Sure. Me, too. I was referring to the patience you exhibit when someone isn't understanding your point and/or misrepresenting it, even after you correct them for the [insert number here] time. I will not speculate on whether it's deliberate, or genuine. If they are otherwise civil, I tend to give the benefit of the doubt. But your patience shines through.

Thanks. I guess I just try to keep in mind that this is folks just spouting off on the internet, and so a lot of the time they're not going to pay a ton of attention to the nuances of the points being raised - so I take it in that spirit. Even if they're just reciting the X things they believe about, say, Venezuela I'm still learning something about what they believe about Venezuela, even if it's not directly responsive.

Plus, even the tangents are a spur to learn something new. For example, looking something up to respond to one of Dope's points led me to that article on how the U.S. is planning to sell the Venezuelan oil to China. Which I didn't know before, and seems a bit counter-intuitive. But it makes sense, when you think about it. Contracts and markets exist. While we might be perfectly happy to abrogate contracts with Chinese purchasers, all the prospective buyers outside of China probably have contracts and business relationships with other suppliers. All the heavy oil refiners in the U.S., for example, probably have made arrangements for where they're getting their crude supply for some time out into the future. So of course the most available buyers for the Venezuelan oil after we removed Maduro are going to be the ones who have been buying it all along and were planning to buy it during the spring and summer. And of course we're going to sell it to them - the oil has to be sold, else the Venezuelan government collapses, and most of the other refinery buyers are likely already committed to other sellers. I wouldn't have learned that but for the continuing discussion.