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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (271601)	2/3/2006 11:29:52 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575775

Economics 101 "I see that the media and the left-wing foundations are in a state of hysteria over oil company profits," Ben Stein writes at www.spectator.org. "Exxon Mobil reported profits of about $10 billion for the last quarter of '05, and this has driven certain people who don't really know a lot about the oil business or how gasoline gets into their Volvos insane," Mr. Stein said. "Kindly allow me to make a few points that won't make those people calm down, but might make independent-minded thinkers think. "First, Big Oil did not make these profits '... off the suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina,' as I actually heard someone say on the radio on Monday. Exxon Mobil made these profits because it has invested upwards of $10 billion a year in exploration and development for hydrocarbons, in good years and bad, in years when they made as much as they spent and in years when they made less than they spent exploring. "That meant they had oil on hand and the wherewithal to transport and refine oil when Katrina struck. But the suffering of the Katrina victims did not make the price of oil and gasoline rise. That rise came about because oil and gasoline traders at desks in investment banks went into hysteria mode when Katrina struck and bid up the price of oil and gasoline to hysterical levels. Because the big oil companies had a lot of oil on hand to sell despite the damage to refining and production caused by Katrina, they made money on some of that oil." "The situation is precisely what happened to U.S. wheat farmers periodically in the 1970s and 1980s. If Russia had a poor harvest and needed to import grain, wheat farmers made good profits because world wheat traders bid up the price. They did not make money off the suffering of Russian wheat eaters. They made money because world wheat traders bid up the price based on Russian wheat conditions. (Before there was a world wheat market that included Russia, Russians and Ukrainians just starved when the wheat crop was poor.) "The oil situation is exactly the same."

To: combjelly who wrote (271601)	2/3/2006 11:34:10 AM
From: Jim McMannis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575775

I agree. Bush looks like a dork on stem cell research. Also, Gates gives 1 billion to TB research. IMHO, lot's of other diseases need attention as well.

To: combjelly who wrote (271601)	2/3/2006 11:54:41 AM
From: longnshort	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575775

'Bombshell' "Naomi Wolf's utterances on everything, from childbirth to Al Gore's demeanour, have a disproportionate effect on public opinion. This latest confessional, a self-acknowledged 'bombshell,' will make a generation of feminists cringe. ... Wolf's very soul is about to become a theological battleground, and she knows it. "'I am not going to be in the closet about this any more. I'm on a spiritual path, I answer to a higher authority,' she says. ... "'Yeah, God. I believe absolutely that every single one of us is here with a spiritual mission. We come in knowing it and then we forget. ... "But when one of the foremost feminists in the world, who is Jewish to boot, says she has met Jesus, the ultimate figure of Christianity and the redeemer of lost souls, it's more than a little disconcerting. "'I was completely dumbfounded but I actually had this vision ... of Jesus, and I'm sure it was Jesus. ... "'On a mystical level, it was complete joy and happiness and there were tears running down my face. On a conscious level, when I came out of it I was absolutely horrified because I'm Jewish. This was not the thing I'm supposed to have confront me.'?" -- Torcuil Crichton, writing on "Revered as a feminist icon ...," Jan. 22 in the Sunday Herald of Scotland