quote:

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One hundred and twelve billion of anything sounds like a limitless quantity. But in terms of barrels of oil, it's just a drop in the gas tank. The world uses about 27 billion barrels of oil per year, meaning that 112 billion barrels--the proven oil reserves of Iraq, the second largest proven oil reserves in the world--would last a little more than four years at today's usage rates.

---

quote:

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Energy demand is expected to rise by about 50 percent over the next 20 years, with about 40 percent of that demand to be supplied by petroleum.

---

I just love it when people talk about how limitless and bountiful the NON-RENEWABLE resources are. People in the oil-industry or in any way dependent on it for their livelihood are always so smug about the supply, so dismissive of new like this. It doesn't really make sense, does it? You'd think that they'd be the ones most worried about when it's all gonna dry up.

[ 19 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

I also wanted to say that if you click on the link I provided, and have a look at the grid/map of northern AB and note those shaded grey areas where the oil sands are: that's the area that they've completely decimated by scraping the whole surface of the earth off, down to the black tar sands under the vegetation and animal habitat. There are gaping craters and steaming pools of black sludge and NO TREES and no sunlight. If I could find photos, I'd provide a link. Seems, though, that that's not exactly a tourist attraction...

And they want to do the same thing to Alaska and the Yukon and wherever else they think there might be tar sands.

from the link above:

quote:

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By 2005, oil sands production is expected to represent 50% of Canada's total crude oil output and 10% of North American production. Although tar sands occur in more than 70 countries, the two largest are Canada and Venezuela, with the bulk being found in four different regions of Alberta, Canada: areas of Athabasca, Wabasha, Cold Lake and Peace River. The sum of these covers an area of nearly 77,000 km2.

---

That seems like an awful lot of land, don't it?

Around Fort McMurray, north of the city, there are vast, huge tracts of land that look like some kind of morbid moonscape. It's absolutely dead and lifeless, and it's HUGE. They show no signs of stopping or slowing down, and they're constantly researching new ways to get oil out of the earth, new places to mine, even if they're less ready or efficient. It's a huge and disastrously destructive industry, is all I'm really trying to say.

[ 19 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

I believe that it's also sour (high in sulphur), which means a desulphurization at some early point so catalysts aren't ruined.

[ 19 January 2004: Message edited by: paxamillion ]

quote:

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Many lease areas are uneconomical so the oil companies hold onto them with minimal exploration & developement.

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Until such time as they find a way to dig them up.

quote:

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Fort Mac looked like that before the oilsands.

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I'm not talking about the landscape. I'm talking about the complete and utter decimation. And who cares what kind of oil-mining caused the damage, really. What matters is that it's done, and I highly doubt that any attempts at reclamation are going to be successful in the worst, deadest of those pits. We'll be stuck with those huge scars on the earth for a very long time.

quote:

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Now that they are in production, the land must be restored to as close to the original state when the extractions are complete.

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Except that the extractions go on and on, and even after they're over, the land is so far gone, that, as I said above, reclamation is nearly futile.

quote:

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Originally posted by HeywoodFloyd:
Right now, it is cut with steam heated by natural gas.

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quote:

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And this is sustainable energy production?!?!

---

http://tinyurl.com/294oh

I've heard the ten year figure too, but I don't really know. I'm not sure that anyone knows, although there are many opinions, all from various sources, each with their own bias.

I think, though, even if the numbers HF has listed are accurate, we're going to find that the resources required to mine the oil, and the environmental restrictions that are currently being placed on the industry, as well as proposed legislation or penalties, will make it harder and harder to mine the oil. Not to mention that bit about how some of the oil is in extremely hard-to-reach areas, where transport of the bitumen and other necessary "ingredients" makes production prohibitive...We may see the industry fall in on itself a little before we actually run out of oil.

Notice the nice colours...

What it doesn't say is that the costs are rising and many big players are pausing to rethink their startegies...here

Also I notice that it is very difficult to find actual per barrel production costs, for the tar sands...much higher that sweet crude...also the cracking process for Vacuum Residues and Bitumen, is much more energy intensive, costly, complicated, and still in its (relative) infancy compared with the older coking practices..tar sands here

Here's the link to using Candu reactor's to do the steam heating trick:
CANDU

[ 19 January 2004: Message edited by: HalfAnHourLater ]

quote:

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Personally, I hope it's sooner rather than later. I hope that people are starting to realize just how preposterous a situation this oil mining and refining business really is. And I really hope we start to research and develop more sustainable, accessible, responsible energy production technologies.

---

[ 19 January 2004: Message edited by: HalfAnHourLater ]

Unfortunately, that's only half the discussion, because with the other side of their faces they are pushing governments to ignore that potential rise in prices until the absolute last minute.

A sky high price of oil won't exactly hurt oil companies. Higher oil prices will also make a lot of hitherto uneconomic oil a lot more appealing. We've already got most fo the easy stuff, now we are getting into the harder stuff.

There will be a point at which most of us will not be able to afford the oil, natural gas, or anything else that we currently use to get around, heat our homes, fuel our stoves etc. It will probably happen before we start scraping the bottom of the barrel, because it won't take much of a drop in the global daily production to start sliding up that very steep demand curve.

The global economy, and a lot of countries in it, are not just oil dependent, but rather OIL DEPENDENT. The oil shocks of the 70s were not a result of a really huge reduction on oil production, just a relatively small drop.

All the more reason to buy a home that is reasonably sized, to insulate the shiznit out of it, to try to live close to your work so you won't be spending half your pay getting there, to install solar heating if you can, get into a wind power co-op (or start one), start riding your bike to work when weather permits.

If we still need plastics we will find other ways to make them, and/or focus what's left of our oil reserves on plastics production.

There are other ways, that are a lot less fraught with, well, political suicide. Careful regulation would be a good start. Directly and deliberately supporting and rewarding alternative producers. Ending Corporate welfare for oil companies etc.

quote:

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Originally posted by Lima Bean:
Not just Alberta!

---

Yes, I know. The oil crisis will affect everybody. I'm just gloating over the fact that the engine that is driving Mr. Klein's economic miracle will soon break down and all the idiots who voted for him will finally pay the price for their shortsighted self-serving attitudes.

quote:

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Originally posted by arborman:
In essence, the argument from industry is that they will turn to alternatives when global oil scarcity pushes the prices up past a point at which wind and solar become cheaper.

Unfortunately, that's only half the discussion, because with the other side of their faces they are pushing governments to ignore that potential rise in prices until the absolute last minute.

A sky high price of oil won't exactly hurt oil companies. Higher oil prices will also make a lot of hitherto uneconomic oil a lot more appealing. We've already got most fo the easy stuff, now we are getting into the harder stuff.

There will be a point at which most of us will not be able to afford the oil, natural gas, or anything else that we currently use to get around, heat our homes, fuel our stoves etc. It will probably happen before we start scraping the bottom of the barrel, because it won't take much of a drop in the global daily production to start sliding up that very steep demand curve.

The global economy, and a lot of countries in it, are not just oil dependent, but rather OIL DEPENDENT. The oil shocks of the 70s were not a result of a really huge reduction on oil production, just a relatively small drop.

All the more reason to buy a home that is reasonably sized, to insulate the shiznit out of it, to try to live close to your work so you won't be spending half your pay getting there, to install solar heating if you can, get into a wind power co-op (or start one), start riding your bike to work when weather permits.

If we still need plastics we will find other ways to make them, and/or focus what's left of our oil reserves on plastics production.

Leaving aside global warming etc, it actually makes good economic sense to do all the things I list above anyway. It will seem absolutely psychic in 10 years.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by CMOT Dibbler:

How much would all this cost? How much time would it take?

---

Good question. A lot of us can't afford a house, near to or far from work. I expect to be a tenant for quite a few years before I can afford the down payment. However, there are still some things that can be done:

1. Rent an apartment close to where you work. Often this is actually cheaper. When I lived in Winnipeg I had an apartment (a fairly nice one at that) a kilometre from work for $350/mo. I walked to work. Zero transport costs, low rent. My new apartment in Kitchener is a little farther, but still only a 25-minute walk, or a 10-minute bus ride. Naturally, this is harder in other places (is it cheaper to live in downtown Toronto than the 'burbs? I don't know, but I would guess not).

2. Replace incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights. They're expensive up front, but not unbearably so (typically around $10 each, but sometimes they go on sale). I just picked up one or two a week until I'd replaced them all. My hydro bill for my first month in my new apartment in Kitchener was around $15. (The next bill may be a little higher, but that remains to be seen). Of course, if I had electric heating it would be much higher, but the inner city apartments we're talking about tend to be older buildings, with steam heat. Furthermore, compact fluoro lights last considerably longer than regular bulbs. Some new ones have just come out that are even shaped like bulbs, so that lampshades will fit over them. The biggest problem with them is that you usually have to go to some store in the burbs to find them.

I couldn't the article I read but current production is about 200 000 million, total reserve is 1000 billion.
But that can't be right that's only 5 years isn't it?

From this site

[ 20 January 2004: Message edited by: Tackaberry ]

[ 20 January 2004: Message edited by: DownTheRoad ]

quote:

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I'm pretty sure its natural gas reserves that will be up in Alberta within ten years

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There are a lot of access surrounding BC's natural gas which makes it prohibitively expensive right now.

In northern Albera, natives routinely blockade companies on Crown land. They claim that the land is "traditional" land (not reserve land) and that the companies must pay to get on, to get supplies in, or to get equipment out. Typically, the payments are up to 40% of the invoice amount. The companies must also hire exclusively native workers, and in some cases, natives from specific tribes.

This extortion has been taped and videotaped many times. It is an open secret here. The gov't looks the other way as they want to maintain peace with the first nations.

What I'm really saying is, maybe we'd better just leave the natural gas wherever it is in BC and save ourselves a whole heap of trouble. If we were smart about things, we wouldn't need it anyways. Perhaps we should pay heed to nature's prohibitions for once...

[ 20 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

We already know about a ton of alternative energy sources and strategies. If we put half as much effort into further research and widespread implementation as we do into more oil drilling and trying to reach those prohibitive pockets you mentioned, we'd be well on our way.

Personally, I hope it's me, so that we're not all dead and gone when the verdict comes in.

Edited to clarify that my ten year warning refers not only to the supply, but to the feasibility of continued reliance on oil and gas. We may find it unreasonable to keep up our current usage as we see the air quality, water supply, and other environmental factors reach the verge of complete collapse as a result of blind persistence on the part of the oil industry and its consumers.

[ 20 January 2004: Message edited by: Lima Bean ]

The 'sweetness' or 'lightness' of the crude does indeed refer to such alternate constituents as sulphur, as well as the make up of the Hydrpcarbons.

Crude is refined into various 'cuts' (refers to the point in a distillation column at which it is removed) Starting from the bottom (heaviest to the top you have

Vacuum Bottoms/inorganics
Bitumen
Heavy Bunker Oil
Kerosenes-->Planes
Diesels-->Diesel Engines
Napthalene-->internal combustion engines (ie. gas)
progressively lighter gaseous hydrocarbon mixtures (incl. various oxides, sulphides, etc gaseous state)

The cost associated with more sour and heavier crudes is that you have much more of the heavy stuff and to 'crack' it (break the hydrocarbons apart and distill them to the above goups) one needs to pretreat it, through various expensive processes. The downstream processes are also much more costly due to the high sulpher contents.

To all those who didn't read the link regarding alternate plastic sources here it is again

[ 20 January 2004: Message edited by: HalfAnHourLater ]

That's what is forgotten about the oilsands discussions. The only reason Syncrude and Suncor even exist up there is because of ginormous government cheese to the tune of billions to make it profitable for those guys. If it wasn't for the corporate welfare, Ft Mac would still be a rotting ferry across the Athabasca river.

So, in order to maintain our dependency, it will be necessary to divert huge portions of tax revenue to support exploration and production. And if you're American, more money to the Pentagon to secure foreign fields from their unco-operative owners.

Wind power is about equal with oil in terms of energy for expenditure right now (very slightly more expensive last time I looked, but oil has gone up since then).

However, you don't need to keep prospecting for more wind, nor do you need to keep buying wind. You do need to keep maintaining the turbines, but the same goes for any engine. Wind is perpetual. Stating that is stating something astonishingly obvious, and yet it doesn't seem to register with a lot of people.

I haven't had a car in years, which gives me the financial flexibility to buy a home closer to my workplace than if I had a car. To be honest, I don't know how people actually pay for those things, after I'm finished spending money on things I enjoy, there isn't much left over for a machine that always demands more fuel and will eventually break down and become worthless.

I guess people do the darnedest things. I learned to hate my car when I was working in the oilfield (ironically) and realized I was spending the first hour of every day just paying for the gas to get to work.

Some seem to have mixed up their identities with their cars, of all the silly things to do. As if a mass produced anything will say something appealing about your personality.

quote:

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I learned to hate my car when I was working in the oilfield (ironically) and realized I was spending the first hour of every day just paying for the gas to get to work.

---

There's the rub. I don't think people really understand how much they work to pay for their choice of transport. It isn't something they've even considered. It's like food expenses, something that must be done. There should be a "car freedom day" like the "tax freedom day" that so enamours the Fraser Institute. Calculate how long into the year you work to pay for your wheels.

Back to oil...

Oh and before you go nuts, most of that info comes from none other than www.zmag.org

quote:

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Venezuelans should be worred becasue their cretinous leader works with totalitarian dictators, hires the siblings of terrorists, funds narco-terrorists, and launders money for Middle Eastern terrorists...oh and does not respect property rights.

---

I've heard this somewhere before...Evil Dictator...works with terrorists....funds terrorists....oh yeah! I remember now.

You're full of shit, of course. Chavez's crime has been to not comply with the orders of the wealthy parasite class who are used to running Venezuela as their own personal piggy bank. His other crime? "Anti-American", which means not complying with the orders of the Washington Consensus and their program of pillage they call structural adjustment.

If you want narco-terrorists, go to Miami where they are pampered guests of Jeb Bush. They're the former employees of Ronny Reagan, Dick Cheney, Robert Reich, George HW Bush, and other such defenders of liberty and justice whose genocidal activies in Central and South America are not forgotten. Well... there at least.

If you want narco-money laundering, go to Wall Street and the big international banks whose addiction to drug profits makes a heroin junky look like a Tibetan monk.

I am curious, did you actually read any of the stories linked to Z-mag?

quote:

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does not respect property rights.

---

Meanwhile, for a guy who "doesn't respect property rights", Chavez has sure given them to a lot of people. An ever-increasing number of barrio-dwellers now have title to the homes they've been living in for generations thanks to Chavez.
Doubtless you're talking about the distribution of farmland to small farmers. But Chavez has only distributed government land. The fact that a number of bigshot ranchers had already muscled in on some of that land illegally--and driven small farmers off other land with no clear title--doesn't make taking it back "disrespect for property rights". It seems it's only disrespect for property rights when you take back land used (or actually, largely unused) by bigshots with huge holdings, not when you drive small farmers off their livelihood.

Not that I hold a big torch for "respect for property rights" as the highest good in the first place. Frankly, if big land barons systematically drive smallholders off their land, buy it up cheap or just occupy it, and then leave it unused (but use many of the displaced farmers, now desperate with no source of income, as cheap labour on the plantations the land barons already owned) I really don't give a shit if someone takes it away from them again. And given the way they terrorize and kill small farmers who organize and complain, I'd say the bastards should be happy someone doesn't sling them in jail and take everything they've got. Most of it's clearly proceeds of crime--to bring us full circle, taking it all would be legal in the US. You wouldn't even have to prove it--just make the allegation and give a paid informer's statement as "probable cause".

quote:

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If you want narco-money laundering, go to Wall Street and the big international banks whose addiction to drug profits makes a heroin junky look like a Tibetan monk.

---

I never said this. I spoke of funding narco-terrorists.
Regardless, drug profits and funding narco-terrorism are two different things.

And again, two wrongs do not make a right.

Yes, I did read the articles on Znet. I read them while writing a paper over a year ago about Venezula for a far-left professor.

I am sure I still have the printed copies and the paper around here somewhere.

quote:

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Originally posted by Catus:

I never said this. I spoke of funding narco-terrorists.
Regardless, drug profits and funding narco-terrorism are two different things.

And again, two wrongs do not make a right.

Yes, I did read the articles on Znet. I read them while writing a paper over a year ago about Venezula for a far-left professor.

I am sure I still have the printed copies and the paper around here somewhere.

But I must admit, my favourite article about Chavez was printed by US News and World Report a few months back. I also enjoy the articles at www.vheadline.com

---

It combines two scary terms, while not really describing anything.

I would think that drug dealers, by definition, would not need funding from government circles. Terrorists focus more on direct damage for big effect. I don't think Bin Laden, for example, plans to undermine the USian hegemony through promoting laziness in the underclass through promoting pot growth.

Narco-terrorist is a fairly new term, created to demonize oppostion groups of various stripes (some of whom deserve to be demonized, some who don't).

The narco-terrorists of Brazil are just that. The eliminate civilian leaders, appropriate land, destroy property, blow up oil pipelines, kidnap nationals and foreigners.

You can try to spin the term however you like but the term narco-terrorismis applicaple to groups such as FARC and ELN.

The idea that FARC and Eln are "narco-terrorists" is really quite a stupid idea, unless you also think that the government of Colombia is a "narco-government" and the paramilitia in Colombia are "narco-militia".

The reason I say this is because EVERY political actor in Colombia has some interaction with drug production.

You might be interested in knowing that the last President of Colombia denied, in a public speech, that the FARC did anything more than tax the cocaine farmers in their zone, and had nothing to do with sale or distribution.

And you might be interested in knowing that the US drug adminsitration possesses tape intercepts
indicating that a major drug transaction occurred, in the last year, during the Uribe administration, within the Presidential palace in Bogota.

Or you might even be interested in knowing that I have an employee in my office who is an ex-drug prosecutor in Colombia. She was given refugee status in Canada because of threats to her work coming from the HIGHEST reaches of the Colombian Attorney General's office.

I won't even go into Venezuela. Your comments basically reflect the ideas of someone who is being fed American propaganda, and hasn't the tools (Spanish, say?) to find out any different.

What i know about Venezuela I learned fromteh three sources i have described above.

But onto the meat of your posting. It matters not one hairy bit that Columbian government is involved in narcotics traffic. Narco terrorism is a specific type of terrorism that primarily uses drug money to promote its more violent activities.
Iin any case, two wrongs do not make a right. I may as well make that sentence my mantra here on Rabble.

quote:

---

FARC is labled a terrorist organization by the US authorities as is ELN. Several leaders of FARC have been indicted by the US government under kidnapping and murder charges pertaining to US citizens.

---

Could anything be more indicative of your general outlook than this? So the US has "labelled" someone a terrorist organization.

So what? Some people have "labelled" the US a terrorist state. Our job is not to proclaim what our governments have decided we should; it is to discover the truth.

I have been to Colombia twice. On both occasions, I criticized guerilla organizations for some of their acts. But a one-sided concentration on the acts of one side is not even-handed; among its other defects, it will never convince anyone with the slightest knowledge of the actual situation on the ground.

So, the guerillas kidnap people. Bad. Of course, the Colombian government also kidnaps innocent people; it calls this act "arrest". And it keeps people in jail for years without bringing them to trial.

In Colombia, by FAR the worst human rights abusers are the so-called paramilitaries. These groups are allied with the government. Right now the government is considering granting amnesty to the paramilitaries for their well-attested crimes.

How anyone could write about the ACTUAL situation in Colombia without discussing the paras is beyond me. You see, one very good reason to join the guerillas is that otherwise, you will be without a defence when the paramilitary come to kill you. And they do come, targetting entire towns, or, as their leader Carlos Castanya has admitted, "the social sector which gives rise to the guerillas."

They kill the poor. And so the poor look for someone who will protect them; the guerillas.

damn boy, You are trying to counter the use of the term "narco-terrorism" by saying "everyone engages in the narcotics trade". This is not helpful.

Then you go on to compare arrests with kidnapping and then make this outrageous argument that individuals shuld decide wheather terrorist groups are terrorists groups or not....

I do not need to discuss the paramilitary as I am not commenting on them nor am I commenting on Colombia. Again, this is extraneous to the argument.

I do not need to rely upon the US government, I know much of what FARC does. But unlike you I do not have a knee-jerk reaction that results in disqualifying what certain groups or governments say.

My conclusion? They are terrorists. Chavez funds and trains some of them. Chavez is supportive of Middle Eastern terrorist organizations and helps launder their money.

By the way the two conservative groups I got articles from about Chavez were www.cato.org and www.heritage.org. I forget Cato's article but they are hardly "conservative" but the Heritage article was a briefing of some sort.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Catus:

Then you go on to ... make this outrageous argument that individuals shuld decide wheather terrorist groups are terrorists groups or not....

My conclusion? They are terrorists.

---

Well in any case, Colombia is neither here nor there. i ddi not happen to find my sources but i did find a list of them:

Heritage Foundation Backgrounder 1623: Stability and Democracy, not oil, are at risk in venezuela by Stephen Johnson

Cato Policy Analysis no. 251 Venezuela: From Showcase to Basketcase by Roger Fontaine

Carter Center Observing Political Change in Venezuela: The Bolivarian Constitution and the 2000 elections by Jennifer McCoy and Laura Neuman

The authors I used off of ZNET were 2 articles by Gregory Wilpert, one by Justin Podhur, and one by Mike Lebowitz.

A long article by Antonio Guzman-blanco from www.analitica.com/va/ttim/international/7317929.asp

quote:

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Colombia is neither here nor there.

---

Very telling. Uribe, whose human rights abuses (included chemical warfare using equipment provided by the US government, and mass murder by paramilitary death squads who enjoy his support) against the poor population is well-documented, doesn't seem to merit the censure or attention you reserve for Chavez. It's like it doesn't happen.

Could it be possible that the US's illegal interventions in Venezuela are tied to their concern over oil security and not over human rights? Could the US government lack of concern over human rights abuses, drug corruption, and democracy in Columbia have anything to do with the fact that Uribe, unlike Chavez, is firmly within the US's control?

Nobody here supports the activities of the violent parts of FARC or the ELN.

Arborman, the election is not in doubt ( well the Jimmy Carter Foundation thought the 200o election was).

The entire reason Venezuela became a topic was because of this comment by Jingles:

quote:

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Those who criticized the opponents of the Rape of Iraq made a point of saying it wasn't about oil, that the US had plenty of access, so the invasion had nothing to do with it. Of course, this like every other argument for war, was dead wrong and a pure lie. The absolute armed control of the oilfields is necessary to keep it out of the wrong hands as much as secure access. If it were true that the US could just purchase all the production, it would mean that other less American people could also. This is why Venezuelans (and Canadians!) should be severely worried. The US Government has amply demonstrated the lengths to which they'll go to get complete control. Chavez was kept alive last time. They won't make that mistake again.

---

Better prospecting technology and deeper wells mean each oil site can be used more and longer. Consumption is growing, and but old oil sources, esp. ocean-floor,are asting longer than before.

In the mid-1970s, Club of Rome made all sorts of malthusian end-of-resources predictions, and they proved wrong, almost without exception. No wonder, forecasting (especially about the future, as Yogi Berra said) is difficult :
http://www.chforum.org/methods/xc414.html

Paul ("Population Bomb") Ehrlich made a bet in the early 1980s with some libertarians about what the prices of a key group of minerals (tungsten, zinc, etc) would be several years later; he said they would all climb because of shortages:
http://www.overpopulation.com/faq/people/julian_simon.html
In fact, none did. Wager lost:
http://plaza.ufl.edu/elhansen/term%20paper%201.htm

Oil is very reasonably priced today compared to the late-1970s peak (it would be about $60 a barrel at '70s steady prices; it is half that today):
http://www.ogbus.com/eng/authors/McKillop/McKillop_1.pdf
and Russia could flood the world market if it decided to export more aggressively.

Cleaner technologies should be encouraged, but not on the basis of false alarms.

[ 22 January 2004: Message edited by: Geneva ]

quote:

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Heritage Foundation Backgrounder 1623: Stability and Democracy, not oil, are at risk in venezuela by Stephen Johnson

Cato Policy Analysis no. 251 Venezuela: From Showcase to Basketcase by Roger Fontaine

---

Notice that over half of my sources come from that are independent or of unknown political background or from well known left-wing sites.

Sure, there's a mess. But he's dealing with a very corrupt system and he's agitating very important people.

Also, they show video footage of gun fights between US soldiers and Iraqi restance fighters on the news here. Pretty freaky stuff.

[ 22 January 2004: Message edited by: FPTP ]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Catus:
I ama Dupe because all of my sources did not come from Chavez friendly journalists or organizations?

Notice that over half of my sources come from that are independent or of unknown political background or from well known left-wing sites.

I understand that you might dislike the Heritage Foundation. But why the Cato Institute?

---

No. Your a Dupe because all your information comes from people who indorse American imperialism.

[ 22 January 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]

quote:

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Originally posted by Catus:
Narco terrorism is a specific type of terrorism that primarily uses drug money to promote its more violent activities.

---

Then why on earth would any government, much less Chavez', have to fund it? Presumably, as soon as terrorists depended on funding for a government, they would no longer be "narco-terrorists".

I have never seen any remotely credible claim that Chavez' government has any connection with terrorists, whether narco- or otherwise. There have been a few hysterical accusations citing no sources, but generally in pieces which start off by describing a man who won election repeatedly with 60% of the vote as a "dictator" or "strongman". I tend to assume there's a bias there.

And Cato, if you've been reading Vheadline, what did you think of the article/s describing how a major Venezuelan daily newspaper took a photograph of Chavez giving a speech holding a rose, doctored it to show him holding a gun, and ran it on the front page, with loud accusations about how violent he was? Doesn't that kind of thing make you wonder just the tiniest bit about whether some of the accusations against Chavez, especially ones that echo the mainstream Venezuelan media (whose ownership is very concentrated), might be worthy of a few grains of salt?

Edited to say: Incidentally, I've read all the sources you claim to be using. None of them either portray Chavez as, or present any facts that would lead a sane person to conclude Chavez was, doing any of the stuff you accuse him of. Either your reading of them is so skewed as to suggest complete separation from reality, or you are drastically misrepresenting your sources. That is, you cite ZNet and Vheadline, but you are clearly only *making use* of your couple of right wing sources and completely ignoring the rest, if you've read them at all, because none of the rest in fact corroborate what the right wing ones say. Your claim to make use of other sources is bogus, a smoke screen.

[ 22 January 2004: Message edited by: Rufus Polson ]

quote:

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I understand that you might dislike the Heritage Foundation. But why the Cato Institute?

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Yeah, I mean it's not like they're pushing any kind of an agenda...

Blackdog. uhm, so do Zmag/znet and/or its featured articles/journalists have an agenda? How about the Carter Center?

PS, the Cato institute does not endorse American Imperialism. To whit, they were adamantly against the Iraq invasion (check out Charles Pena)

[ 22 January 2004: Message edited by: Catus ]

[ 22 January 2004: Message edited by: Catus ]

quote:

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What are the appropriate public policies for America as it approaches the coming century? The signs are all around. A market liberal revolution is sweeping the world, from Eastern Europe to Latin America to Asia, where governments are selling off state enterprises, cutting taxes, deregulating business, and showing new respect for property rights and freedom of choice.

The two dozen essays in this book discuss how to bring the market liberal revolution to the United States and explain:

How for-profit companies will revolutionize education;

How deregulation of medical care can lower prices;

How America can save $150 billion a year in military spending;

How property rights can fix the environment;

How deregulation and free trade can produce prosperity;

How the poverty-and-welfare trap can be ended;

How the inner cities can become livable again.

This blueprint for policy reform is the alternative to both the status quo and the calls for even more government interference in our personal and economic activities. It is uniquely suited to guide America to a future of freedom and prosperity.

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[ 23 January 2004: Message edited by: Hinterland ]

'Mark' doesn't quite fit, though...I always think that marks are selected individually by the con-men. There's a personal relationship of sorts between a mark and a conman. A mark doesn't get all of his misinformation from passing TV programs and heritage front websites.

A rube is slang for a country bumpkin, more or less. Meaning, of course, someone who is not sophisticated enough to tell truth from fiction. That may fit.

A dupe is someone who is easily deceived, but can also connote a person who is being used as the tool of another person. For example, someone who spreads the misinformation of others, believing it to be truth, would be a dupe.

A patsy meant more as someone who (unknowingly at the time) takes the blame for something someone else has done. Dubya may become a patsy for Cheney, for example, if the feces ever hits the fan.

There are probably better terms out there. I'm not married to Dupe.

[ 23 January 2004: Message edited by: Sarcasmobri ]