Rush Limbaugh back in trouble

Rush had another run-in with the law involving possible bogus prescriptions:

Limbaugh likely to wait several days

I don't want to think about this one.

Happy Birthday

June 22 is the birth date of our namesake. I will be having a Sazerac and fondling a Queen in his honor.

The New Orleans Muddle

A NYT piece (from Dr. Phil Seymour Morphy): The New Orleans Muddle

Bernanke's Talking Points

Is this new Fed Chairman Bernanke is on some sort of power trip? First he talks the maket down a few hundred points, then the talks the Dow back up 300 points in two days. This doesn't inspire confidence. But then again, neither does massive federal debt, $70 a barrel oil and $2B a week down a rat-hole in Iraq.

Supreme Court backs wide police search powers

Supreme Court backs wide police search powers So police don't need to knock before entering now. Justice Scalia says the increasing professionalism of the police and threat of civil lawsuits will keep the authorities in line. This also seems to mean entry with a warrant, but that isn't so clear (Counselor Philip Seymour?). This seems to be about allowing previously tainted evidence in to court, so I presume this means the police can do whatever they want to get 'evidence' (are door to door searchers for drugs now legal, for instance?). Seems like bad news for the 4th ammendment. The only one of the Bill of Rights still intact seems to be #3 ("No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner; nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law."). Thank goodness for that. I would hate to have to share my apartment.

Bush goes Green (Blue?)

President Bush just created the U.S.'s largest national wildlife sanctuary, 100 times larger than Yosemite, or the size of Montana. The outer Hawiian islands will be managed by the Federal Government and will (presumably) be off limits to development, including oil exploration.

A/K/A Tommy Chong

I see a movie has been made about the arrest, conviction and jail term served by Tommy Chong (of the comedy duo "Cheech and Chong"). His crime was selling marajuana parapherenalia ("bongs" for you college-educated readers). The War on Drugs seems to be consuming billions of taxpayer dollars, ruining thousands and thousands of lives, packing the prisons and dragging on for decades. Perhaps it is time for a truce in this war. Could we perhaps get a representative from the stoner community to sit down with President Bush and sign some sort of truce? As a US Taxpayer, I would welcome the spending relief. And if I had to put up with a few more zonked convenience store clerks, so be it.

World Cup - Japan loss

Dr. Morphy-Godchaux, have you made your way to your final destination in Japan?

Is the country in mourning over Japan's stunning World Cup loss to the Aussies?

Karl Rove gets a freebie

First, let me apologize for my recent absenteeism...just started a new position here with The Company which entailed a move of office, a lot more work, etc.

Stunningly, Karl Rove will face no indictments over selling out a CIA operative just because dub didn't like her husband. Was there ever any doubt he would get out of this unscathed? the answer is "no".

In praise of fire ants

A new book on fire ants, with a foreword by E. O. Wilson (didn't know Dr. Wilson was still around): "Florida State researcher defends fire ants".

Rude Pundit

The Rude Pundit, our neighbor on blogger.com has a new piece on New Orleans. I enjoy reading all of his foul-mouthed (but oh-so-true) rantings. He takes crudeness to the level of high art not seen since I was in high school. The Lenny Bruce of blogger.com.

Executive Compensation

Remember our discussion a while back about executive compensation? This is from footnoted.org.

A comprehensive provider… June 2nd, 2006
Newtek Business Solutions (NKBS), which describes itself as a "premier provider of business services and financial products to small and medium-sized businesses throughout the United States," also does a pretty good job taking care of its top executives. In this recent proxy filed by Newtek, the Company discloses that one of its subsidiaries, Crystal Tech Hosting, is renting its office space in Phoenix from the subsidiary’s president and CEO, Tim Uzzanti, who is also a Newtek executive. The annual cost of this office space (exact size undisclosed) jumped from $74,000 in the 2004 proxy to $210,000 in 2005. Further, an unaffiliated company owned by Uzzanti is leasing 200 square feet of this space at a cost of $24,000 a year. The catch — Uzzanti’s company, Smarter Tools, is paying its rent by providing software services. Newtek claims that Smarter Tools is actually providing services valued at more than the $24,000 annual rent — services for which Newtek paid Smarter Tools $80,000 in 2005 as opposed to just $16,000 in 2004. Need a scorecard yet?
Other interesting related party transactions disclosed in the proxy – the Company paid $17,000 during 2005 to lease just four cubicles in a New York City office building, down from the $28K spent in 2004 for the same space. Newtek’s landlord for this lease was a company controlled by Robert Cohen, the father-in-law of Newtek president Jeffrey Rubin. Additionally, the Company paid the firm of Janover Rubinroit $138,000 during 2005 for financial consulting services. Janover Rubinroit, incidentially, is 49% owned by the father-in-law and brother-in-law of recently departed CFO Brian Wasserman.
Ironically, financial consulting is among the "business services" Newtek claims to provide.

Study finds companies snooping on employee e-mail

It seems the government and employers are reading our email these days. All of this snooping is getting vaguely Orwellian.

Study finds companies snooping on employee e-mail

Summer Address

Just to inform the members of the Institute: I will be at my Japan address for the remainder of the summer. I'll be at the privately funded Yamagoto Institute in the Konichiwa area of Tokyo. I'll be continuing our work on applying our anti-gravity breakthroughs to solutions of interest to the Japanese, including power generation and seismic management. Of course, the important public saftey aspects of theis technology are still being explored. We'll hopefully get a chance to apply these techniques to weather control and tidal management in the US before the upcoming hurricane season.

Ja,

SM-G III

Corps Competence

Corps takes blame for New Orleans flooding

By CAIN BURDEAU, Associated Press Writer
28 minutes ago

NEW ORLEANS - A contrite U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took responsibility Thursday for the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and said the levees failed because they were built in a disjointed fashion using outdated data.

"This is the first time that the Corps has had to stand up and say, `We've had a catastrophic failure,'" Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the Corps chief, said as the agency issued a 6,000-page-plus report on the disaster on Day 1 of the new hurricane season. ...