Prince Henrik, the prince consort of Denmark, has shocked animal lovers by declaring that dog meat - fried or grilled - is one of his favourite dishes.
The 72-year-old prince, a Frenchman by birth, said his penchant for dog meat had developed from the time he spent growing up and studying in Vietnam. But the disclosure, made in an interview with a Danish magazine, has shocked the nation, particularly as the prince is the honorary president of the Danish Dachshund Club.
He has several dachshunds and, despite publishing a cookery book called Ikke Altid Gaselever (Not Always Goose Liver), has even published eulogies to them.
He invited Danes to try eating dog meat themselves. "I do not mind eating dog meat at all," he said. "The dogs I eat have been bred to be eaten anyway, just like chickens.
"It tastes like rabbit, like dry venison, or like veal - just drier." He said the meat tasted best when it was sautéed or grilled and cut into thin slices.
A book of Prince Henrik's poems, in which he praised his dogs, was published last year. A poem to his dachshund Evita compares her paws to "wings". "I love to stroke your coat and to see how it shines/ You dear, you special dog..../ You receive me with papal pride."
He previously provoked nationwide debate when he suggested that parents should use the skills of dog training to bring up their children. Since the prince's admission in the magazine Ud&Se, Danish newspapers have reopened their files on a royal dachshund that disappeared from Amalienborg palace, Copenhagen, in the early 1990s. Despite a countrywide search, it never reappeared.
Prince Henrik learnt Danish and changed his name, religion and nationality to marry Queen Margrethe II in 1967. But he has repeatedly complained about the Danes' lack of willingness to accept him.
He's a dog eating Frenchman, duhhhhhhh ?
If he starts writing poems about you, it is time to take your leave.
HARARE, Zimbabwe How bad is inflation in Zimbabwe? Well, consider this: at a supermarket near the center of this tatterdemalion capital, toilet paper costs $417. No, not per roll. Four hundred seventeen Zimbabwean dollars is the value of a single two-ply sheet. A roll costs $145,750 in American currency, about 69 cents.
The price of toilet paper, like everything else here, soars almost daily, spawning jokes about an impending better use for Zimbabwe's $500 bill, now the smallest in circulation.
But what is happening is no laughing matter. For untold numbers of Zimbabweans, toilet paper and bread, margarine, meat, even the once ubiquitous morning cup of tea have become unimaginable luxuries. All are casualties of the hyperinflation that is roaring toward 1,000 percent a year, a rate usually seen only in war zones.
Zimbabwe has been tormented this entire decade by both deep recession and high inflation, but in recent months the economy seems to have abandoned whatever moorings it had left. The national budget for 2006 has already been largely spent. Government services have started to crumble. The purity of Harare's drinking water, siphoned from a lake downstream of its sewer outfall, has been unreliable for months, and dysentery and cholera swept the city in December and January. The city suffers rolling electrical blackouts. Mounds of uncollected garbage pile up on the streets of the slums.
Zimbabwe's inflation is hardly history's worst in Weimar Germany in 1923, prices quadrupled each month, compared with doubling about once every three or four months in Zimbabwe. That said, experts agree that Zimbabwe's inflation is currently the world's highest, and has been for some time.
Public-school fees and other ever-rising government surcharges have begun to exceed the monthly incomes of many urban families lucky enough to find work. The jobless officially 70 percent of Zimbabwe's 4.2 million workers, but widely placed at 80 percent when idle farmers are included furtively hawk tomatoes and baggies of ground corn from roadside tables, an occupation banned by the police since last May.
Those with spare cash put it not in banks, which pay a paltry 4 to 10 percent annual interest on savings, but in gilt-edged investments like bags of corn meal and sugar, guaranteed not to lose their value. "There's a surrealism here that's hard to get across to people," Mike Davies, the chairman of a civic-watchdog group called the Combined Harare Residents Association, said in an interview. "If you need something and have cash, you buy it. If you have cash you spend it today, because tomorrow it's going to be worth 5 percent less. "Normal horizons don't exist here. People live hand to mouth."
President Robert G. Mugabe has responded to the hardship in two ways. Although there is no credible threat to his 26-year rule, Zimbabwe's political opposition is calling for mass protests against the economic situation. So Mr. Mugabe has tightened his grip on power even further, turning the economy over to a national security council of his closest allies. In addition, he has seeded the government's civilian ministries this year with loyal army and intelligence officers who now control key functions, from food security to tax collection. At the same time, Mr. Mugabe's government has printed trillions of new Zimbabwean dollars to keep ministries functioning and to shield the salaries of key supporters and potential enemies against further erosion.
Supplemental spending proposed early in April would increase the 2006 spending limits approved last November by fully 40 percent, and more such emergency spending measures are all but certain before the year ends. On Friday, the government said it would triple the salaries of 190,000 soldiers and teachers. But even those government workers still badly trail inflation; the best of the raises, to as much as $33 million a month, already are slightly below the latest poverty line for the average family of five.
This will only worsen inflation, for printing too many worthless dollars is in part what got Zimbabwe into this mess to begin with. Zimbabwe fell into hyperinflation after the government began seizing commercial farms in about 2000. Foreign investors fled, manufacturing ground to a halt, goods and foreign currency needed to buy imports fell into short supply and prices shot up.
Inflation, about 400 percent per year last November, edged over 600 percent in January, but began to soar after the government revealed that it had paid the International Monetary Fund $221 million to cover an arrears that threatened Zimbabwe's membership in the organization. In February, the government admitted that it had printed at least $21 trillion in currency and probably much more, critics say to buy the American dollars with which the debt was paid. By March, inflation had touched 914 percent a year, at which rate prices would rise more than tenfold in 12 months. Experts agree that quadruple-digit inflation is now a certainty.
In the midst of this craziness, some Harare enclaves seem paradoxically normal. North of downtown, where diplomats and aid workers are financed with American dollars, and generators and bottled water are the norm, the cafes still serve cappuccino and the markets sell plump roasting chickens, albeit $1 million chickens.
Everywhere else, the hardship is inescapable. In Glen Norah, a dense suburb of thousands of tiny homes southwest of the city, 58-year-old Ayina Musoni and her divorced daughter Regai, 26, share their five-room house with Regai's two children and three lodgers. The lodgers, two security guards and a teacher, pay monthly rent totaling $3 million, or about $14.25 in American money.
Ms. Musoni's latest monthly bill for services from the Harare city government was $2.4 million. The refrigerator in her closet-size kitchen is empty except for a few bottles of boiled water. Christmas dinner was sadza, or corn porridge, with hard-boiled eggs. For Easter, there was nothing. Mother and daughter make as much as $10 in American money each week by selling vegetables, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. But the profits are being consumed by rising costs at the farmers' market where they buy stock. "Like potatoes," Regai said. "I went last week, and it was $500,000 for a packet. And when I went this weekend, it was $700,000.
Millions of Zimbabweans survive these days on the kindness of outsiders foreigners who donate food or medicine and, more important, family members who have fled the nation for better lives abroad. As many as three million Zimbabweans now live elsewhere, usually in Britain, South Africa or the United States. An economist here, John Robertson, estimates that they remit as much as $50 million a month to their families the equivalent of one sixth of the gross domestic product.
Ms. Musoni's is not a hard-luck story; in Harare, most people now live this way, or worse. Indeed, life for many may be better in the nation's impoverished rural areas, where subsistence farming is the only industry and millions of people are guaranteed free monthly rations from the United Nations and other donors. In the cities, little is free.
Unity Motize, 64, lives with her 65-year-old husband, Simeon, in Highfield, a middle-class suburb turned slum not far south of town. The couple occupies one room of their three-room house. The second sleeps two sons, their wives and their two infants, all left homeless last May after riot police bulldozed the homes of hundreds of thousands of slum-dwellers. A 23-year-old son and an unemployed daughter sleep in the living room.
Hyperinflation is a cradle-to-grave experience here. The government recently announced that the price of childbirth, now $7 million, would rise 463 percent by October. Funeral costs are to double over the same period. In rural areas, said one official of a foreign-based charity who declined to be named, fearing consequences from the government, even the barest funeral costs at least $6 million, or about $28.50 well beyond most families' means. The dead are buried in open fields at night, she said. Recently, she watched one family dismantle their home's cupboard to construct a makeshift coffin. "I'll never forget that," she said. "The incredible sadness of it all."
Critics say that Zimbabwe's rulers are oblivious to such suffering last year, Mr. Mugabe completed his own 25-bedroom mansion in a gated suburb north of town, close by the mansions of top ministers and military allies.
But the government says it has a plan to revive the economy. That plan, the latest of perhaps seven in 10 years, would quickly raise billions of American dollars to end a chronic foreign currency shortage, cut the inflation rate to double digits by year's end and an end to the recession that has gripped Zimbabwe, halving its economic output, since 1999. My plan to fix the economy. Kill Bob. It'd be a start...
Mr. Robertson, the economist, says that is unlikely. Zimbabweans can and probably will endure greater hardship, he says. As a whole, the nation has only now sunk to standards common elsewhere in Africa. But the government may have reached the limit of its ability to do anything about it. Cutting spending seems impossible, and raising taxes further is unthinkable.
That leaves one option: "much more inflation," he said. "Because this government is always going to be printing its way out of its current difficulty." What a friggin nightmare...
MUSCAT She is a rare example of beauty and talent coming together, has been variously described as 'one of the prettiest women in the Middle East' and 'Arab Nightingale' and is the winner of several top beauty and music prizes.
Stunningly beautiful Lebanese singer Haifa Wehbe, who has a vast following of fans in Oman as elsewhere in the Arab world, especially among the younger generation, will be heading for Muscat for a mega performance next month. Her concert, titled 'Haifa - The Touch of Beauty' on June 15 at the Oman Auditorium of the Al Bustan Palace Hotel, "will be an exclusively unique event," promoters of the show, Touch Events, told a Press conference here.
"Her beautiful songs have made her a household name in the region. She is equally popular with all age groups, particularly the youngsters, and with local and expatriates in Oman," Hyder Abbas Ali, President of the Touch Group of Companies, said. "The show is thus meant for all," he added. Haifa has been able to capture the limelight through her stunning charm, captivating presence, eye-catching elegance and fascinating allure. "This sultry charm has been her passport to the world of fame, fashion and music," Ali observed. Photos can be found here. All I can say is "Woof!"
Posted by: Steve ||
05/03/2006 09:27 ||
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will be heading for Muscat
Poor choice of words in that region I'm afraid. How about "will travel to..."
KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait on Tuesday carried out the executions of five men convicted of murder and drug smuggling. The bodies of the men were then put on public display from the gallows. Kuwaiti Ministry of Justice and Interior officials identified three of the men as Kuwaitis and two as foreign nationals. This is the largest number of executions to take place in Kuwait in one day.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/03/2006 00:00 ||
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condemned: What do ya mean "is that your final answer"?
WASHINGTON - Record crude oil prices above $70 per barrel are not in the interest of the worlds largest producer or its largest consumer, Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on Tuesday. Prices at these levels are not in the interest of either Saudi Arabia or the US, Naimi said in prepared remarks at a joint appearance with US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"He's lying!"
"How can you tell?"
"His lips are moving. On the floor."
Naimi said that cutting reliance on foreign imports will not boost energy security as US President George W. Bush has asserted. A popular misconception these days is that a country can decouple its domestic oil prices from international prices by lowering imports, Naimi said.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/03/2006 00:00 ||
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#1
Here on Guam, and iff I heard it correctly,local talkradio has announced that as of this morning, its now US$100.00 per barrel. Local gas prices have gone up overnight to US$3.15 per gals from US$3.05/3.06 per gals. SNAFU/GLITCH IS > while price signs says US$3.05 or $3.06 per gals, a couple of stations' PUMP GAUGES/METERS per se read as high as US$3.3346 - $3.3389 per gals.
#2
The Saudi Oil Minister is quite correct that high oil prices are bad for Saudi Arabia, a country whose economy is dependant on oil even more so than the industialized West. As oil prices climb, other fuel sources and technologies become cost effective. More money is spent on R&D. Exploring and extracting from what were marginal local oil patches becomes economically feasible.
The change will not happen overnight, but it is a trend.
#3
Sorry Steve, but the trend is increasing oil consumption everywhere. The trend may change in the future, but there is no sign of it at $75/b. The best you can say it slows the trend down.
Personally, I think it will take a major supply interruption to get people to wake up to the fact the problem needs to be fixed.
And not faux solutions like electric cars and ethnanol from corn that make the problem worse
#4
phil-b what is the prescription you reccommend since you talk like an energy expert and seem to poo poo anything anyone ever posts on the matter?
I can see 2 huge drilling operations running right now off my front porch. My son in law is in charge for the mud pulse directional drilling operations on both of them. How many oil wells or other oil infrastructure can you see from your front step? You you actually know anyone one in the energy business? How many "peakers" are with in 20 miles of your house? Do you know anyone that operates a commercial scale electrical generator? How much natural gas does your county produce and ship? How much oil? How much refined Petroleum product do you ship? Since I am surrounded by people who work in the energy field I hear opinions that differ from yours quite a bit.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/03/2006 4:08 Comments ||
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SPoD... you are up too I see...
Can't sleep here so coffee and the berg.
#6
Sorry Steve, but the trend is increasing oil consumption everywhere.
Demand is increasing, no doubt, as countries like China come online and industrialize. While increased demand does drive up prices, it doesn't change the fact that as prices rise other technologies and sources become competitive.
#7
Look at it anyway you want to they are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. If you are in the oil industry and don't want your jobs to go away, don't worry, there will be plenty of jobs available for you in your lifetime - pehaps not in the middle east or South America, but in other countries including our own. You can trying to convince us and yourselves of that.
But to think that at these prices, not to mention the other costs associated with wealthy dicators and Saudi princes, that we won't develop alternate fuels is just plain crazy.
Which in hindsight sounds a bit rude - as I respect phil_b's posting. But it does seem to me Phil that you have a personal interest in not wanting alternative sources to take off. I don't know if that's true or not, but it just seems that way.
#10
This is a continuing cycle I've seen many times before.
1. Price of oil goes up.
2. "Alternatives" are found and researched.
3. People see other fuels as viable.
4. Serious research begins into other propulsion means.
5. Price of oil suddenly retreats to about 1/2-2/3 the total rise. (New Oil reserves discovered, new Oil Fields suddenly more productive, etc.)
6. "Suddenly" alternatives do not compete against the current "Low" price.
7. Research halts, researchers go bankrupt due to funding cuts, data is lost/destroyed/stolen and buried/not viable/
8. "Alternate Energy Companies" loudly proclaim "It was only a risky gamble that didn't pan out,"
9. A few "Diehards" prove their ideas are practical.
10. The Press "Proves" that the Nuts pushing the IDEA (See above) are mentally unstable.
11. Oil reports record profits (And try hard to bury the news under a blizzard of denials)
12. Wait about 5 years, repeat.
End result? Energy prices increase and never fall.
It's a shell game.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/03/2006 8:38 Comments ||
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Brazil proves the alternate ways work.
Is Brazil's technology cutting edge ?
#12
wxjames: I believe he was trying to say that big-picture wise (at current technology), ethanol is a loss. See yesterday's posting about this, but basically E85 (corn-based) basically has anywhere from 15%-40% less fuel economy than gasoline. Then, add to that, conversion costs, the ag lobby (who'd rather be paid NOT to grow corn), etc. and you begin to see that it may not be such a good idea to "switch" to ethanol. That being said, I believe alternatives should be researched and produced, but I don't believe we'll be off the oil teat anytime soon. Personally, I think a mix needs to be had...for example, move the NE off of heating oil and get them on Natural gas. Move toward a mix of natural-gas fired & nuke plants for electricity. Finally, push natural gas powered (& electrics, if needed) vehicles. Natural gas can be had from many domestic sources, from coal-gasification to methane byproducts from municipal wastewater plants and landfills to even capturing methane from animal farms, not to mention Gulf of Mexico. We may have to tell the enviros to suck it up short-term to get to the long-term effect of getting off the oil teat (or at least decrease it enough to reign in funding the middle east).
Posted by: BA ||
05/03/2006 9:54 Comments ||
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While we're at it, is there extant analysis on how high crude prices need to get before it becomes economically feasible to uncap wells in the US? How about all the bloody oil shale I hear about every few years?
#15
wxjames, Brazil proves ethanol works with sugar cane. Try to grow sugar cane in Iowa. Ethanol from corn is a loser now. Even Bush doesn't push it. He's pushing the Rapeseed ethanol. Perhaps the bioengineers will come up with the miracle enzyme, but they haven't yet.
Redneck Jim is half correct. Petroleum products are not outpacing the rate of inflation over the long haul. What does change is that we import more and more petroleum. That's a problem we need to fix by attaching an oil import fee to all petroleum and petroleum derivative products imported into the US. That wil stabilize price and incent the development of domestic alternatives.
#16
eLarson, I don't have a linkable source, but if I remember correctly, I believe the (small patch) guys in KY used to say it had to be around $30/barrel before they could make it. Of course, these are small fish (only a few barrels/day), mom & pop type operations, so with economy of scale, it could be less than that. And, of course, enough money to "make it" in KY is a lot less than to run a major operation, I'd imagine (just paying to get by for your own family up there). That was years ago, though, so the # may be higher now.
Posted by: BA ||
05/03/2006 10:54 Comments ||
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We are going to have to put a floor on oil prices of around $35-40/barrel to reduce the risk of investing in shale oil and coal to oil conversion. A sliding oil import tax seems the best way to implement it.
20 million barrels a day at $70 comes to $511 billion a year. For comparision, 1000 1000MW nukes (currently about $2.5 billion, but with mass production, probably $1 billion each) will provide more than enough electricity, even with conversion losses, to produce enough hydrogen to replace all US oil consumption. So basically, for 2 years of oil consumption costs, enough nukes could be built to more than offset the energy in oil. Of sourse, nuke fuel, electrolysis equipment, and operation is extra. Half that number for electic cars, but costs increase on the electric car end.
But once built, a nuke plant will operate for at least 40 years. We should be building at least 100 large reactors a year.
Posted by: ed ||
05/03/2006 11:09 Comments ||
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If I remember right, planting sugar cane for conversion to ethanol has 5 times the return of corn.
Posted by: ed ||
05/03/2006 11:12 Comments ||
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FYI, I know enough to know I don't know all the answers. Take anything thats biodegradable, zap it in a closed container. Keep the process under pressure and the feed material turns to plasma. Plasma is around 3000 degrees or something close to that. Use the expanding gas to power a jet like engine, and/or make steam and turn generators for electricity. Finally, some or most of the byproduct can be isolated and sold as bottled gas. Once the temperature and pressuer reach the desired range, turn off the juice and count your kilowatts. The feeder has to be 'tuned' to keep up, and the process becomes continuous.
#20
It's pretty simple if anyone in political power had the will to solve this problem. Slap a sliding fee on all oil and refined products imported. The proceeds to be used to make this country energy independent and for no other use. Keep the price at a floor of 50 dollars a barrel to spir innovation.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/03/2006 14:05 Comments ||
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#21
Right now what the US needs: more nuke power plants to cut down on the use of coal, natural gas, and oil by reducing the price of electricity; increased refinery capacity and better maintenance of existing refineries (refinery efficiency drops with age, increasing cost of refining products - corrected with a full shut-down and refurbishment); additional domestic drilling (currently halted due to the high cost of environmental lawsuits); and an expanded national pipeline network (only about 75% of the nation is served by the national grid). There are somewhere in the range of 1 TRILLION BARRELS of untapped domestic production, mostly in deep areas of the south and some areas of the upper midwest. It's currently not financially profitable to drill these areas because of litigation, and for no other reason. And yes, I have LOTS of friends in the oil and energy business.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/03/2006 16:29 Comments ||
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#22
Those are not the only places oil is locked up and can be extracted at a profit and in useful quanities.
The big thing is opening up areas that are out bounds because to NIMBY and luddite enviros and and enviromental litigants for hire.
We need to be building 100 Nuclear power plants right now and 100 every year until power from improved Nuclear Technology is common as the clean air they will help create. Their is plenty of stuff electricity is practical for that we just are not utilizing it for.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/03/2006 16:36 Comments ||
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#23
NS: wxjames, Brazil proves ethanol works with sugar cane.
Actually, it doesn't. Even with today's high oil prices, and a huge tax on gasoline in Brazil, ethanol is not competitive with gasoline there. What does this say about ethanol as a solution to high energy costs?
#24
Zhang Fei it says that in the long run it's cheaper than fighting Crazy muslims, Arabs and Peraians and keeping shipping lanes open for other people to free load on while they clean our clock in the world economy.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/03/2006 23:07 Comments ||
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MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Vicente Fox will sign into law a measure that decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs for personal use, his spokesman said Tuesday. Spokesman Ruben Aguilar defended the law, which was approved Friday by Mexico's Senate, despite criticism in the United States.
"The president is going to sign this law," said Aguilar, who called the legislation "a better tool ... that allows better action and better coordination in the fight against drug dealing." "The government believes that this law represents progress because it established the minimum quantities that a citizen can carry for personal use," Aguilar said.
Under current Mexican law, judges can drop charges against people caught with drugs if they can prove they are addicts and if an expert certifies they were caught with "the quantity necessary for personal use." The new bill makes the decriminalization automatic and drops the addict requirement automatically letting "consumers" have drugs. Though police will still be able to detain people for public consumption or possession of drugs, it appears those caught could only be referred to a treatment program or have their names added to a registry.
On Friday, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said he was appalled by the bill. "I certainly think we are going to see more drugs available in the United States," Sanders said. "We need to register every protest the American government can muster."
Under the new law, consumers may possess up to 25 milligrams of heroin, 5 grams of marijuana (about one-fifth of an ounce, or about four joints), or 0.5 grams of cocaine the equivalent of about four "lines," or half the standard street-sale quantity. The law also establishes allowable quantities for other drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and amphetamines. The bill maintains criminal penalties for drug sales.
Posted by: Steve ||
05/03/2006 09:58 ||
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Let's send Mexico all our druggie loser addicts, trading them three-for-one for anyone in Mexico who wants to work a full time job--gardener, hotel maid, trash collector, roofer, farmer, any honest work.
Deal, or no deal?
Posted by: Mike ||
05/03/2006 10:31 Comments ||
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#4
Just when you thought the situation in Mexico was getting better....
#6
Actually, it works very well in the Netherlands. Most of the serious drugs are used by tourists, the locals preferring a milder marijuana with the morning coffee, if at all.
But their whole attitude is amazing. Everybody, police included, have a half-libertarian and half-helpful attitude that is easy to get used to.
For example, even though hard drugs are technically illegal, if you buy a baggie of say, heroin, the police have set up a high-tech testing center, so that you can bring in a sample and have it tested for purity. After testing the heck out of it, they give you the results, because they would rather you do good quality illegal drugs than bad drugs and end up in the hospital.
This attitude completely changes if the sample you bring in is bad. They will tirelessly hunt down a drug dealer who is selling bad drugs, and throw the book at him, basically for multiple counts of attempted murder.
For the last few years, Amsterdam has become a regular Hajj for people suffering from a certain eye disease leading to blindness, Macular Degeneration, after it was discovered at one of their "Cannibus Cup" events, that a particular breed of marijuana strongly improves their vision for a while, while easing their disease symptoms.
This is the leading edge of the "medical tourism" heading to the Neatherlands in search of relief for dozens of conditions.
And though wicked college students smoking marijuana will get all the press about Mexico, they will also most likely get a lot more medical tourists than they do now.
#7
"On Friday, San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said he was appalled by the bill. "I certainly think we are going to see more drugs available in the United States," Sanders said. "We need to register every protest the American government can muster."
You mean San Diego's clean? Or it would be clean if Mexico didn't exist? Give me a break.
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - Bolivia's leftist government said Tuesday it would extend control over mining, forestry and other sectors of the economy after President Evo Morales nationalized the country's huge natural gas industry. Foreign governments warned relations could be damaged.
Soldiers were posted at 56 gas installations around the country a day after Morales issued a decree that analysts say could drive petroleum companies from South America's poorest nation and isolate Bolivia from important allies like Brazil and Spain. "We're not expelling any company, but they will not earn much - not like before," Morales told Venezuela's Telesur on Tuesday. "We hope they'll remain partners and if they don't respect these laws, we'll make them respect them with political force."
That's going to encourage the companies to stay.
The move solidifies Morales' role alongside Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro in Latin America's new axis of communist socialist-inclined leaders united against "capitalist, imperialist" U.S. influence.
Morales said Monday that the gas decree "was just the beginning, because tomorrow it will be the mines, the forest resources and the land." Morales' planning minister earlier this month spoke of plans for "drastic reforms" of mining laws.
On Tuesday, Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said mining companies could face higher taxes and royalty payments and that the government will intensify enforcement of existing laws to break up big underdeveloped land holdings, apparently to turn them over to the poor.
They'll be racing to catch Zim-bob-we by this time next year.
In Santa Cruz, Bolivia's petroleum hub and the country's financial center, business leaders called for a one-day general strike Thursday to protest the nationalization plan. The use of the military "was an excessive measure and a media show that sends negative signals to the international community," said Gabriel Dabdoub, who heads the Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Festivities begin Thursday!
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/03/2006 00:02 ||
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Popcorn...get yer popcorn here! Piping hot...hey bud - you got something smaller? I just started...
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
05/03/2006 2:40 Comments ||
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#2
Socialism 100 million dead and counting. All I can say is good luck hanging out with those 2 success stories Castro and Chavez.
Even Brazil isn't that looney.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/03/2006 3:47 Comments ||
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#3
Morales is from the ranks of cocaine growers,
He could have every other industry in his country fail and still make oodles out of coke.
#4
Morales is nationalizing oil and gas wells who are basically in the hands of a Spanish company.. quite unconvenient for his Friend Zapatero.
Also that oil company is backing a psrt of a dirty scheme (not because it is Zapatero but because there have been irregular things during all the operation) the aimed at putting a Spoanish electric company in the hands of a company controlled by friends of Zapatero and by a bank who has "forgotten" to ask the socialist party to refund its debts. Now the oil company will be starved of cash for supporting Zapatero's bright scheme.... All due to Zapatero's friend Morales...
#5
It worked so well for Chavez too. Really. That is why his oil system is crumbling and he is going to western countries to hire specialists to keep total failure away. Keep it up Morales.
#10
Source of Funding for American Aid to Bolivia
The Administration has requested more than $150 million in assistance for Bolivia in Fiscal Year 2004.
In Fiscal Year 2003, the U.S. provided Bolivia with approximately $170 million in assistance
That's about 5% of the government's budget. Cut them off. Let's see how fast Morales destroys the mining and agricultural sectors, or how much gas they can export through hostile Chile and Peru.
Posted by: ed ||
05/03/2006 10:35 Comments ||
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#11
Looks like trouble for the US and Columbia. South America is headed back for the bad old days when everybody fights everyone else. South American don't play by Western rules when they fight. At one time Paraguay was fighting Argentina, Brazil, and Uraguay and suffered, depending on whose history you believe, 50% to 90% of its population.
#15
From the Bolivian American chamber of commerce web site:
DFI has grown from US$ 169 million in 1992, when it represented 45% of private investment and 18.4% of total investment in Bolivia, to reach a figure nearing US$ 1,000 million in 1999.
BEIJING (AP) -- A Chinese businessman has bought a MiG-21f plane from a U.S. seller on the online auction Web site eBay for $24,730 and plans to use it to decorate an empty space at his offices, a newspaper reported Sunday. The Beijing News newspaper identified the Chinese buyer as Zhang Cheng. "I like to collect valuable items. I have the buying power and my company has an empty space where I can display the plane," the newspaper quoted Zhang as saying.
The eBay Web site for the transaction shows the plane is currently located in Lewiston, Idaho. Another bad investment for the Idaho Militia?
It said the fighter jet, last flown in 1995, has been inspected by a museum and found to be in excellent condition. The seller was only identified by the username "inkgirle." You can bet he's a big hit in the AOL chatrooms with that screenname.
The Beijing News quoted Zhang as saying he learned from the seller's son by telephone that the fighter jet was retired by the Czech military. It wasn't immediately clear if the fighter jet can be imported into China. Zhang said he is waiting for government authorities to get back to him, The Beijing News reported. An operator at China's customs department said no one was available for comment.
"There is the precedent of a Chinese company buying a retired aircraft carrier, but I don't know if this jet plane is a banned item," Zhang reportedly said. In case you are wondering, demilitarized aircraft are classified on the Commerce Control List as ECCN 9A991 and can be exported from the U.S. to China.
Zhang was apparently referring to the Soviet-built Minsk aircraft carrier that a Chinese company bought and converted into a floating theme park in the southern city of Shenzhen. The company went bankrupt and recently put the ship up for sale.
The report gave no indication where in China Zhang was located.
eBay's government relations department didn't immediately respond to a reporter's e-mail seeking comment. In case you are interested, you can buy your own MiG-21 on eBay.
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced that approximately 100 volunteer posse and Sheriff's Deputies will soon begin randomly patrolling the desert areas and main roadways in southwest Maricopa County as a part of an operation to curb the flow of illegal immigrants entering the county.
Arpaio made the announced just as 11 more illegal immigrants were being booked in jail after a Ford Windstar with California plates and 16 people packed inside was stopped by a Sheriff's deputy early Tuesday morning on a traffic violation near Gila Bend.
Despite the growing controversy about illegal aliens nationwide, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office remains the only Arizona law enforcement agency willing to enforce a new state anti-smuggling law.
"There are so many illegals trying to make it into the county that it's overwhelming my deputies, so I have called on members of my 3000 member volunteer posse to assist," says Sheriff Arpaio. "It's not only illegals we find and arrest out there, we've also made some recent huge drug seizures involving illegal aliens including nearly 100 pounds of methamphetamine and approximately three pounds of heroin."
Posse man Andrew Ramsammy, who was part of Tuesday's arrest team, says that he believes he represents many of his peers when he says that the posse is anxious to be a part of the Sheriff's solution to the immigration problem.
"As a group of law abiding people, we are fed up with the number of people who come into this county illegally. We're tired of the drugs that some of them bring to sell to our young people and we're ready and willing to assist the Sheriff's deputies in the fight against illegal immigration," says Ramsammy.
Sheriff Arpaio says Tuesday's arrests include two coyotes, one of whom may be charged with a far more serious offense - endangerment.
Virgilio Parra Sabori may face a class 6 felony charge if it is determined that he recklessly left one of his customers to die in the desert.
That customer who may have paid as much as $1100 to gain entrance into the country, was a 24-year-old Mexican male found near death by deputies who combed the desert earlier today after being told by other people in the vehicle that one man was left behind. That young man was found lying in the sun on the desert floor and is currently in serious condition in a west valley hospital.
Arpaio says today his deputies so far have made seven anti smuggling cases in the last few weeks alone and that 120 illegals have been arrested and jailed.
Arpaio houses 10,000 prisoners in his jails, including almost 2000 in a tent city he erected in 1993. Tent City is being expanded to hold an anticipated increase in of inmates being incarcerated in the Maricopa County jails.
I hope they like rancid bologna and pink underwear.
#2
This won't work, though. He probably wants to release them to the Feds, who will just let them go. The Feds will win, because there are limits to how many will fit, even inside tent cities.
#4
Sheriff Arpaio says Tuesday's arrests include two coyotes, one of whom may be charged with a far more serious offense - endangerment.
This is why you make illegal immigration a federal felony. You can charge these SOB neo-slavers, aka coyotes, with multiple federal felonies for conspiracy to violate federal law. One count for each illegal they're caught with.
#5
Coyotes should be shot on sight, and I'm not talking about the four-legged canines. These people are the dregs of humanity, and deserve no mercy. Hang 'em, shoot 'em, stake 'em out in the hot sun to die - whatever works. The more we kill, the fewer that will attempt to make a living at this dispicable "occupation".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/03/2006 16:41 Comments ||
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#6
Nimble Spemble: Yes, I know publicity-hound, sadistic Joe. But the reality is that he is only part of the system. He can arrest and he can hold, but somebody else must try and convict. Unless he holds the illegals for breaking *county* law, he must release them to whatever other jurisdiction they will be charged in, State or Federal.
If the State or the Feds refuse to charge them, then they just let them go. If Joe immediately re-arrests them, they can sue the hell out of him for false imprisonment. And they will win.
Even if the county made being an illegal alien a violation of county law, being illegal aliens, the feds get first crack at prosecuting or deporting them, or even just having custody.
It would just be easiest for them to let Joe incarcerate them until Maricopa county refused to fund it any more.
#7
those who live near the border might disagree. The number of times they are robbed and the problems of illegal immigrants are to the point that I'm guessing that a good number of citizens on the border would be happy to pony up.
I don't know many people - even my liberal friends - who are remaining very sympathetic in this regard. Most Americans want the borders shut. I'm already hearing radio ads for politicians saying they oppose amnesty and want the border closed.
Herndon voters yesterday unseated the mayor and two Town Council members who supported a bitterly debated day-labor center for immigrant workers in a contest that emerged as a mini-referendum on the turbulent national issue of illegal immigration. Residents replaced the incumbents with challengers who immediately called for significant changes at the center. Some want to bar public funds from being spent on the facility or restrict it to workers living in the country legally. Others want it moved to an industrial site away from the residential neighborhood where it is located.
The labor center forced the western Fairfax County town into the national spotlight last summer as the immigration debate grew deeply contentious. Even though fewer than 3,000 people voted yesterday, advocates on both sides of the issue looked at the Herndon election as a test of public sentiment. Outside groups such as the Minuteman Project, which opposes illegal immigration, intervened in the debate, and Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, is suing the town over the establishment of the center.
The council voted 5 to 2 last August to establish the center, but yesterday's vote created an apparent 6 to 1 majority in opposition. Steve J. DeBenedittis, 38, a health club operator and political newcomer, defeated Mayor Michael L. O'Reilly with 52 percent of the vote. Council members Carol A. Bruce and Steven D. Mitchell, who voted for the center, also were turned out of office. Jorge Rochac, a Salvadoran businessman who supported the center and was seeking to become the town's first Hispanic council member, also was defeated.
Elected to the council were challengers William B. Tirrell, Charlie D. Waddell, Connie Haines Hutchinson and David A. Kirby, all opponents of the facility, which was created to help immigrants connect with employers each day. Two incumbents were reelected. Dennis D. Husch, who was one of the two council members to vote against the center, received more votes than any of the eight other council candidates. J. Harlon Reece was the lone supporter who was reelected. He received the fewest number of votes among the six winners. Twenty-six percent of the town's 10,203 registered voters came to the polls, up from 20 percent when O'Reilly was elected two years ago, according to Fairfax County figures.
DeBenedittis, the son of a popular former high school art teacher in Herndon, said his victory was the product of intensive door-to-door campaigning and voters' deep discontent over how the labor center issue was handled by the mayor and council in the town of 23,000 residents. "They didn't like the way the debate went down, and there was the feeling that they were not heard," he said. DeBenedittis frequently skirted specifics on the labor center issue during the campaign, but he said in at least one candidate questionnaire that the facility on Sterling Road should be limited to legal immigrants.
A disappointed O'Reilly said last night that he was proud of the way he and the council handled the controversy. He said the center remains a quantum improvement over the chaotic ad hoc site in a 7-Eleven parking lot that had become a community eyesore. "I'm really proud of what I stood for, and proud of what I did," O'Reilly said. "I think there was a lot of misinformation that was out there. There may be a lot more resentment and hatred out there than I anticipated."
Early warning shot
Posted by: Steve ||
05/03/2006 09:48 ||
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A PAKISTANI woman beheaded her husband, chopped up his body and dumped the dismembered parts in a sewerage drain after he announced plans to take a fourth wife, police said today.
Police said Majeeda Khatoon killed her husband, a wealthy building contractor, while he was asleep, and cut his body into seven pieces with the help of two male relatives in Gulshan-e-Hadeed, a township on the outskirts of the southern city of Karachi.
"When we questioned her, after the deceased's brother came to us for help, she confessed to the crime," police official Nazar Mohammad Mangrio said.
Ms Khatoon, 45, was arrested late last week and has been remanded in custody while the police frame charges against her.
She said her 55-year-old husband had taken other wives and flaunted his infidelity, but she was pushed over the edge when he announced plans to take a fourth wife, according to the police officer.
MUZAFFARABAD: An earthquake of mild intensity hit Muzaffarabad and its surrounding areas on Tuesday morning. The tremor created a great amount of panic among the people of the Jhelum valley.
A little to the left, I think...
Posted by: Fred ||
05/03/2006 00:00 ||
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Three teenagers from the Arab town of Qalansawe (Israel) were arrested after 150,000 detonators were found in the house of one of them. The teenagers, age 15 and 16 were taken to a police station for questioning where they claimed that the detonators meant for their personal use.
Posted by: ed ||
05/03/2006 08:27 ||
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#1
"Yes, yes Dotan we will need four 2.5 tone lorries for transport of the detonators. Please hurry, how your copy over?"
#1
"Today, the price of alcool is higher than when the flex system started," said Renato Astur, a salesman with Caoa Ford, a car dealership in Sao Paulo. "Now, the people who buy [flex-fuel cars] don't see a big advantage."
That's because it started out as a disguised agricultural subsidy when sugar was less than 5c/lb. It's now 18c/lb.
#2
I sure hope China adopts ethanol. It means more oil for the rest of us, even as Chinese consumers overpay big time for ethanol. I really, really like the concept of Chinese paying up for ethanol, thereby lowering demand and prices for oil, and implicitly subsidizing gasoline prices for American consumers.
#5
Based on eLarson's link what they have is a model for how oil/gas is generated. This doesn't necessarily mean they have found a large amount of recoverable oil. I see two consequences from this
1. improved ability to find oil accumulations, especially small accumulations. This could be very significant.
2. potentially open up tapping the flow of oil, i.e. oil which has not (yet) accumulated in a reservoir, but this will be many years away.
There is a very similar situation with gold and seawater. There are huge amounts of gold in the oceans, its just we don't know how to extract it economically.
#6
And, assuming it's true and recoverable, how will it be refined? They usual Idjits shot down a bill to help spur refinery development today. They'll always pose the same fluffy bunny idjit arguments - and successfully, too, unless people get very busy and put their money behind candidates with a pair. And that includes the gumption to build nuke plants in large numbers, as well.
We should get on the nuke and refinery things immediately. We can get ourselves off the oil tick tit if we have the sense to elect the right people. The PR campaign, telling the whole truth behind the issues, good and bad, should have been started long ago. People will follow if someone will lead honestly and openly.
I strongly disagree with phil_b about electric vehicles being the OBVIOUS solution if the power is generated via nuke plants or clean coal tech.
{ remaining comment redacted -- AoS }.
Charts on biofuel and Biofuel vs Hydrogen vs Oil.
Includes analysis and stats from Brazil's efforts too.
bullets like these:
US Automakers: less investment than hydrogen; compatible with hybrids
Agricultural Interests: more income, less pressure on subsidies; new opportunity for Cargill, ADM, farmers co-operatives,
Environmental Groups: faster & lower risk to renewable future; aligned with instead of against other interests
Oil Majors: equipped to build/own ethanol factories& distribution; lower geopolitical risk, financial wherewithal to own ethanol infrastruct.; diversification
Distribution (old & New): no significant infrastructure change; potential new distribution sources (e.g. Walmart)
Require 70% new cars to be Flex Fuel Vehicles
require yellow gas caps & provide incentives to automakers
Require E85 ethanol distribution at 10% of gas stations
. for gas station owners with more than 25 stations
Legislate a cheap oil tax if it drops below $40/barrel
. Using the proceeds to stabilize prices when prices are high & build reserves
Loan guarantees of first few new technology plants
Institute RFS for E85 & cellulosic ethanol
Switch subsidies (same $/acre) to energy crops
Switch ethanol subsidy from blenders to plant builders
Change subsidy amount based on the wholesale price of ethanol (five years only)
Switch CAFÉ mileage to petroleum mileage
Allow imports of foreign ethanol tax free above RFS standard
For seven years provide cellulosic credits above ethanol credits
NRDC: 114m acres for our transportation needs
Jim Woolsey/ George Shultz estim. 60m acres
Khosla: 55 m acres
Ethanol from municipal & animal waste, forest
Direct synthesis of ethanol or other hydrocarbons
Energy Crops: Miscanthus, Switch Grass, Poplar,
Willow, 250 million tons of plant waste from current crops,
Claim is made that with these techniques including alternate crops and waste South Dakota alone could produce 3,429 thousand bbl per day.
That's just under Iran's current oil production.
this claim is made:
In 2015, 78M export acres plus 39M CRP acres could produce 384M gallons of ethanol per day or ~75% of current U.S. gasoline demand
Energy Balance (Energy OUT vs. IN) Corn ethanol numbers ~1.2-1.8X Petroleum energy balance at ~0.8 .but reality from non-corn ethanol is Sugarcane ethanol (Brazil) ~8X Cellulosic ethanol ~4-8X
Companies & Technologies
BCI
Clearfuels
Full Circle
Edenspace
Agrivada
Mascoma
Synthetic Genomics
Novazyme
Genencor
Diversa
Iogen
Ceres
Corn Ethanol Cos.
Coal to Liquids
MSW to Ethanol
(1)I still remember the and am still affected by the corsive effects of this type of fuel.
(2) Whats it do the ground water? Anything like the MBTE fandango?
(3)How much will the cost of food and it's abundant supply (here in the USA) be affected?
(4)How many people go will hungry now that are fed in the 3rd world when the big Ag combines and corps switch to producing fuel?
(5)How long will the luddites and lawyers in the "environmental" movement and Government "enviromental" regulators block the building of plants that can produce useful and economic fuel?
(6)Why make ethonol from coal when you can make Diesel and Gasoline from it?
(7) Why not just go completely to Diesel type fuel that doesn't take the level of processing and refinenment?
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/03/2006 15:20 Comments ||
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#2
SPoD they are talking about making it from crop refuse and alternate energy crops.
It would not effect US food supply. Further down the road it might effect export foods.
Energy Crops: Miscanthus, Switch Grass, Poplar,
Willow, 250 million tons of plant waste from current crops,
This article includes Brazil and Argonne studies too. Lots of suff there and I am still working my way through it.
Link to the article was provided to me by oil lease trader...
a snippet of his discussion with another follows If you (and I actually) are right that OPEC will try to crash the market below $40 bbl to "see off" these alternatives and protect their market it wont happen. If they cant or take too long I think ethanol might develop its own head of steam LOL. Given the environmental benefits you could ensure ethanol is economic vs conventional oil merely by pricing the environmental externalities of oil. Maybe no need for a $40 floor on oil prices after all? And of course ethanol costs will likely fall as the GM feedstock is improved whereas oil production costs will either rise as resources are depleted or stay flat if technology gains continues to offset rises as they have for some time now.
#3
I am all for a "import tax" that slides to keep imported oil above 40 or 50 bucks a barrel. We can't do that with refined product, yet. All money from teh "fee" haver to go back to energy undependence. No Corperate welfare, governmnent bondoggles or TRANZI wealth redistribution.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/03/2006 16:07 Comments ||
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#4
Australia is the lowest cost agriculture producer in the developed world. Australia introduced a subsidy to promote the use of ethanol as a fuel.
Guess what happened?
We import almost all our ethanol from countries, dumb enough to subsidize this idiocy.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/03/2006 16:37 Comments ||
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#6
SPoD, the thrust of the ppt is that ethanol is great idea and all it needs is more/enough subsidies. My point is two fold. One is that in a world market any subsidy ends up subsidizing foreign consumers. Two, if ethanol production doesn't make economic sense in Australia, it makes even less sense in the USA where agricultural production costs are higher.
#9
So Phil it appears you would rather we sit on our hands?
I am not for a subsidy at all BTW.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/03/2006 17:02 Comments ||
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#10
Phil_b - I think you've forgotten the costs of 911, Gulf War I, Gulf War II, the increased security, etc when making your calculations when calculating the price of a barrel of oil.
You make some good points, but you are just naysaying - why it can't be done. It's going to happen and when is directly proportional to the price of a gallon of oil.
#12
SPoD, exactly the opposite. Energy dependence which in effect means your entire economy depends on the Middle East/Russia/Africa/Venuzuela with their myriad problems is IMO a huge problem that unless fixed will end up in a huge economic/geopolitical event (A Great Depression or war). It is imperative to fix the problem.
This why I rail at these fake solutions that at best might make a marginal improvement but in many cases make the problem worse.
I and others have said a hundred times, there are only two energy sources that will fix the problem (barring discovery of a monster oil field in the gulf). One is nuclear and the other is coal. That's it.
#13
phil_b: I and others have said a hundred times, there are only two energy sources that will fix the problem (barring discovery of a monster oil field in the gulf). One is nuclear and the other is coal. That's it.
That's my view, in a nutshell. Anything that is as labor-, energy- and resource-intensive as growing crops can't possibly be a solution to the problem of oil dependence. It's a dead end. People are grasping at straws (no pun intended).
#14
Maybe there is a biofuel source that could produce income for these third world countries whose only exports are heroin and cocaine...nuclear and coal are too difficult to put in a gas tank. I think the better answer is in totally new technology waiting to be discovered. "Necessity is the mother of invention" but I hope it doesn't take a major attack on oil production facilities to spark someone's imagination.
#15
Makeing fuels out of Biomass is easy. Particulary when that biomass is waste material is it a good deal.
Building reactors is hard and time consuming. Building plants that can take coal for feed stock again expensive and time consuming.
Biomass is just part of the over all picture. Since phil_b is an expert he will not accept even that partial and stop gap move and instead roots for a world war or total economic colapse. Wonderful.
Posted by: SPoD ||
05/03/2006 23:01 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
HARARE, Zimbabwe How bad is inflation in Zimbabwe? Well, consider this: at a supermarket near the center of this tatterdemalion capital, toilet paper costs $417.
KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait on Tuesday carried out the executions of five men convicted of murder and drug smuggling. The bodies of the men were then put on public display from the gallows. Kuwaiti Ministry of Justice and Interior officials identified three of the men as Kuwaitis and two as foreign nationals. This is the largest number of executions to take place in Kuwait in one day.
WASHINGTON - Record crude oil prices above $70 per barrel are not in the interest of the worlds largest producer or its largest consumer, Saudi Arabia Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said on Tuesday. Prices at these levels are not in the interest of either Saudi Arabia or the US, Naimi said in prepared remarks at a joint appearance with US Energy Secretary Sam Bodman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
MEXICO CITY - Mexican President Vicente Fox will sign into law a measure that decriminalizes the possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs for personal use, his spokesman said Tuesday. Spokesman Ruben Aguilar defended the law, which was approved Friday by Mexico's Senate, despite criticism in the United States.
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) - Bolivia's leftist government said Tuesday it would extend control over mining, forestry and other sectors of the economy after President Evo Morales nationalized the country's huge natural gas industry. Foreign governments warned relations could be damaged.
BEIJING (AP) -- A Chinese businessman has bought a MiG-21f plane from a U.S. seller on the online auction Web site eBay for $24,730 and plans to use it to decorate an empty space at his offices, a newspaper reported Sunday. The Beijing News newspaper identified the Chinese buyer as Zhang Cheng. "I like to collect valuable items. I have the buying power and my company has an empty space where I can display the plane," the newspaper quoted Zhang as saying.
MUZAFFARABAD: An earthquake of mild intensity hit Muzaffarabad and its surrounding areas on Tuesday morning. The tremor created a great amount of panic among the people of the Jhelum valley. 
