Saturday, 15 Dec 2012 9:33pm

From: Alfred Clayton 

You are in your car driving home. Thoughts wander to the  game you want to see or meal you want to eat, when  suddenly a sound unlike any you've ever heard fills the air.   The sound is high above you.   A trumpet?   A choir?   A choir of trumpets?   You don't know, but you want to know....   So you pull over, get out of your car, and look up..  As you do, you see you aren't the only curious one.  The roadside has become a parking lot. Car doors  are open, and people are staring at the sky..   Shoppers are racing out of the grocery store.  The Little League baseball game across the street  has come to a halt. Players and parents are searching  the clouds And what they see, and what you see,  has never before been seen.   As if the sky were a curtain, the drapes of the  atmosphere   part.... A brilliant light spills onto the earth... There are no  shadows... None.   From every hue ever seen and a million  more never seen.. Riding on the flow is an endless fleet of  angels. They pass through the curtains one myriad at a time,  until they occupy every square inch of the sky.   North.. South. East... West.   Thousands of silvery wings rise and fall in unison, and over  the sound of the trumpets, you can hear the cherubim and  seraphim chanting,   "Holy, Holy, Holy..." The final flank of angels is followed by  twenty-four silver-bearded elders and a multitude of souls  who join the angels in worship.   Suddenly, the heavens are quiet. All is quiet. The angels turn,  you turn, the entire world turns and there He is.... Jesus.   Through waves of light you see the silhouetted figure of  Christ the King. He is atop a great stallion, and the stallion is atop a billowing cloud. He opens his mouth, and you are  surrounded by his declaration: "I am the Alpha and the Omega." The angels bow their heads... The elders remove their crowns... And before you is a Figure so consuming that you know, instantly you know: Nothing else matters... Forget stock markets  and school reports: Sales meetings and football games..  Nothing is newsworthy.. . All that mattered, matters no more..  For Christ has come.   Please let me know the exact time you read this.  It is mystical--honest.   This morning when the Lord opened a window to Heaven,  he saw me, and he asked: "My child, what is your  greatest wish for today?"   I responded: 'Lord please; take care of my family, my friends,  the person who is reading this message, their family and their  special friends. They deserve it and I love them very much.'   The love of God is like the ocean, you can see  its beginnings but not its end.   This message works on the day you receive it. To  some  it may  sound dumb, but the person who sent  this to me was impressed with its timing. Let us see if it is true.   ANGELS EXIST, but sometimes, since they don't all have  wings we call them FRIENDS, SUCH AS YOU.   Pass it on to 10 of your true friends and family.  SOMETHING GOOD WILL HAPPEN TO YOU TODAY.  SOMETHING THAT YOU HAVE BEEN WAITING TO HEAR.   THIS IS NOT A JOKE; SOMEONE WILL CALL YOU BY PHONE  OR WILL SPEAK TO YOU ABOUT SOMETHING THAT YOU WERE WAITING TO HEAR. DO NOT BREAK THIS EMAIL .  SEND IT TO A MINIMUM OF   10 PEOPLE.   Put the Date and Time in the 'Subject' area when you read it. It's your call to forward this.

Shell fuels rumours of BP buyout plan

Dec 14th, 2012

by John Donovan.

Shell has reignited speculation about a potential takeover of BP…

Anglo-Dutch oil group’s boss says a takeover was considered in past two years and refuses to deny it has dropped the idea

• Terry Macalister
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 14 December 2012 22.04 GMT

Shell has reignited speculation about a potential takeover of BPafter its chief executive spoke publicly about the Anglo-Dutch group’s recent interest in buying its fiercest rival, whose share price is still recovering from the Gulf of Mexico blowout.

Peter Voser, the Shell boss, told a German newspaper that Shell had considered a move on BP in the past two years and answered “no comment” to the question of whether that ambition remained.

“I can’t imagine that there was anyone in our industry that didn’t have a look at it. At the end of the day we’re all business people,” Voser is quoted as saying.

Former BP chief executive John Browne revealed in his memoirs that discussions had taken place between the two companies in 2004 when Shell was smaller by market capitalisation.

But Voser’s comments that Shell considered making a bid for BP in the past two years, according to an advance copy of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, will inevitably rekindle excitement in the City that a mega-merger could still be on the cards. Voser noted that following the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, BP’s share price fell sharply, and still had not completely recovered.

Equity analysts have speculated over the past 18 months that a BP wounded by the Deepwater Horizon accident was dangerously vulnerable to a foreign predator.

But big state-owned groups from China and Russia were seen as the most likely potential buyers, with all the political ramifications that would come with those kinds of approaches.

BP has recently agreed a multibillion-pound share swap and exploration deal with Russia’s state-controlled oil company, Rosneft, but there would be nothing to stop a Shell bid for BP’s wider share capital.

The London-based BP is still suffering from a near $40bn (£24.7bn) sell-off of global assets needed to pay for the claims and liabilities from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. At their lowest point in early June 2011, BP shares were trading at just 296p, valuing the group at £55.6bn compared to a high of more than double that before the oil spill – worst such incident in the US.

They have since moved up to 426p but the oil group is still dogged by the US department of justice, which is pressing on with a criminal case and reiterating its belief that it may have been grossly negligent.

Legal specialists have indicated that a successful gross negligence charge would leave BP facing penalties of more than $20bn under the local Clean Water Act.

In the same interview, Voser warned that Europe shouldn’t reject fracking as a means of extracting natural gas from shale. “Europe should know that it’s about the competitiveness of its industry,” he said, after Britain this week decided to allow the controversial shale drilling technique to restart. The US has gained immense industrial benefits from lower natural gas prices over the past few years, Voser added.

The gas price there has fallen hugely after the US allowed its shale gas reserves to be exploited using the process, but the practice is still banned in France due to environmental concerns.

SOURCE

Posted in: BP, Environment, Gas, Gulf of Mexico, Litigation, Oil, Peter Voser, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Shale Gas, Shale Oil, The Guardian, United States.
Tagged: BP · Gulf of Mexico · Litigation · Oil · Peter Voser · Royal Dutch Shell Plc

← Shell mulled BP takeover in past 2 years: report

The TRUTH will set you FREE.

Others Should Follow Waitrose’s Lead – Put Shell on Ice!

Dec 14th, 2012

by John Donovan.

In a double blow to Shell, Waitrose have also declared their support for Greenpeace’s ‘Save the Arctic’ campaign – to create a global sanctuary in the high Arctic.

Posted: 13/12/2012 11:41

This was meant to be a blog about Waitrose’s relationship with fossil fuel giant Shell (Waitrose had been considering plans to open up shops in Shell petrol stations across the country), calling on Waitrose to end their partnership with the mass polluter.

But Waitrose must be mind-readers because on Wednesday they did just that. Well they didn’t quite go that far, but they did say they have put any further plans on hold, or as environmental group Greenpeace preferred to call it, on ice.

In a double blow to Shell, Waitrose have also declared their support for Greenpeace’s ‘Save the Arctic’ campaign – to create a global sanctuary in the high Arctic. This follows two weeks of intense pressure by Greenpeace and this weekend London’s local Greenpeace groups were set to hold massive protests on Waitrose stores across the capital – instead the focus will now be switched directly towards Shell. But despite the Waitrose success, the challenge ahead of us is massive; Shell are still planning to drill in the Arctic which could have massive consequences for climate change and biodiversity in the region. Other companies who are engaged in relationships with Shell should learn from Waitrose and dump Shell.

Waitrose should be praised for the decision they have taken today, but what on earth were they thinking? From destroying local African fishing communities to their plans for Arctic drilling, there seems no limit to the length that Shell will go to to extract more and more of that fossil fuel we all must vein ourselves off to avoid dangerous and catastrophic climate change. In their quest to get their hands on that fossil fuel, they do so leaving large footprints of destruction behind them.

Therefore it’s quite worrying that a company of Waitrose’s calibre, who have spent years building up their ethical credentials, could even consider a partnership with Shell. Some of the Waitrose customers that boycotted them upon finding out about their relationship with Shell will return in the wake of yesterday’s news, but some will also undoubtedly question if they still trust the Supermarket retailer. There is no doubt that Waitrose’s brief stint with Shell will be expensive and something they can’t repair overnight.

This also highlights the deeper issue of the power and dominance of the fossil fuel industry. Oil and gas companies are desperate to line-up relationships that could make them look like companies that care about the environment. Companies who have become a victim of this behaviour should look at what happened with Waitrose in horror and be weary of entering a partnership with fossil fuel companies and if they’re in one they should look to get out while they still can – it will not be a relationship with a happy ending.

Follow Anders Lorenzen on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Alorenzen

SOURCE

Posted in: Alaska, Arctic, Business Principles, Environment, Greenpeace, Oil, Oil Spill,Pollution, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, United States.
Tagged: Alaska · Arctic Ocean · Chukchi Sea · HuffingtonPost.com · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Waitrose

← Will Shell Oil’s Arctic ‘beer can’ hold up better in second-chance containment trial?

Shell considered buying BP: paper →

The TRUTH will set you FREE.

Golan Concert December 12, 2012

The TRUTH will set you FREE.

More Than a Picture!

From: Alfred Clayton

Date: Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 5:31 AM

 The line that hooked me was "wherever there is a human being there is kindness".

   

More Than a Picture Need to go to end and

be slow at the end. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Prayer request ACLU has filed a suit to end prayer from the military completely. They're making great progress. The Navy Chaplains can no longer mention Jesus' name in prayer thanks to the ACLU and others. I'm not breaking this one. If I get it a 1000 times, I'll forward it a 1000 times! Let us pray... Prayer chain for

our Military...

Don't break it! Pray for our soldiers,

Don't break it! Please send this on

after a short prayer . 'Lord hold our troops

in your loving hands

Protect them as they protect us

Bless them & their families for the selfless acts they perform for us in our time of need. In Jesus name, .' Prayer Request:

When you receive this,

please stop for a moment

and say a prayer for

our troops around the world. There is nothing attached.

Just send this to people

in your address book.

Do not let it stop with you. Of all the gifts you could give a Marine, Soldier, Sailor, Airman, & others deployed in harm's way, prayer is the very best one. GOD BLESS YOU FOR PASSING IT ON!