Here’s a tip if you’re caught speeding: the Speed movie defense rarely works.
W made a speech on Wall Street yesterday on corporate accountability and ethics in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom scandals. However, it has been suggested that the “new” standards that are supposed to be enforced by an FBI “corporate SWAT team” would have landed both W and Vice President Cheney in jail for accounting practices of the companies they headed, Harken Energy and Halliburton, respectively. I wonder how long it will take the American press to get a whiff of the blatant duplicity of W’s new “hard” stance on corporate accountability, which is by no means coincidental to the upcoming elections.
Update: Apparently, W’s ploy of appearing as a regular guy fighting corporate fraud has not gone unnoticed: the New York Times has a piece that has some more details of W’s financial dealings with Harken and the kinds of “creative accounting” they used, not unlike WorldCom and Enron, come to think of it.
Logophilia is a site “devoted to recently coined words, existing words that have enjoyed a recent renaissance, and older words that are being used in new ways.” It’s definitely a cool way to expand your vocabulary, even if a lot of the words and phrases are a bit faddish.
Eminem doesn’t like Internet file sharers, to put it (extremely) mildly. Hello, Fan Backlash? Yes, you can visit Eminem now.
America West Worst strikes again. A passenger was taken off a recent flight for jokingly asking whether the crew had been checked for sobriety (a reference to a pilot and co-pilot recently being arrested for being under the influence of alcohol while piloting an aircraft). The airline claims that he was removed because he posed a threat to the safety of the flight. How is that a threat to the safety of the flight? I guess whoever runs the airline is taking tips from Bud Selig on customer relations…
In the Dick Move Of The Day, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig halted the All-Star Game in a 7-7 tie after 11 innings because “both teams ran out of pitchers.” WTF?! There was no other way to resolve this? Besides this travesty, no MVP was chosen for the game despite the award being named for Ted Williams after his recent death. Bewildered fans who paid $175 for tickets were left out in the cold with an announcement that didn’t even bother explaining the reason for the abrupt end. Note to Bud: this is not the way to endear yourself to fans when you’re about to face another players’ strike.
Follow-up on Ted Williams’ cryonic freezing: Wired.com has a story on the technology involved in the freezing of bodies. Apparently, there is little guarantee that the thawing process will work, as cells are usually irreparably damaged by the freezing. That hasn’t deterred people from shelling out as much as $120,000 to be frozen upon their death, though. I think the funniest comment is from Kenneth B. Storey, a biochemistry professor: “Two hundred years from now, will 10 billion people on Earth really want to thaw out a bunch of rich Americans?”
Wolfgang Petersen, director of The Perfect Storm and Das Boot, among other things, is set to direct Batman vs. Superman, which is slated to be released in 2004. The story concept sounds promising, and his previous movies were generally pretty good, so maybe this won’t suck. Although I am curious to see how Superman won’t end up smashing Batman like a little bug.
David Hasselhoff has checked himself into rehab due to his problems with alcohol abuse. Let’s hope he can get out soon and resume his role on Knight Rider Baywatch the German rock circuit Broadway musical Jekyll & Hyde – hmmm… no wonder he’s been drinking.
