drat fink

national pasttime

"It seems the Nation won't let the facts interfere with a Bush-bashing opportunity. The Wall Street Journal noted in its "Best of the Web" column Friday that a Matt Bivens story in the Nation, "The Enron Box," began with a howler: "When George W. Bush co-owned the Houston Astros and construction began on a new stadium, Kenneth Lay agreed to spend $100 million over thirty years for rights to name the park after Enron." As the Journal noted, "it was the Texas Rangers, not the Astros, that Bush co-owned." Strike One.

The Nation was quick to "fix" this on their website. By late Friday, they had come up with this solution: "When George W. Bush co-owned the Texas Rangers and construction began on a new stadium, Kenneth Lay agreed to spend $100 million over thirty years for rights to name the park after Enron."

Problem is, the Texas Rangers play at The Ballpark in Arlington. Enron Field is where the Houston Astros play, more than 200 miles away. Strike Two.

The Scrapbook is beginning to think the Nation folks need to get out more. They don't know Texas; they don't know baseball. The only ERA they've heard of is probably the Equal Rights Amendment. So to prevent further embarrassment, we are happy to clue them in: Texas has not one, but two major league baseball teams, the Rangers and the Astros. The Rangers play in the American League; the Astros in the National League.

And what does Bush's onetime ownership of the Rangers have to do with the Astros' Enron Field? Absolutely nothing. Strike Three."

phone spam

"Responding to industry criticism that the commission's proposal to create a national do-not-call registry was an attempt to limit the right of free speech, the director of the FTC's Consumer Protection Bureau said it was an attempt to protect another key American right -- the right to privacy."

hop to it

morning
movable
backwash
swsx
r blood
wsj blog

you know the drill

"The collapse of Enron has swiftly morphed into a go-to-jail financial scandal, laden with the heavy breathing of political fixers, but Enron makes visible a more profound scandal--the failure of market orthodoxy itself. Enron, accompanied by a supporting cast from banking, accounting and Washington politics, is a virtual piņata of corrupt practices and betrayed obligations to investors, taxpayers and voters. But these matters ought not to surprise anyone, because they have been familiar, recurring outrages during the recent reign of high-flying Wall Street. This time, the distinctive scale may make it harder to brush them aside. "There are many more Enrons out there," a well-placed Washington lawyer confided. He knows because he has represented a couple of them."

brain scans

"the secret life of the brain" on pbs

master crassman

"After Mr. Bush spoke, the White House corrected the president on the timing of his mother-in-law's investment. Mrs. Welch bought 200 shares of Enron on Sept. 21, 1999, for $40.90 a share, the White House said, for a total investment of $8,180. She sold her holdings on Dec. 4, two days after the company declared bankruptcy, for 42 cents a share, meaning her investment had plummeted to $84."

bite me

all day ive ran across this bogus mike tyson fight story. there is almost no "big fight" anymore where there isnt some blowup at a press conference to ensure that every news organization will run a story on the scuffle. the ploy is so pathetic and yet news organization keep covering it as if it were real. at least two local news stations actually led with the story. it would be a shame if there was something actually important to cover.

chelsea girl

"Side by side they sat, a publicist's wildest fantasy. There was Gwyneth Paltrow, a pipe-cleaner in a halter neck. There was Madonna, betraying a touch of the Joan Crawfords in limousine-black shades and Dracula-white concealer - the look of a woman who refers to herself in the third person. But it was the final member of the improbable trinity who harnessed the most attention. No sooner had the shock of seeing Chelsea Clinton out of context subsided, than the impact of how she looked delivered another power surge."

web slinger

"Just a further note here. I gather from Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo that Andrew Sullivan (whose website is too mean-spirited to read) now thinks that I misled my readers by not saying that I was on a paid advisory board. As Marshall points out, it's hard to imagine that anyone really thought that a corporate advisory board carried no honorarium. Only someone completely out of touch with the real world thinks that people donate their time and expertise gratis to highly profitable corporations - which was what everyone at the time thought Enron was."

on daschle

"In the wake of Daschle's January 4 speech, pundits have initiated new attacks that personalize the issue of taxes and economic policy around Daschle and his opposition to the President, often in the form of catchphrases. This strategy - endorsed by pollster Frank Luntz in a December memo to Republicans - capitalizes on the increasing antipathy of the Republican base to Daschle. As with the phrase "Clintonization", the resulting jargon attempts to embed vague associations into a term to trigger hostile reactions."