Enron's Kenneth Lay Dies 868
Don420 writes "This morning the biggest corporate criminal in modern history, Kenneth Lay, died of a massive coronary before he could receive his sentence. Lay was found guilty of being in charge of the scheme that had many lose their live-savings through a scheme of complex offshore holdings and is to thank for our having to live with Sarbanes-Oxely." From the article: "Enron filed for bankruptcy in December 2001 after investigators found it had used partnerships to conceal more than $1 billion in debt and inflate profits. Enron's downfall cost 4,000 employees their jobs and many of them their life savings, and led to billions of dollars of losses for investors."
How Convenient... (Score:4, Interesting)
Kenneth Lay tragically passes away due to a massive heart attack before he receives his sentence. Impeccable timing...
Two possible scenarios (in addition to the official version of events) come immediately to mind:
- or -
Either scenario seems equally likely, and much more likely than 'Ken keeled over because he couldn't keep his LDLs in check'.
Re:How Convenient... (Score:5, Insightful)
But hey, let's jump to the completely absurd conspiracy assumption as "much more likely" than the fact that "coronary heart disease (CHD) is the single leading cause of death in America." (American Heart Association, 2003 study).
I'll leave open the possibility of suicide, but I think it unlikely. There are far more convenient ways to kill yourself.
Damn Right! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How Convenient... (Score:5, Funny)
That's EXACTLY what THEY want you to think!
Re:This is a comment I read on another site: (Score:3, Informative)
There goes that theory, unless everyone at the hospital including the coroner is being brought in on the conspiracy.
I won't believe it.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I won't believe it.... (Score:5, Informative)
update (Score:5, Funny)
After moving to a better hospital, his condition was upgraded to "alive".
Ding dong, the witch is dead (Score:3, Interesting)
Resurrect him, I don't care how, then punish him most painfully, then re-kill him, as far as I'm concerned.
Oh, and let's parade photos of his dead body through the streets just like we did with that dead terrorist a few months ago.
Prove he's dead.
Re:Ding dong, the witch is dead (Score:5, Insightful)
So, when your company handles your 401(k) and your Employee Stock Purchase Program, then urges you by incentives to put more and more of your liquid capitol into the company's sinking stock...because it's such a good deal right now... whose fault is that?
If we're going to treat corporations as people in the eyes of the law, then we should have every right to take punitive action against the "person" who caused all the misery. Enron defrauded stockholders and customers - that means they lied about the actual worth of their stock and assets. Fuck the "should have known better" crowd.
When companies start telling employees to stay out of the ESPP because it's a bad deal, then you can talk about "they should have known better" - but most companies push their own stock on employees like day-old bread, and employees for the most part are content to sit there and lap it up. There's no time or much interest in "individual investing" when companies make it so easy these days.
Re:Ding dong, the witch is dead (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Ding dong, the witch is dead (Score:3, Interesting)
Try tens of thousands of employees and tens of millions of investors and California/western energy customers. Enron sucked billions of dollars out of California in six weeks. Enron sucked billions out of their own employees' pockets - where did it all go, friend?
No punishment is too egregious for Skilling, Lay, and friends. I predict that Skilling's penalties will be mighty indeed, now that Lay's
Re:Ding dong, the witch is dead (Score:5, Informative)
Well, I know you will be shocked (SHOCKED!) to find out that a good chunk of dough (to the tune of several hundred-thousand dollars) went to Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney. [opensecrets.org]
they're right! (Score:5, Funny)
I hope BSD isn't really dying...
Oh, the irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:they're right! (Score:4, Insightful)
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
I just heard some sad news (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I just heard some sad news (Score:4, Funny)
At least we know he's in heaven now, with all of the other rich white guys.
Re:I just heard some sad news (Score:5, Funny)
"Truly an American icon."
I think there's an extra 'I' somewhere in that statement.
Looks like instead of prison time.... (Score:3, Funny)
Life Insurance (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Life Insurance (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Life Insurance (Score:3, Funny)
``But three lefts do.''
Doubt it's faked... (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt it was the government, because they want to see him punished as a way of showing that they're "tackling" the problem.
I doubt it was cholesterol either... as he would have been on any medication around to stop that.
My bet is that facing a very probable "rest of your life in real actual PMITA prison" (A 20 year sentence would ahve effectively been life for a man of his age) the stress got him.
At least he saved us the tax dollars it would have cost to shelter and feed him.
Re:Doubt it's faked... (Score:3, Insightful)
I doubt there's any conspiracy at all. But I take issue with this - I'll bet brother Bush, one of Lay's "oldest and best friends" was on the horn to Snowmass this morning mouthing his condolences to poor, pitiful Mrs. Lay, who will now get to sit on all of Kenny's money - since he hadn't been sentenced, his assets could be freed from government liens, and she'll get to keep the nice h
Re:Doubt it's faked... (Score:3, Funny)
A negative 2 month, 6 day sentence was effectively a life sentence for him.
Re:Doubt it's faked... (Score:5, Informative)
It seems to me that you're suggesting that people who are on cholesterol medication never die of coronary heart disease. Really, they only lower the mortality rate by about 10%, making them less effective than a good cholesterol reduction diet. [ornish.com] Of course, neither is a magic bullet - he could have been on Lipitor and eating Ornish and he'd still be under a high risk of dying from heart disease if he already had off-the-wall cholesterol levels.
Biggest Corporate Criminal? (Score:3, Interesting)
Really, Lay wasn't the architect, he just covered it up until he could figure out how to get away from the mess without it sinking him. If you want to know more about who really created the fiasco, watch Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room [imdb.com] and see. Also see how the present administration was complicit in the California Energy Crisis.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Playing the trump card (Score:5, Funny)
hummm...doubtful (Score:3, Funny)
You just watch... I'll bet he is lying yet once again.
Is there *ANY* event... (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously, some days I just want to punch all the cryptoloons in the balls. And if they don't have balls, I'll graft donor balls onto them and punch those.
Damn, I need more vacation.
At least.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how much that was...
Whats so bad about Peace, Love and Sarbanes-Oxley? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems to me anything that puts the CEO, COO, CFO and every other cheif of a company right in the line of fire for criminal and civil liability is a good thing. The Board Officers should be there too of course. To me, the CEO and Chairman are like the Captain of a ship or a Genereal on the battlefield. You Are in Charge and You Are Responsible. If you say the company is in XYZ condition, it damn well ought to be and if we can prove you lied about it, you go to prison. Youd don't get to hide by saying, "the underlings run the company and I don't have a clue". Nothing should be hidden from "conventional interpretation" by some warped usage of accounting and bookkeeping practices. If you want to create a high risk, closed box operation, there are legal ways to do that without hiding it from your investors.
Sunlight and visibility in all the operations should be normal operating procedure, not an inconvienience to be endured.
Re:Whats so bad about Peace, Love and Sarbanes-Oxl (Score:4, Insightful)
The down-side to Sarbox is that it massively increases accouting burden and raises the bar in terms of funds and overhead required for any small company to go public. This both reduces the benefits of going public and limits the IPO opportunity to larger, better funded corporations, at the expense of many more interesting younger companies. It puts the opportunity further out of reach of smaller entreprenuers.
Most venture investors and entreprenuers feel that Sarbox goes too far. You seem to be speaking strictly from the perspective of a (rather uninformed) public shareholder, and frankly you seem to lack the necessary insight into the costs of Sarbox compliance to form a balanced viewpoint. Increasing penalties for (and actually enforcing) SEC rules would have gone a long way without having to add new requirements.
Re:Whats so bad about Peace, Love and Sarbanes-Oxl (Score:5, Insightful)
Any metaphor drawn from that cloth is fundamentally flawed.
The "innocence" you say must be proved is, in reality, reports on how much money the corporation has/owes/and is owed. As these numbers HUGELY influence how real people invest their own money, it is requisite for our entire system of finance that these numbers be accurate and trusted.
SOX might be a bit onerous, but that's only because things had become so lax....and Lay was the perfect example of how they were so lax that CEO's could try and argue in court they had no idea how much the company has/owes/and is owed.
I'll not touch your liberaltarian ranting that follows...I hear they're infectious.
Do you remember brownouts? (Score:5, Informative)
I asked my brother, an electrician at a Bay Area biotech, what the hell was going on and he didn't know.
It turns out that this fucking company Enron was turning off power-plants willy-nilly so they could profit off the spike in energy consumption somehow. So, while hospitals and grandma Millie are sitting in the dark these jackasses in Texas are laughing their asses off all the way to the bank.
It also turns out that our pussy governor could have sent the National Guard to ONE fucking powerplant and took it over. When the assholes from Enron call to take it offline they would pick up the phone: "could you turn the power off so we can spike the grid and make a lot of money?" "Uhhhh, this is Col. Soandso of the California National Guard. Who's this?" "Nevermind..." hangup. (Enron stops shenanigans.)
Oh well, Ken Lay, may you rot in the eighth circle of Dante's Hell: reserved for those guilty of deliberate fraudulent evil.
Re:Do you remember brownouts? (Score:5, Insightful)
Currently, there are no new plants in CA, no Enron, no blackouts. Since there was only one variable changed, I think I can guess the one most closely correlated with the blackouts.
Re:Do you remember brownouts? (Score:4, Insightful)
You are ignoring the context of his post. He was responding to a post that essentially blamed "enviros" for the california energy crisis. Since the "enviros" have presumably not gone away, yet the energy crisis is ancient history, it is hardly plausible that the "enviros" were the cause in the first place.
Re:Do you remember brownouts? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm not quite sure where Enron fits in there but certainly they were not the only companies messing with the market, and in the end it was the regulators' fault for allowing the market to be messed with in the first place.
LOL!
Where do the Enron Traders who were taped by the Snohomish Public Utility [cbsnews.com] fit into this?
I think it's funny how you start off your argument claiming the problem was not enough deregulation, and then you end it by blaming the regulators for not regulating enough.
You sound like a Republican... can't tell the difference between his head and his ass.
Re:Do you remember brownouts? (Score:5, Informative)
How did this steaming pile of lies and deflection of true responsibility get moded to 5?
The "it's the environmentalists fault" explanation has been completely discredited. The state has more than enough capacity. Enron and other energy-related concerns were deliberately shutting down generating plants to create a phony energy shortage.
But, go ahead and continue to spread the lies. Given the moderation you received, many still want to believe that fault lies with it's those damned tree huggin' hippies rather than criminals like Lay.
how does this affect his families liability (Score:3, Interesting)
Justice? (Score:3, Interesting)
I realize he stold millions of dollars. I realize that he cost the jobs of thousands of people. I realize he ruined many innocent people's lives. It's pretty obvious that this guy was a scum ball.
But how does that justify calling his death "justice"? Would it be justice if he was killed by the government or one of his bilked former employees?
Take away his money, his reputation, and his freedom... but don't call his death justice.
Slashdot perspective (Score:3, Funny)
Now THAT is what I call a karma mod!
Farewell Ken (Score:5, Funny)
A nobler grave than this:
Here lie the bones of Kenneth Lay:
Stop, traveller, and piss.
His end was too good for him (Score:3, Informative)
AKA... (Score:3, Informative)
These devottees are otherwise known as faithfull lieutenants.
Another side effect of Lay's death (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Another side effect of Lay's death (Score:4, Interesting)
If so, it would inspire suicide intended to clear one's name, and protect one's $$$ from being taken from offspring.
Sentencing? (Score:5, Interesting)
He dies before sentencing, Now we have no yardstick for similar crooks in the future, no order of restitution to be paid. Inheritance gets whatever he had left + life insurance benefits (which I bet is a pretty good chunk of any state budget)
A Republican friend of mine mockingly said "How dare he die before we get a chance to punish him." What he say in jest, I say in earnest.
Personally, I would have liked to see him live a long, long, long life breaking rocks in the hot sun. Since he probably would have ended up at Club Fed, I hope it hurt a tenth as much as losing your retirement and life savings overnight.
As an Atheist, I get no satisfaction from him keeling over. I literally feel robbed, and I had no money in their company. The people who did probably feel robbed all over again.
"I'm not Dead Yet!" (Score:3, Interesting)
Most of his cash "vanished" shortly before his arrest, and his assets were never frozen.
When Lay collapsed, his personal assistant called Lay's personal doctor, not an ambulance. It was Lay's personal physician who pronounced Lay dead.
Lay's will, revised just a couple of months ago, calls for his cremation, and his widow was out of the country when he died. She's reportedly having medical complications from "The shock of her belove husband's sudden death." As a result, she's not expected to return to the states for the funeral.
Details on who signed the death certificate are fuzzy, but there are no plans for an autopsy. He's scheduled for cremation tomorrow morning.
Any bets there's no actual body in the casket, or if there is, it's not Ken Lay's?
Billions are now being spent nationwide by American CEOs on similar contingency plans for faking one's own death and moving vast financial resources to a safe location out of the country.
Ken Lay has become quite a roll model for Corporate CEOs all over the country. He made a vast fortune, and despite being caught, manged to keep a large number of his cohorts from facing any real repercussions while escaping with his own fortune largely intact.
Re:"I'm not Dead Yet!" (Score:4, Informative)
Sarbanes-Oxely (Score:3, Insightful)
Just off the top of my head, It seems to me that you actually have guys named Sarbanes and Oxely to thank for having to live with Sarbanes-Oxely.
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
"He Didn't Fall..." (Score:5, Interesting)
Kenny-boy suggested the VP role for Cheney to the Shrub. He was part of the "energy taskforce" that they are so desparate to keep under wraps. Like Dr. Kelly... Like... The list is big and convenient.
Or did his poor heart break, because it was too good for this world? I don't think so!
Another crony about to sing like a Canary to cop a plea...
Re:"He Didn't Fall..." (Score:5, Funny)
*badum ching*
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:3, Informative)
So is everyone in elected office. It's a common trait among perps in the con game.
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Funny)
Well that does it! No more hanging around polite charming people for me. From now on I'm only going to associate with people that have demonic beady eyes and fresh blood dripping from their chin.
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:3, Insightful)
Either way, someone who looks dangerous doesn't get away with many crimes, so if they look dangerous and act that way too, they are probably already behind bars.
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Funny)
Hello new friend! Wanna go throw rocks at my neighors cat?
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:3, Insightful)
I often sense that people who are overly formal and curteous are hiding behind a facade. I don't like them very much. I prefer those who, while still being polite, show their true natures, and don't attempt to be something they're not. Of course, I practive what I preach so when people don't recieve the usual barrage of trite curteousies from me, they probably tend to assume that I'm being rude. The way I see it, putting on a facade is
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:3, Funny)
That's why I hang around
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Insightful)
Need anyone be reminded of the thousands of employees, shareholders and suppliers that the late Mr Lay metaphorically urinated, on as he profited from their misfortune? Who eulogizes for them?
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Funny)
Dude! You miss the point. That's called "trickle down economics."
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:3, Insightful)
The ones who survive have to suffer
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and anyone who respected Ken Lay deserves to get pissed on too.
*anxiously awaits to get modded down*
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody should get more time in prison for cooking the books (or for copyright infringement) than a person who murders. Criminal penalties should fit the crime. But so should the financial penalties, and his financial crimes were large indeed.
I'd say the same thing about Skilling and the world.com people, while I'm at it. Hit them where it hurts: get them working at McDonalds to make their car payments, and use their ill-gotten gains to help those they harmed.
Consider it a different version of "an eye for an eye": their punishment is to supply from what they have, what they've made another lose. Which, by the way, is what I believe "an eye for an eye" originally was intended to do: if you blind someone, you must then act as that person's eyes.
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ken Lay -- serial killer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Working stiffs need to diversify their portfolio? Sure. How many 9-to-5ers do you think putting away $60 a paycheck had the wherewithal to take investing classes for their $10,000 retirement kitty? How many of them do you imagine had financial consultants on payrool?
Please. If I mug you the day you happen to have your laptop, iPod, cellphone, PSP, and engagement ring for your girlfriend on you, is it your fault? All those Cambodians get blamed because they put all of their eggs (i.e.
Re:Ken Lay -- serial killer? (Score:3, Insightful)
As an aside, the company I most recently worked for only recently (after I left) gave employees a choice as to what th
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:4, Informative)
"Lay worked in the early '70s as a federal energy regulator. He then became undersecretary for the Department of the Interior before he returned to the business world as an executive at Florida Gas. By the Reagan administration, when energy was deregulated, Lay was already an energy company executive and he took advantage of the new climate by merging Houston Natural Gas Co. with Nebraska-based Inter-North to form Enron in 1985."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Lay [wikipedia.org]
Reinventing the past is common for psychopaths (Score:4, Interesting)
Now I don't know enough about Ken Lay to proclaim whether he was a psychopath or not, but it sorta makes me wonder. I mean we already know that he had no remorse in shafting the investors, the employees and everyone, but the GP's moving testimony just makes some more pieces fall into place.
Here are some relevant paragraphs:
Does it sound yet like Ken Lay telling employees a rags-to-riches story about creating the company from nothing?
Also worth remembering:
So in a way I'm not surprised that someone would be manipulated to the point of respecting the guy who shafted him. Psychopaths are _good_ at that kind of thing. Damn good. _Incredibly_ good. Unless you happen to be the direct target of their mind games or power games or intimidation games (they do all that a lot), you could live next to one for a decade and respect the heck out of him.
That's nice... now stamp those plates! (Score:5, Insightful)
That hard-working, affable manner doesn't excuse their crimes in the least. Let 'em put those skills to work in federal, PMITA prison.
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Lay worked in the early '70s as a federal energy regulator. He then became undersecretary for the Department of the Interior before he returned to the business world. He became an executive at Florida Gas. By the Reagan administration, when energy was deregulated, Lay was already an energy company executive and he took advantage of the new climate by merging Houston Natural Gas Co. with Nebraska-based Inter-North to form Enron in 1985,
Lay was one of America's highest-paid CEOs, earning (for example) a $42.4 million compensation package in 1999.[1] Lay sold large amounts of his Enron stock in September and October of 2001 as its price fell, while encouraging employees to buy more stock, telling them the company would rebound. Lay liquidated more than $300 million in Enron stock from 1989 to 2001, mostly in stock options."
Yeah, that's a real "built the company from nothing" story. Where's my rolleyes smiley?
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Interesting)
The world may never know exactly how much Ken Lay was involved in the whole Enron fiasco. But although he probably wasn't nearly as devious and manipulative as CEO Jeff Skilling or CFO Andy Fastow, Ken Lay was still the captain of the ship and deserves much of the blame for Enron's collapse.
From what I've read of him, Ken had several flaws:
So although Ken may not have been the greedy manipulator that his underlings were, he reminds me a lot of a pleasant, but wimpy and passive dad who's let his children run wild with no discipline from their earliest days, then protests that he's not to blame when they turn into terrors 10-15 years later.
For a fascinating account of the rise and fall of Enron, I would highly recommend the book The Smartest Guys In the Room [amazon.com]. You don't have to understand all the arcane ins-and-outs of accounting to follow the story, which really is pretty fascinating. (I believe there's a documentary movie based on the book as well...)
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:3, Insightful)
From nothing, to nothing. Are you trying to convince us that he was a good confidence artist?
Ken Lay caused misery. The money he helped to steal from all the people of California (with the help of a misguided Public Utilities Commission) could have dampened the state's economic recession - a problem blamed on politicians who had less power than Lay.
Ken Lay caused misery by
Re:Another perspective on Ken Lay... (Score:5, Interesting)
Second, I have never though of being the child as a preacher as a necessary asset. A preacher asks for money in the name of god, not for the value of a direct service or product. There was a time when this was ok, like for a King or a Lord or something, where the sefs starved while one sat in a guilded highrise. But America now mostly knows that work is what brings wealth, and there is no cosmic cash machine. However, if one is raised on the principle of entitlement, then one might do anything to insure that entitlement.
Third, independent persons with knowledge knew Enron was bad juju. I myself was told by those in the know to stay away. It was not just that Enron was encoraging staff to buy Enron stock, almost every company was guilty of that practice. It was not just that Enron was booking and paying commission on sales that generated not positive cashflow. Again, that was a standard dot com practice. Rather, it was the products made no sense and there was no core direction. As was suspected before the fact, and known after, the products were shills of productivity.
In the end Ken Lay was nothing special except for his cluelessness and lack of humility. Many people realized he was simply incompetent, and would have accepted a statement of responsibility and an apology. Rather, he his behind technicalities and avoided the responsiblities that were ultimately his as the head of the enterprise.
Re:I bet God can't take just one! (Score:5, Insightful)
PS. God, no need to worry about the Democratic corrupt. We recognize that red-state/blue-state is really the fight between good and evil, and, as such, in times of people losing their entire life's savings and others dying young, the most important thing is whether or not another state switches to my color. GO TEAM GO
Re:I Miss Monica - Ode to an Intern (Score:5, Interesting)
Blatant? How about a sitting senator that considers naming everything in West Virginia after himself to be his top priority? That, and having his friends in the road business pave it over with your tax dollars. That is pretty blatant... but it's not nearly as delicious as a congressman with $90,000 in his freezer. No, blatancy is not peculiar to one party or the other.
One Word: SARBOX (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Show some humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
What value would respect have if it was given freely and equally regardless of what a person is or does? What would be the point. This man was a criminal, and through his direct actions and deceipt harmed thousands of lives. Why should anyone respect that?
Perhaps people should respect his family, but this man dug his grave years ago.
Re:Show some humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many people's lives did "Kenny-Boy" (GW Bush's nickname for him) destroy with his evil fun? How many people died of heat stroke because their manipulation of energy prices? How many committed suicide because their savingand retirement was wiped out?
He was evil. And the theft he committed was so senseless because he HAD millions, and wanted billions. This was not a man stealing to feed his family, this was an already rich man stealing and more importantly building a huge criminal enterprise and corrupting others to steal far more than any person could ever possibly spend in a thousand lifetimes.
He was an evil troll, and I think the possibility exists that his death was faked is credible. He hurt more Americans than Zarqawi, and an honest tally would likely show that he was responsible for more deaths. Pissing on his grave is the least of the insults he deserves. Until these bastards who steal billions actually face the death penalty "business ethics" will remain an oxymoron.
Re:Show some humanity (Score:4, Insightful)
Ken Lay basically died of shame and being caught. I believe that many of his victims died similar deaths to him from his actions.
And I think you are ignoring the fact that Zarqawi probably only *personally* killed less than a hundred people (maybe less than fifty). The rest were all based on his organizations actions. We say he is responsible for the deaths caused by his organization-- I think we can extend deaths caused by corporate actions just as well.
When you knowingly pollute and cover it up and people die, they died.
When you work people to death with excessive hours, they are still dead.
When you take an excessive salary that means your people can't get medical care (which your salary would have covered) then you traded your happiness for their lives and they are still dead.
Historically, we have drawn a line that said if a person dies because of business, then it is not murder. Corporations have become so powerful and so corrupt, that I think it is time to redraw that line.
Re:Show some humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd say it's a safe bet that he injured more than two Americans however. See, I live in California, and I personally have been injured by the actions of Enron, the company Lay oversaw.
Presumably, you have links from the AP regarding these AQ funded labs? I have this link
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
which depicts Zarqawi as wanting to ally himself with AQ, but not being embraced by the terrorist organization's leadership. Furthermore, I have yet to find a mainstream media outlet which claims AQ was operating from Iraq before the war.
There is nothing absurd about calling Republicans traitors, it is indisputable: they seek to undermine the Constitution of the United States, and do not support the Constitution, the document upon which almost all of our laws depend. In so doing, they hope to destroy the United States, and are hence traitors, QED. There is nothing in the Constitution which allows violation of amendments one, five, or six, but there are the Republicans, supporting their violation each and every day.
Traitors all. To paraphrase the Traitor-in-Chief, "you're either with us, or you're with the Republicans."
You don't _have_ to be a traitor, you know. You can always read the Constitution, and educate yourself about this country's founding, and the ideals behind it.
Re:Show some humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Show some humanity (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, arguably.
That was a joke.
no matter what sins he committed in life, we should show some respect
Why?
That was serious.
I suppose showing respect to him now would be a good way to piss on the people he defrauded and the society he helped make a little more unjust -- but I guess I don't see why you'd want to that.
Re:Show some humanity (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end, we judge others and actually judge ourselves. The former CEO of Enron was, understandably, a modern type of monster. You're hard-pressed to find much good to say about him other than, "he was human." But so is every death row inmate.
I find the older I get, the more careful I am in judging simply because I've been through a certain amount of crap and I also realize that, as my southern grandfather used to put it, "you gotta walk that lonesome valley.... You gotta walk it by yourself."
Lay emerged on the world scene like the rest of us, and like the rest of us he struggled to climb to the top. Along the way, as most of us do, he compromised. A time came when he compromised big, and then he kept on compromising until that little voice we all have simply wasn't there anymore. He had to know he was destroying lives as he built his personal pile.
I'm reminded of what the news paper tycoon said to the young Orson Wells as his life was ending in public shame, indebtedness and legal turmoil: "my fight with the world is ending. Yours is just beginning."
While the vitriol makes perfect sense right now, we just gotta be careful. We, too, will screw up either in a big or small way in this world. Hopefully, not that big. Still, the man is dead.
Frodo: "It's a pity Bilbo didn't kill him when he had the chance."
Gandalf: "Pity? It was pity that stayed Bilbo's hand. Many that live deserve death. Some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo? Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. Even the very wise cannot see all ends. My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill before this is over. The pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many."
Let's have a smidgen of pity boys....
Re:As a republican, I'd like to say... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As a republican, I'd like to say... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:As a republican, I'd like to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
I, for one, won't really mourn his passing except in the abstract sense (the humanist in me). I'm not a Republican or a Democrat (or a member of any other party), though I am an employee of a company formerly owned by the big E.
Re:As a republican, I'd like to say... (Score:4, Insightful)
I admire your humanity and deep sense of empathy.
Re:As a republican, I'd like to say... (Score:3, Funny)
Won't someone please think of the children? (Score:5, Informative)
I'd hate for "Kenny-Boy" to get the last laugh on America, you know, by dying early.
Re:Won't someone please think of the children? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What The F!CK (Score:3, Interesting)
I Don't Think So... (Score:5, Insightful)
What's Karma is when you have everything you worked your entire life to build destroyed before your eyes because you got greedy and stole a lot of people's money. Which was in the process when he died. I suspect that a large portion of the fortune he's leaving behind will go to the US Government instead of his surviving family.
Ken Lay fucked up the lives of a lot of people. Thousands of Enron ex-employees will not be able to retire thanks to his actions. I doubt those people will feel vindicated by his death. I suspect that there will be some very bitter Wal-mart greeters in the next 20 years. Even his heirs won't be on solid ground given the controversy over his fortune. I'd suggest striking his name from the history books except that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.