Guys, I strongly recomend seeing the documentry 'dreams of sparrows' essentially a set of talking heads and interviews with people in iraq filmed around 2004. I think it's available via various online video rental places in the states and it gets across what's happening in the country and how messed up and divided it is.
It features people who are pro/anti war, pro/anti saddam & pro/anti bush; all of them regular iraqis. I don't think it'll change many peoples opinions but it's always good to see behind the endless death statistics and sound bites on t.v.

And you have no idea how much that saddens me.

Actually, I do. Personally.

True, but what is being done with the 10 Billion?

Dividends and share buybacks. New explorations. Diversification.

I would feel better about it if they invested in tapping the frozen tundra

Yeah, but that'll only be worthwhile if the oil price remains high. $10bn per quarter isn't enough to move into the less productive / more difficult regions. Not by a long shot. Only guaranteed high prices make long term decisions like that make sense. Enron (and others) got caught out like that.

I think the tax incentives for these oil companies should only be in effect when they're below a certain profit margin.

And they'll hire a very expensive lawyer and accountant to ensure they get under or over or around any such scheme. No, it's not fair, it's not within the spirit of the game, but you would do exactly the same if you stood to lose $10bn.

Why am I a tardo?

Relax, they're not talking about you... at least not in that sentence.

Yes. I meant the first one that was actually deleted by Blue was in response to tard-o a few days ago.

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You guys are no fun

First off, great post Zathrus. I couldn't agree more.

Why am I a tardo?

Relax, they're not talking about you... at least not in that sentence.

Would appear he's doing them himself.

Yep. Hey KK, you need to make the asterisks red and do the whole thing in bold - let me try:

*REMOVED*
This comment was deleted on Jul 27, 20:34

yeah, like that.



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Bleh
This comment was edited on Jul 28, 00:46.

But it was a response to tardo so perhaps he quoted him

Why am I a tardo?

Killer Kane. 3 deleted in as many days.
Damn.

Would appear he's doing them himself.

Yeah, one was legit. But it was a response to tardo so perhaps he quoted him. The other two seem fake.

I faked a delete once for no reason and got emails from like 12 different people asking what I said to have a post deleted...heh

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Killer Kane. 3 deleted in as many days.
Damn.

Would appear he's doing them himself.

-----------------------------------------------------
GW: Nilaar Madalla, lvl 20 R/Mo / Tolyl Nor, lvl 20 E/Mo / Xylos Gath, lvl 16 W/Mo

No venomhed, you can't fuck me. Please stop asking.

bla bla bla war....bla bla bla Iraq bla bla bla

Killer Kane. 3 deleted in as many days.
Damn.

**********************************************
Listening to: http://www.xmradio.com/programming/channel_page.jsp?ch=53
FUNGS 53

Squirrel Count: Catch & Release: 11 Shot: 2

I've noticed you three generally seem to be against the iraq war and I just wanted to remind you three what we are fighting.

First off, yes, that's an awful tape. And we shouldn't forget what happened on 9/11. It was a horrible, inexcusable act of war.

nin is declining to go over the points again, and while random.thought did so, he also cursed and insulted you, so you might feel inclined to ignore him. (Warning to others -- this is looooooooooooooong)

What does that video have to do with Iraq? Absolutely nothing. Zilch. Nada. Zippo. Zero.

Understand this -- the people who were responsible for 9/11 were (mostly) in Afghanistan. We know Osama bin Laden was (and probably still is -- nearly 5 years later), and we know the government of that country (the Taliban) explicitly supported Al'Qaida. We had virtually every country in the world on our side when we invaded Afghanistan; every single Western country (including France and Germany, which people seem to forget), China (who has traditionally looked out only for their own self-interests, and routinely blocks us in the UN), and even several Islamic countries in the region.

Iraq, on the otherhand, is a different story altogether. We went to war on false pretenses, based on intelligence that was questionable even in the best light. We went to war with virtually no international support, against the advice of several of our staunchest allies, and without UN sanction (for what that's worth; the UN does a lot of good, but when it comes to security matters it is toothless). There was absolutely no ties between Hussein and Al'Qaida, there never have been -- bin Laden openly disliked Hussein. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and we've never found any indication of the weapons that we allegedly went to war over (meanwhile, North Korea has definitively developed nuclear weapons and Iran is on their way -- nice choice of targets from the "axis of evil"), and there's substantial evidence that the two are sharing information.

Was Hussen slime? Damn straight. But so are a helluva lot of other rulers. Kim Jong Il (NK) has killed millions of people by letting them starve. Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe) isn't a nice guy either, practicing torture and starvation, seizing land of political enemies, and other wonderful tactics. And should we even mention Darfur? We've sat by and watched genocide occur at a scale that dwarfs anything Hussein ever did.

And, frankly, the current politics is such utter hypocrisy it's not even funny. The people now pushing for support of the Iraq war are the exact same ones who booed Clinton over Somalia and Bosnia; and for exactly the same reason we're now in Iraq -- to get rid of "bad guys" and/or to act as the world's policeman. You want flip flopping? There's your flip flopping. Cut and run too. But that's ok, right, after all it was Clinton. No need to "support the President" then, right?

Back to Iraq though -- you know how many suicide bombers there were prior to the US invasion in 2003? Zero. How many roadside bombs? Zero. There were no terrorists in Iraq until we created them.

Stop trying to link "the War on Terror" to the Iraqi war. They have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Am I against the Iraq war? Yup. Should we pull out immediately? Nope. But unless things start getting better soon, then we're going to have to write off the entire thing -- we simply cannot afford to have our troops there another decade, spending a trillion dollars trying to fix the country we broke.

And you have no idea how much that saddens me.

I believe their percentage is around 40%

Percentage per ounce/gram/pound/liter/whatever material or product sold.

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Any other business making that little percentage in profit would go under

I believe their percentage is around 40% (that is, around 40% of their total revenue is gross profit.) I don't think many companies would be going under with that margin.

-B

*REMOVED*
This comment was deleted on Jul 27, 20:34

10 Billion in 3 months. Anyone still confused about this being a blatant ripoff is in serious denial.

10 billion in 3 months, wow? Not really. Look at how much product they supply and is used in three months. It is truly a very small amount of profit, they just due huge volumes. Any other business making that little percentage in profit would go under, ANY other business.


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Exxon reported a profit of $10.36 Billion for the second three months of the year,

10 Billion in 3 months. Anyone still confused about this being a blatant ripoff is in serious denial.

Seriously, you fucking retard. It never ceases to amaze me that people try to use 9/11 to defend Iraq. Do you not remember the nonexistent WMD's? Do you actually not fucking remember any of the reasons why we went to war there? What the fuck exactly are we fighting?! And if you say 9/11, don't bother, you can just shut the fuck up right there. It's funny, often times neocon right-wing shitpoles try to accuse liberals of being "emotional" or "bleeding heart" but then they visit a link to some tape of 9/11 and cry while saying the pledge of allegiance as IF IT SOMEHOW EXCUSES ALL THE RESULTING IMMORALITY AND MAKES IT ALL FUCKING WORTHWHILE. 5000 people died on 9/11. More than 10 times that died in Iraq, which i'll remind you:

a) All original reasons for going to war there have since been debunked

b) There is now an Iraqi civil war, thanks to us

c) 2500 more Americans have died since it started

d) What the fuck happened to MISSION ACCOMPLISHED?!

e) This is a war that has been quoted by the Secretary of State and others as "something that future generations will mostly likely be finishing" -- in other words, it will NEVER END unless we suck it up, hike up our balls, and get the fuck out before we make it even worse

f) Worldwide attitudes to the US are now totally in the shitter. And isn't it great how the massive spending budget we appointed for this war basically puts our financial future in the hands of China, who owns much of our national debt through bonds? BUELLER?!

.
.
.
SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Sincerely,
Reality

Cynips:

The only other bootable CD I have is an old Ultimate Boot CD (2004). No ghost or Bart's PE builder. My IT technician friend says I can bring my maching to his house, though.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ (free!)



JoeCool:

I've noticed you three generally seem to be against the iraq war and I just wanted to remind you three what we are fighting.

Iraq /= Afghanistan when we decided to "liberate" it...

But hey, that's cool. Let's liberate China. And Cuba. And Tibet. And Taiwan. N. Korea's gotta be fit in there, too. There's bad guys everywhere, and in the words of our elected chimp "Bring 'em on!". We got a lot of killin to do...

You win +2 points for thread derail...and I don't feel like rehashing this shit (for the millionth time). If you would like to join, go right ahead, and good luck to you.


edit: And remember who's idea Iraq was:
http://www.bushorchimp.com/pics.html

edit again: Good lord! There's more!
http://www.bushorchimp.com/pics2.html


-----------------------------------------------------
GW: Nilaar Madalla, lvl 20 R/Mo / Tolyl Nor, lvl 20 E/Mo / Xylos Gath, lvl 16 W/Mo

No venomhed, you can't fuck me. Please stop asking.
This comment was edited on Jul 27, 19:08.

So you made your own post that just says removed? How odd.

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You could also try this, as it purports to save all your data w/o having to do a whole wipe/reinstall:

Oh, cool, looks like it could be worth a try after I've successfully retrieved some of my most precious data.

Thanks to all who have contributed with suggestions!