Chavez's Nuttiest Theories

Remember how capitalism killed life on Mars?
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 5, 2013 7:19 PM CST
Chavez's Nuttiest Theories
In this 2005 file photo, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez wears a Mexican sombrero as he sings a Mexican ranchera song at a rally in Caracas, Venezuela.   (AP Photo/Fernando Llano, File)

The Los Angeles Times rounds up some of the more memorable declarations of the late Hugo Chavez, including:

  • Mars: He theorized in 2011 that the red planet once might have had life but that capitalism and "imperialism" arrived on the planet and killed it.
  • Cancer plot: He once speculated that the US gave him and other Latin American leaders cancer, a conspiracy floated anew today by his vice president.
  • Haiti quake: The US caused it with a super-secret weapon.

  • Twitter: He once called Twitter a "tool of terrorism," before becoming an enthusiastic tweeter himself.
  • Devil: At a speech to the UN in 2006, he called George W. Bush the devil, crossed himself, and said the lectern "still smells of sulfur." At a subsequent speech in 2009, he said President Obama had eliminated the sulfur scent.
Click for more. (More Hugo Chavez stories.)

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