Chevron Ecuador Muddled By Petroecuador, Canadian, Foreign Oil Companies

Lost in the entire Chevron Ecuador PR and legal battles is a little known report that between 2002 and 2010, Petroecuador - the state-owned oil company that took over the oil fields owned by Texaco, just after that company was purchased by Chevron - was responsible for an estimated 1,415 "environmental accidents" according to the Ecuadorian newspaper El Universo.

The oil company operated in five oil fields - Shushufindi, Sacha, Auca, Lago Agrio, and Libertador - where the damage happened. There is no report that Petroecuador has completed environmental clean-up in those areas.

Locally, Petroecuador is seen as the real problem, even as the government, which effectively runs the media, has formed a public view against Chevron as well.

But lost in all of this, from fraudulently prepared reports, to intimidation of Ecuadorian judges, is the fact that the story of oil exploration in Ecuador is one of the actions of many companies, as Chevron has not been in operation since 1992, and Occidental Petroleum was the last American company to work in the nation until they were kicked out in 2007.

For example, little discussed is the role of Canadian oil companies in Ecuador. Firms like Ivanhoe Energy and Encana, which started operations in 1999.

Encana, like Chevron, has been the focus of a movie, this one called Between Midnight and the Rooster’s Crow. But what makes this interesting is that with Encana, Ivanhoe, Repsol-YPF from Spain, Occidental Petroleum, Teikoku from Japan, the Brazilian national oil company Petrobras, the French oil company Perenco, and now Andes Petroleum, a consortium of Chinese oil producers, it's impossible to argue that the Ecuador oil story is one between just Chevron and Petroecuador.

It also makes it all but impossible to claim that oil wells in Lago Agrio were only used by Chevron - the facts just don't support that claim.

Why?

Because Lago Agrio is where Andes Petroleum Co currently operates, and where Encana worked before the Chinese entered Ecuador, buying the rights and production facilities for $1.4 billion, where Chevron, again, left in 1992 and engaged in cleanup work through 1995. Moreover, several firms, including Petroecuador, have produced oil in Lago Agrio over that time through to today.

This is 2011.

What's lost on American activists is that oil funds an estimated 50 percent of Ecuador's national budget. That, coupled with the fact that Ecuador produces more oil than it needs for its economy, and you have a situation where many foreign companies, not just a few, want to and have produced oil in Ecuador, and a government that's still all too interested in courting them.

And that, as Ecuador becomes a socialist dictatorship, and the perfect environment for an uprising, very much like the one that happened in September, involving Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa and the Ecuador police, who kidnapped him.

Their concerns: maintaining their benefits admit budget cuts. Ecuador's fiscal situation's not going to make life nice there for a while.

Stay tuned.

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Salsa By Lake Merritt On Sunday

Kwik Way Grand Opening

TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, Apps Based On Black Stereotypes Disturbing

Just finished watching the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon New York 2011, at Pier 94, and overall the presentation of new applications, or apps, was, as always, entertaining.

But this 2011 version had a small, mini, but still nasty trend: the presentations of apps based on black stereotypes.

OK, it only happened twice, but twice is the start of something.

The first presentation was around an app called Angry Black Man, where a cartoon character who's obviously black walks along and either is upright or slouched based on obstacles placed in his path. It was created by a team of two black programmers, and at first, I though the presentation was maniacally funny, but then considered that the brothas may be presenting some issues of their own.

Why make that before an audience that was mostly white and Asian? Did the makers think that it was OK to do because they were not in a black environment? Does it reflect their own self-hatred? That last question still sticks with me.

The last presentation at TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon NYC was by a white man and an Asian woman and called Yo Mama, an alarm based on the character stereotype of the big, large black mama called Big Mama and played by Martin Lawrence.

No one laughed.

That's when things started at TechCrunch Distrupt to get a bit disturbing for this blogger.

Now, you know that if an Asian programmer presented an app that was an Asian Stereotype, not only would no one laugh, but Asians and others like me would howl in protest.

Where's the concern here?

That's something to ponder. It's not TechCrunch's fault at all that this happened, but it is a sad commentary on American and World society.

Stay tuned.

TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, Venture Crapital Too Funny

Venture Captalists, beware! There's a game app about you now.

The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon NYC 2011 is underway, and there are a number of interesting presentations. ight now, the "Facebook Time Machine" is being presented, and it's good for looking at how much your friends have changed in appearance. And another is called Let's Game, also for Facebook.

In fact, a number of creations are either Facebook or Twitter apps, but it's nice to see an app (er, application) that's not native to either one of those sites, but stands alone.

That's Venture Crapital.

The creation of Dmitri Cherniak, Wylie Conlon, Adrian Sanders, and Chris Bliss, they created this game in just 24 hours and as part of the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon NYC 2011. Here's the website: http://venturecrapital.us/index.html

It's a simple game that has you as the Venture Capitalist, basically throwing crap at startup ideas as they fly in the air.

Not sure how the judges are going to like the concept, but you can tune in and see here:



Online TV Shows by Ustream

Stay tuned.

TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon NYC 2011 Update

tcdisrupt_tc-4, a photo by TechCrunch on Flickr.

While some sleep, well most, the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon NYC 2011 is still in full swing with Macbooks open - well for those still awake.

We can catch up on the doing via the Twitter hashtag #hackdisrupt.

What is the Hackathon? It's a kind of contest where teams of programmers get together and make a brand new application, one that could be the driving force for a new company and be the next "disruptive" technological approach.

First, it's important to note that there are various teams working on Hacks for apps, with the entries due at 9:30 AM, EST.

Second, when you're ready to submit your hack, you have to fill out the form here: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFZ4aTFlbERLM2R5U3JEYTg5dXYtN0E6MQ

Thus far, at 2AM, bean-bags are out and, as Robert Francis tweets, are all accounted for. That means folks are sleeping.



Reports are that this Hackathon's larger than the 2010 version, which was bigger than the 2009 one.

The even culminates with a presentation at 10:30 AM and finally at around 2:30 PM, or 3 PM, one hack project will be selected to be part of the overall Startup Battlefield.



Where Are The Girls

Over at TechCrunch, a number of commenters noted that it was a "sausage fest" with only three women in a room-full of men. This begs the question of why there aren't more women at TechCrunch functions like this one, and the discussion continues...



Why not find and invite young women like Arfa Karin, who's the World's Youngest ARCast Programmer, and now 13 years old. She proves that the reason more women aren't in programming is because they're generally not exposed to the idea of being a programmer.

Not good.

Stay tuned.