Bad Apple! Last week, Dell got smoked and announced a 4.1 million battery recall before its users got incinerated because of lousy Sony lithium ion batteries. This week Apple decided to lasso 1.8 million apple heads before they got baked. The culprit is again Sony’s lithium ion batteries. Here’s a question: what battery does Sony use in its laptops?

Have You Driven A Citigroup Lately? Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary and now Chairman of Citigroup resigned from Ford’s board because of potential conflict of interest problems. Does this mean that Citigroup is about to pull the plug on its loans to Ford? What other potential conflicts does a banker have? I doubt it has anything to do with annoying rattles that the service department can’t find.

Made In Japan? For once, it isn’t a shady US company selling nuclear weapons parts to hostile governments. A handful (that’s five) of Mitutoyo Corp. execs were arrested for suspicious behavior like selling the Malaysians bomb making stuff.

Hong Kong Big Mac Bong! The Hong Kong Chamber of Commerce can’t be happy that three hoods with baseball caps bearing wooden batons beat the crap out of one of its leading litigators against debt collection and gambling, two big crime-magnet industries. We weren’t told if the hoods had a Big Mac or which baseball team they favored. Of far greater concern: is the rule of law in post-Britain Hong Kong being eroded?

War Nonsense How’s that again: the US says cluster bombs it sold to Israel that Israel then dropped all over Lebanon weren’t supposed to be used that way. What did the US expect Israel to do: use them as planters?

Not So Fast! Peru’s congress observed a moment’s silence for hospitalized former president Valentin Paniagua after a lawmaker reported Paniagua had died. Mr. Paniagua’s doctor moved quickly to point out that not only had Mr. Paniagua not gone to that great congress in the sky but that his condition had actually improved. Now if we could just figure out how to so remarkably improve the health of our congress...

EEOC Muslim Style In Bagh, Kashmir, where a massive earthquake struck last October, enlightened Muslim clerics are saying relief agencies will face “direct action and extreme steps” if they don’t fire all their female employees, despite tens of thousands of homeless still living in refugee camps.

This Guy Gets My Vote. A prominent Shiite cleric in Iraq told lawmakers to stay home and try to improve the lives of ordinary citizens rather than gallivant around the world.

Baloney! Ever think it strange that the preeminent place to study law is the University of Bologna?