Say Anything Blog

Oh, come on! If you want to people to be upset about waterboarding, don’t demonstrate it on lawyers.

HEH. If I had witnessed the three lawyers participating in the demonstration I’m sure I would have become a staunch proponent of the task.

By John Porretto, AP Business Writer
HOUSTON — ExxonMobil (XOM) reported second-quarter earnings of $11.68 billion Thursday, the biggest profit from operations ever by any U.S. corporation, but the results were well short of Wall Street expectations and its shares fell.

The world’s largest publicly traded oil company said net income for the April-June period came to $2.22 a share, up from $10.26 billion, or $1.83 a share, a year ago.

$11.68 billion, that’s a mighty big number. So is 300 million, which happens to be the currently accepted number representing the population of the United States.

Breaking that down with elementary math yields a per person contribution of roughly $38.93 for the quarter, or roughly $12.98 per month, or roughly $3.00 per week, or finally roughly $.43 per day. Not very much in the grand scheme of things.

Of course some will argue, correctly, that part of the population , children for example, don’t purchase Exxon products, so let’s take a look at this from the perspective that the average household consists of a family of 4. Simply take the numbers above and multiply by 4. $12 per week, or $1.71 per day.

That’s not very much considering most of us piss more than $12 away each week on things we could easily do without.

I was checking out Rightwingsparkle....alright, that’s enough, I wasn’t “checking her out”, now stop it… she has an interesting post up, as usual. It starts of as follows.

Once I was speaking with a black friend of mine who had been interviewed to be a manager at a company that day. I asked him about it. He said, “I am the manager.” I said, “Oh, you already heard from them?” He said,” No, but I am speaking it into being.”

After *cough/laughing* about this and saying, “Say what?”, I found that this was a belief practiced at his Church and it was a common way of thinking and believing in the black church in general. The idea is to speak to what you want in your life and make it real, make it happen. Speak it into being.

It occurred to me today that that is perhaps exactly what Obama is doing. From his “presidential seal” to his trip to the Middle East it seems Obama is telling us that he is already President. He is speaking it.

Does that seem far from the truth?
Read the rest of it here

I know you’ve been waiting for this with baited breath, so here are the winners of Saturdays caption contest.

First place: Realitybasedbob: An early applicant for the Spartacus avatar shows his stuff.

Second place: Woof: Uh Oh.
Another pissing contest.

Third place: Hairy Polemic: Scarface, Esq.: “Say hello to my little friend…”

Honorable mention goes to Move_Zig for providing a much less disgusting picture.

Thanks to all who participated and to Rob for tolerating the useless waste of bandwidth.

Agree, disagree, cat fight like spouses amongst ourselves, one thing I’m sure we can all agree upon is that on July 4 we’re all g*d d*mned independent, so happy Mutha-F***in’ Independence Day, anus’s!

Happy 4th all, and make sure to keep it a safe one! See ya’ll on the 5th, hopefully we all still have the 12 fingers we were blessed with when we were born. ...What? 10 fingers is normal???? No Sh*t!???

By Christi Myers

SAN ANTONIO, TX (KTRK)—There’s some medical science fiction going on in San Antonio. It’s all about limb regeneration and ‘pixie dust.’ And a young Texas soldier is the first to regrow a finger.

I work for the company that makes the product, our R&D professionals are second to none. Amazing stuff with a promising future. Follow the link for the full story and video.

This seemed to be pretty popular last week, so let’s try it again. Use this thread to discuss what’s on your mind that hasn’t fit elsewhere this week. Or use it to flame someone you disagree with…. That seemed to be really popular last week.

So grab a cold one, or burn a fatty and go to town.

Well, don’t actually “go” to town after having a couple of cold ones or burning a fatty, I meant that figuratively.

I would like to take a moment to thank those who are currently serving, as well as those who have in the past served our country.

On this day, dedicated Memorial Day, we remember those we’ve lost. Don’t forget to thank those who have served and those serving when ever you run into them. Your freedom has and does depend upon them, and their willing to give their all for YOU.

Myself, I humbly thank you.

Wringing your hands worried about the world opinion of the U.S.? Get a load of this.

There is a certain familiarity to the concomitant series of actions and reactions when disaster strikes in the world. The US stands ready, willing and able to offer assistance. It is often the first country to send in millions of dollars, navy strike groups loaded with food and medical supplies, and transport planes, helicopters and floating hospitals to help those devastated by natural disaster.

Then, just as swift and with equal predictability, those wedded to the Great Satan view of the US begin to carp, drawing on a potent mixture of cynicism and conspiracy theories to criticise the last remaining superpower. When the US keeps doing so much of the heavy lifting to alleviate suffering, you’d figure that the anti-Americans might eventually revise their view of the US. But they never do. And coming under constant attack even when helping others, you’d figure that Americans would eventually draw the curtains on world crises. But they haven’t. At least not yet.

So it was last week. The US stood ready to help the cyclone-ravaged Burmese people. It did not matter that Burma’s ruling junta was no friend of the Americans. With more than 100,000 people feared dead and many more hundreds of thousands left destitute, US Air Force cargo planes loaded with supplies and personnel started arriving in nearby Thailand to begin humanitarian operations in Burma.

A US Navy strike group in the Gulf of Thailand sent helicopters ashore, ready to arrive in Burma within hours. Alas, Burma’s military leaders left their people to die for 10 days before finally accepting help from the evil empire. Even if the Yanks are allowed to boost their assistance to Burma, they can expect a groundswell of criticism.

Back in 2004, the Americans - along with the Australians - arrived within hours to help the hundreds of thousands of people left devastated by the Boxing Day tsunami in Asia. A US carrier group steamed towards Indonesia’s Aceh province. A second US Marine Corps strike force made its way to Sri Lanka with water, food and medical supplies.

The Pentagon spent millions of dollars sending C-130 transport planes from Dubai to Indonesia with tents, blankets, food and water. A navy chief in charge of co-ordination efforts said the US would deliver “as much help as soon as we can, as long as we’re needed”.

The resentment that comes from needing the military and economic might of the US translated into the most absurd criticism. Jan Egeland, the former UN boss of humanitarian affairs, cavilled about the stinginess of certain Western nations. His eye was on the US. Former British minister Claire Short was equally miffed, describing the initiative by the US and other countries as “yet another attempt to undermine the UN”, which was, according to her, the “only body that has the moral authority” to help.

I love moral authority as much as the next guy, but the UN’s moral authority is a mighty hard sell given that the UN club includes the most odious regimes in the world, such as Burma. And notice how the UN’s moral authority did not quickly translate into helicopters laden with food and water?

read the entire article

Fans of Wuzzadem will notice the last posts that Mrs.R put up chastising those of us that aren’t happy with McCain are now AWOL, and comments are disabled. So much for their experiment with freedom of speech, once “liberal”, always “liberal”. John, is that a squirrel in your pocket or is that Mrs. Rs hand leading you around by your horn?

COTTONWOOD, MINN.—The van driver involved in the school bus crash in southwestern Minnesota that killed four students was charged today, and federal authorities say she is using an alias and in the United States illegally.

Lakeview School, where the students attended, will be closed Monday for the funerals of brothers Jesse Javens, 13, and Hunter Javens, 9, both of Cottonwood. Also killed were Reed Stevens, 12, of Marshall; and Emilee Olson, 9, of Cottonwood.

There were 28 students on the bus. In addition to Hancock, eight children remained hospitalized Thursday in Sioux Falls, S.D., Marshall and Rochester.