{"id":1483,"date":"2007-05-01T05:00:57","date_gmt":"2007-05-01T10:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-may-day\/"},"modified":"2007-05-01T05:01:10","modified_gmt":"2007-05-01T10:01:10","slug":"happy-may-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/happy-may-day","title":{"rendered":"Happy May Day!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In honor of The Worker, Hugo Chavez will be seizing 4 oil projects<\/a> in the name of a free Venezuela today! By “free” I mean “free to see their oil production fall apart as they drive out foreign investment”:<\/p>\n

Critics say that [state company PDVSA] has hired many inexperienced personnel, resulting in a string of deadly refinery and oil field accidents. The company had a chance to retain hundreds of experienced employees from its joint-venture partners when it took control of the 32 fields last year, but it stumbled badly by cutting salaries by an average of 30%. That led to mass desertions [. . .] Production at the 32 fields taken over by the company last year has fallen 100,000 barrels a day, or roughly 20%, the result of lower investments by PDVSA and its minority partners, prompted in part by legal uncertainties. Diminishing prospects in Venezuela lead international companies to cut their investment there last year to $540 million, down from $1 billion in previous years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Mr. Nobody<\/a> put it, “Workers of the world, ignite! You have nothing to lose but your minds!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In honor of The Worker, Hugo Chavez will be seizing 4 oil projects in the name of a free Venezuela today! By “free” I mean “free to see their oil production fall apart as they drive out foreign investment”: Critics say that [state company PDVSA] has hired many inexperienced personnel, resulting in a string of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Happy May Day!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-business","category-politics-explicit"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-nV","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1101,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading","url_meta":{"origin":1483,"position":0},"title":"Unrequired Reading","author":"Gil","date":"September 4, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Stuff I meant to post about in the past week: Writing about restaurants in New Orleans (with a go-to mention of Finis Shelnutt): \u00c3\u00a2\u00e2\u201a\u00ac\u00c5\u201cWhen people are still mucking out their houses, chefs are living in FEMA trailers, and others are finding out they are going to get screwed by their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":238,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/you-want-moore","url_meta":{"origin":1483,"position":1},"title":"You Want Moore?","author":"Gil","date":"May 8, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"It seems pretty clear by now that there\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bds a sizeable audience for the books and movies of Michael Moore. I haven\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdt read or watched any of these, so I\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdm not gong to cast any aspersions on them or their audience. I\u00c3\u00af\u00c2\u00bf\u00c2\u00bdm simply stating that a lot of people are interested\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1804,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/slappy-anniversary","url_meta":{"origin":1483,"position":2},"title":"Slappy Anniversary","author":"Gil","date":"November 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In December 1997, I experienced my first Christmas party with my new company. The party started around noon at Mt. Fuji, a great Japanese restaurant up on a big hill over in NY state. Noticing the amount of alcohol my coworkers and their partners were consuming, I turned to my\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "suburbs"","block_context":{"text":"suburbs","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/suburbs"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2185\/2076115649_78c79a476a.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1566,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-june-29-2007","url_meta":{"origin":1483,"position":3},"title":"Unrequired Reading: June 29, 2007","author":"Gil","date":"June 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This issue will be over-and-done soon, dear readers. Till then, have some links. The AV Club offers up 10 directors you didn't know you hated. * * * Wit, wisdom, etc.: Don't eat before yoga. * * * Stossel. Brooks. The smackdown! * * * I read Under the Volcano\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0060955228","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":211,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/no-blood-for-oil-whatever-you-say-mr-hussein","url_meta":{"origin":1483,"position":4},"title":"No Blood for Oil? Whatever you say, Mr. Hussein!","author":"Gil","date":"April 6, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I thought you could only find this level of venality from, say, the IOC.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":319,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/oil-for-money","url_meta":{"origin":1483,"position":5},"title":"Oil for Money","author":"Gil","date":"August 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Great piece in the NYTimes today about the scandal of the UN's Iraqi oil-for-food program. Claudia Rosett at the Wall Street Journal has been way out in front on this story, so it's good to see it get front-page treatment from the Times.Because, y'know, it shows that a lot of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics (implicit)"","block_context":{"text":"Politics (implicit)","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/politics-implicit"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1483\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}