17 July 2003

That's so clichéd

Despite frequent claims of a more complex and rich culture, the EU (via the European Commission) doesn't seem to be able to do better than the standard "secret bank accounts and ficticious contracts" to operate a "vast enterprise of looting" inside the Commission. This is the kind of simplistic guile many third world dictatorships use, nothing like the sophistcation of the Enron scandal. And then we have this:
Problems were identified at Eurostat [statistics arm of the Commision] by trade unions in 1997, by internal Commission audits in 1999 and 2000 and by Paul van Buitenen, a whistleblower, in 2001, but [Eurostat director] Mr Solbes said he knew nothing about the scale of the problems until he read newspaper reports in May 2003. He said: "I can't be blamed or asked to take responsibility for something I didn't know about."
Jeebus, if he were a Yank he'd never use such a simplismé line like that. Why not argue about the meaning of the word "know"?
Posted by orbital at 6:39 PM | View 0 TrackBacks | Trackback URL

NY Times bias watch

[source, source] The headline:
In Ohio, Iraq Questions Shake Even Some of Bush's Faithful
The money paragraph:
In conversations here with nearly three dozen voters, the vast majority said they generally like President Bush and believe he is doing a good job. Many people said they remained convinced that Iraq posed a threat, even though no chemical or biological weapons have been found. And there was a broad consensus that the result of the war -- the ousting of a brutal dictator -- was good for Iraq as well as the United States
Gosh, that's sure some shaken faith!
Posted by orbital at 6:20 PM | View 0 TrackBacks | Trackback URL