Just to keep up with realities of Venezuela, though authored by an obvious, anti-chavista, Daniel in Venezuela is a great place to track the internal issues.

He makes an excellent point about what the OPEC members may have thought of Chavez trying to use OPEC as a force for social change when it is imminently an organization bent on economic power.

And this little gem about the reality of "commodities" in Venezuela where everything is price controls and soviet style economics that results in the same: basic goods are missing from grocery shelves.

It's not a one time thing. He and others he has linked to have been reporting on the lack of basic staples for some time. Where is all that oil revenue going? In the pockets of thieves and into projects that have no economic return. Like buying soviet..er...Russian arms and other interesting things.

Cold war revisited.