The last post of 2011: South African bureaucrats must be rubbing their hands with glee....

.....at potential kickbacks and the US government should be ashamed of itself. There is an article in today's NYT on the proposal by Shell Oil and others to start digging for gas under the Karoo. This is as bad as, if not worse than the rape of the tarsands of Alberta, Canada. The oil companies are using the bait of employment to assuage whatever qualms the South African government may have (and they don't have many) about environmental degradation of the deep aquifers under the Karoo. The US government has been promoting the development and export of fracking technology abroad, even as concerned citizens and scientists here have exposed the negative effects both here and Canada of the use of this technology.