Log Watch  

My log watching obsession continues unabated, with my Pentagon reader reappearing a few times this week. While I've seen visitors from a lot of oil companies passing by, up until now I'd never seen a visitor from Exxon, so I was mildly amused to see one appear during the week having a look at my post on "Exxon and Lysenkoism". Maybe it was Phil Cooney doing some surfing during his lunch break ?

Talking about Exxon, I wonder if Jabba the Hutt's retirement has them rethinking their stance on global warming ?

One thing I liked about the book / documentary "The Corporation" was the point that most companies are made up of basically decent people (which certainly applies to the people I know who work at Exxon) and that its rarely worth demonising them as they go about doing what they are expected to do - make money for their shareholders. The political system is the way to direct corporations to go about their business in a way which doesn't harm the interests of the citizens of the countries they operate in.

Of course, when the companies basically buy the governments of these countries and effectively subvert the political process (for example, does the US government control the oil industry or vice versa ?) you are in a bit of a sticky situation.

Anyway - if I consider the question "are Exxon likely to change their mind about global warming" I'm afraid I think its unlikely - in fact, I'd say the chances of them merging with Chevron and renaming the reassembled monopoly "Standard Oil" are a fair bit higher - we are almost back to the Gilded Age, after all - unfortunately the planet has 6 times as many people and is much better armed this time around.