Sulfur, I Smell Sulfur!

Big week of traffic jams in New York City: the U.N. General Assembly is in town. That means every 15 minutes or so in Midtown Manhattan, a flashing motorcade of black S.U.V.'s with tinted windows roll by, actually quite conspicously. Windows are down, and stocky men aim rifles at sidewalk strollers. Good times.

Anyhow, there was in fact news (supposedly) more pressing than gridlock: Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, stood before the assembly on Wednesday and called President George W. Bush the "devil." He made the sign of the cross, and then said the podium still stunk of sulfur. Okay.

Diplomacy sure is a classy sport these days. He went on to say the U.N. is beyond repair, and then held a book by Noam Chomsky up. What? Chomsky? Chavez said, "The American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its hegemonistic system of domination, and we cannot allow it to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated."

Genius.