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Non-Tech : The ENRON Scandal -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (3760)	3/31/2002 12:51:15 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 5185

Enron's women offered full disclosure news.independent.co.uk By Rupert Cornwell in Washington 27 March 2002 The company and their savings may have gone up in smoke. But for the ladies if not the gentlemen of the scandal-shrouded Enron corporation, consolation of a kind beckons - an appearance on the pages of Playboy magazine. Hugh Hefner's venerable organ is planning a a future "Women of Enron" issue, in which the company's comeliest female employees will be invited to bare a good deal more than most of their male colleagues have revealed to the host of congressional committees investigating America's biggest business failure. Interested employees, both past and present, are being asked to send photos of themselves in bikinis to the magazine. "This is an opportunity for them to do something fun in the midst of the turmoil in their lives," Elizabeth Norris, a Playboy spokeswoman said. It would not be the first time Playboy has provided a remunerative outlet for protagonists of American scandals - among them Paula Jones, who filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Bill Clinton, and Jessica Hahn, whose charms lured the televangelist Jim Bakker to disgrace in 1987. This time however, if Ms Norris is to be believed, scandal has nothing to do with it. These were not women of scandal, she insisted, "these are women who are out of a job. We are offering what you could interpret as a part-time job, or what might turn into a new career." Deborah DeFforge, of the Severed Enron Employees Coalition, said: "It's kind of a highlight. We've had so much depressing and stressful news, and now this. It's kind of cute."

To: Skywatcher who wrote (3760)	3/31/2002 1:23:40 AM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5185

Talk of change after Sept. 11 a bunch of gas The worst attack ever on the continental United States -- the terrorist assault of Sept. 11 -- supposedly changed the nation forever. But a mere six months later, the change is hard to see. Indeed, the landscape looks depressingly familiar. Church attendance has settled back to usual levels. Travelers still smuggle dangerous objects past airport security guards. American culture remains superficial (celebrity boxing was a ratings smash!) and self-absorbed. And politicians continue their short-sighted quest for self-preservation. With elections looming, Congress caved in to both Big Business and Big Labor (aligned on this issue) to resist raising the fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles. That means that Americans will continue to be overly dependant on petroleum flowing from dangerous parts of the world, and American soldiers will continue to put their lives at risk to defend our right to drive inefficient vehicles. So remind me again -- what has changed? The terrorist atrocities of Sept. 11 should have stunned Americans into acknowledging the price we pay for guzzling gas. While we constitute only 4.5 percent of the planet's population, we use 26 percent of its petroleum. The vast majority of that petroleum comes from foreign sources, including Saudi Arabia -- a difficult ally whose Islamist culture produced 15 of the 19 hijackers. The easiest way to lower our dependence on foreign petroleum is to require greater fuel efficiency in our vehicles. While President Bush and his oil buddies insist on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, that won't help. According to a recent report from the Bush-led Energy Department, the U.S. will have to import 62 percent of its oil by the year 2020 if we don't drill in ANWR. So what's the yield if we do drill? We'll import 60 percent, the report said. That's hardly worth the damage to the Alaskan wilderness. Conservation is clearly the best way to approach the problem. American technology already has the means to raise fuel efficiency. All that's required is the will. That, however, was sadly lacking last week, when the U.S. Senate fell for the misinformation spread by automobile manufacturers and their workers, who claim that greater fuel efficiency will raise the cost of cars and compromise safety. The increased cost would lead to fewer vehicles sold and, in turn, more workers laid off, they contend. The Senate voted to give the Transportation Department two years to study whether safety and employment would be affected by higher Corporate Fuel Economy standards. That's a cop-out. There is already solid evidence the critics' claims are false: They made the same claims in 1985, the last time CAFE standards were raised, and their dire predictions never came true. Road deaths and injuries per mile traveled have steadily declined, and jobs in the automobile industry hit their peak in 1999. (Admittedly, many of those jobs were in foreign-owned companies, such as Honda.) The American automobile industry simply doesn't want to change the way it has comfortably done things for decades. Because GM and Ford won the debate last week, more young Americans will have to put their lives on the line to defend oil pipelines. The United States now imports about 25 percent of its oil from the tumultuous Persian Gulf region. By the year 2020, that is expected increase to 40 percent. With a volunteer military, the burden of defending American's oil interests will be borne disproportionately by the working class, while the middle class continues to show its patriotism by plastering American flag decals all over its huge SUVs. Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor. Her column appears Sundays and Wednesdays. accessatlanta.com