As always, I’m being asked when I’ll be on the road again. For those who want to be in the know, here’s a list of the upcoming travel schedule.
In the bad day column, we have a modern day Scarlet Letter story, where a mail thief was sentenced to wear an “I stole mail” sign during his workday. Of course, that doesn’t compare to the deadly peanut butter kisses. Then you have to wonder what kind of severence pay Darshan Singh will receive now thathe’s been fired from his job as Singapore’s executioner.
Finally, Kazaa will install an anti-piracy filter, with new projections showing that after the filter is installed the number of media files available will drop to 3, which will be traded back and forth by the two remaining users.
The Merck Layoff Watch continued, with an announcement on Monday, November 28th, that the company would cut 7,000 jobs.
I haven’t blogged about this here because there hasn’t been much to say. The cuts have started, but they’re on a rolling basis that will last in to 2008. While there is a strong focus on manufacturing, including the closure or sale of several sites, no part of the company will be unaffected.
My own area won’t begin to see the impact until early next year, after several budget decisions are made. With that in mind, the layoff watch continues.
Corruption is everywhere in the capitol these days, according to an editorial in the CS Monitor. Like most writeups on the seemingly recent discovery of mass corruption in the Republican government, the article attempts for the most part to maintain a sense that both parties are equally corrupt and responsible for both the marginal and brazen acts that legislators have been caught doing. However, the article does slip up toward the end, stating
Other recent ethics scandals in Washington, almost all involving Republicans, point to weaknesses in current laws and a need for some sort of public campaign financing.
However, the article quickly recovers, continuing
They also highlight Congress’s inaction toward further campaign-finance reform and ethics watchdogging – an inaction that seems purposeful: “Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, have used ethics allegations as a political weapon for years,” Common Cause stated after Cunningham’s guilty plea.
While ethics allegations have been used by both parties over the years, culminating in a huge abuse of power with the impeachment of Bill Clinton (which is worse, a false war or lying about sex?), the truth here is that the culture of corruption is most prominently a Republican phenonmenon, with the revolving door between lobbyists, corporate powers, Congress, and the Executive Bracnch being the primary culprit. Those running the show are solely in it to enrich themselves, with Cunningham only the most visible and egregious example to date.
A conservative war theorist speculates on the costs of pulling out of Iraq.
I just read a hillarious tidbit on Bush’s speech the other day over his Iraq “plan”, delivered two years late and many brain cells short.
My favorite line of the writeup was how “t is a little-known fact, I’m afraid, that, in a series of speeches extending over a period of years, President Bush has articulated his policy vision more consistently and more eloquently than any President since Lincoln.”
Is there a disease that makes everything smell like feet, because I think I caught it.