The Kensington Review

10 January 2005

Latest Commentary:

GOP Cries “Foul” over Washington Governor’s Race -- The Washington State race for governor just ended amid the usual whining and moaning that has become part of American politics whenever the race is close. Democrat Christine Gregoire won the final count by 129 votes after losing the first count by 241 and a second machine recount by 42. The GOP contender Dino Rossi took the usual GOP approach when he was ahead (“I won, race is over, time for a transition team), and the Al Gore approach after he came up short (“There are more votes to count in my counties”). If nothing else, this proves that the US can’t run a 21st century election using 19th century methods. And until this gets fixed, very few in America have any right to believe their votes were really counted.

Abbas Wins Election as Palestinian President -- Mahmoud Abbas, a/k/a Abu Mazen, stomped his rivals in the election yesterday for the Palestinian presidency. This portion of the vote looks to be around two-thirds of those cast. In his victory speech, he said, “I present this victory to the soul of Yasser Arafat and present it to our people, to our martyrs and to 11,000 prisoners [in Israeli jails]." One hopes he kept the receipt for this present, as it doesn’t appear to be worth much.

Marks & Spencer’s Boss Vows to Return the Share Price to £4 -- Business school graduates like to pretend their discipline is faintly scientific, rabbiting on about “metrics.” This is, to any statistician or physicist, complete nonsense, but unfortunately, because there are numbers in the ledger, B-schools have taught that quantification results in intellectual rigor. This allows garbage in to become garbage out. However, there is one man in business today who has set himself a genuinely measurable standard by which to judge his performance. Stuart Rose, the CEO of retailer Marks & Spencer’s has said if he doesn’t get the share price back up to £4, he will have failed.

North Korea Wages War on Counter Revolutionary Hair Styles -- North Korea scares the bejesus out of most sensible people. A failing state of starving people with nuclear weapons is hardly a good neighbor. A recent BBC report, though, suggests that North Korean paranoia has reached unparalleled levels. A TV program called “Common Sense” ran a five-part series on the proper hairstyles for men. It is recommended by the Pyongyang government that men get a haircut every 15 days. With priorities like that, disarming the regime has become even more important.

© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review , J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.

Google
WWW Kensington Review







Amazon Honor System Click Here to Pay Learn More

Links

Contact us

Back Issues