A Trapdoor In The Sun

Exxon Mobil sets record profit in Q4. Let's hear it for unfettered capitalism! Exxon Mobil Corp. set U.S. records for annual and quarterly profits Monday as it easily topped fourth-quarter earnings forecasts. The nation's largest oil company reported net income in the fourth quarter of $10.7 billion, or $1.71 a share, compared to $8.4 billion, or $1.30 a share, a year earlier. Excluding items, Exxon Mobil ( Research ) earned $10.3 billion, or $1.65 per share, topping a consensus forecast of $1.44 a share from analysts surveyed by earnings tracker First Call. It also topped the record for quarterly profits it set in the third quarter, when it earned $9.9 billion. Shares of Exxon Mobil gained 2 percent in early-afternoon trading, helping to take the Dow into positive territory. For the year the company earned net income of $36.1 billion, or $33.9 billion excluding special items. That's up 31 percent from the $25.9 billion it earned on that basis year earlier. Exxon Mobil...

Bush's press conference, yesterday. Photo courteously stolen from Yahoo! " Did I leave the toaster on? Hmmm....toast. I lahk toast!" "Note to self. Remind staffers to get this damn wire fixed. I can barely hear the lines Rove is feeding me." "Damn... I thought I told that intern to plant the remote camera so it would take out Helen Thomas, but she's still there!" "I'll answer your question about my impeachable activities as soon as a pop this massive zit on my cheek. Stand back!" "Where's McClellan? Isn't he supposed to be the one out here capitulating the propaganda?" And the winner is... "Maybe Laura will let me wear the spurs next time. Man that smarts..." - Rambler Joe Snitty Runners up... "It's hard not to pick. That is to say, it's hard work. By that I mean, it's hard, hard work not to pick." - Rex Kramer, Danger Seeker "Thirty-five months and seven days...how many hours do...

Ever since Hillary Clinton's overreaching Universal Health Care project fell flat in the 90's, we constantly hear Republicans tying the very idea of government sponsored healthcare to Communism and Socialism. Privatization supposedly offers more choices and provides a lower overall cost to the consumer. In theory, they are somewhat correct. In practice, however, that is not the case. The healthcare industry is rapidly consolidating. There are maybe five major players nationally at this point, and as with what is happening to many American industries, you can pretty much make a safe bet that in the next few years, there will be even less choices. Much of this is due to deregulatory legislation that has been very healthy for corporate America over the last few years. I think this is one of the major drawbacks of an unfettered Capitalistic economy. When there are no stops in place, the Corporation is allowed to grow and absorb all that it can, thus eliminating competition and incr...

From Time.com [snip]As details poured out about the illegal and unseemly activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought to portray the scandal as a Capitol Hill affair with little relevance to them. Peppered for days with questions about Abramoff's visits to the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him," McClellan said. The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And th...

One of my recent blogs is the featured piece over at Bring It On!.. sort of a blogging/diary collective. Funny, though Bring It On! is probably more of a liberal site than conservative, I actually found it while browsing through some conservative blogs. It's an interesting idea though, and I'd love to see more partisan views pop up there.

So I did a little bit of ego surfing the other day.... and found that there is quite a few weblogs/sites out there that are plagerizing my sitename in one form or another. How dare they!? Don't they realize, that even though WMD has only been around a year (one year last week actually), that I thought up this little play on words years ago, and had only recently decided that this was the right time politically to abuse it? Mass Distraction - Actually, the index/intro page is really sweet. And this person has a laundry list of progressive sites in her blogroll. Mass-Distraction - Interesting. Some sorta British artie film projecty thingymajig. Weapon of Mass Distraction - Weblog of Christian Conservative Author Derik Gilbert Weapons of Mass Distraction - Wow. There's a made for TV movie by this title? Who would have thought of such a cunning play on words during the Clinton era? Weapons of Mass DistrAction Project - Some sort of pinko-commie media watchdog activist site. We...

I ran into this article while skimming the Project for the Old American Century website. It's a little dated but the points remain relevant. George W. Bush and the 14 Points of Facism

$2000 toilet seat stolen. Police have nothing to go on. Thief Makes Off With $2,000 Toilet Seat Gadget Supposedly Provided Heat POSTED: 4:41 pm PST January 19, 2006 UPDATED: 6:25 am PST January 20, 2006 SAN DIEGO -- San Diego police are searching for a valuable, high-tech toilet seat taken from an unlocked storage closet. Hamid Shoushtari bought the toilet seat on the Internet. He said the missing seat -- worth an estimated $2,000 -- is heated. He had planned to see whether he could market the seat in California when it was stolen. "We may not use it in California, but in colder places like Chicago or New York, in the morning you can program it and it will heat up your toilet seat for about 15 minutes or whatever time you want," Shoushtari said. "You sit on it, you can adjust the water temperature if you want to make it warmer or colder." Shoushtari said he did have concerns about how the toilet seat would work because it combined electricity and water, a potentiall...

Rod "Man o God" Parsley, Christian Comedian Brad Stine, Ann "The Man" Coulter, and Alan "Uncle Tom" Keyes "Wonderhate powers, ACTIVATE!" "Is this the line to join the Rev. Phelpes weekly funeral protest?" "One of these things is not like the others... one of these things..wait, I'm wrong. They ARE all men!" "Rod Parsley secretly wonders if associating with the KKK will affect his tax exempt status." Coulter to Keyes "You know, I was just kidding about those plantation remarks. Besides, Hillary said the same thing so that makes it okay." "So Alan, have you convinced your daughter to come play ball for the home team yet?" "Alan, I don't care what Mayor Nagin said about mixing vanilla and chocolate. Get your hand off my ass!" Add yours in the comments and I'll pick a winner out of the bunch! And the winner is... "The Four Horsemen of the Ishitmylips." - Neil Shakespe...

Two megachurches accused of shilling for Republican hopefull [snip]At the center of the complaints are the churches' leaders, the Revs. Rod Parsley of the World Harvest Church and Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church. Both are credited with helping turn out Ohio voters in 2004 for President Bush and Issue 1, the ban on gay marriage. Parsley recently created Reformation Ohio, which technically was incorporated as a church. Parsley said at a rally for the organization in October that its mission includes converting Ohioans to Christianity, registering "values voters" and guiding the state through "a culture-shaking revolutionary revival." Johnson is one of the leaders of the Ohio Restoration Project, which was created to help organize an army of "Patriot Pastors" and increase participation in this year's elections. [/snip] Meanwhile, if your Church preaches peace, the IRS already has you targeted.

Further proof that Bush can't have his yellowcake and eat it too. From the "Closing the Barn Door After All of the Horses Got Out Department" : Republicans propose ethics reform . Meanwhile, they've been fighting ethics reform for the last 9 years or so. Bill O'Reilly rolls up sleeves and chides viewers to "Bring it on!". Blogenfruede, man you Outlook! Majority of Americans feel that wiretapping a bit more impeachable than Clinton's ass tapping .

CNN reportedly hires Republican Love-Monkey Glenn Beck for prime-time slot. -Media Matters For those of you unfamiliar with radio talk show pundant Glenn Beck, he's responsible for allowing his mouth to expunge a few of these juicy comments: On families of the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks : "[T]his is horrible to say, and I wonder if I'm alone in this -- you know, it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families? Took me about a year." On Hurricane Katrina survivors who remained in New Orleans : "And that's all we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones that we're seeing on television are the scumbags -- and again, it's not all the people in New Orleans. Most of the people in New Orleans got out! It's just a small percentage of those who were left in New Orleans, or who decided to stay in New Orleans, and they're getting all the attention." Discussing disc...

Westerville kicks 131 years of sobriety to the curb. Otterbein students rejoice. Folks toast lifting of alcohol ban after 131 years WESTERVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- The central Ohio city of Westerville, once known as the "dry capital of the world," is dry no more. A pizza parlor on Thursday became the first establishment in Westerville's uptown business district to legally serve a beer since 1875. "Here's to a new tradition in Westerville," local jeweler Bill Morgan said as he raised his plastic cup of Budweiser at Michael's Pizza. Westerville's temperance history dates back 131 years, when the town's saloon was blown up during what's known as the "Whiskey Wars." The Anti-Saloon League moved its headquarters to Westerville in 1909, and the city became known as the "dry capital of the world." Business and city leaders pushed for the serving of alcohol in uptown establishments as a way to compete with restaurants and bars at two ne...

I saw this story on CNN last night. I think someone may have watched A Clockwork Orange one too many times. Seriously, how does one sink so low in depravity that they get their jollies out of beating the homeless with baseball bats? Maybe the Feds should visit some local video stores to see who's been checking out Kubrick's film. They can do that under the Patriot Act, right? Homeless men attacked, 1 dead 1 of 3 beatings caught on Florida school's security video FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (AP) -- Assailants armed with baseball bats or sticks beat three homeless men in separate attacks Thursday, killing one of the victims, police said. One of the attacks was caught on a university surveillance video. Police said the attacks may be related but they aren't yet sure. Two to four young white males were involved, police said. Officials released the surveillance video from Florida Atlantic University. It shows two men beating one of the victims with what appear to be bats. No...

Ohio court hears first case since ruling on homeowner rights COLUMBUS, Ohio Ohio's Supreme Court today is hearing the first property-rights case to reach a state high court since last year's U-S Supreme Court ruling that governments can seize homes for private development.Joy and Carl Gamble are fighting to save their home from city officials and a developer who want to tear it down to build offices and shops. Joy Gamble says, "What's ours is ours." In Ohio, a new law bans local government seizure of unblighted private property for private development. But in this case, the Cincinnati suburb of Norwood wants to take what it considers a "deteriorating" neighborhood for a 125 (m) million-dollar development. A legal expert says the case is important because if blight is "vaguely defined," then it would be "open season for condemnations."

This week's Award goes to the much well deserved bastion of hate known as the Free Republic . Home of the Freeper Terrorist Network . FR ranks right up there with smog as the worse byproduct of Fresno, CA. They could also use a decent web page designer.

If you didn't see this video compilation over at Crooks and Liars yet, check it out!

Steve Jobs makes good on his promise to shove Intel chips into upcoming Mac computers. [snip] SAN FRANCISCO (CNNMoney.com) - Apple CEO Steve Jobs Tuesday unveiled the first Apple computers ever to use an Intel processor and announced that by the end of the year, Apple's entire computer line will contain Intel chips .[/snip] As a Mac purist, this really bothers me. Maybe, performance wise, the Intel chip will be faster than the Motorola G5's Apple uses now... but it opens up a slippery slope where someday, *gasp*, we will see Macs rolling out of the plants with Windows preinstalled as the Operating System. After all, the biggest reason you can't install Windows on a Mac now, (other than running the OS in a slow and awkward virtual shell) is because Windows is incompatible with the Motorola chipset. [snip]Apple initially will offer two Intel-based iMac models: one with a 17-inch monitor for $1,299 and one with a 20-inch monitor and a faster processor for $1,699. In February,...