Thursday, May 25, 2006

Enwrong: Guilty as Charged


(logo source: www.viridianrepository.com)

Nearly 5 years, 5,600 jobs, and over 60 billion dollars of fraud later and the accounting scandal that was Enron has finally come to rest: the verdict is Guilty. Like many of the grandest criminal acts of the last 5 years, Enron had something to do with rich ol' Texans and their penchant for screwing over as many people as they can get away with. And, as with the Bush League's other disreputable national and global enterprises, Enron was all about energy -- you know, stuff like building natural gas pipelines in enemy territory. C'mon people -- let's get those creative juices flowing! This is getting way too predictable.

On trial were founder Ken Lay (The kind of stubby, squinty, bald guy who proves that money just can't buy happiness. Or looks.) and his greasy sidekick former CEO Jeffrey Skillling. The charges? Well, bribery (involving the kind of political muscle a Texas President could exert for ya?), insider trading, falsifying accounting records, money laundering, securities and wire fraud (the seemingly paltry charge Skilling was convicted of today), and a number of other illegal business practices -- all of which Lay was found guilty of. Sentencing, bizarrely enough, is set for September 11th -- surely a reminder to all terrorists to maintain honest accounting practices, if nothing else.

Does this mean there is justice in the world? If you wish, but mostly what it means is that Bush has the lowest approval rating in Presidential approval-rating history and throwing a couple scraggly buddies behind bars couldn't hurt the voting curve. Yee-haw!

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