sonofsamphm1c

If the Saudis are waiting to pull the rug out from under all the alternative fuel companies, then ExxonMobil is correct to limit their investment in alternatives. Right? posted 06/14/2008 at 20:43:48

A year ago their share price was $82.50. Today it's $88.36. A 7% return on a $40 billion dollar profit is pretty bad, so yes, please send a donation. posted 06/14/2008 at 17:17:16

Sorry on the arithmetic, in today's money they spilled around 34 million dollars worth of oil. The point remains, it would be irrational to think they did that intentionally. posted 06/14/2008 at 13:35:18

You act as if the corporation wanted to spill 10.8 million gallons of oil - about 1.4 billion dollars worth of wasted crude at today's value.

How many barrels of oil has ExxonMobil spilled since the Valdez? How many before the Valdez? Have you ever heard of there being accidents at sea, or are you operating under the weird notion that sailing an oil tanker is a walk in a padded park.

ExxonMobil spent 3 billion in 1990s money cleaning up the spill and settling lawsuits. They still fund an ongoing scientific monitoring project.

What they did pay is the punitive damage award, which by law should have been 25 million. It was 5 billion. Through a series of trials, that amount ended up 2.5 billion dollars. It is currently in the hands of the United States Supreme Court, so there is about to be an end to it - maybe.

Since the Valdez there have been much larger spills, but not by ExxonMobil. Do you indignant people know the names of the gasoline stations that were to get that spilled oil? if need be, I'll find them for you if that is what it takes for you to boycott all the evil oil spillers. But don't be shocked if you run out of gas stations.

And guess what, if it were not for all of you Americans demanding ever more gallons of gasoline, ExxonMobil would not exist. That they do exist, is ultimately your fault, not theirs. posted 06/14/2008 at 13:25:31

Exactly, the stations will be sold to small operators.

On why, when they say a barrel went to $135 today, who pays that? Answer? One of the entities that pays that is ExxonMobil. With dwindling reserves, they have to buy oil on the open market. So when the price is $135 a barrel, they write somebody a check for $135. a barrel.

When you pay $4.05 you think you are paying based on $135 a barrel You're not. The barrel price is going up so fast that they cannot pass the increase on to customers fast enough. You guys would feint at the pumps if they did. So they sell at a reduced margin. On their last 1/4 ExxonMobil reported a 20ish% increase in profits, and their stock price went way down. Why? Wall Street was concerned with their reduced margins.

Therefore, the stations have to go. For the last year ExxonMobil has had record profits, and there shareholders have got nothing to show for it.

And I was an Obama suporter about as early as someone could become one. posted 06/13/2008 at 00:40:28

Well, you blew it. Exxon spent around 3 billion cleaning up the Valdez spill. There was a punitive damages judgment against them that they have fought to this day. They do not think they deserved a punitive damage judgment, and it is their constitutional right to fight it. You get to fight; they get to fight. Fair and square enough for you?

Since the Valdez they have transported a simply gigantic amount of liquid product. Do you know how much of it they have spilled? Do you know how much has been spilled by the company to whom you switched your business?

Didn't think so. posted 06/13/2008 at 00:29:32

What's a Chrysler? posted 06/11/2008 at 11:59:53

Actually what people have argued is increasing supply by drilling in ANWR will reduce prices by just a few almost unnoticeable pennies.

On the other hand, if Americans could somehow permanently halve their gasoline habit, the price would drop significantly. And this would be years and years before a drill touches the tundra.

The argument about China and India is a red herring. Those countries have scientist. Their scientists are saying the exact same things our scientists are saying. It's highly likely they would follow us in our conservation efforts. if we do, they well. If we don't, the free world will have to figure out how to change our dangerous and aberrant behavior for us.

The key word is permanent. Americans need to drive far less for the rest of their lives. It is the only solution that exists. All the rest are "Popular Mechanics" pinup fantasies. That's an idiot like Arnold gets wood for a hydrogen hummer. posted 06/10/2008 at 20:45:50

"A windfall tax will tax the profits and not the product. .."

If they can pass it on in the price of the product, which they were easily able to do last time, the consumer will pay the Windfall Profits tax. posted 06/10/2008 at 15:13:37

Oil companies don't want more refineries. What they actually have been doing is building new, vastly more productive refineries, inside of existing refineries. This is a hard concept for the media to report, so they keep saying no new refineries. The Republicans and the oil execs hate wacko enviros, so they blame them.

The oil companies are the reason there are no new refineries. They do not want one. By rebuilding inside of existing refineries, they have tremendously increased refinery output. posted 06/10/2008 at 15:11:22

The oil companies are not making an unreasonable profit. ExxonMobil has been sitting at 85 to 95 a share for an entire year. Why? Because they have no opportunities for growth? You won't let them drill anywhere. There are very few places they can go.

The Democratic party had better wake up. If you want to address global warming, then you need fuel prices to continue going up. It's the only thing that will stop people from driving so much. Having people drive less does not hurt them. The earth has to have them drive less.

If you think you can have cheap gasoline and CO2 mitigation, you're dreaming. posted 06/10/2008 at 14:49:38

The United States has very little quality land on which to grow sugar cane or sugar beets. We could never even begin to do such a thing. Brazil has a huge amount of great land for sugar cane.

Right now, there is no viable alternative to gasoline that can compete with gasoline's price - at even today's levels. The scale of of our oil usage is simply gigantic.

So you can go with alternatives, but they are going to cost you way more per gallon than gasoline, and getting to scale is going to take decades.

The only thing that will get Americans back to cheap energy is to drive a whole bunch less for the rest of all time. If we were to do that, then cellulosic ethanol might emerge as a major percentage of our transportation fuels. But you can count on paying around $10 a gallon in today's dollars. And imagine this, in that situation, black-market gasoline would probably be around $3. posted 06/10/2008 at 14:32:29

The windfall profits tax is a horrible idea. I'll vote for Obama, but this will make energy ever more expensive. He needs to drop it completely.

Why would anybody risk their money and their lives to drill a hole if you're going to steal their profit from them? You don't steal profits from McDonalds. You don't steal profits from Apple. What makes you think you have that right? Hey, I think I should be able to steal from you. See how you like that. You have absolutely no right to ExxonMobil's profits. They should be taxed at the exact same rate as Apple's, and take a look at their profit percentages versus ExxonMobil's. Talk about a windfall. Oh, but you like computers and the internet.

Right now demand is falling. Barrel prices will also fall. The way it's going, there ain't gonna be any windfall profits. Look at ExxonMobil's stock price. It sucks. They're not gaining much ground at all. posted 06/10/2008 at 13:57:15

Horses work great in rural areas. They're carbon neutral. posted 06/08/2008 at 18:48:35

The windfall tax will just make it worse.

Slapping a two dollar tax on a gallon would make it better. People need to start driving a lot less - for the rest of their lives.

The fact is, the low prices for the last two decades were a reverse bubble. Oil was way way too cheap, and because government did nothing people made some terrible decisions with respect to public transportation, private transportation, suburbs, house size, airports, etc. We built the wrong fleet and the wrong housing and the wrong mix of public transportation. posted 06/08/2008 at 17:59:49

Two of the black Marines from the munition company are depicted in the movie, and they were mentioned in the Captain Dave Severance's dialogue.

So please explain what Eastwood left out? Looks to me like he got black Marines into the movie that was 99.999% not about them. posted 06/09/2008 at 22:10:59

I have almost every history ever written of Iwo Jima, and in none of them does Thomas McPhatter's name appear. His name does not appear in the roster of the 28th Regiment, or in either of the replacement battalions. The only men who on top of that volcano at that time were members of a combat patrol formed from the 2nd Battalion, 28th Regiment. People were not just wandering around the battlefield sightseeing.

The Marines in that combat patrol said they found a section of Japanese water pipe on top of the volcano that had been part of a water collection system. The island had no source of fresh water. They either shipped it in or collected rain water, so their story makes a great deal of sense.

Through the years there have been a large number of people who have claimed to have been on top of Mt. Suribachi when the flags were raised. In most cases their claims have not held up. One exception was John Bradley's assistant corpsman. His first assistant corpsman was wounded and evacuated. He was replaced by a corpsman from one of the replacement battalions. When he came forward and said he was in the gung-ho photograph, nobody believed him. He took his case to court and was able to prove he had been transferred into the 2nd Battalion of the 28th, and that he was indeed in the gung-ho photograph. posted 06/09/2008 at 21:21:12

There are a bunch of pictures of the first flag event. One of it actually going up? No. There is one of it coming down. posted 06/09/2008 at 17:20:44

Yes, he's 89. He was a Navy Corpsman in the 28th Regiment - same as John Bradley, the Navy Corpsman who helped to raise both flags on Mt. Suribachi (a fact not known to his son when he wrote the book).

Thank you for your service with the USMC. posted 06/09/2008 at 16:06:54

First, my father is a decorated veteran of Iwo Jima. Second, he will be voting for Obama.

As for the other side, there are black Marines in the movie. Let me put it another way, extras who are black appear in "Flags of Our Fathers".

How can Spike Lee be right when he's wrong on the facts. The facts are, THERE ARE BLACKS IN "Flags of Our Fathers". posted 06/09/2008 at 14:37:59

My father was a white Navy Corpsman on Iwo Jima. One of the Navy Corpsman who served under him was an immigrant from Syria. I didn't see any Syrians in the film. Like most infantry platoons, his platoon included Native Americans. They were not code talkers. They were riflemen.

There were most definitely black Marines and black GIs on Iwo Jima, but there were no black Marines in the infantry battalions, and it is fairly unlikely that any non-infantry Marines were anywhere near Mt.Suribachi that morning. Each unit had an area; access was highly restricted. I would allow the possibility of negro DUKW drivers delivering supplies to HQ-area dumps. That is entirely possible.

There are a plethora of men who claim to have supplied the 2nd pole. The pole for the first flag was a Japanese water pipe scavenged off the top of the volcano. posted 06/07/2008 at 16:37:00

Near the end of the battle, the Japanese organized an early morning assault that penetrated all the way back down the island - as far as the US Army field hospital.

While they don't directly state it, it may be the last attack depicted in "Letters from Iwo JIma".

One Iwo Jima's many Medal of Honor recipients was a white Lt from the Pioneer Company. Sentries from his unit detected the sneak attack and his unit moved moved quickly to repel it. I have read there were black Marines involved in that combat, and that they were on sentry duty. It's possible that the ammunition companies were units in the Pioneer Company, but that is just speculation on my part. The Lt. was killed in action during the attack.

Blacks on Iwo Jima:

http://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/ww2-pictures/images/african-americans-wwii-102.jpg

http://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/ww2-pictures/images/african-americans-wwii-108.jpg

http://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/ww2-pictures/images/african-americans-wwii-110.jpg posted 06/07/2008 at 14:06:58

My father was a Navy Corpsman with the 28th Regiment, 5th Marine Division. He landed on Iwo Jima with the last of the 1st Battalion at 0920 - roughly 35 minutes before the 2nd Battalion of the 28th, which included all of the flag raisers.

There were no blacks in the 28th Regiment. The story is about one of the three battalions of the 28th Regiment. All three of the battalions took part in the battle for Mt. Suribachi. Two were left out of the movie. Big deal.

In "Flags of Our Fathers" there are two black Marines depicted. They appear on the deck of a troop ship just shortly before the invasion. The officer mentions an ammunition outfit, and the camera pans to the crowd of Marines and you can see two black Marines. The black Marines on Iwo Jima were in the ammunition companies. There were also blacks in the US Army DUKW outfits. They had DUKWs in the movie, and having black crews was a missed opportunity.

What Eastwood got wrong was the half-tracks. All of the USMC half-tracks on Iwo Jima were equipped with French 75 mm cannons - no exceptions This error is what Spike Lee should be condemning. Eastwood's using some wussy US Army-type half-track is unforgivable. posted 06/07/2008 at 13:38:30

ExxonMobil has very limited choices as to where it can develop new fields. They are not holding back exploration to hike prices. They're not big enough to exert that sort of control over the marketplace.

They have a right to hold projects to their standards. If a field does not look promising enough, sorry, they are under no obligation to anybody to drill 100-million-dollar dry holes in it.

Where do Americans get off demanding they have a right to cheap oil? Where is that right written down? I want to see it. You pig out on bottled war and fancy coffee, and fancy bathrooms, and fancy kitchens, and then you expect oil companies to provide you with dirt-cheap oil. Where do you get off with that attitude?

Upward on onward! I can't wait for $4 gasoline. Maybe then you morons will stop paving farmland and putting up unsustainable, 10,000 square-foot housing that's one hour, or more, from where you work. Freaking idiots. posted 03/22/2008 at 13:21:39

What do people want them to do, drill 40 billion dollars worth of dry holes in Vermont? They have drills and no place to go.

Oil is finite. We've milked the earth of most of its easy oil. Look at the freeway. Think we're using much? posted 03/21/2008 at 22:23:33