Hugo Chavez to give out free PCs to Venezuelans?

While we're not sure what happened to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's $6.26 million plan to manufacture $350 "Bolivar" PCs with unnamed Chinese manufacturers, it seems as though that project's apparent failure hasn't set ol' Hugs back at all -- CNET is reporting that Venezuela is planning to enter the oddly crowded PCs-for-undeveloped-regions market, alongside such players as Intel and OLPC. Details are pretty light, as you'd expect, but apparently Venezuelan authorities are contacting Asian OEMs about building the machines, which will be funded by oil profits and either heavily subsidized or given away free to people in various Latin American countries. It's a nice idea, but we're wondering why these "authorities" don't just call up any random catalog reseller and place an order -- last we checked, you could spec out a laptop at retail for under $500, so we can't imagine the wholesale revolutionary-discount price would be over $300. And hey, we just might know someone who'll laser-etch Hugo's face on the lids for cheap -- feel free to give us a call, El Presidente.