“Institute of the Americas” on The Daily Caller

Exploratory oil drilling began this week in waters off a set of islands in the South Atlantic where sheep have long outnumbered people. British oil concern Desire Petroleum’s rig arrived in the Falkland Islands to much fanfare and commenced a long-anticipated drilling campaign. Potentially important from an energy perspective, the drilling has stoked long-simmering tensions over British control of the islands and neighboring Argentina’s sovereignty claim on the archipelago. (more)

In the late 1970s, Jimmy Carter’s energy policy came to be summed up by an article of clothing: a cardigan sweater. More recently, we’ve been told that we are “addicted to oil” and that we need to “drill, baby, drill.” President Obama’s first State of the Union address seemingly melded them all together. (more)

Every Sunday, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez takes to the air and radio waves for Aló Presidente. It is, to put it mildly, a key ingredient in the cultivation of his persona and pet issues for his Bolivarian Revolution. The show, complete with its own web site, often transmits from carefully selected locations to emphasize the president’s booming rhetoric of the day–oil fields when announcing nationalization of the oil industry or new schools and clinics when aiming to brag about the gains of  21st Century Socialism in Venezuela. Or along Venezuela’s border with Colombia when he desires to rail against two favorite targets: Colombia and the United States. Lately, the rants against Colombia have focused on a possible armed conflict – to avoid war we must prepare for war President Chavez declared. (more)