Score Card – Progress Iraq: -0 Remember the Iraq Study Group Report presented to the world December 6th? Since then, while W fiddles and Baghdad burns, countless Iraqis and Americans have been killed; American oil companies earned another $1.8 billion; 210,000 Iraqis who can afford the price have emigrated.

Iraq 101 – Some Questions When W “wins,” what will the terrorists do? Will they lay down their arms and say, “Good job, well done America, you win.” Will they stop killing each other because they know America “won” fair and square? When W “wins,” where will the terrorists go? Will they remain in Iraq and return to their jobs as janitors and teachers and lawyers? Are Bush and Cheney unwitting or even willing pawns of Saudi Arabia? Did the Saudis convince Bush that Saddam was a threat to Saudi oil? Did Bush go too far by removing the Sunnis from power? Is that why the Saudis, also Sunni Muslims, read the riot act to Cheney last week? Is that why the Saudis told America that they would back the Sunnis if America pulled out? Do McCain and Lieberman and other neocon war hawks seriously believe that Americans are going to support more troops for this war that started as a huge lie and continues as a lie so huge that if Bush were Pinocchio his nose would reach from Washington to Baghdad?

Yanqi, Si; With the cost of the Iraq war at $350 billion and increasing about $100,000 a minute, it seems odd that Homeland Security Department, citing lack of funds, is abandoning its face and fingerprint program for making sure visitors leave the US when they’re supposed to. Isn’t ‘people overstaying their welcome’ how this madness got started?

Meanwhile, Back at OPEC, it’s nice to know our ‘friends’ in the Middle East are reducing production to keep the price of oil from falling. I mean, haven’t they got enough of our money already?

And in case you were worried about the investment banks, Goldman Sachs racked up $35 billion in profits, which means a few $50 million bonuses for the rainmakers. Let’s see, with the Federal Minimum wage @ $5.15 per hour, it will take some poor working stiff 4,667 ½ years to make $50 million. If you make slightly more than the minimum wage, say a paltry quarter million per annum, you will have to work a mere 200 years.

Oh Crap! Peter Boyle, 1935-2006

Corporate/Government Crooks Update 1. Could the Interior Department’s Mineral Management Service be the next Enron-sized scandal? As of now, we have the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which examines suspected criminal violations by federal employees, and the inspector general with the help of the FBI, looking into ineptitude, conflicts of interest and auditing oil and gas royalty payments. We’re talking billions baby, billions that we the people have to pay because the oil and gas companies, the ones making record profits off our backs, are screwing Uncle Sam, probably with Uncle Sam’s help.

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

Score Card – Progress Iraq: 0. While Iraq burns, George fiddles. He’s not alone. All of Washington fiddles. This week we were blessed with the much awaited Iraq Report. So what? Will anything change? King George and Prince Tony continue to stand before us beating their chests. Congressmen and women and Senators scratch their heads and talk, talk, talk. Where is the urgency to get out of this mess? It’s Iraq’s war; let them at it, and don’t insult our intelligence with this strategic interest crap. The entire Middle East is strategic for one reason: OIL, and no one is accusing the Arabs of being stupid; they aren’t going to stop selling the stuff. So, I repeat: Who has the guts to stand up and say, “That’s it! It’s over. We’re coming home.” Each day countless Iraqis and Americans loose life and limb. Each day American oil companies earn another $200 million. Each day 30,000 Iraqis who can afford the price leave, over 2 million to date. Now, today, it’s time for American soldiers to leave.

Fewer Rules, More Bars! Republicans heading into the sunset of oblivion are scurrying around trying to satisfy chits by passing legislation easing a bucket full of rules legislated post Enron’s collapse that govern American corporations. It’s not the rules, dummy; any corporation with smart lawyers can dance around rules. It’s the punishment! Cheat or defraud or lie, jail for ten years (not negotiable) plus one additional year for each $10 million pocketed after coughing up every cent of ill-gotten gains.

So This Radioactive Spy Goes Into a Bar... As Polonium poisoned radioactive former Russian spy Litvinenko is laid to rest in a specially sealed coffin in a forest-like area of London’s Highgate Cemetery, seven bartenders at the Pine Bar of the Mayfair Hotel on Grosvenor Square, the same bar where Litvinenko met two Russian colleagues (at least one of whom is now also ill from radioactive poisoning) immediately before falling ill, have tested positive for radioactive contamination. Two hundred and fifty Pine Bar customers are also being called in for testing...honey, I wasn’t there, honest; I think I have a touch of the flu.

Lay A Bomb! Homeland Security to spend $60 million to examine container ships from Pakistan, Honduras, and South Hampton England, for nuclear weapons. Three questions: First, aren’t these countries allies? Second, only three ports? Third, container ships; what about all the rest, like tankers from the Middle East?

Rumsfeld Rumination Hip, hip, hooray, Dastardly Don is gone. Alas, the criminal war in Iraq goes on and on and on; and alas, King George is still president; and alas, Darth Dick remains vice president; and alas, we the people aren’t clamoring for justice, YET.

Allium E.Colli? That’s bad onions to you baby, the ones doled out at Taco Bells that are wreaking havoc with the stomachs of a hundred or so patrons largely in the Northeastern States. In a safety move, Taco Bell has yanked these tasty but dangerous offenders from all 5,800 US outlets. Bad time to own YUM stock; bad time to be a Taco Bell franchisee; bad time to have eaten Taco Bell alliums.

Corporate Crook Update Kirk Shelton, former Cendant Corporation vice chairman, appealing his $3 billion accounting scandal conviction sending him to the slammer for a paltry ten years and an order to repay $3.27 billion at $2,000 per month (136,350 years, sans interest, if anyone is counting) has been confined to his home other than to visit his lawyers and psychiatrist. Question: Can’t they visit him? I’ll bet he pays them a lot more than $2,000 per month.

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

Score Card – Progress Iraq: 0. Too many words, no action. No leadership from Bush. No leadership from Democrats. This mess remains stuck in neutral. Who has the guts to stand up and say, “That’s it! It’s over. We’re coming home.”

Google Time Warner? With its stock through the roof at $500 plus and the 14th largest market cap of all corporations in the U.S., it’s time for Google to buy a major corporation. Can a Google Time Warner be far away?

Darth Dick & The King: In less time than it takes to shoot off his friend’s face, Cheney bops off to Saudi Arabia for afternoon tea with fellow oil mogul, King Abdullah, to figure out how to not loose the war in Iraq: read keep the Iranians and Syrians the hell out of Baghdad. Also read: if Halliburton’s stock tanks as a result of taking a big hit in Iraq, DD’s pension plan will be in the toilet.

Benedict 16. Pope Benny’s trip to Turkey this week is not a battle of Christianity versus Islam; that would be George W. Christ’s misguided mission. Pope Benny merely wants to recapture Orthodox Catholics that have been separated from mother church for a millennium or so. The Muslims, however, fear Benny might also try to reclaim hallowed Muslim ground for Catholicism and are making a lot of noise because of this and a few Muhammad nasties Benny let fly back in IX/MMVI.

Hermitage vs. Gazprom No contest. The Kremlin’s Gazprom wins. Gazrpom, Russia’s oil monopoly and fourth largest company in the world with a market capitalization of $250 billion, wants to build a string of palaces, er, office buildings, in St. Petersburg that will be three times higher than The Hermitage, the home of Russia’s last monarch. St. Petersburg has a zoning law capping all buildings at 157 feet. Nyet problemas, says Gazprom, we’ll change the bylaw. Can you imagine living is a society with a cavalier government and its agencies displaying such a callous disregard for established rules and regulations?

PC, MAC, or Antikythera? Scientists are restudying some seriously gunked up gears, cog wheels, and related pins and pieces discovered a hundred years ago by archaeologists poking around in a sunken Roman ship. There is an accepted hypothesis that these cogs wheels, gears, and pins housed in a rectangular wooden frame with two doors covered in instructions for its use, known as the Antikythera Mechanism, constitute a computer-like device constructed as early as 100-150 BC and used by the Greeks and Romans to display astronomical cycles, planetary info and as a nautical device. An operating manual and toll-free number have not been found.

Civil War? If the last American soldier left Iraq on Friday and civil war broke out on Saturday, would we send our troops barreling back to Baghdad? Do those dying in Iraq care what the punditss decide to call their war? Civil War: oxymoronic or moronic?

Paulson Poison! Under the guise of improving their international competitive position, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. wants to rewrite rules protecting American companies from lawsuits and a host of other evils stacked upon their brittle bones by wicked consumers, i.e., we the people, by creating an impenetrable legal curtain behind which companies can hide. Example: Besides doing cost-benefit studies before adopting new rules, the SEC would have to shield corporate directors from investor lawsuits. If Paulson is really interested in the competitive position of American companies, he might start by taking a hard look at executive pay run amok.

The Finger! Bad enough they want to empty our wallets, now they’re reaching up and taking it right out of our butts. Urologists, the rubber finger people, have a new treatment called I.M.R.T. for intensity modulated radiation therapy that, while effective, may be more profit driven than treatment driven; at upwards of $50,000, I.M.R.T. costs several times more than currently existing treatments.

Polish Joke, er, Fact! Polonium 210, the radioactive chemical element that killed former Russian KGB spy Alexander Litvinenk and sits at the center of a growing international scandal, was discovered in pitchblende in 1898 by Marie Curie and named for her native country, Poland. Just so you know, there is also polonium 208 and 209.

2008 Presidential Election Handicap * Ranking Name Party 6 Obama, Barack – Senator, Illinois D 5 Clinton , Hillary Rodham – Senator, New York D 4 Edwards, John – Senator, North Carolina D 4 McCain, John - Senator, Arizona R 4 Romney, Mitt - Former Governor, Massachusetts R 3 Biden, Joe – Senator, Pennsylvania D 3 Richardson, Bill – Governor, New Mexico D 2 Brownback, Sam – Senator, Kansas R 2 Gingrich, Newt - Former House Speaker, Georgia R 2 Giuliani, Rudy - Former NYC Mayor R 2 Rice, Condoleeza - Secretary of State R 2 Thompson, Tommy – Former Governor, Wisconsin R 2 Vilsack, Tom – Governor, Iowa D 1 Frist, Bill – Senator, Tennessee R 1 Hunter, Duncan - Representative, California R 1 Pataki, George – Governor, New York R * Based on Extra Wry’s scale and opinions, which change moment by moment. 1 Delusional; 2 Dreaming; 3 Teasing; 4 Embracing;5 Heavy Breathing; 6 Touching; 7 Petting; 8 Tasting tongue; 9 Groaning; 10 Yes! Yes! Yes!

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

Have a Great Holiday!!

Juice?: Is O.J. Simpson trying to make as big a fool of Judith Regan as he did of the criminal justice system? In his ghost-written book, ‘If I Did It,’ being published by Harper Collins imprint Regan Books headed up by Judith Regan, does O.J. confess, as Judith Regan contends, or is he taking Harper Collins and the reading and viewing public (Fox is broadcasting Regan’s interview of O.J. on November 27th and November 29th) on another ride, not to mention what it does to the Goldman and Brown families and Simpson’s two children.

Corporate Crook Update: Jacob Alexander, former CEO of Converse Technology who fled to Namibia after being charged with options fraud will find out next April if Namibia wants to keep him, likely based on how much money they can shake out of his pockets, or will ship him back to the U.S., likely based on how much the U.S. will pay to have his sorry ass shipped home to face the music. Why does it take six months to decide this? I mean, how lengthy is Namibia’s docket for crooks avoiding extradition? No RIP! Ken Lay of Enron shame died four months ago and the criminal claim against his estate was astutely set aside by the courts on the basis that he couldn’t defend himself. Now, a bipartisan bill is being promoted by two U.S. congressmen that may end Kenny boy’s RIP, or at least that of his surviving family who face sizeable asset seizures. Disbarred! Jay I. Gordon, a former senior partner of politically connected Greenberg Traurig, one of the nation’s largest law firms, resigns from the New York Bar for taking kickbacks for steering clients to questionable tax shelters. There is more to this than meets the sty. Stay tuned.

Executives, We Don’t Need No Executives! Borrowing from a line from ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ and confirming something all working stiffs have known since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, a corporation (Hewlett-Packard), despite its corporate executive suite being in total disarray, posted sharply increased revenue and made more profit on that revenue.

Chinese Checkers: Through sanctions, the world has been trying for ten years to get the South East Asian country of Myanmar’s oppressive government to care for its citizens, but big neighbor China’s insatiable appetite for Myanmar’s oil ended all that. Isn’t it odd that while China thumbs its nose at world efforts to civilize one of the most oppressive places on earth, U.S. and other western interests are queuing up to invest in China?

Lott’s Lot: Trent Lott, who, four years ago noted that his home state of Mississippi had supported segregationist Strom Thurmond’s 1948 presidential bid and added, “We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have all these problems.” rather than being disgraced and kicked out of politics, has been elected minority whip, the Republican’s second-ranking Senate leadership position. Just how stupid do they think we are?

Job Iraq? What is our ‘job’ in Iraq? Are we interfering in Iraq’s right to self-government, whatever that is? Are we the Brits and the French of 1776 America? Are we supporting one side against the other in a civil war? Are we fighting for the sole benefit of American Oil companies? What does W mean when he says “We won’t win if we quit.”?

Deep in the Heart of…Toyota? It’s official. Tundra, Toyota’s big red-neck pickup truck, will roll out of a new $1.2 billion plan in Texas. Will W be its pitchman like Dole and Viagra? In fact, how much did Texas W being president result in the plant being located in the Lone Star Sate?

Dogfight! US Air might not know how to run an airline, but it knows how to make a scene. Emerging only last year from its second bankruptcy in the past four years, US Air is now going to try to acquire bankruptcy court-protected Delta Airlines for $8 billion. But wait, what’s this: US Air might make a profit this year? Rarefied air indeed. Maybe US Air does know how to run an airline. Will we finally have an airline worthy of the flag? Air US anyone?

Dell Decked? The G-Men are getting serious about Dell’s accounting practices. Dell announced this week that the SEC has started a formal investigation. Dell will delay release of its financial results from Wednesday until the end of this month but refused to release details to investors about what attracted the feds. What about we, the customers? Are we invisible here? Maybe its time to buy a non-Dell.

Lobocratics? As Republican lobbyists head out of Dodge, Democratic lobbyists are riding in; hard, sweating and frothing. Please, if there is a God, anyone’s God, let the buying of our leaders cease, and reveal the boot hill that awaits those who fail us.

2008 Presidential Election Handicap Republicans R Democrats R Former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani 2 Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York 6 Rep. Duncan Hunter of California 0 Barack Obama 6 Sen. John McCain of Arizona 4 Senator Joe Biden from Pennsylvania 2 Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State 3 Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa 2 Tommy Thompson, a former Wisconsin gov 1 Sen John Edwards of North Carolina and former VP candidate 3 Former gov Mitt Romney of Massachusetts 4 Gov Bill Richardson of New Mexico 1 Former gov George Pataki of New York 0 Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee 0 Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas ? Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia 1 0 = Delusional, 1 = Faking It, 2 = Ego Trip, 3 = Money Pit, 4 = Early Withdrawal, 5 = Ultimate Defeat, 6 = Heavy Breathing

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

Bagged! Do you purchase foods that say HEALTHY? Hannaford Brothers, a New England grocery chain that sells a lot of ‘healthy’ foods decided to ask the question: Just how healthy is this crap? So it invented its own ‘healthy’ rating system: no star to three stars and plugged in 27,000 of its shelf items. Result: 77% received no stars; most fruits and veggies received three stars as did salmon and Post grape nuts cereal. No comment on bagged spinach.


Ortega, Si! Republicans, No! Ironic that Manuela Ortega, old Marxist enemy of the US and friend of Venezuela’s Chavez, gets elected president of Nicaragua while a lot of W’s boys and girls get the boot.


Saddam Won’t Swing? Doubly ironic if Saddam avoids the death penalty, as a number of European countries demand, while American citizens are commonly sent to the gas chamber.


HedgeHOG Funds? Question: Do hedge funds that short stocks disseminate misleading information on companies for the purpose of driving stock prices down? Maybe, maybe not. Question #2: Are the companies whose stock is being driven down victims or are they looking for a scapegoat? Maybe, maybe not. Moral: There are a lot of shady characters dicking with stock prices – Caveat Emptor!


A Won Won Situation! Now that it has received an offer for $7 billion for 70%, Lee Kang-won, former head of Korean Exchange Bank has been arrested for falsifying the bank’s records, showing it to be in worse condition than reality resulting in a lower price for Lone Star Funds, which three short years ago acquired a 50% stake in the bank for $1.3 billion (1.4 trillion won). Other bank and government officials are targeted, and Dallas-based Lone Star, which stands to pocket $2 billion and record another $1.5 billion in paper profits, might get dragged into the fray kicking and screaming its innocence. Question: Did Lone Star collude with Kang-won to get trillions of won?


Dastardly Don Departs: Supporting his decisions by saying no one but him really understands Iraq’s war, Donald Rumsfeld leaves the Democrats to deal with his mess in a move orchestrated more by James Baker, Secretary of State for George H.W. Bush than by W and Darth Dick. Is Bush I is finally getting a chance to extend his Clinton shortened presidency?


Rove, Rove, Rove Your Boat: Is Karl soon to be set a drift on the unkind seas of unemployed political geniuses? Republican strategist Ken Mehlman is taking a hike January 2007 leaving a lot of bagwash and nausea as the GOP girds its loins for 2008.


Kwan Lands Quad! Skating phenom Michelle Kwan is America’s newest goodwill ambassador. Her job will be to shine a whole lot of positive light on America that the rest of the world can see, double amen to that sister, to talk about setting goals, and to empower women. Her boss in State is a former figure skater. Who is it? (Answer at bottom).


Darth Dick’s Deviousness? Step 1. Cheney’s Halliburton acquires Dresser Industries in 1988 for $7.7 billion. Step 2. Shoddy due diligence by Halliburton soon reveals that Halliburton got screwed. Shortly after, Cheney gets himself appointed VP of ‘we the people,’ and Halliburton starts dumping pieces of Dresser. Step 3. After years of bribing NIGERIAN officials to gain contracts, Kellogg, a Dresser sub still owned by Halliburton, is being investigated by the Justice Department for violations of the foreign corrupt practices act; the Brits have a similar investigation in the works. Step 4. US and other governments, following years of suspected competitor coordinated contract bidding, investigate Kellogg. Step 5 KBR (Kellogg Brown Root), long a drain on Halliburton’s bottom line except for the money it made in Iraq largely on lucrative, no bid contracts, is the major piece of Dresser remaining in Halliburton that Halliburton is now in a big rush to dump because of potential liability from the litany of investigations plus old asbestos claims. Question 1. Did Darth Dick push lucrative, no-bid contracts to KBR to cover up his bungled purchase of Dresser? Question 2. To take the spotlight off Kellogg’s Niger bribery, did Darth Dick shine light on Valerie Plame, CIA spy, after Joe Wilson, her husband and former Ambassador to Gabon in the Bush 1 administration, challenged Cheney on NIGER sales of yellowcake to Iraq?


Corporate Crook Update
1. Enron’s Andrew Fastow, currently serving his six-year sentence in a minimum security prison in Oakdale, LA, the same joint where Bernie Ebbers of WorldCom is cooling his heels for the next twenty-five years, traveled in shackles to Houston to entertain seventy of the world’s top paid lawyers largely representing financial institutions fighting to avoid billions in class action suits filed by former Enron employees, shareholders, and other creditors. The $2.1 million in legal fees, the cost of this Andy show, is hardly a footnote in the hundreds of millions in legal fees billed (earned?) since Enron tanked.


Kleptocracy? A portmanteau of kleptomania and hypocrisy? No, but it could and should be, given that practitioners, many from countries courted by our leaders, D & R alike, are top government officials who, through shady transactions, get filthy rich while those they govern remain unspeakably poor: In Feb. 2007 the US attorney’s office in Manhattan is going to trial in the largest foreign bribery case ever brought against an American citizen, one James H. Giffen, wealthy merchant banker and consultant to Kazakhstan accused of paying $78 million in bribes to Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, president of Kazakhstan, a world leader in the practice of kleptocracy. Why do the Nazarbayevs of the world continue to be royally entertained by our top government officials from the White House on down and corporate bigs like Ted Turner?


Condoleeza Rice was a former competitive figure skater. She is an alumna of the University of Denver where Kwan plans to enroll. Does Michelle Kwan plan on being Secretary of State in say 2032? Or President?


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

Bush – Anti-Semantic? Bush talking about the difference between benchmarks and timetables is really nothing more than pushing the blame on the Iraqis for their sad state of affairs. I expect soon the war will be the Iraqi’s fault.

Go Forth and Multiply! Thanks to Uncle Sam restricting Asian condom imports that can be made at half the price, Condom makers in bible belt central, Eufaula, Alabama, despite being hundreds of millions of condoms behind in filling orders (hundred's of millions?), can breathe a sigh of relief; they will keep their subsidized jobs. What that cost is, relative to the cost of an explosion in unwanted births and increased infection from unsafe sex, hasn’t been factored into the equation.

Ta Ta Taurus Some twenty years and seven million cars later the last Taurus chugged from the assembly line in Atlanta. Eighty years earlier, on May 26, 1927, its great, great, great grandfather, the fifteen millionth and last Model T, was made in Highland Park, Michigan. It is interesting to speculate what will be last to roll off a Ford assembly line in another eighty years…perhaps a Ford Toyota.

Elmo Tickles Barbie? TMX Elmo, Mattel’s tenth anniversary Tickle Me Elmo doll producing more tickling sales than expected, has put a smile on Barbie’s face that Ken never accomplished.

Red Meat! Talk about bringing out the jeering jackals and howling hyenas, Kerry misspeak had Rove’s sphincter twitching and salivating as he stormed into the Oval Office with ‘taunting’ sheets for W and Darth Dick and Tony ‘the mouthpiece’ Snow. Surprisingly, they even talked John McCain to stick his square jaw into the fray, one veteran damning the other. For his part, Kerry finally bested Bush by shooting to the top of the Democrats’ most hated list. For our part: same shit, same sandbox.

Baghdad by the Tigris? Did anyone besides me hear a tour operator on TV offering Iraqi vacation packages? I heard it; I can’t believe it. Was it a bad Halloween joke?

Where’s There’s Poke There’s Ire It seems the Reverend Ted Haggart, president of the huge National Association of Evangelicals, pastor of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs, and a mover and shaker in the anti-gay marriage movement, has been using methamphetamine and paying a male escort for sex for three years according to a public statement made by Mike Jones, the male prostitute involved. A morally outraged Haggart, pleading a set-up, possibly politically motivated, has stepped down from his church positions and is seeking spiritual advice and guidance (don’t they all). Is he guilty? I don’t know, but he seems to be doing a log of guilty things. P.S. Haggart has since admitted buying meth, but says he threw it away. That's lamer than Clinton's not inhaling. He, Haggart that is, denies any sexual involvement, but his story seems to change hourly.

Washington War Crap Bribery, Conspiracy, Rotten Work, Lost Weapons; these are some of the charges against American occupation officials and major companies like Halliburton and Parsons brought by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (OSIG). No problem. Tucked away in the huge military spending bill (approved by Republicans and Democrats alike) that W signed two weeks ago is a provision to jettison OSIG 10/10/07. What in hell is going on in unreality town, and do you continue to doubt whose war this is?

More War and Political Crap: There is speculation that Saddam will be sentenced between now and Tuesday in an attempt to give sagging Republican reelection chances a shot in the arm. I keep wondering when Osama’s capture will be announced.

Curse Cruse! Sumner Redstone’s Paramount, citing Tom’s idiosyncratic behavior and his religion, gives him the axe. Tom, in a giant ‘Up yours Redstone!’ move buys control of United Artists. Paula Wagner, Tom’s long-time producing partner, will be CEO. Now all they have to do is figure out how to reinvent distribution--cell phone-inundated theaters and $10 popcorn are going the way of Betamax and drive-ins.

Corporate Crook Update:
1. Sanjay Kumar, former CEO of Computer Associates (CA), NYSE, was sentenced yesterday to 12 years in the slammer to contemplate orchestrating a $2.2 billion accounting fraud at CA then trying to keep it quiet by bribing witnesses. Seven other CA execs have pled guilty and face time; the company has paid over $200 million in fines. Kumar has to pay $8 million, stamp money compared to the buckets and barrels of cash he earned during his twenty years with CA, including $330 million in 1998. The Puck Stops Here: CA founder Charles Wang, who has thus far dodged prosecutorial slap-shots, and protégé Kumar own the NY Islanders hockey team. I don’t know about you, but I think the NHL ought to take a closer look at its owners.

TGI WednesdayI'll be glad to see the last of Tuesday, but I expect we'll have only about a week of peace before the gas of 'Election 2008' starts polluting the environment.

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

ExtraWry and Technorati Join Hands

Technorati Profile
This post marks a relationship between ExtraWry and Technorati whereby the power of Technorati will be unleashed to let countless blogger searchers know of ExtraWry. Thank you Technorati!

SEC – Shelter Elite Crooks? We have a Samberg, a Pequot, a Mack and a Morgan Stanley and an SEC investigation bogged down because John Mack and his cadre of legal wise guys have political clout with the SEC. Briefly, Mack’s pal, Arthur Samberg, founder and chief of Pequot, bought about $44 million in Heller stock immediately before its acquisition by GE Financial and pocketed $18 million in profit. Gary Aquirre, the SEC bulldog who had started to chew on the case, got fired when he wanted to take Mack’s testimony. The Senate Finance Committee is now taking a look. You might want to follow this one; it promises to be interesting provided regulators don’t get another case of the punies.

Nyet! Condi: Isn’t having Condi Dearest chastising Vlad Putin over press freedoms, restrictive laws, and tensions with neighboring countries hypocritical? Russia has problems, we have problems, but the real tragedy is how much gas our politicos waste generating headlines and reelection nausea and what none of us is doing about Darfur.

You’re F-f-f-f, er, Here’s $50 Million! Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company CEO Robert J. O’Connell was fired for extramarital affairs with female employees, illegal activity in trading accounts, and misuse of company aircraft, BUT GET THIS: a three member arbitration panel said the board made a mistake and O’Connell could be entitled to as much as $50 million in benefits owed. There is a troubling suggestion in this screwy decision that the arbitration panel might have been influenced. Well, why not? If we know one fact, corruption and greed in business has run amok.

Osama for President? When Obama announced he might decide to run for president, W hurriedly called a special meeting of his war council, demanding to know who approved Osama coming out of hiding and running for president.

Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot II! Could be the title of Al Franken’s next novel. Rush Limbaugh, in an insidious attempt to debase, said Michael J. Fox dramatized the effects of his Parkinson’s disease to garner votes for Democrats who support stem cell research. Rush, you wouldn’t even make good fertilizer for the ground Michael shakes.

Dis-Inherited? Have you ever heard of the ‘Life Settlement’ industry? Here’s the deal: You’re old, you’re broke, and let’s say you have a $1 million insurance policy you don’t need. Your heirs might disagree, but let’s be real: when you die you don’t need to a million bucks; good grief, you don’t even need pocket money. So here’s what happens: you sell your policy at a discount, get some cash, and when you die, the life settlement company gets the proceeds. It’s big business, in the billions, and the industry is laced with scammers. There’s got to be a better way.

Holy Cow! Obviously borrowing a page from Microsoft’s playbook, a Chicago law firm is moving what it calls a big chunk of its administrative functions like accounting and technical services to India. Wouldn’t it be more cost-effective for we, the people, if lawyers and courts also moved? Then, rather than Court TV, we could have something like Bombay Court Phone-In.

Darth Dick’s Smoke & Mirrors: VP Cheney likes to say that the ability to torture prisoners has given the US invaluable information. How much more or less would we have learned without torture? Was there a control group: These fifty weren’t tortured and told us nothing; these fifty were tortured and told us everything?

Jeffrey’s Big Adventure: Twenty four years and four months, probably in a medium security prison in Butner, NC, for fifty-two-year old former CEO Jeffrey K. Skilling’s unapologetic role in Enron’s spectacular collapse into the muck and murk of bankruptcy and ignominy, a term second only to Bernard Ebbers of WorldCom disfame who got thirty years. Skilling’s probably ticked that he didn’t come in first on that one either.

Comma = C$1,000,000? Next time your kid says about grammar: why do I need to know this crap anyway? you can relate the ‘Saga of the Telephone Poles.’ It seems Bell Aliant, an Atlantic Provinces telephone provider and Rogers Communications, Canada’s largest cable provider, went to court over a telephone pole contract that either could or could not be cancelled after one year. A judge ruled the placement of a comma dictated it could be canceled, costing Rogers C$1,000,000. Rogers, will, contest, of, course. Stay tuned.

Timetable, Shimetable: Memo to We, The People: Tell this government to get our troops out of Iraq now. Not in six months, twelve months, or eighteen months, but NOW! They, the government, planned this war poorly, their execution has been nothing if not shoddy, and their callous determination to perpetuate the conflict is unconscionable. To suggest there is going to be a more opportune time to withdraw our troops insults our intelligence and does nothing but line the pockets of military contractors and big oil to which they are disgracefully beholden.

$470 Million? $295 Million? $85 Million? Which one is Barry Diller’s pay for 2005? Well they all are, depending on how you count. Two things tabulators do agree on is that Diller, CEO of IAC/Interactive (Internet retailing and Home Shopping networks), was the highest paid CEO and wasn’t worth it, but they don’t say how much he should have been paid. Here’s my formula: ten times the annual salary of the lowest paid employee in the company. Naturally, Diller and other grossly overpaid executives and their current heirs don’t agree.

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

300,000,000; 12,000; 3024? These three numbers were widely reported in the news during the month of October. Do you know why? Answers at the bottom of this posting.

Drugged! Eli Lilly got its knuckles rapped by three docs from NIH (National Institute of Health) who said Lilly manipulated treatment guidelines to promote its lagging Xigris, an expensive ($8,000 for a four day treatment) treatment for sepsis, an often deadly blood infection, but for which older, cheaper, and equally effective treatments exist. Despite Lilly’s claim it did nothing wrong, this one stinks.

The Peacock Sheds Some Feathers: Because of declining viewership and ad revenues, NBC says it is cost cutting by pruning its 6,000 member newsgathering team, eliminating about three hundred jobs, mostly vacant, according to NBC News pres Steve Capus. Question: how does eliminating vacant jobs cut costs? If you sit at a desk and get a paycheck and aren’t Matt Lauer, be worried. P.S. If you watch NBC between 8:00 and 9:00, get ready for more mind-numbing crap (translation: reality TV) ; the really good stuff is moving to the 9:00 to 11:00 slot.

$84.8 Million Axe? Viacom’s CEO (Viacom owns a bunch of cable TV networks and movie and music publishing. It used to own CBS and related entities until the two companies split in 2005) Tom Freston, ousted after less than a year, departs with severance and deferred compensation of $84.8 million. Let’s send our resumes to Sumner Redstone, executive chairman and founder; I know I’ve got a few months to kill.

Grasso Greed Grabbed! Former NYSE chairman, Richard Grasso has been ordered by the State Supreme Court to repay $100 million of his $139.5 million severance pay. Not good enough. I say they go after the rest, including the $80 million he got paid between 1999 and 2001. This guy is the poster child for greed.

CBS Payola Nailed! I’ve never heard a single song by Nine Inch Nails or Nick Lachey, but apparently a lot of people have, thanks to bribes paid to CBS Radio by the major music companies. To settle, admitting no wrong or course, CBS is donating $2 million to New York charities. The major music guys are paying $30 million, no charities mentioned. Don’t move that dial: subpoenas have been issued to other major radio companies like Clear Channel, Entercom, and Citadel.

Some Nerve! About twelve thousand physicians have purchased automated devices that check for nerve disease. Plug a finger in and voila! Fifteen minutes later you have the results and the doc has $250; do enough of these a year, and the doc can buy his wife a new BMW. Naturally, the nation’s neurologists are crying foul, but do they have a point? Neurometrix, the maker of the device, is under investigation by the feds, not for its product but for its aggressive marketing practices that may not stand the smell test.

Bitch-Slapped? Pfizer, the world’s largest drug company, more than doubled third quarter profits to $3.4 billion, up from $1.6 billion in the same quarter last year. And how much was it that you said your healthcare premiums increased? Total earnings for nine U.S. pharmaceutical companies regularly surveyed by Chemical and Engineering News increased 21.9% to $11.6 billion.

Blues, St. Louis Blues: No, not William Christopher Handy's immortal classic and not those pesky hockey players, I’m talking birds, Cardinals to be more precise, the St. Louis Cardinals who beat the NY Mets, the Amazins, in a mighty struggle at Shea last night, a struggle whose results weren’t decided until the very last pitch. Too bad both teams can’t team up to take on the Motor City boys; they’re going to be tough to beat.

What Are The Odds? With eighteen days left before mid-term elections, want to bet that Republicans, hearing the loud flush of defeat, come up with a way to get our troops out of Iraq? W, Darth Dick, and Dastardly Don are meeting with the Pentagon pariahs this weekend; I don't think it's a tailgate party.

Answers: 300,000,000: the population of the United States passes the 300,000,000 mark; 12,000: the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbs past 12,000; 3,024: Iraq coalition deaths pass the 3,000 mark. How many did you get correct?

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

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!