Blow Job? Who’s fooling who? Washington’s biggest leper, Jack Abramoff, had 82 contacts with the Rove man’s office and 10 contacts with the Rove man himself. Abramoff’s former secretary is Rove’s executive assistant. How convenient is that? Sporting events tickets were given, meals were enjoyed, expensive wine was bought. A White House spokeswoman said the latter proved Abramoff and Rove weren’t close since Rove doesn’t drink alcohol and his close friends know that. Ah yes, but did he take the wine?

Kepcher Trumped; Ivanka Trump. So The Donald gave Carolyn Kepcher, the best thing about The Apprentice, the elevator. Say what you want, Donnie, that is bald-faced nepotism, and in my books, YOU'RE FIRED!

Buy My Book Please So Musharraf, president of Pakistan, would rather use a nationally televised meeting with super agent Georgie in the Rose Garden to promote his book, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir, rather than arrive at a way to work with Afghanistan and find Osama. And then we gave him dinner? And to top it off, we gave Karzai from Afghanistan a dinner. Isn’t that something like giving the head of the Mexican and Columbian drug cartels dinner?

Out, Out Damn Spot! The whole world (read United States) knows that Diebold voting machines are a dud. So you gotta ask yourself: why are they going to be used? Because Diebold says they’re reliable? Because Diebold is a Texas-based company that supports Republicans for re-election? Because Diebold Elections Systems president meets at Bush’s Crawford ranch for Republican re-election strategy sessions? Banks across the nation use ATM’s that spit out instant paper trails; can’t a simple screw-turn make them into voting machines? Or we could make it into a science project and let the kids do it.

$&%!#*$&% Contractors In Iraq, thirteen of fourteen major projects worth hundreds of millions built, to use the term loosely, by American contractor Parsons Corp have been given a big thumbs down by congress. In one case, the $72 million police college, the plumbing burst dumping urine and feces throughout the building. Other big American contractors in Iraq, Bechtel and KBR, the latter a sub of Halliburton, Darth Dickie’s former domain, also came under sharp criticism. In all, we’re talking $30 to $45 billion in reconstruction, and I for one am not sanguine that congressional mouthwork is the answer.

Anthills? For those in Washington who seem befuddled by the idea that the war in Iraq has worsened the threat of terrorism, here’s a simple experiment I'd like them to try: go outside, find a stick, find a fire ant nest, poke with stick, run like hell.

Blackberry Pie? As if Research in Motion, the Blackberry people, didn’t have enough on the tiny little keyboards with several years of fighting copyright infringement charges, now they’ve been dicking with their stock options. So far, RIM says it’s no big deal and their business and stock are going like gangbusters, but keep you eyes open if you’re an investor. The SEC doesn’t like company execs playing with option grant dates. RIMM, NASDAQ.

Rummy Cheats To learn that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld never loses at squash comes as no surprise since he only plays subordinates, but to learn that he also cheats speaks volumes about the mixed signals he sends regarding the war in Iraq. In my experience cheaters often aren't aware of the thin line between fact and fiction. As an aside, I wonder who would win if Rummy played Georgie The Unglib or Darth Dickie. Condi vs. Rummy, now that's a match I'd like to see.

Stock This in Your Pipe A trader sold 259 billion (yes, billion) shares in CMKM Diamonds at a fifth of a penny a share and raised $53 million. CMKM Diamonds, OTC, never traded above two cents a share and had total assets in 2002 of, are you ready for this, $344. When an auditor hired by the company quit after eleven days saying they suspected criminal activity, a company spokesperson pooh-poohed the claim saying the auditor couldn’t possibly make such a claim since the company’s records couldn’t be found. The well-connected former FBI agent the company hired as co-Chairman for $40,000 per month told a judge he didn’t know how many employees the company had or what they did and was not familiar with the company’s assets or liabilities, nor did he ever go to the company’s offices, perhaps because they didn’t have any, and is now claiming he hasn’t been paid the amount owed. My thoughts: maybe he hasn’t been paid the amount promised, but if he’s been paid nada, zero, nothing, I think he’s been paid the amount owed.

A Fifth of HP Well, they've been drinking something at HP. Its execs are pleading the Fifth and resigning faster than their printers can kick out clear, crisp documents. Congressional representatives have been left shaking their heads at the refusal of the former Chairwoman, Patricia Dunn, to accept any responsibility in the boardroom spying shenanigans. Besides Dunn, general counsel Ann Baskins has resigned. She was one of 10 HP witnesses who blessed the House committee with silence. HP’s stock has lost about half its value in the past year; so far my printer still works.

Sony Burn Lenovo and IBM are recalling 500,000 plus Sony lithium ion batteries after a notebook computer caught fire in the LA airport. Lenovo is the Chinese company that bought IBM’s personal computing business. On top of Dell’s 4.1 million and Apple’s 1.8 million battery recalls, the total hit on Sony is nearing 6.5 million batteries. Given Sony's size, the cost isn't that much unless some inconsiderate laptoppers get a good old fashioned American class action suit stoked up.

Yuan For You and Yuan For Me Early stirring in China that it may revalue the yuan is good news for the $725 billion (+-) trade surplus with the US but not so good for we the people because now we’ll have to pay more greenbacks for all the Chinese goodies we ‘yuan’ to have. I wonder: does that include takeout?

Angelina, Brad, and Jacob? Who? Jacob Alexander, a fugitive from US justice is hiding out in Namibia, although the country’s hospitality toward him isn’t quite the same as it is for A and B; Jacob is in jail, waiting to see if the creaky, crooked wheels of international justice will see him extradited, despite no Namibia/US treaty, to face a Converse Technology stock option swindle. Jacob had been Converse’s CEO until May when he resigned and spirited his family off to Israel then to Namibia. A couple of other former Converse execs pleaded not guilty, but they didn’t make it out of the county. Converse, NASDAQ, $21-22, 2005 revenue $959.4 million, net $57.3 million. This ain’t bad; why were they screwing with the stock options?

Et Tu, Methuselah? Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, who must be two thousand years old in take-over artist years, has signaled a willingness to put up another $400 million for GM stock to shove a reluctant GM back to stalled Renault/Nissan alliance discussions.

That’s all for this week, my friends. Stay alert; don’t get uh, twisted!