Monday, February 27, 2006

MetroRail anagrams, FOX screenshots, and conservative idiots

Ethan has the Houston light rail train station names in anagram here. Boing Boing has dozens more cities treated similarly.

These FOX screenshots capture the majesty of their propaganda. The real outrage is that this is the most watched cable television "news" in the United States; 2-to-1 over CNN.

And the Top Ten Conservative Idiots once more features the President of the United States with this lede:

It's hard to believe that just one week after the vice president of the United States shot a man in the face, an even bigger story would come along. But here it is: last week the Bush administration approved the sale of the operations of twenty-one major American ports to Dubai Ports World, a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates.


He's number one. He's number one...

Sunday, February 26, 2006

Curt Gowdy, Don Knotts, and Darren McGavin

They say they come in threes; these television icons -- to me -- all passed away this past week.

I remember Curt Gowdy from the Game of the Week broadcasts in the '60s. This was the only baseball you could find to watch at the time. About the same time I was becoming a Astros fan and listening to Gene Elston (congratulations to him on receiving the Ford Frick award this week) and Loel Passe ("breezed 'im one mo' time") on the radio, I was watching Gowdy and Tony Kubek on the tube. He also did the World Series as well as some of the first Super Bowl telecasts. The ones I clearly recall were III -- which was the seminal moment for Joe Willie Namath and the AFL -- and V, which was the first one the Dallas Cowboys played in (they lost, on a last-second field goal to the Colts, which nearly made me kick in the screen). Gowdy was just as famous for being a Red Sox broadcaster and for The American Sportsman, but to me he'll always be baseball on Saturday afternoons.

Speaking of firsts, the first thing my family ever saw on our new console color television was Don Knotts and "The Incredible Mr. Limpet". I believe it must have been 1965, since the movie premiered in '64.

And if you watch the Sci-Fi Channel you can still catch episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which made McGavin famous to me long before A Christmas Story, the "major award", and "you'll shoot your eye out". Those old Night Stalkers look awfully cheesy now, but at the time I was just short of terrified once a week by them.

RIP to three good men.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Moneyshot Quotes: Conservatives ready to cut and run from Iraq, port storm rages, and Jeff Bagwell arrives in Florida

Rush Limbaugh says we can't win (.mp3), Bill O'Reilly says we need to "hand everything over to the Iraqis as fast as humanly possible", and Wiiliam F. Buckley says we must "acknowledge defeat".

This is what Howard Dean was saying months ago, wasn't it? Yet he was vilified.

The Port Storm isn't subsiding. Bush digs in his heels, and the Republicans prepare to throw him, and the deal with Dubai, over the side. Since we're assembling Moneyshot Quotes, here's two more:

Thomas Kean, head of the 9/11 Commission:

"It shouldn't have happened, it never should have happened," Kean said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

The quicker the Bush administration can get out of the deal, the better, he said. "There's no question that two of the 9/11 hijackers came from there and money was laundered through there," Kean said.


President Bush, making sense for once:


"This deal wouldn't go forward if we were concerned about the security for the United States of America."


And finally, unrelated to any of the preceding, Jeff Bagwell had this to say about his disagreement with Astros management over whether he can still play:

"I understand the business side of baseball. If I cannot play baseball this year, and I am physically unable to play with the Houston Astros, trust me, I want them to collect as much insurance as possible. I'll write the letter. That's not an issue for me. But I just want the chance to see if I can play."


My one editorial comment for the day: Bagwell is the best player the Houston Astros have ever had, and I sincerely hope Drayton McLane won't piss in his brain again.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Meet fifty Texas Democratic candidates at once

The Harris County Democratic Party and more than 20 social clubs are joining together for a Primary Kickoff and Roundup Rally in Houston on Saturday, February 25. The event will showcase the party's candidates just before the primary elections.

Among the speakers will be Chris Bell, Bob Gammage, Barbara Radnofsky, and David Van Os, and there will be over fifty other candidates for federal, state, and county offices in attendance. You'll have the opportunity to meet them all.

It's at Drexler's Barbecue in downtown Houston from 5-8 pm and is sponsored by the following:

* 1960 Democrats
* I-10 East Democrats
* Area 5 Democrats
* Battleground Democrats
* Bay Area New Democrats (BAND)
* Bellaire Democrats
* Braeswood Democrats
* Democracy for Houston
* Fort Bend Area Democrats
* Greater Heights Democratic Club
* Harris County Democrats
* Harris County Democratic Party
* Harris County Young Democrats
* Katy Area New Democratic Organization (KANDO)
* Kingwood Democrats
* Meyerland Democrats
* Northwest Crossing Area Democrats
* Oil Patch Democrats
* River Oaks Area Democratic Women
* San Jacinto Democratic Veterans Brigade
* Sharpstown Democrats
* Texas Progressive Populist Caucus
* West Houston Democratic Club
* West University Area Democratic Club

The cost is $5.00 and recommendations are highly recommended.
RSVP to kellen dot wilson at sbcglobal dot net .

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Skilling and Lay get thrown under the bus again

This week it was the former managing director of investor relations and corporate secretary:

The spotlight was largely on former Enron Chairman Ken Lay today as a former company executive accused him of repeatedly misrepresenting the company's financial health to investors, analysts and even employees.

Paula Rieker ... told jurors that in one case she even corrected Lay and he still continued to misrepresent the truth about Enron's retail business. ...

"I told Mr. Lay a significant amount of the earnings came from the sale of stock by Enron Energy Services and not from core activities," Rieker said, meaning it was one-time revenue that did not indicate EES was strong. She said Lay did not change his pitch. ...

She said she was "very bothered" by the company decision to continue to make EES look like a growth story in 2001 by shifting its losses to the more profitable trading division. She said when she complained, her boss (Mark) Koenig (who has previously testified for the prosecution) said "'You may not agree with it, but your job is to deliver the company message.'"

Rieker said she saw Lay mislead analysts by pretending not to know the name of the financial deal called Raptor that was unwound at a $1 billion hit to shareholders equity. She said Lay also misled analysts about why the company stopped charting the future contract value of the retail division.

...

One of the most dramatic moments of the day may have been one of the least significant legally.

Lay isn't charged with insider trading or with stealing from the company as it went into its death spiral. But prosecutor (John) Hueston showed a timeline including troubles at Enron in October and November 2001 that contrasted the company's ills with Lay's drawing millions out in cash.

While the timeline focused on things like the pension plan closing to employees who wanted to move stock, the cancellation of the holiday party, the failure of the Dynegy merger, it also showed Lay withdrawing $1 million here or $2.5 million there in cash from a revolving loan account with the company approved by the board in better times.

Lay withdrew $1 million the day the Dynegy deal died, which was the last hope of keeping Enron out of bankruptcy court. Lay's lawyer Bruce Collins asked Rieker on cross-examination if that amount wasn't just a drop in the bucket when hundreds of millions of dollars were being called in by Enron creditors at the same time but she said "No sir."

Rieker recalled for jurors how in February 2002 the board of directors was presented with a report that included Lay's stock sales for 2001, the year the company came apart.

"I learned that Mr. Lay had been selling stock back to the company in return for cash in excess of $70 million," she said. When Hueston asked about how the board of directors reacted, Lay's lawyer objected several times.

"They were outraged," Rieker finally answered.

Asked if she could recall what any specific board member reaction, Rieker said, "John Duncan exclaimed that 'Mr. Lay was using Enron as a damn ATM machine.'" By the time Rieker repeated that, because of an objection in mid-sentence, it appeared every juror was taking notes.

Rieker also bolstered some of the testimony given by Koenig about Skilling's involvement in altering earnings reports before they were made public.

She said she understood that in January 2000 and again July 2000 that Skilling ordered that earnings per share be increased. In January, she said it was done virtually overnight when they realized analysts were estimating earnings at 31 cents, rather than the 30 cents Enron almost reported.

In July 2000, she said, her boss told her Skilling ordered the earnings be raised a couple cents over the 32 cents they had planned. She said analysts and investors were told it was strong underlying performance that caused the hike to 34 cents.

The truth, she said, "would have really hurt the credibility of Enron and it would have hurt the stock price."


I took a bit more than the usual liberty with that excerpt because it reflects so clearly the simply bottomless hubris of Kenny and Jeffrey. Besides the usual "what made these men think they could get away with this" has to be "what did they think their former underlings were going to say once they had made a plea deal with the Feds"?

It's really too bad they can't get life in prison, isn't it ?

(I'm not a death penalty advocate.)