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.
