Sundance: What's your idea this time?

Butch: Bolivia.

Sundance: What's Bolivia?

Butch: Bolivia. That's a country, stupid! In Central or South America, one or the other. You wouldn't believe what they're finding in the ground down there. They're just fallin' into it. Silver mines, gold mines, tin mines, payrolls so heavy we'd strain ourselves stealin' 'em.

Sundance: (chuckling) You just keep thinkin', Butch. That's what you're good at.

Butch: Boy, I got vision, and the rest of the world wears bifocals.

swahnhennessy:

Good to see South America finally gaining some real independence. Won't be long before we start hearing of Bolivia in the same terms as Venezuela, though.


Latin America has been "asserting" its independence for decades (Nixon's VP tour, brush with death, and the politicking over aid packages being a fine example).

As for Venezuela, something needs to be said for a former leader of a coup who is blatantly reading off of Castro's 1959-1965 playbook in order to ostracize his opposition, create an armed militia loyal only to himself, and thus solidify his hold on power. I'm amazed that anyone who decries Bush's use of fear to rally the electorate can't see the parallels in Chavez's actions.

Ronald McRonald

I think so, but I thought he died a few years ago.

Didn't the guy who had Tony Montana killed hail from Bolivia???

/You want me to believe Omar was a stoolie because Sosa said so?

Devin172: Latin America has been "asserting" its independence for decades


I was unaware that having right wing puppets in power was analogous to independence.

Coca-cola buys coca as well, its part of the formula.

Not anymore.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/cocaine.asp

Whatever helps increase the pressure on our prohibition until it collapses is welcome in my book.

TheDirtyNacho:

Coca-cola hasn't had any coca in it since 1929.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/cocaine.asp

A chicken up every nose? But what about their large talons?

/Napoleon

Thanks tonesskin, I'm a little slow when it comes to href's lol

doesn't coca-cola just use the Kola and not the Coca these days. Wiki says otherwise, but I don't know if that is right.

Good. The trend to the left in Latin America is long overdue, and is part of the modernization process down there. If the USA would shut its southern border and eject all the illegals, it would be another great leap foreward in the social evolution of Latin America. The corrupt kleptocracy of the Conquistadores must end, and it will be messy. America needs to stop enabling the rot in Latin America.

Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.

NCg8r

Didn't the guy who had Tony Montana killed hail from Bolivia???

Yep, Bolivia, champions of the Olympic Helicopter Bungie Jump.

No but the US pharmas do......toneskin.

dude, i was so happy when i heard this. i just laughed my azz off. i'm sure rummy and cheney are just quaking in their boots in anger because in the 70s and 80s, they would have had this guy executed, but now they had to sit and watch.
frankly, i think its this administration's fault (rumsfeld etc sans bush w) that countries like bolivia have gone so left (to me not that's its a bad thing). they prevented democracy for so long supporting hitsquads that you get an indio like morales who hangs out with everyone's coked out commie ftbol star maradona.

Don't you always have to break a few eggs to make an omlette? An edible one, in any case.

Jaycatt:
That site says that they use coca. They just process all the cocaine out beforehand now.

Jaykat, toneskinn

actually, coca-cola still uses denatured coca leaf in thier current recipe just no cocaine. it was in another fark article the other day that i'm to lazy to source.

canyoneer

The trend to the left in Latin America is long overdue

Yep, at this rate, in about twenty-five years, Brazil, Venezuela and Bolivia will be where Chile and Nicaragua are today.

/continental drift

Well there ya go, they take it out. Say where do you think the extracted coca waste goes?

Seen headed for Bolivia:

/Bolivia was named after Simon Bolivar

Funny but true: In the parlimentary election after this guy appeared on the scene as a big name in Bolivia, the Bushies threatened to cut all kinds of aid if he won. That threat pushed them UP about 20 percent in the final count, to about a third of the vote.

The moral of today's story is: If we would stop pissing off other countries, they might give a damn what we think.

So, Bolivia is going to become the Amsterdam of Latin America?

jaycatt: coca =! cocaine

You know, I could care less who the president of Bolivia is, so long as he brings peace, food and stability to that country.

Thatguy: The indigenous people use coca leaves as a mild stimulent. Trying to eradicate the coca harvest in Bolivia would be similar to trying to eradicate the beer harvest here in the states.

I've tried coca leaves (mailed to me by a friend who was in Bolivia while in the Peace Corps). They're bitter, have to be chewed with baking soda and make your mouth go numb. Whoopie. Not exactly the same as doing lines off a whore's ass in LA circa 1988.

True.

Maybe they can start making REAL recipe Coca-Cola down there again though!

/speaking of furrin' investment

Usually you can count on a south american democracy throwing out it's leader on a regular basis, but i bet the DEA/CIA beat the people to it this time....

This just in... extract from Coca leaves found to have narcotic effect. More deatails at 11!

What? No cap in every ass?

/family guy

Juansmith: But can it be used for other purposes?

The Coca Cola company imports 115 tonnes of coca leaf from Peru and 105 tonnes from Bolivia per year. :-)

Randki: I could care less

Couldn't care less...

Jaycatt
Coca-cola hasn't had any coca in it since 1929.

It does at my house. We add it back in.

/old school

I've never heard that baking soda bit before. The enzymes in your saliva do the trick in activating the alkali goodness, according to something I saw on the discovery chan anyway.

The coca-cola down thar with the sugar is good stuff.

/whats a tonnes

I'm all for the new President. Just one less country we need to send aid to. I'm sure the country will do well and prosper after we cut aid to it. I'm sure they don't need 0.18 billion USD per year (2005 figure). I can think of many things we need to buy here at home. New city for Lousiana, etc...

EzraS

Just a little heads up - the world does not revolve around your country! Most of us live our lives without really giving a shiat who your president is!

As a matter of fact, the victor in the Bolivian election made good headway promising to resist Bush's plans for the region.

I'm sure they don't need 0.18 billion USD per year (2005 figure).

That's worth what, the cost of 15 or 20 minutes for American troops in Iraq?

dichotomousmind: Funny but true: In the parlimentary election after this guy appeared on the scene as a big name in Bolivia, the Bushies threatened to cut all kinds of aid if he won. That threat pushed them UP about 20 percent in the final count, to about a third of the vote.

The moral of today's story is: If we would stop pissing off other countries, they might give a damn what we think.


So, lets stop giving them aid. Problemo solved!

Real interesting news source about the region:

http://www.narconews.com/

CaptainCliche: This just in... extract from Coca leaves found to have narcotic effect. More deatails at 11!

Nice use of Romero, but coca does not have a narcotic effect.

Jaycatt: Coca-cola hasn't had any coca in it since 1929.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/cocaine.asp

It hasn't had cocaine in it since 1929, nut they still use coca in the formulation. Snopes tells us that they have a DEA permit to import it into one of their factories, it is only used a flavouring, they strip the alkaloids out.

http://www.snopes.com/cokelore/formula.asp

"at least one of the ingredients called for in the recipe would be next to impossible to secure in the U.S. (or to bring into the country): decocainized flavor essence of the coca leaf. As it now stands, only Stepan Co.'s New Jersey plant possesses the necessary DEA permit to import the leaves and remove the cocaine from them."

Well, that is unless they just keep the DEA permit to keep the mystique alive and they just incinerate all the imported leaves, that wouldn't surprise me at all.

Thatguy: coca does not have a narcotic effect.

Where'd ya learn that, rookie? Drug School?
/Farva

This is what happens to stoolies what kill Amadeus

justanotherfarkinfarker: /whats a tonnes

tonne(pops) - (n., pl.) The Queen's English form of the American noun ton, adapted into the SI (see system, metric). A measure of mass equal to 1000kg. Oddly enough, it rhymes with John Donne's surname. Silly Brits. Abbrevated as t.

Excellent, self determination is always a laudable goal, just don't piss us off or we will exercise our self determination and kick over your frikken anthill.