WW III GETTING YOU DOWN?

Summer time and living’s easy? No? Not for you? Are the vicissitudes of family life and work draining your joy?

Are you aching after adding up the number dead this week in Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, and Darfur?

Are you unsettled by the specter of missiles shooting from North Korea and a burgeoning war in Somalia?

Are you disquieted by today’s Washington Post report that Ayman al-Zawahri, second in command to Osama bin Laden, now sees "all the world as a battlefield open in front of us."? I mean everyone knows Al-Qaida would attack anywhere, but isn't it just like the liberal press to create a Debbie Downer moment and publish the quote?

If all the reporting of all these negative events depresses you, lap up this good news!

Shell Oil Company’s second-quarter profits are up 40 %, because, thankfully, prices at the pump have been able to compensate for production problems in Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico. Here’s the really great part, “Net profit rose to $7.32 billion from $5.24 billion a year earlier. Sales rose less than 1 percent to $83.1 billion from $82.6 billion.” So without even significantly increasing sales they have been able to increase profits because of pump prices. I think it’s just precious really that we can all be a little part of the success of this company.

“Exxon Mobil’s Second Quarter Profits increase 36%” The Washington Post reports, “Exxon Mobil Corp. said Thursday it earned $10.36 billion in the second quarter, the second largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company.”

Exxon gives us another pause in days of such dark news across the world.

So in a world characterized by Newt Gingrich as in the throes of World War III, when we had all believed we were actually of the last throes of the insurgency in Iraq, in a world torn by violence, in a world in which our own personal woes may be getting us down, we can be pumped by the way we have all pitched in and contributed to the rousing success of the oil companies this quarter!