Well, despite all the hoopla put forth by our religiously-minded national leaders here in the US, I am have been shocked to find NO support for my campaign to replace evolution with the oldest documented evidence of Intelligent Design. Hinduism is easily 7000 years old, and clearly the most likely candidate in terms of a continuing body of knowledge, and successful propagation. NONE of the educators will even give the time of day - not even in Kansas. I'm beginning to believe that when they say Intelligent Design they mean only THEIR notion - an old man with a white beard who created the world is 6 days and then rested. Frankly I'm puzzled.
The Vedas (generally regarded as the earliest piece of written Hindu work) are the spiritual laws binding upon all of creation and even upon God. It is believed that each veda was written by multiple enlightened beings (Hindus) over a long period of time. Oil Breaches $70 as Hurricane Shuts Gulf of Mexico Production ListenListen <javascript:audioPlayer(%22A=41642397&clipName=Oil Breaches $70 as Hurricane Shuts Gulf of Mexico Production %22)> Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose, at one point reaching a record $70.80 a barrel in New York, after Hurricane Katrina forced companies to evacuate platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, where 30 percent of U.S. oil is produced. Oil jumped as much as $4.67, or 7.1 percent, the biggest increase in 29 months. Natural gas, heating oil and gasoline climbed to all-time highs as well. Investors are concerned Katrina, the fiercest storm to strike the U.S. Gulf coast since 1969, will rupture pipelines, rip rigs from their moorings and disrupt production for weeks. Hurricane Ivan last September cut the region's oil output by as much as 80 percent. ``There is a long list of production and refineries out because of the hurricane,'' said Tom Bentz, an oil broker at BNP Paribas Commodity Futures Inc. in New York. ``The course is similar to what we saw with Ivan last year, which hit production for a long time.'' Crude oil for October delivery rose $1.12, or 1.7 percent, to $67.25 a barrel at the 2:30 p.m. close of floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices peaked within 1 minute of the opening of electronic trading. Futures are 56 percent higher than a year ago. Natural Gas Nymex declared force majeure on deliveries of natural gas sold under the August futures contract after Katrina forced the Henry Hub in Louisiana to shut. Force majeure allows producers to avoid penalties for failing to deliver supplies because of unforeseen events. Futures contracts settled on the exchange are delivered to the Henry Hub. Natural gas for September delivery jumped $1.458, or 15 percent, to $11.25 per million British thermal units in New York. Futures touched $12.07, the highest since trading began in 1990. Prices have more than doubled in the past year. ``Natural gas is the real worry,'' said Bill O'Grady, assistant director of market analysis at A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis. ``Unfortunately we can't import the missing production. This is largely a domestic market.'' Katrina had sustained winds near 125 miles per hour (201 kph), the National Hurricane Center said at 10 a.m. local time. The hurricane's center was about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of New Orleans. Katrina was moving north at about 16 mph, the Miami-based center said. Strategic Reserve The U.S. filled its Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the nation's emergency stockpile of crude oil, to the 700 million- barrel level ordered by President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Energy Department loaned some oil to refiners whose supply was disrupted by Ivan. Bush is considering tapping the reserve to help oil producers hobbled by Katrina, his spokesman Scott McClellan said. No decisions have been made, though loaning oil from the reserve is an option, he said. ``The Department of Energy is monitoring the situation. They will make assessments as they are able to do so and that's really where it stands right now,'' McClellan told reporters today aboard Air Force One as the president traveled to Arizona. U.S. crude-oil supplies jumped 1.9 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 19, the fourth-straight increase, to 322.9 million, according to an Energy Department report on Aug. 24. Stockpiles are more than 10 percent higher than a year ago. ``The biggest impact may be damage to the port facilities south of New Orleans,'' said Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank AG in New York. ``We have no way of knowing now how badly they are damaged.'' Louisiana Oil Port The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the biggest U.S. oil import terminal, stopped unloading tankers on Aug. 28. The port is 20 miles off the coast and handles about 1 million barrels of crude oil a day, or 11 percent of U.S. imports. LOOP stopped making pipeline shipments to refineries from its onshore facilities yesterday. Port Fourchon, about 50 miles south of New Orleans, is the hub for three-quarters of support services to the Gulf's deepwater oil and gas facilities and is the land base for the offshore oil port. ``It's pretty early to have a good idea of what damage there is in the region,'' said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte, North Carolina. ``It is the damage to the energy infrastructure that is important to the national economy.'' Prices rose in 1974 after an oil embargo that followed the Arab-Israeli war and from 1979 through 1981 after Iran cut oil exports. The average cost of oil used by U.S. refiners was $35.24 a barrel in 1981, according to the Energy Department, or $75.44 in today's dollars. Fuel Production U.S. supplies of refined products, including gasoline, heating oil and diesel, may also decline as refineries near the path of the storm shut. Katrina forced the shutdown of at least eight oil refineries near the Gulf in Louisiana and Mississippi. The plants have a combined crude-oil processing capacity of about 1.79 million barrels a day, or 10.5 percent of total U.S. capacity. Gasoline for September delivery jumped 12.81 cents, or 6.7 percent, to $2.055 a gallon in New York. Futures touched $2.1606, the highest since trading began in 1984. Prices are 75 percent higher than a year ago. Regular-grade gasoline, averaged nationwide, rose 0.2 cent to $2.603 a gallon on Aug. 26, according to data released today by the AAA, formerly the American Automobile Association. Prices averaged a record $2.614 a gallon on Aug. 19. Pump prices are 39 percent higher than a year ago. Consumer Changes ``High gasoline prices gradually eat away at income,'' Vitner said. ``The effect isn't felt all at once. We have seen consumers change their behavior in recent months and there should be further changes if prices stay at these levels.'' Heating oil for September delivery climbed 7.64 cents, or 4.2 percent, to $1.913 a gallon. Futures surged to $2.0137, the highest in 27 years of trading on the exchange. Heating oil is 67 percent higher than a year ago. The profit margin for turning a barrel of crude oil into heating oil and gasoline is $14.79, based on futures prices in New York. That is up 24 percent from Aug. 26 and more than double a year ago. ``We won't know the full extent of the damage for weeks,'' said Marshall Steeves, an oil analyst at Refco Inc. in New York. ``A lot of the damage that occurred when Hurricane Ivan came through last year was underwater, which was difficult to survey and then repair.'' _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
