Is Hugo Chavez a Saint? Certainly not. Does he make mistakes? We guess so. Is he subject of smear by right wing zealots who applauded the coup against him? You bet. Are these the same zealots who say they support "democracy" and "press freedom"? Yep, IAPA for example. Aren't they having their annual meeting in Caracas? Yep. Doesn't that a sort of prove that there is, errrr, freedom in Venezuela? Yes, but try to explain that to these idiots.

Back to Chavez. Is he a loudmouthed opponent of US and Colombian policies? Gosh, you noticed! Did he lose a referendum after a string of election victories? Indeed. Is there anything worse than Chavez? Yes: Whining money laundering oligarchs like Eisenmann who attack him with fake facts because they see their sleazy business interests threatened by someone who actually does know how to exploit the natural resources of his country for the benefit of all.

El Panama America, in its editorial, shows uncharacteristic restraint today. Sure, they call Hugo Chavez a "charlatan" because he was angry about Colombia's and the United States' independent bombing of a rebel camp, Mexican students AND the hostage release negotiations all in one blow and inside Ecuador (Panama would be delighted if Colombia started bombing Meteti or the banking center as hide-outs of the FARC). But at least the editors left the bigger charlatan alone. After all, Torrijos went to the Cumbaya meeting in Santo Domingo and came back drooling with pride and claiming that it was HIS speech that had made the difference. Strange that NONE of the international media even mentioned Torrijos' speech. He probably gave it in his hotel room in the mirror only, while Ritter changed his diaper. Anyway, class act of El Panama America to not further hammer the point.

FARC chicks are a lot cooler
than, say, Cindy McCain

Okay, so we all know this FARC miracle wonder laptop stuff is fake, propaganda from right-wing drug warriors. But in the wonderful world of spin and deceit, the right thing to do is release more from the same discredited source. Through Associated Press of course, the outlet of choice for this kind of "public diplomacy". Anyway, now they say Clinton was involved with Garcia Marquéz and the talks were to be held in PANAMA! This must have been such a lucrative time for the Colombian rebel group, with Chavez, Correa, Clinton and France all bidding on the prestigious release of hostages and of course trophy Ingrid Bethancourt. And imagine how Torrijos will pretend to have been at the center of it, just like he did with the Kumbaya meeting in Santo Domingo.

On the brighter side, it looks like we're getting the war after all, because the wingnuts won't be happy before they can nuke any peaceful solution to Colombia's conflict. The same shameless, unquestioning, jingoistic piece of crap who brought us the run up to the Iraq war is now spinning how Chavez is the FARC's Guardian Angel and Bush needs to "take him on". Next from the magic laptop: FARC wants to conquer the moon!

Totally unexpected news from within the PRD that has caught us by surprise and off guard. They're having internal elections. A bit like what's going on in the US, but here they keep everything under the hood. Why? Well, because nobody needs to stick his nose into how these things are done in the Democratic Revolutionary Party.

Or, in other words, allegations of vote buying are flying back and forth. Balabina may rank high in national polls, but she hasn't won any of the mini-congresses the PRD is organizing all over the country. A candidate who came to Chiriqui with a 30 vote advance left having lost by 27 votes.

And now the vice-president of this political pawn shop, Luis Navas, is making public statements about it! How totally un-PRDish! Must be Chavez paying him. There's also talk about a government police patrol boat flying a PRD flag in Kuna Yala. Chavez again.