Mark my Hurds

There has got to be more to the Mark Hurd story. I simply don't believe that he was fired over a several thousand dollar discrepancy on his expense reports. Let's go to the calculator!

If I remember correctly, Mark made about $20,000,000 per year. Let's assume 40 hours per week and 50 weeks per year to keep it simple:

$20,000,000/year / 50 weeks/year / 40 hours/week = $10,000/hour!!!

So, the HP board knowingly paid Mark $10,000 per hour, yet they're willing to make a big stink, and allow their stock to tank, over what amounts to a couple hours worth of Mark's time? After he had offered to pay it back? Hmmm...something doesn't add up here, and it's not my math.

I suppose I could be magnanimous and assume that the board is just so ethically principled that the amount of money involved was irrelevant in light of the violations of HP's Standards of Business Conduct. I know, I know. That is so absurd that I am embarrassed to have even written the words.

Whatever is going on here, I just hope the curtain doesn't get pulled back too soon. I want the California voters to be reminded of what great people ex-HP CEO's are, but not just yet.

360 with an Afghanikiwi tow truck driver

While we were holed up in a hotel waiting to deal with our troubled van, I happened to catch CNN's 360 with Anderson Cooper. He was interviewing Republican Rick Lazio, famous for losing to Hillary Clinton in the NY senate race, and currently running for governor of NY. The topic was the Cordoba Mosque that is planned to be built a couple blocks from the World Trade Center site.

Rick Lazio, like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Joe Lieberman, and many other idiots, is pretending to outraged for political gain. Lazio says the group's imam, Feisel Abdul Rauf, should be investigated to determine who is funding the project. Of course, investigating private citizens who aren't breaking any laws isn't something we normally do without probable cause. However, Lazio thinks we should make an exception because Rauf once said that America was an accessory to the crime of 9-11, a victim of foreign policy blowback.

Cooper weakly pushed back on Lazio, but I was yelling at him through the TV on the other side of the planet to bring up that Osama bin Laden was funded by the CIA to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was on the CIA payroll and later attacked the USA. That is a textbook example of blowback. Is Anderson Cooper ignorant about this? Is Rick Lazio, or does he just think that speaking a verifiable inconvenient truth is grounds for investigation?

The next day, we had our van towed to the mechanic. Guess where our tow truck driver was from...Kabul! His entire family fled to New Zealand 20 years ago in the aftermath of the war with the Soviet Union. As we were discussing the current state of affairs in Afghanistan, without prompting, he lamented all the trouble bin Laden brought to Afghanistan and mentioned that bin Laden was on the CIA payroll. Hey CNN, maybe you should get in touch with this guy. He's at Discount Towing in Auckland. Be warned though--he only takes cash.

The not so quaint politics of Australia

Not so long ago, I wrote about the quaint politics of Australia. It seems that I didn't know what I was talking about (yes, it's hard to believe). Kevin Rudd is no longer the Prime Minister. However, he was not ousted over the famed insulation scheme. That was just the warm up. The real issue was that he wanted to increase taxes on Australia's booming mining industry.

A mining billionaire launched a big anti-tax campaign claiming that the tax would cost Australians jobs, precious jobs. Isn't it great that these benevolent rich guys are never concerned with their own pocketbooks, just the employment prospects of those at the other end of the economic spectrum? I'm certainly glad that they can fund huge PR campaigns without having to go to the trouble of actually running for elected office too. I digress.

The new Prime Minister is Julia Gillard. She was Rudd's Deputy Prime Minister, so she shares most of his policy views. Therefore, I suspect I will soon be posting an update on the brief reign of Australia's first female Prime Minister. It's pretty clear who really runs the country.

Prediction: all roads lead to Fox

How long until General McCrystal shows up as a Fox News analyst to criticize Obama's conduct of the war in Afghanistan? Put me down for late September. While I'm looking into the future, I also see Evan Bayh joining the Fox team once he's officially out of the Senate. Joe Lieberman will also run to Fox rather than run and lose his seat. Fox will showcase both Bayh and Lieberman as evidence of their balanced coverage. Yes, I'm really going out on a limb.

Going native

Growing up in America, moving to Australia, and then New Zealand, the evils commited by colonial England against the indigenous peoples have become increasingly obvious and unavoidable. From the Native Americans of America, to the Aborigines of Australia, to the Maori of New Zealand, the story is always the same...brutality on a massive scale against the natives in order to rob them of their natural resources.

To their credit, the governments of both Australia and New Zealand have acknowledged the wrongs committed against their natives, and they are trying to make amends. They have made efforts to integrate the natives into the white man's society, and they have made visible efforts to celebrate native heritage. America could take some lessons here.

New Zealand sets aside seats in parliament for the Maori Party. That's an interesting idea. Perhaps the USA could set aside a seat or two in the Senate and a seat for each tribe or reservation in the House. It seems the very least we could do is replace the offensive and embarrassing Columbus Day with a day dedicated to celebrating Native American history and culture.

Is the Presidency weak, or just this one?

In the aftermath of the Senator Blanche Lincoln's (D) primary victory in Arkansas, there's been a lot of back and forth about presidential power. Some claim that the Presidency is weak--that Congress, especially the Senate holds the power. Others, like Glenn Greenwald, argue that Presidents have vast power and influence, but only use it for the things they actually care about.

In the latter scenario, we have Obama campaigning on closing Guatanamo, but then advocating holding those same prisoners without charges in Illinois. We have Obama campaigning on health care reform with a robust public option, but then deciding a public option isn't that important afterall. We have Obama campaigning on carbon reductions to address global warming, but a national speech on energy policy that doesn't even mention those words. The weak-President theorists would say this is just Obama facing the reality of dealing with Congress. I disagree. I think Obama doesn't exercise his powers for progressive values because he doesn't actually share those values.

Bush was able to convince 70% of Americans that Saddam Hussein was responsible for 911!!! Bush was able to convince Americans that two unfunded wars were more important than his ballooning federal deficit. Bush was able to convince Americans that massive tax cuts during an economic boom were a great idea (again, despite the deficit). Bush did all this despite facts that weren't on his side, because this is what he cared about. With the facts on his side, if Obama cared as much about civil rights, health care, global warming, financial regulation, immigration reform, etc. as Bush did about launching wars and cutting taxes, he could move public opinion too.

Mining for Terrorists

American forces have been in Afghanistan for 8 years. They can't find Bin Laden, but they can find the largest lithium reserves in the world! Amazing. Were they using mining equipment to burrow into Bin Laden's labyrinth of caves?

I understand that America has a responsibility to help rebuild Afghanistan. Helping them discover and tap into natural resources other than opium seems reasonable. Buy why the Department of Defense? Why not the Department of the Interior in concert with the State Department?

Germany's President was recently forced to resign for merely suggesting that their military might be justifiably used to protect their trade interests. A couple weeks later the American military reports that they've found the largest lithium reserves in the world, and all the debate is about whether this will be good or bad thing for Afghanistan's future?! No one seems to be questioning the DOD's role. I find that disturbing.