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"GE slashes earnings view for 2008, but shares gain" by Marketwatch shows that General Electric is off about 38% from its high of about 42 only a year ago. Furthermore, "GE currently makes about 45% of its earnings from the financial unit, called GE Capital." From where we sit, General Electric's problems are the direct result of a management belief, as exemplified by the company's membership in the Climate Action Partnership, that the company does not have to create genuine value to earn a profit. As described by Kimberly Strassel's "If the Cap Fits: Why our CEOs are warming to...

<p>At least one of the VIPs who attended the dedication ceremony Thursday for the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial appears to be selling event memorabilia for hundreds, even thousands of dollars on eBay — to the horror of the Pentagon officials who organized the event.</p>

T. Boone has re-invented himself as a green wildcatter. Can he finish what Al Gore started? T. Boone Pickens can't read his lines. Squinting at his teleprompter, he is posing in front of a mile-long ribbon of wind turbines, churning against an endless Texas sky. Pickens is in Sweetwater, a town of 12,000 that bills itself as the nation's wind-energy capital, to shoot a commercial urging Americans to put themselves on a new energy diet: cutting out imported oil—which costs $700 billion a year—in favor of domestically produced sources such as wind and natural gas. "Our dependence on foreign oil...

If Bruce Lipshutz has his way, you may soon be buying bottles of water brimming with the life-sustaining coenzyme CoQ10 at your local Costco. Lipshutz, a professor of chemistry at UC Santa Barbara, is the principal author of an upcoming review, "Transition Metal Catalyzed Cross-Couplings Going Green: in Water at Room Temperature," which will be published in Aldrichimica Acta in September. In it, Lipshutz and post-doctoral researcher Subir Ghorai discuss how recent advances in chemistry can be used to solubilize otherwise naturally insoluble compounds like CoQ10 into water. Never heard of CoQ10? Lipshutz says you're not alone. "If you don't...

CRUDE oil traded near a one-week low in New York amid speculation a report today will show US supplies last week rose to their highest in almost seven years. Stockpiles probably gained for a sixth week, climbing 0.8 per cent in the period ended March 17, according to a survey. This would increase inventories to their highest since April 1999. "People are talking about a glut now," said Mark Waggoner, president of Excel Futures in Huntington Beach, California. Crude oil for April delivery was at $US60.05 a barrel, down US37c, in after-hours electronic trading. The contract plunged $US2.35, or 3.7...

Lundberg says national average rises to $2.67 a gallon, but price run-up may be ending.April 9, 2006: 4:37 PM EDT ATLANTA (CNN) - Gas prices shot up another 17 cents per gallon over the past two weeks to a national average of $2.67, a survey said Sunday. Since Feb. 24, the average price of a gallon of self-serve unleaded has risen 42 cents, said Trilby Lundberg, publisher of the Lundberg Survey, which tallied prices March 24 and April 7 for its latest survey. "Some of the pump price surge comes from higher crude-oil prices, but most is the new fuel...

Democrats' anti-Bush petition also seeks political contributions By DEVLIN BARRETT Associated Press Writer September 8, 2005, 4:13 PM EDT WASHINGTON -- A new Democratic effort to whip up indignation about the Bush administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina also tried to raise money for Democratic candidates. Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat and the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, issued an appeal Thursday urging people to sign an online petition to fire the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency over his handling of the Katrina response. After an inquiry from the Associated Press, the DSCC quickly pulled...

...Some 20 states... already have anti-price-gouging laws on their books-- and many governors have declared emergencies to invoke them. These de facto price controls typically place ceilings of between 10% and 25% on how much companies can raise prices in the wake of a natural disaster. In almost all cases such laws are wrong-headed, because they exacerbate supply problems by short-circuiting the price system that matches supply with demand. ...If governments will not allow the price system to ration the demand for gas, a new "price" system will emerge called gas lines.... Let's explain why prices have been rising. Katrina...

Nationally, the average price for regular gasoline around $2.50 per gallon. Are gasoline prices high? That's not the best way to put that question. It's akin to asking, "Is Williams tall?" The average height of U.S. women is 5 foot four. For men, it's 5 foot 10 inches. Being 6 foot four, I would be tall relative to the general U.S. population. Put me on a basketball court, next to the average NBA player, and I would be short. So when we ask if a price is high or low, we must ask: relative to what? In 1950, a gallon...

And regarding news media, begin here: They should not subtract from the public's understanding. Yet subtract they nowadays do with endless headlines and talk about "record" oil and gasoline prices. For example, a recent headline in the Financial Times proclaimed: "New York investors take flight after price of oil hits record high." But the story's fifth paragraph read: "West Texas Intermediate for September delivery settled $1.83 higher at $64.90 a barrel—a new nominal record ..." The real meAnd regarding news media, begin here: They should not subtract from the public's understanding. Yet subtract they nowadays do with endless headlines and...

SINGAPORE, Aug 29 (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil futures surged more than $4 in opening trade on Monday, hitting a new record high above $70 a barrel after Hurricane Katrina forced Gulf of Mexico producers to shut in more than a third of their output. Katrina, which strengthened into a rare, maximum power Category 5 hurricane as it spun through key oil and gas fields toward New Orleans, shut in a total 633,000 barrels per day (bpd), according to company figures on Sunday. It also forced the closure of seven refineries and a major U.S. crude import terminal. Crude oil...

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Oil prices surged to a record above $70 a barrel on Monday as one of the biggest storms in the United States churned through the Gulf of Mexico, forcing major oil producers and refiners to shut down operations. U.S. crude oil futures jumped nearly $5 a barrel in opening trade to touch a peak of $70.80 a barrel, surpassing last week's $68 high to the highest frontmonth price since the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) began trading contracts in It later traded up $3.94 a barrel, or 6 percent, to $70.07, more than recouping losses on Friday,...

There has been no hesitation in the historical record to refer to industries producing armaments as "war profiteers". Generally, that label had been reserved for industries or individuals that benefit from the inevitable shortages of necessities consequential to a protracted and destructive conflict. The implication is that branded industries and individuals have an interest in promoting war for gain and opposing efforts for peaceful resolution. Liberals have given us a new breed of war profiteers as well as retaining some of the old. In the best tradition of the New York World and the New York Morning Journal, it was...

New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) has long been rumored as desperately seeking the democratic nomination for president in 2008. And while many political observers fully expect the power hungry former First Lady to hit the campaign trail within only a few months of being re-elected as a US Senator in 2006, US News & World report claims to have a confirmation of sorts. From USNews.Com's Washington Whispers: Hillary's in… You don't have to take it from us about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's desire to run for president. Her brothers, Hugh and Tony Rodham, say it's true. Friends...

Tont Snow said Soros was speculating on the dollar during the war to make a buck while talking against the war

The General Accounting Office reported last week that 16 percent of our National Guard and reserve pilots and aircrew have transferred out of their combat positions. An additional 18 percent of those surveyed have stated their intent to transfer or leave. Did they suddenly lose their zeal for flying? Are they fatigued after years of service? Are they avoiding possible deployment for an invasion of Iraq? None of the above; the pilots' departure has nothing to do with flying or with war. The GAO discovered that those pilots departed because the Clinton administration ordered them to receive the anthrax vaccine,...

<p>October 10, 2002 -- WASHINGTON - Former President Bill Clinton was showered with pricey gifts while he was in office from the leaders of Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, but he didn't disclose them because they were earmarked for his presidential library in Arkansas, a new report yesterday revealed.</p>

Mr. Clarke obviously wanted a full-fledged rumble, and now he's got it. The battlelines are drawn -- It's the Democratic spinmeisters, their liberal media cronies, and pointman Richard Clarke, against the GOP that has truth on its side. Clarke is nothing more than a shameless self-promoter with a partisan agenda, acting in association with Rand Beers, a top advisor to presumptive Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Moreover, Clarke's current criticisms of President Bush clearly contradict his prior statements from an August 2002 press briefing and private testimony before the 9/11 Commission. John Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission, succinctly...

SOURCES: CLARKE 'TO EARN OVER $1 MILLION FOR BOOK'; CONTRACT: BONUSES ADDED **Exclusive** Former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke is on track to earn over $1 million in cash advance and royalties for his controversial book AGAINST ALL ENEMIES, publishing sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT. "Mr. Clarke's six-figure advance will soon turn into a seven-figure compensation, if sales continue at this pace," a top source at Clarke's imprint SIMON & SCHUSTER reveals. "Astonishingly, we are already approaching a point where the advance paid to Mr. Clarke is covered." AGAINST ALL ENEMIES sold more than 140,000 unites in its first week, a...

Thirty-two family members of 9/11 victims have signed a blistering open letter to former terrorism czar Richard Clarke, accusing him of "profiteering" from the 9/11 tragedy by writing a book and acting to "divide America" with his testimony before the 9/11 Commission. "The notion of profiteering from anything associated with 9/11 is particularly offensive to all of us," the 9/11 familles wrote in a letter published in Sunday's New York Post. "We find Mr. Clarke's actions all the more offensive especially considering the fact that there was always a high possibility that the 9/11 Commission could be used for political...

Every network on Wednesday highlighted the angry reaction of nations excluded from receiving U.S.-paid contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq, but CBS went the furthest in treating the decision to limit the contracts to the 63 nations in the anti-Hussein coalition as some kind of scandalous punishment when it could also be seen as a reward to those who helped or as an incentive to others to join up. Dan Rather managed to work “Halliburton” and “war-profiteering” into his introduction of his lead story: “President Bush has decided to punish some major countries by excluding them from the rebuilding of...

Democrats warn of 'profiteering' in reconstruction contracts By Severin Carrell 05 October 2003 The Bush administration and major US firms are facing fresh charges of "profiteering" from the Iraq war after allegedly inflating the costs of key contracts. The accusations from Tom Daschle, the Democrat Senate leader, came after his staff uncovered evidence of the "gold plating" of cost estimates for dozens of contracts. The controversy has highlighted the White House's growing problems in persuading a deeply sceptical Congress to release an extra $87bn (£52bn) for Iraq and, in part, Afghanistan - in addition to the $79bn it approved in...

Nobody likes an ingrate and a tide of anti-French sentiment is sweeping the American street. DO THE FRENCH have the slightest idea about how obnoxious they seem to many Americans? I suspect not, but then the French aren't all that self-aware in the first place. And the American press, hung up on anti-Americanism around the globe, has done little to inform anyone of the rippling tide of anti-French feeling here. The simple fact is nobody likes an ingrate. It would be one thing if the French said they planned to sit out the war with Iraq. But it's quite another...