EVER WONDER WHY THE REST OF THE WORLD HATES YOU?

Ok, so far be it from me to get all geo-political on you, but I read something on SMH today that rather quite pissed me off.

No, for once it involves neither the anti-tobacco lobby, nor my anti-furniture Staffys. But it does involve two of my other favourite pub-debate whipping boys - the Christian right and American foreign policy. Combine the two and you have one motherfucking dangerous ideology.

So anyway, the president of the US Christian Coalition - who we will call Pat Robertson because that is his name - has publicy called for the assassination of democratically-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Who it would appear, is a dirty-lefty and a "terrific danger" to the United States. To be precise, Hugo was accused by Pat of turning his country into "the launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism" and called for some good old fashioned covert operations to "take him down", thus saving the American taxpayers the expense of another $200 billion war.

Ah, god bless you Pat, you're a fiery old coot. The communist thing is SO 1965. This is the same man who also once declared that feminism "encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians". Though he did forget to mention the greater feminist sins of unsightly body hair and criminal dress sense. Plus, the feminist thing is SO 1975.

Anyway, apparently Prez Hugo is a "dictator". One who was elected by a landslide in the 1998 presidential election and undertook social reform to bridge the gap between rich and poor. Naughty Hugo. Plus he said some nasty things about a few filthy rich oil barons and criticised the US for their war on Iraq. Naughty, naughty Hugo. Plus he's mates with bloody Castro. Je-sus! Go on Hugo, off to the corner to have a serious think about it.

Pat, our man of God, reaches an average 1 million American viewers daily. And is seemingly taken quite seriously. Though he is seemingly quite deranged.