise, so expect him to expire by the end of July.

President Hugo Chavez acknowledged Thursday night that he had a cancerous tumor.

He made the admission in a late-night speech, his first since falling ill 21 days ago.

Chavez was last in Venezuela on June 6 when he left for a three-country tour of Ecuador, Brazil and Cuba. On what was to be the last day of the trip, June 10, he fell ill during a meeting in Cuba and was operated on for a pelvic abscess.

He gave a radio address two days later, but hasn’t been back to his home country in three weeks.

The Venezuelan and Cuban governments this week released photographs and videos of a visibly slimmer Chavez chatting happily with Castro. The video showed him reading a current copy of the Cuban newspaper Juventud Rebelde, giving the production the feel of a proof-of-life video used in kidnappings.

His absence has underscored the personality-driven nature of his administration, which has failed to inform the populace about the president’s condition other than to assure that he’ll be back soon.

If we actually had a real president the opposition in Venezuela would be prepared to overthrow the Chavez dictatorship. Who knows if Obama is even aware what's going on down there.

Wonderful: Chavez Now Seizing Housing Complexes

Like many American politicians of the leftist persuasion, Venezuelan goon Hugo Chavez is big on social justice. Granted, he's got a very strange intererpretation of this so-called justice.

Facing a wave of criticism from business leaders, President Hugo Chavez is defending his order for government officials to seize control of residential complexes.

Chavez promised Sunday to crack down on construction and real estate companies that he accused of unjustly boosting prices, which he labeled "housing fraud."

The president, a self-proclaimed revolutionary who idolizes Cuba's Fidel Castro and is currently on a visit to Havana, called his decision last week to order the expropriation of six residential complexes and "the temporary occupation" of eight gated communities in Caracas and other cities "an act of justice."

Venezuela's consumer protection agency and state prosecutors are investigating complaints that construction companies and real estate firms are illegally charging buyers high interest on unfinished apartments, even though the buyers settled on a price years ago and made down payments.

"We have decided to put an end to this type of organized crime," Chavez wrote in his weekly newspaper column.

Companies accused of violating consumer-protection regulations deny any wrongdoing.

Apartment owners affected by the measures have had mixed reactions.

Some don't like having soldiers posted near their homes or fear the measure could encourage pro-Chavez squatters to invade buildings still under construction.

Gee, ya think?

Opposition politician Julio Borges accused Chavez on Sunday of trampling private-property rights and steering Venezuela toward Cuba-style communism.

Borges told a news conference that Venezuelans don't want to live in "a country of slaves, where the government is the owner of everything and the people aren't owners of anything."

"We want a country of property owners," he said.

Don't worry. At this rate the government will soon own all the property.

'We Can’t Say for Sure What is Going On, But it is Clandestine and Secretive'

Something secretive going on between Iran,. Syria and Venezuela? You don't say. Don't worry though. The crack team of Obama, Napolitano and Clinton are on the job.

A Venezuelan airline's “mystery” flight that shuttled among the capitals of three of the world’s most terror-friendly nations — Venezuela, Syria and Iran — has abruptly canceled its regularly scheduled departures amid accusations that it was used primarily to transport spies, terrorists and lethal cargo among the pariah counties.

“I am sorry, but we are no longer flying to Tehran and I do not know when the flights will resume. It was a flight that left Caracas on Tuesdays, but it no longer does,” Jenny Gil Romero, who handles international departures for Conviasa, the national airline that operates the flight, said in a message to FOX News.

Messages to the airline seeking further information went unanswered.

Romero's comments came in response to FOXNews.com's efforts to buy tickets on the regularly scheduled, 48-hour round trip from Caracas to Damascus to Tehran, then back again.

Intelligence analysts with both the CIA and Israel said that, despite the listing of the flight as a regular commercial route and a code share with Iran air -- Flight IR744 is also Flight VO3744 -- there was no way that anyone could buy a ticket and travel without being vetted by the Venezuelan or Iranian government. And without passport controls, flight manifests and other documents, it meant some of the world's most dangerous men could travel without fear of being uncovered.

Curiously, unlike most other bookings on the national airline, calls for reservations on this particular flight were routed to a cell phone in Argentina, rather than to Conviasa's regular service in Caracas.

The Venezuelan ambassador to the United States had defended the flights as recently as two weeks ago in response to criticism in a State Department report that cited the flight’s questionable route and procedures. Messages left at the Venezuelan embassy's press office and the ambassador's office were not returned, and a list of questions submitted to the embassy's press office was not answered.

For the past three years, every other Tuesday, Flight VO3744 would roll out to a secluded loading platform at Simon Bolivar Airport in Caracas. Shrouded from public view and unencumbered by the normal exit procedures, a select passenger list would board the flight.

Over the next 48 hours, according to Western intelligence agencies, Venezuelan opposition figures and a former Iran-based spy for the CIA, the flight would carry illicit, lethal cargoes -- such as explosives and possibly radioactive materials -- and provide safe passage to terrorists, spies, weapons experts, senior Iranian intelligence operatives and members of both Hezbollah and Hamas.

Reza Kahlili, the pseudonym for an Iranian who the CIA has confirmed once spied for the United States as a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, told FoxNews.com these "special flights" have been "instrumental in creating an Iranian dominated worldwide terror network that now reaches the United States." He said the flights were used to expand Iran’s efforts to create a base of operations in the Western Hemisphere.

Peter Brookes, a former Defense Department analyst and CIA employee now with the Heritage Foundation, said there was a steady stream of elite Al Quds officers from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard who were transported to Venezuela aboard the flight and took up positions in the Latin American country’s intelligence service.

“We can’t say for sure what is going on, but it is clandestine and secretive,” he said.

By the end of the day Hugo Chavez will be parroting Media Matters in denunciations of Fox News.

Link to the report here.

The 'Good Life Card' Comes to Venezuela

The basket-case that is Venezuela inches closer to a Communist dictatorship, but according to Sean Penn and Oliver Stone's good buddy, living under complete control of the state and getting your food rationed is bizarrely called the good life.

Presented by President Hugo Chávez as an instrument to make shopping for groceries easier, the ``Good Life Card'' is making various segments of the population wary because they see it as a furtive attempt to introduce a rationing card similar to the one in Cuba.

The measure could easily become a mechanism to control the population, according to civil society groups.

``We see that in short-term this could become a rationing card probably similar to the one used in Cuba,'' Roberto León Parilli, president of the National Association of Users and Consumers, told El Nuevo Herald. ``It would use more advanced technological means [than those used in Cuba], but when they tell you where to buy and what the limits of what you can buy are, they are conditioning your purchases.''

Chávez said Tuesday that the card could be used to buy groceries at the government chain of markets and supplies.

``I have called it a Good Life Card so far,'' Chávez said in a brief statement made on the government television channel. ``It's a card for you to purchase what you are going to take and they keep deducting. It's to buy what you need, not to promote communism, but to buy what just what you need.''

Of course this commie blockhead fails to note what happens when the money runs out.

Former director of Venezuela's Central Bank, Domingo Maza Zavala, said this could become a rationing card that would limit your purchases in light of the country's recurring problems with supplies.

``If the intention is to beat inflation, they should find a good source of supply for the entire market and not only for centers that are part of social chains,'' he said. ``To do that, you need to encourage local production with the help of the private sector, since they cannot do it by themselves. The government cannot become the ultimate food distributor.''

Humberto Ortega Díaz, minister for public banking and president of the Venezuelan Bank, minimized such criticism and said that all this measure is trying to do is to improve service at the government supply chains.

``Why can't our Bicentennial chain use a card to make it easier for customers to buy their groceries?'' the minister said in an interview broadcast on a government channel. He said that this type of initiative has been used by private commercial entities.

Yet, critics pointed out that the measure could turn out not as innocent as the minister makes it to be, and they insist that the government control over the supply chain is too broad and depends greatly on imports the government authorizes through its currency exchange system.

In theory, the government could begin to favor the import of products to be sold through the government chains and have more control over the type of products purchased and the people buying them.

Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, said that Venezuela's current problems of scarce supplies are very similar to those Cuba faced when Fidel Castro introduced the rationing card.

``The card emerged when goods began to become scarce,'' Suchlicki said. ``The government had seized many companies that did not work because the government managed them poorly. Then they decided to distribute groceries through those cards.''

Hugo Chavez Now Offers Parenting Advice

I must admit his advice here is pretty sound. Just listening to this blithering bag of wind is sure to cure insomnia.

In a television appearance on Thursday to extol the virtues of a portable computer his socialist government plans to introduce at public schools, Chavez said youngsters had stopped him in the street to tell him they saw him on television.

"It seems that there are mothers here who, instead of putting their kids to sleep with cartoons, put them to sleep with Chavez," he said.

"And the child dozes off and dozes off, and Chavez speaks and speaks and speaks. And the child falls asleep," said the loquacious leader, well known for speeches that can last for hours.

Meanwhile, on a more serious note, the gangster thug closed a bank with ties to an outspoken television station while the fugitive boss of Globovision aired his own thoughts.

The fugitive boss of Venezuela's opposition Globovision television station accused socialist President Hugo Chavez on Monday of ordering his arrest to stifle his criticism of the government.

Authorities in the OPEC nation issued a warrant for Guillermo Zuloaga and raided his house on Friday, accusing him of illegally storing new vehicles last year for speculative purposes. He was not home at the time.

Zuloaga said in a telephone call to Globovision from an undisclosed location that the charges were politically motivated and he was the victim of a witch hunt.

"We have been viciously attacked again by the government for the sole purpose of trying to silence us," he said. "I have come to the conclusion that handing myself in would do no good for the country, for Globovision, or for my family."

No kidding. We've got a lot of that happening in this country as well.

'GDP Shrank in the First Quarter and the Bourgeoisie are Having a Party'

The insipid Venezuelan clown Hugo Chavez is living in deep, deep denial. Faced with an economy crumbling under the weight of his failed socialist polices, the nutcase has blamed his problems on ... capitalism.

I guess it's too late for him to get a clue.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday that a recession in his Latin American country marked the death of capitalism and had nothing to do with his government's socialist revolution.

The OPEC member's economy is bucking the global recovery trend, with the central bank posting a 5.8 percent contraction for the first quarter of 2010 on Tuesday.

The increasingly grim macroeconomic environment -- which economists call "stagflation" because the slump has not cooled runaway inflation -- is now a major challenge for Chavez with a legislative election looming in September.

"GDP shrank in the first quarter and the bourgeoisie are having a party," Chavez said, referring to political opponents who blame his policies for the recession.

"They don't realise that the party they are attending is the wake of capitalism ... because the economy that is shrinking is the capitalist economy," he said in a televised speech.

Huh? If he were any more clueless he'd qualify an an Obama economic advisor.

"We are going to bury Venezuelan capitalism," Chavez said, adding that his administration would "take from the bourgeoisie control of the money which belongs to all Venezuelans."

After 11 years in power, he blames the economic woes on a global crisis in capitalism and the impact of a traditional elite who he says are determined to drive him from office.

Critics, however, say his socialist economic policies -- including widespread nationalizations, currency controls and pressure on the private sector -- are ruining what should be one of the continent's richest nations, given its oil wealth.

Meanwhile, apparently unhappy with controlling state media, he's now taken up blogging. Must be a great read.

The guy who locks up political enemies is also joining forces with the Obama administration, Mexico and a small number of American malcontents in attacking Arizona. He might want to clean up his own house before flapping his gums.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela, Chavez's human rights record has been criticized by watchdog groups in several areas, including political discrimination, lack of freedom of expression and freedom of association. The U.S. Department of State's 2009 Human Rights Report on Venezuela also identified other human rights problems in the country of roughly 27 million, including summary executions of criminal suspects, widespread criminal kidnappings for ransom, political prisoners and selective prosecution for political purposes, "considerable corruption" in all levels of government and many others.

The report also notes that Venezuelan law makes "insulting" the president a crime punishable by up to 30 months in prison without bail, with lesser penalties for insulting lower-ranking officials.
...
Jonah Goldberg, a visiting fellow at American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based conservative think tank, said the recent comments are "standard operating procedure" for politicians in Cuba, as well as Chavez.

"The denunciation of the United States' human rights record comes from the people who have had the most brutal human rights record," he said. "It's the playbook they always go back to. Taking denunciations seriously from places like Cuba and Venezuela is just a colossal waste of time."

Stunner: Chavez's Socialist Dreamstate Crumbling

Hard to believe isn't it? Socialism has a 100% track record: It's failed every time. Of course the only way this thug is leaving office is in a box, but keep hope alive. His day will come.

Venezuela's economy is in trouble despite the country's huge oil reserves. Blackouts plague major cities. Its inflation rate is among the world's highest. Private enterprise has been so hammered, the World Bank says, that Venezuela is forced to import almost everything it needs.

The situation is creating a serious challenge to President Hugo Chavez's efforts to transform his country into a socialist state.

Take, for instance, the Three M metal works, tucked into an industrial zone in San Cristobal, the capital of Tachira state in western Venezuela.

On a recent day, big machinery stamps out sheet metal. For a moment, things seem normal in the plant. But more often than not these days, the contraptions are dead quiet — shut down.

"Just like us, everyone is suffering," says manager Marta Medina. She reels off a list of problems the company faces: lack of spare parts, power shortages and falling orders.

The workforce is down to just eight, from more than 50 people employed a year ago.

It's a common experience in Venezuela, where the economy contracted 3.3 percent in 2009 and is expected to shrink further this year. Few business owners see a rosy future, at least in the short term.

Jose Guerra, a former Central Bank economist, says state intervention in private businesses is hitting the economy hard.

"The government is nationalizing, expropriating, or confiscating," he says. "They are not creating new wealth; this is wealth that was already created."

If that weren't bad enough, another factor is hobbling the economy — an unprecedented energy crisis.

There's that word again: unprecedented. Whenever socialism fails, the media calls it unprecedented. Of course there is precedence all over the globe of failed socialist states.

Critics say a lack of investment, coupled with government ineptitude, left Venezuela without the electrical generation capacity it needs. The government blames a brutal drought.

Whatever the reason, cities such as San Cristobal go dark every day — sometimes for four hours or more, as the government uses rolling blackouts to save energy.

On a recent morning at Zambrano auto works, the compressors and power painters come on after a blackout. Workers have been at a standstill for an hour, says Jesus Yanis, who paints cars. He adds that he expects the power to go out again later in the day, for another two hours.

The blackouts have hurt business, Yanis says.

This is not the way it was supposed to be. Venezuela is one of the world's great energy powers. Its oil reserves are among the world's largest and its hydroelectric plants are among the most potent.

But these days, Venezuela is being left behind: The rest of Latin America is expected to grow at a healthy rate this year, according to the World Bank.

Guerra, the former Central Bank economist, says the government must reconsider its policies — and drop the statist socialist model that Chavez adopted.

"The government has to consider that the socialist point of view is not so good for the economy," Guerra says. "Chavez believes in the old-fashioned socialism. This kind of socialism is dead, definitely dead, it doesn't apply to any country in the world."

Sadly, the Democrats in this country still believe in socialism, which is why they must be removed from office.

Instapundit links. Thanks!

Great News: Iran Increases Shock Troops in Venezuela

Good thing Obama is so much more respected around the world and everyone loves us again.

Oh, wait...

Iran is increasing its paramilitary Qods force operatives in Venezuela while covertly continuing supplies of weapons and explosives to Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to the Pentagon's first report to Congress on Tehran's military.

The report on Iranian military power provides new details on the group known formally as the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF), the Islamist shock troops deployed around the world to advance Iranian interests. The unit is aligned with terrorists in Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, North Africa and Latin America, and the report warns that U.S. forces are likely to battle the Iranian paramilitaries in the future.

The Qods force "maintains operational capabilities around the world," the report says, adding that "it is well established in the Middle East and North Africa and recent years have witnessed an increased presence in Latin America, particularly Venezuela."

"If U.S. involvement in conflict in these regions deepens, contact with the IRGC-QF, directly or through extremist groups it supports, will be more frequent and consequential," the report says.

The report provides the first warning in an official U.S. government report about Iranian paramilitary activities in the Western Hemisphere. It also highlights links between Iran and the anti-U.S. government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has been accused of backing Marxist terrorists in Colombia.

Oddly enough, there's another familiar anti-U.S. government agent who's also friends with Hugo Chavez.

Of course since according to Bill Clinton and the media the greatest threat to America is those angry Tea Partiers, you can just ignore this and go back to sleep.

H/T Doug Ross.

God is a 'Bolivarian'

Whatever happened to the separation of church and dictatorship?

President Hugo Chavez is confident that God and nature will pull Venezuela out of a power crisis battering both the economy and his popularity.

Rationing and blackouts have afflicted the South American oil exporter since late 2009, due mainly to a drought that has cut water levels at hydroelectric installations normally supplying more than two-thirds of power needs.

The crisis may cause a second year of economic contraction in Venezuela and is also weighing on Chavez's approval ratings ahead of a legislative election in September that he and opponents are casting as a referendum on his rule.

"The squalid ones are hoping it won't rain," Chavez said late on Tuesday, using his usual term for the opposition.

"But it's going to rain, you'll see, because God is a 'Bolivarian.' God cannot be squalid. Nature is with us," the socialist leader added during an event with athletes.

Pretty desperate for the Communist thug to be praying to God now, isn't it?

I just hope Spicoli doesn't read this or he might want to imprison me. Speaking of Spicoli, is it just me or does he sound an awful lot like his whiny traitor character Daulton Lee from The Falcon and the Snowman here?

Sean Penn on Chavez
by burghnews

Whatever the pathetic Chavez wants to use as an excuse, the lack of electricity isn't his only concern.

President Chavez, who until recently avoided talking about violence and rampant crime, went as far as to admit that the situation “has become a risk for the Bolivarian revolution”.

“Chavez has the idea that the revolution must break structures and continues to believe that violence is part of the class struggle, the conflict of the poor against the rich. But what we have in Venezuela is the poor killing the poor” said Roberto Briceño-León, head of the ONG Venezuelan Violence Observatory.
According to the ONG in the last three years, 91% of murders have gone unpunished.

Cuban Doctors Sue Over 'Modern Form of Slavery'

Just imagine the thousands of lawsuits to come from American doctors after they're forced into slavery under ObamaCare.

Seven Cuban doctors and a nurse say their government conspired with Venezuela and its state-owned oil company to hold them in a "modern form of slavery," as Cuba barters their services for cheap Venezuelan oil. The doctors and nurse say they were put into "servitude for debt," with their work used to "to discount ... the commercial debt ... of the subsidized oil supplies provided by Venezuela to Cuba."

The doctors say that faced with precarious conditions and material needs in Cuba, they were deceived and threatened by Cuban authorities and taken by force to work in violent places in Venezuela, including the jungle rainforest and the frontier with Colombia.

The plaintiffs are a part of a mission called "Barrio Adentro." They say they are held in captivity in crowded lodgings or in houses with families affiliated with the Venezuelan regime. They say they are under strict control, surveillance, and threats by "slave hunters": Venezuelan security officials.

The plaintiffs say they work under an agreement between the two governments, through Petroleos de Venezuela.

The "Convenio Integral de Cooperacion" allows forced labor by doctors in exchange for 100,000 barrels of oil a day, according to the complaint.

No healthcare for oil!

The plaintiffs say they are "living illegally as prisoners" and work without licenses to practice in Venezuela. If they protest, they are returned to Cuba and suffer severe and permanent consequences, they say.

The plaintiffs say they "escaped their bondage n Venezuela, survived a harrowing adventure, and made their way to the United States," and live in Florida. They say they cannot get justice in Cuba or Venezuela, so they sued in Miami.

They demand punitive damages for RICO conspiracy, negligence, false imprisonment and emotional distress.

Champion of Cuban healthcare Michael Moore was unavailable for comment.

Chubby Dictator Urges People to Lose Weight

Lead by example, fatboy

A couple of weeks ago this communist thug said people needed only three minutes to take showers. Meanwhile, the oil-rich country can't afford electricity. Now this overweight slob is urging Venezuelans to eat less. Can you say food shortages, boys and girls?

Call it the Bolivarian battle of the bulge.

President Hugo Chavez said in a televised speech Friday that "there are lots of fat people" in Venezuela and advised his supporters to exercise and eat healthy to trim their waistlines.

"I'm not saying fat women, because they never get fat," he added. "Women sometimes fill out."

The 55-year-old leader said he himself has lost nearly 20 pounds (9 kilograms) by exercising and eating well. But Chavez, who still appears heavier than when he first took office in 1999, acknowledged that he could lose a few more pounds (kilograms).

"Doing sit ups," he said. "Eating well. One has to learn how to eat."

If I didn't know any better I'd think I was listening to the Mayor of New York City.

Malodorous Dictator: 'I Don't Stink'

Anyone willing to get close to this thug to do the sniff test?

I didn't think so.

Leftist President Hugo Chavez has called on Venezuelans to stop singing in the shower and limit their wash to just three minutes.

The plea comes as it was revealed the country is having problems supplying water and electricity to its citizens.

Venezuela has suffered several serious blackouts in the past year because of rapidly growing demand and under-investment, which has been aggravated by a drop in water levels in hydroelectric dams that provide most of its energy.

Chavez announced energy-saving measures and said he would create a ministry to deal with the electricity shortages.

Calling for water conservation, he said low rainfall caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon meant water levels were critically low in the El Guri reservoir, one of the world's largest dams.

'Some people sing in the shower, in the shower half an hour. No kids, three minutes is more than enough. I've counted, three minutes, and I don't stink,' he said during a televised Cabinet meeting.

'If you are going to lie back, in the bath, with the soap and you turn on the what's it called, the Jacuzzi ... imagine that, what kind of communism is that? We're not in times of Jacuzzi,' he said, to laughter from his ministers.

He mentioned using planes to try to force rain from clouds and said the government would soon publish a decree prohibiting imports of low-efficiency electrical appliances.

It can only be a matter of time until his buddy Obama begins outsourcing our electricity to help his pal.

Hot Air links. Thanks!

Venezuela Still Good for Something

The country may be a socialist basket case being run into the ground by Communist thug Hugo Chavez, but the women are still holding up very well.

Miss Venezuela was the fairest of them all once again, winning the 2009 Miss Universe crown for the second year straight and the sixth time since the pageant's creation.

Dressed in a flowing red gown, 18-year-old Stefania Fernandez hugged the runner-up from the Dominican Republic and danced in joy as her victory was announced Sunday.

The crown briefly fell to the floor as it passed from one Venezuelan beauty to the next.

But Fernandez said there was time for outgoing Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza to whisper in her ear that she must have worked hard for Venezuela to win consecutive crowns.

"What do we Venezuelans have?" Fernandez, an international relations student, told reporters after the pageant. "That we are ourselves."

The other top-five finalists were runner-up Ada Aimee de la Cruz, followed by Miss Kosovo, Droga Ganusha; Miss Australia, Rachael Finch; and Miss Puerto Rico, Mayra Matos Perez.

During a question-and-answer segment with the five top finalists, Fernandez said she believed women have overcome obstacles such as hitting the proverbial glass ceiling.

"I feel we have reached the level that men are at," she said.

When asked later how she thought beauty contests promoted equality between men and women, Fernandez said they provided exposure.

"We have quite a following worldwide," she said. "We are models to follow."

The new Miss Universe is from the city of Merida in the west of a beauty-obsessed South American country where hard-fought pageants are something of a national sport, with contestants widely dissected by the public and the media.

Fernandez said she did not know whether Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez would receive her. He did not meet with Mendoza when she won and made no public statements at the time.

But Fernandez said he might change his mind.

"We'll see, because we are making history," she said.

The top 15 Miss Universe finalists appeared in bathing suits before the final 10 were chosen for the evening gown segment.

Pageant co-owner Donald Trump told reporters, "I think this is the most beautiful group of women I've ever seen."

Here's another shot of the lovely Miss Fernandez.

Meanwhile, some guy named Flo Rida does his best Barack Obama impersonation by checking out the goods. Can you blame him?

America and Venezuela More Alike Then Folks Want To Admit

The parallels between events reported in this news story out of Venezuela and what is going on in this country under the Democrat led congress and executive branch struck me as more then a little bit ironic. The Dems are managing to make us into a third world country that will soon be the envy of the Organization of (Socialist) American States.

They were also angered when the Assembly President, Cilia Flores, accused them of obstructing the debate and ordered their microphones to be shut off.
“We decided to withdraw because they did not accept our proposals or recommendations,” said Juan Jose Molina of the Podemos party.

Do you remember this from last August when the Nancy Pelosi led congress adjourned so that she could started on her book tour aboard your taxpayer funded Gulfstream jet last year amidst the oil and gas crisis last year?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democrats adjourned the House, turned off the lights and killed the microphones, but Republicans are still on the floor talking gas prices.

Venezuela -

“They don’t use the word ’socialism,” said one of the protesters, “but that’s what they want to introduce in our schools.”

America -

President Obama was so miffed by repeated questions from New York Times reporters about whether his policies are "socialist" that he called the paper after their sit-down to set the record straight. "Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter—It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question," he said,

Venezuela -

After a marathon ten-hour session, the assembly — where Mr Chavez's party commands a majority — approved the Bill in the early hours of today.

America -

With the final vote coming late in the night, Congress yesterday approved a $787 billion stimulus package that aims to spur millions of jobs through massive new investments in energy, transportation, education and health-care projects, while reviving social safety-net programs that have been shrinking for nearly three decades.

Well I guess that is change we can all believe in.

Ousted Honduras Leader Accused of Drug-Running

No wonder Hugo Chavez threatens to take military action. His narcotics shipments are apparently being interrupted.

The regime that ousted Manuel Zelaya in Honduras claimed Tuesday that the deposed president allowed tons of cocaine to be flown into the Central American country on its way to the United States.

"Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission of appropriate authorities and bring thousands of pounds ... and packages of money that are the fruit of drug trafficking," its foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, told CNN en Espanol.

"We have proof of all of this. Neighboring governments have it. The DEA has it," he added.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Rusty Payne in Washington said he could neither confirm nor deny a DEA investigation.

Zelaya was traveling from New York to Washington and could not immediately be reached to respond to the allegations.

Honduras and other Central American nations have become major transshipment points in recent years for Colombian cocaine, particularly as Mexico's government cracks down on cartels.

Naturally this makes you wonder why on earth Barack Obama is taking this guy's side.

Lil' Kim Missed the Memo About the World Loving Us Again

Funny, isn't it, how the world's dictators have become increasingly belligerent the past four months? All this yammering about hope, change and smart diplomacy is really paying off.

North Korea threatened a military response to South Korean participation in a U.S.-led program to seize weapons of mass destruction, and said it will no longer abide by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

“The Korean People’s Army will not be bound to the Armistice Agreement any longer,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement today. Any attempt to inspect North Korean vessels will be countered with “prompt and strong military strikes.”

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak ordered his government to take “calm” measures on the threats, his office said in a statement today. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, Takeo Kawamura, echoed those remarks and called on North Korea to “refrain from taking actions that would elevate tensions in Asia.”

The threats are the strongest since North Korea tested a nuclear weapon on May 25, drawing international condemnation and the prospect of increased sanctions against the communist nation. South Korea dispatched a warship to its maritime border and is prepared to deploy aircraft, Yonhap News reported, citing military officials it didn’t identify.

The strongest threats in two days. Looks like they're not sitting around waiting for a call from Mrs. Clinton, who has mysteriously fallen off the radar in recent days.

Seems to me Lil' Kim smells weakness.

Had they not heard that Obama wants to "usher in a new era of diplomacy"?

Actually, they likely realize it all too well.

For one, Obama's fondness for talking has done much to reassure the world's bad actors that they needn't fear anything more from the US -- at least in the short run.

Plus, Iran and Korea seem to grasp the most basic rule of diplomacy: If you are going to negotiate, be sure to do it from a position of perceived strength.

Far better for America to be seen begging meekly for an audience after their show of force -- rather than the other way around.

That's something Obama needs to grasp pronto -- before the world becomes an even more combustible place.

If that's possible.

Of course some will do what Obama reflexively does and blame Bush. Good luck selling that argument to anyone outside of the leftwing blogosphere and MSNBC.

First, on the political front, North Korea's Kim Jong Il has challenged President Obama more in four months than he did President George W. Bush in eight years.

Since Obama has taken office, North Korea has kicked out UN nuclear inspectors, launched both short- and long-range missiles and tested a nuclear weapon.

It's not clear why the dictator has chosen to badger Obama, especially considering the president's promises of a kinder, gentler touch when it comes to rogues. But it's definitely not good news for Uncle Sam -- and the conclusion has to be that more provocations are coming in our direction.

The question is: When and how big will the next one be?

Well, Team Smart Diplomacy may want to look south.

Bolivia denied supplying uranium to Iran for its nuclear program, saying Tuesday that it has never produced the metallic element, a key ingredient for nuclear energy and weapons.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez joined top Bolivian officials in dismissing the allegations after a secret Israeli government report accused both nations of providing Iran with uranium.

Bolivian Presidential Minister Juan Ramon Quintana called it nonsense and labeled Israel's intelligence agency a bunch of incompetent "clowns."

I fear we have our own incompetent clowns here in DC.

Meanwhile, the clown-in-chief made no mention of the growing world threats while partying in Las Vegas. The man does have his priorities in order.

“It is good to be back in Vegas,” Mr. Obama told supporters gathered in the Poker Tournament Room at Caesar’s Palace. “I thought I had a good room at Ceaser’s, but now that I am president they upgraded me. They have been stashing away a really nice room. It’s like one of those high-roller rooms. And now I have it because I am president.”

Chavez Defends 'Penis' Phone

The Socialist dreamstate of Venezuela will soon be awash in cheap phones, courtesy of Comrade Hugo. I'm sure the surveillance applications come pre-installed.

Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president, has become the world’s first country president to launch a mobile phone.

And as if this isn’t weird enough, Chavez gave the phone a funny (or maybe offensive, for some) name: Vergatorio – which is a Venezuelan slang term for… penis.

Produced by a company that Chavez nationalized, the Vergatorio phone is a low-end model that costs only about $15.

The boob defends the use of the word.

The government-made subsidised telephone – at $15 one of the world's cheapest handsets – went on sale this week, the latest pro-poor initiative from Chávez's self-styled socialist revolution.

In a televised address to ministers at Caracas's Miraflores palace, Chávez distanced vergatario from verga, slang for penis. He cited the Spanish language reference dictionary, the Real Academia Española, which defined vergatario as an adjective signifying quality and value.

The Guardian said the word denoted excellence but that some Venezuelans considered it vulgar. Part of the Real Academia's definition – "adj. vulg. Ven" – acknowledges the connotation. Residents of Venezuela's second city, Maracaibo, are renowned for constructing swear words derived from verga.

'Capitalism Needs To Go Down'

This should be music to the ears of Comrade Obama.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ridiculed the G-20 summit's attempts to deal with the global financial meltdown, saying capitalism is in crisis and "has to end."

Speaking to Venezuelan state television late Thursday, Chavez said the United States and Britain are "the most guilty" for the financial crisis sweeping the globe because of the financial model "they've been imposing for years."

"It's impossible that capitalism can regulate the monster that is the world financial system, it's impossible," Chavez said. "Capitalism needs to go down. It has to end. And we must take a transitional road to a new model that we call socialism."

He need not worry. We're well on our way there.

Gitmo Problem Solved

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free. Or something like that. The world's favorite Spanish-speaking, long-winded, non-teleprompter using, Socialist dictator Hugo Chavez says he is open to taking the Gitmo prisoners.

What could possibly go wrong? Between making nice with Sean Penn's other pen pal Ahmadinejad, allowing Russian planes and naval ships access to his country, and chasing the devil out of the UN, why should this latest overture be a surprise?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says he would be willing to accept prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay detention center, which U.S. President Barack Obama has said he will close, the Venezuelan government said Thursday.

This was reported by Al Jazeera. As for that that long-winded part, it was a 90-minute interview. If Obama went that long without a teleprompter they would have to hook him up to life support. And yes, he went on to meet with the Iranian president.