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?