DON'T CRY FOR MR. CHAVEZ

Taking a page out of North Korea’s Handbook on destroying relationships with the world’s most powerful nations, Venezuela’s president Hugo Chavez publicly accused the U.S. this week in a BBC interview of planning to invade his country. He pointed to a 2002 failed coup attempt as evidence of a U.S.-assisted overthrow and suggested the oil-hungry Americans would relish taking over his country.

“A coup happened in Venezuela that was prepared by the US. What do they want? Our oil, as they did in Iraq….We have detected with intelligence reports plans of a supposed invasion, one that would never happen. But we have to denounce it,” Mr Chavez said.

The White House official response was brief: “As if.”

According to one source at the Pentagon, an invasion of Venezuela is not likely.

“Mr. Chavez should not flatter himself – the Venezuelans aren’t even in our top 10. They’re like number 17 on the list of proposed invasions. And they’d be lucky if we did. In fact, that may be the motivation behind these accusations…to get under our skin for a more prominent place on our list. But we’re onto Mr. Chavez and we will NOT be baited into invading his piece of crap country.”

Venezuela is the fifth largest oil producer, sending a million and a half barrels of oil to the U.S. every day.