Xerox Revises Revenue Data, Tripling Error First Reported
A HA HAA HA HA HA heh heh hah HA!
Oh man! This is gettin’ GOOD! Who’s next?
And in today's huge corporate accounting errors
Xerox too? Copycats.
And I have been informed via crypto-Masonic corespondence that I am obligated to clarify my anti-Economist outburst of recent days: said outburst was purely self-satirical in nature and was in no way intended to be a sexual invitation to the news magazine The Economist, employees thereof, or readers.
Besides, I heard the guy they have covering our meltdown (yes, I said meltdown; more to come, he says), and I found him to be the most informed and reasoned person on the subject on the show; all the Americans clearly had too much at stake politically to accurately address the issues.
For instance, did you know that the head of the SEC raised concerns about these issues following the collapse of “Chainsaw Al” Dunlop’s eviscerated Sunbeam in the spring of 1998? And that the accounting firm employed by Al there was … Andersen? And that the accounting industry marshalled forces and closed down efforts to legislate safeguards against these kinds of tricks? And that the very folks we are seeing, red in the face, on TV, calling for greater, um, accountability, the folks that sit on Joe Lieberman’s Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, are the peple that the accounting industry made sure to take very good care of come campaign time.
Recently I made note of Frontline’s monster season.
Well, a week ago, the topic was this: Bigger than Enron. The title is a prediction. Less than a week later, we’ve seen what is poised to be the fulfillment of that prediction.
One long-term point to keep in mind, if there were any way to get this on the board in congress: if AOL Time Warner, Disney, and/or Sony have engaged in similar accounting chicanery (a distinct possiblity, yes?), there may be some possibility of addressing the unfortunate extension of both the life of copyright via the Mickey Mouse bill and additionally, an opportunity to weaken the strictures of the DCMA.
What's all the Fuss About?
Apparently, the World Cup engaged in some accounting chicanery. I don’t get it. First, how can soccer generate the kind of dough that is being described as missing? Second, I thought that the tournament was over. Boy, was I wrong!
So, does the winning team have to make up that $3.8 billion?
Also, why is the stock market acting like this is the end of the world? It’s not like the World Cup provides long-distance, cellular, and internet service to hundreds of thousands of people, or as if there was actually stock for the tournament available online to any direct investor that happened to read George Gilder’s soccer newsletter back in the day.
I mean, what’s next? Will news of a fixed world series plunge the globe into hyperinflation?
And, man, you gotta hand it to the accountants: they some gangsta! The ladies luuv the bad boyz! Woo hoo! Everybody fightin’ to get the accountant at the party! Yeah!
And let me state for the record: The Economist can blow me.
Wait, am I drunk?
Sources reveal KG-DT defense in the works
NEWS FLASH!!!
An anonymous source high within the executive hierarchy of the “least grating” of the NYC/NJ blogs, Ken Goldstein’s Illuminated Donkey, has revealed to mike.whybark.com that Mr. Goldstein (or “Kenny-Boy” as he would be known to President Bush if they ever meet) is hard at work defending his claim to be Deep Throat as covered here yesterday.
Our source, while requesting anonymity, is of the highest caliber, and, indeed, one might even say that the source is unimpeachable.
When pressed to explain the shocking role that fellatio appears to have played in both the serious and troubling events of Watergate and the frenzy of sexual condemnation that nearly wrecked the Republican party before it was saved by a judical coup, our source looked up at the concrete beams of the parking garage and ignored the question.
Former President Clinton, probably somewhere in New York State, did not answer questions asked concerning this matter by your faithful correspondent at mike.whybark.com.
Former Nixonian Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, wanted for questioning by human rights tribunals for his role in the murderous 1973 Chilean coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, also did not respond, no matter how loudly we repeated our queries.
Also emerging at press time were ties between Robert Redford, featured as a news reporter in the events that brought down President Nixon, and fictional bandits Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Further developments in this line of investigation include the heretofore unexplained role of Mark Twain in the publication and promulgation of the original Watergate investigations.
Worthy of note in this line of thought is Twain’s “Mysterious Stranger”, in which a Deep-Throat-like figure provides Twain with information concerning the world’s ills, and in the end is strongly implied to be the Prince of Darkness.
Mr. Goldstein’s curious agelessness remains unexplained.
UPDATE: the briefly-rumored public statement has been released, including Mr Goldstein’s revelation that he may also be Joe Friday and that he has an “upcoming e-book, available exclusively through Salon’s Deep Throat imprint” – which validates rumors we’ve been hearing at mike.whybark.com for months concerning Salon.com’s imminent move into web porn.
Mr. Goldstein, in a private email again, also pointed out that if we’re looking into the Robert Redford-Mark Twain connection to Watergate, we’d be remiss in not noting the admitted involvement of WNYX lovable bigshot Jimmy James, who has repeatedly admitted to being Deep Throat, as well as having been D. B. Cooper.
Does this then indicate that Mr Goldstein may also come under suspicion of in fact being Stephen Root or perhaps Milton from Office Space?
Only time will tell. Guzzizah, my brothers.
P.S. the site “NewsRadio and the Comedic Art” is, well, pretty dense.
Deep Throat: Pat Buchanan?
via Romenesko’s freakin’ indispensable Obscure Store this very long story at Spike covering the process, evidence, and results for a three-year investigation conducted by University of Illinois journalism students into the identity of Deep Throat, the secret source for Woodward and Berstein’s epochal Watergate coverage.
the June 14 Dateline NBC will apparently be devoted to the story.
After reading the whole thing, I wanted more clarity concerning why the investigators selected Buchanan rather than others mentioned as possible candidates (the story mentions seven in total).
Who do you finger? Groundless speculation encouraged!
Poker-playing Dog Artist gets his due
Artist’s Fame Is Fleeting, but Dog Poker Is Forever
Cassius Marcellus Coolidge was an entrepreneurial whirlwind with a painter’s eye who seemed born to his nickname, Cash. After leaving the family farm here in the early 1860’s, he bounced around the northeastern United States and Europe, trying his hand at myriad trades: he ran a drug store, founded a bank, painted street signs, drew cartoons, taught art.
His creative genius was evident, but scattershot. He wrote a comic opera about a mosquito epidemic in New Jersey. He designed comic cut-outs — “Fat Man in a Bathing Suit,” for example — for people to stand behind and smile for the camera. And, at some point, he hit upon the idea that would define how he is vaguely remembered today: painting everyday scenes in which dogs behave like human beings.
Having used eBay as a research tool to ID this fellow in order to procure one of his finer prints as a wedding present, I couldn’t be happier to see this story in the NYT.
NYT coverage of Martinsville arrest
After Arrest, Town Shamed by ’68 Killing Seeks Renewal
An interesting article, which provides some opinions that support my own: Martinsville has acted as a scapegoat for the intolerant history and heritage of Indiana politics. This is not to say that I didn’t subscribe to this idea while resident in Indiana, nor is it to say that Martinsville has not given us examples of racial intolerance.
from the article:
Last fall Martinsville was back in the news after the assistant police chief, Dennis Nail, wrote a letter to the local paper complaining about “queers,” “Billy Buddha,” “Hadji Hindu” and the outlawing of organized school prayer.
Neither the mayor nor the police chief disciplined Mr. Nail or publicly criticized his letter, which he had written as a private citizen. Mr. Nail was given a standing ovation at a packed City Council meeting.
So, let’s just take it as a given that I won’t be moving to Martinsville anytime soon.
Naturally, I blame Enron.
At the San Fran Chronicle via Romenesko’s Obscure Store:
Roomie shot and killed in spat over $1,000 utility bill
35-year-old Oakland musician and pot grower was killed by his roommate, who was angered by a $1,000 utility bill for the home they shared.
<sarcasm>
Yes, indeed, it was clearly the dot-coms that jacked these poor saps’ rates up that high.
</sarcasm>
Proving once again that guns don’t kill people, deteriorating economic circumstances do, statistically speaking.
Friedman: Internet makes us dumb
Well now, here’s a shock. Lets’ see now, I’ve been speculating bitterly about this since, um, MY F***ING ELECTRICITY BILL TRIPLED. Get ’em! Hang ’em high! Horsewhip ’em! Brand ’em on both cheeks! Ride ’em out of town on a rail! Boil that tar – I’ll bring the feathers! Sounds like Washington pols are scrambling to clamber aboard the California-launched boat, which certainly pleases ME. Less facetiously (don’t actually hang ’em, just keep power utilities in public hands for the rest of my life), it seems clear to me, at least, that the destruction of cheap power for the west coast functioned as the catalyst for the recession (or whatever you want to call it – I’m still not working, so I’ll call it a recession). This InfoWorld Story from the January 2001 bears out my observation, partly. I don’t know if you recall. Falling stock prices of dot-coms in the wake of the Justice Department indictment of Microsoft on April 15, 2000, in conjunction with the energy crisis, led to public fingerpointing – at the dot-coms, because they were using sooo much electricity that it was bringing California to its’ knees. My very favorite of these moments was from ever-smugly irritating former Seattle Weekly editor Knute Berger on the public radio humor show Rewind, in which he blamed the dot-coms for Enron’s failure. (Or at least that’s how I remember it.) My own bitterly nursed hatred of Enron extends beyond the company itself and into the fervent hope that hearings will, in fact, uncover irrefutable evidence that Enron officials colluded with the GOP to create the energy crisis, and predictable, consequent recession in time for the 2000 election season. They just missed, you know; if the recession had arrived in full force in October instead of December there would have been a much clearer outcome in the November elections. Nonetheless, I’m not holding my breath for such evidence to come to light, or even get covered, let alone have any meaningful political consequences. Representatives of one political party’s presidential campaign were conclusively demonstrated to have dealt arms with foreign terrorist governments in order to sway an election a ways back. However, that demonstration was without appreciable political consequences for the administration that resulted from said campaign. There’s no reason to expect anything other than cursory coverage should evidence of a GOP-Enron recession plan emerge. In fact, I’d guess that should such a thing emerge, our good pals charged with making the inquiries will run like hell in the other direction instead of pressing the point.Enron charged with Price-Fixing