Halliburton Income More Than Doubles

Halliburton Income More Than Doubles

This is an interesting headline. Halliburton income more than doubles. When I work the numbers, the net income per share was $0.55 last year and $1.62 this year. That's 2.94 or 294% or almost TRIPLE the net income. Admittedly the bulk of this was splitting Halliburton from KBR, Inc.

The reason I'm so interested in this, is because when the oil companies had "record profits", it amounted to a 15% increase over profits from the previous year.

Given this, I wonder if there will be congressional hearings over the 'exorbitant' Halliburton profits? If not, why not?

I fear the reason is that people piss and moan about gas prices because they buy gas several times a month. They are reminded on a weekly basis about the price of gas, but they really don't comprehend the price of War. They also are don't get a weekly bill for federal taxes, so it's not the same as going to the gas station.

It's pretty sad.

World Privacy Forum: Top Ten Opt Outs

World Privacy Forum: Top Ten Opt Outs

This is a list of the top ten opt-out sites. I'm posting because we are approaching the five year mark for the FTC's Do Not Call List. Your opt-out is only good for five years, so it may be time for you to renew your opt-out choice.

In addition, there are several other opt-out links you should consider to take back your personal privacy, reduce interruptions at home, and reduce the amount of junk mail you receive.

Links and information included in the World Privacy Forum include:

1. National Do Not Call Registry
2. Prescreened offers of credit and insurance
3. DMA opt outs
4. Financial institution opt outs
5. CAN SPAM
6. Credit freeze
7. FERPA
8. Data broker opt outs
9. Internet portal opt outs
10. NAI opt out

The Edge of Evolution - Michael J. Behe - Books - Review - New York Times

The Edge of Evolution - Michael J. Behe - Books - Review - New York Times

This is an amazing book review by Richard Dawkins. To set the stage, you need to understand that Behe is a professor at Lehigh University, and one of the reasons none of my children will ever attend Lehigh. He is the chief apologist, er, scientest/poster boy for the (un)Intelligent Design/Creationist movement.

Richard Dawkins holds the Charles Simonyi chair for the public understanding of science at Oxford and he is a vocal atheist who holds the Creationist movements collective hands to the fire regarding scientific method and understanding of evolutionary biology.

Dawkins takes Behe apart. He does so in a systematic and irrefutable fashion. This article should be required reading for high school science classes. He understands his material, the article is well written, the author builds his case in a logical fashion and backs it up with appropriate references. A good class exercise would be to identify all scientific references within the article. Another exercise would be to write a paragraph about each scientist referenced as well. This would take about a week of part time homeworks to accomplish and when complete, the students would know more about science and scientific method than everyone associated with the Creationist Museum.

Vacation

We just got back from a short vacation in Cape May. Although I enjoyed my time off, I think I need more than a week to really unwind. Next year, I'll see if we can schedule ten days instead of seven.

What did I accomplish?

I rode a bike every day. It was my 'beater' bike - Bianchi frame, no computer, 53x16 gearing, front brake (no rear), cork bar end plugs. I also accidentally wrapped the bar tape backwards, but I think it gives it more character.

I read a book. Vonnegut's 'Galapagos' on the beach.

No sunburn. We are using Neutrogena SPF 45 and SPF 70, both work great.

Hung out with friends. Mike and Sharon introduced us >25 years ago and we spent the day talking, had dinner, drinks, and promised not to wait another year to do it again.

Next year I want to schedule vacation for ten days, which will probably be enough time to really unwind and recharge our batteries.