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Decomposed Chavez body may be too dead to go on eternal display After Hugo Chavez's death last week, government officials revealed that the late Venezuelan leader's body would be embalmed and displayed "for eternity." Just like Han Solo, but with less chance of him waking up again. However, the grisly plans may now not happen at all. According to Russian and German scientists who are experts in the field of embalming (what a job), his body is now a bit too gross and decomposed. "They tell us it’s very difficult because the process should have started earlier," said acting President...

Sean Penn on the Death of Hugo Chavez: "I Lost a Friend" Despite his criticisms of the United States, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez did have supporters in Hollywood, including Sean Penn, who mourned Chavez's death Tuesday. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez dead at 58 "Today the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had," Penn said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. "And poor people around the world lost a champion. I lost a friend I was blessed to have. My thoughts are with the family of President Chavez and the people of Venezuela." Chavez,...

Spin, baby, spin. Throughout his frenetic jobs tour across the West this week, President Obama tried to seize the narrative. Republicans, he told champagne-sipping, tea party-trashing Hollywood moguls and tech titans, are intolerant bigots, know-nothings and thugs. They've made his hair "grayer" and left him "all dinged up." But who's battering whom? Since Day One, Obama has been the Chicago bully in victim's clothing. The mask is wearing thin. On Tuesday, Detroit News reporter Daniel Howes reported that White House officials leaned on Ford Motor Company to yank a popular TV and Internet ad critical of competitors who took federal...

Diplomacy: The restoration of a president with dictatorial dreams in Honduras is being touted by the administration as a triumph of "dialogue." In truth, it's just old-fashioned yanqui interventionism. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hailed Thursday night's agreement in Tegucigalpa as "a restoration of the constitutional order," and praised it highly. "I cannot think of another example of a country in Latin America that, having suffered a rupture of its democratic and constitutional order, overcame such a crisis through negotiation and dialogue." What worked here, though, wasn't dialogue, but U.S. diplomatic muscle. A last-minute mission from Assistant Secretary of State...

Democratic Response of Senator Jim Webb To the President’s State of the Union Address **Exclusive** Tue Jan 23 2007 19:10:01 ET [EMBARGOED UNTIL 8:45pm ET] Good evening. I’m Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown – an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth. It would not be possible in this short amount of time to actually rebut the President’s message, nor would it be useful. Let me simply say that we...

President Hugo Chavez has pledged to nationalise key Venezuelan companies, as part of plans to transform the country into a full socialist state. Mr Chavez said he wanted to see major Venezuelan power and telecoms companies come under state control. The country's telecoms giant CANTV is an expected target He also called for an end to foreign ownership of lucrative crude oil refineries in the Orinoco region. Mr Chavez's comments came in an address to the nation following the swearing in of his new cabinet. "All of that which was privatized, let it be nationalised," he said during the...

DISIP filming us in Maturin's airport Caracas 20.11.06 | Much has been said over the years about political prosecution in Venezuela. Not many days ago Miguel wrote a post about discrimination and fascism, now I will give my impressions. For the most part of the last 6 weeks I have travelled around Venezuela. One aspect that caught my attention the first time I flew in Rosales' plane was DISIP officers -political police- waiting in the tarmac, digital camera in hand, ready to take pictures or film all arriving passengers. Upset by this clearly intimidatory tactic I asked one of...

Today’s Cronica newspaper of Mexico City has a disturbing front page photo: Elementary school-age children dressed in full war regalia, grinning before a camera and saying how ready they are to defend Hugo Chavez’s Marxist “revolution.” If there’s ever a corruption of childish exuberance, this is it. Our source in Caracas is a little bit skeptical of it, because he hasn’t seen any of this stuff duplicated around Venezuela, and right now he wonders if it could be contrived. In Mexico, anti-Chavez sentiment is high, even in the press. Still, Cronica is a reliable news source. If it’s not a...

Latin America: It looks like Peru's election will bring a new leftist strongman to the region. That's sad, given how much progress Peru has made in recent years. There's still tallying to do. But if trends continue, the winner will be far-left Ollanta Humala, followed by Peru's disastrous ex-president, Alan Garcia. The unpromising pair will face off for a final round in May. Hard to say which would be worse. Humala's a verified human-rights violator who tortured peasants as an army officer in the 1990s. He's also an admirer of dictators, like Peru's last one, Juan Velasco, remembered in the...

Our friend, Aleksander Boyd, the brave blogger opposing the Castroite thug President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, shows readers some of the alarming threats and hatred his courageous website Vcrisis generates. This is no joke. We send our best wishes and our prayers to him.