Here are some quotes from an article out of Friday’s The Oklahoman about how the poor oil industry is just barely surviving with all the devastating weather and oil shortages…….

“DALLAS – Exxon Mobil Corp. rewrote the corporate record books Thursday as the oil company’s third-quarter earnings soared to almost $10 billion, and it became the first public company ever with quarterly sales topping $100 billion (CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS? 100 billion!!! – MR)……. Anglo-Dutch competitor Royal Dutch Shell PLC wasn’t far behind, posting a profit of $9 billion for the quarter…… They come on the heels of similar eye-popping gains reported this week by BP PLC, ConocoPhillips Inc., and Marathon Oil Corp……

To put its performance into perspective, Exxon’s revenue for the three-month period was greater than the annual gross domestic product of some of the largest oil producing nations, including the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, even though it lost considerable production because of a string of hurricanes that battered the U.S. Gulf coast……. Robert Kaufmann, a professor at Boston University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, says production will return to pre-hurricane levels and hurricane-related losses will disappear in future earnings reports, but profits will remain high…..

“Exxon is a good corporate citizen but it does not work for the welfare of the country (Du-u-u-h – MR),” said oil analyst Fadel Gheit at Oppenheimer & Co. in New York….

Those results led Democrats in Congress to demand a new windfall-profits tax….. “Big oil behemoths are making out like bandits, while the average American family is getting killed by high gas prices, and soon-to-be record heating oil prices,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement…… But Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said President Bush opposes such a move (surprise-surprise – MR) and is instead considering a wide range of proposals to help cushion consumers, including the creation of an emergency reserve of gasoline and other refined products (We all know what happens to reserves, or do we?….. By the way, where are all those reserves we supposedly built-up during the last gas crunch? – MR)……

Looks like I’ll have to go along with the Demos on this one……. Of course, that depends on where the windfall-profits tax money would go…….

Just think, these are the people that are running (and ruining) our country…… We have no need to go to a foreign country to get screwed on crude oil, seems to me we have the “crudest” people in the world right here among us….. Next election look for the new “Bend-Over” voting booths (I guess that’s kind of a “crude” thing to say….eh?……)