Chavez Praises Belarus as "Model Social State"

If you weren't sure if Venezuela's Hugo Chavez was off his rocker, well, now you know. During a visit to Belarus, Chavez called one of the poorest countries in Europe, in large part due to its egomanical leader Alexander Lukashenko, "a model social state like the one we are beginning to create." Chavez and Lukashenko come from a similar mold, it's just that the mustached one can't count on high oil prices to prop up his socialist utopia. Instead, Lukashenko relies on the good old repression and fraud. Nice model, indeed.