Medicare Mumbo Is anyone surprised that the new Medicare system is FUBAR? (Google FUBAR)

Questions of the Week
1. Should Major General Geoffrey D. Miller, mastermind of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons, be allowed to simply and quietly ride off into the sunset on full military pension? Curious that the U.S. Court of Appeals this week upheld a $54.6 million torture verdict against two U.S. backed Salvadoran generals now living in Florida. They stand accused of torturing Salvadorans in the country’s 1980’s civil war. Curious also that the army dropped its case against Christopher M. Beiring, the only officer to face criminal charges in the deaths of two U.S. prisoners held in Afghanistan. Beiring said, in part…”I think it got blown out of proportion….at some point, they were just playing politics.” Hey! Two human beings were murdered while in U.S. custody. That is not politics. That is not blowing out of proportion.
2. Will Sam Alito, Supreme Court nominee, survive senate grandstanding? Willl we?
3. How many seconds will Iran exist if it drops a nuclear bomb?
4. Are U.S. anti-abortionists against abortion in other countries? Lancet, the British medical journal, reports that in India in the last twenty years, as many as 10 million female fetuses may have been aborted as families vied to produce male heirs. There are doubtless other countries where similar practices exist. How immoral would it be for us to farm these fertile stem cell sources?

Dumbest Statement Ever We do not negotiate with terrorists. Of course we do, every week of every year: Iran, North Korea, Iraqi insurgents, etc. Just once, I’d like to kick Scott McClellan’s pompous ass while he stands in front of the press corps and says, “We do not negotiate with terrorists.” And while we’re on the subject of Scott McClellan, why does the press of the world continue to bother with this pillar of obtuseness?

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. DeLay’s return to majority leader delayed by House Republicans, who, like the rest of us, have finally had enough of Tommy boy, but not because he’s a crooked politician, because, despite the Tenth of the Big Ten, they covet his vacated position.
2. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, Texas’s comptroller, (Strayhorn: gory name for a Texan) is running as an independent in the state’s governor’s race. Bush will back her Republican rival; publicly at least, Scottie says he will back his mother.
3. Black Jack Abramoff’s cronies at the well heeled, well connected Greenberg Traurig law firm, are now saying they, like everyone else, were victimized by Abramoff. Tsk, tsk.

THOR-oughly Modern Norse Norway’s government says 40% of the board members of all large, publicly traded private companies must be women.

Stirrings In The Corporate Anthill
1. The SEC is checking into Home Depot’s recording of vendor credits
2. The SEC has upped the heat on its investigation into the way IBM’s announced first quarter 2005 earnings
3. The feds sued Oppenheimer for denying a job interview to a female
4. Mostly Martha is still trying to clear her name
5. AOL, though strenuously denying wrongdoing, is paying $25 million (that’s a lot for doing no wrong) to settle complaints by users who claimed wrongful billing
6. Six women sued Kleinwort Wasserstein for getting smaller bonuses and promotions than less qualified men. Lewdness toward women and unprofessional behavior (lunch time prostitutes) were also cited.

Smells From The Corporate Dungheap
1. Tenet Heathcare agreed to pay $215 million to settle shareholder suits accusing the company of lying about Medicare payments, etc. It still has the feds to deal with regarding accusations of billing misconduct and physician recruitment. (Billing misconduct?)
2. UBS got rapped for $49.5 million for improperly trading mutual funds
3. By being cheap, WalMart is attempting to transfer its employee healthcare burden to states.
4. Refco is trying to oust its former CEO, Phillip R. Bennett, charged with defrauding the company by hiding a $430 million loan, from its board. Shouldn’t that be an automatic: defraud the company, you’re off the board?
5. Tom Coughlin, off to the slammer for defrauding his employer, WalMart, of at least $350,000 (that must be big money in Arkansas), may still get part of $12 million in retirement benefits because an Arkansas judge (a cousin?) tossed out part of the lawsuit saying that a pre-existing agreement barred the former executive and the company from suing each other. Huh? Coughlin had been WalMart’s No. 2 exec.
6. AmeriDebt Founder, Andris Pukke (what a lot of his customers felt like doing) got smacked with up to $35 million, had to give up virtually all (what does that mean?) assets, and is permanently barred from engaging in credit counseling, debt management and credit card education activities. His lawyer, hopefully with tongue in cheek, said, “This settlement does not change the fact that Mr. Pukke did nothing wrong here.”

Corporate Crook Update
1. Fearing accounting fraud and energy market manipulation may confuse jurors, prosecutors will go after Enron bigs Skilling and Lay for lying.
2. Skilling and Lay tried to get their case dismissed, citing, ironically, prosecutorial misconduct.

Cajun Bulldozer The poor of New Orleans have four months to a year to show the city rebuilding commission that their neighborhood should not be bulldozed. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Ribit Global warming might kill a bunch of frogs in Central and South America. Don’t tell the people who are killing each other in advance of global warming.

RFI Viagra To fight counterfeiting, Pfizer is tagging Viagra packages with Radio Frequency Identification (RFI). Can tagging individual pills with RFI be far behind? Is this yet another way for the Bush administration to spy on its citizenry?

Have You Driven a Geely Lately? Bad enough that the Japanese knocked the American auto industry on its ass, now the Chinese are gearing up to make a run with the Geeley (Jee-lee) starting in 2008. Even if only eighteen and over Chinese Americans are the only buyers, that knocks seven million out of Detroit’s showrooms. The good news: The Geely looks about as exciting an American sedan, so I doubt many, including Chinese Americans, will be lining up for a test drive.