Free Republic

Mr Chavez might be dead, but as one of Latin America’s most charismatic political performers, he is far from forgotten. His placid features still stare out from billboards in Caracas, while Venezuelan television still plays his rambling speeches denouncing America, capitalism and the West. He promised the people the riches of the revolution, and for a while he was able to deliver, thanks to his country being blessed with the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

Congressional negotiators put their final signatures late Wednesday on an economic plan worth more than $150 billion that would extend a payroll tax holiday and unemployment benefits. A key roadblock was overcome when the lawmakers agreed to require new federal workers to contribute more to their pension plans, clearing the way for a majority of the House-Senate conference committee to approve the deal just past 11 p.m., aides in both parties said. A vote could come as early as Friday, the last act in a five-month battle over President Obama's proposed jobs plan.

Europe's Grim Outlook Challenges World Recovery Article By MARCUS WALKER and JOELLEN PERRY Europe's economy faces a deeper recession and a slower recovery than the U.S. or other parts of the world, making it the region that is most hurting prospects for an early end to the global economic slump. The EU's economy is set to contract 4% this year, even worse than the 2.8% drop projected for the U.S., according to new forecasts published Wednesday by the International Monetary Fund. Those figures came as the U.K. released a budget that includes its biggest jump in the national debt since...

Just heard on FOX that Blanco refused to allow supplies to be brought to the stadium, "Because they wanted all those people to leave, and they didn't want to create a magnet to bring others there, by bringing in food and water!"""

Big Sid tells lies. During the course of a single three-hour conversation on a London street corner, he relates his life story four times, each version more fantastical than the last. In one, he swims to the middle of the Thames in midwinter to rescue a drowning dog. In another, he vanquishes a phalanx of machete-wielding skinheads with his bare hands. Sid is a black man who says his parents came to Britain from the Caribbean, but the specific biographical details he serves up vary so dramatically he might easily be talking about three or four completely different people; the...