William K. Wolfrum Chronicles

First of all, I recognize Michael Savage is an entertainer who has taken advantage of, and added to the hatred of Muslims, women, minorities, etc., in the U.S. He has the soul of a pornographer or war profiteer, so he could care less what he says as long as he gets paid for it.

He’s free to spout whatever he likes, but why do sponsors like Office Depot and Geico Insurance sponsor his ridiculous hate speech? The folks at Brave New Films are asking the same question:

These sponsors have already dropped Savage: Intuit (TurboTax), Chattem (Gold Bond, Icy-Hot, Garlique), ITT Technical Institute -and Union Bank of California.

But some big sponsors remain. Why? Ask them yourselves if you like:

Geico Insurance (800) 861-8380
Wyeth Consumer Healthcare (Makers of Advil, Robitussin, Centrum) (800) 322-3129
Office Depot (800) 463-3768

–WKW

For the many, if any, who would like to comment to any of my posts, the comment feature should be up and running soon. The error is one that seems common with WordPress.

Aside from that, I hope you’re all doing wonderful today.

Bill

Let’s stop with all this “whiff of panic” talk, shall we? Sure, the stock market is having trouble and the dollar ain’t what it used to be. But Exxon is doing fantastic!

“Exxon guns for profit record”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, is within striking distance of setting an all-time profit record - again.

Analysts are expecting the company to post solid quarterly and full-year earnings next Friday (see correction below) - and if the results top forecasts, Exxon (XOM, Fortune 500) could end up reporting the highest profit ever for a U.S. company.

With oil prices having recently crossed the $100 a barrel threshold, it comes as no surprise that Exxon is a whisker away from setting a new milestone.

“Exxon is likely to have record quarterly earnings,” said Fadel Gheit, a senior energy analyst at Oppenheimer. “For every $1 [increase] in the price of oil, Exxon makes [another] $125 million for the quarter.”

When asked if Exxon could top profit records, another analyst said: “That’s not out of the realm of possibility.”

The company is expected to earn $10.37 billion in the fourth quarter, according to earnings tracker Thomson Financial. That’s about $330 million shy of Exxon’s previous quarterly profit record of $10.7 billion set in the fourth quarter of 2005 - which also was a record for any U.S. corporation.

In winner-take-all capitalism, it’s pretty obvious who the winners are, isn’t it?

–WKW

MIAMI — After stumbling through a 1-15 season in 2007, the Miami Dolphins have announced that they will play in, and win Super Bowl XLII on Feb. 3 in Phoenix, Ariz.

The stunning announcement came after Dolphins officials emerged from a two-hour meeting with GOP Presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani. The former mayor of New York has been campaigning almost exclusively in Florida, and Miami officials credit him for creating the plan that will make them Super Bowl champions.

“Wow, what Rudy said really made sense,” said the Dolphins’ new vice president of football operations, Bill Parcells. “He truly has a plan, and that plan doesn’t necessitate any success whatsoever in order to win the big one.”

Giuliani, a one-time favorite for the Republican nomination for the 2008 presidential election, has stumbled badly in the state primaries, though has insisted all along that his plan for victory is intact.

“It’s playing out the way we thought it would,” Giuliani said after polls showed that his one-time 33-point lead in his home state of New York is now a 12-point deficit.

Giuliani, who has based most of his campaign on Sept. 11 and terrorism issues, has received almost no support in recent primaries in Nevada, South Carolina and New Hampshire. And despite polls saying he is falling behind in Florida, Giuliani officials say the former mayor has his competition right where he wants them.

“This plan is brilliant in its simplicity and the competition is falling right into Rudy’s trap,” said Giuliani spokesman Sean Hannity. “Just because no one’s voting for you, doesn’t mean you can’t win spectacularly. Think about it.”

In a meeting with the Dolphins - who since the end of the 2007 regular season have replaced nearly their entire staff and brought in Parcells and new head coach Tony Sparano - Giuliani laid out his “secret plans” for how to win big without winning anything prior.

“It was a very productive meeting,” said Sparano. “Now that we see things through Giuliani’s eyes, we know we’re a shoe-in to win the upcoming Super Bowl.”

No mention was made on how exactly the Dolphins would win the Super Bowl, which is scheduled to pit the undefeated New England Patriots from the AFC and the underdog New York Giants from the NFC. Sources in the NFL have said that anyone with any affiliation to the Dolphins won’t even be allowed in the stadium on Super Bowl Sunday, partly as punishment for having such a miserable regular season.

“I’m not quite sure what the hell is going on in Miami,” said an NFL spokesperson. “Is there some sort of super-flu down there? Seriously, what’s up?”

Nonetheless, the Giuliani camp has remained firmly behind the Dolphins, and are saying that their fool-proof plan will most definitely lead to the third Super Bowl victory for the storied franchise.

“A lot of people may be confused that Rudy isn’t automatically backing the Giants, but he doesn’t roll that way,” said Hannity. “He’s a Jets’ fan and is a supporter of the AFC and the AFC only. He only wants the best for that conference and the country, and despite what the public feels, a Dolphins’ victory will be for the best.

“It’s all part of the big picture, and it’s all coming together,” added Hannity. “You’ll definitely be seeing Rudy elected President of the United States, just as you’ll be seeing the Miami Dolphins crowned Super Bowl Champions.”

–WKW

Things are coming together for Iraq now. Because as Conservatives crow about the spectacular success of the “surge” (read: Escalation), the Iraqi Parliment has now shown it’s not completely incompetent. They’ve made changes to the Iraqi flag. Again. But it will likely change again.

“Iraq Parliament Purges Hussein Vestiges on Flag”

BAGHDAD —Iraqi lawmakers adopted a modified version of the national flag on Tuesday, removing three stars that symbolized the Baathist ideals of unity, freedom, and socialism, and Saddam Hussein’s handwritten calligraphy of the Koranic incantation “Allah u Akbar.” …

Several lawmakers said that because the flag had been changed out of Kurdish expediency, they expected it to be changed again.

The flag is the second design to be introduced in Iraq since the American-led invasion in 2003. In 2004, the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council announced a white, blue and yellow flag with a prominent Islamic crescent. That design was scrapped after Iraqis criticized it for being too radical a change from the original, and too similar to the blue and white flag of Israel.

Billions and billions of dollars gone, hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced, and now the fruits of the labor are coming together. Iraq now has a flag that they’ll vote to change again in the near future.

But, at least the surge has worked. We know that because according to Fareed Zakaria, the war is over:

The Democrats are having the hardest time with the new reality. Every candidate is committed to “ending the war” and bringing our troops back home. The trouble is, the war has largely ended, and precisely because our troops are in the middle of it.

So nothing to see here.

In Diyala Province, north of Baghdad, Iraqi police officers said they had found the bodies of a family, a father, his three sons and three nephews. They had been shot to death and discovered in Buhruz, the police said. In Baquba, the provincial capital, a water boiler packed with explosives detonated near a high school and a checkpoint for an American-allied tribal security force, killing three people, and wounded 12 students, the Iraqi police said, and, separately, a gunman killed a civilian near a medical clinic.

The bodies of two more Iraqis, a woman and a policeman, were discovered about 30 miles outside Hilla in the south, the Iraqi police said.

And in Basra, gunmen killed an Iraqi policeman, witnesses said.

“US military sees first Iraq fatality in new armoured vehicle”

BAGHDAD (AFP) — A new-style anti-mine armoured vehicle the US military is hoping will reduce casualties from roadside bombs in Iraq has proven vulnerable, with a first soldier killed in an attack at the weekend.

“An American soldier was killed in an improvised explosive device attack on a MRAP vehicle in Arab Jabour” on the southern outskirts of Baghdad on Saturday, US military spokesman Major Winfield Danielson said on Tuesday.

“This was the first fatality involving an IED (roadside bomb) attack on a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) anywhere,” he added.

“There were three other soldiers who sustained non life-threatening injuries as a result of the attack,” Danielson said.

“Suicide Attack at Funeral In Northern Iraq Kills 17″

BAGHDAD, Jan. 21 — A suicide bomber infiltrated a funeral Monday evening and blew himself up among the mourners, killing 17 people in the latest attack in a volatile region of northern Iraq.

But they have a flag. For now. It makes staying there forever all the more worth it.

–WKW

In case you were wondering how George W. Bush was doing in his effort to make Revelations into a reality show, the answer is - pretty good.

The Rapture Index has hit 165, its highest level in years.

So have that extra piece of cake. Christ is coming. And if it’s the Christ that Bush and Huckabee believe in, no one will make it out of this alive.

–WKW

Alleged dirty bomber, terrorist, American citizen Jose Padilla has received a sentence of 17 years.

“Convicted terrorism supporter gets 17-year sentence”

MIAMI, Florida (AP) — Jose Padilla, once accused of plotting with al Qaeda to blow up a radioactive “dirty bomb,” was sentenced Tuesday to 17 years and four months on terrorism conspiracy charges that don’t mention those initial allegations.

The sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke marks another step in the extraordinary personal and legal odyssey for the 37-year-old Muslim convert, a U.S. citizen who was held for 3½ years as an enemy combatant after his 2002 arrest amid the “dirty bomb” allegations. He had faced up to life in prison.

Cooke also imposed prison terms on two other men of Middle Eastern origin who were convicted of conspiracy and material support charges along with Padilla in August. The three were part of a North American support cell for al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists around the world, prosecutors said.

Padilla was added in 2005 to an existing Miami terrorism support case just as the U.S. Supreme Court was considering his challenge to President Bush’s decision to hold him in custody indefinitely without charge. The “dirty bomb” charges were quietly discarded and were never part of the criminal case.

After prosecutors used the cunning strategy of repeatedly calling Padilla a terrorist while repeating “9/11″ and “Al Qaeda” like a mantra to produce a conviction, Padilla is off to jail, where one can assume that a threat of solitary confinement won’t affect him in the least. In fact, it’s possible that no stimulus whatsoever affects Padilla after being tortured while being detained by George W. Bush.

The prosecution was helped a great deal by the fact that they apparently lost videos of Padilla’s interrogation (read: torture) at the hands of U.S. officials during the three-plus years he was held.

Did Padilla receive a fair trial following his “extraordinary personal and legal odyssey?” Not so much. As Glenn Greenwald wrote:

Worse still, the notion that Padilla received a “fair trial” is dubious, to put it mildly, and will undoubtedly be vigorously contested on appeal. Last year, the New York Times obtained a copy of a video from Padilla’s imprisonment which showed techniques that can only be described as torture — systematic sensory deprivation and gratuitous humiliations which clearly broke Padilla as a human being in every sense that matters, all before he had been charged, let alone convicted, of anything. Whether a person subjected to a torture regimen of that severity can possibly receive a “fair trial,” in light of his obvious inability to participate meaningfully in his own defense, looms darkly over this entire proceeding.

As the N.Y. Times wrote almost a year ago:

We will probably never know if Mr. Padilla was a would-be terrorist. So far, this trial has been a reminder of how Mr. Bush’s policy on prisoners has compromised the judicial process. And it has confirmed the world’s suspicions of the United States’ stooping to the very behavior it once stood against.

Good bye, Jose Padilla. We hardly knew ye. Or whether you were a terrorist. But we know you were tortured.

–WKW

Ok, that headline may come off as misleading. Actually, Conservative economic policies and the Bush Administration have been the ones that have lead the U.S. economy to the point where the world is starting to engage in widespread panic.

But, six of one, half-a-dozen of the other.

But the evidence is overwhelming. Fox Business Network came on the air on Oct. 15, 2007. According to Barry Ritholtz: “On the last trading day before FBC debuted, the Dow closed at 14,093.”

On that Friday, Oct. 19, 2007: The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 366.94 points, or 2.64%, to 13,522.02. The S&P 500 was off 39.45 points, or 2.56%, at 1500.63, and the Nasdaq Composite plunged 74.15 points, or 2.65%, to 2725.16.

At this moment, the Dow is at 12,099.30.

Yes, in just four months since FBN came on the air, the Dow Jones has lost 2,000 points. And pretty much every other economic factor you can find has plunged, as well. As for the world’s economy since then? Well, check any business or news Web site.

In 2007, Rupert Murdoch said CNBC is too “negative towards business” and that Fox Business would be more “business friendly.”

Yeah, that seems to be working.

So while stock market and economic experts spend the day desperately trying to figure out the whats and whys of the current U.S. and world economic downturn, I figure my analysis is just as worthy as theirs.

So I blame Fox and Rupert Murdoch. And by extension, the people they are fronting.

–WKW

Fred Hiatt, who apparently has been writing and editing while in a fugue these past seven years, comes up with this pithy line in the Washington Post:

“The rigidity of the administration’s ideology became clear last week with the culmination of a two-year study of the nation’s transportation woes.”

Yeah Fred, up until last week, no one had any clue that the Bush and friends were rigid ideologues. This transportation issue has really opened up the world’s eyes. Jane Hamsher seems to have it right - Hiatt doesn’t apparently even read the pages he’s in charge of editing.

Click here to read the rest of Hiatt’s shock that the Bush Administration believes that U.S. roads should be privatized.

–WKW

Chuck Norris, star of stage and screed, has said the main reason he decided to have he and his beard support Mike Huckabee for the GOP Presidential nomination was out of fear that John McCain would die in office if elected.

“If John (McCain) takes over the presidency at 72 and he ages 3-to-1, how old will he be in four years? Eighty-four years old — and can he handle that kind of pressure in that job?” Norris said. “That’s why I didn’t pick John to support, because I’m just afraid the vice president will wind up taking over his job within that four-year presidency.”

The pronouncement comes as a shock to many, as most believed that Norris supports Huckabee due to the fact that both are religious fanatics. Norris, 67, is known for his karate career, his starring role on “Walker, Texas Ranger,” and the “Chuck Norris Facts” that swept over the Internet.

Currently, he is known for his support of the Huckabee campaign and for the fact that he is completely unaware of the fact that he’s a complete laughingstock.

–WKW