money

Royal Dutch Shell and BP have racked up combined profits of more than £7bn over the last three months, thanks to the soaring price of oil and gas.

The rival energy giants both announced record profits for the first quarter of the year. Shell recorded net earnings of $7.776bn (£3.9bn) this morning, a 12% increase on a year ago. This comfortably beat analyst expectations.

BP swelled its profits for the quarter by almost 50%, as it started to recover from the severe problems at its US refineries. It posted a profit of $6.588bn for the quarter, prompting calls from prime minister Gordon Brown for the profits to be reinvested in recovering more oil from the North Sea.

Speaking on GMTV, Brown said: “We do need the oil coming out of the North Sea, we do need to encourage the new exploration.

“That is more expensive to do. That is why I hope that these profits are going to be invested in getting more oil out of the North Sea.”

More from that article here.

The ‘American dream’ of unashamed wealth and the opportunity for all to acquire it has reached a crisis point before: in the Depression, the oil shock, in the ‘greed is good’ Eighties and the madness of the dotcom bubble.

But America’s relationship with wealth – uncomfortable as it has sometimes been – has always been built on the same foundation. Even as charted in the salutary tales of Fitzgerald, Steinbeck or Wolfe over the decades, or in the endless fascination with Howard Hughes and the fictional Ewings of Dallas, the aspiring masses never quite lost their admiration for blatant enrichment, nor the elite their pride in it. Now, however, all that appears to be changing.

Confronted by the revelation that Wall Street’s biggest earners are pulling down figures that the chancelleries of many small countries would be happy to have banked, and in the midst of an election cycle that has focused on the impoverishment of ordinary Americans, a cultural backlash is under way. It is not only from those impoverished US householders, or from the usual suspects on the left, either. Even those who might normally be considered filthy rich are declaring themselves offended by the obscene levels of remuneration of the country’s uber-wealthy. The latest backlash – which has seen even the Republican nominee for President John McCain (married to an heiress) weigh in – has been prompted by the news last week that Wall Street’s biggest ever pay packet topped $3.7bn (almost £2bn) in 2007 for one hedge fund manager for a fortune he made from gambling on the collapse in the mortgage market that has caused millions to lose their homes.

Here.

About fucking time, and someone take the oil companies out for a mafia-esque ride please; its much needed.

Bottle.

Fergie’s bottled it.

That’s two games now (not counting the games where we’ve been poor in terms of form – Blackburn, Derby, Arsenal etc).

Against Barcelona, perhaps, Fergie taking a defensive approach could’ve been forgiven. No matter what state of affairs Barca is in, they have far too much attacking potential to be negated as a team. Had we gone their in a full blown attacking manner, we may very well have ended up conceded a couple. Ofcourse, we’d have scored atleast one too, giving us a very valuable away goal. But, like I said, its still understandable why he’d choose to be defensive at the Nou Camp.

Against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, a defensive approach is far less, if you’ll pardon me, defensible. 3 points ahead before the game, a win would’ve sealed the title; a draw or a loss would’ve done little. Chelsea are now on the same points as us, though we have a vastly superior goal difference (to the tune of 15), with two games to go.

United’s next two league fixtures: West Ham at home, Wigan away.

Chelsea’s next two league games: Newcastle away, Bolton at home.

The title is still in our hands; two victories for us and the only way Chelsea could snatch the title is if they win both their games 8 – 0 or more.

To the match itself:

Chelsea were probably the better team. They attacked more, and they atleast deserved a point. No doubt Chelsea fans will argue they deserved the win (perhaps, legitimately). They did win, ofcourse, 2-1, but the second goal was not a penalty, not in the least.

Ronaldo ought to have had a penalty too the moment he came on, he was pretty much manhandled by Ballack with Ballack not only having his back to the ball itself, but being completely all over Ronaldo and stopping him from making any steps towards the ball.

After being pretty much overrun by Chelsea in the first half, United came roaring out looking for an equalizer, and promptly got it, albeit thanks to Carvalho. What matters more though, or what was more evident, was that in those 10-15 minutes of attacking play, Chelsea were the team being overrun. We were keeping the ball far better and stringing some very good passages of play. After the penalty when we looked for an equalizer for the second time, Chelsea had to, TWICE, clear the ball of the line. In 5 minutes. That’s where we had them when we were attacking them. If only we’d either started to attack from the off, or Fergie had let the team keep on playing aggresively after we’d gotten the equalizer teh first time around, we may very well have taken the lead ourselves.

Instead, Fergie brought off Anderson (whom I thought looked fantastic, especially in the second half), and replaced him with John O’Shea, essentially setting up shop with more than 30 minutes to go. Everyone knew what was going to happen then. It didn’t matter that the linesman and the referee fucked up, Fergie offered a gold and silver laced invitation to Lady Luck to come fuck us over.

And that’s what happened.

Twice now, as I said earlier, Fergie has gone defensive when he didn’t really need to. Chelsea now have a tonne of confidence behind them, while we will be tempering with doubt. This is not how we should’ve been going into the game against Barca at home. I really, really hope that when we go all out against the Blaugrana, they don’t rape us because that will be the season well and truly over.

Capital. What?

Marx you fucking numpty. Why’d you have to end up writing and publishing Capital, thus screwing everyone over!

Now we have to deal with your largely inconsistent writings. In itself there are two schools of Marxist thought derived from YOUR writings. How flaky do you have to be?

If you were alive, you’d be having to stare at my middle finger, pointed largely in your general direction.

songs: ohia

still no guides
it’s not a generous world
it is a separate world
the bad luck taste of the dark
the broad luck of blood on the water
I can see it will be red, the choice if it is a choice
it’s too hard to tell
lightning standing drained and like us deeply risked it all
and like us, deeply risked it all

#87

Do you, really, by the end of it all know what’s going on?

As the hourglass is turned upside down in a Hitchcockian-sense of self-perpetuated fear, are you really aware of how your jaded knees and those bruised elbows came about to their current state of existence?

Every day, a little something inside us will die. It’s nothing new, i’m not charting new territory. You know this yourself. Do you mask it under a facade of Converse and Levis though, or are you completely oblivious to it just as your cellphone rings; no worry really, just another friend asking whether you’ll be attending the marriage.

It’s raining, and it really is rather bleak. Mid-April, and there’s a brisk, chilled air running around; running amok. The hills over the left look patently majestic. They’re green and they seem full of colour and life, burgeoning with rabbits and monkeys chasing each other around. Yeah, I suppose rabbits these days are pugnacious enough to chase those faeces throwing monkeys.

Molina’s Magnolia Electric Co. runs rampant in the background, weaving textural bliss that incorporates indie and alt-country. His voice tethers and ascends, but it never breaks. It’s obstinate, despite his many, many laments.

_-_

Will you grasp my hand and lead me off the edge of that single, white cliff? There’s an ocean below, I think we’re both resigned to that. The seagulls are around, waiting for us.

I won’t be yours to keep.

_-_

There’s a tiny whisper floating around, on a wisp of gossamer; brightened by the single ray of sunshine that’s found solace in the room. I don’t know what it’s doing there.

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out that song i’m hearing. It’s slowly ripping me up from inside, like nails scratched on ancient blackboards in derelict schools.

Sorry.

I just realized which song it is.

_-_

If you play me Snow Patrol, I WILL bury you.

pwned!

· Much embarrassment at the Green Arrow Forum, the bloggers’ website that supports the BNP. At the top of the site is an advertisement for singlemuslim.com, the UK’s leading Muslim marriage service. This has caused much consternation to the perplexed BNP bloggers. It transpires that the ads are placed by Google, whose computerised brain must have noted that the Green Arrow constantly refers to Islam and thus thought this would be an appropriate site for lonely Muslim hearts. Some BNP bloggers have also twigged this and suggested that in future, Islam be referred to only as “the threat to the west” to avoid confusion.

from here

All I can say is, in f365 forum style, ‘oh the ironing.’

diddums

I have just been, rather disconcertingly, told that Fatima Bhutto is out of my league.

If only there was an appropriate smiley to be thrown here.

!!!

Bloody new WordPress dashboard is incredibly cluttered and annoying.

Anyway, a couple of things:

First, Liverpool are the jammiest team alive. That’s 4 matches in which they’ve been favoured considerably by the ref. Either they’ve been bought by satan, or they possess considerable dirt on Sepp ‘women soccer players should wear tighter and shorter clothes to attract more attention’ Blatter.

Second, I would like to impale the mullahs around F11/4. It takes 45 minutes for them to get over with it. One starts and finishes, only for someone else to pipe up. We should really have a mullah Idol; maybe that’ll help these jerkoffs get bored of displaying their vocal skills.

Third, Max Mosley and his quasi-nazi prostitute orgy (that’s a mouthful! apologies for the pun). Cunt. Ferrari can’t save you now can they you tedious bastard?

Fourth, Sher Afghan getting the shit kicked out of him and with former CM Sindh Dr. Arbab Rahim being ‘accosted’ by PPP workers. I guess you can have your ‘democracy’ but you can’t teach people to behave less like violent, raving lunatics. Afghan got beat by lawyers too. Same lawyers who talk about the surpression of Human Rights and the Judiciary etc?

Fifth, nearly everyone who is 60+ and not getting sucked off will tell you power is perhaps the most powerful opiate around (Soma, stop weeping at the back). I guess Pakistanis still aren’t aware of that.

Sixth, Arsenal at the weekend. We need to get a win because that’ll provide us with a considerable cushion against Chelsea. A draw at the Bridge would suffice, while a loss would hardly turn things upside down. Still, we have Blackburn at Ewood and West Ham at home aswell. SQUEAKY-BUM TIME.

Seventh, the new Russian Circles is amazing.

Eighth, the new Kid Dakota is incredibly disappointing.

Ninth, Am I the only one who doesn’t think Hobbes was a cunt? I’ll tell you Rousseau wasn’t too keen on women though. As in, not keen on them attaining any significance except vessels for procreation.

Tenth, Birthdays now depress me. My own, that is. Been the case for two years now.

Eleventh, Fatima Bhutto is PRETTY. She’s quite literate, and a poet aswell.

Twelfth, I can see this getting irritating now.

Thirteenth, Falsas; this is a direct plea. Could you please appear in all your glorious majesty?

Fourteenth, electricity woes, electricity woes.

Fifteenth, Will Gilani even be in office long enough for his 100 day plan to take any shape whatsoever? It’ll be interesting to see how that plan is restructured (or bastardized) once he looks at the coffers proper.

Sixteenth, I think that’s it for now.