Hastert Doomed? W appeared on TV with Denny and told him he was doing a good job. Well actually, among other things, he said, “This country is better off with Denny Hastert as the speaker.” Remember when W appeared with Brownie of FEMA and told him he was doing a heck of a job while New Orleans sank from view? Brownie's subsequent demise was quick and painful, as it should have been. So long Denny. You’re next.

Kim-Boom! With North Korea detonating a nuclear bomb that though seeming to have fallen far short of the ten to twenty kilotons first reported to something less than one kiloton, it got the world’s attention. Condi says we won’t go to war (did I miss the part where we put her in charge) and W is pissed because he still can’t pronounce nuclear and Darth Dick phoned Halliburton to check on its troop strength. Height challenged Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s dictator, lashed out at the world for pooh-poohing his little bomb and said size doesn’t matter (Yeah right! Ladies, where have you heard that one before).

Yougle or Suegle? So Google scoops up You Tube, a collection of home videos produced by a demographic that I put at fifteen, plus or minus a couple of years. Some are quite entertaining; we’ve all seen them attached to emails from our jokester lists; others are pure crap; others are ripped off from copyrighted sources like movie studios, and therein lies the problem. Movie companies that invest tens of million of dollars to make movies aren’t about to let Google and its you-tubers freely disseminate their creations…so they plan to sue Google (Google has deep pockets – You Tube was a start up so going after it and winning would have been a Pyrrhic victory). Movie moguls are also going after individual you-tubers much like the record companies did when Napster ticked off the music guys so be prepared for the FBI to come knocking in the middle of a dark and stormy night. P.S. Google paid $1.65 billion in Google stock; if you’re a Google stockholder, that’s your money.

Third Time Lucky? Cendant shareholders hope not, at least in this case. Ex-CEO, Walter Forbes, facing his third fraud trial for leading a scheme to inflate CUC’s income by $252 million prior to its 1997 merger with HFS. The prosecutor says Forbes lied about everything to everyone and lined his pockets with tens of millions of dollars. It is interesting that this was one of the largest accounting frauds of the 1990s because $252 million seems paltry, almost like pocket change given the billion dollar frauds of more recent times. Forbes’s first two dances with justice ended in mistrials after jurors spent a combined sixty days without reaching a decision.

Peeuwlet Packard? Hold your nose. Now it seems that in addition to directors and executives spying on one another and generally doing the nasty, there are reports of selling stock in advance of detrimental press releases. Shareholders need to clean house at this once highly respected corporation by replacing every board member and all executive management or this sucker will bleed to death.

Corporate Crooks
1. Cheaters and Crooks Safeguarding your Computer? McAfee, the computer virus protector, is among a growing list of companies caught up in this practice likened to betting on a horse race after the race is over. McAfee’s CEO retired, which I hope is a euphemism for booting his butt out the door.

Similarly, CNet’s CEO resigned. Like McAfee, millions of individual computer users look to CNet for trusted data on a host of software and hardware issues. Or at least we used to. How can we trust companies run by cheaters and crooks?

In all, about 120 companies are under government scrutiny or have launched internal investigations into options backdating. The FBI is vigorously inspecting the books of fifty-five of these; two have received criminal indictments.


2. Internet Fraud: The former CEO of Homestore Inc., an online home listing service, is to get fifteen years in the slammer for directing a $67 million fraud against the company, unless his attorney can pull a rabbit from the hat.

Does anyone remember the date that all the crooks started working for corporations?

Torre-ific! Hey, give me a break. I’m a Yankee fan, and I’m glad Joe’s coming back.

Nay Ney! Republican congressman Bob Ney from Ohio pleaded guilty to accepting bribes from Washington’s most hated lobbyist Black Jack Abramhoff in return for giving Jack’s clients what they wanted. BUT GET THIS CHUTZPAH, Ney said he would resign within the next few weeks. What? He’s got more favors to do before he leaves? Throw the bum out. He doesn’t deserve another day pretending to be a leader.

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

Woodward’s Genius: The genius of ‘State of Denial,’ Bob Woodward’s latest book that calls the Bush administrations take on the war in Iraq flawed is not what exists between the front and back covers; it is that he’s getting paid a ton of money and receiving hours of media coverage for doing nothing other than stating the obvious.

Carly’s HP Book: Speaking of genius, how good is Carly Fiorina’s timing? The former CEO of HP, rather unceremoniously axed in February 2005, is releasing her new book, Queen Carly, er, Tough Choices, next week. Talk about millions in free PR with HP doing everything it can to show the world how inept it has become since deposing Carly, including an arrest warrant issued for Patricia Dunn, chairwoman fired a week or two ago. As I said before, my printer still works. How’s the stock doing?

Michael Milliken Redux: Those of you under thirty years of age who haven’t studied financial shenanigan history might not remember Drexel, Burnham, Lambert and it’s hotshot junk bond salesman, Michael Milliken, who went to jail for a dozen or so years for committing all sorts of fraud crimes against America. I just read the Forbes 400 list. I didn’t see your name. I didn’t see my name. But guess where Michael sits? Yeah, he’s there, #153 with $2.1 billion. Crime pays!

Excuses Anonymous: Disgraced for E-mail sex with underage pages, Congressmen Foley checks into an alcohol treatment facility citing substance abuse and, when he was thirteen to fifteen, molestation by a clergyman, as excuses for his behavior. Tragic those these life-altering events are, they are not excuses for what he did. He, like other once trusted government officials, did what he did because he thought he wouldn’t get caught. He's known for years that he had a problem; why didn’t he fix it?

Cat-choo!: The cat might not make you sneeze, but the $4,000 price tag will. Early next year Allerca, a biotech company, will deliver hypoallergenic – or is that hyper-alley-genic – kittens a $4,000 each. Now if they could just figure out how to eliminate the hairball, tattered furniture, and cat box parts.

Hastert Hoedown: In his televised speech regarding the Foley's sex scandal House Speaker Hastert did a masterful ‘Buck Stops Here’ dance, but the music sounded a lot like ‘Pass the Buck Polka,’ that old DC favorite. Now it sounds like the FBI and a lot of other DC folks we’ve grown to love and trust are joining Denny’s Dance; Tony Snow, Whitehouse spokesman, is playing lead fiddle as fast as he can, and Karl Rove is no doubt yodeling up a storm.

Air Nowhere, Free Elbowroom: Say you happened to end up in Brookings, SD and needed to get to Huron, SD, you could take an hour out of your hectic schedule and drive, or you could jam yourself, along with the two other people who decided to fly on that or any other day, into a nineteen passenger turbo prop operated by Mesa Air, an Essential Air Services carrier subsidized by we the people ever since airline deregulation in 1978 - remember that, the day US airlines started their long, painful decline into the toilet of mediocrity. But why should we care? Because each ticket costs we the people $600 - $700. So, lets do the math: an average of three passengers per flight times 24 flights per week, 12 outbound and 12 inbound flights, times fifty-two weeks times say $650, the average ticket subsidy, equals $2.5 million per year. PS: There are over one-hundred Essential Airports costing over $100 million annually.

Rice Redefines Progress: At least consistency runs rampant in Bushies Whitehouse. This week, Condi, a majority of one, insisted there were signs of progress in Iraq. Would this be why the Whitehouse is stepping up its efforts to censor battlefront news and coverage of the returning coffins of dead service men and women: they don’t want to share all this progress?

Bad Apple: Has Steve Jobs’ company been backdating options? It’s called spring-loading or fraud, depending on which side of the room you’re on. To me, if it looks like insider trading and smells like insider trading, then it is insider trading. It’s way past time for shareholders to demand that corporate America start to wipe its butt.

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. -William Proxmire, US senator, reformer (1915-2005)
http://wordsmith.org/ 10-06-06

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

Online Poll from CWT

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!

Extra Wry Poll - September 22, 2006

Online Poll from CWT

Un-UN With Hugo Chavez from Venezuela and Mahmoud Amadinejad from Iran blasting Bush and Bush blasting everyone in the world who doesn’t agree with US, the UN took on a decidedly un-united tone during it meetings this week. Isn’t it odd that the top reps from two leading vendors of petroleum would journey to the home of their largest customer and piss on his daisies? Are all world leaders so ineffective at governing for the people that they need to hide behind the curtains of war?


See No Evil The Canadians blasted the Americans for rendering a Canadian citizen to Syria’s harsh prison system where he was held and tortured for a year before being released, totally innocent of all except being born Syrian. Is this what American’s want to see? Is this what American’s see?

Pssst! Password? So a couple of thousand laptop computers disappeared from the Department of Commerce. But don’t worry, department spokespersons say, they are password protected. Now if only the Defense Department, whose computers are regularly hacked, would get some of these super passwords from the good folks at Commerce, we can all start to feel safer.

Eight Commandments? The Bush Whitehouse seems hell bent on election that it is going to change the Geneva Convention so that those responsible for violations will not be prosecuted as war criminals. They of course don’t say that; they say they need to torture people to find out why they want to kill us. In a related matter, the Bush Whitehouse wants commandments six and nine deleted.

More HURDles for HP? Now it seems Mark V. Hurd, HP’s CEO, might have had his mitts in the boardroom spy scandal ricocheting around silicon valley. CEO’s have proven slippery though, and it may be hard to stick him with any dastardly deeds. Meanwhile, HP’s stock has turned down.

Zuckenberg and Facebook Ever hear of them? Who or what are they? Your guess is as good as mine, but in that world that no one except the alien brethren among us knows about, Yahoo has offered 22-year-old Mark Zuckenberg $900 million, that’s just a paltry $100 million shy of a billion bucks, for Facebook, a social networking company for college types that lets them gossip, flirt and keep track of parties, those coming, not those in the past, which, presumably college kids of today like those of yesterday want to forget. Yahoo says they will keep Zuckenberg around to run the company as he wants (well maybe not exactly as he wants, but like anyone with $900 million invested might let him).

Another Virgin Sir Richard, already owner of a stable of travel, media, and entertainment virgins, wants that red-hot momma, Earth, to cool down her act, and he’s putting his money where his mouth is. Branson says he will put up $3 billion to develop energy resources that do not contribute to global warming. Hey, I like this guy and the Al Gore guy who helped persuade his thinking, but is Richard being eleemosynary or opportunistic? Keep your eye on alternate energy stocks...maybe you can pocket a buck or two.

No More E.Coli To get the government off their spinach, California growers say they will implement new growing and handling procedures to ensure they don’t ship e.coli infected products. How long did they plan on waiting?

$10 Oranges? The shortage of Mexican laborers caused by America’s crackdown on illegals streaming across the border has left California farmers woefully short of pickers, and their fruit is rotting on the branch. So, $10 oranges? Maybe not, but it ain’t gonna get cheaper. Gracias, Washington amigos, for another failed policy.

Please, Mr. Big Oil, “We would really appreciate it” if you changed your contracts. That’s pretty much the Interior Department’s response to its $12 billion mistake in favor of the oil companies. Of course, not one oil company said boo so I guess they didn’t notice the error either…I mean it’s hard to imagine ‘big oil’ being so disingenuous. Curiously, the Interior Department said it will not try to correct the mistake because it has no leverage against the oil companies and doesn’t want any. HUH? It has also prevented federal auditors from recovering $30 million in deliberate lease underpayments by the oil companies.

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

ExtraWry Poll - September 15, 2006

Online Poll from CWT

Dunn Done Despite assertions that she wouldn’t be the scapegoat in the Hewlett-Packard boardroom debacle, Chairwoman Patricia Dunn has been shoved aside, the victim of a lot of bad deeds employed in spying on fellow directors that took place on her watch, some if not all of which were initiated by her. Maybe H-P can now regain its former dignity.

Bitch of the Week: The circus that the media and politicians made out of 9-11. Thank god the tenth anniversary won’t be an election year.

Silver Foot Anne Richards, the biggest Democrat in Texas since LBJ, moved on to that big campaign in the sky this week. She was tough, she was full of life, she was fun, but more than everything else, she coined one of my favorite sayings: “George W. Bush was born with a silver foot in his mouth.” Give ‘em hell up there, Anne!

Dell Hell More than batteries in its laptops may be in a meltdown. Dells profits are in the toilet and the SEC is nosing around because Dell’s financial statements might not be totally accurate. Where have we heard that one before? An old stock buy-back agreement that locks Dell into buying shares at prices considerably higher than current market value isn’t going to help. Stay tuned. I’m not an Apple guy, but maybe an apple a day--well maybe not every day, a little Jobs goes along way--will turn out to be a dose of sage advice.

Hedge Hogs The billionaires running hedge funds want a bigger trough. There is talk of $24.3 billion Fortress Investment Group (would that be FIG for short?) going public, making the billionaire owners into whatever comes after billionaire. I don’t know whether the strategy will work; hedge funds in the past have demonstrated an ability to die from self-inflicted ego wounds, but if you can afford a few shares, you’ll probably make a few bucks because everyone will want to nose in on the action. Don’t wait too long to get out though or you might end up hearing a lot of oinking because there isn’t enough slop to go around.

Tough, Wrinkled M&Ms No, not a new addition to the product line of one of the best candies in the whole world, but Murdoch and Malone, the two tough, battle-scarred old lions of media. Malone’s got something Murdoch covets: 19% of News Corporation; and Murdoch’s got something Malone covets: control of Direct TV. None of this matters a hoot to you and me; unless you somehow think the Tenth Commandment actually applies to business executives, it’s just fun to watch two veterans of corporate conflict stalk each other with a few billion dollars on the table.

ZUNE, ZONE, Gone Any time a company , as Microsoft did this week with the unveiling of Zune, has to describe a music player for teenagers with a string of corporate gobbledygook such as a ‘decidedly social experience’ OR ‘a new platform that helps bring artists closer to their audiences and helps people find new music and develop new social connections’ OR ‘it gives listeners three listens in three days’ OR calls it ‘an extension of other social technologies’ OR says “it turns people into street teams” and then has to have the reporter insert a parented explanation (promoters who try to popularize music through word of mouth), I say you ain’t got a music player baby, you got a big fat turkey.

Does George Speak With Forked Tongue? Under no circumstances should this administration be allowed to rewrite the rules of decency. When will George and Dick understand that the people of the US are not concerned with the US meeting the requirements of the Geneva Convention for decency, the people of the US are concerned that the requirements of the Geneva Convention do not meet US requirements for decency, and anyone, ANYONE, who is guilty of torturing prisoners has to be held accountable. Torture does not provide the information this administration would like us to believe it does, it does nothing but debase our status as a country seeking to make the world a more humane place.

Risky Business As if the prospect of getting killed in a bank robbery wasn’t enough, Russian central banker Andre Kozlov, who was leading efforts to eliminate money laundering and close disreputable banks, and his driver were shot and killed in what is being called a contract killing; they were returning to their car following a soccer game.

Nay Ney Representative Bob Ney, Republican, Ohio, is the first congressman to bite the dust over his ties to corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Last January, the Republican leadership pressured Ney to give up his post as chairman of the House Administration Committee (office space allotment, cafeteria, other Capital Hill services) by saying, and this is telling, that they feared that the assignment had brought undue scrutiny to the corruption accusations facing Mr. Ney and other Republicans. Huh? Doesn’t corruption and those accused of corruption deserve undue scrutiny?

Thanks, George Clooney! George Clooney, in his address to the UN this week, makes one proud to be an American. He essentially told overpaid UN bureaucrats and their governments to get off their over fat asses or some 2.5 million of the almost forgotten peoples of Darfur will die at an estimated rate 100,000 a month. He said, “So after September 30th, you won't need the UN. You will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones." Let us hope and pray that he and others succeed in attracting the needed help. You can do your part by being aware and making others aware.

You Go Google! Ya gotta give the Google guys credit; they shake; they move; but can they make a difference? You want my advice? Don’t bet against them. Their new for profit philanthropy will teach people how to fish rather than giving them fish. A new startup whose efforts are near and dear to my heart is going to try to create a fleet of ethanol/electric/gasoline hybrids that get a cool hundred miles per gallon. The first jock who asks how fast it can go from zero to sixty should be stuffed and mounted in the automobile hall of shame right next to extinct Ford and GM products.

Spinach, E-Coli, and Popeye? What do they have in common? Nothing, unless Popeye ate some bagged, uncooked spinach bought at a store in America that happened to be an e-coli source in which case Bluto would make off with Olive Oyl, Swee’Pea would become an undisciplined delinquent, and Popeye would have a lot of dribble on his chin. DON’T EAT BAGGED SPINACH, DON'T COOK BAGGED SPINACH, DON'T WASH BAGGED SPINACH, THROW IT AWAY until this whole e-coli bacteria thing is cleared up. IF YOU HAVE EATEN SOME AND HAVE DIARRHEA OR OTHERWISE DON'T FEEL WELL, GET TO THE ER PRONTO!

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

ExtraWry Poll - September 8, 2006

Free Web Poll from CWT

Drug Lord Housing? Now it seems that with the Afghan opium harvest at all time high record levels, the epicenter of this painfully profitable, war mongering Taliban murder machine is none other than Lashkar Gah, a modern city, the largest development project in Afghanistan’s history, called Little America by the Afghans. Why do they call it Little America? Because it was built by Americans with American dollars, THAT’S EFFING WHY!

Condoms Behind Bars Even with the AIDS infection rate five times that of the general population, in a number of states condoms aren’t readily available to inmates who want them. In fact, California lawmakers more intent on morality issues (don’t ask because I don’t have a clue) than in the prisoners’ safety and the safety of those with whom prisoners come in contact (the willing and the unwilling) once they leave prison don’t think condoms should be made available. Is this the dumbest thing you heard this week, or am I missing something?

Knock! Knock! “Who’s there?” Karl Rove. “Who?” Karl’s White House dummy and Dickie the bad might still be listening, but it seems an increasing number of Republicans are shutting their ears to Rove Speak. About time.

Happy Birthday! Blow out the Candles! Make a Wish! Here Come De Judge! That’s about how Lord Black’s sixty-second birthday party went. Included in his gifts was a Marvera order that curtails the lord and lady’s monthly allowance to C$25,000 each, all expenditures to be approved by the court. I feel sorry for them, don’t you? I mean, having to get by on so little. They’re used to dropping ten times that much, but of course it might have been pissed off shareholders money, part of the reason for the Marvera order. Black, accused of fraud and all other sorts of nasty deeds, is the deposed head of a newspaper empire.

Presto! Changeo! Guantanamo! With a flip of his political wrist, George the Illusionist made secret prisons, whose existence had been vociferously denied, suddenly appear; whisked fourteen so-called high-profile terrorist suspects (though I don’t why they call them high profile if no one other than spy guys has ever heard of them) being held in said secret prisons off to that bastion of human rights, Guantanamo; then just as suddenly made the secret prisons disappear again. It seems these fourteen prisoners will now be treated as humans now that the CIA and foreign agents have what they want. Hey, I don’t like terrorists either, but I’m damned sure not in favor of torture, our government lying to us about secret prisons and tortured prisoners; and cover-ups. Ya gotta ask: What other tricks does George the Illusionist have up his pre-election sleeve?

Hercule Poirot? No, Hewlett Packard. After the shenanigans revealed at Hewlett-Packard this past week, Agatha Christie might want to ink a new series. Leaks, guys in raincoats wearing dark glasses and fedoras worn low on the forehead, deals and side deals, cloak and dagger investigations, clashes, lawsuits, criminal charges, a disgruntled board member giving the board one finger and doing a lot of pointing with another; it doesn’t get any better than this. That sound you hear is the collective drool of corporate intrigue novelists sharpening their pencils.

Rotten Eighty-Two-Year Old Kid? Has Brooke Astor’s eighty-two-year old son, Anthony Marshall, been ripping off the estate in favor of his own pockets and lavish life-style? His son Phillip and JP Morgan Chase bank seem to think so, maybe to the tune of $25 million or so, and are pressing the issue in court. Marshall says the bank has shown unrelenting hostility, and one of his lawyers said, “It is a completely bogus and bloated claim that just piles on the kitchen sink, indiscriminately.” Huh? Well, piling up on the kitchen sink or not, it is all such a tawdry chapter in the life of a great and generous philanthropist who, at age 104 and ailing, will always be known as one of New York City’s most gracious ladies.

Wal-Mart, We Love You $o, $o Much It’s getting so you can’t trust anyone these days. Wait a minute, did I say ‘getting’; baby, we passed ‘getting’ a long time ago. It seems conservative research groups like the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, and the Manhattan Institute, aggressive defenders of Wal-Mart to reporters and government, have been getting big bucks from the Walton Family Foundation run by Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton’s three children. Hey, we’re talking conservative research groups here; what did we expect? The problem is non-disclosure. We know what’s going on; we know your pulling a scumbag scam; just remind us once in a while.

Metro-Goldwyn-Amazon? There’s a raft of companies, Amazon now included, that want you to download movies on your PC. How can they hope to compete without lousy ten dollar popcorn and sodas, broken and dirty seats, and people talking on cellphones? It just won’t be the same.

Corporate Crook Update Bernie Ebbers, 65, deposed as CEO of WorldCom because of orchestrating a paltry $11 billion accounting fraud, has run out of wiggle room. On September 26th, he reports for twenty-five-year duty at a yet to be named prison. Let’s see: 65 + 25 = 90. Hmmm?

Microsoft Plays Scare Card Microsoft said regulators pushing the anti-trust suit against Microsoft in Europe might cause a delay in the release of Windows Vista in Europe because of unclear guidelines. If only we could be so lucky. My XP still isn’t working right. In fact, it’s getting worse. Maybe it has built in obsolescence, or maybe it’s suffering from Microsoft reaching out in the dark of night and unleashing little Gatesean bugs under the guise of auto update.

Blair Benched! Tony’s boys give him the old thumbs down. He says he’ll leave within the year, but on his own timetable. We shall see.

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

Good Job, Well Done! If one accepts the premise that Bush and Rumsfeld, under Cheney's watchful eye, are employed by the Pentagon and Big Oil to ensure the war in Iraq continues by constantly suggesting that anything as intelligent and humane as troop withdrawal will have terrorists raining down on American cities, then they are earning their money.

There Ought To Be A Law! Speaking of money, with first year lawyers in the Big Apple finding $145,000 in their annual pay envelopes, pro bono work, and that includes politics, is looking a lot less attractive.

Bond, James Bond. I, for one, am glad that Ford is selling Aston Martin. The panache of James with the latest busty Bond babe whipping down a treacherous mountain road in a Ford just didn't cut it.

Rich Man, Poor Man. Well hardly poor, but on the heels of lopping $40 billion off his estate and giving the proceeds to Bill and Melinda Gates charitable foundations , Berkshire Hathaway's septuagenarian Warren Buffet this past Wednesday said "I do" to his twenty-year companion who, at sixty, is sixteen years his junior. If you own BH stock, you'll be happy to know it closed at $96,097 per share (yes, you read it right) yesterday, no doubt because it was an intimate, inexpensive wedding.

Village Voice, How Come You is Talking Funny? Since the October 2005 merger with Phoenix-based New Times Media, Village Voice, the epitome of alternative media, is losing a lot of the great artistic people who made it what it was. Some are being pink-slipped, and others are leaving amid distrust, disgust, and dismay. How long will it take for the once great Voice to become nothing but another plastic peep?

Who’s Sorry Now? Politicians, racing like lemmings at light speed toward November elections, are falling all over themselves to tell us how sorry they are for past sins, and a lot, like lemmings, will not be back. We don't want sorry; we want honest representation that won't be squashed under the big fat thumbs of big fat lobbyists.

Marx My Words! For shame! China is rewriting its high school history books, eliminating a lot of Marxist references that aren't complicit with present economic and political objectives. We can be proud that we would never tolerate history revisionism for political and economic reasons in this country.

FOK? (Friend of Karl) So Kenneth Y. (what does the Y stand for?) Tomlinson, a Bushie buddy in charge of the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, who last year got booted out of Corporation for Public Broadcasting for trying to politicize programming, is running a horse racing operation from his office and has improperly put a friend on the government payroll. And Bush still supports his nomination for another term as Chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors? FOK!

O Canada, We Stand On Armed Guard For Thee… If you plan on crashing the Canadian border, you had better do so before September 2007. That's when Canada will begin arming its border guards, another example of how the NRA and like associations and arms dealers are helping win the war against terrorists and making us feel all warm and cozy. Take heart, though, because only 150 Canadian border guards will get their Rambo badges the first year.

Nuclear Iran or Nuke Iran; That is the Question. Next to Iran, Iraq's WMD (remember them) capability is laughable. But is Iran intent on making nuclear weapons? Some parts of the world, notably the part we live in, think so. Enola Gay, I ask you, how will this dilemma be resolved?

The Terminator! Big Arnold took a swipe at greenhouse gasses, demanding mandatory rather than the Bush favored voluntary caps. Let's see: Bush plan – big business self-regulates for the good of the people; Arnold's plan, government forces big business to obey the laws for the good of the people. Tough one, eh?

Birds of a Feather? Isn't it interesting that Kenneth G. Langone, co-founder and director of Home Depot who served on the committee governing stock options, and who is being pushed to resign for stock option grant improprieties at Home Depot, is one of ex-NYSE head greedy Grasso's biggest defenders. Langone led Grasso's hand-picked compensation committee. Hmmm!

Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford May 1, 1916 – August 30, 2006. Superman's father and a lot of other great stuff. Thanks! Good job! Well done!

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?

Crystal Clear With goodie baskets for Academy Award presenters and performers getting into the serious money category, $100,000, about two or three times the average paycheck for us working stiffs, the IRS has decided to add a wee token of its own, a 1099. No wonder Billy decided to duck out on his hosting gig. Like he needs a 1099 for $100,000 worth of crap he doesn’t need or want screwing up his eight figure income.


Merck’s Vioxx & Shareholders Get Another Heart Attack I’m not a big fan of big drugs because of the way they rip off the US health care system, but when a retired FBI guy who gets involved in an auto accident then starts taking Vioxx and has a heart attack gets a $50million jury award, you gotta ask yourself if the system’s gone a little nuts. Might not the fact of his previous employment and the accident been contributing factors?

Speaking Of Drug Company Heart Attacks – Bristol-Myers Squibb, maker of heart drug Plavix (U.S. sales last year - $3.5 billion), and Sanofi-Aventis, Bristol’s marketing partner, have reportedly been using trickery and bribery and other scandalous doings to stop Canadian generic drug maker, Apotex, who might also have been a party to the trickery and bribery and other scandalous doings, from selling a cheaper generic version of Plavix in the U.S. Did big bucks change hands? Were secret agreements made? Did Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis try to screw Apotex, or did Apotex try to screw Bristol-Myers Squibb and Sanofi-Aventis, or was the screwing mutual. Stay tuned.

Should Washed Up CEO’s Get Same Treatment As Washed Up Ballplayers?
Michael J. Burns of Team Dana (Dana declared bankruptcy in March this year) doesn’t think so. He wants $3 million for hanging around until Dana’s coffin is in the ground, $ 3 million more if Dana’s value doesn’t drop from where it is now (the way CEO’s cook the books these days, you can bet it wont drop a dime), and hands off his $5.9 million pension. I say trade the bums, throw the bums out!




The Mel & Andy Show: First it was Mad Max Mel getting soused and blaming all the world’s problems on the Jews (doubtless something he learned from Passion of the Christ). For thinking he could drive in his drunken state (sound familiar), he gets three years probation and has to attend AA for a year. OK, fair enough, though I’d have put a breath analyzer on his starter, but what about the anti-Semitism? What does he get for that?

Now Andrew Young, civil rights leader, former mayor of Atlanta and former US representative to the UN (you know, the world peace people), hired six months ago by Wal-Mart as chairman of Working Families, a Wal-Mart attempt to improve its public image, told an African-American newspaper, the Los Angeles Sentinel, that Wal-Mart should displace mom-and-pop stores in urban neighborhoods because “You see those are the people who have been overcharging us, and they sold out and moved to Florida. I think they’ve ripped off our communities enough. First it was Jews, then it was Koreans and now it’s Arabs.” (I guess he doesn’t realize that Wal-Mart, known to many as the substandard wage and benefit company, employs, but some counts, a quarter million blacks).Young apologized, retracted his comments, and resigned as chairman of Working Families. Wal-Mart shouldn’t have given him the option and publicly booted his bigoted ass out the door.

You know what I think? I think Mel and Andy need to spend a year helping the Jews and Arabs rebuild in northern Israel and southern Lebanon then Andy can go on to Korea and solve the nuclear Kim’s problems.

Click, Click That familiar sound of W listening in on your calls might soon disappear. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the US District Court in Detroit told the NSA to hang up, that Jefferson and his cronies never intended to give W that much power. Good for Judge Taylor, but she forgot one critical point: W takes his instructions from a higher authority.

Questions Of The Week
1. Do you believe this whacko, John Karr, who recently crawled out from under his rock, killed JonBenet Ramsey?
2. How long ago did a federal judge order strict limitations on tobacco marketing as punishment for big tobacco companies’ decades-old conspiracy to deceive the public about the dangers of smoking: (a) one week, (b) one year, (c) ten years? (Answer at bottom)
3. What do $300 (+) billion and $65.6 billion have in common? The first was Time Warner’s value in January 2000 after its merger with AOL; the latter is Time Warner’s value today now that most of AOL’s deceptive bookkeeping has been properly accounted for or at least that’s what all the crossed fingers in TW hope.

Two Women Screw Shareholders & Soldiers: Dawn Schlegel & Sandra Hatfield, execs at DHB Industries, got thrown into chains (alas, since released on bond) for reaping $8 million in profits from jacking around with the books, driving the stock priced up, and selling before the shit hit the fan. OK, bad enough, but far worse, DHB had juicy contracts to supply our soldiers in Iraq with bullet-proof vests whose quality and adequacy have been called into question. These people, along with David H. Brooks, the company’s founder and former CEO, are not only crooks, but traitors. They should not be out on bond; they should not be allowed to ever again take a free step, unless on the front lines in Iraq behind one of their crappy vests.

Nude Air - Coming Soon To An Airport Near You Isn’t that the answer? The new X-Ray machines aren’t leaving a thingy to the imagination, and the lamebrain idea that airport security people can determine passenger emotions by looking at their faces is right up there with duct tape.

Correct answer to Question Of The Week #2 above is (a).The ruling was made this week by Judge Gladys Kessler of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia.
Stupid me, I thought this issue had been resolved ten years ago. Says something about the tobacco lobby.

Ya Got Terror, My Friend, Right Here In River City… I decided to Google 'define terrorist'. Interestingly, the first definition begins thusly: One who utilizes the systematic use of violence and intimidation to achieve political objectives, while disguised as a civilian non-combatant…Yes my friends, ya got trouble, right here in River City, with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for Politics. (With a tip of Robert Preston's hat, a flip of his Music Man baton, and apologies to Meredith Wilson for massaging his wonderful words; somehow I don't think he would have minded.)

Am Not! Are Too! A sandbox squabble? Not quite, but Atmel (NASDAQ $5.24) has a squabble of its own going on. Sometime last fall, when Chairman and CEO George Perlegos got fired by his five independent directors, he said something to the effect that you can't fire me because I already fired you. If you happen to be in Delaware next month, you might want to sit in as the trial gets underway. Maybe the judge will jump up and yell, "And so's your old man."

What's Wrong With This Statement? "David Einhorn, a hedge fund manager, does not play much poker…" By definition, hedge fund managers bet billions every day. Perhaps when Einhorn entered the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, no one should have been surprised. P.S. He came in 18th and won $650,000. Will he surprise his hedge fund clients share by handing over his winnings?

You Got To Know When To Hold 'Em, Know When To Fold Em… Offshore BetOnSports, buffeted by US charges of illegal Internet gambling, decides to fold, with its ex CEO in jail in St. Louis and the Feds looking around to grab anyone else they can get their hands on. Looks like BOS will take its game to Asia where presumably what they do isn't deemed to be illegal and there are probably a couple billion more gamblers. It might be a good time to take some of your earmarked Lotto money and stick it into BOS stock if it ever trades again (currently suspended by the London Stock Exchange).

Not My Job! This is another holey statement: a study found no evidence that immigrants have taken a large number of jobs from Americans. First of all, define immigrants. Second of all, why did we need a study? If eleven million illegal immigrants have jobs, then illegal immigrants have taken eleven million jobs from Americans. Is that difficult?

Saks Butts Goat Out The Door Cashmere is out, everything else is in, according to Saks, the first name in retailing in the entire universe. Last year Saks had all its bets on the goat wool, and customers balked. Cashmere lined boxing gloves and cashmere skipping ropes apparently didn't sell. Nor did cashmere anything else, at least not enough to keep the happy sounding cash bells ringing. So this year, you Want It, they got it, or so they'd have you believe. Say what you want, it's still the only joint on Fifth Avenue that has a doggie bidet.

Glaxco's Zofran Nausea Drug Causes More Than A Little Nausea Like $70 million worth, the amount Glaxco agreed to pay to settle civil lawsuits accusing it of inflating costs of several medicines, including blockbuster Zofran, this on top of $130 million for ripping of federal health care programs. Glaxco, I'm sure sensing the foul taste of bile rising in its throat, did not admit to wrongdoing, saying similar charges have been filed against many other pharmaceutical companies, like that makes it OK. Pardon me while I puke.

A Billion Bucks For Movie Rentals? Surely This Is A New Pixar Movie. Sadly no, it's true. Movie Gallery (NASDAQ $2.59 – fifty-two week high $22.321), which borrowed more than $1 billion to acquire the Hollywood Video chain, posted an unexpected quarterly loss and hired an investment bank and turnaround specialists to help it revamp. I blame Movie Gallery for saying it had an unexpected loss because anyone who knows what's going on in the movie rental world should only be talking about expected losses, but curiouser, what dummies put up the billion?

Middle East – North Canada's energy exports have buoyed its US trade surplus over the past five years. Canada has the largest pool of oil reserves outside the Middle East, companies are spending billions on pipelines pointed south, and the US is searching for Betsy Ross's great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great granddaughter or anyone else who can sew (likely an illegal immigrant since Americans don't do that kind of work any more) to tack another star on Old Glory. A word, Oh Canada: stay alert for a bald-headed madman and an angry black woman with a dummy.

A Final Word Keep the whole terrorist thing in perspective. For whatever reason or reasons, we've got enemies, but they aren't going to win.

Grasso Soap Opera - Continues! I haven't written this blog for several months, but I'm thrilled to see cue ball Dickie is still hogging headlines. Why is this pox on our house so difficult to eradicate? Here's the question: was the $200 million for his last four years equitable? Here's the answer: not in two hundred million years. On to next story.

Hillary Kicks Ass! No wonder Rumsfeld didn't want to appear before the Senate. After Hillary scarred and bloodied him with snick and snee thrusting she got out the big cleaver for the piece de resistance: “Yes, we hear a lot of happy talk and rosy scenarios, but because of the administration’s strategic blunders and, frankly, the record of incompetence in executing, you are presiding over a failed policy. Given your track record, Secretary Rumsfeld, why should we believe your assurances now?” Help! Help! Medic! Medic!

Anti-Concurrent Causation Clause? Quick, have you got one? Don't know the answer? Have you got homeowners insurance? Then you probably have an anti-concurrent causation clause, and it's not a good thing. Here's the deal: you insure for wind damage, the wind blows your house down, but at the same time (concurrent causation in insurance mumbo-jumbo) you also get flooded and buried in mud (risks insurance companies won't cover); NOTHING IS COVERED; NADA, ZIP. It's a bit like having an anti-concurrent pregnancy clause that says if you get pregnant as a result of having sex, you're not covered. CHECK YOUR POLICY. Know your coverage. It might not be fixable, but at least you won't get blindsided.

Wyly, Pretty Darn Wyly It seems billionaire brothers Sam and Charles of the wily Wyly Texas clan have been shtupping Uncle Sam by dumping boatloads of options in offshore trusts that then cashing them without all that nastiness of paying hundreds of millions in federal taxes. The brothers two were invited to testify but said they'd plead the Fifth, you know, that provision of the US Constitution designed to protect criminals.

And Speaking of Wily – Those pesky Republicans tried to saddle the minimum wage increase bill with a tax cut for the rich, but the Dems, who don't want the Republicans riding off into election year sunset on shiny saddles, said bareback boys, or not at all. So far, the working poor aren't getting their much needed raise.

Castro Convertibles? So 79 year-old Fidel is out, temporarily according to the official Cuban line, dead according to some Washington and Miami hopefuls, and 75 year-old Raoul is in. What is this? A CBS reality show?

Quack! Quack! The Sound of Paradox? Now read this carefully: Wealthy campaign donors in New York are legally using limited liability corporations to illegally give money above the maximum allowed by law.

Advertising Industry Dead? Concern is seeping noisily (hey, we are talking advertising here; what did you expect? Silence?) into the media that Internet amateurs will replace professional ad people. Stupid me. I thought that had happened years ago.

You Got Mail, er, Pink Slip! The good folks at AOL are axing another 5,000 jobs, 25% of their current workforce. That only leaves 15,000 still sucking blood from this dying body.

Cuban Missiles? Question: If Cuba has missiles capable of reaching the US, wouldn't fleeing Cubans settle a lot further north, like Canada, than in Miami and environs, only 90 miles distant? Well yeah, I suppose there is the winter climate thing.

Gays Vs Grubs So having a bunch of unwashed, bare-chested, unshaven men and braless, straggly-haired, unwashed women eating maggots and cockroaches finds and audience, but a show about gay families trying to convince their new neighbors that they, the gay family, are really not from outer space or hell or from where ever it is that Republicans and the Religious Right would like them to be, gets cancelled by ABC because it might be offensive? Lord have mercy.

Orpah Fries Frey It seems Frey’s memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” is more “A Million Little Lies,” and Oprah gave author Frey a metaphoric kick in his metaphoric lying ass. O as in Oprah Baby, we like it when you play rough. Next, we hope you knock the hubris stuffing out of publisher Nan Talese and Doubleday who seem to think they can peddle whatever, wherever, whenever.

Questions of the Week
1. Why can’t anyone find the CIA’s secret European prisons? Would that be because they’re secret?
2. Will Pixar break up Disney to sell the theme park and other non-film assets?
3. How many of the worst movies made this year will enjoy concurrent theater, DVD, and cable release?
4. Why was Pakistani gang-rape victim Ms. Mukhtar Mai denied an opportunity to speak before the UN simply because Pakistan’s prime minister was visiting? One would think that as prime minister of a country that claims to be an ally he would insist she speak.

Shama, Amash, Hamas No matter how you look at it, it’s a mess. Palestine’s terrorist Hamas party caught the world with its pants down when it won 76 of 132 seats in that country’s national election. Either the U.S. will get its head out of the sand and learn how to negotiate with terrorists, or start arming up Israel.

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. The White House is trying to declare Katrina confidential, like maybe it didn’t happen? Given its penchant for rewriting blunders, and Katrina ranks right up there with the top two or three, refusing to turn over Katrina papers perhaps isn’t all that surprising, even when oft-times Republican friend Democrat Joe Lieberman does the asking.

Surprise? Scores of projects aimed at rebuilding Iraq will not be completed because of unforeseen security costs, haphazard planning, and shifting priorities, which is political speak for fraud, incompetence, and confusion.

Stirrings In The Corporate Anthill
1. Remember Michael Ovitz, Michael Eisner’s friend who was president of Disney for a few minutes and pocketed $130 million in severance pay? Some mice (shareholders) are roaring; they want the decision to let the severance pay stand overturned. This wasn’t severance pay: it was a looting and pillaging masterminded by the two Michaels. Hey, if it walks like a mouse, talks like a mouse, and shits like a mouse, it smells.
2. Donald Trump is suing Warner Books and Timothy O’Brien, author of “Trump Nation: The Art of Being the Donald,” mainly, it seems, for understating his net worth by $2.5 billion, give or take a few hundred million. Donald 101: Never, never, never understate The Donald.
3. IBM, in a “we do not comment on pending or ongoing litigation” mode, is being sued for screwing tens of thousands of workers out of overtime. IBM, if for no other reason than your cockiness, needs its Big Blue kicked big time.

Smells From The Corporate Dungheap

1. We’ll know a lot about the Enron disaster by the time the trial ends. Meanwhile, you might want to rent or buy “The Smartest Guys In The Room” or watch for it and others on TV.

2. FirstEnergy Corporation paid a measly $28 million for covering up an acid leak that nearly ate through a reactor vessel’s cap in its nuclear plant on Lake Erie. What if the escaping waste had found its way into Lake Erie?

The Governor and Company of Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay, more familiarly The Hudson’s Bay Company or The Bay, obviously thinking that Jerry Zucker, eclectic financier, not Jerry Zucker, eclectic movie producer, was an OK buyer since he owns part of a hockey team (Carolina Stingrays, a Washington Capitals farm team). I mean, can a guy with a hockey team be all bad? The Bay is Canada’s oldest company, incorporated May 2, 1670, with a Royal Charter from King Charles II. Zucker, who used to own Dominion Textiles in Montreal, is paying C$860 million for HBC, which has reported ten consecutive quarters of falling sales.

True Rome-ance Pope Benedict’s first novel, doubtless to be a best seller, talks a whole lot about love and sex. In church speak, the work is called an encyclical titled “God is Love,” or for the Alex Trebeker’s out there, “Deus Caritas Est.”

Corporate Crook Update
1. The Lay and Skilling show starts next week. Stay tuned.
2. Perennially grinning Maurice Greenberg, deposed king of AIG, is still fighting his ouster. Billions of dollars are at stake, not to mention the power and the glory.
3. While admitting no wrong,
Ameriquest is paying $325 million, $295 million to victims of its shoddy lending practices in two dozen states and $30 million for legal costs. It sure is a good thing they did nothing wrong.

If These Rocks Could Talk… It seems the Russians are upset because they found “property of MI6” listening devices imbedded in rocks. Would those be the devices placed there right before or right after the invention of the wheel?

CC on Ice No, not Canadian Club, but Canadian Conservatives, who booted beleaguered Liberals from their thirteen-year perch that had grown soiled by the excrement of scandal. Now Canadians, hoping for lower taxes and elimination of corruption, will have to “stand on guard” against their new government staking a claim to women’s wombs and bedrooms.

Sam’s Bank? Remember the joke about the rabbi who tells Hymie that he shouldn’t call his bank Hymie’s bank and Hymie responds by saying, “Why not, Irving did it?” So, the question is: will WalMart call its proposed new bank Sam’s Bank? Can Sam’s bucks, an official world currency, be far behind?

“When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!" Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., January 15, 1929 - April 4, 1968 – from his “I have a dream” speech delivered on the steps at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963.


Taka Who? Takafuma Horie, rotund, spiky-haired, young hotshot with a silver-blue Ferrari, a bikini model girlfriend, and founder of Livedoor Company, has either run afoul of the Japanese business establishment that he holds in high finger disdain or taken Japanese investors for a bundle of yen. Prosecutors, suspecting a giant fraud, raided Livedoor’s offices sending shivers down the spines of mom and pop investors and sending the Nikkei into a 1000 point (roughly 6%) tumble. Livedoor’s stock has plummeted from pre-raid ¥696 to ¥137 ($6 to $1.20), 80% in any language.

Government Googles Google’s Googlers? The Bush administration is trying to get Google to cough up dope on its Googlers to find out whether or not they’re surfing for porn. This puts anyone who enters the Internet on a regular basis at risk of being whisked away, under cover of darkness, to Guantanamo for inadvertently, by following an e-mail link, or purposefully, as in researching nudist colonies say, visiting a porn site.

Dead Happy The Supreme Court told Oregonians that it could proceed with physician-assisted suicide, tossing out former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s bullying attempt to bury Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act.

Questions of the Week
1. Will Alito ever be confirmed?
2. Why, with a capital J Jerk like Manmoud Ahmadinejad sitting in the president’s tent, does the White House want to avoid anti-Western resentment in Iran? Too late, it’s already there, and isn’t Manmoud, with his fiery rhetoric, every bit as dangerous as Saddam?
3. What if federal government lobbyists simply posted all payments, gifts, etc., and contacts like some thirty plus states require? Wouldn’t that solve the problem of guys like Black Jack Abramoff, super evil lobbyist?

American Hypocrisy? Bushies halted free-trade negotiations with Egypt to protest Egypt’s harsh imprisonment of a political dissident. Is there some type of national schizophrenia running amok that I don’t know about?

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. Rice stirring the pot. Condi is setting up a new office whose denizens will report to her and keep tabs on $19 billion ladled out to foreign aid. Maybe someone in Washington should set up a new office to keep tabs on the billions of dollars spent on new offices to keep track of the billions of dollars being spent.

Sponge Bob Gets Squeezed Peed of parents, tired of Viacom and Kellogg using Sponge Bob and other happy hookers to hawk unhealthy cereals, are suing.

Stirrings In The Corporate Anthill
1. Long-term Marlboro smokers filed suit against Philip Morris hoping to force the company to pay for low-dose CT scans that detect early-stage lung cancer. Sounds like a great idea, but will PM’s legal permit de facto admission of product liability?
2. Did the supervisory board chairman of DamilerChrysler give the chief executive of Deutsche bank insider information? Some in der fadder land think so.
3. Is Bruce Wasserstein, king of Lazards, seriously interested in Time Warner? If he is, he’ll likely get it. But will he break it up? Yes, or course, if breaking it up makes $en$e.
4. Omnicare, a provider of drugs and services to the healthcare industry has received administrative subpoenas from federal authorities who suspect something more than Omnicare’s patients are sick.

Corporate Crook Update
1. Unscrupulous Scrushy: this guy wins gold for gall. A writer for The Birmingham Times (you remember Birmingham where Scrushy was found not guilty on all 36 counts of looting and pillaging of HealthSouth) and fellow genuflector from Believers Temple Church has disclosed that Scrushy paid her $10 thousand for and then edited articles favorable to him that were published during his trial. He also purchased a $1 thousand computer for the reporter, who now says she wasn’t paid nearly what was originally offered, the amount of the shortfall described only as significant. Nothing like shortchanging a church lady to find the worms hiding under the collection plate. The father of the owner of the paper wasn’t available for comment because it was his golfing day. Ya just gotta love it.
2. Prosecutors, in keeping with their newfound KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) philosophy lest they addle what they deem the lesser minds of jurors, will go after Joseph Nacchio, former top corn chip at Qwest, for insider trading rather than the complex issues of accounting and several other frauds, lying, cheating, looting and pillaging. Nacchio pocketed $100 million plus or minus by selling Qwest stock ahead of public pronouncements of pending doom. Shame on him.

Finger Fraud, The Sequel The couple who tried to purloin Wendy’s with phake proctology is off to the slammer for nine years where they may get their own proctology purloining.

Katie Couric’s Pay If the SEC has its way, we may soon know how many millions the all-American girl and other senior executives are paid. How much do you want to bet that batteries of lawyers are already creating loopholes? We will probably see a sharp decline in executive titles or the definition of senior executive will change. This year, our top mail room employee, the executive vice president in charge of string, earned $30 thousand and received ten shares of company stock.

Religious Wars Religious leaders in Ohio are irked that two large churches are campaigning on behalf of a conservative governor wannabe Republican. God moves in mysterious ways.


Poll Queens
African: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Harvard-educated banker, but we won’t hold that against her, took the oath of office of president of Liberia. Let’s all pray, or hope if prayer isn’t part of your daily bread, that she makes a huge, positive difference.
Chilean: Ditto for Michelle Bachelet, agnostic, guitar-strumming hippie, physician, former U.S. resident and new president of Chile.
Germany: And don’t forget Chancellor Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany.
United States: ?

“Zheng He” Day We may have to change the second Monday in October from Columbus Day to Zheng He Day if the Chinese prove that, in 1421, Mr. Zheng sailed his Asian Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria up the Hudson and plopped a chow mein noodle on Manhattan Island or anywhere else in North America. Of course, that doesn’t solve the audacious claims of the Norse who say they landed along the eastern seaboard of Canada and United States millions of years ago, or at least around 1000 AD.

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.

China/Microsoft Cancel First Amendment? Knuckling under to pressure from the Chinese government, MSN shut the popular blog site created by Zhao Jing, Bejing blogger and research assistant for the Bejing bureau of the New York Times. A Microsoftie from Seattle said, in a suck-up statement that you really gotta wonder if China dictated, “We think it’s better to be there with our services than not to be there.” Boys and girls, stop worrying about bombs and terrorists—that ain’t what’s going to do us in.

IBM Officially Implements Feudalism Employee Pensions at IBM were frozen this week. Henceforth, serfs, as employees will know be known, will receive bread and water once per day, just outside the castle walls next to the moat. In a related announcement, King George declared three official classes of Americans: the rich, like him; government employees who get full pension and healthcare benefits; and the working class who shall no longer have the right to vote.

Charities ‘R’ US One could almost hear the sucking sound as an avalanche of tainted money from Black Jack Abramoff, disgraced lobbyist, flew from panicked lawmakers’ piggy banks to charities of their choice. Maybe they ought to start a home for crooked politicians right next to the new ‘Lie to Save Your Lawmaker’s Ass’ game show that, according to rumor, Tom DeLay will host.

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. Black Jack Abramoff (has he always worn a black trench coat and fedora or is he, like the Christian crooks who pull out their Bibles and ministers at the first sign of trouble, trying to get us to believe he’s an Orthodox Jew) threw a giant handful of poop into the Washington scandal fan by cutting a deal with prosecutors. Washington lawmakers caught in this downpour of the brown stinky are running for cover faster than rats from a sinking ship, divesting tainted campaign contributions with almost the same alacrity as they took them in. How do they divest the illegal favors?
2. President Bush called thirteen (not a lucky number) former secretaries of state and defense to the White House for a bipartisan meeting. Bush and his usual pals, for forty minutes, said the Iraq war is great. They allotted five to ten minutes in total to hear what their guests had to say and then took pictures in the Oval Office. People, people, people, don’t you know that you will now be blamed for the Iraqi failure, and he’s got proof.

Corporate Mafia - Business As Usual So Enron’s Kenny the Lay Man Lay and Big Skil Skilling finally get a date with justice, scaring American corporations into compliance with the laws of the land. Fuggetaboudit! Nothing’s changed. Corporations continue ripping off America by skirting every law their legal and accounting advisors think they can. Here’s a surefire fix: Buy American products made in America by Americans, all of whom pay required taxes, no offshore hiding of profits or sexy tax straddles. Ever since I met you, all I want to do is dream, dream, dream...

Heads, Playboy; Tails, India Bunny Humping Playboy will stick a fuzzy ear in the Ganges, absent nudes and its trademark title because of India’s laws and general disdain for nudity and public sex. Excuse me: this from the people who, for the last two thousand years, have brought the world thirty-five torrid chapters of Kama Sutra? Is there a KS centerfold? How about a blonde joke of the month?

Management 101 - Wife Bypassed, Cold Shoulder For CEO Here’s the problem: assume you are CEO of a major corporation, your wife holds position that traditionally inherits CEO title, but she doesn’t get selected and resigns. This is what happened when Dow Jones picked its chief operating officer to replace Peter Kann, retiring CEO, bypassing Kann’s spouse, Karen Elliott House, publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Couldn’t they have given her the job for a year? Is that too much to ask? I mean, these people have to live together, now without jobs to go to, figuring out how they are going to tolerate each other 24/7 for the rest of their miserable days.

Corporate Crook Update
1. Scrushy, such a great name for a guy who has more evasive tactics for skirting the law than Tiki Barber has for avoiding bone-crunching tackles, is told to repay $48 million in performance bonuses unjustly received because targets weren’t met. Scrushy’s illegal guys will appeal.


Pat Robertson Speaks Mind, All Of It This guy wins jackass of the century award for suggesting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s stroke was divine retribution for Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza. News flash Babbling Pat, if there were divine retribution, you would have been dust eons ago.

Paris Gets 400 Overseas Beds That slinky sylph can now rest her tired body in a family controlled hotel whether she be in Europe or ranging as far as Phuket Arcadia Beach in Thailand. Granddaddy Barron, co-chairman of Hilton Hotels, helped orchestrate a $5.7 billion (part of Paris’s allowance) deal to acquire Hilton Group. The two split a public breakup in 1964, part of the postnup being no international foraging by Hilton Hotels, putting it at a disadvantage to hated rivals like Marriott and Hyatt. With the expected ribbon-cutting for a spate of new hotel openings, Paris will grace us with her presence even more.

Questions of the Week
1. Speed vs. longer battery life? Who will win the Intel/Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) war? The next generation of in-home electronic devices hangs in the balance, as does the future of Intel and AMD. Intel is deep-sixing its ubiquitous ‘Intel Inside’ logo for ‘Leap Ahead’ and going the cooler running, longer life, slower chip. AMD continues to think warp speed is the way to go. These issues are important to Intel and AMD because their existence, let alone dominance, likely depend on the right choice. What do you think? I’m going with speed.
2. Will Uncle Sam ever have high-speed trains that compare favorably with those in Europe and Asia? NO! Why? Have you ridden the rails on the back of AMTRAK, the cattle/mushroom moving experts? Maybe I’m being too metamorphic. What I mean to say is: AMTRAK herds its passengers aboard, keeps them in the dark, and covers them with s--- (manure).
3. If the US wasn’t mired in Iraq, would it leap to the Ukraine’s defense and start a new, decades-long freeze with Russia over the gas control thing? Does Dick Cheney own shares in Gazprom, the Russian company playing the ‘it’s our gas and we’ll sell it to whomever we wish’ game?
4. Does it strike (bad word choice) you as ironic that GI’s will supervise Iraqi police to cut down on prisoner abuse? Would you like to be Sunni in post-war Iraq regardless of who runs the prisons?
5. As South Africa moves away from virginity testing of young women, are certain religions in America moving toward it?
6. Shouldn’t the Iraqi’s be the ones to determine if their election was valid? It’s their country; let them run it.

Triennial Shareholders’ Meeting? Healthsouth, under the leadership of its new CEO, Jay Grinney, held its first shareholders meeting since May 2002. The company’s second largest shareholder, Richard M. Scrushy (the one the Bible-belt Birmingham jury found not guilty of involvement in a $2.7 billion fraud - no tampering there), was out of the state on vacation. He did manage to squeeze in a press conference saying, “It is long past time for Jay Grinney to stop using me as his excuse of his inability to manage the company.” Now why didn’t he have the chutzpah to say that in person at the triennial shareholders’ meeting?

Say it ain’t so Dudley, eh? Paul Martin stands behind (Why not in front of?) his finance minister, Ralph Goodale, who is under investigation by the Mounties for leaks that may have led to insider trading. Keep it up, Oh Canada, and you will qualify for statehood.

Our Friends in Washington Update
1. Because I have always expected much more, I am disappointed that one of the few Colin Powell utterances since leaving office comes out in favor of the Bushies wiretapping frenzy. For shame, and tsk, tsk.
Not So Independent Independence Air, whatever that is beyond a wing and a prayer, may stop flying if it can’t get outside financing. Now that’s a (an?) unique industry problem.

Screwed Up Justice Of The Week Award The US Court of Appeals in San Francisco affirmed a $500,000 jury award for a mentally ill man who tried to kill a quadriplegic former classmate by unplugging his respirator. Why? It ruled that Pacific Bell had violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to rehire him because he was mentally impaired.

My Three Sons – A Question Of Morality William A. Ginglen got forty years after his three sons, who recognized him from cameras at the banks he robbed, turned him in to authorities. They said they were only doing the right thing, something their former marine father had taught them. If you were one of the sons, what would you have done? Would you as father, if one of your sons was a police officer and may have obtained evidence illegally, appeal?

Corporate Crook Update
1. Richard Causey, former chief accounting officer of Enron, finally caved and will testify against Lay and Skilling, former chief executives and two of Houston’s most hated. Causey will likely sit on a cot and contemplate his navel. The judge granted Lay and Skilling’s attorneys until January 30th, giving them more time to prepare. This is going to be one of the year’s most interesting. Will Skilling rat on Lay? Will Lay rat on Skilling? I hope they both get twenty-five years and have to repay every dime that they ever got from Enron in compensation.
2. Richard M. Scrushy sued HealthSouth for $100 million in back compensation. This guy really believes he’s innocent. The sooner someone nails his crooked hide to the wall, the better. Maybe Scrushy will be the trial of 2007.

As Miles O'Brien of CNN said, "Good riddance to 2005."
HAPPY 2006!