Paris Gets 400 Overseas Beds That slinky sylph can now rest her tired body in a family controlled hotel whether she be in Europe or ranging as far as Phuket Arcadia Beach in Thailand. Granddaddy Barron, co-chairman of Hilton Hotels, helped orchestrate a $5.7 billion (part of Paris’s allowance) deal to acquire Hilton Group. The two split a public breakup in 1964, part of the postnup being no international foraging by Hilton Hotels, putting it at a disadvantage to hated rivals like Marriott and Hyatt. With the expected ribbon-cutting for a spate of new hotel openings, Paris will grace us with her presence even more.

Questions of the Week
1. Speed vs. longer battery life? Who will win the Intel/Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) war? The next generation of in-home electronic devices hangs in the balance, as does the future of Intel and AMD. Intel is deep-sixing its ubiquitous ‘Intel Inside’ logo for ‘Leap Ahead’ and going the cooler running, longer life, slower chip. AMD continues to think warp speed is the way to go. These issues are important to Intel and AMD because their existence, let alone dominance, likely depend on the right choice. What do you think? I’m going with speed.
2. Will Uncle Sam ever have high-speed trains that compare favorably with those in Europe and Asia? NO! Why? Have you ridden the rails on the back of AMTRAK, the cattle/mushroom moving experts? Maybe I’m being too metamorphic. What I mean to say is: AMTRAK herds its passengers aboard, keeps them in the dark, and covers them with s--- (manure).
3. If the US wasn’t mired in Iraq, would it leap to the Ukraine’s defense and start a new, decades-long freeze with Russia over the gas control thing? Does Dick Cheney own shares in Gazprom, the Russian company playing the ‘it’s our gas and we’ll sell it to whomever we wish’ game?
4. Does it strike (bad word choice) you as ironic that GI’s will supervise Iraqi police to cut down on prisoner abuse? Would you like to be Sunni in post-war Iraq regardless of who runs the prisons?
5. As South Africa moves away from virginity testing of young women, are certain religions in America moving toward it?
6. Shouldn’t the Iraqi’s be the ones to determine if their election was valid? It’s their country; let them run it.

Triennial Shareholders’ Meeting? Healthsouth, under the leadership of its new CEO, Jay Grinney, held its first shareholders meeting since May 2002. The company’s second largest shareholder, Richard M. Scrushy (the one the Bible-belt Birmingham jury found not guilty of involvement in a $2.7 billion fraud - no tampering there), was out of the state on vacation. He did manage to squeeze in a press conference saying, “It is long past time for Jay Grinney to stop using me as his excuse of his inability to manage the company.” Now why didn’t he have the chutzpah to say that in person at the triennial shareholders’ meeting?

Say it ain’t so Dudley, eh? Paul Martin stands behind (Why not in front of?) his finance minister, Ralph Goodale, who is under investigation by the Mounties for leaks that may have led to insider trading. Keep it up, Oh Canada, and you will qualify for statehood.

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. Because I have always expected much more, I am disappointed that one of the few Colin Powell utterances since leaving office comes out in favor of the Bushies wiretapping frenzy. For shame, and tsk, tsk.
Not So Independent Independence Air, whatever that is beyond a wing and a prayer, may stop flying if it can’t get outside financing. Now that’s a (an?) unique industry problem.

Screwed Up Justice Of The Week Award The US Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed a $500,000 jury award for a mentally ill man who tried to kill a quadriplegic former classmate by unplugging his respirator. Why? It ruled that Pacific Bell had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to rehire him because he was mentally impaired.

My Three Sons – A Question Of Morality William A. Ginglen got forty years after his three sons, who recognized him from cameras at the banks he robbed, turned him in to authorities. They said they were only doing the right thing, something their former marine father had taught them. If you were one of the sons, what would you have done? Would you as father, if one of your sons was a police officer and may have obtained evidence illegally, appeal?

Corporate Crook Update
1. Richard Causey, former chief accounting officer of Enron, finally caved and will testify against Lay and Skilling, former chief executives and two of Houston’s most hated. Causey will likely sit on a cot and contemplate his navel. The judge granted Lay and Skilling’s attorneys until January 30th, giving them more time to prepare. This is going to be one of the year’s most interesting. Will Skilling rat on Lay? Will Lay rat on Skilling? I hope they both get twenty-five years and have to repay every dime that they ever got from Enron in compensation.
2. Richard M. Scrushy sued HealthSouth for $100 million in back compensation. This guy really believes he’s innocent. The sooner someone nails his crooked hide to the wall, the better. Maybe Scrushy will be the trial of 2007.

As Miles O'Brien of CNN said, "Good riddance to 2005."
HAPPY 2006!

Big Fat Liar Award To the CHENEY/Rove/bush administration for WMD, torture, rendition, secret prisons, and spying on Americans. If you do nothing else this week, listen to the Condi/Tim interview (Internet Explorer only - another Microsoft attempt at monopolization) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032608/ and decide for yourself if the CRb administration is telling the truth about spying on its fellow citizens. If you want to do two things, read Senator Robert C. Byrd’s December 19th speech on the floor of the Senate (click on article under Previous Posts to the left)

Questions of the Week
1. Isn’t it a shame third world countries awash in money aren’t able to root out corruption, separate government from religion, and protect government from the undue interference by the wealthy thus ensuring a government of, by, and for the people?

Swift Kick in the Ass Award To South Korean Hwang Woo-suk NOT for fabricating stem cell research, which he did, BUT for falsely raising the hopes and dreams of the World’s afflicted. The scientific community should stop worrying being damaged (Damaged? It is not you who are damaged. Get off your collective PhD asses and get on with your research. Please.).

If You’re So Smart: Please explain the new drug plan to the rest of America, or, is it, as all of us suspect, so darned complicated that no one can explain it, despite Carol Burnett being suckered in by some little b ‘bushie’ to make us think it’s a good deal. Here’s a simple solution: everyone in America gets exactly the same healthcare and prescription plan that federal government employees get. Too expensive? Legalize and tax the other drug lords’ (Columbia, Afghanistan, etc.) products.

WalMart, Say “Guilty” 8 Million Times Real Fast Somewhere back in medieval England the courts decreed that kids under four could no longer work and employees were allowed to eat. Jump in the time machine to the year 2005 and it seems Good King WalMart violated the eating part eight million times and got whacked with a $172 million fine. That’s about $21.50 a head, or three times the hourly minimum wage that most WalMart employees earn…forget about working; demand longer lunch hours.

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. In what may be the most honest thing he’s ever done, super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the cause of many congressmen to veer from the paths of righteousness from money’s sake, is talking deal. (Crooks always talk deals.) Tom DeLay and his many tarnished brethren can’t be happy. So we’ll light candles.
2. I don’t like Rick Santorum’s (Republican Senator from Pennsylvania) religion, but I dislike even more his lack of loyalty to a championed albeit unconstitutional cause, intelligent design, that got flushed down the toilet, hip-hip-hooray, by a court ruling stating it nothing more than a pretext to promote religion in schools. So how’d you like him covering your back?

DeLay’s Delay The Texas courts aren’t shooting their legs in the air and exposing their bellies so big bad Tom can kick them with his pointy boots. No sirree Billy-Bob. An appeals court told him and his legal battalion to go back to the lower court from whence they came. Next stop: the state’s highest court, The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, which, I guess they figure, is more familiar with the misdeeds of Republican no-goodniks.

Big Buck Housing Discrimination So you think you might want to live on Country Oak Lane in Alamo, CA. Guess again. After 29 of his old money (we’re filthy rich, but we don’t want anyone to know it so we live in crappy, small houses) neighbors came a knocking, David Duffield, billionaire founder of PeopleSoft, had to scale back his plans for a 72,000 square foot home to a meager 10,000 square feet and if that wasn’t enough, had to scrap his plans for a twenty-car underground garage. New money Aaron Spelling (Tori Spelling’s can you give my daughter the type of life to which she’s grown accustomed father) has a 62,000 square foot shack somewhere in the Hollywood environs. Maybe the Dufster can buy a neighboring property.

On a Personal Note Carnegie Hall, though only half full because of the transit strike, played host last evening to a lilting Handel’s Messiah eloquently performed by the Masterwork Chorus of one hundred voices and Orchestra.

A Tip of The ExtraWry Hat To GCM in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada, (for you movie buffs, Brokeback Mountain was filmed in Fort Macleod) for steering me to the Robert C. Byrd speech and to PJH in St. Lucie, Fl, for kicking my starter pedal.

Senator Rober C. Byrd's Speech on the Senate Floor

Dear Friend:
I am deeply concerned with the latest disclosure that the Administration has been secretly spying on American citizens without a warrant.

This afternoon I spoke out on the Senate floor to raise my voice about this Administration's pattern of undermining constitutional protections and the arrogance with which it rebukes the powers held by the Legislative and Judicial branches of government.

I hope you will take a moment to read these words.

Sincerely,

Robert C. Byrd
United States Senator


NO PRESIDENT IS ABOVE THE LAW

Americans have been stunned at the recent news of the abuses of power by an overzealous President. It has become apparent that this Administration has engaged in a consistent and unrelenting pattern of abuse against our Country’s law-abiding citizens, and against our Constitution.

We have been stunned to hear reports about the Pentagon gathering information and creating databases to spy on ordinary Americans whose only sin is choose to exercise their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble. Those Americans who choose to question the Administration’s flawed policy in Iraq are labeled by this Administration as “domestic terrorists.”

We now know that the F.B.I.’s use of National Security Letters on American citizens has increased one hundred fold, requiring tens of thousands of individuals to turn over personal information and records. These letters are issued without prior judicial review, and provide no real means for an individual to challenge a perNmanent gag order.

Through news reports, we have been shocked to learn of the CIA’s practice of rendition, and the so-called “black sites,” secret locations in foreign countries, where abuse and interrogation have been exported, to escape the reach of U.S. laws protecting against human rights abuses.

We know that Vice President Dick Cheney has asked for exemptions for the CIA from the language contained in the McCain torture amendment banning cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment. Thank God his pleas have been rejected by this Congress.

Now comes the stomach-churning revelation through an executive order, that President Bush has circumvented both the Congress and the courts. He has usurped the Third Branch of government – the branch charged with protecting the civil liberties of our people – by directing the National Security Agency to intercept and eavesdrop on the phone conversations and e-mails of American citizens without a warrant, which is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment. He has stiff-armed the People’s Branch of government. He has rationalized the use of domestic, civilian surveillance with a flimsy claim that he has such authority because we are at war. The executive order, which has been acknowledged by the President, is an end-run around the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which makes it unlawful for any official to monitor the communications of an individual on American soil without the approval of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

What is the President thinking? Congress has provided for the very situations which the President is blatantly exploiting. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, housed in the Department of Justice, reviews requests for warrants for domestic surveillance. The Court can review these requests expeditiously and in times of great emergency. In extreme cases, where time is of the essence and national security is at stake, surveillance can be conducted before the warrant is even applied for.

This secret court was established so that sensitive surveillance could be conducted, and information could be gathered without compromising the security of the investigation. The purpose of the FISA Court is to balance the government’s role in fighting the war on terror with the Fourth Amendment rights afforded to each and every American.

The American public is given vague and empty assurances by the President that amount to little more than “trust me.” But, we are a nation of laws and not of men. Where is the source of that authority he claims? I defy the Administration to show me where in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or the U.S. Constitution, they are allowed to steal into the lives of innocent America citizens and spy.

When asked yesterday what the source of this authority was, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had no answer. Secretary Rice seemed to insinuate that eavesdropping on Americans was acceptable because FISA was an outdated law, and could not address the needs of the government in combating the new war on terror.

This is a patent falsehood. The USA Patriot Act expanded FISA significantly, equipping the government with the tools it needed to fight terrorism. Further amendments to FISA were granted under the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2002 and the Homeland Security Act of 2002. In fact, in its final report, the 9/11 Commission noted that the removal of the pre-9/11 “wall” between intelligence officials and law enforcement was significant in that it “opened up new opportunities for cooperative action.”

The President claims that these powers are within his role as Commander in Chief. Make no mistake, the powers granted to the Commander in Chief are specifically those as head of the Armed Forces. These warrantless searches are conducted not against a foreign power, but against unsuspecting and unknowing American citizens. They are conducted against individuals living on American soil, not in Iraq or Afghanistan. There is nothing within the powers granted in the Commander in Chief clause that grants the President the ability to conduct clandestine surveillance of American civilians. We must not allow such groundless, foolish claims to stand.

The President claims a boundless authority through the resolution that authorized the war on those who perpetrated the September 11th attacks. But that resolution does not give the President unchecked power to spy on our own people. That resolution does not give the Administration the power to create covert prisons for secret prisoners. That resolution does not authorize the torture of prisoners to extract information from them. That resolution does not authorize running black-hole secret prisons in foreign countries to get around U.S. law. That resolution does not give the President the powers reserved only for kings and potentates.

I continue to be shocked and astounded by the breadth with which the Administration undermines the constitutional protections afforded to the people, and the arrogance with which it rebukes the powers held by the Legislative and Judicial Branches. The President has cast off federal law, enacted by Congress, often bearing his own signature, as mere formality. He has rebuffed the rule of law, and he has trivialized and trampled upon the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizures guaranteed to Americans by the United States Constitution.

We are supposed to accept these dirty little secrets. We are told that it is irresponsible to draw attention to President Bush’s gross abuse of power and Constitutional violations. But what is truly irresponsible is to neglect to uphold the rule of law. We listened to the President speak last night on the potential for democracy in Iraq. He claims to want to instill in the Iraqi people a tangible freedom and a working democracy, at the same time he violates our own U.S. laws and checks and balances? President Bush called the recent Iraqi election “a landmark day in the history of liberty.” I dare say in this country we may have reached our own sort of landmark. Never have the promises and protections of Liberty seemed so illusory. Never have the freedoms we cherish seemed so imperiled.

These renegade assaults on the Constitution and our system of laws strike at the very core of our values, and foster a sense of mistrust and apprehension about the reach of government.

I am reminded of Thomas Payne’s famous words, “These are the times that try men’s souls.”

These astounding revelations about the bending and contorting of the Constitution to justify a grasping, irresponsible Administration under the banner of “national security” are an outrage. Congress can no longer sit on the sidelines. It is time to ask hard questions of the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, and the Director of the CIA. The White House should not be allowed to exempt itself from answering the same questions simply because it might assert some kind of “executive privilege” in order to avoid further embarrassment.

High Cost Of Admitting No Wrong $180 million, if you’re Millenium Partners. That’s what it agreed to pay over a mutual fund trading scheme that lined its pockets at the expense of other investors.

Quote Of The Week “Morons are running all these companies. In corporate America ‘it’s survival of the unfittest.’ Time Warner is the poster boy for what I’m talking about.” Carl Icahn, corporate raider who teamed with Lazard’s ‘Bid ‘em up Bruce’ Wasserstein in a shareholder war with Time Warner, as quoted in Bloomberg.

Uncle Sham, Hic, Wants You So you’ve been out of uniform for five years, soaking up a lot of well-earned rum, and you decide to reup because your money and girlfriend ran out at the same time. Surprise, now you get your old rank back and don’t have to go through basic training. I don’t know if you get a weapon.

Questions of the Week
1. So what do you think of the U.S. Military planting stories in Iraqi papers?
2. Are scissors under four inches safer than scissors over four inches? Are screwdrivers under seven inches safer than screwdrivers over seven inches? Are you concerned that people that know as much about terrorists as you and I are telling us what is and what isn’t safe? Are you concerned that we are actually listening to them?
3. Should we be surprised that now released 1964 secret documents show that Vietnam War intelligence was deliberately doctored? Will it take forty years to reach the same conclusions about Iraq?
4. Does anyone understand our Iraq policy, or is that the policy? Shouldn’t victory be defined when we get every last American soldier outta’ there?
5. Why did twenty-six planes known to be operated by CIA companies make 307 flights in Europe since 1971? Is the CIA operating secret prisons in Europe?
6. Just how big of a screw-up (please choose one or insert your own: horrific, gargantuan, unspeakable) will the Federal Drug Discount Program end up being?
7. If scientists, say, go to college on a science scholarship and don’t need to know anything about football, why should a football player going to college on a football scholarship need to know anything about science, or math, or anything else? Is a failed football player any less likely to succeed than a failed scientist?

Pfizer Pfunny Business Last June, when whistle blower Peter Rost, a Pfizer VP, went on Sixty Minutes to talk about drug pricing and subsequently found that his corporate cellphone and e-mail accounts had been turned off, Pfizer said it had not deliberately disconnected his service.

The Donald In LA Amid sagging ratings (what took so long), The Apprentice is moving west. Good Riddance. The Donald is so over. Please take Martha too.

Clostridium Difficile As if the H5N1 bird flu strain weren’t enough to clutter our meager brains, now C-diff, as those in the know seem to call it, is reaching into our rectums and causing…well, the runs. If you have severe diarrhea, see your doc.

Corporate Crook Update
1. Lord Black pleaded not guilty to ripping off Hollinger, the publishing conglomerate he helped create. He had to put up a $20 million bond secured by his Palm Beach digs and the seized proceeds of his Park Avenue pied-á-terre and promise to travel only in the U.S. and Canada. Question: Since he gave up his Canadian citizenship to become a Lord, why doesn’t Canada send him packing?

Warning: Keep Bag Away From Management Fifteen makers of plastic bags were fined $325 million by the European Commission for a twenty-year price fixing scheme. The Finns, Spaniards, and Germans are the bad guys. The pesky Brits ratted them out, and they’re not even in the union.

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. Is Carl Rove manufacturing grand jury responses to fit evolving evidence?
2. Randy Cunningham, eight-term Republican from San Diego, California, bit the dust amid a Pentagon contractor kickback scandal. Republicans far and wide are running for cover lest they get smattered with the brown stuff of fallout.
3. Trent Who? I guess Trent Lott, deposed as Senate majority leader three years ago for sticking his racist foot in his racist mouth, figures so many Republicans are up to their udders in manure he might worm his way back into power.

It’s 6:00 PM, Do You Know Where You’re Telemarketers Are? I hate the idea of the government’s ‘Do Not Call’ list. I don’t want the government telling me who can and can’t call. Besides, they are doing a lousy job since they allow all kinds of annoying calls to get through. Why can’t our service provides block all calls that we specify, the keys here being all and we?

General Moto In addition to cutting 30,000 jobs, maybe General Motors should consider changing its name and relocating to Tokyo to see if it can capture some of the design and marketing magic of the largest car company in the world, Toyota.

Weekly Lottery Winner So let’s see if I got this right. Enron goes tits up, fire sales in mid-2004 some of its assets including Texas Genco, an electric power generator with a dozen plants, to a group of buy-out hotshots (Texas Pacific, KKR, Hellman & Friedman, The Blackstone Group, which in and of itself should have waved the big red ‘someone’s getting screwed and it ain’t us’ flag) for $900 million. NOW SAID BUYOUT GROUP IS SELLING GENCO TO NRG FOR $5.8 BILLION. WOW! Question: Who bails out Genco when it goes tits up? Answer: the same citizens who pay a shit load for Genco electric power that gives Genco its current $5.8 billion value. Maybe the buyout hotshots should leave some of the money on the table for say twenty years to guarantee uninterrupted power production and protect against further consumer gouging. Sure.

Questions of the Week
1. Does big oil dictate what types of cars will be built in America?
2. Why is Cheney so afraid of Iraqi reality?
3. Did this administration abuse the legal system by declaring Jose Padilla and enemy combatant and denying him access to counsel?

When Hell Freezes Over Bush aid Iran can enrich uranium, but only in Russia and under strict controls. Are Putin and his KGB pals thinking ‘CHECKMATE?’

Halliburton’s Dirty War Charges that a $7 billion oil field repair contract awarded in 2003 on the sly to Halliburton are moving at the speed of frozen oil from the Pentagon to the Justice Department, which “is in the process of considering whether to pursue the matter.” Meanwhile, Bunnatine Greenhouse, then chief contracts monitor at the Army Corps of Engineers, who threw the shit at the fan, has been demoted from the elite Senior Executive Service to project manager with no projects.

Pinocchio or Pin Cushion? Is the nonagenarian Chilean General, Augusto Pinochet, guilty of stashing millions in arms kickbacks and embezzled peoples monies in foreign bank accounts under false names or again the innocent victim of what his lawyer calls ‘international Marxism.’ It seems odd that he was deemed too unhealthy to stand trial on human rights violations and genocide charges, but now that millions of dollars are involved, he is robust enough to stand trial on tax evasion and a host of other charges.

Corporate Crook Update
1. Early Christmas gift: Phillip Bennett, ex-Refco CEO, in addition to putting up a $50 million bond, got an. an electronic ankle bracelet to make sure he stays in his Park Avenue pad while waiting for a January 18thhearing on eight charges of conspiracy, fraud, and other baddies that left Refco bankrupt.
2. Honk if you love Jesus! What does a West Texas red-neck do with $69 million he bilks from his employer? He buys a truck stop. The SEC went after Jonathan D. Nelson, former CFO of Snyder, TX Patterson-UTI Energy (NASDAQ PTEN - land-based oil and gas rigs), for pumping $69 million into his own pockets. He also bought an airplane, airfield, cattle ranch, homes, and vehicles.
3. Win some, lose some. The guy who saved born-again Scrushy from the cross didn’t fare too well with Hannibal Crumpler, a former HealthSouth comptroller, who got nailed with a max of 15 years and fines of $1 million plus (they didn’t say the plus) for creating the ‘hide the losses’ game known as conspiracy and lying to auditors in the $2.7 billion fraud. Unlike his former boss, there were no reported sightings of evangelical ministers praying outside the bible-belt courthouse proclaiming his innocence to the heavens…and jurors.

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. While Libby fiddles and collects millions for his defense fund from the who’s who in Republican America and the who were’s in Democratic America, the leakers are getting a new grand jury so don’t send all your money to the Libbyists.
2. One of Tom DeLay’s former hit men cops a plea. Don’t you love it when bullies get theirs? Ruthless Thomas Scanlon, one-time fierce DeLay’s protector and big-time anti-Clinton mouthpiece, is naming names, hoping to have less time behind bars. To ruthless, I guess we can now add backstabbing. Scanlon agreed to repay $19.6 million that he ripped off from his former Indian clients and could spend five years in an iron teepee with no flap. Bob Ney, Republican Congressman from Ohio, one of those named by Scanlon said he wasn’t really aware of what was going on. Sound familiar. DeLay is probably cursing a blue streak. I hope they all end up as cellmates.
3. Uninformed, Unprincipled, Unfit. Don’t let Jean Schmidt off the hook for lobbing the coward bomb at John P. Murtha, PA Dem and Marine war vet. She deserves a one way ticket back to Ohio, not a place on our national stage.
4. Thank God for The Three Republicans. In July, we now learn, VP Cheney called Senators McCain, Graham, and Warner on the mat demanding that they stop pushing for regulations that would ban cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners. The three republicans gave him the GOP finger.
5. Just Say No. When asked if W talked to Tony in April ’04 about bombing Al Jazeera’s Qatar TV studio, press secretary Scott McLelland said, “We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response.” Seems to me that’s quite a long response for no response. Wouldn’t a simple ‘NO!’ have been more effective, even if not much more believable, given this administration’s track record on truth, justice, and the American way.

Management Doomed Peter Drucker, who single-handedly kept the world believing managers worthy of salvation, died this week. He was 92.

G$$$$$$$$$$gle This Google’s stock ran the $400 mile in under sixteen months, putting its Market Cap (market value) at $119 billion, passing such stalwarts as Cisco, Dell, Oracle, Apple, and Genentech and breathing down the necks of IBM and Intel. Even Microsoft, with a market cap of $271 billion is looking over its shoulder and is sure to come out with an ad-driven searcher of its own. At these numbers, a lot of others will follow. To me, that spells even greater googlebucks problems for Google investors buying at these insane multiples. Remember the last bubble burst that sprayed a lot of stinky brown stuff across our portfolios? No, of course not, how could we, it was almost ten years ago. Well, here’s a reminder: earnings projections were based on optimized assumed revenues ABSENT NEW COMPETITION—that’s what the Street euphemistically called new economics. Out west where I come from, it’s still known as bullshit.

The Government Made Me Do It William Weld, NY governor wannabe, said Decker College, the vocational school largely for disadvantaged blacks and Hispanics in Kentucky that financially collapsed on Weld’s watch as $700 thousand per year CEO, was driven to bankruptcy by the Federal Government. One of Decker’s investors, the partially eponymous Leeds Weld, is an investment firm chaired by ex-NYC mayor of note, Rudy Giuliani. So what we’ve got here is a Republican investment company run by not so shabby Republicans, one of whom wants to be the next Republican governor of New York and one of whom thinks the Republicans actually have a shot at the White House in 2008 and that he’s their best hope, blaming a Republican Federal Government for the failure of a school that left a bunch of kids whose parents likely vote Democratic out a bunch of money. Hmmmm. Maybe Weld’s right.

Questions of the Week
1. When the current U.S. administration starts jailing we the people, as political dissidents, where will it put us?
2. Should we declare the day after Election Day national Deficit Disclosure Day when the newly elected representatives of we the people tell the truth about how much our misinformed vote will cost?
3. How should we kill our enemies?
4. Are we surprised that the Iraqi’s torture prisoners?
5. If you have the same intelligence as I, except I know it’s flawed, is it the same intelligence?

Lego My Logo Danish Lego, as in plastic toy bricks, sued Canadian Mega Bloks, as in plastic toy bricks, for trademark infringement, Lego suggesting that its uniquely designed plastic toy bricks were so intrinsic that they had become an unregistered trademark. The Canadian Supreme Court told the Danes what they could do with their Lego’s. The Canadians and Danes are also exchanging sharp words over some piss ant island (Hans Island) near Greenland. Are they becoming the Israelis and Arabs or the Irish Protestants and Catholics of the next century? Will Canada create Danish internment camps? Will Great Danes henceforth in Canada be known as Great Canadians?

Grim, Dark, Raid Disney films? You bet. The Brothers Grimm; Dark Water; The Great Raid; they sound more like an Eisner management trilogy. And Disney wonders why it loses money on its films? Hey Mickey, wake up. You’re supposed to be the happy people.

Used Balloons For Sale How’d you like to find out that your doc has a profit sharing plan with the hospital? More and more they do, and one way the takers of the Hippocratic oath line their pockets is by reusing artery balloons. So far, it seems they confine their re-launches to the same schlub, but can an E-Bay listing be far behind, right above used heart pumps, pacemakers, and joints. At least, so far as we know, the practice hasn’t spread to planned parenthood clinics.

Corporate Crook Update
1. The Lord, as in Conrad Black, the deposed newspaper business (as in Hollinger International) mogul, got his yesterday: an eleven count indictment was served up in the Windy City charging him and three former colleagues with stealing $51.8 million from Hollinger. A piker, when you compare him to jailbird Kozlowski from Tyco: Kozlowski and friends helped themselves to about three times as much and when it comes to wives birthday parties at company expense, Conrad was a cheapskate: $40 thousand compared to Denny boys $2 million. The Black lady, or is it Lady Black, ought to get herself a really big crook if she wants to have a really big birthday bash. P.S. I believe The Lord is missing, perhaps hiding out in the homeland he discarded in favor of the fount of his titular supremacy—it shouldn’t be too hard to find 25 million or so Canadians willing to help send him south of the 49th to face the music.

Jail Jesse While governor of Minnesota, matalist Jesse Ventura could operate all the casino’s voters allowed, but private citizen Jesse might get the slammer for promoting offshore internet gambling. Other big names form Hollywood, sports, and TV face similar threats. If nothing else, it will force governments into the business and possibly even have them update all of their onshore lottos to make losing money faster and more fun. Maybe the IRS should get into the business and eliminate income taxes. I mean, wouldn’t you sooner give the money than have it taken?

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. More leaking? Bob Woodward of Deep Throat fame says someone told him two years ago that the wife of a noisy White House critic worked for the CIA. Psssst! Bob. Talk to Judy Miller. They’re putting people who don’t rat in jail now. Think of all the talk shows you’ll miss. The problem, as in Plumbing 101, is not the leaks, but the pipes that cause the leaks; if Washington stops trying to hide behind itself it seems to me the leaks stop.
2. Cheney and Bush are playing the unpatriotic card again, lashing and bashing and smashing war critics with vitriol speak.
3. Remember Judge Alito, hopeful Supreme Court man? Senate Dems and Reps are taking off the gloves. Why all the saber rattling. If enough senators want him, he’s in. Next case.
4. My Three Sons. An advocacy group wants the SEC to expand its enquiry into Senator Frist’s well-timed stock sales to include similarly well-timed stock sales by his three sons. Seems a long way from Steve, Mike, Robbie, and Chip of Fred MacMurray days.

So The Government Hires This Crook…Robert Stein, an ex-con for felony fraud, gets hired as comptroller and financial officer (known felony fraud incubators) for the American occupation authority in Iraq who puts him in charge of $82 million. It didn’t take Stein long to figure out the kickback game, putting himself down for $200 thousand a month. Bribes were paid, some for real estate, some for new cars, some for home improvements, some for jewelry, some deposited into the Stein’s accounts, but the most interesting was $7 thousand for towing services for Mrs. Stein. Buyer beware: don’t buy a Toyota previously owned by Mrs. Stein of North Carolina.

Stolen Laptop Shows Iran’s Nuke, Believe It It’s like this, see: the CIA calls a bunch of bigs to the top of a skyscraper in Vienna, overlooking the Danube no less (this makes it more CIAish) and tells them this stolen Iranian laptop computer they just happen to have in their possession contains proof that Iran is designing a nuclear warhead. What’s next, Condi showing it to the world through the UN, pointing to long silver tubes that are mobile WMD and the President barnstorming Ohio and Kentucky to round up support for another war? An even bigger outrage: some of those present suggested the CIA might have fabricated the data.

Weekly Quiz What product was once sold on Longevity Lane in Liuzhou, China? (Answer at bottom)

Passing Gas Here’s the problem: right now, the senate and congress are full of gas so there’s all this farting going on. So the Senate hauls these five really rich guys in and wants to know why they’re getting richer and the rest of the country is getting poorer and the really rich guys who are going to die rich and therefore don’t really care what the Senate thinks pretty much gave them the finger. Alas, none of the poor people who have given up food and other luxuries in order to buy gasoline and home heating fuels were in the room—they were sitting around wondering when the Senate and their other so-called elected representatives were going to get smart enough to free themselves from the clutches of the five wicked and ugly stepsisters and all their wonderful PAC money and aggressively and intelligently promote the development of alternative fuels. Alas, alas, once our dearly elected representatives pass gas and their stomach pain subsides, they’ll forget all about excessive oil company profits and constituents freezing their asses off in stalled SUV’s until the old gas pain comes back. Then the farting starts all over again.

Crackberry Pie The hundreds of thousands of Blackberry users in the U.S. may have to thumb something else if Research In Motion (RIM) in Waterloo, Ontario and NTP in Arlington, VA can’t reach agreement on the three-year-old patent infringement suit lodged by NTP. Doesn’t RIM realize that the CIA is based in Arlington? It seems shareholders are milling about the exits, but haven’t hit the panic bar: @ $78, the stock is $16 above its 52 week low, though down from $128, its 52 week high. I don’t know how much of an unfavorable NTP ruling is factored into the $78, but its my guess everyone still holding expects an equitable settlement.

Questions of the Week
1. What is the personal cost to me, my friends, and my neighbors if the world negotiates a meaningful, global trade agreement next month in Hong Kong?
2. How old will your grandchildren or great grandchildren be when tax reform becomes a reality?

What In Hall Is Going On At Halliburton Every time I turn around, Halliburton is getting its knuckles wrapped for some misdeed, the latest being improperly charging worker pension plans with executive pension and bonus plans. I think it’s a company run by crooks and gangsters who don’t give a damn about we, the people. Oh, isn’t Halliburton where VP Cheney used to be CEO? Yes, I believe it is.

Immy’s And the award this year goes to sixteen-year-old Mary Sue for baring her breasts the most times in one week and iCasting her accomplishment to iPod users around the world. NATAS, the Emmy people, has created a category for original video content for computers, cellphones and other handhelds like iPod.

I Say Nothing This from the NY Times in a November 8th article about Wall Street bonuses : The big winners could be traders involved in commodities and energy, in particular, proprietary traders who deal in those two high-octane growth areas. They could receive pay increases of 40 percent to 50 percent, with some walking away with $15 million to $20 million each, according to one investment banking executive who is prohibited from commenting on compensation issues. Just so you don’t feel too badly about your Christmas turkey, you’ll be heartened to know that the mid-level schlubs will only get $1.2 million to $1.8 million. How do they live?

Corporate Crook Update
1. You gotta love this guy: Richard (I think we should call him Jesus) Scrushy. Turns out his son-in-law, Michael Plaia, married to daughter Christa (had he been a son, would his name be Christ?), invested $3 mil in a cable station in Birmingham while Richie boy was on trial there for laundering, conspiracy and securities fraud so Richie and frau Leslie could host a religious TV show to the good jurors in Bible belt Birmingham. Guess what? Son-in-law Mikie has done it again. He’s acquired a cable TV station in Montgomery where Richie boy is being charged with bribing a former governor of Alabama. How much you want to bet that Richie and frau Leslie will soon be hosting a reprise of their Birmingham program so the good jurors from the Montgomery pool will know what a grand Christian he really is. He’s already taken three men of the cloth to court to pray with him and frau out in front of the courtroom after he pled not guilty. Maybe he is Jesus. It’s for sure a miracle he’s not pounding rocks.

Judy, Judy, Judy Cary Grant never said it, but the Gray Lady did, giving Judith Miller of 85 days in the slammer fame the boot after 28 years of Times toil. Judy says she needs some quiet time after her ordeal, which will apparently be spent in the solitude of the lecture circuit. Will we ever get to the bottom of the Libby/Miller relationship? How deep does it go?

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. Scooter Libby has started a legal defense fund. I wonder if he’s assigning future book royalties to secure repayment.

Evolution Evolves The Intelligent Design octet in Dover, PA got the heave-ho by the voters. Skirmishes got nasty and there may be some over-the-shoulder glancing, but so far no one has been killed. Praise the uh, Darwin.

Corporate Speak Answer: “Forgetting the business logic and the price, there will be options down the road there, I would answer your question about capable and that we weren’t really quite capable yet because our army was doing all the other stuff we had to do, particularly the systems conversions. “The army will be capable to do other stuff sometime next year, which is reasonable. Doesn’t mean we will.” What was the question? Question: Does J.P. Morgan Chase have plans for a potential merger? Responder: James Dimon, chief executive-designate. Ah, that’s the problem: he’s only the CEO-designate.

Non-Surprise Of The Week Blockbuster loses $491 million in its third quarter. CEO Antioco says Blockbuster will cut costs and become more dominant as the industry consolidates. Does that mean bigger losses? Not much logic need be expended to realize these guys are riding a dinosaur.

Greedy Bastards Update
1. In 2003, indicted power lobbyist fast Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay’s good friend, wanted leading human rights abuser Gabon to pay him $9 million to set up a meeting with W. In what the White House describes as a routine meeting and nothing to do with Abramoff, Bongo, President of Gabon, met with W in 2004, ten months after fast Jack’s pitch. Odd that one of fast Jack’s accounts, the one to which Gabon was directed to pay the $9 mil, had millions in cash flow right around that time.

Not Too Corny About $22.7 billion is the projected corn subsidy for 2005, up from $13.3 billion in 2004. Let’s see, at $4 a bag for movie popcorn, that’s equal to 5.7 billion bags. There’s the problem: we’re not eating enough movie popcorn so cut out the farm subsidy and give it to the movie goers so they can buy more popcorn.

Weekly Quiz Answer Cedar coffins, the sale of which is now banned in this city.

WE REMEMBER, LEST WE FORGET

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

IN FLANDERS FIELDS the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO MY READING

Prince Charles and Camilla grace us with their presence. Would that some of their grace and elegance remain when they leave.

Out, Damn Spot, Out: Giving the boot to the feisty GOP, those pesky Dem’s took control of the Senate in a move to get to determine the extent to which the Whitehouse went to manufacture reasons for the war in Iraq.

Questions of the Week
1. Is FOK (Friend of Karl as in Rove) ousted Public Broadcasting Board member and Ex-Chairman Kenneth Y. Tomlinson (the Y stands for Young) guilty of promoting more conservative programming? (Hint: FOK)
2. Will conservative (thank God he’s at least got credentials even if he isn’t female, Jewish, and black) Supreme Court appointee Samuel Antonin Alito Jr survive the public caning?
3. Do you believe the CIA has secret Al Quaeda torture prisons in Romania and Poland?
4. Do we really want the federal government to be the supply source for vaccine in the case of bird or any other flu epidemic? (Interesting Aside: In a Cambodian village where scrawny chickens a truly free range, a woman, a newcomer, was assassinated because it was believed she was the cause of bird flu.)
5. Where have decency and honesty gone?

6. Is Cheney a Libby co-conspirator?


Weekly Citizens’ Award To Michigan Governor Jennifer M. Granholm, for her inspiring speech at Rosa Park’s funeral. http://www.michigan.gov/gov/0,1607,7-168--129614--,00.html

Uncle Saddam Wants You The Iraqi government is calling Saddam’s old army for recruits, hoping to lure them away from insurgency forces. Former senior officers need not apply. So, this means the Saddam’s old army, the Sunnis, who killed the Shiites under Saddam, will now work for the Shiites to kill the Sunni insurgents. Excuse me, is that plane leaving for the U.S.?

Can’t Nobody Here Run A Prison? Omar al-Faruq, one of Osama’s pals, escaped from an American prison in Afghanistan in July, though he might be a CIA operative, so the question is: did he escape or did we let him go. How much you wanna bet we’ll never know the truth.

A+, A- Rising star Anderson Cooper, whom you may not recognize unless he’s standing in a hurricane, takes over ousted Aaron Brown’s slot at CNN. It seems laid-back Aaron should, like peppy Anderson, have braved the winds.

Corporate Crook Update
1. Hallelujah! Richard Scrushy, former HealthSouth CEO acquitted four months ago by a bunch of bible-punching bigots of federal accounting fraud, now faces federal bribery and mail fraud charges. After pleading not guilty (what else), he prayed outside the courtroom with his wife and three ministers he’d brought along. Is this guy scary or what? But wait, there’s more: he interrupted his lawyers, who declined to comment on specifics, to declare his innocence and say, “I take my hat off to sing the ‘Star Spangled Banner,’ I was a Boy Scout, but I am broken right now, because I am seeing things that are wrong.” I do hope he was looking in a mirror.
2. It seems Mercury Interactive (NASDAQ $27, down about $9 bucks Wednesday) CEO, Ammon Landon, and a couple of his henchmen (actually, one is a henchwoman) got the boot for dicking around with options pricing dates that gave them more pocket money and not being forthcoming about a $1 million loan to the CEO.
3. Jamie Olis of Dynegy may have his 24 year term for accounting fraud reduced to something more in keeping with that of other white-collar crooks. Maybe it would be more equitable if the others were extended.

War-Mart? The news that Wal-Mart has a war room staffed by high-powered political advisers and wannabees inside its corporate headquarters is scary. Will Wal-Mart’s CEO one day split his time between 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and Bentonville, Ark?

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. I. (Irve, Irv, Irving, or just an initial; depends on who you ask, the latter being Libby’s choice) Lewis (Scooter) Libby Jr. pleaded not guilty to lying to a lot of people. This could be a long trial since no one in Washington really knows what lying is. Libby attributes ‘Scooter’ to a childhood comparison to Phil Rizzuto, former Yankee great, or from his father commenting on how quickly he scooted across his crib. There may be other attributions in the making.
2. Tom DeLay’s trial de-Lay-ed. Seems judges in Texas are elected so this may never get to trial in the Lone Star State. New York anyone?
3. Rove continues to tread water, wondering if the anchor tied to his ankle will drop.

A Case For AOL? Steve Case, the most hated man on the Board of Time Warner, finally resigned to avoid any potential conflicts of interest. Pardon? Dummying up AOL’s financials and almost destroying Time Warner wasn’t a conflict? That aside, since Time Warner says it isn’t shopping AOL around, which means it is, can Steve be thinking of buying it back?

Fill In The Blank “It is the strangest thing that __________ introduces figures who are totally unknown.” No, not George W. Bush on his selection of Supreme Court nominees, but Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (yes, the same asshole who called for Israel to “be wiped off the map”) on his selection of Oil Minister nominees. The comment was made by a member of Iran’s Energy Commission.

Not Seeing Is Believing If astronomers succeed in taking a picture of a black hole, and invisible darkness surrounded by light, how will we know? Will it look like D.C. or Ottawa?

Greedy Bastards Update A NY state judge said he would deny a motion by former NYSE head Richard A. Grasso to limit a lawsuit that seeks return of $100 million (+). To think this guy still believes he deserved the money he paid himself, maybe he should revert to an insanity plea.

The Hindenburg Complex? A California couple (who else?) is testing a hydrogen-cell SUV by Honda (who else?). But, will what happened in Lakehurst, New Jersey in 1937 be a mental obstacle to hydrogen fuel cell advancement? I shouldn’t think so, but it’s being mentioned. Interesting that no mention is made of the hundreds of millions of lives endangered by harmful emissions from carbon fuels powered vehicles, let alone the human and dollar cost of oil wars like Iraq.

Drug Cartel Update Frederick Humeston, an ex-postal worker with weight problems and repeated clashes with his supervisors, lost his case against Merck’s Vioxx. Good for Merck, bad for Humeston’s ex-postal supervisors who are doubtless seeking 24/7 protection.

Scariest Headline of the Week: NYT 10/28/05 “A Long, Rocky Road With 39 Months to Go” This is going to be a long, scary thirty-nine months for we, the people.

Questions of the Week
1. Are you happier that Harriet withdrew or are you sadder that she was nominated?
2. What’s that foul odor NYT reporter, Judith Miller, seems to emitting?
3. What’s the deal with American tourists stranded in post Wilma Mexico. With a million (+-) Mexicans annually sneaking into the US, surely we can figure out how to get a few American honeymooners and vacationers north of the Rio Grande.
4. Did (Are) Florida’s Wilma victims fare (faring) any better than Louisiana’s Katrina victims?
5. Why does the Cheney White House want the CIA exempted from prisoner abuse ban? (Hanoi Hilton McCain told them where to stick that idea.)

Weekly Lottery Award No surprise here…To the oil companies. ExxonMobil’s third quarter earnings (how much do you think they’ve hidden from public view?) rang in at the old gas pump at a whopping $9.9 billion, up 75% from last year’s $5.7 billion. Quarterly revenues were $100 billion. Of course they’ll be quick to say that other companies earn more by any number of measures, BUT NONE EARNED $9.9 BILLION. My comparison: Microsoft, another behemoth that people love to hate or hate to love, a dependency for living thing, had fiscal 2006 first quarter earnings of $3.1 billion on revenues of $9.7 billion.

Yawn Greenspan’s replacement has been announced. The big question: Will Washington confuse a bearded Fed Chairman for that beloved ho-ho-ho chap.?

Citizen of the Week Award To Rosa Parks, a great American, who died Tuesday at age 92. The exchange between her and the Montgomery, Alabama bus driver when she wouldn’t give up her seat to a white man strikes me as quietly determined and marvelously elegant: Bus Driver, “Well, I'm going to have you arrested."
Mrs. Parks: “You may go on and do so."
So does her later statement: "I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home."
Many busses of inequity remain; I hope we have enough Rosa Parks for each one.

Speak Loudly and Carry a Big Stick When she told them to stop whining about the billions owed by the US on lumber tariffs, Condi pissed off the Canadians about the same way she pisses off everyone else. She told the Canadians to stop “speaking in apocalyptic language…” I guess that’s her job.

Conspiracy Theory of the Week Award To me and others with warped minds, for suggesting that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld created the avian flu pandemic, real or imagined, because he owns shares in Gilead, the company that owns the patent on the antiviral agent Tamiflu. Gilead is the company where he served as chairman before partnering with Cheney in declaring war on Iraq. No one seems to know exactly how many shares of Gilead Donnie owns and rather than speculate, its enough that rather than sell, he has recused himself from government decisions concerning medications to prevent or treat the big bad bird flu bug. Gilead’s stock has increased 31% from $35 to $46 since we last sipped champagne and watched Dick Clarke’s ball drop so if Rummy owns even a paltry 10 million shares, his profit this year has been $110 million, and only about five humans in the world have so far gotten sick. I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling ill, and it ain’t bird flu.

Thanks, WalMart - Unhealthy Need Not Apply WalMart proposes to hold down spending on health care by discouraging unhealthy people from applying for work. They will do this by building a physical activity requirement into all jobs. Maybe they’d be further ahead if they built a mental activity requirement into management jobs.

Big McHeart Attack Now you’ll know how fast you’re going to die. New labeling will tell victims how many calories, fat grams, protein, carbs, and sodium are in each product, kind of like a hit man telling you the caliber of the bullet he’s planning on pumping into your brain.

Dumb Ass of the Week Award To President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran for saying, "The establishment of the Zionist regime was a move by the world oppressor [that would be us] against the Islamic world. As the Imam said, 'Israel must be wiped off the map'… The Islamic world will not let its historic enemy live in its heartland."

Nothing’s up to date in Kansas City might be the name Rodgers and Hammerstein’s famous lines from ‘Oklahoma’ if they wrote them now. It seems the conservative majority of the Kansas Board of Education, to the chagrin of chimpanzees everywhere, is hell bent on making sure that anyone attending schools in that state will be taught evolution as a controversial theory. What’s next…outlawing evolution?

Our Friends in Government Update
1. I wonder what the aides are doing tonight…the Rove/Libby drama continues. Though it not be a bride but an Irish prosecutor they await with trepidation, the Lerner & Loewe song from Camelot has many apt phrases…“He's wishing he were in Scotland fishing tonight!...searching high and low for someplace to hide…he’s numb, he shakes, he quails, he quakes”
2. A W Pentagon nominee for chief spokesman, J. Dorrance Smith, is under attack for saying that American TV networks aided terrorists by televising Al Jazerra’s (Al Jazerra is a large Arab news channel) videotape. Now doesn’t he sound special?
3. Chertoff, Homeland Security Secretary, said, “I did not go into this for pats on the back.” Michael baby, you got that right.

What’s missing from this Carl Rove picture?

WARNING: OBJECTS IN MIRROR MAY BE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR. (Photo: NY Times 10/28/05 )

Corporate Crook Update
1. Texas oilman Oscar Wyatt, a Saddam buddy, was indicted for paying millions in kickbacks to help Saddam’s boys sell Iraqi oil under the UN program. Wyatt’s been stepping over and around and on people for a long time. I guess he finally pissed off the wrong ones.

The W Wave Is there a ‘Presidential Wave’ school?

Corporate Double Speak Award To Condé Nast who said, after axing Andrew Krucoff, a freelancer, who leaked internal information to a web site, that he wasn’t technically fired because he wasn’t an employee. As for company policy on leaking information to outsiders, Condé Nast added that “As a privately held company, we don’t discuss our employee or freelance policies.” It seems fairly clear, at least for freelancers—that they don’t technically get fired.

If Not Them, Whom Can We Trust? Now we’re doubting the Saudi’s (you remember them – the king and W were holding hands last April) assurances on expanding oil production capacity…is nothing sacred?

Sickening, Disgusting New abuse charges against American soldiers, this time for burning in Afghanistan two dead Taliban soldiers’ bodies (the Muslim faith prohibits cremation), facing them west as an affront to the Muslim requirement for facing Mecca during prayers, and using them to taunt the enemy. Forget about violating Islamic faith and forget about violating the Geneva convention, what about violating human decency, what about violating common sense? Where is our leadership?

Questions of the Week
1. Is Bush’s foreign policy run by a Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal, as charged by Colin Powell’s former chief of staff?
2. Is Bush Supreme Court nominee Miers a Red Herring?
3. Which will come first: Saddam’s verdict or American troop withdrawal from Iraq?
4. Are Intelligent Design and Creationism the same?
5. So what do you think of the Iraqi Constitution vote so far?

Corporate Dumb Speak Award Beer pong promotes beer drinking—that’s why it was invented, that’s why it exists. Bud Pong, Budweiser’s eponymous look alike doesn’t because, according to Budweiser, official rules call for water to be used, not beer. C’mon, even if you owned a water company, not even chug-a-lugging a dozen cool ones sells us on that line of B.S.

Weekly Misspeak Award To W, who said, “But the American people expect me to do my job, and I’m going to.” And the start date is…

Weekly Chutzpah Award To Donald Rumsfeld for lecturing the Chinese on their expanding missile forces, particularly those that can bomb the shit out of anyone beyond the Pacific region. I wonder how our Pacific region allies feel about Rummy’s concerns.

Dumb Ass of the Week Award To Neil French, WPP worldwide creative director, for saying women “don’t make it to the top because they don’t deserve to.” In his past, French has fought bulls. I would expect he’d now find that rather tame.

Boogle This Reality check: even at $6 per share, Google trades at over 50 times earnings.

Our Friends in Government Update
1. Rove and Libby are hanging by a thread on the CIA leakathon. Charges could include perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statement. We, the people, call that lying.
2. Tom DeLay got mugged, printed, and released on $10,000 bail. God I hope he skips.
3. Fernando’ Hideaway might be the best spot for Big Apple mayoral candidate Ferrer, who each day steps closer to a landslide loss.

Brown Eats while New Orleans Floods Marty Bahamonde, FEMA’s man in New Orleans, cries for help. An aide to Bush’s ‘Good Job Brownie’ told Bahamonde to find a good restaurant in Baton Rouge. This is a quote from the e-mail: “It is very important that time is allowed for Mr. Brown to eat dinner.”

Corporate Crook Update
1. Seventeen KPMG, as in accounting big, partners have been indicted for trying to screw the IRS. One, David Greenberg, is considered a flight risk and is being held without bail.
2. Refco insiders, mainly Phillip Bennett, former CEO and Tone Grant, CEO before Bennett, took $1.1 billion from the till before declaring bankruptcy. This is getting good.
3. Ex-Merrill Lynch energy trading head, Daniel Gordon, gets three and a half years in the slammer for making off with $43 million of Merrill’s honestly earned dollars. Gordon agreed to give the money back and pay a measly $100,000 fine. I mean, couldn’t they at least whacked him for 1%?

BANG! If you get wounded or shot dead, don’t be looking to firearms manufacturers or gun dealers for restitution. Congress caved to NPR pressure and passed a shield law that Bush, his Bic poised, is frothing at the mouth to sign. In Brazil, where 40,000 citizens are annually popped off, a nationwide ban is being considered. Is that what it takes?

Beware CEO’s Bearing Gifts Robert Miller, CEO of bankrupt Delphi, who asks hourly workers to accept deep wage cuts, slashed his own salary to $1 from $1.5 million. Oh, but he’s keeping the $3 million signing bonus. Hey, give hourly workers a signing bonus of twice their annual salary and they’ll take a buck a year too.

Your Purse, or Mine? In a NYT front page photo of Supreme Court wannabe, Harriet Miers, in Senator Charles Schumer’s office, there appears to be two women’s purses on Charlie’s desk. Which is yours, Charlie?

This here’s my brother Jeb Florida (other states are in a ‘wait and see’ mode) gets fast approval from brother George’s boys in D.C. for outsourcing Medicare—now the greedy healthcare industry rife with financial scandal will dictate what is good and necessary treatment. This is scary. Can disenfranchisement of the poor be far behind?

This Lawyer and Broke Guy Go Into a Bar… Now it seems the D.C. Pointy Heads have come up with this brainwave that says before we, the people, can declare bankruptcy, we have to go to an unregulated (and not known and loved universally as couth) credit counselor who makes money by talking us into repaying our debt. Huh! Worse, credit card issuers have ponied up $10 million for this beloved group. No conflict there. William Binzel from the National Foundation for Credit Counseling compared it to a medical briefing before surgery. What analogy was he trying to make: castration?

DRAMIT! Samsung is coughing up a $300 million hairball for participating in a global conspiracy (that’s a big mother of conspiracy – what will they be called when we populate Mars?) to fix DRAM prices. Hynix of Korea and Ifineon of Germany (they make it global) took their knuckle rapping earlier, Hynix last April and Infineon a year ago. See what happens when you piss off the Americans like Dell, Compaq, HP, Apple, IBM, and Gateway. Price fixing is their responsibility.

Questions of the Week
1. Did Carl Rove and Scooter Libby leak Valerie Plame’s name to the press? Did they have sex with that woman? Did Judith Miller conspire? Did Robert Novack, defrocked Inside Politics antagonist of the thinking people, the only one who seems to have written the Plame story, have sex with anyone? Is this getting really good, or what?
2. Should vehicle driving activities like fixing hair, breast feeding, arguing, reading maps or reading anything, playing poker or cards of any type, sex, smoking, hollering at kids or spouse, letting dog or cat drive, letting kid drive, nose picking, checking teeth in rearview mirror, or fishing a beer from the six-pack in the back seat be banned like talking on the cellphone, and if so, what constitutes fixing hair?
3. Why don’t laptops have a REAL built-in mouse that can slide around on all that space where touch pads and other disjointing crap that should be declared illegal resides, and regardless of color, shouldn’t funky pencil-eraser type nubs sticking out of the keyboard also be outlawed?
4. What is Time Warner’s love affair with AOL? Why don’t they dump it like the bastard stepchild that it is and stop treating it like the first born?
5. Has Harriet been stalking W? Is that why he wants her on the big bench?
6. Will Canada and Denmark go to war over Hans Island, a NY studio-sized speck of land up where it’s too damn cold for most humans? What right do Canada and Denmark have to go to war anyway? Who do they think they are: us?

Weekly Dumb Ass Award To banks, which, despite eternal cycles, never seem to realize that higher interest rates or declining housing values will kick their real estate portfolios in the balls. Banks are supposed to know this stuff; they shouldn’t need the Fed to tell them and then run around in a state of utter dismay.

Worst Staged Event of the Year Award W talking to our soldiers in Iraq about the desires of the Iraqi people for a new constitution and the capabilities of the Iraqi soldiers to defend voters against terrorism.

Weekly Chump Award To my team, my heroes, the NY Yankees. Boo hoo!

Weekly Chutzpah Award To the Los Angeles Archdiocese for the hiding sexual abuse of children by 126 clergymen over seventy-five years. What is an appropriate penalty for betraying, in the most horrific way, these children? What is the appropriate penalty for betraying their followers? What is the appropriate penalty for betraying believers of every faith?

10% Equals 98%? Wood River Capital Management, a hedge fund with two to three-hundred million (reportedly – which means no one knows for sure) under management stuck 98% of one of its funds into an unprofitable startup. Forget about everything but the 98%: ex-DLJ banker John H. Whittier (a high WASP name if ever there was one) promised he’d not dick around with any more than 10% (that’s 10% John, not 98% - there is a difference) of his portfolio bet on one loser. It seems John also lied about getting audited, but he may have told the truth when he told a client that he might go to jail.

DeLay Update
1. Tom and his daughter’s phone records were subpoenaed by his nemesis, Ronnie Earle, a Texas state prosecutor. In turn, DeLay’s attorneys have subpoenaed Ronnie to have him explain his conduct with grand jurors. Wouldn’t that be part of the court record, or are they talking off-the-record hanky-panky?
2. According to those in the know, Tom’s still the go-to-guy for Republicans. They’d better be careful or they might not need a go-to-guy.

Corporate Crook Update
1. Like rats jumping a sinking ship, (and they usually know when to jump) institutions (customers) are fleeing Refco, one of the bigs in futures and commodities brokering as Phillip R. Bennett, CEO, and Santo C. Maggio, Capital Markets Group head, take indefinite leave. Bennett has since been arrested and charged with securities fraud, and that’s not good. It seems he hid hundreds of millions in related-party transactions and Refco’s financial statements for the last couple of years can’t be relied upon. (Don’t you just hate it when that happens?) Looks like Refco’s 9% 2012 bonds are taking the worst beating: $40, down from $108 last week.

Drivers Wanted VW’s head of personnel, caught giving pleasure trips and other favors to employees in return for support for company policy, is under what the Germans call formal judicial investigation. Ooooh and tsk! Soon it will be illegal for companies to pay their employees lest it be proven that it entices them to work.

A Sequel to end all Sequels If Warrant Beatty and Rob Reiner end up in opposition to the Governator, as some rumor (remember, this is Hollywood, rumors are fact) they may, what will it be called: The Terminator meets Tracy (as in Dick) and Bunker (as in Archie)?

Law & Disorder
1. Gilbert, Heintz & Randolph, seem to want it from both sides, advising Congoleum, the floor covering people up to their asses in asbestos class actions, and also representing claimants, either directly or indirectly. What is the world coming to—if you can’t trust your lawyer…?
2. A Merck (you remember, the Vioxx people) defense attorney (sex-female) got into a shouting match with a judge (sex-female), the one you don’t shout at particularly when she is overseeing 2400 Vioxx-related suits, and only settled down when the judge offered to have her ass hauled out of court. Good theater. Does Merck know how much is at stake? Does Merck realize that pharmaceutical companies aren’t on Santa’s two big C lists, Christmas and Chanukah? Does Merck know that law isn’t going to win its case, lawyers are?

Take my IPod, Please Jobs, in one of his famous black t-shirt and back-drop presentations peppered with humility rolled out Apples’ new video IPod. I had hoped they’d fix the problems with the audio version first. In our tiny household, we’re on our third in nine months.

Irony of the Week. Congress is worried about the $11 million a day to house displaced Katrinaites. Why? In Iraq war dollars, we’ve got fifty years.

Not Your Father’s Bud Cuvée du Cent Cinquantenaire, (if you have to ask, you can’t afford it) is Grand Marnier’s new $225-a-bottle vintage liqueur, and here we’d just learned how to say Grand Marnier (no, it isn’t Grand as in the ancient Mariner).

Payola Clear Channel, the big of radio, canned two execs and smacked a few others around for keeping pay-to-play arrangements (dubbed payola in 1960 for those of you who remember that vintage) with Sony BMG secret. Sony agreed to tighten its anti-payola policies and donate $10 mill to music education, which is about like you and I buying a postage stamp, well I mean before the went up from fifteen cents in 1980.

What Goes Up Must Come Down Elevator companies controlled by the Americans, the Swiss, the Finns, and the Germans, are about to be charged with global price fixing. Remember that the next time you punch a button.

Uh-oh Remember what happened when CPA firms switched from being dull, boring, honest auditors to CONSULTANTS with fancy names like Accenture and fancy slogans like “Now it gets interesting.” It got interesting all right: remember Arthur Andersen, the Adam and Eve of Accenture and, before being forced out of business, auditors for such stellar names like Enron, WorldCom, Sunbeam, and Waste Management? Well, now the lawyers are getting into the game, consulting clients on outsourcing, i.e. paying someone to run part of the business. Let me see, would that include fraud decisions. That way, Kenny Boy and Stilling, (the only thing still in Stilling is that he is still awaiting trial) could blame some guy hiding in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and we know how hard it is to find anyone there.

Great Canadian Pumpkin! It took most of Canada’s parliament, but Martha and that’s a good thing Stewart got her special visa, the ones issued to hardened criminals who want to venture across the 49th and wreak untold havoc amongst the natives, to enter the pumpkin rowing contest in Windsor, NS. Alas, the weatherman grounded her in Maine where the rain stayed mainly on the plane.

And finally, we pause to remember fellow passengers on this tiny spaceship we call Earth, passengers who are suffering the loss of loved ones.

FLOCK! Feeling Flu-ey? Thank our feathered friends. They’re about to seek revenge for all the turkey and duck and chicken dinners we’ve been slurping and burping. This one’s bad. Millions may die if this little bugger, H5N1, mutates into a form that we, the people, transmit, and we don’t damn soon find a way to blast it out of the sky. Alas, vaccine efficacy and availability are currently big time problematic.

Questions of the Week
1. Is the White House trying to get us to REFOCUS on terror or DISFOCUS on screw-ups?
2. How much different from ours will Iraq’s ‘new democracy’ be?
3. Should ‘Assisted Suicide Law’ be changed to ‘Dignified Death Law?’
4. Was Afghanistan’s voter fraud greater than ours?

DUH! to W for insisting over and over and over that his supreme court nominee, Harriet Miers, knows the law. Double Duh!

Weekly Chutzpah Award To Tom DeLay, deposed House majority leader, for saying that “Ronnie Earle has stooped to a new low with his brand of prosecutorial abuse” referring to the District Attorney of Travis County, the county where the new money laundering charge and the previous conspiracy charge were brought. (Italics mine)

Weekly Lottery Award
1. To Judy Miller, jailed NY Times reporter who goes to jail for eight-six days and comes out with a book deal rumored at $1.2 million. That’s $14,000 per day. Beats hell out of reporting.
2. To Anderson Cooper, (Gloria Vanderbilt’s son and intrepid CNN newsman) who goes to New Orleans, bravely stands in Katrina’s mighty wind for a few days, and gets a book deal that may exceed $1 million. That’s about $300,000 per day. As I said, beats hell out of reporting.

Scam Sham Don’t you get pissed when a perfectly good scammer gets scammed? Victor Kozeny sold certificates to rich American investors who expected to own a piece of Socar, Azerbajan’s oil company. From the proceeds, Kozeny paid $11 million in bribes to the Azerbajanis to get an allotment of Socar shares. Instead, he got the Azerbajani finger; Socar didn’t go public, but the bribed officials kept the money. And poor old Kozeny got indicted because he didn’t return the excess. This on top of the $182 million he stands accused of previously stealing from U.S. investors. For shame!

Corporate Crook Update
1. A judge denied bail for Kozlowski and Swartz, ex bigs at Tyco and each facing 8 (+) to 25 years on the rock pile. They weren’t smiling.
2. Scrushy, former CEO of HealthSouth, who dodged a cannon ball by convincing an Alabama black jury that he was not a crook but a ‘God-fearing, friendly-to-blacks’ man, might have his story made into a movie starring Christopher Walken. Careful Richard, the rest of the country might be watching. In typical Scrushy hubris, he said he wanted “a nice-looking fellow” to play him. O.J. Simpson was one suggestion received, probably not from a Scrushy or O.J. supporter.



Demic, Epi or Pan? Epi: think local; Pan, think global. The Birds, no, not Hitchcock, the Avian flu variety, will be pandemic.




Rove IV Will there be a sequel? Will Carl Rove, W’s chief of staff, be indicted as a consequence of his fourth appearance before the grand jury?

Bacrolist? Bacronym: the reverse of acronym, i.e., assigning words to letters that suggested words previously existed, but didn’t. Bacrolist: the reverse of list, i.e. making up a list to match a number suggesting a list existed, but didn’t; e.g., when W says the U.S. disrupted 10 serious terrorist plots, White House staffers had to hurriedly construct a list of ten serious terrorist plots that were disrupted.

Central INSULATION Agency Do you ever get the feeling that the CIA is more interested in protecting its own than protecting ‘we the people?’ Master Spy, Tenet, didn’t get fired for incompetence; he got the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a big pension. This week, Porter Goss gave the finger to Congress when he said no disciplinary action would be taken as a result of the Inspector General’s report. Why do I keep thinking that this smells like an old spy agency from another country?

FISS An inventory system otherwise known as First In, Screw Shareholders. Delphi, an auto parts company, NYSE $2.20 10/20/05, to fictitiously inflate prior years profits and cash flow, apparently recorded $440 million in sales for problematic (scrap?) inventory that it promised to reacquire at a later date. Margins were likely pretty good. A group of pension and investment funds is suing the company, nine investment banks, an accounting firm (poor old accountants, they can’t buy a break), six former or current Delphi executives, fifteen former or current directors and two other companies. With a cast like this, can an opera be far behind?

New Majority Rules?? Consider this hypothesis: a President of the United States may be elected only if he/she garners votes equal to a number greater than half the registered voters, not greater than half the ballots cast. Based on 11/04 numbers, the successful candidate would have had to receive in excess of 71.035 million votes; W got 62.041 million (forgetting about the agony of de count). Don’t like it? Neither did the Sunni’s when the Shiites and Turks tried to sneak similar provisions into the rules governing passage of their new constitution (mark the date: 10/15/05), rules effectively neutralizing the Sunni’s ability to meaningful dissent. The UN (U.S.) thankfully squelched this attempted skullduggery.

Bad Breath! Some are making a big to-do about Altoids, the ‘curiously strong’ mint, moving from Wales to Tennessee. Why? Is a Tennessee mint less effective than a Welsh mint? Is CZJ of Hollywood less effective than CZJ of Wales. I think not; she’s still a tasty mint, and I think Altoids will do as nicely. Does anyone care?

Not My Job So, did you like ex-FEMA director Brown better when he took responsibility for the Katrina mess or when he tried to blame everyone else (provided they were Democrats), as he did this week in his House committee testimony?

We, The People I’ve never seen a Senator or Congressman/Congresswoman indicted for representing the interests of the people. Maybe we should stop saying ‘we put them in power’ and start saying ‘we put them there to work for us.’ They don’t have power. This is a democracy; we, the people, have the power. Why don’t they understand this basic tenet?

Dream On/Off NBC and DreamWorks, SKG (Spielberg, Katzenberg, Geffen) couldn’t get together on price. It probably wasn't so much the $100 million plus NBC wanted to knock from its original $1.5 billion offer, but the paltry $100 million per picture budget that it wanted to stick the Dream Team with...can you imagine?

Questions of the Week
1. To prevent hurricane affected citizens from getting ripped-off by fly-by-night crooks, can’t local or state or federal governments quickly certify contractors and others seeking to help restore destroyed lives? Is this so difficult?
2. Why did the head of the FDA, you know, the agency that approves what we stick in our bodies like drugs, food, and body parts, take a powder? This one could be really, really interesting.
3. Is the Army ever going to convince us that it’s coming clean on prisoner abuse?

Weekly Citizens’ Award To departing Corinthian Colleges director Michael P. Berry for his kick-ass four-page letter of resignation from the board. We need more directors like Michael P. Berry. Maybe we need an annual awards show like the Oscars; we can call them the Berries, where awards are given to best director of a corporation, best director of a charity, best director…the list is endless. At the same time, DingleBerries could be awarded, likely in absentia, to the worst director in each category.

Duh! Ask a seven-year-old child how American citizens can use less gas? Compare the answer with that of our the leader of the most powerful country in the free world. (Drive less.) We needed to be told this?

Weekly Chutzpah Award To Tom DeLay for his sophomoric response to his indictment. You are not above the law, sir. Treat it with respect, or it will bite your ass.

Stuff that in your Burka! After getting the finger in Saudi Arabia and Turkey, how many more Middle East trips will Under Secretary Karen Hughes make to convince those uncivilized heathens that truth, justice, and the American way is the only way?

Calling Willard Scott E=mc2 joins centenarian ranks this month. What is it? Correct: Einstein’s theory of relativity. What is the translation? Hmmm. What does it mean? Um, er, huh? Intelligent design?

Free At Last Judith Miller, after 12 weeks in the slammer for refusing to name names, walks among us and will testify before the grand jury. Her confidential source, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff, not only gave her a waiver saying she was no longer bound by any pledge of confidentiality to him, but that he genuinely wanted her to testify. What’s wrong with this picture?


Holy Bat Shit! Don’t want SARS virus? Then don’t eat Chinese horseshoe bats (ugly little buggers, aren't they) or guano. Yeah, you read it right, guano! Many Asians eat bats or use bat shit in medicine.



Corporate Crook Update
1. Sammy Israel and Danny Marino, masterminds of the $450 million Bayou fraud, surrendered after two months on the lam.
2. Bernie's lawyers are trying to get his sentence reduced to something less than twenty-five years. I don't think he got a fair shake compared with his corporate crook kith and kin, but we're looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope; let's increase the sentences of the other scoundrels rather than reduce Bernie's.

Take My Stuff Please Hurricane looted businesses may be ahead of the game: they will collect theft insurance; the wind/water question might disallow claims.

Law & Disorder
1. New Orleans :: Police Department; a new oxymoron?
2. Did power lobbyist Abramoff (you know, the guy with close ties to a whole bunch of power Republicans including Ton DeLay) have a business antagonist, who tried to stab Abramoff’s partner with a pen, whacked by paid hit men with mob ties? Stay tuned.

Halliburton for President? If Halliburton Oil simply took over the country, we wouldn’t have to waste time worrying about the billions in non-compete contracts it gets almost as a daily diet and Cheney can publicly reassume the job of CEO. He can also officially name himself President of the United States.

Irony of the Week. Paul Wolfowitz, one of the main guys responsible for getting America mired in the cesspool known as Iraq with his rosy projections of how little it would cost and how few troops would be required, is now charging over the plains on a new white steed. As president of the World Bank, he wants a bunch of really rich countries like the United States to forgive $18 billion in debt owed by a bunch of really poor countries, much to the chagrin of his old Washington pals. I say ‘good for you Paul,’ now if you can just figure out how to pay for the war…

Corporate Screw-up of the Week Lenovo, the Chinese company that bought IBM’s Think division, forgot to remove I.B.M. logos from the new crop of Lenovo Think Pad Z-Series laptops. How do you say 'Shit Happens' in Chinese.

Readin’ Ritin’ and Rotten Former Roslyn (Long Island) schools superintendent, Frank A. Tassone, pleased guilty to stealing $2 million of school district loot. His pals pocketed another $9 million. And here we were, worried about our kids getting into grade four.

Accountants, we don’t need no Stinkin’ Accountants! The mere suggestion that the SEC Chairman could face pressure to weaken the auditing standard that directs how auditors review companies’ internal financial controls is absurd. Change them to be more effective: YES; weaken them: NEVER. Good God, Enron’s body isn’t even cold; Skilling and Kenny Boy have yet to have their asses hauled into court.

Roberts Rules A lot has been made of how new Chief Justice John G. Roberts will shape the future of the court. We, and he, should be as concerned about how history will reflect on his tenure.

Memo to Demogrunts and Repulsivans Stop politicking and run the country. So maybe Bush screwed up, but there’s probably a ton of Dems glad they aren’t in the big chair and if not, there are tons of we, the people glad they aren’t. Let’s for a change look after the part of America outside D.C.

Oxymoron: OPEC Largess Funny how with oil prices at record levels OPEC has decided to support the Saudis, you may know them better as Bush’s Middle-Eastern pals, and sell as much oil as consumers want.

Frist First Senator Bill Frist, Senate majority leader, sold some HCA stock (Frist’s family founded HCA) at its peak, just before it nose-dived on bum results. Doest this stink of insider trading or what? I mean, hasn’t he been reading the papers? A lot of his contributors are heading for the slammer for pulling the same trick. Think Martha, Bill—it’s not a good thing.

Questions of the Week
1. If America were Iraq, which of its two political parties would most resemble the Sunnis? Is this a war between our Sunnis and their Sunnis?
2. How is a powerful Iraqi Shiite cleric telling millions of his followers how to vote different from the Religious Right in America telling millions of its followers how to vote, or is it?
3. Memo to Alan Greenspan: Is raising interest rates inflationary?
4. Should French Fries (not because of the name, but because they are increasingly dangerous to our health) be banned or is a warning good enough?

Weekly Citizens’ Award To captain and crew of Jet Blue 292, for giving the world something to cheer.

Weekly Wimp Award Sony, for cutting ten thousand jobs over a paltry $90 million loss. This from a company that says in its 2005 annual report that it “will continue to work to inspire and delight…employees...” Some inspiration; some delight.

Weekly Chutzpah Award To the Catholic church for banning homosexuals from the priesthood.

Don’t Screw With Analysts Glad to see the SEC is warming up to kick Altera’s ass for retaliating against analysts who didn’t roar like bull over the company’s shares. I hope they drop kick them into the next big class action lawsuit, and then we’ll see who roars like bull.

Oh No! Talking Authors? The big O is tired of talking to dead authors. She is now going to interview authors of contemporary works, thus assuring huge sales. So now we have to write and talk? Will an excellent talker with a shitty book get the nod over a shitty talker with an excellent book?

New York Flush - Not so fast. The Spanish, I guess because of their uncommon interest in things scatological, have been picked to provide comfort stations on Manhattan streets, but they don’t seem to have a handle on how to pull it off. Their progress in other countries hasn’t been without stink.

Corporate & Government Crooks Update
1. Three cheers! Tyco’s Kozlowski and Schwartz got eight to twenty-five in a state prison not of their choosing, which means that rather than tennis and golf and intellectual endeavors like conversation with their fellow crooks, they will be toiling at menial tasks like scraping shit from latrines for $1.25 per day. But more significant, they have to pay $240 million in restitution and fines. I hope it ain’t comin’ from the buck-twenty-five per day.
2. For ratting on Lord Black, David Radler will probably get 29 months in a Canadian prison rather than a U.S. prison and pay $250,000 for his part in Hollinger International’s $32 million fraud. Not much of a penalty, but prosecutors better move quickly; Lord Black is sixty-one—he has to have a chance to live out his prison time, not outlive the time it takes to get him there.

Ahh, Monopoly Despite its problems, Amtrak says it hasn’t lost riders. Where did it expect them to go?

Black Mark on White House David Safavian who, until his resignation last week, was a senior White House budget guy, got arrested for lying and obstruction in connection with the FBI’s full court press to nail toppled power broker Jack Abramoff, House majority leader Tom DeLay’s good bud. This whole mess swirling around ‘Lobbyist A,’ as FBI affidavit refers to the unnamed lobbyist (com on, ‘Lobbyist A,’ give me a break), is going to get real sticky and nasty.

Black on Black Critics of the French for pelting the U.S. on its Katrina response seem to be saying that the French believe the U.S. doesn’t care about its black citizens more than France doesn’t care about its black citizens. Cut the crap. This is not color tragedy, this is human tragedy—if one citizen dies because of government failure then government has failed all its citizens.

Private Pension Pirates Opportunistic investors (sharks) in troubled companies are dumping pension obligations on the government and then, absent the burden, selling for huge profits. If you don’t like it, you’d better say something or your kids will have another giant tax bill to pay. My guess: by the year 2,000, the U.S. will have the highest tax rate in the world, except for the rich, the cheats, and the manipulators, who might be indistinguishable.

Bush’s Iraqatrina As president, Bush makes a good droning Baptist minister in a small church attended by a diminishing flock of true believers. Let’s face it: he’s screwed up Iraq, he’s screwed up Katrina, he’s screwed up about everything else he decided needed fixing like social security, medicare, and education. One thing he hasn’t screwed up is making the rich a whole hell of a lot richer. Bottom line: he makes a lousy chief executive of anything, let alone ‘our country, tis of thee.’

Spam Spam Holy double spam, Batman, Microsoft’s MSN and Time Warner’s AOL might merge. How many elongated penis messages can we stand in one mailbox?

Questions of the Week
1. How long will Katrina be blamed for all the dumb decisions made by government and business?
2. Was Bush’s Brownie really to blame for the preventable consequences of Katrina? A CEO of any company who didn’t personally respond to the largest disaster in the company’s history would have his ass summarily booted out the door.
3. Should people with $79.95 be able to get an airport security pass from a private company? Steve Brill is starting just such a company. I say if citizen one gets a pass, it should be available to all citizens who want to pass muster, FOR FREE!!! This is just more discrimination against the poor.
4. Anyone seen or heard from Karl Rove since Katrina?
5. Why weren’t any poor, black Katrina survivors at Washington National Cathedral for the day of prayer?
6. Could Justice Roberts make it to Quaoar and back on all the Senate gas he got this week?

Weekly Bullshit Award
Background: Lawrence Ellison, the chief oracle at Oracle, gets sued for insider trading by Oracle shareholders who want the money he made by dumping Oracle stock before missed sales results nosedived share price. Without admitting he did anything wrong (what, you expected more?), Ellison gets to donate $100 million in Oracle’s name (big of him) to a charity of his choosing (The Oracle of Oracle Church?), Oracle’s lawyers get $24 million paid by, yep, you guessed it, Oracle.
Here comes the bullshit so lift your feet. Now here’s where the lawyers really earn their money: When asked how the settlement benefited Oracle’s shareholders, a partner in Oracle’s crack legal team said something like: Oracle benefits because its chief executive will no longer be distracted by the lawsuit, and by donating $100 million, Oracle is fulfilling its obligations as a good corporate citizen by giving money to charity, an act that will enhance its reputation and improve shareholder value. This guy is certain to end up a Senator.

100 Blades? Gillette’s new shaving machine, Fusion, has five blades. What happened to four blades? They can’t jump from three to five…can they? And don’t they know that shaving with a blade is like waxing? Come on already, screw Fusion, it’s time for Lazr Shave. (For royalty’s sake, remember where and when you heard it).

Sooo Yesterday Newsflash Sony, Walkman isn’t an IPod killer. You need a new, catchy name, like TriPod or IWalk or ModWalk, short of Module Walkman. (See above item for royalty info)

Corporate Crook Update
1. Tyco’s Kozlowski and Schwartz learn their fates on Monday. They could get thirty years. I say they get ten, out in five. More interesting: How much cash do they have to disgorge? I hope it’s a ton because that’s what really po’s these greedy bastards.

The Jesus Seminar? Robert W. Funk, noted religion scholar, died September 3rd. I mention him here only because he deserves huge accolades for the name: The Jesus Seminar. My God, talk about a great name for a seminar. Of the 100,000 seminars, big and small, going on weekly around the country, and the fifty or so that each of us has attended in our dull work-a-day existence, who can remember the name of even one? Not I, but if I’d attended THE JESUS SEMINAR, I’d damn sure remember.

Law & Disorder
1. Hear the one about the judge who reprimanded the lawyer for badmouthing lawyers within earshot of jurors? Merck’s lead lawyer in the second Vioxx case got her ass kicked for saying the plaintiff had been surrounded by lawyers who presented evidence that smacked not of science, but of “lawyering, lawyering, lawyering.” Isn’t that a bit like the madam accusing her girls of screwing her clients?

Irony of the Week. Law firms hiring imaging firms? Rather than pay hundreds of thousands for a group of mollycoddlers, why not give it to me? I’ll just design a larger, more twenty-first-century looking screw.

Headstones Eastern, PanAm, TWA, Laker…Delta?...Northwest? The graveyard is filling up fast, boys. Time to check for cause of death.

Put This in Your Fig Newton Kraft, the friendly food people, are baking Fig Newton’s and Chips Ahoy with whole grain flour, not that terrible white stuff that everyone really likes but that is contaminated with such horrors as…oh well, the important thing is that each three-cookie serving of Chips Ahoy now has 150 calories, ten fewer than before, and twice as many grams of fiber, two instead of one. WOW! Interesting that Kraft’s announcement was made at that oxymoronic nutrition and obesity conference timed to show parents that Kraft cares about the obesity of its children (of course it does, how do you think they got that way) and doubly interesting that the new cookies are not healthy enough to pass muster with California’s new school guidelines and triply interesting that Kraft didn’t put out any dope on the number of calories in the new Fig Newton vs. the old.

Big Oil, Big Water, Big Wind So the big oil brains (bob’s) design o&g platforms built to survive a 100-year-storm, no definition given. Then along comes Ivan, which they, the bob’s, refer to as an anomaly, a 2500-year-storm, but he was just the warning shot: A year later, Katrina roared in, ready to kick serious ass. So much for the 100-year-storm idea. The bob’s need to spend a little time with CNN where they’d learn that global warming is making for bigger storms: big warm water, the fuel for big wind, is getting warmer—it’s a simple energy equation boys and girls; get with it.

Waltze Mart Why, when WalMart gets accused of sucky labor practices like kickings and beatings and incarcerations in its third-world plants, is it so quick to say that its accusers are notorious for factualizing fiction but that it needs time to study the allegations? To me, that suggests that the facts might not be as fictionalized as WalMart would have us believe.

Nasté! Condé Nast is sinking $100 million (I guess nobody there ever read ‘The Fanciest Dive’) into a bus mag start-up to challenge the two F words, Forbes and Fortune, and the B word, Business Week. Just what the world needs: another dull business magazine. So, here’s my idea: Call it ‘Nasté,’ pay me a huge royalty for the idea, incorporate my Extra Wry column in return for gross riches, and give the audience a business and government exposé. Hard to draw advertisers though, hoisting them on their ‘own petard,’ as old Bill Shakespeare was wont to say.