How Does Never Work For You?

From today's New York Post:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday asked for a powwow with President Bush at his Texas ranch to confront him over White House reluctance to OK extra money to monitor the health of Ground Zero workers.

Escalating her money fight with Bush, Clinton said she's willing even to help him burn down trees, cut brush or remove stumps - some of Bush's frequent activities during past vacations at his 1,600-acre ranch.

"I'll put on a pair of work gloves and help him," Clinton vowed yesterday, adding that she visited the nearby town of Waco in 1992 and is familiar with the oppressive Texas summer heat.

"I would be more than willing to travel to make my case to the president in person," Clinton said. "If I were invited, I would bring with me construction workers and firefighters and emergency responders . . ."

WorldCom and Enron

The big difference in the two cases is not the scale of the criminal activity; it's the relative sophistication. The WorldCom-ers are fairly straightforward crooks. The Enron boys are much more subtle, much more complex criminals. This is why the WorldCom indictments were relatively easy to obtain, while the Enron indictments have still not been handed down.

Given what we've learned over the course of the last month, former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling's decision to testify before Congress seems almost unbelievable. He could have and almost certainly should have taken the 5th Amendment.

Except in Arizona


The Fox News Channel/Opinion Dynamics Corporation Poll was conducted by telephone August 6-7, 2002 in the evenings. The sample was 900 registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3 percentage points.


Q. Which country do you think is a stronger supporter of terrorism and poses the greater immediate danger to the United States: Iran or Iraq?

1. Iran 18%
2. Iraq 49%
3. (Both) 23%
4. (Neither) 2%
5. (Not sure) 8%

Q. Do you support or oppose U.S. military action to remove Iraqi President Saddam Hussein?

Support 69%
Oppose 22%
Not Sure 9%

Q. Would you support or oppose the military action even if it means thousands of American soldiers' lives would be lost?

1. Support 52%
2. Oppose 15%
3. (Not sure) 11%
4. (Oppose Q34) 22%

Q. Would you support or oppose the military action even if it means a war lasting up to five years?

1. Support 49%
2. Oppose 20%
3. Not sure 9%
4. (Oppose Q34) 22%

Q. Do you think Congress should have hearings to discuss the U.S. taking military action against Iraq, or would congressional hearings give away too much information?

1. Congress should have hearings 37%
2. Congressional hearings would give away too much info 53%
3. (Not sure) 10%

Greed Alert

Here's a wacky new business plan. Take a well-established company, leverage it to the max, watch it fall apart in the retail recession/deflation and declare bankruptcy. Once you've done all that, demand that the company pay you $25 million before it pays other creditors. If you used this in fiction, no one would believe it.

Tyco's Board of Directors

Were doing what, exactly? The chief executive officer of the company spends as much as $135 million of the company's money for personal use and the Board doesn't say "stop?" Today's story in the WSJ is astonishing.

And You Can't Make This Up Either

Let's say you were under investigation for questionable practices with regards to the selling of securities. Let's say that regaulators and Congressional committees were breathing down your neck. Would you contribute $100,000 to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee to, ah, mitigate these matters? If your name is Jack Grubman, you did exactly that.