BTW, speaking of speeches. When I was in Caracas I got a copy of Rafael Ramirez's speech on the Venezuelan oil industry before the A.N. It is EXCELLENT. I hope to post excerpts before long. I'm just a little behind in my blogging 
I saw it a while ago but I would be weary until it is confirmed. Here is a recap.
http://globovision.com/news.php?...s.php?
nid=18047
Says poverty down to 33.7% but extreme poverty up to 13.1%
"Por otra parte, el primer mandatario nacional anunció que la pobreza se sitúo en 33.7%, mientras que la pobreza extrema tuvo un índice de 13,1%. Chávez invitó a los diputados de la Asamblea Nacional a ser constantes en su trabajo, con el fin de disminuir la pobreza a su mínima expresión."
That 8.9 % is for December only. It should be back to 11 or 12% at the end of January....
Of course, the Venezuelan opposition will be loath to admit any of this.
Let them live in their delusional coccoons.
I like some of the statements that Chavez has made with respect Peru's president, Alejandro Toledo. What a worm this Toledo is.
By the way, Toledo has refused to respond toward any of Chavez's most recent statements. Wise decision, gusano.
Flanker, if it came from Glob-o-bullshit, I think you can safely dump a truckload of salt on it. 
Offtopic: This is from CNN International teletext:
U.S. blocks Spain warplanes sale
The U.S. government has blocked a planned sale of 12 military aircraft from Spain to Venezuela on the grounds that the planes contain U.S. military technology, and cannot be tranferred without approval from Washington, a U.S. embassy spokesman told CNN.
The move was made amid concerns the United States has about Venezuela's government, considered authoritarian by the Bush administration.
Update on that:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/ameri...cas/
4609696.stm
"Spain defies US on Venezuela aircraft deal".
The planes are cargo transports, not fighters. And Spain will replace the offending components with non-US-made parts.
Poor Dubya! He just cain't git no respect.
Well 'me', we consider Bush an authoriatrian war criminal thug--and the majority of the people of the Earth agree with us.
Fuck CNN, fuck Bush, fuck'em all--big, short, little, and tall.
What is quite funny is that as Bush tries feebly to 'isolate' Venezuela, they end up discredited the US, and pointing up the hypocritical rhetoric.
One can hear the Latin American right cringe every time Bush tries to 'isolate' Venezuela as being 'authoritarian'.
BTW, the European-made parts cost more--but the upshot is, they're probably WAY better.
BTW, interesting stuff on the Orinoco oil belt here:
http://www.vheadline.com/readnew...ws.asp?
id=47637
Looks like Chavez is in economic clover for a LONG time to come.
Yeah, Ann O., very interesting:
"Venezuela has huge reserves of extra-heavy oil. The figure of 270 billion barrels of recoverable oil has been talked about a long time. To give you an idea of the magnitude, this would permit an average production of 5,000,000 barrels a day for 150 years."
Christ, don't tell me that the empire doesn't have designs on controlling this vast prize. With this kind of money, especially as oil prices increase as reserves become more depleted, Venezuela can afford first class housing, education, and infrastructure for all the nation's citizens.
But the problem is that the empire and the compradors want this for themselves. They don't want to share with the bothersome underclass they have consigned to permanent immiseration.
Yes, if I were Chavez I would be doing everything in my power to keep the nasty empire a bay. These pig fuckers are salivating at the prospect of taking this oil.
I think he is. Chavez is now making noises about maybe, just maybe, buying Russian MiG fighter jets, if the US keeps reneging on its SIGNED CONTRACT TO SERVICE VENEZUELAN F-16s! And he's already bought a hundred thousand Kalashnikovs for the citizen militias being trained by some of the Bolivarian Circles, should it come to street-by-street fighting. I don't think he'll be caught napping. He knows full well what he's sitting on, and he will NOT let it be stolen out from under him or any Venezuelan.
Thanks for pointing out that article, Ann Onymous, I missed it. It is indeed good news, and I see that there is not one US company among the seven that will be studying the field.
The US seems to be looking at the oil sands in Alberta, Canada as being a "safe" supply. Unfortunately, the Chinese, French and everybody else is also looking there too. According to this article,
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bi...04246494&
EDATE=
the amount of oil available in the Alberta oil sands is about like that in Saudi Arabia.
The extraction of oil has barely got started, but already Alberta has become quite prosperous and there is a labour shortage.
Ann:
Yes, all the Oliver Campbell articles are great. He is very knowledgeable on the oil industry and always makes sure his articles are very factual.
The push for quantifying the Orinoco heavy oils is definitely to try to get a higher quota out of OPEC. Hopefully they'll be successfull in that. Of course, when the "meritocracy" starting exploiting the heavy oils they dind't care about OPEC quotas. But now that Venezuela sticks to them it loses out because these costly to produce oils displace other more profitable oil. Plus, when I get to Ramirez's speech you'll see they gave away the kitchen sink to some of the foriegn companies working there.
On the Alberta tar sand, which are very different from the Orinoco oil which leaves the ground as a liquid, I've heard (can't swear this is true) they have to use natural gas in the processesing of the sands. Canada is supposedly getting close to running out of natural gas and its getting expensive so those tar sands may be a lot less economical going foward.
Just a quick announcement--I have been banned from commenting in AM Mora y Leon's blog, Publis Pundit.
My apologies, OW for mentioning another blog and going off topic.
I would invite any one here to check out my comments and ascertain as to whether they should lead to my being banned.
This just goes to show that the imperialists, the warmongers of the world, cannot defend their depraved ideology. It cannot be justified with rational arguement.
Witness this blog--the pro-oligarch sector frequents OW blog, and seldom do they venture forth to become 'murkers'--they remain as lurkers only.
Again, they are not used to having their anti-freedom, inhumane discourse subject to critique.
Thank you OW for providing lovers of the truth and human progress a framework through which ideas can be expressed without the threat of censorship. Your the best.
Slave Revolt.
I read oilwars because I like what is happening in Venezuela. And the news I posted (from CNN) sounded much like a story we have heard before. US blocking sales of airplanes from France to Nicaragua.
"Of course, Nicaragua wanted to somehow defend its own air space. They tried to get planes from France and other European powers. The Reaganites put plenty of pressure on the Europeans not to send them arms, because they wanted them to get arms from the Russians. They wanted them to do what Guatemala had done so they could then portray them as an existential threat to the U.S. Well, they didn’t do it; they didn’t fall into the trap. So therefore, the Reagan administration had to constantly invent tales about MiGs being detected in cartons on the waterfront. One of those concocted threats came at a very important moment."
-http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/200408--.htm
Of course the boogieman Sovjet is now gone so they'll just try associating Chavez with terrorism or being a danger to the region or some other excuse.
ow -
Re Alberta tar sands - yes, oil from some fields is being extracted by burning natural gas. Other fields are processed differently, e.g. using some oil to extract more oil. There was even a proposal by a French company to use a nuclear reactor, but that was quickly shot down, and the French company backtracked really fast.
My understanding is that the various oil fields have different characteristics.
Venezuela also has tar sands, and if included as "reserves" could equal 1-3 TRILLION barrels of oil. Of course the cost of doing this would equal ecological disaster.
OW and Owl are right on the money--Alberta's tar sands were left undeveloped for a long time because of the difficulty of extracting oil from that gunge. Even now, there is huge controversy over them, because the technique that HAS been developed is so ecologically damaging.
Plus, of course, there's the danger of a boomtown economy--money is outpacing available housing, and the political climate there is putrid (Conservative to the gills! Blecch!) It does not sound like an affordable or desirable place to live, outside of the $$$. And woe be to them if the environment is fouled by the tar-sands extraction. Alberta's used to be an agrarian economy, and all that could be ruined by pollution in no time.
Flanker, I dind't know about Venezuelan tar sands. Any info will be appreciated.
The Canadian tar sands are more costly to exploit than the Venezuelan extra heavy crudes. They need more processing. Plus tar sands are mined whereas Venezuelan extra heavy crude comes out as a liquid because the reservours are at high temperature and it only solidifies later. So the actual extraction is easier and less expensive too.
me,
Personally blocking the airplane sale to Venezuela doesn't upset me all that much. I think Venezuela needs to build up its militia more than its regular forces. So I think the money could be better spent on other, more low tech and less costly items. I actually picked up some interesting magazines on Venezuelan military doctrine but have yet to get through them.
As far as the Soviet comparison goes what is ironic is Chavez has actually accomplished more in Latin America than the Soviets could ever even dreem of. Look at who is winning all the elections. It shows the advantage of movements that come from within over those that come from outside.
OW, I concurr. Developing a well-trained national guard and reserve is a huge task in and of itself. There is much creative thinking that should be done in this area because, as you have stated, if the US invades these dozen or so super jetfighters will be wiped out in short order--ditto the navy.
However, having up-to-date boats for patrolling the waters is a good thing to have.
But having a force of people who can sustain a decades-long war against imperialist invaders, and who can make oil extraction impossible for a puppet government, seems like a wise course of action.
My impression is that the evil empire will continue to decline, and who knows what type of craziness they'd get themselves into as they try to claw and flail around trying to remain on the top of the mountain. They are guided by a vile ideology that is not too much different than that of the Nazis (read some of their supporters comments at Publis Pundit--they are willing to murder millions of non-combatants to maintain control over the world. Sick shit.)
Developing Latin American unity, a regional bank, a citizen's popular guard, worker-control, cooperatives, etc.--this is the first line of defense against the imperialist pigs.
Another front you might want to watch: the drug wars. Venezuela recently booted out the DEA, under suspicion of espionage (and by now, with Hugo's track record of prior statements looking suspiciously solid on other US-agency-related fronts, there's probably plenty to that one as well.) The Venezuelan navy has already intercepted several drug shipments bound for Florida and Europe, proving that they don't need no stinkin' DEA to help THEM combat drug trafficking!
And where are most (if not all) of these aircraft and boats going to be used? Why, the DRUG WARS. They'll give Washington one less thing to bitch about when it comes to a certain man in Caracas. And also one less pretext to wage a war. Couldn't have THAT, could we now?
Commenting by HaloScan
