John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil, was interviewed by John Roberts on CNN this morning. Here are just a few paragraphs.

ROBERTS: Sen. Hillary Clinton wants to slap you with a 50 percent tax on what she calls windfall profit, profit above a certain level. Is that a good idea?

HOFMEISTER: Look at our revenues and our income for the last quarter. If we had made $7.8 million on $114 million of revenue, nobody would call that excessive, because that’s 7½ percent. We made $7.8 billion profit on $114 billion revenue — same 7½ percent. So to me that is not an excessive number when banks and pharmaceuticals and IT companies earn a whole lot more.

ROBERTS: Would it hurt you if she put in place this tax on the windfall profits?

HOFMEISTER: Sure it would. It would slow down investment. Taxing the oil companies was tried in the ’80s. It drove us to do imports, which is exactly the problem we have today.

ROBERTS: Where is the top of all this? How high can the price of a barrel of oil go? How high will the cost of a gallon of gasoline go?

HOFMEISTER: I heard somebody say the other day it’s as long as a piece of string. We don’t know.

ROBERTS: The president of OPEC said $200 a barrel.

HOFMEISTER: Yeah, well, there are some countries out there subsidizing the cost of their energy to their consumers and industries to compete with America — or against America — because they think America won’t solve the problem.

ROBERTS: You’re saying you have no idea where the top is.

HOFMEISTER: We don’t know. But we should produce more oil in this country.

Coldplay is giving away a new song from their forthcoming album here. Not bad at all in my opinion.

If you are interested in the writings of the Puritans you might want to check out the giveaway at http://www.challies.com/archives/general-news/giveaways/april-book-giveaway.php for your chance to win one of three sets of books. You may enter the drawing using the code 60802. 
The Sponsor
This month’s sponsor is Reformation Heritage Books. RHB publishes and distributes Puritan and Reformed books. Soli [...]

They range from 4-5 years ago all for the small publishing company I worked for in high school and college. They’re not stupendous but they’ve still got some measure of charm over me.

Check out another two posts detailing past dives into the past:

more dredged from the archives

old!

Last fall, I decided to purchase and plant some bulbs–just to see what would happen in the spring. Well, ever since the snow has melted, there has been a constantly changing sea of color outside my house. The crocuses were the first to bloom (but I wasn’t able to get a picture of them!), then up came the narcissus and hyacinths.

Now, my tulips are starting to bloom as well.

I’m personally urging composers to view ASCAP’s petition for a Composers’ Bill of Rights, as various groups are lobbying against these basic tenets. You don’t have to be an ASCAP member to sign it.
You can view the Bill of Rights by clicking here, and sign it electronically by using the link at the bottom of [...]

During Dever’s lecture at T4G on the folly of trying to “improve the gospel,” I wrote in my notes that he “sounds like Doran.” The first point of Dever’s message has now been posted at the T4G blog. Give it a read (or give the whole message a listen), and tell me if you can [...]

Well, my exams are done for the semester as of 4:50. Lincoln still has one tomorrow, and I still have to enter grades, but starting now, I basically go into wedding gear. Incidentally, the wedding is one week from today.

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, the to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the…

I’ve spent the last couple days planning for the honeymoon. I’ve had the hotel reservations and tickets for several months, but I wanted to arrange everything into a comprehensive itinerary. When traveling, nothing should be left to chance.
I found a useful website called TripIt. You can forward confirmation e-mails to TripIt, and it automatically extracts [...]