First it was Enron. Now it’s WorldCom caught raping the country and manipulating the market to the tune of $3.8 billion in expenses. And to think these two companies were the darlings of the business world back before the bubble burst. Shit like this just turns my stomach….
Archive for June, 2002
Once again, it’s the American citizen who suffers the most
Wednesday, June 26th, 2002“…and one nation, under (CENSORED), with liberty…”
Wednesday, June 26th, 2002A federal appeals court out in San Francisco has just declared the Pledge of Allegiance unconstutional:
"The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a 1954 act of Congress inserting the phrase ‘under God’ after the words ‘one nation’ in the pledge. The court said the phrase violates the so-called Establishment Clause in the Constitution that requires a separation of church and state".
To be quite honest, I had always wondered how "under God" had slipped in to the pledge in the first place when all the learning my textbooks bestowed upon me said that mixing religion and state were a no-no. Kill those two little words and the rest of the pledge is still ok, right?
(Hat tip to Mike for the heads up on this one).
Wish I had my umbrella
Wednesday, June 26th, 2002"And there before me the sky did open and the heavens did pour forth their tears, warm and bitter to taste, while the thunder god sent forth his bolts with much fury and malaice".
I got stuck in one hell of a rainstorm going out to lunch toady.
More proof that you can build anything with LEGOs
Wednesday, June 26th, 2002Hey look! Album covers recreated in Lego. I’ve always been a sucker for things done in Lego. ^_^
(Link via Joanna)
Grinding to a halt
Wednesday, June 26th, 2002Salon has a good article on Amtrak’s financial woes even with the increased ridership post 9/11. This problem was born long ago by the government’s favoring of airplanes and motorcars over trains wehn it comes to public spending:
"Amtrak cites figures showing U.S. per capita rail spending at Third World levels; figures from the European Conference of Ministers of Transport and U.S. Congressional Budget Office highlight the stark contrast in priorities: Of Germany’s total transportation capital spending, 21.7 percent goes to rail; France spends 20.7 percent; the United States spends 0.4 percent".
Of course, I’m a bit biased in this argument because I have more or less been in love with trains my whole life and have lived about five hours a day on them for the past year in my life as a NYC commuter. Still, it’s my opinion that this country would be much better served with a high speed rail system to give people more travel options instead of clogging our skies and highways with more traffic.
