Ken Lay Lives!

Ken Lay had just filed for appeal of his guilty verdict.

Then he died.

I mentioned that he died to a nurse. She spat, "He's not dead. He's hiding."

Wow.

Brilliant.

Why didn't I think of that. Of course he's hiding. And we all know it. Why else was he cremated? Was the family worried people would exhume his body and drag it through the streets of Houston as it deserved?

Lay’s lawyer, Michael Ramsey, irritably dismissed all the Web talk after Lay’s
memorial service in Houston on Wednesday: “When I read the garbage that’s on the
Internet, I’m reminded of the parable of the jackass kicking the dead lion. I
think that’s enough said.”

Did Mike get his degree from the Donald Rumsfeld School of Public Speaking? Does Mike really think Ken was a lion?

I would have loved to kick Ken Lay before he went into hiding, now I'll have to wait and search. Meanwhile, the thousands of former Enron workers who lost their pensions will await justice... while they get screwed again.

Zidan

We all were watching the World Cup final in a crowded pub.

The head-butt was not seen live. The focus was on the ball. At some point, the play was halted by the referee and the camera focused on Materazzira writhing on the field.

"Ugh. Another example of Italian/Portuguese-style flopping" was the moan from the audience. Then, they showed the foul.

A cheer rose up from the crowd.

A cheer.

For a blatant foul.

For a loss of control from the game's best player.

Perhaps because it was an American audience, accustomed to the violence of Football and the fouls of hockey.

Perhaps it was because everyone immediately felt that Materazzira had somehow deserved it.

How often have you suppressed the urge to smash some bully, to fill the loud-mouth, to give the flopper something to flop about?

For a serious audio commentary about the head-butt, here is an NPR commentary.

This site shows that the audience's perspective is important, and that there are some very talented individuals out there with some decent film editing equipment. Enjoy.

Where did We go Wrong?

Back in the day, Toyota and Ford were duking it out in the hybrid technology race. Ford abandoned the quest, because MARKET RESEARCHERS told them there was no interest in hybrid cars.

Even though the addition of bigger trucks and sport-utilities has brought its corporate average fuel economy down from 26 mpg in 1987 to 24 mpg today, according to EPA figures released this week, Toyota is the undisputed leader in hybrid technology. Press said Toyota has "sold more U.S. hybrids so far this
year than Cadillac, Buick or Mercedes-Benz has sold cars."

I guess the MARKET RESEARCHERS were wrong.

Toyota discovered the current hybrid engine and has all the patents. Hybrid car manufacturers now pay royalties to Toyota.

Ford, hoping to make up lost ground, has decided to retool the Ford Focus as a 70mpg hybrid. They will be doing this in the UK.

Meanwhile, Toyota is working on a 100mpg hybrid.

When did MARKET RESEARCHERS become such an important force? When was "vision" replaced by breaking people into economic-demographic groups.

The ultra-popular "Razr" phone offered by Motorola? Built by engineers without any input from MARKET RESEARCHERS.

Obviously, these examples have the advantage of hindsight. It is impossible to predict the future, and where things are going with 100% accuracy. For every success, there have been one-hundred failures. For example, Motorola was the leader in cellular phone technology but failed to realize that it could be marketed to the "average consumer" and Nokia and Ericsson developed phones for mass consumption.

It is pretty clear that gasoline-powered cars will eventually be replaced, even hybrid cars will be replaced by more energy-efficient electric cars.

Vision. Open your eyes. See the future.

Ice Cream for Peace

Ice Cream looses it's deliciousness when it melts. Why is this?

The war in Iraq is costing US taxpayers 8 billion dollars a month.

I feel part of this money should go towards ice cream research.

This is research that representatives from both sides of the aisle can get behind. There would be no partisan debate, only endorphine rushes as food scientists deliver maximum strength ice cream.

McDonald Douglas would develop ice cream delivery systems that unleash cool, creamy goodness to any corner of the globe within 30 minutes.

Instead of tear gas, angry crowds would be dispersed with offers of free ice cream.

Casualties would be upset stomachs from overindulgence.

Petition your Congress(wo)man now.

The Temptation to Occupy Lebanon

The Vietnam War proved to guerrillas everywhere that with patience even a "Third World" home team stands a good chance of beating a visiting world power, first France, then the USA.

The USA learned from this experience and avoided entering conflicts where they would face a similar disadvantage.

After all, what country could withstand a conventional military conflict with the USA?

Not one.

Therefore, if one were preparing for an assault and occupation by a conventional military, one would make provisions for a protracted guerilla engagement after the likely defeat of the conventional military.

It would also be logical for Pentagon war games to assume this would be at least one strategy a likely opponent would apply.

The vexing behavior of the assembled armies in the First Iraq War now seem "prudent," as senior would say.

Then came Junior.

The boy who avoided Vietnam wants to make up for it by sending his children to fight in Iraq. Oh wait, no, they didn't volunteer to go. Home...

The intelligent learn from their mistakes. The wise learn from others mistakes.

Now Israel seems poised to set themselves up as fools...

The Intifada succeeded where five wars did not. Occupying Lebanon (again!) will only put Israeli soldiers in a similar position to America and British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Save the Penny!

Representative Jim Kolbe wants to remove pennies from circulation. Educate yourself

Now, the logical argument presented is that it costs more to make a penny than the penny is worth. Theoretically, we could just buy rolls and rolls of pennies and melt them down in our basement smelters and sell the bars of copper and zinc.

Copper is rather expensive due to some labor disputes in Mexico. China also buys quite a bit of scrap metal, which drives up the price of copper and zinc.

Before you start building that basement smelter, let me remind you that defacing US currency is a crime.

We're going to have a new fancy penny for the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

As he abolished slavery, so shall the penny be abolished?

There are many arguments for and against pennies. I still stop to pick them up when I find them on the street. I still use them to give exact change. Part of that obsessive-compulsive impulse is because I know that if I horde my pennies, the Mint will have to make more, which costs us all money.

Make the penny smaller or out of a different metal? Sure.

If the penny is to be removed from circulation, I say we eliminate it passively by putting rounded, after-tax prices on goods, like in Europe. Pennies would still be accepted currency, but it would work like this. You go to by a gyros, and the price on the menu says $4.00. You then go the register to pay, and you give her $4.00, not $4.32 or whatever added sales taxes are placed on goods and services in your locality.

Eventually, there would be no pennies circulating. It would take a long time, but there's no rush.

Maybe we could force W to collect pennies to fund his war in Iraq.

Four More Years!

While the administration plans a NUCLEAR WAR with Iran, no one seems to care about the fact that "Scooter" Libby has been telling judges that his higher ups told him to blow the whistle on Valery Plame.

When Vince Foster killed himself at the beginning of the Clinton era, the Republicans screamed and moaned until that fateful day when Anton Scallia decided that W should be president. (Conspiracy theories about his death still abound!)

When Clinton lied about getting a blowjob from Monica, the Republicans unleashed Kenneth Star and we learned all about the sordid details of Bubba's and Monica's affair.

So where are the Democrats? Why are they not demanding justice? Why are they not demanding to know the facts?

Are they in cahoots? Are they spineless? Do they not care?

What's up?

I'll tell you what's going to happen.

Apparently, Bush authorized the release of information, but didn't care how it was done. Tricky Dick (oh wait, that name is already taken) decided to expose a political enemy, perhaps hoping she'd get disappeared...

Obviously Mr Cheney is to blame. Bush had no idea what was happening (disturbingly believable). So the guy who shot his hunting buddy will step down, perhaps due to heath concerns, maybe he needs another coronary artery bypass? Who will step in to fill the void? I'll guess John McCain, or some other adopted son who would be caesar.

2008 will come around with war raging in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. VP John McCain will announce that he is running for the post of President and who could possibly lead us through this war of liberation better than McCaine?

McCain will get 49.99% of the vote, Hillary 50.01%, and the electoral college will make McCaine President of the United States.

Faith and Good Works

Yesterday on NPR, they interviewed a young woman who was volunteering to help clean up houses in New Orleans. Apparently, you can rip our floors and walls by hand and try to salvage parts of the house, or you can just bulldoze them. The young lady being interviewed was ripping out a wall in this water-damaged house, when money started to fall from the wall.

Kind of like an episode of Scooby-Doo.

They gathered up $30,000 and gave it to the homeowner (who will now probably no longer qualify for disaster relief, oh wait that won't ever make it there!)

Wow. It was a beautiful act. The volunteer could have pocketed the money. No one would have known, but she didn't.

The interviewer (here's the web page to an audio link of the story) on All Things Considered asked if she was tempted to take the money.

"Oh no ma'am, if I had stole the money, it would have been a temporary happiness, but in the long run, my soul would have regretted it."

Which begs the question of motivation. Did she do it out of fear for her immortal soul, or because it was, quite simply, the right thing to do.

I have argued that religion is the use of fear to coerce people to do what is right, and that if people read and understood Plato and Aristotle, we wouldn't need religion, at least not for the "Punishment and Reward" aspect. (Red2 will ask what other aspect there is!)

The desire to do good for the sake of the Good is a morally higher motivation than fear of punishment, even when the result is the same.

Still, the Big JC will likely pat her on the head when she reaches Heaven and give her a Scooby Snack before turning her around and sending her to Purgatory for cleansing of her soul of the hatred of homosexuals, abortionists and war protesters.

Civil War

It is only a matter of time before the unrest in Iraq is called a civil war.

I predict it will take on the label of civil war after the elections. Then, suddenly, the Republicans (who will gain seats in both houses) will rediscover their (selectively) isolationist roots and use the Prime Directive to say we should let "them" fight their own civil war. (If I'm wrong, and the Republicans lose either house, then they'll criticize the Dems for not financing the war properly or berate them for some other perceived injustice. In response the Dems will flop around spinelessly.)

In a sad bit of foresight, I asked my pre-invasion roommate at Yale, "What's the plan going to be after we kick Sadaam's ass?"

He didn't know (despite the PhD in Biochemistry.) Apparently, neither did the administration.

I asked, "What about Afghanistan? Won't we be stretching ourselves too thin to adequately rebuild that country?"

I asked, "What about North Korea? They already have nuclear weapons! Shouldn't we figure out a strategy for dealing with them first before we commit troops to Iraq?"

And then the sad attack of ESP:I asked, "How do you expect to hold Iraq together? The Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds don't exactly want to live together."

My then roommate told me I was arrogant.

I guess he would have said, "Support the Troops" but that silencer of dissent hadn't been coined yet.