Hugo. Hugo. Hugo.

Hugo Chavez addressed the UN global summit. I admire Chavez's fearlessness. I guess once the US tried to overthrow him, and he was popularly restored to power, once he gained evidence, beyond Pat Robertson's rant, that he believes proves the US at least had plans to assassinate him, and once he realized that he and his party are set to comfortably win the next election, he has come to the conclusion that he has nothing left to fear. His time may be limited, (see Trujillo) but no matter what he says, the oil transactions between the US and Venezuela will continue. And I admire that fearlessness and find it strangely endearing.

And, I genuinely think that he really is doing the best he can for the poor people in his country unlike so many second world leaders.

So without further ado, I give you .... Crazy Hugo addressing the UN.
(and by the way, note the mention of applause which is generally polite and tepid at these things.)

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez took President Bush to task in front of a global summit for waging war in Iraq without U.N. consent and won rousing applause for his critique. .....

"There were never weapons of mass destruction but Iraq was bombed, and over U.N. objections, (it was) occupied and continues being occupied," Chavez said. Bush alleged that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction but none have been found, shattering one of his main arguments for going to war. .......

Bush was not in the audience when Chavez spoke to the world representatives. But the U.S. president did address the summit's the opening session on Wednesday morning, then returned to Washington later that day.

World leaders at the summit had been asked to speak for five minutes but Chavez ran long and when the presiding diplomat passed him a note saying his time was up, he threw it on the floor. He said if Bush could speak for 20 minutes, so could he.

When he finally stopped, he got what observers said was the loudest applause of the summit. .....

In early August, Chavez accused the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration of using its agents in Venezuela for espionage, and said Venezuela was suspending cooperation with the agency. The Bush administration denied the espionage charge.

Chavez, whose country is the world's fifth-largest oil exporter, also warned the world is facing an unprecedented energy crisis.

He told reporters later the crisis will keep growing, "not because we the producers want it but because we are running out of oil."

Chavez singled out the United States as the most wasteful country, saying he was shocked when a quarter of all the cars he counted Thursday morning on New York streets had one person in them.

"That's crazy, one person with a huge car ... that is using up gas and polluting the atmosphere," he said at a news conference. "The world cannot tolerate this model of development called the American way of life."