This morning, my first real "news input" of the day was a message from Brian Carnell's site about the violence in Venezuela last night that resulted in the deaths of twelve protestors.

Later I heard the same story on NPR, but they also mentioned that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez resigned his post, effective immediately, after the violence.

NPR says that it was a result of pressure from the military, but they didn't explain that this pressure has been a constant for months. Strategic Forecasting has been predicting his political demise for some time.

This could be significant in the U.S. mainly because Venezuela produces a lot of oil. Any changes in the political landscape could be reflected in a change in their adherence to OPEC's quotas and limits on oil production. Venezuela is not a member of OPEC, but (as with most oil producing countries) they generally go along with whatever the cartel decides. (That's a slight exaggeration... but they do follow OPEC's edicts as closely as most of the cartel members do, which is to say "when it suits their interest to do so.")