Exxon Mobil Corp. posted record profits for any U.S. company on Monday — $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year — as the world’s biggest publicly traded oil company benefited from high oil and gas prices and demand for refined products. The results exceeded Wall Street expectations.

The company’s earnings amounted to $1.71 per share for the October-December quarter, up from $8.42 billion, or $1.30 per share, in the year ago quarter. The result topped the then-record quarterly profit of $9.92 billion Exxon posted in the third quarter of 2005.

Exxon’s profit for the year was also the largest annual reported net income in U.S. history, according to Howard Silverblatt, a stock market analyst for Standard & Poor’s. He said the previous high was Exxon’s $25.3 billion profit in 2004.

Charges: Even Limbaugh must bow before O’Reilly’s unparalleled bullying skills and ability to deliver undiluted bullshit with an air of brusque authority. O’Reilly is so comfortable with his astounding hypocrisy that he didn’t skip a beat when he was publicly revealed to be a comically perverse sexual harasser, continuing to sanctimoniously moralize about the corrosive effects of rap music and intellectualism on American society. Main tactic against his critics, whose jobs rank among the easiest in the world, is to accuse them of his own methods: arbitrary smears, selective quotation, partisan motivation, and intellectual cowardice. Infuriatingly claims to be a political "independent" who just happens to parrot virtually every Republican talking point and equate mainstream liberals with Nazis and Stalinists. Claimed his call for abandoning San Francisco to al Qaeda bombing was "satirical," which is itself the funniest thing he’s ever said. An honest to goodness list-making Joe McCarthy wannabe, with the ACLU standing in for the Communist Party.

Exhibit A: O’Reilly’s novel, Those Who Trespass, which reads like an eighth grade writing assignment, is about a blustery news correspondent, demoted from foreign correspondence to less prestigious work (as O’Reilly was when he moved from ABC News to Inside Edition), who murders a string of colleagues he feels have hindered his career. "I kill you on page six," he told Charlie Gibson on Good Morning America.

Sentence: After O'Reilly's influence fundamentally changes the nature of jurisprudence, he is tortured and jailed for life when it is discovered that he once leafed through a copy of the Communist Manifesto as a teen.

The Bush administration rejected a 2002 Senate proposal that would have made it easier for FBI agents to obtain surveillance warrants in terrorism cases, concluding that the system was working well and that it would likely be
unconstitutional to lower the legal standard.

The proposed legislation by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) would have allowed the FBI to obtain surveillance warrants for non-U.S. citizens if they had a "reasonable suspicion" they were connected to terrorism -- a lower standard than the "probable cause" requirement in the statute that governs the warrants.

"And yet we have brave men and women who are willing to step forward because they know what's at stake. They're willing to sacrifice their lives for this great country. What I'm asking all of you tonight is not to put on a uniform. Put on a bumper sticker. Is it that much to ask? Is it that much to ask to step up and serve your country?"

ABBI TATTON, CNN PRODUCER: One of the politicians that the blogs on the left and the right are also focusing on, on this issue, is the main sponsor of this proposal. That's Randy "Duke" Cunningham, a congressman from California.

His comments yesterday have a lot of people linking to him. "Ask the men and women who stood on top of the Trade Center. Ask them, and they will tell you, 'Pass this amendment.'"

Now, people are saying that's just inappropriate. What is he, psychic? And that's what you get over here at the most twisted name in news -- not the trusted -- this is newswriter.us. And they're saying if, indeed, this congressman can channel the dead, why isn't he asking them something more important than this silly amendment, the most silly constitutional amendment ever proposed?

JACKI SCHECHNER, CNN BLOG REPORTER: Brian Anderson at phillybri.blogspot.com, not surprised at the GOP talking point that 9/11 changed everything coming up once again. And then also pointing out that Randy Cunningham's name coming up once again in the blogosphere.

It should come as no surprise that an arch-conservative Web site is questioning whether Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has been critical of the war in Iraq, deserved the combat awards he received in Vietnam.

After all, in recent years extremist Republican operatives have inverted a longstanding principle: that our combat veterans be accorded a place of honor in political circles. This trend began with the ugly insinuations leveled at Senator John McCain during the 2000 Republican primaries and continued with the slurs against Senators Max Cleland and John Kerry, and now Mr. Murtha.

Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate effect on its battlefield of choice. The casting of suspicion and doubt about the actions of veterans who have run against President Bush or opposed his policies has been a constant theme of his career. This pattern of denigrating the service of those with whom they disagree risks cheapening the public's appreciation of what it means to serve, and in the long term may hurt the Republicans themselves [...]

A young American now serving in Iraq might rightly wonder whether his or her service will be deliberately misconstrued 20 years from now, in the next rendition of politically motivated spinmeisters who never had the courage to step forward and put their own lives on the line.

"The K Street project is purely to make sure we have qualified applicants for positions that are in town. From my perspective, it's a good government thing."

--Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), quoted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 15, 2005.

"Well, I don't know what you mean by Senate liaison to the, quote, 'K Street Project.' I'm not aware of any Senate liaison job that I do for the K Street Project."

--Rick Santorum, quoted by Talking Points Memo, January 17, 2005.

Why do Bush backers think Bush can possibly bring Iraq's diverse political interests together to make a nation, when his experience over the past five years in the United States has been to accelerate the fracturing of America's political interests?

Polarizers can unite at the extremes, but that isn't a benefit for society...

Why don't Republicans ask themselves that question?

The Flyers finished their franchise record trip with an 8-2-1 record, setting a new NHL mark for the most wins on a single stretch of games away from home. Their 17 points on the trip is also a new league record, far surpassing the old mark of 13 points set by the 1968-69 Montreal Canadiens.

For the first time since 1994, a plurality of Americans say most members of Congress don't deserve re-election. The 42% who say most members do deserve re-election is the same as in the first USA TODAY survey of 1994.

Typically, voters feel more favorably about their own representatives than they do most members of Congress. That's still true — 60% say their representative deserve re-election — but that figure is the lowest since 1994, and almost the same as in the first poll taken that tumultuous year.

A secret Pentagon study has found that at least 80 percent of the marines who have been killed in Iraq from wounds to their upper body could have survived if they had extra body armor. That armor has been available since 2003 but until recently the Pentagon has largely declined to supply it to troops despite calls from the field for additional protection, according to military officials.

The ceramic plates in vests currently worn by the majority of military personnel in Iraq cover only some of the chest and back. In at least 74 of the 93 fatal wounds that were analyzed in the Pentagon study of marines from March 2003 through June 2005, bullets and shrapnel struck the marines' shoulders, sides or areas of the torso where the plates do not reach.

Thirty-one of the deadly wounds struck the chest or back so close to the plates that simply enlarging the existing shields "would have had the potential to alter the fatal outcome," according to the study, which was obtained by The New York Times.

The argument which needs to be made is the one that we have seen starting to arise in the blogosphere and elsewhere: that living in irrational fear of terrorists and sacrificing our liberties and all of our other national goals in their name is the approach of hysterics and cowards, not of a strong, courageous and resolute nation.

SUCK MY ASS USC YOU OVERRATED, OVERHYPED PIECES OF GARBAGE! Dr. Masse said all year that USC would not win the title because their defense stinks. And don't give that crap about how unstoppable their offense is. That shit catches up with you. ESPN proclaimed this USC team as one of the best to ever play the game..before they even freaking played Texas! They said they could beat the likes of 2001 Miami (which basically was a pro team)! Give me a break! So by ESPN's logic, Texas is now one of the two best teams to come along in the last 50 years of college football.

Mark May and Kirk Herbstreit you once again show your lack of intelligence, your bias toward USC, your ESPN mandated instant historian perspective and that any dickhead out there can get a broadcasting job as long as they keep saying stupid shit. Eat my ass and go cry with the rest of the Trojan fans. The refs bailed your asses out at Notre Dame but not tonight.

Let's be honest -- there's no way Vince can succeed in the NFL with that throwing motion. It's impossible. It can't happen. I'm telling you. There has never been a successful NFL quarterback who threw like that. And by "that," I mean, "throws like someone who just realized they have dog poop on their hand and is trying to fling it off."