Will the Convention Wreak Havoc?

When I see stuff like this, it makes me wonder how my business is going to be affected by the Republican Convention. Underscore is a mere stone's throw from Penn Station and Madison Square Garden, and we've talked at the office about what we might do if access to our office is restricted or if traffic and/or public transportation suspensions might make it too much of a pain in the neck to come in to the office.

We've even discussed temporarily moving the office. Thankfully, our network is set up such that anyone can work from pretty much anywhere that they can get a wi-fi connection and a spare phone line. Our IP phones can automatically forward calls to our cell phones or to other land lines. Our central server can be accessed remotely by FTP.

We've heard a number of rumors about suspensions of public transportation during the convention. Considering that I have to take a crosstown bus and the subway in order to get to work, I'm a bit worried about this. But if worse comes to worst, we can always work from home.

Problem is, "home" for me will be my place on Long Island starting on September 1. And where do the Long Island Rail Road trains come into the city? Via Penn Station.

I'm thinking this might be a good week to take a few days out of the office and work from Long Island.

Send Cheney Up The River?

Could Dick Cheney be sent up the river? According to this post on Capitol Hill Blue, Cheney is under investigation by French authorities for bribery, money laundering and misuse of corporate funds while he was at Halliburton. Separately, there's this whole thing about an SEC probe into whether a $180 million slush fund was used to dole out bribes.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. If Cheney is indicted in France, do we think that he'll actually be extradited? I don't think so. Not only would this stir up more anti-administration sentiments internationally, but it could further chill relations with France specifically.

It will also be interesting to see whether all of this gets used by the number of Republicans joining everyone's favorite racist ex-Senator Al D'Amato in calling for Bush to drop Cheney from the ticket. Could he be too much of a liability for the Republicans?

Tired Of This Crap

Nice to wake up this morning to find that some butt plug sent me nearly 650 pieces of comment spam last night. Over 300 of them were for some deviant rape fantasy site. Anybody know of anything you can add to MT-Blacklist that confirms comments with one of those anti-submission-script scripts? I'm starting to tire of this daily ritual.

Terrific Enron Article on Slate

Kenneth Lay - Up a Creek

There's a neat article in Slate (posted yesterday) that gives a neat overview of the legal strategy used to nail the bastards at Enron and affiliated companies that made vast fortunes while screwing investors and manipulating the energy market in California.

Before I read this article, I was kind of upset that it took so long to indict Ken Lay. Now, I see how lawyers worked their way up the corporate ladder, indicting folks at Andersen and other companies affiliated with Enron, on their way to Lay at the top. So many lower-level employees and management types have flipped that it's going to take a miracle for Ken Lay to escape from this whole mess unscathed.

Maybe there is justice in this world...