A Forum for Grinches and Ho-Ho-Hoes

[Tyrone Slothrop]

The sexy face of Lebanese democracy here.

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The sexy face of Lebanese democracy here.

Let's not get carried away, shall we?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The sexy face of Lebanese democracy here.

After years of watching where Arafat's face got the Pals, the Lebanese knew they needed a better spokesmodel.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by bilmore
After years of watching where Arafat's face got the Pals, the Lebanese knew they needed a better spokesmodel.

Not wanting to seem hateful- but I have 5 senses- you might want to get a view from downwind of this honey before you get too enraptured IYKWIM

[bilmore]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I just don't buy this line. An intracompany affair has what to do with business ethics? And why disclose it? For the minimal gain in public confidence?

They spent years breaking all the really important, big rules (and getting caught.) They're trying to rehab now, and they can't afford for even minor transgressions to be treated cavalierly (sp?). Remember that "punctilio of honor" thingie from law school? They're stuck with living up to it for a while. Plus, when the guy who makes the new rules is the first one to break them, while he's there for one express purpose of cleaning the culture, well, he gets no break.

[mmm3587]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I just don't buy this line. An intracompany affair has what to do with business ethics? And why disclose it? For the minimal gain in public confidence? This investor does not think this means a damn thing when it comes to ethics in contracting.

I've seen first hand several executives of public companies get canned (sorry, be asked to resign). Even in cases of fraud, the public disclosure says something like "CEO resigned today. New CEO, who has a world of experience in [insert exactly what company needs right now] was appointed [interim] successor. Company reaffirms guidance for quarter and year."

This reaks of a broken down negotiation and setting of the stage for litigation. Either that, or bad lawyering.

I agree with club; there HAS to have been something else. All the news reports on it are weird, and I think that it's especially weird that they don't mention that this is a little out of the ordinary. Sort of a "we're not going to mention the obvious" tactic. A few points:

He was already on his was out; there was already a search on for a new CEO to be appointed sometime in 2006.

Adultery or intracompany affairs weren't even against the rules. They fired him because he breached a policy of "not doing anything that brings the company's ethics or public image into question" or something like that.

Apparently he had been a real hardass about enforcement of that policy, so maybe he just reaped what he had sowed and Boeing looked at it as a way to get some good press.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by mmm3587
. . . and Boeing looked at it as a way to get some good press.

Sure screwed that one up, then, eh?

[SlaveNoMore]

It appears our favorite shrew has decided to stop spending John Heinz's inheritance for a brief moment and make - yet another - moronic statement:

From Drudge:

TERESA'S BACK: ELECTION WAS HACKED!
Tue Mar 08 2005 09:32:36 ET

Teresa Heinz Kerry is openly skeptical about results from November's election, the SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER reports, particularly in sections of the country where optical scanners were used to record votes.

"Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as "hard-right" Republicans. She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."

Heinz Kerry did not offer any specific evidence that votes on the machines were altered.

"We in the United States are not a banana republic," added Heinz Kerry during a fundraiser in Seattle.

"I fear for '06," she said.

Developing....

[mmm3587]

Originally posted by bilmore
Sure screwed that one up, then, eh?

Maybe, maybe not. If Boeing is trying to send the message of "we are such hardasses about rules that we canned our CEO just for banging a coworker," they have been pretty successful.

The whole thing seems silly to me. Are governments and airlines that easily influenced? "Gee, you guys might have ripped us off for years, but now that you've got a strong no-office-fucking policy, things are different!"

[SlaveNoMore]

David Brooks sings his praises today in the op-ed pages of Pravda

• Giving Wolfowitz His Due
  By DAVID BROOKS
  
  et us now praise Paul Wolfowitz. Let us now take another look at the man who has pursued - longer and more forcefully than almost anyone else - the supposedly utopian notion that people across the Muslim world might actually hunger for freedom.
  
  Let us look again at the man who's been vilified by Michael Moore and the rest of the infantile left, who's been condescended to by the people who consider themselves foreign policy grown-ups, and who has become the focus of much anti-Semitism in the world today - the center of a zillion Zionist conspiracy theories, and a hundred zillion clever-Jew-behind-the-scenes calumnies.
  
  It's not necessary to absolve Wolfowitz of all sin or to neglect the postwar screw-ups in Iraq. Historians will figure out who was responsible for what, and Wolfowitz will probably come in for his share of the blame. But with political earthquakes now shaking the Arab world, it's time to step back and observe that over the course of his long career - in the Philippines, in Indonesia, in Central and Eastern Europe, and now in the Middle East - Wolfowitz has always been an ardent champion of freedom. And he has usually played a useful supporting role in making sure that pragmatic, democracy-promoting policies were put in place.
  
  If the trends of the last few months continue, Wolfowitz will be the subject of fascinating biographies decades from now, while many of his smuggest critics will be forgotten. Those biographies will mention not only his intellectual commitment but also his personal commitment, his years spent learning the languages of the places that concerned him, and the thousands of hours spent listening deferentially to the local heroes who led the causes he supported.
  
  To praise Wolfowitz is not triumphalism. The difficulties ahead are obvious. It's simple justice. It's a recognition that amid all the legitimate criticism, this guy has been the subject of a vicious piling-on campaign by people who know less than nothing about what is actually going on in the government, while he, in the core belief that has energized his work, may turn out to be right.
  
  I've had only two long conversations with Wolfowitz. The second was the day after the Iraqi vote. I figured that would be an interesting day to get a sense of his mood.
  
  He wasn't nearly as exuberant as I expected him to be, in part because, like everybody in government, he's busy with the constant flow of decisions. He said he spent 75 percent of his time on the Pentagon's budget and administration.
  
  He deflected all my Oprahesque attempts to get him to open up and describe what it's felt like to be him for the past few years. Our tissues remained dry.
  
  But he was eager to think ahead. "It's fascinating how many echoes this is going to have," he said. "The Iraqi election is an inspiration. It's going to be a real challenge to all absolute rulers."
  
  He went on to suggest that American democracy-promotion could now get back onto its preferred course. Iraq, he said, was the outlier. "Iraq is exceptional because of the use of the U.S. military," he observed.
  
  Normally, the U.S. plays the supporting role. For example, Americans can usefully raise the profile of dissidents so dictators feel less inclined to kill them. Wolfowitz was the first U.S. official to meet with Corazón Aquino. The U.S. can use its access to dictators to pressure and annoy them. Wolfowitz worked with George Shultz in the testy exchanges with Ronald Reagan, who was less inclined to ease Ferdinand Marcos out the door.
  
  The U.S. can spark debates, but it cannot conduct them. When he was ambassador to Indonesia, Wolfowitz gave a speech calling for political "openness." He was careful not to use the words "freedom" or "democracy" because under Suharto, Indonesians might have felt inhibited about talking in such bold terms. But they were comfortable with openness, and it became the subject of magazine cover stories and a great national discussion.
  
  Wolfowitz doesn't talk like those foreign policy blowhards who think the world is run by chessmasters sitting around at summits. He talks about national poets, national cultures and the power of people to bring sweeping change. His faith in people probably led to some of the mistakes in Iraq. But with change burbling in Beirut, with many young people proudly hoisting the Lebanese flag (in a country that was once a symbol of tribal factionalism), it's time to take a look at this guy again.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by mmm3587
Maybe, maybe not. If Boeing is trying to send the message of "we are such hardasses about rules that we canned our CEO just for banging a coworker," they have been pretty successful.

They've successfully convinced the investment world that they are stupid effin' dorks, maybe.

(I agree that that was the message they were trying to send. Lots of procurement people out there would love to see Boeing people wearing "Rulz!" tee-shirts. But, like so many such attempts, they just end up looking silly. Better to have quietly dumped him.)

[bilmore]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
"It's fascinating how many echoes this is going to have," he said.

Right there. The justification for the whole Wolfie gameplan. He's an accurate optimist.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
David Brooks sings his praises today in the op-ed pages of Pravda
[list]Giving Wolfowitz His Due
By DAVID BROOKS

Mission Accomplished?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Mission Accomplished?

No. Nice optomism though. The elections in Iraq, and the democratic reforms in Egypt along with the mass protest to move towards democracy in Lebanon are huge real gains- but we are not at the end yet.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
In a piece about the oral argument yesterday in a pair of cases about the public display of the Ten Commandments, Dahlia Lithwick suggests that Scalia is the only justice on the court being honest about the issues. Scalia said: "When someone walks by the commandments, they are not studying the text. They are acknowledging that the government derives its authority from God."

Apparently Scalia explained these views in a journal called First Things in 2002, and cited Saint Paul in Romans 13:1-5: "government . . . derives its moral authority from God."

So if it's from the Bible, no Establishment Clause problem, right?