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It's called an Extradition Treaty

the US has an extradition treaty with Belize

The extradition treaty of 2000 isn't the only one in play here.

The Treaty provides for a broad range of cooperation in criminal matters. Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes:

taking the testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; locating or identifying persons; serving documents; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes; executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to immobilization and forfeiture of assets, restitution to the victims of crime and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the State from whom the assistance is requested.

I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to the Treaty, and give its advice and consent to ratification.

GEORGE W. BUSH

TREATY WITH BELIZE ON MUTUAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS/a

explain how he sidestepped a murder charge from a soverign nation

He didn't. He is a person of interested wanted for questioning, not a charged criminal. If he was a charged criminal, fleeing to the US wouldn't help, as the US has an extradition treaty with Belize that provides for the extradition of criminals charged with any of a wide array of crimes, including, naturally, as #1 on the list, murder.

.. and after posting this to his blog, he has a rather strong argument that he would be the victim of political persecution if sent back, so I would highly question whether we would send him back even if they did press charges.

explain how he sidestepped a murder charge from a soverign nation

He didn't. He is a person of interested wanted for questioning, not a charged criminal. If he was a charged criminal, fleeing to the US wouldn't help, as the US has an extradition treaty with Belize that provides for the extradition of criminals charged with any of a wide array of crimes, including, naturally, as #1 on the list, murder.

There is nothing about this entire series of unfortunate events that shouldnt warrant immediate extradition to Belize

You mean, other than the fact that Belize hasn't criminally charged him with anything, much less anything subject to the extradition treaty with the US?

Unfortunately Mr McAfee wasnt found accused of these crimes in say, the Soviet Union or China

Or, for that matter, anywhere else. Because he hasn't actually been charged with any crimes, anywhere.

The Treaty is one of a series of modern mutual legal assistance treaties being negotiated by the United States in order to counter criminal activities more effectively. The Treaty should be an effective tool to assist in the prosecution of a wide variety of crimes, including drug trafficking, money laundering, and terrorism offenses. The Treaty is self-executing.

The Treaty provides for a broad range of cooperation in criminal matters. Mutual assistance available under the Treaty includes: taking the testimony or statements of persons; providing documents, records, and articles of evidence; locating or identifying persons; serving documents; transferring persons in custody for testimony or other purposes;executing requests for searches and seizures; assisting in proceedings related to immobilization and forfeiture of assets, restitution to the victims of crime and collection of fines; and any other form of assistance not prohibited by the laws of the State from whom the assistance is requested.

I recommend that the Senate give early and favorable consideration to the Treaty, and give its advice and consent to ratification.

GEORGE W. BUSH.

TREATY WITH BELIZE ON MUTUAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE IN CRIMINAL MATTERS

This tiny nation of only 280,000 people does seem to draw a surprising number of fugitives. They come here ''for the same reasons as the tourists,'' says Gerald Westby, Belize's police commissioner. ''It's English-speaking and close to Mexico.'' Some try to blend in with vacationers on sun-drenched coastal islands like Ambergris Cay, and others...try to find sanctuary in the jungle. They also appear to find comfort in the poverty (hence, their money goes further) and lawlessness (figuring they won't be a priority for local cops). Belize City is a violent place, currently suffering from a rash of ''pedal by'' shootings--executions by gunmen on bicycles.

Belize signed an extradition treaty with the United States in 2000, but officials are often quite willing to expedite a deportation instead of the lengthy extradition process. ''Belize is very close to being one of the most cooperative Central American nations,'' says James Schield, chief of international investigations for the U.S. Marshals Service.

Trouble in Paradise : U.S. fugitives may think they can hide in Belize, but here's the untold story of how some get caught

Cooperation on this level works both ways. If Belize wants McAfee they will very likely get him.

However, Ecuador will not extradite Assange to the US or any other country

Are you sure about that? The US has an extradition treaty with Ecuador which might allow it - depends on what he'd be charged with.

I dont want to hear about the war, or about whatever other issues you may have with the government-- what crimes were specifically exposed by the embassy wire leak?

First of all, you wouldn't know much about the crimes if you live in the States. Many crimes committed by the US gov't against other smaller countries were well-revealed by the leaked cables, and there are more to come, I'm sure.

If you live in the States, you should know of the other fundamental principle that justifies the leaks:

1. The right to access information held by public authorities is a fundamental human right subject to a strict regime of exceptions. The right to access to information protects the right of every person to access public information and to know what governments are doing on their behalf. It is a right that has received particular attention from the international community, given its importance to the consolidation, functioning and preservation of democratic regimes. Without the protection of this right, it is impossible for citizens to know the truth, demand accountability and fully exercise their right to political participation. National authorities should take active steps to ensure the principle of maximum transparency, address the culture of secrecy that still prevails in many countries and increase the amount of information subject to routine disclosure.

more here

The EU is not a federal government for a number of reasons and it's heavily debated what to call it. A supranational union is the common term used to describe the unique nature of the EU, it lies somewhere between a confederation that is an association of States and a federation. Between confederalism which recognizes the complete independence of States in an association and federalism which seeks to fuse them in a super-state.

What clearly distinguishes the US from the EU is in matters of foreign affairs. The EU only recently agreed to a create a "foreign affairs minister", in an attempt to form a unified front within the EU. However each country still runs their own foreign affairs how they like, power lies with national governments. This is not the case for American states.

While American states plead with the federal government for aid, the EU kindly asks for funds to operate from European national governments. There is no European federal tax because they have no such right.

Another example would be in foreign representation, citizens of the U.S.A. go to their embassy abroad, European citizens go each to their own embassy [where available]. There is no "European" citizenship, just like there is no European identity [only national, cultural lines]. Don't confuse this with the diversity you have in your states, we are talking about whole nations of single ethnic group(s), languages, cultures and religions. Europeans are first and foremost their own nationality, we don't see "European" as in any way descriptive of who we are, only as a loose generalization.

I'm sorry but your states ceased being sovereign states a long, long time ago legally speaking. And while American history is not my specialty I do know there have been three basic accounts of sovereignty in America. The Lincolnian notion that the Union was antecedent to the states; the Hamiltonian notion that adoption of the Constitution operated a transfer of sovereignty to the federal government; and the "Calhounite" notion that the states remain sovereign. So while Lincoln spoke of returning to "his" nation (i.e. state) after the war it is no longer valid.

Oh, and you *do* have an American Court of Human Rights. It was created on the same basis as the European Court of Human Rights. However obviously the Organization of American States is not as important as the EU is to Europe.

The EU is not a federal government for a number of reasons and it's heavily debated what to call it. A supranational union is the common term used to describe the unique nature of the EU, it lies somewhere between a confederation that is an association of States and a federation. Between confederalism which recognizes the complete independence of States in an association and federalism which seeks to fuse them in a super-state.

What clearly distinguishes the US from the EU is in matters of foreign affairs. The EU only recently agreed to a create a "foreign affairs minister", in an attempt to form a unified front within the EU. However each country still runs their own foreign affairs how they like, power lies with national governments. This is not the case for American states.

While American states plead with the federal government for aid, the EU kindly asks for funds to operate from European national governments. There is no European federal tax because they have no such right.

Another example would be in foreign representation, citizens of the U.S.A. go to their embassy abroad, European citizens go each to their own embassy [where available]. There is no "European" citizenship, just like there is no European identity [only national, cultural lines]. Don't confuse this with the diversity you have in your states, we are talking about whole nations of single ethnic group(s), languages, cultures and religions. Europeans are first and foremost their own nationality, we don't see "European" as in any way descriptive of who we are, only as a loose generalization.

I'm sorry but your states ceased being sovereign states a long, long time ago legally speaking. And while American history is not my specialty I do know there have been three basic accounts of sovereignty in America. The Lincolnian notion that the Union was antecedent to the states; the Hamiltonian notion that adoption of the Constitution operated a transfer of sovereignty to the federal government; and the "Calhounite" notion that the states remain sovereign. So while Lincoln spoke of returning to "his" nation (i.e. state) after the war it is no longer valid.

Oh, and you *do* have an American Court of Human Rights. It was created on the same basis as the European Court of Human Rights. However obviously the Organization of American States is not as important as the EU is to Europe.

Does the US have an extradition treaty with Venezuela?

"President Chavez emphasized that terrorist Luis Posada Carriles should be extradited to Venezuela, according to the extradition treaty between governments in Caracas and Washington."

I guess I could have Googled it quite easily :-(

The US courts seem to think that he's under threat of torture if he is returned, although the Amnesty International report doesn't state that much that is hugely controversial for Venezuela (and the US has no qualms about shipping folks to worse destinations).

True - but in all the hubbub about al-Magrehi there's a lot of hidden sub-texts that made that hubbub all the louder:

Maybe I should have phrased it differently. When I mentioned the hubbub I meant all the voices against his release with shouts about there being deals made. A lot of Americans opposed his released, when as you say there are questions as to his guilt, but there's no outcry from Americans for the government to hand over another accused terrorist.

Although I note that the treaty excludes political crimes (including assassination of political folks), crimes that come with them a death penalty, or life imprisonment (unless assurances are given), crimes committed outside the statute of limitations, folks who've applied for asylum (decision deferred until proceedings complete), and their own citizens. Quite a readable document, surprisingly! (not that I'm saying his lawyers have argued that he's exempt).

But, yes, I agree that there are some double-standards on the part of the US authorities - but then the relationship with Venezuela in 1922 (when the treaty was written) was probably different to what it is now....

Yes been done in South America for some time
http://www.oas.org/dsd/publications/Unit/oea59e/ch12.htm
"Fog harvesting has been investigated for more than thirty years and has been implemented successfully in the mountainous
coastal areas of Chile (see case study in Part C, Chapter 5),
Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru."

"No, they're not trying to remove the First Amendment. It's still there, and if this bill conflicts with the First Amendment (and I can't see how any reasonable person could say otherwise), its clear legally that the bill would be tossed out as unconstitutional."

And proof of this are the so called Hate Speech laws, no wait those were not thrown out as unconstitutional

Laws that restrict Religious freedom have been thrown out? Oops,wrong again.

Laws requiring permits for the people to peaceable assemble have been tossed out. Hmm.. nope those are still in place.

About the only part of the First Amendment that is still in tact is the Freedom of the Press, but they've been bought and paid for in most part by the DNC PR department.

The Second Amendment has been under constant assault and now since the latest ruling by the SCOTUS the Government is now trying to eliminate the production of ammunition. The new Inter-America http://www.oas.org/juridico/english/treaties/a-63.html treaty Obama is looking at would ban all illicit ammunition production. Illicit is defined as anyone that makes or reloads their own ammo. Hunters do this all the time. So the back door to banning guns is now banning ammo.

I can see how my blog could be considered a weapon as I repeatedly criticize the Federal, Sate and local Governments. Based on the latest DHS report my blog is extreme and could be considered 'sever' or 'hostile' since I repeatedly call for limited Federal Government and lower Federal Taxes. Since the DHS can classify anyone that supports the 10th Amendment as a Right Wing Extremist and a possible terrorist threat they can claim anything meets the criteria for the 'blog as a weapon'.

And yet, only people from the US call themselves American.

Ah, that's where you are 100% wrong. People in all other countries in "The" Americas (except Canada) call themselves American, and use other words to refer to the citizens of the US (most of them nice). Some of them feel offended by the way the USA tries to hijack the terms America and American. Take into account that people outside the US make up almost 2/3 of the population of the Americas.

You're fighting a crusade that nobody cares about

Watch the speeches of the presidential candidates, or a presidential speech intended for domestic audiences, and you will see that the words America and American are used as you like them every two sentences.
Now watch a speech meant for international audiences, particularly those delivered at the UN or at the (gasp) Organization of American States. You will notice that in general he will refer to the country as the United States, and will try to avoid the use of the word American.
Few people care about this inside the US. A lot of people care outside. We don't notice because we get very little info on what happens outside.

Actually, I'm curious - why does it bother you? As Americans, we are far less nationalistic than, say, Mexicans.

That's completely off-topic but since you asked: normally you only hear the most vocal voices coming from any group. So you hear the very vocal proud Mexicans, but not the large numbers of those (Mexicans or Latin Americans in general) that realize that theirs are largely screwed up countries, even if they still love them.
Likewise, when you are inside the US you hear the myriad of voices with different opinions, some nationalistic and some very auto-critical. But if you go outside the US, the image that prevails is that of the overly proud flag-waving bigots (which is exacerbated by the fact that they do, in fact, come from probably the most successful country in the 20th century).

Based on your comments I wonder if you have traveled much abroad. No, no, it's OK either way, I'm not trying to flame you. But if you haven't, you probably should: it's a really revelatory experience.

According to http://www.oas.org/juridico/MLA/en/traites/en_traites-ext-usa-bra.pdfthe US does have extradition treaty with Brazil.
However Brazil will not extradite anyone who is the parent of a Brazilian child.

The Avacado thing came from http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/01/eveningnews/main1773839.shtml

The text of Chapter 11 is at http://www.sice.oas.org/trade/NAFTA/chap-111.asp. It's absolutely horribly written, but my read says that, basically, you can't treat foreigners differently than you treat your own citizens. Where I think most people get angry at chapter 11 is that it prevents a lot of thing that countries would do to protect their own industries. Now, often, that happens circuitously by raising environmental concerns about the foreign entrant. But, environmental concerns are often real, so Article 1114 has a huge carve-out that allows countries to establish actual environmental standards.

I'm not too worried by a case where somebody wanted to pollute, complained under NAFTA, and was told that, indeed, they could not pollute. That's a bit like saying "If Charles Manson had won his murder case, he would have killed more people. Therefore, the process that allowed Manson to have a trial (instead of just being sent straight to jail without one), is bad." The only way Methanex could have won was if there's no scientific basis for banning MTBE, only a basis based on keeping out foreign competition.

There are two real NAFTA questions:

(1) Are the parties to NAFTA better off with it than without it? I think the answer to this is clearly yes -- trade among the parties has increased enormously, which means that consumers in each country have a better selection of goods & prices than they did before NAFTA.

(2) How do you (or do you) compensate the losers under NAFTA? E.g., the Mexican corn farmers driven out of business by US corn producers, U.S. employees at clothing companies who can't compete with their lower-priced Mexican competition, etc....

This (2) is the tougher question to answer.

extraditing corporate execs from the US, even though the extradition treaty specifically covers the described offense (see Article II, Section 29).

Hmm? Canada is another American state. Says so right here.

Article 4, Section 1 of the American Convention on Human Rights , signed but not ratified by the U.S., and ratified by most central american countries:

1. Every person has the right to have his life respected. This right shall be protected by law and, in general, from the moment of conception. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.

The U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child

Whereas the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth...

Principle 1: The child shall enjoy all the rights set forth in this Declaration. Every child, without any exception whatsoever, shall be entitled to these rights, without distinction or discrimination on account of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, whether of himself or of his family.

Heh. You are making a complete and utter ass of yourself with your argument.

In most "countries," a nation is referred to as a "state," not a "country." In the United States of America, calling our "states" by that name is a holdover from the fact that the original colonies had no real federal government to speak of - they were essentially all seperate nations.

See, for example, http://www.oas.org/main/main.asp?sLang=E&sLink=../ ../documents/eng/oasinbrief.asp

How is it even a little ambigous? If I were in the UN and I asked all Americans to stand up do you really think Canadians, Mexicans, Argentinians, and Salvadorians would stand up? No.

And what do I care what the Spanish call us, so long as its not shitholians? We call them Spaniards, not Espanola (probably incorrect I don't speak Spanish.) We call the Germans German, not Deutsche.

Exactly.

My other point was that that the State of Utah has no extradition treaty with the (federal) Government Canada or any Canadian Provinces.

Also, as a long parented post mentioned, extradition is typically reserved for serious crimes (typically Felony's, or the Canadian rough mirror the Indictable Offence).

There have been cases where Canadian's have not been extradited in cases like Animal Cruelty, which is typically a Canadian Summary Offence (USA Misdemeanour). This is because the Federal/State Laws of the region making the extradition request contain both Felony and Misdemeanour sections and the Felony charge is entered, and the Misdemeanour is reserved for plea-bargaining.

This is because most extradition treaties roughly dictate that someone can only receive punishment for the crime equal to what they would receive if they had committed the crime locally (such as that all murder suspected extradited from Canada cannot be punished by the death penalty). This also leads to that if a crime exists in only one country, it is not generally considered to be something that someone can be extradited for.

From the above its reasonable to assume that because there is NO Canadian law against this activity, that it is unlikely the extradition treaty would cover this law.

A quick search yields
http://www.oas.org/juridico/MLA/en/can/en_can-ext- gen-g8iag.html/

Under the EXTRADITION heading a few pages in and the subheading "Dual Criminality"
"Dual criminality is required...The dual criminality requirement is deemed fulfilled if the conduct underlying the offence for which extradition is sought is a criminal offence under Canadian law, regardless of whether the offence is categorized in the same manner or denominated by the same terminology and the offence is punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment exceeding the minimum prescribed by the Extradition Act or by the relevant agreement.".

In short, unless I break a Canadian Law (such as send hate material) in the email that I sent to the child in Utah I am immune to this law. I would suspect this would be similar to virtually everybody else outside of the USA as "Dual criminality" requirements are often considered fundamental parts of international extradition treaties. As for within the USA, most states have extradition treaties with other states for offences punishable on the state level, but I am unfamiliar with agreements.

Medevo

PS. If someone did manage to break Canadian Law in a e-mail sent to a Utah Child that was blacklisted, it would be interesting to see the response at least, as likely both governments would like to punish the offender.

What does it say in the FIRST sentence?
The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations.
here is their site - http://www.citel.oas.org/citel_i.asp They have been meeting for years. So they did have plenty of chances, at least since 2003. So by what you wrote, you agree with me? Somehow I doubt it. It is never that easy.

Still think my head is up my ass? To the contrary, do you really expect to convince me with nothing? You seem to be saying these are bad guys up to no good... they just are. See, they kicked some guys off a commission because they donated $250 to the democrats and are Kerry supporters.

Uh huh. Real convincing.... NOT! I have donated more than that to Mount Vernon (George Washington's house in Virginia now run by a private women's organization, they put out nice calendars too BTW). Somehow I doubt my donations would include or exclude me from anything official. I have very good reason to think that by the way. If those companies feel they have been wronged, you can bet they will be in contact with their congressman. Sounds like no big deal but they do make a difference.

Looking for your name I found a number of citations from you. What do you mean by your original suggestion? It won't kill them to send the engineers? Let them meet without them this one time. It won't kill anyone to leave them behind and we may get something done, finally.

If I haven't convinced you by now, nevermind.

FYI - From what I'm reading on the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission it is a part of the "Organization of American States" - kind of a UN for North and South America. That's how the State Department is even involved in this.

http://www.oas.org/main/english/
http://www.citel.oas.org/general.asp

I'm far from a Republican apologist, (Libertarian) but I tend to agree with the administration more than not. However I have a problem with both sides on this -

Those that are screaming about a fascist state are stretching things further than Gumby. The Religious Right wants a country similar to the 14 points, but its not (hopefully) going to get there any time soon. On the other hand, this is another notch on the Republican power consolidation bedpost that will get them burned and voted out eventually.

Do they have the right to do this? Absolutely, this is their right as the State Department to choose who they want to represent them in international meetings. And, despite the noise about it, I support the president choosing people that agree with him. Outside the White House he has 49% of the nation that thinks someone else would do the job better. I'd want some friends close too.

The formal system of checks and balances in the government - and the informal one in the media will prevent him from doing anything too stupid - John Bolton....

Now the more important question - Should they do this? No, I think it is much more important for the Government to be worried about national security, Social Security, Iraq, the national debt, and than a few geeks getting together to talk about telecom.

FYI - From what I'm reading on the Inter-American Telecommunication Commission it is a part of the "Organization of American States" - kind of a UN for North and South America. That's how the State Department is even involved in this.

http://www.oas.org/main/english/
http://www.citel.oas.org/general.asp

I'm far from a Republican apologist, (Libertarian) but I tend to agree with the administration more than not. However I have a problem with both sides on this -

Those that are screaming about a fascist state are stretching things further than Gumby. The Religious Right wants a country similar to the 14 points, but its not (hopefully) going to get there any time soon. On the other hand, this is another notch on the Republican power consolidation bedpost that will get them burned and voted out eventually.

Do they have the right to do this? Absolutely, this is their right as the State Department to choose who they want to represent them in international meetings. And, despite the noise about it, I support the president choosing people that agree with him. Outside the White House he has 49% of the nation that thinks someone else would do the job better. I'd want some friends close too.

The formal system of checks and balances in the government - and the informal one in the media will prevent him from doing anything too stupid - John Bolton....

Now the more important question - Should they do this? No, I think it is much more important for the Government to be worried about national security, Social Security, Iraq, the national debt, and than a few geeks getting together to talk about telecom.

Anyway, there are a lot more uninsightful attackers getting modded up than uninsightful apologists getting modded down.

All of these complete morons saying this is illegal, unconstitutional, immoral, persecuting people, and all of this other nonsense.

This is really a nonstory, at best.

Oh my, they want people who like them to represent them.

What negative impact does this have, on anyone?

these are employees of the State department

Wha? Huh? Do you even have a CLUE what you're talking about?

Obviously not, from the article: "Those barred from the trip include employees of Qualcomm and Nokia"

Oh, and before you accuse Time of being infected with lying liberal propagandists or something like that, lets look at the IATC website On its own main page, we see CITEL,an entity of the Organization of American States, is the main forum in the hemisphere in which the governments and the private sector meet to coordinate regional efforts. Of course, we just kicked the private sector out of our delegation.

This is utterly bullshit and you know it. I am from Venezuela and I support our democratic government. It is the immaturity of the opposition which is causing all the noise. The OAS and the Carter Center (both of wich were requested by the opposition as a condition to attend the recall, BTW) audited the result and found no evidence of fraud (the error given by the audit was 0.02%). They compared the votes in the paper trail (that was verified by each voter and is digitally signed so it 'cant' be forged -this depends in how much you trust the technology provider for the elections-).

The observers (the Carter Center, the OAS and about a hundred others) opened the boxes for 150 voting centers and compared the paper receipts with the digital results, giving the error previously mentioned. When the opposition called fraud (without any proof, because they have changed their theory as the previous one is demonstrated false) a new analysis was performed by the CNE, the Carter Center, the OAS and the observers using 200 random boxes and comparing (once again) the paper receipts with the digital results. The error of this second audit was in the range of 0.05%. The opposition did not attend to the second audit because they wanted a manual recount of _all_ the votes in _all_ the country.

Also, several independent groups (I don't have here the other links) made an statistical analysis on the opposition's main argument. The opposition (not everyone, a lot of opposition leaders have accepted the result, but the media don't give them any coverage. In fact some reporters have had 'live' fights with these leaders arguing that their attitude only benefits Chavez) states that the rate of coincidences in the voting centers for the 'SI' (YES) option was a proof of 'tops' or 'limits' for this option in the machines. But the independant analysis found that:

a) These alleged 'limits' are present in every election and only demonstrate that people on a given geograical region tend to have similar prefferences.
b) The alleged 'limits' are present for the two options (the opposition only talks about the 'SI', but the 'NO' option has a similar pattern). The 'NO' option has fewer (but not much) coincidences than the 'SI' option, which is normal given that the 'NO' option got more votes.
c) These alleged limits do not demonstrate a fraud (they aren't proof that there was no fraud either)

The U.S. signed it in 1977, but its never been ratified.

Sometimes I really hate Congress.

>The captured solar energy of a 150 mile by 150 mile square area of Nevada desert would provide the United States with all its energy needs: consumer, residential, transportation, commercial and industrial; oil, gas, coal, electric, etc. combined. Yes. It's a fact.

Interesting theory. Theory, though. Certainly not a fact, considering it doesn't even make mention of the most obvious problem:

What do we do at night?

But then again, I never expect someone who hasn't even taken a business course to notice a simple MISSING FACT like that.

>But we _are_ running out of oil. And we're running out of it much faster [google.com] than anybody cares to inform [peakoil.net] you.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Did you ever take a business course, ever? Even once? Hell, have you even filled out a tax return?

In conclusion, if markets are allowed to function freely the supply of oil will never run out. Changes in consumer patterns and the emergence of new technology driven by increases in the price of oil will prevent this from happening. While predicting doomsday scenarios may be a good way to get people to know your name, they are a very poor predictor of what is likely to happen in the future. -- Mike Moffatt, PhD

But we _are_ running out of oil. And we're running out of it much faster than anybody cares to inform you.

You are thicker than tar pitch, aren't you?

Nobody cares to inform you because you are deluded and your doomsday fantasies are only shared between a select few clinically insane individuals.

How much did you spend on heat this winter? On hot water? On AC last summer? On $2/gal gas for your Camry and SUV? It's time we had Open Source Energy, don't you think?

We will if you keep your hands out of the economy. It's working perfectly fine and if you keep trying to screw with it, you may just succeed at breaking it. At that point you *WILL* have your doomsday scenario, and if you think running out of oil or coughing in smog sucks, imagine the depression, but 10 times worse. Rent Mad Max someday to get a feel for what life without a stable economy would be like.

Now ask yourself, why? How's that? What the heck is going on?

Oil is heavy (duh!). Greenpeace makes it costly to transport. Nobody wants to handle it (grose, smelly, dangerous stuff). So they don't without adequate compensation. Which makes it cost effective to buy it from Canada. That along with the good relations that comes with trading with neighbours and the mutual benefits NAFTA provides mean the US is an intelligent country that knows a good deal when it sees it.

That WHAAAAAMBULANCE sure struck a deep pothole, didn't it?

For every four barrels of oil we burn, we're only finding one new one.

So you admit we're daily finding new oil?

You're shooting holes in your own argument!

Again, for every four barrels of oil we burn, we find only one new one.

Then you repeat that fact. Yeesh, why did I even bother to write this?

And again, for each new barrel of oil discovered, we're burning four from the old fields.

For crying out loud. Am I the only one reading this? That we are finding new oil even now?

Do you know how many of these we could have built for the over $100 billion spent on securing middle east oil?

??? Can you give even the slightest shred of evidence of that? Any? At all? Even an iota? Even a nudge in the right direction?

First law of business: Make the consumer believe the product is scarce, then package and sell it in a format that can be controlled (ie. barrels of oil can be controlled, solar roofs can't

The fact that both use the same flag, that their courts have similar names (CoE: European Court of Human Rights; EU: Europen Court of Justice), and that the EU Parliament uses the CoE Parliament Building in Strasbourg for most of its plenary meetings, all helps add to the confusion. The CoE has 45 members while the EU has 15.

IANA programmer, but I did teach basic computer skills at locally owned hotels in Jamaica for six weeks as part of a sustainable development project for the OAS. NetCorps Canada does similar work.

Also check out idealist.org, search their listings, and get on their email list of volunteer opportunities.

Food for thought - below is an excerpt from the Tariff Act of 1930, Section 337, which can be viewed in its entirety at this site.

2.2 Under Section 337 of the United States Tariff Act of 1930 unfair methods of competition and unfair acts in the importation of articles into the United States, or in their sale, are unlawful if these unfair acts or methods of competition have the effect or tendency to (i) destroy or to substantially injure an industry efficiently and economically operated in the United States, (ii) prevent the establishment of such an industry, or (iii) restrain or monopolise trade and commerce in the United States.

Maybe someone should stick it to the oil cartels.