From AFP:

Former Enron chief executives Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay were found guilty of fraud and conspiracy charges related to the spectacular 2001 meltdown of the energy giant. Skilling, 52, was found guilty of 19 of 28 counts of fraud and conspiracy and faces a maximum penalty of 185 years in jail.

Enron Founder Lay, 64, was found guilty of all six charges related to the period after he resumed chief executive duties and faces a maximum of 165 years in jail.

Tags: enron, skilling, kenneth lay, fraud, guilty

The makers of The Da Vinci Code hit a stroke of luck when somebody thought that maybe no one should watch the film… they should have taken a lesson from these bureaucrats, which just banned Voodoo Dolls, making the item to have in communist China (from Newsweek):

The dolls have become increasingly popular among the Middle Kingdom’s misanthropes and trend-conscious teens. Customers purchase a doll (pin included), attach a piece of paper bearing the name of their enemy to the doll and then stab away. Voodoo Dolls Online offers a wide range of dolls in assorted colors. “Do you want to make your enemy feel as if someone is always stalking him behind his back?” reads the caption next to a doll clad in black. ” ‘The Magic Shadow Killer’ will thoroughly destroy his spirit.” Another popular item is the “Little Angel,” which purportedly brings good luck and helps its owner find true love.

Tags: voodoo, dolls, newsweek, china, banned

OK, never mind that American Idol crap, here’s the real scoop… if Libby’s defense is “The devil made me do it,” he’s truly got a star witness now! (Via Associated Press.)

Vice President Dick Cheney could be called to testify in the perjury case against his former chief of staff, a special prosecutor said in a court filing Wednesday.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald suggested Cheney would be a logical government witness because he could authenticate notes he jotted on a July 6, 2003, New York Times opinion piece by a former U.S. ambassador critical of the Iraq war.

Fitzgerald said Cheney’s “state of mind” is “directly relevant” to whether I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s former top aide, lied to FBI agents and a federal grand jury about how he learned about CIA officer Valerie Plame’s identity and what he subsequently told reporters.

Tags: dick, cheney, scooter, libby, cia, lucifer

And, while I was sleeping, a new American Idol was crowned (AP, via ABC News).

Taylor Hicks, the mop-topped manic dancer who wooed TV audiences with his raw singing style and boisterous personality, was named the new “American Idol” Wednesday.

Hicks, 29, of Birmingham, Ala., became the latest in a string of Southern and Midwestern contestants to win the Fox talent contest and a record contract. In a final viewer voting poll he bested runner-up Katharine McPhee, 22, of Los Angeles.

“Soul Patrol!” Hicks shouted, acknowledging his avid fans by their nickname.

Hicks, whose thatch of prematurely gray hair made him a contest standout, seemed a longshot winner at his first audition after judge Simon Cowell gave him a thumbs-down and predicted that he didn’t have a chance of advancing to the finals.

McPhee and Hicks weren’t as odd a finals pairing as second-season finalists Ruben Studdard and Clay Aiken, but close.

McPhee attended the prestigious Boston Conservatory for a semester; Hicks has been a fixture on honky-tonk stages. McPhee skillfully played to the cameras, all calculated seduction; Hicks stomped across the set, with Cowell comparing him to a drunken dad at a wedding.

Tags: american idol, soul patrol, taylor hicks,   Katharine McPhee

Tags: vicente fox, mexico, immigration, enchilada

Gustavo Arellano answers the question in his OC Weekly column, “Ask a Mexican”:

Dear Mexican,
Why don’t Mexicans like being called Hispanics? The Spaniards conquered our ancestors—that’s why we’re Spanish-speaking Catholics. Why deny this?

Hispanic Doesn’t Make Me Panic

Dear Spic,
Because Mexicans aren’t Hispanic—Mexicans are Mexican. Besides, the history of “Hispanic” involves two attributes Mexicans despise: political correctness and a clueless bureaucracy. In 1975, Caspar Weinberger—then secretary of health, education and welfare—created the Ad Hoc Committee on Racial and Ethnic Definitions to address the country’s increasing diversity and to force bureaucrats to evolve beyond such antiquated, offensive terms as “colored,” “Oriental” and “Guatemalan.” According to a 2003 Washington Post article, the secretive committee—no minutes exist of their meetings—decided that the government would use “Hispanic” rather than “Latino” to describe the hordes that, then and now, swarm across our southern borders. Not all the committee members agreed, and the debate over whether to use “Hispanic” or “Latino” has raged since. Ultimately, though, neither side wins: a 2002 Pew Hispanic Center study discovered that 54 percent of Hispanics/Latinos/wabs primarily identify themselves by the country of their ancestry, while only a quarter of those surveyed called themselves either Hispanic or Latino. Contrary to Chicano urban legend, the Richard Nixon administration didn’t institute “Hispanic.” Although Weinberger was Richard Nixon’s secretary of health, education and welfare, the Dickster was far from Washington when Weinberger, then reporting to President Gerald Ford, created the ad hoc committee that settled on “Hispanic.” Sucks, doesn’t it? I mean, wouldn’t it have been swell if we could’ve included “Hispanic” alongside Proposition 187, the Minuteman Project, Mendez vs. Westminster and the Taco Bell Burrito Supreme in the Orange County Mexican-Bashing Hall of Fame?

Tags: immigration, mexican, hispanic

Mark Mortford thinks that inflating the price of gas would revolutionize the country and make us all better humans. Because it won’t be until we’re paying $10 for a gallon of gas that we won’t get off our collective ass to do anything about the transportation crunch.

Here’s what we could do: Give gas discounts to cab drivers (at least initially) and metro transit systems and low-income folks, those who have to drive their busted-up ’78 Honda Civics to their jobs scrubbing restaurant toilets and flipping burgers and vacuuming the residual cocaine from the seat cushions of numb SUV owners. Everyone else, 10 bucks a gallon, across the board. Eleven for premium.

It would take some finessing. Maybe also give a price break to some truckers and trucking companies (so vital to the overall economy), but not so much to global delivery companies (FedEx, DSL et al.), because not doing so would force them to raise shipping rates and force you (and me) to reconsider buying everything online and hence will encourage you to shop locally once again, thus reviving a stagnant local economy.

Tags: gas, gasoline, mark mortford, transportation

Is Al Gore really prepping for the presidency? I hope not, so that he can keep on speaking his mind.

By JOHN TIERNEY
The New York Times

If Al Gore’s new movie weren’t titled An Inconvenient Truth, I wouldn’t have quite so many problems with it.

He should have gone with something closer to Revenge of the Nerd. That’s the heartwarming angle to global warming. A college student is mesmerized by his professor’s bold measurements of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Our hero carries this passion into Congress, where no one listens to him, and then works up a slide show that he inflicts on audiences around the world, to no discernible effect.

But then his slide show becomes a horror movie — and it turns into a cult hit. The nerd becomes the toast of Hollywood, Sundance and Cannes. He is cheered at premieres across America. Audiences sit enraptured through a film starring graphs of CO2 concentrations and close-ups of ice cores. (more…)

General Motors’ latest plans to lure consumers into buying their gas-guzzling monsters? They’ll pay for part of your gas. But there’s a catch (via Yahoo!):

Aiming to capitalize on consumer angst about the high cost of gasoline, General Motors Corp. on Tuesday said it would cap pump prices at $1.99 for customers in California and Florida who buy certain vehicles by July 5.

One hitch to the promotion is that customers must also agree to enroll in the OnStar vehicle diagnostic service, which is free for the first year but after that will cost $16.95 a month. The other is that many of the eligible vehicles are serious gas guzzlers.

The offer is good for 2006 and 2007 model year vehicles. In California, eligible vehicles are the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban sport utility vehicles and Impala and Monte Carlo sedans; the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL SUVs; the Hummer H2 and H3 SUVs; the Cadillac SRX SUV; and the Pontiac Grand Prix and Buick LaCrosse sedans. In Florida, eligible vehicles are the Impala, Monte Carlo, Grand Prix and LaCrosse.

Tags: gas, gasoline, general motors

And, by the way, The Dixie Chicks are releasing a new album. That doesn’t really matter much since I truly couldn’t name more than one song (the overplayed one about the spaces being wide and open) they ever produced, but I hope someone buys it. In this week’s Time magazine, Chick Natalie Maines apologizes for apologizing about dissing G.W., a move that nearly cost her the group’s career.

Maines has one regret: the apology she offered George W. Bush at the onset of her infamy. “I apologized for disrespecting the office of the President,” says Maines. “But I don’t feel that way anymore. I don’t feel he is owed any respect whatsoever.”

A sizable chunk of their once adoring audience feels the same way about the Dixie Chicks. After Maines’ pronouncement, which was vigorously seconded by bandmates Martie Maguire and Emily Robison, the group received death threats and was banned by thousands of country radio stations, many of which still have informal bans in place. The Dixie Chicks have mass appeal–you can’t sell 10 million copies of two of your three albums without engaging lots of different people–but country radio is an indispensable part of how they reach people. Programmers say that even now a heartfelt apology could help set things right with listeners, but it’s not happening. “If people are going to ask me to apologize based on who I am,” says Maines, “I don’t know what to do about that. I can’t change who I am.”

Good thing is, people don’t have to apologize for buying their new album. You can just buy it right here, and no one will think any less of you.

Tags: bush, dixie chicks, natalie, maines, time, magazine