If you’re going to remake society from the top down, don’t half-ass it.

After receiving power to rule by decree and moving to abolish the country’s presidential term limits, President Hugo Chavez intends to stake a claim on a new frontier: the country’s clocks. During Chavez’ seven-hour weekly radio broadcast on Sunday, he revealed he would order all of the country’s clocks to be set half an hour forward on January 1, 2008.

Chavez claimed the move would have positive effects on metabolism through extended sunlight exposure, and enable people to perform better at work and school.

He’s sending food aid to Peru, too, in the wake of the quake. Click for photo. Quote: “The Peruvian government acts in an inefficient, slow and heartless manner, notwithstanding the pain of the victims, leaving them to the mercy of hunger, thirst and delinquency.”