| The Kensington Review |
23 July 2004 |
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Latest Commentary:
9/11 Commission Misses NSC's Purpose -- The ink on the Report from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, a/k/a the "9/11 Commission," had yet to dry before one error by the commissioners became painfully clear. In calling for a single intelligence chief, it forgot that America had one. Of course, the fact that she hasn't done her job very well makes it difficult for anyone to say that Condoleeza Rice is America's intelligence chief. However, under the National Security Act of 1947 and based on precedent, especially during the Eisenhower years, Dr. Rice should have taken on the role the commissioners say America needs. Of course, she is also a former Sovietologist who missed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Australia's Flood Report Doesn't Blame Anybody over Iraq Either -- Just a few hours before the US 9/11 Commission failed to place responsibility on anyone for the most damaging attack to the American mainland since the British burned Washington in 1814, Australia's Flood report announced no one down under was responsible for the Bali bombing or going to war in Iraq under false pretenses. The only other country to have a significant force in Iraq is Poland -- one wonders how long before a commission in Warsaw reports that nobody there is responsible either. Meanwhile, the world needs to think about an appropriate honor for Andrew Wilkie, the Australian intelligence analyst who resigned shortly before the war and went public with his concerns to no avail. Microsoft Shareholders to Get Special Payment -- Sometimes the mattress is too small to hide all of one's cash. Microsoft has been sitting on piles of it for a long time, and finally, the company recognized that it needed to recycle this wealth. Rather than buy another firm in a foolish M&A endeavor, the big shots at Microsoft decided to give the money back to the shareholders -- to whom it really belongs anyway. There is a lesson for other businesses in this -- if the board can't find a way to invest cash that will improve shareholder value, give them their money back and let them decide what to do with it. It's called a free-market solution. Hawking Sends Preskill Baseball Book after Losing Black Hole Bet John Preskill is an astrophysicist at CalTech, and it seems he was right and Stephen Hawking, who holds Sir Isaac Newton's old chair at Cambridge, was wrong about black holes. Apparently, they don't destroy all matter that enters them. This settles a 29-year-old bet the two had, and Professor Preskill's prize is Total Baseball, The Ultimate Baseball Encyclopedia. What is more interesting is how the matter was settled -- Professor Hawking proved himself wrong and cheerfully admitted it at the 17th International Conference on General Relativity and Gravitation in Dublin. |
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