Cutting their already substantial losses, the Red Chinese kick the Venezuelans out of a joint project in south China

PetroChina Co plans to drop Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) as a partner in a planned $10 billion oil refinery and petrochemical project in southern China, said three sources familiar with the matter this week.

The company’s decision adds to state-owned PDVSA’s woes after the United States imposed sanctions on the company on Jan. 28 to undermine the rule of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. 

However, dropping the company was not a reaction to the U.S. sanctions but follows the deteriorating financial status of PDVSA over the past few years, said two of the sources, both executives with China National Petroleum Corp, the parent of PetroChina.

“There will be no role of PDVSA as an equity partner. At least we don’t see that possibility in the near future given the situation the country has been through in recent years,” said one of the executives, asking to remain unidentified because he is not authorized to speak to the media. 

The move illustrates the fading relationship between Venezuela and China, which has given $50 billion to the South American country in the form of loans-for-oil agreements. China, the world’s largest oil importer, is now the second-biggest buyer of Venezuelan crude in Asia, taking in 16.63 million tonnes, or about 332,000 barrels per day (bpd), in 2018.

Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Radio Telescope National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Green Bank, West Virginia

Considering the associations of who this is named after, shouldn't we be clamoring for another appellation?

Boeing X-37B Autonomous Spacecraft

The X-37B is one of the world’s newest and most advanced re-entry spacecraft, designed to operate in low-earth orbit, 150 to 500 miles above the Earth. The vehicle is the first since the Space Shuttle with the ability to return experiments to Earth for further inspection and analysis. This United States Air Force unmanned space vehicle explores reusable vehicle technologies that support long-term space objectives.

No good deed goes unpunished ( or in this case, bad deed)

The Sentinel Dome webcam up in Yosemite doesn't show Sentinel Dome, but we can see some fine fresh snow, and the snow bank is GROWING!

My question:  Will the Snow Bank eventually inhale the entire view, like it's done in years of heavy snow?

EDC

The D646 Latouche-Tréville outward bound

Heh

I eat steak

Visitor from the Empire

The Odd Couple

But, is he catching fish?

Some good news for Americans in South Dakota

South Dakota governor Kristi Noem (R.) signed the state's permitless carry bill into law on Thursday.

The bill, SB47, eliminates the state's requirement that residents obtain a permit in order to legally carry a firearm. Instead, so long as a resident is legally allowed to possess a firearm, they are legally allowed to carry it concealed on their person.

Noem said the new law is in line with the country's founding principles and protects South Dakotans gun rights.

"Our Founding Fathers believed so firmly in our right to bear arms that they enshrined it into the Constitution," she tweeted. "This constitutional carry legislation will further protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding South Dakotans."

There, the phrase, "the Second Amendment" is my carry permit" has real meaning.

Actually, we are all born with the right to keep and bear arms, and the Second Amendment is there to prevent the government from infringing on that natural right.

J.J.Sefton calls it loud and clear over at Ace's

I agree totally.  I never thought I'd see the day here in America when blatant evil would stride so brazenly through our country.

The quote:

Good morning kids. The weekend is here and it's almost Groundhog Day so as Bill Murray rises to the sounds of Sonny and Cher - again - let's get to it. First up is the continued reaction to Virginia's proposed state-sanctioned infanticide bill which mercifully was aborted in committee by a vote of 5-3. The fact that this monstrous piece of legislation was not killed 8-0, let alone that it was even proposed is an alarm bell about not just the state of politics but of just how utterly rotten and debased our culture has become. And as intended long ago by those who planted the seeds that have been bearing poison fruit for at least two generations. It started with homosexual marriage then devolved into the atheist version of genital mutilation with transgenderism as the new civil rights movement to the sexualization of children to now just killing children even before they can be sexually, psychologically and spiritually abused. Without getting into a longwinded spiel, it all boils down to killing G-d, killing the family and the notion of the sanctity of life and the individual and supplanting it with the almighty State as the ultimate power over everything. 

I'm not going to delude myself into thinking that the defeat in Virginia is a good sign since in my own state of New York, state-sanctioned infanticide was passed to a standing ovation in the Albany state house. If you think back 20 years ago or even not that far back, we laughed at the notion of homosexual marriage let alone that the mental illness of a few thousand people mutilating themselves into the opposite sex would become the next front of the civil rights movement. The freaks were stopped in Virginia - temporarily. It will ultimately become the law of that state sooner or later, especially as formerly solid conservative red states turn purple and then die of the socialist cancer. And if I said to you right here and now the normalization of pedophilia will be the next great battle front in the so-called culture war, how many of you after witnessing the events in Richmond and Albany are going to call me insane? And considering that as I alluded to up top, this is the same party that wants to kill babies as the exit the birth canal. I may vomit.

Friday Open Road