This is nasty. The Church of Scientology is using the DMCA to have any and all anti-Scientology links removed from the Google search engine. I first saw this on Boing Boing, more information can be found at Operating Thetan’s Xenu/Scientology/Google page.
Links
Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.
Andersen in Seattle
This morning, the Business section of the Seattle Times has an article about how the current scandals are affecting the Seattle branch and its employees.
Explaining Enron
A quick primer on the Enron scandal (courtesy of A Boy and His Computer):
Explaining the Enron collapse through simple financial terms.
If you’re an average layperson, your grasp of high finance consists of knowing your ATM code. So you’re probably bewildered by this scandal surrounding the collapse of Enron, which had been the seventh-largest corporation in America.
Today we’re going to explain the Enron story, using simple financial terms that you can understand, such as “dirtballs.”
Q. How, exactly, did Enron make money?
A. Nobody knows. This is usually the case with corporations whose names sound like fictional planets from Star Wars. Allegedly, Enron was in the energy business, but when outside investigators finally looked into it, they discovered that the only actual energy source in the entire Enron empire was a partially used can of Sterno in the basement of corporate headquarters. Using a financial technique called “leveraging,” Enron executives were able to turn this asset into a gigantic enterprise whose stock was valued at billions of dollars.
Q. What does “leveraging” mean?
A. Lying.
Q. Why didn’t Wall Street realize that Enron was a fraud?
A. Because Wall Street relies on “stock analysts.” These are people who do research on companies and then, no matter what they find, even if the company has burned to the ground, enthusiastically recommend that investors buy the stock. They are just a bunch of cockeyed optimists. When the Titanic was in its death throes, with the propellers sticking straight up into the air, there was a stock analyst clinging to a railing, asking people around him where he could buy a ticket for the return trip.
Q. So the analysts gave Enron a favorable rating?
A. Oh, yes. Enron stock was rated as “Can’t Miss” until it became clear that the company was in desperate trouble, at which point analysts lowered the rating to “Sure Thing.” Only when Enron went completely under did a few bold analysts demote its stock to the lowest possible Wall Street analyst rating, “Hot Buy.”
Q. What other stocks are these analysts currently recommending?
A. Mutual of Taliban.
Q. Doesn’t Enron have a board of directors whose members are responsible for overseeing the corporation?
A. Yes. They are paid $300,000 a year.
Q. So how could they have allowed this flagrant deception to go on?
A. They are paid $300,000 a year.
Q. But didn’t Enron have outside auditors? Why didn’t they discover and report these problems?
A. Yes, Enron had one of the most venerable auditing firms in the nation.
Q. What do you mean by “venerable?”
A. We mean “stupid.” As a result, Enron executives were able to deceive the auditors via slick and sophisticated accounting tricks.
Auditor: OK, so you’re saying you made $600 million in profit.
Executive: Correct.
Auditor: Can I see it?
Executive: Sure! It’s right here in my desk! UH-oh! The drawer is stuck!
Auditor: Wow! Just like last year!
Q. What should be done to punish the Enron executive dirtballs who, knowing the company was in trouble, cashed in their own stock and screwed thousands of small investors?
A. In the interest of putting this ordeal behind us, we believe they should receive only a slap on the wrist.
Q. Really?
A. With a hatchet.
Q. Isn’t that a pretty severe punishment?
A. Actually, it has been deemed harmless.
Q. By whom?
A. Wall Street analysts.
I’m organized, really
Equal parts fascinating and reassuring:
The messy desk is not necessarily a sign of disorganization. It may be a sign of complexity: those who deal with many unresolved ideas simultaneously cannot sort and file the papers on their desks, because they haven’t yet sorted and filed the ideas in their head. [Many people] use the papers on their desks as contextual cues to “recover a complex set of threads without difficulty and delay” when they come in on a Monday morning, or after their work has been interrupted by a phone call. What we see when we look at the piles on our desks is, in a sense, the contents of our brains.
9/11 slang
The phenomena itself shouldn’t be a surpise, but the Washington
Post has a good article about teenagers adapting Sept. 11th buzzwords into modern-day slang.
Neuman sells out
An interesting piece about Alfred Neuman’s product endorsements. William Gaines is probably rolling in his grave about now.
Jesus on skis?
I’m sure these were made with the best of intentions, but somehow these ‘Inspirational Sport Statues’ are just disturbing.
Boy meets girl…
Why my blog isn’t more personal: Boy and girl meet at a library, sparks fly. Boy and girl go on date to see a friend of the girl’s perform. After said performance, boy and girl go back to girl’s house and have light petting session. Before next date, girl does a Google search for boy’s name, and finds his blog — commenting on her lack of ability to kiss and his disappointment in not getting more frisky. Girl is upset and talks to her friend from the performance, who writes a column about the experience. Said column ends up getting posted on MetaFilter, and people commenting on the column quickly find the blog in question. Boy find out about public disclosure of his comments when he starts getting e-mails and comments on his blog, posts his initial responses — “Holy crap“, “Double holy crap“, and “Triple holy crap“. Much discussion ensues. However, from the posts made in Boy’s blog since this thing exploded, he seems to be handling his new-found infamy rather well.
A history of Arthur Andersen
A good in-depth article from the New York Times detailing the history behind Andersen’s part in the Enron/Andersen scandal. I’m no legal or financial expert, but I can’t say that things look good in the least.