El Salvador's Gold Fight
by Michael Busch

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/0aW96Ae8eSgr7/520x.jpg
(figured I'd use a pic of Funes with Chavez)

As El Salvador transitions from decades of conservative rule to the administration of leftist President Mauricio Funes, the country faces an international showdown triggered by a restrictive free-trade agreement between the United States and Central America. Canada's Pacific Rim Mining Corporation is suing the government for its refusal to allow it to mine gold in El Salvador's rural north. If Pacific Rim succeeds in securing the $100 million settlement it seeks, that would set a troubling precedent. At stake is a question that affects all nations: Can private interests trump national sovereignty under international law?

Pacific Rim initiated arbitration proceedings against El Salvador with the World Bank's International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) on April 30. The corporation argues that El Salvador violated investment rules in the U.S.-Dominican Republic Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA). (Confused already? Pacific Rim can sue El Salvador under the DR-CAFTA even though Canada isn't part of that accord because the firm has U.S. subsidiaries.)

Company officials charge that the government has violated their "[link:www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=AMEX:PMU|investor rights]" by refusing to approve an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) submitted by the company. Without this approval, Pacific Rim cannot obtain a mining permit.

The company insists that its operations pose no threat whatsoever to El Salvador's ecological stability and public health, but a wide array of community leaders, activists, and environmental experts disagree. They contend that Pacific Rim's assessment offers little evidence supporting the company's "green mining" claims, and serves as a smokescreen to obscure the adverse socioeconomic impacts gold mining is likely to produce in the small, densely populated nation. These social movements contend that it's Pacific Rim that should be sued. Says Rodolfo Calles of the anti-mining activist group Mesa Frente a la Minería Metálica: Pacific Rim and other "extractive companies in question have violated national laws, caused environmental damage, provoked economic losses, generated conflicts among communities, corrupted government officials, and offended religious leaders."

Thus far, El Salvador's movement against precious-metal mining in El Salvador has succeeded in compelling the government to fight Pacific Rim's strong-arming. But questions remain concerning Funes's resolve to stand defiant in the face of international pressure. These concerns have grown in recent weeks due to the murder of Marcelo Rivera, an anti-mining activist. Rivera was [link:www.share-elsalvador.org/news/070709marcelorivera.htm|kidnapped] on June 18. His body was found July 1. Activists are [link:www.diariocolatino.com/es/20090710/nacionales/69042|challenging] Salvadorian authorities, who claim that this was an ordinary crime, to investigate what they say was a politically motivated assassination.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqeIyti0nRM

Background

Pacific Rim began exploring the country's potential for gold exploitation nearly seven years ago, charting a vein system that covers considerable portions of El Salvador's northern reaches. It commenced operations at the invitation of the government's Ministries of the Economy and the Environment, which issued exploration permits in 2002 under the neoliberal administration of Francisco Flores. Since then, the corporation has identified some 25 sites for gold extraction across seven national departments, and invested upwards of $80 million.

While global corporations haven't historically seen El Salvador as promising territory for mining, Pacific Rim significantly extended its base of operations as gold prices exploded on the international market. With the value of gold nearly tripling since 2001, the company assured shareholders that it was discovering "bonanza gold grades" and making "exciting gold discoveries" that would expand opportunities for future investment and high returns.

Meanwhile, Salvadorian environmentalists, civil society organizations, and others in the country grew increasingly alarmed about the potentially adverse effects of gold mining. Critics point to the threat of water and soil contamination from chemical residue in the wake of mining operations (miners use cyanide-laced water to extract gold from subterranean rock, which, experts contend, makes its way back to local reserves tapped for drinking). That all of Pacific Rim's sites are located along the country's longest river, the Rio Lempa, has environmentalists especially worried. The river's basin extends nearly halfway across the country, supplying much of the nation's drinking water. Moreover, the Lempa runs through Guatemala and Honduras as well, increasing the likelihood that contaminated water could spread throughout the region.

Pacific Rim denies that these concerns are real. The corporation claims that it would detoxify any water used for mining, leaving local water sources cleaner than they were previously. "You could basically stick a cup in the water and drink it," Pacific Rim's Barbara Henderson recently [link:www.miamiherald.com/127/story/1018403.html|boasted] to the Miami Herald.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00218/CJD_385x185_218650a.jpg
Tory agriculture minister John Gummer feeding his daughter Cordelia a burger to prove that they were safe from Mad Cow Disease. Apparently [link:www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-487074/Family-friend-John-Gummer-killed-CJD-aged-23.html|not so safe]. So no, think I'll pass on sticking a cup in water detoxified by Pacific Rim.

"We've met all conditions under the law. So there's no basis for the government of El Salvador to fail to make a decision (about issuing mining permits)."

Not so, say experts. Robert Moran, an independent, nonpartisan hydrogeologist, undertook a technical review of Pacific Rim's environmental assessment in 2005, concluding that "it would not be acceptable to regulatory agencies in most developed countries." In his final report, Moran notes that "The public EIA review process is clearly lacking in openness and transparency… only one printed copy of the EIA is available…within all of El Salvador. The public must review and submit written comments on this 1,400 page document within a period of ten working days. No photocopies or photos of any part of this document may be made." Moreover, Moran points out that the EIA completely ignores "many of the environmental impacts encountered at similar gold mining sites," and voiced concerns about the fact that "the significant uncertainty of (its) seismic risk calculations" and a number of other issues were presented in the document in English only.

Local Activists Fight Back

These concerns were met with popular unrest. [link:esnomineria.blogspot.com|La Mesa Nacional Frente a la Minería Metálica in El Salvador] (the National Working Group against Mining in El Salvador), an umbrella organization for coordinating nationwide action, has led the charge. Beginning with local organizing and small-scale protests, La Mesa and its partner organizations have managed to make mining a central issue in Salvadoran politics. (La Mesa will be a recipient of the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award this year; The Institute for Policy Studies — which runs Foreign Policy In Focus — also hosts the annual [link:www.ips-dc.org/about/letelier-moffitt|Letelier-Moffitt] awards ceremony.)

Activists scored an early victory when Pacific Rim agreed to freeze its operations at the company's Santa Rita mining site in 2006, while negotiating a resolution to its clash with local anti-mining organizations. Though the meeting failed to reach a mutually acceptable compromise, local organizers successfully used the gathering to attract the attention of the media and the government, and garner broad national and international support.

Momentum behind the movement increased further when the Conference of Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church issued a [link:www.iglesia.org.sv/content/view/226/40/|statement] of opposition to mining operations in El Salvador. In addition to enumerating the adverse consequences of mining to El Salvador's people and environment, the bishops castigated Pacific Rim's economic justification for gold mining operations. "No material advantage," the bishops warned, "can be compared with the value of human life."

The combined effect of local resistance and religious backing had a decisive impact on government decision-making. With public opinion polls showing a clear majority in opposition to gold mining, and despite its initial enthusiasm for Pacific Rim's mining proposals, officials from the ruling conservative ARENA party refused to issue the company permits to begin extracting gold from underground deposits. In essence, the government ceased to acknowledge Pacific Rim's existence. Repeated complaints and applications for permits were filed by the company with government ministries, and promptly ignored.

Since then, La Mesa has continued to push the envelope. Not trusting that government silence on the permits issue equaled support for their cause, the organization presented a bill for congressional consideration in 2006 that would ban all precious metal mining in El Salvador. While the bill was almost immediately withdrawn from deliberation, it wasn't forgotten. Shortly after Funes took power, the Frente Fabarundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (a left-wing opposition party, better known as the FMLN) resurrected the proposed legislation and presented it to El Salvador's National Assembly for a vote. According to the [link:www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=337496&CategoryId=23558|Latin American Herald Tribune], the proposed law would grant Pacific Rim and other foreign companies six months to discontinue operations before being ordered to leave the country.

Legal Action

With its prospects for obtaining permits grinding to a standstill within the government bureaucracy, and opposition forces gaining the advantage locally, Pacific Rim filed a [link:www.marketwire.com/press-release/Pacific-Rim-Mining-Corp-TSX-PMU-928202.html|notice of intent] in December 2008 to bring El Salvador before an international arbitration tribunal to resolve the dispute. Specifically, the company claimed that El Salvador violated the spirit of nondiscrimination enshrined in Chapter 10 of the DR- CAFTA agreement, by allowing domestic companies to pollute while denying the same privilege to Pacific Rim.

The agreement, which El Salvador signed in 2006, allows multinational corporations to sue governments covered by it for cash compensation when their potential for profit has been undermined by measures that are tantamount to expropriation. But because Canada isn't a signatory to DR-CAFTA, Pacific Rim isn't technically entitled to Chapter 10 protections as it claims. Nevertheless, the corporation routed the lawsuit through the backdoor of its U.S.-based subsidiary Pac Rim Cayman LLC, and relied on the services of an American lobbying firm to ensure support from Capitol Hill.

Under DR-CAFTA's Chapter 10 proceedings, parties to a dispute are mandated to respect a 90-day consultation period before filing their claims in court. Pacific Rim's December filing ensured that their threatened lawsuit would coincide with El Salvador's national election three months later. According to Burke Stansbury, an activist with the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), the claim was timed to affect the electoral outcome. They "either us(ed) the threat of a lawsuit as leverage or (as) a strategy to help ARENA win the election," Stansbury told the Pacific Free Press in February.

If this was true, Pacific Rim miscalculated. Outgoing president Antonio Saca remained firm in his rejection of the corporation's demands, rendering the case a non-issue during the election. Yet Saca's refusal to give in to corporate pressure — whether politically motivated or based on genuine concern for his country — had the effect of kicking the Pacific Rim can down the road for the incoming Funes administration.

On April 30, Pacific Rim filed for arbitration with the ICSID, demanding a $100 million payout for damages. "The company's claims under CAFTA," the company announced in a press release, "are based on the government's breaches of international and Salvadoran law arising out of the government's improper failure to finalize the permitting process as it is required to do and to respect the company's…legal rights to develop mining activities in El Salvador."

La Mesa's Rodolfo Calles sees things differently. "Operating permits are not automatic; that is, the current mining law does not oblige the government to provide (permits) after having allowed exploration. Pacific Rim submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment that did not meet environmental requirements, and was not able to demonstrate that its mining projects would not pollute the environment…In our view, it is Pacific Rim that should be sued, not the Salvadoran state; It is the company that should compensate the country and not vice versa."

Early indications, however, suggest that Funes will pursue a compromise solution instead of risking a costly settlement. "We're not in a position to be losing litigation. That money should be allocated to social programs," El Salvador's Secretary of Technology recently noted. Indeed, if the arbitration tribunal rules in Pacific Rim's favor, El Salvador would be profoundly crippled by the $100 million payout. Perhaps more troubling still, the verdict would send a signal to other multinationals in Central America that the law sides with corporate interests over the protection of local populations.

Nevertheless, a negotiated settlement offers equally disturbing possibilities. The most likely would be an amendment to existing environmental and mining laws, allowing foreign corporations easier access to El Salvador's natural resource deposits. In all likelihood, the Mesa Nacional/FMLN-sponsored anti-mining legislation would be shelved indefinitely, and opportunities for peaceful resolution of local concerns increasingly foreclosed.

On top of Pacific Rim's case, on March 16, another international mining firm added to the pressure by threatening an additional DR-CAFTA lawsuit. A joint venture of American companies, Commerce Group Corp. and San Sebastian Gold Mines, Inc. (Commerce/Sanseb), filed a notice of intent to claim compensation for additional $100 million for the government's alleged failure to renew a permit to mine gold and silver at the San Sebastian Goldmine near Santa Rosa de Lima, in the department of La Unión in El Salvador.

The prospect of mounting lawsuits has led to calls from activists demanding that El Salvador revisit the terms of its international trade agreements. "The demand of Pacific Rim against El Salvador recalls the need to review international treaties signed by previous governments, especially CAFTA, and reverse — or at least modify — those aspects that are most harmful and violate our sovereignty."

Hopeful Signs from Washington?

The mining companies' lawsuits — along with the violent repression of recent protests in Peru — represent the latest example of failure by U.S. trade agreements to bring prosperity and progress to the region. U.S. policymakers, including Barack Obama, seem to acknowledge as much: bilateral trade agreements with Panama and Colombia continue to stall, and pressure to amend the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) continues to build.

Yet hopes that the social movement against mining in El Salvador would find an ally in Obama have been unrealized. Obama, who voted against the passage of DR-CAFTA as a senator, spoke out passionately on the campaign trail against free trade agreements (FTAs) that privileged economic gain over the welfare of local populations under threat. And "with regards to provisions in several FTAs that give foreign investors the right to sue governments directly in foreign tribunals," Obama [link:worldtradelaw.typepad.com/ielpblog/2008/04/the-democratic.html|promised], "I will ensure that this right is strictly limited and will fully exempt any law or regulation written to protect public safety or promote the public interest." As president, however, Obama has so far failed to meaningfully act on an issue he himself acknowledges desperately demands attention and change.

The president reportedly will [link:www.csmonitor.com/2009/0620/p19s01-usfp.html|outline] a new vision of equitable trade in a major speech later this year at the Group of 20 meeting in Pittsburgh. There, Obama will hopefully forge plans for a new approach to trade that would meet his goal of [link:americas.irc-online.org/am/5065|preventing] foreign corporations from gaining "an economic advantage by destroying the environment" and amend NAFTA and possibly other FTAs to "make clear that fair laws and regulations written to protect citizens…cannot be overridden at the request of foreign investors."

But by then, it could be too late for Salvadorans affected by Pacific Rim's activities. If Funes and other likeminded "partners" throughout the region, like Obama, fail to stand up for these communities under threat, a regrettable precedent — that concern for corporate profit overrides that for human beings and their environment — will be set, a precedent that would invest even Obama's most eloquent rhetoric with the hollow timbre of false promises.


http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_drPS_mB1_bE/SQDIhHToR_I/AAAAAAAAADc/DQemXOTE8oA/S240/SALUD.jpg

http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/6273


[hr]
Uh guys. Don't count on Obama. He never had any intention of meaningfully acting on any issues. You're on your own.

Obama is getting himself a little over-extended here. Can he really control the MidEast, South America, and bail out all the banks to their satisfaction all at the same time (and the real question, how long before the economy completely give from the pressure ...).

They're totally over-extending in their desperation. They're panicky and very dangerous.

How do these people sleep at night? Are we really such a master country that our corporations get to ruin people's lives for a .27 cent stock in an investment portfolio and no one says a word?

Pacific Rim mining suing El Salvador

Mining company seeks arbitration over 4-year delay in El Salvador

By BLAKE SCHMIDT, Special to The Miami Herald

Posted on Monday, 04.27.09

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador -- Canadian mining company Pacific Rim will take the Salvadoran government to international arbitration court for alleged losses caused by government "inaction" due to permit delays for what would be El Salvador's biggest mine to date.

The company has been waiting for four years for final permits for the underground gold mine, which faces staunch opposition from Salvadoran environmentalists and church leaders as the first large-scale mine in 70 years in Central America's smallest country.

The case is among the first international investment disputes under the Central American Free-Trade Agreement, or CAFTA, which eliminated barriers to trade and laid ground rules for such disputes. The Vancouver-based company invested $77 million in exploration after it received initial permits in 2005.

WATER WORRIES

But the government of outgoing President Tony Saca has been under pressure from an increasingly powerful environmental movement, which is backed by the Catholic Church, to ban mining of precious metals. Opponents say the effects of mining would be multiplied by El Salvador's small size and dense population, and that giving Pacific Rim the green light would set the wrong precedent for more than two dozen other proposed mining projects here.

"El Salvador is very small and all mining projects are near the Lempa River, which is the country's main water source," said Rodolfo Calles, a coordinator for the Church-funded organization Caritas, a fierce anti-mining group.

The 320-kilometer Lempa is one of Central America's longest, snaking through Guatemala and Honduras before flowing into El Salvador's Pacific. With a basin that covers half of El Salvador, the river irrigates the country's farming industry and supplies drinking water to more than half of residents in greater San Salvador.

President Saca fears mining would cause cyanide contamination of water much in the way it did in the 1950s at the El Dorado mine, the same underground mine in the eastern region of Cabañas which Pacific Rim wants to reopen and expand.

"I won't give any mining exploitation permits because mining is definitively harmful," Saca said.

Saca's position has been echoed by his successor, president-elect Mauricio Funes, whose left-wing FMLN party ended 20 years of right-wing rule with their victory in the March elections. Funes will officially take power in June.

But Pacific Rim says their environmental processes would leave no pollution and that the Saca government's foot-dragging has left the project in a costly state of limbo.

TIME TO DECIDE

"We've met all conditions under the law. So there's no basis for the government of El Salvador to fail to make a decision. It's gone way beyond timeliness," said Barbara Henderson, Pacific Rim's vice-president of investor relations.

The underground mine would create hundreds of new jobs in a depressed region amid an economic crisis and would leave a minimal environmental footprint, Henderson says. The company would detoxify all cyanide, a toxic chemical used to extract gold from ore, using a process known as INCO. The company's water cleaning process would contribute to surrounding communities by leaving water so clean that it's potable and then rerouting it back into a river that runs dry during the dry season.

"You could basically stick a cup in the water and drink it," Henderson said.

But Pacific Rim's promise of jobs and eco-friendly practices haven't convinced El Salvador's staunch anti-mining lobby. The archbishop of San Salvador, José Luís Escobar Alas, has said El Salvador doesn't have the capacity to regulate mining. And the previous archbishop, Fernando Saenz Lacalle, was key in launching the country's anti-mining movement. The church helped form the National Board Against Metallic Mining, which has picked up 10,000 signatures in its effort to lobby Congress to ban mining altogether.

Carolina Amaya, of the environmental group Salvadoran Ecological Unity, says mining would be a "death sentence" for her country. El Salvador is widely considered one of the hemisphere's most environmentally degraded countries, where less than a third of the country's tree cover still stands and soil and water pollution are rife.

"El Salvador has enough environmental problems without mining," Amaya said.

STARTING WITH SPAIN

Spanish colonizers began small-scale mining in some parts of El Salvador in the 1500s. The country has since seen sporadic small-scale mining, but El Salvador has seen the least mining development among Central American countries. The few 20th century mining projects were abandoned as leftist guerrillas waged a civil war in the countryside against military and paramilitary forces.

But since the end of the bloody 1980-1992 civil war, the right-wing ARENA party has opened the country to trade and investment, making El Salvador the first CAFTA signee, implementing sweeping privatizations of key sectors and switching the currency from the colon to the U.S. dollar. As exploration technology advanced and commodity prices skyrocketed, interested mining companies began flooding El Salvador with proposals.

Henderson said with today's mining technology, a country as small and overpopulated as El Salvador can mitigate potential environmental harm from mining. The British nongovernmental organization Oxfam, however, pointed out in a study released last year that the mining industry in Central America has given local residents little say in how the industry affects their lands and livelihood and has had an insignificant role in sustainably reducing poverty in mining areas. The El Dorado mine, for instance, is said to house some 1.4 million ounces of gold, which could produce some $200 million. But Oxfam says Central American residents only receive a small fraction of wealth produced by mines which often only operate for a few years. Pacific Rim's El Dorado mine would operate for about six years.

Pacific Rim says mining opponents are only punishing poor campesinos in Cabañas who would benefit from 500 new jobs to be created by the mine.

Though the company at one point employed nearly 300 workers, it began slashing its workforce last year amid delays and is looking to invest in Guatemala and Costa Rica instead.

The company's Nevada-based subsidiary filed a notice of intent to pursue international arbitration against the Salvadoran government in December, which the company plans to file in a matter of weeks, Henderson told The Miami Herald.

But the company still harbors hopes that the Salvadoran government will come around and will continue to seek support from Church leaders, environmentalists, and the FMLN leadership as Funes prepares to take over the government's reigns.

"We'll try to continue our sort of diplomatic approach to the whole thing," Henderson said.

http://www.miamiherald.com/business/story/1018403.html

extend friendship and cooperation to other countries that acted in the best interest of their citizens...

n/t

It's a great idea.

With the internet, what's to stop that?

I am fucking ready!

but it's something I sure wouldn't mind being part of so I'm thinking out loud here...


A website that tracked these things with news stories and rated all the

- countries, towns that use their resources for the benefit of their citizens

- businesses that respect labor

- countries, states, cities that provide education, healthcare for their citizens, that guarantee shelter...

- places that put the jobs of their citizens above corporate profit

- places that provide adequate, affordable shelter

etc

There are so many little things... Take France for instance, no landlord is allowed to toss a family out, regardless of backrent, in the middle of winter if they have children. Things like that could affect a country's rating.

That's probably not even scratching the tip of the iceberg

if anyone has started such a project elsewhere. Otherwise compiling that information certainly sounds useful. Maybe there's a way we could do it here.

http://www.socialwatch.org/en/portada.htm

It's not exactly what you're talking about, but it's on the right track.

:hi:

resistance fighters. One where reports of real actions and events could be posted by local "reporters". A place for calls for assistance, public awareness, and international action. It could also be the nucleus for a fledgling "international", for workers everywhere to keep everyone abreast of what is "going down" locally. A rallying point, a "get the message out" venue. I don't know - it may be "too much", but it is at least worth looking at.

So often I will tell someone about some heinous event somewhere perpetrated by "the Owners" against peasants or workers or poor citizens; and the response is almost always, "Where did you get that? I haven't seen a thing on the news about that!" It would be great to be able to say, "Go on line to TheRedEye.com (or something) you can find out everything there." The way it is now, you have to say go to this news source and/or this one or look for the translated version of this report, etc. Anyway, it is worth investigating, I think...

There's a lot going on "behind the scenes" right now in terms of technical issues, and I would expect that TA's expertise is going to give us the ability to do more with this wonderful site that Tin has so lovingly created and tended. I like your idea of a clearinghouse - we actually started to do something similar with local efforts at OET, and there was a fair amount of interest. I'd be happy to work with you on the project as TA & Tin grow this site. I expect as things worsen we will see more active protesting here in Houston, and I'd love to have cards (printed in English and Spanish) to hand out in the streets. Having both the theoretical discussions & the practical here would be ideal, even if others are already undertaking similar efforts (I believe David Swanson coordinates a fair amount of activity on his sites). The more getting the word out the better. BLF may be interested in helping to some extent as well.

I think you are on the right track.

within my skill-set (which is limited at this point, but I am willing to learn). It seems that a central problem we have, everywhere, is being disconnected, one from another. Something that remedied this, to any extent, would be good I think.

I have no real idea about this guy's politics, but his site is put together well and might be a source for ideas on how to put one together.

http://citizenreporter.org/

and he agreed to tutor me (give me reading and study lists, more likely), so I may start to understand this webishness better...maybe...

Many ideas are a lot easier to implement with our new software. The hardest part, as in database work, is the actual design. After you figure out what exactly you want, the rest is relatively easy.

just don't give me something I can screw up too easily, I'd hate to trash something just for being slow-witted. :)

TA and I are working on our new software right now. You can either join us and start learning while the foundation is still bare enough for you to see how it works or you can tell us what you want to do and we'll hunt down, install and configure the tools for you to use.

TA found a very exciting package he wants to add to our new set-up but it may not be what you need so just start thinking.

Oh and no worries. We have a test server where you can screw things up to your heart's content and it won't matter ;)

You give or show me something to study and work with and I will give it my dead-level best. I will be away from computers until Sunday night or Monday morning, but I will tackle whatever is given me. I want to help and I am willing to learn.

I'll show you the ground work and then set up a test site where you can play. The ideas may come as you're "doing". And both TA and I will be thrilled to assist as much as you need.

I'm on the West Coast so my times may be too late for you but I can do early mornings if you can (ugh) and weekends. TA is out in Middle America so his times may line up better.

This is very exciting!

I was just telling TA this afternoon that I know something really great is happening here. :bounce:

The web has become more and more automated - point and click web pages for managing everything. That makes it easier to use for the average person - blogging, Facebook, create a site, social networking, trackbacks and feeds, setting up and managing a server, etc. The back end, however, gets more and more complicated and everything is getting more and more specialized. Both Tin and I know a little bit about a lot of things since we haven't had staffs helping us, and know how to find solutions on stuff we don't know and make it happen. I am doing some coding, but for the most part we are wrestling with web page interfaces to configure and operate various programs that do everything automatically.

Just get me started. I have to help re-route some water lines for a neighbor this week and help an elderly lady find and get accepted to a nursing home; but I will try and check in every night. And next week I should have a little lighter load. So, be gentle, but lay it on me!

Hey Tin, maybe a new thread or section or something? It would be good to have a few of us kick around ideas for the site from a tech standpoint.

What's the administrative interface? All of our sites use cPanel Accelerated with most of the software installed through Fantastico De Luxe. The mailing list program is phpList and blog is Wordpress. I'm pretty familiar with these, so if you need any help...

Curt

Thanks Curt. I have used CPanel and WHM for years, and Fantastico is great. I have set up phplist and Wordpress for customers.

Tinoire is dragging me kicking and screaming LOL into a new hosting environment with a different (and far less useful as far as I can see at this point) control panel, and with VBulletin and a portal mod designed to work with VBulletin. The trade off is she gets tech support on both the server issues and the VBulletin stuff. I don't think the interface for the program is very intuitive and the manual is ambiguous and indecipherable at times, so we are not really wrestling with tech issues but with interface and documentation issues. Before I spend a ton of time learning someone's obscure and arcane terminology, and arbitrary and inconsistent click stream protocol to get things done I like to know where we are going and what the hell is happening on the back end. Geez if we are going to live in the point and click and DIY world, ought not the interfaces be intuitive and the documentation comprehensible? </end rant>

We have about 30 sites at Real Web Host (I have no affiliation with them, just stumbled on them when we needed to make achange few years ago). It's $9/month or less than $100/year (500MBs storage, 15GBs bandwith) if you pay in a lump sum: http://www.realwebhost.net/

Support is by email, but its been very good. Here's what's free:

Edit to add: This list didn't keep the format, but you get the idea

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WordPress 2.7

SocIndy and other sites I run are at httpme. I have been with them about 8 years or so, since whenever they started. They aren't a hosting company really, since you are the hosting people when you are with them. I liked that it was started as a community of hosters and developers and designers, and that everything was always transparent. I have run some sites with massive traffic within their $35 a month plan. We run several sites on the same account through WHM. Speed and uptime are the best I have ever worked with. Support is so so, since it is more of a "help each other and learn" community. Support is by a ticket system and is fast. The problem is they are always saying in essence "c'mon Mike you should know how to figure out that one" which is probably true, but in one recent example the problem was being caused by something at their end (involving upgrading MySQL on the server) and they gave blindpig the run around all day while I worked on trying to solve the problem myself. I have had as many as 50 domains on one account with them. They didn't use to limit the number of domains on one account, but I think they do now.

My worry about hosting companies is that they cram as many accounts as they can on one machine. Are you paying that fee for one domain? At that rate, I could charge $450 a month in hosting fees, while I am paying out only $35 a month. You would have to believe (and I know it is true) that many sharp operators realize that. Of course as a hosting company it is tech support that is by far your biggest expense. What do you do when a good customer calls needing help with Windows on their machine or Outlook Express or their ISP? Happens all the time - they don't know the difference, it is all computer related as far as they are concerned. That is the problem I always ran into.

Tinore picks up the phone and calls tech support in the middle of the night (that blew me away when she did that the other night while we were working on something) and they help her. Of course she pays a lot more. I have been meaning to research the company she is with and also learn their system but have been buried in VBulletin stuff.

That list of programs is similar (maybe identical) to what we have in Fantastico through CPanel. Anyone who has manually installed programs knows how great Fantastico is, of course. Huge time saver.

Edited to add link:

http://www.httpme.com/