[MrBean]

the sooner the oil is finito, the better. Climatewise, culturewise, etc.

Good lord....you really have no understanding of global economies or how it all works do you?

Pretty good understanding, as a matter of fact. Basic grasp of Austrian school economics, Marxist economics, and the fysical grounds (or lack of them) of any economic theory.

As long as the first to go are the brain dead such as yourself the rest of us might be OK.

Thanks for the kind words. If humans and their cultures vs. forests have conflicting interests, it is only logical and natural to take sides with the forests. Poor me, I still think human kind (after Die Off, wich I now take as a matter of fact and accept necessity as virtue) has some hope.
But what can I say? Been there, done that: the denial, false hopes, aggression against "doomers", etc., when I first found this place in 2003. Facing individual and collective Fear of Death (Death, the old friend), and overcoming it.

[MrBean]

Are you still wearing clothes or are you running around in loin cloths and rubbing sticks together in the back forty using leaves for a blanket, occasionally finding a way to get on the net via telepathy? I doubt it!

As long as the net is available, why not use it? I would not know anything about PO, PF and PW without net, nor would I know about ecovillages. Or about scientific views about telepathy, for that matter.

Only logical way is to think in spans over multiple generations, about learning.

[threadbear]

From Alberta's point of view, they have rapidly declining conventional production of oil and gas, and presumably an increase coming in tar sands oil production. They are making virtually nothing on tar sands oil, and if that isn't changed they'll be literally giving it away for free while their income stream dries up.
If you were running the place what would you do?
As for Equador et al, point taken...the hoarding mentality kicks in which will make the decline rate much more steep...for the oil companies it's frightening, they invest billions and years and get shut out when it becomes profitable. These leftist idiots are going to turn their countries into replicas of Zimbabwe.
One thing after another neh?

What makes Alberta different than "leftist" regimes? It seems they are trying to institute similar reforms. The only difference between Venezuela and Alberta, to the right wing, is one is full of brown skinned people with names like Sanchez, the other is full of whitish pink people with names like Smith.

[rockdoc123]

What makes Alberta different than "leftist" regimes?

That is a very good point. The "only our fair share" is not much different an argument than the " it's the Ecudorian peoples oil" , it is pretty much the same argument with the exception of how draconian one is versus the other. Both miss the point that it is not the Alberta people nor the Ecuadorian people that are ponying up the cash to either look for or develop the oil.
I've seen a photoshopped picture of Alberta's premier Stelmach hugging Chavez, that sort of says it all.
One other difference possibly is what is done with the royalties....in Venezuela as an example Chavez uses it in his social programs whereas Stelmach uses it to build bigger government.

[Cid_Yama]

The companies will have the option of agreeing to be paid for getting the oil out of the ground, as the government wants, or to continue under present terms and pay the government a 99 percent tax for windfall profits above contracted prices.

Companies also may leave, in which case the country will pay them for investments carried out to date, said Correa, a U.S.- educated economist.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... i90riLiNEk

Interesting that Colombia violated Ecuadorian Sovereignty and caused this incident, just ahead of this important deadline.

Want to bet the US is behind it?

<b>This isn't about FARC, it's about Ecuador nationalizing it's oil fields on March 8th.</b>

Could this be the 'incident' Chavez warned us about?

<b>US, Columbia plotting 'incident' to spark war with Venezuela</b>

President Hugo Chavez on Saturday charged that the United States and Colombia were plotting an incident that would spark a war with Venezuela.

"I alert the world of the following," said Chavez, speaking at the Bolivarian Alternative Summit of the Americas (ALBA). "The US empire is creating conditions to generate an armed conflict between Colombia and Venezuela."

"I accuse the government of Colombia of devising a conspiracy, acting as a pawn of the U.S. empire, of devising a military provocation against Venezuela," Chavez said.

"A military aggression is being prepared," Chavez added.

But he warned Colombia not to attempt a "provocation" and said Venezuela would cut off all oil exports in the event of a military strike from the neighboring country.

"In that scenario, write it down: the price of oil would reach $300, because there wouldn't be oil for anyone," Chavez said. "The invaders would have to step over our dead bodies."

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbc ... /801260363

Noticed the US/Western Media Propaganda light is now lit and aimed at Ecuador's President Correa.

<b>A Viper in their Midst</b>

Eloy Alfaro base Manta, Ecuador

The Eloy Alfaro base is used to rotate U.S. troops in and out of Columbia, and to house an immense network of private corporations who do most of the military's dirty work in Columbia. According to the Miami Herald , U.S. mercenaries armed with M-16s have gotten into fire fights with guerrillas in southern Columbia, and American civilians working for Air Scan International of Florida called in air strikes that killed 19 civilians and wounded 25 others in the town of Santo Domingo.

The base is crawling with U.S. civilians—many of them retired military—working for Military Professional Resources Inc., Virginia Electronics, DynCorp, Lockheed Martin (the world's largest arms maker), Northrop Grumman, TRW, and dozens of others.

It was U.S. intelligence agents working out of Manta who fingered Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia leader Ricardo Palmera last year, and several leaders of the U.S.-supported coup against Haitian President Bertram Aristide spent several months there before launching the 2004 coup that exiled Aristide to South Africa.

“Privatizing” war is not only the logical extension of the Bush administration's mania for contracting everything out to the private sector; it also shields the White House's activities from the U.S. Congress. “My complaint about the use of private contractors,” says U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsy (D-IL), “is their ability to fly under the radar to avoid accountability.”

The role that Manta is playing in the northern part of the continent is what so worries countries in the southern cone about Mariscal Estigarribia. “Once the United States arrives,” Argentinean Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Perez commented about the Paraguay base, “it takes a long time to leave.”

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/2939

[Cid_Yama]

US accuses Correa and Chavez of 'supporting terrorists' which is what they are calling FARC. Will this be their justification for military intervention ahead of Ecuador's nationalization of their oil fields on March 8th?

Western media propaganda has gone into overdrive today focusing on Ecuador's President Correa.

Remember, it was Ecuador who's country was invaded by Columbia's military. Kind of hard to tell that from the stories in the western media.

<b>Colombia's Civil War</b>

FARC is the "other side" in a civil war that has it's roots in the 1940's. They do not meet the 'Legal' definition of the word terrorist as they are in a civil war, within their own country.

In today's world, there is almost no reliance by third states on the traditional legal definitions of rebellion, insurgency, and belligerence. Instead, governments normally determine their relations with the competing factions on the basis of their own foreign policy goals. This often translates into supporting the forces of "law and order" in allied states, and the forces of "self-determination" in rival states. Nevertheless, the legal status of insurgents should be a matter of serious concern to the courts, which are supposed to decide cases based on objective legal standards, rather than on whether the defendant is a member of an official enemies list. That is the rule of guilt by association. The new crime of providing material support to a terrorist organization takes us back to the days of the inquisition. It is the crime of helping a group on the official enemies list of the United States or the European Union.

Recently, a court in Copenhagen dismissed charges against persons selling t-shirts bearing FARC and PFLP logos. The defendants had advertised that five Euros from each sale would be donated to those organizations. The court made factual findings that the FARC and PFLP are not, under Danish law, terrorist organizations because their actions are intended to overthrow their governments, not to terrorize civilians.

http://newsfromrussia.com/world/americas/103640-0/


The FARC, with some 17,500 members, is active throughout Colombia and headquartered in the south of the country, where it largely governed a region about the size of Switzerland for over 40 years. Its primary mission is to overthrow the state and establish a communist-agrarian state.

The FARC is governed by a seven-member secretariat, chaired by its 71-year old original founder, Manuel Marulanda.

The FARC has its roots in Colombia's La Violencia, the country's ten-year civil war, beginning in the late 1940s.

During a hard-line military dictatorship, dissident members of the Liberal and Communist parties left mainstream politics to establish their own communist and agrarian "independent republics." The largest cooperative, which had 1,000 members, was located in Marquetalia, a rural municipality high in the Andean plains. According to FARC lore, it was led by an 18-year old peasant named Manuel Marulanda.

After the civil war, in the late 1950s, the Colombian government struggled to reassert its control over the state and cracked down on all subversive groups, including the communist republics in southern and central Colombia.

In 1964, the Colombian military, using a loan from the US, launched a napalm attack against the independent republic of Marquetalia. The attack prompted the survivors to declare war against Colombia and founded the Southern Bloc.

Two years later, at an annual conference of guerrilla leaders, the Southern Bloc expanded their military agenda into a nation-wide "Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia," with revolutionary left-wing "focos" throughout Colombia. Marulanda remained the commander-in-chief of the militia.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the FARC established its own schools, judicial system, health care, and agrarian economy, and created its own de facto state in remote regions of southern Colombia.

link

[Fishman]

Cid
I don't disagree with your data but it is only half the story. Seems data is coming out that Ecudor and Venezuela are supporting the FARC also. Could one not argue that Ecudor and Ven. are already commiting acts of war against Columbia?

[jlw61]

Cid
I don't disagree with your data but it is only half the story. Seems data is coming out that Ecudor and Venezuela are supporting the FARC also. Could one not argue that Ecudor and Ven. are already commiting acts of war against Columbia?

While the common denominator in all of this is the overt meddling of the US government, I'm more concerned about the idea of little wars popping up everywhere in the world.

What would we do if Mexico was found to be aiding and harboring US citizens bent on the destruction of the US government? Would we declare war? What if Mexico was at a similar military capable level as the US and neither had nukes??

I think some sort of war is a very possible outcome, and I'm really hating it. What a lovely going away present from GWB to the next president. McCain (and maybe Hillary) would continue the fracus and Obama would have one hell of a mess to clean up (or at least have to make some really tough choices).

[Cid_Yama]

FARC has controlled a vast part of Columbia for years and has established their own de facto nation. They refer to themselves as 'The Southern Bloc'. They have been fighting a civil war for decades. FARC has a well supplied military of their own. They have schools and hospitals and an economy. They are not a small band of AK-47 toting 'terrorists' hiding in Ecuador and Venezuela as the media suggests. It would be like characterizing the Confederacy as outlaws hiding across the border in Mexico. If Ecuador and Columbia joined with The Southern Bloc to topple Uribe's Government, they could do it. The US is on Uribe's side of a Civil War and have been openly fighting the other side. Heck, the US started this war, providing the means to Napalm the independent republic of Marquetalia in 1964, a republic that had existed since the 1940's. In a sense, the US is responsible for the creation of the Southern Bloc in the first place.

LATEST: Venezuela has closed the border with Colombia

[Fishman]

So jlw, you're saying if the US had not "meddled" then all of South America would be living in peace and tranquility with each other? Surely you jest. Can we take some responsibility, sure we can. And Obama to clean up the mess? Truely the most clueless politician in some time, the perfect" politically correct " candidate, losts of diversity, no substance.

[evilgenius]

Yeah, man, if war with Iraq doesn't end the threat of a looming recession/depression then we will have simply to go to war with the whole world!

[Cid_Yama]

Ecuadorean police arrested four men accused of plotting to kill leftist President Rafael Correa, the country's attorney general said on Thursday: Article
This just happened so there's not much.
Before the clowns start screaming, "What does this have to do with oil?," Ecuador is an OPEC nation, and they may not be pleased if the US had anything to do with it.

Issue:The U.S. air force was granted a 10-year concession in 1999 to use the base, located in the port city of Manta on Ecuador’s northern Pacific coast, in its counter-drug trafficking activities in the region.
A high-level Ecuadorean military officer, who preferred to remain anonymous, told IPS that "a large proportion of senior officers" in Ecuador share "the conviction that the United States was an accomplice in the attack" launched Mar. 1 by the Colombian military on a FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) camp in Ecuador, near the Colombian border.

link

Correa said he will cut off his arm before he renews the lease.

[americandream]

Ah, and the stock is thickening nicely. This should prove to be a sumptuous stew indeed!

[Cid_Yama]

It's almost certain the US is involved. It seems the Bush Administration these days is facing geopolitical setback after setback.

Perhaps, the hand of God?

[Cashmere]

I think G-d favors us - in a prove-it-to-me kinduv way.

[Cid_Yama]

Back in my younger days, when I was going to college and the dorms were emptying for the summer, I decided to do a 'Sermon on the Mount' walkabout. Being the scientist-philosopher I am, I wanted to test the hypothesis, so to speak.

At one point towards the end of my trip(which had been incredible!) I found myself in the town of Pixley, CA. I had just spent the last of my money buying a thing of orange juice and said, "God, if there is a God, well that's it, I'm out."

I had been hitchhiking at an entrance ramp at one end of the town with no luck. There was a street that ran parallel to another entrance ramp, so I started heading to the other one. There was a house along the street, that had it's door open and the stereo loud, and I figured this was good enough, dropped my pack and stuck my thumb out.

As I stood there, I noticed a girl coming towards me. As I watched she walked right up to me and handed me $20. I said, "What's this for?" She answered, "God wanted me to give this to you." You could have scrapped my jaw up off the ground. I said, "No, really, why are you giving me this?" She said, "God wanted me to give you a ride, but I couldn't, so here's money for the bus," as she pointed out the bus station down the road.

Well, I'm thinking, "I've got $20. I'm not wasting it on the bus," and headed off down the entrance ramp.

Between there and Bakersfield was the hottest, nastiest piece of hitchhiking I had ever endured. I reached the bus station just after the bus to LA had left.(I was heading to LA to see my college roommate who had moved to Palms, between Culver City and Beverly Hills.)

I decided to find a beer store before the next bus left. After wandering a couple blocks up and a couple over, I finally found one. I went in and bought a quart, and went outside and sat on the curb filling my canteen with beer for the trip.

As this guy started walking by, out of my mouth came, "So you're on the same bus as I am." He looked at me with the strangest look and said, "Wait right there."

He went in and bought himself a beer and came back out. He sat down next to me and asked, "How do you know I'm on a bus?"

I was stunned. I said I hadn't the faintest. I started telling him my story, and he said he had just been on the bus that went through Pixley, and they had a layover here and he had missed getting back on the bus. He was headed to LA and had to wait for the next one.

We both got on the next one, and I spent the entire trip telling him of my journey.

When we got to LA, he thanked me profusely, saying I had just told him exactly what he had been needing to hear, what he had been looking for so hard.

All I did was tell him my story. He left before telling me more.

Is there a God? I'll tell you something. There is quite a big difference between a God that is sort of there, sort of watching over you, and one that <b>takes definite, actual, in no uncertain terms, actions in your life.</b>

Terrifying(at the time) and awe inspiring. My relationship is personal, not doctrinal.

There is something there. As I said personal. Not Christian. Not Muslim. Not Jewish. Not Buddhist. Not Hindu. Not Sufi. Personal.

Talk to God. Let him into your life, personally. There is no need for religion.

Just you and God.

[SILENTTODD]

Cid_Yama, I sympathize with your point but be real!! Americans don't know who the president of Ecuador is or care! You will draw a blank stare from anyone in America under 50 if you ask them who Salvador Allende was! (And only those who were Political Science Majors in the early 70's).

I don't think this carries anymore weight in Europe. They don't know or care either.

[Cid_Yama]

Some will understand. Who cares about the idiots. We're partying now dude. It's too late to do anything about anything. We are just sharing the knowledge for anyone who might care, for their own personal enjoyment of knowing.

We owe it to the popcorn munchers out there, who are watching, just for the fun of it. These are my friends now, and everyone else can go to hell.

[americandream]

Some will understand. Who cares about the idiots. We're partying now dude. It's too late to do anything about anything. We are just sharing the knowledge for anyone who might care, for their own personal enjoyment of knowing.

We owe it to the popcorn munchers out there, who are watching, just for the fun of it. These are my friends now, and everyone else can go to hell.

The universe is a strange place. I believe that it is quite neutral and utterly disinterested. Consequently, I'm wary of anything that smacks of remotely supernatural. I'm especially wary of anything remotely connected with godlike associations. Nothing good seems to ever come of these experiences. We seem to invariably fall into even more entrenched mindsets as a consequence with destructive results usually. Strange.

[mos6507]

We owe it to the popcorn munchers out there, who are watching, just for the fun of it. These are my friends now, and everyone else can go to hell.

If everyone else can go to hell then stop trying to convert everyone to your ideology with this propaganda.