Friday, July 28, 2006

Tired of Being Gas Raped

Well, Exxon's 2nd quarter earnings are in:

$10.36 BILLION

This is the second-highest earnings report ever in a quarter for a U.S. publicly-traded company.

The highest ever earnings report just so happens to belong to this same crooked company whose fourth quarter earnings in 2005 totaled:

$10.71 BILLION

With oil prices on the rise, Exxon's revenue increased 12% to:

$99.03 BILLION

Average Americans (me) continue to be crippled by rising gas prices and God forbid you are a small business owner who depends on motor vehicles such as landscapers or any kind of delivery service. These people, rightfully so, have to pass this cost on to consumers (me) so we are being screwed double by oil company greed.

In the Daily Times Solomon Leach writes:

John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil industry, contended the earnings are not out of line with other industries.

"If you look at the profit rate on a dollar, it's about 9 cents right now," he said. "That's only slightly above the average on manufacturing industries."

This argument doesn't hold water. It's like comparing apples to oranges. The price for a gallon of milk and a gallon of gas might be similar, but the average consumer doesn't buy 10-20 gallons of milk at a time. And "slightly above average" is still ABOVE AVERAGE.

I know this has all been said before, but it just makes me furious every time I read about it. My a-hole is sore.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

How do you like THAT??



I'm glad Zidane did this even before I found out what was really said to provoke this sweet headbutt.

If this never happened the World Cup final wouldn't have received half of the news coverage it did in the U.S. Aside from the obvious sports outlets like ESPN, there were whole segments devoted to this brilliant display of manhood on CNN, MSNBC, local news channels, and other programs that otherwise would have said two sentences about the World Cup and moved on to other boring news.

Zidane and his Golden Head might be the most effective tool to promote soccer in the states since Pele.

Long live ZZ.

(my picture is okay, but check out matt p's)