• Long article about the various US business scandals, all of the illegal accounting to cover up losses and exaggerate profits that has destroyed Enron, and WorldCom, and that will no doubt kill numerous others as the truth gets out.  The article is from the UK perspective, and goes out on a limb by pointing out:

Which is true, but I think it's a bit elitist to try to say greed is only from the US south.  Most everyone running those companies went to upper crust east coast business schools, lots of their top employees were raised in other parts of the country, and moreover, greed is everywhere.  These are just the first two of what will be many companies to be found to have been cooking the books this way, and it's more or less chance that they were both from the US south.  Just today we've got news of Vivendi, the massive French media conglomerate, doing more or less the same thing, and they're certainly not southern boys.  Their CEO has quit and the stock is plummeting.

The article also points out what I think should be obvious, but is heresy to most conservatives, with their dogmatic faith in the "invisible hand of the market".

• Not heard anything about John Walker Lindh lately?  Me either.  He is, of course, the American who was captured with the Taliban in Afghanistan, fighting on their side against other Afghans. Much was made of this "traitor", and conservatives especially had a field day with it, since he was raised by hippy-style liberal parents.  The media seemed to assume he would be found guilty of all sorts of horrible things and executed in about 3 weeks.

Well, it's been months, and that's looking a lot less likely.  This article goes over the case against him, and finds it pretty much non-existent.

It's hard to like the guy much given his situation, and in the (understandable?) hysteria of pro-Americanism after the 9/11 Walker was probably the most hated man on earth, after Osama himself.  The worst he seems to have done, upon sober reflection, was join the Taliban.  He did this long before the 9/11 events, and was into fighting to other Afghan tribes to create a sort of Muslim homeland.  He didn't take an assignment to go overseas to carry on the battle, wanting to stay in Afghanistan and fight, and while joining a terrorist organization was illegal for a US citizen back pre-9/11, it's far from treason.  I wonder if they'll be able to retroactively apply post 9/11 standards, and try to prosecute him for not immediately leaving the Taliban after the 9/11 events?

I'm not defending Walker, he's obviously got a lot of mental issues.  I could see some right wing hardcore Christian kid joining the Taliban; both are for oppression of women, rule by religious authority, get their ideas from ancient books, live their lives unquestioning the authorities, etc.  But it seems very odd for a progressive liberal guy to join up, being as the Taliban was so violently sexist and oppressive of just about everyone.  Screwed up kid becomes screwed up adult and flips to the opposite of his upbringing, sort of like how all the kids of hippies became greed-obsessed yuppies?  Though that doesn't seem to be quite what Walker was there for, as his "power to the people" ideas seemed to be the main ones driving him, as he had figured the Taliban was a sort of people's organization, fighting against a bunch of corrupt warlords.  So he just ignored/overlooked the other aspects of it?  I don't know, I've not seen any in depth interviews with him on why he was doing what he did.

If you look at it from the Taliban's PoV, you have to wonder why they allowed Walker to just be another grunt?  I mean they're using various Egyptian and Saudi guys to infiltrate the US on their terrorist missions, and here they've got an actual American on their side, a white guy who once shaved and cleaned up would have aroused zero suspicion going undercover.  Obviously the Arab guys they sent over here did a hell of a job at their objectives, as they were able to get flight training, hijack the targeted planes, and successfully deliver their payloads.  (That sounds horrible, I'm certainly not on their side, but you have to look at it analytically, as an extremely successful covert mission.)  So since it worked out fine for them, with just the one guy captured pre-9/11, it looks like Osama (or whoever was calling the shots) knew best.  Still, it's not exactly a good job of maximizing their available resources, not using their potentially best operative on the mission.  Maybe they didn't really trust Walker not to defect or blab once he was back home?  Or maybe they just weren't all that well-organized or thought out, and only the terribly lax security measures and immigration laws in the US allowed their mission to succeed.

ennifer Aniston, one of the actresses on Friends, a show I have never (and will never) seen, has settled a lawsuit against some celebrity nude magazines.  She was suing them to stop publication of the photos, and for financial damage.  Obviously the money is nothing to her, she just wants to get back at them for spying on her, and to hurt the magazines, and her main motivation is to keep the photos from being published again.

Aniston, 33, claimed a photographer — described in her lawsuit as a "stalkerazzi" — scaled a neighbor's wall and, using a telephoto lens, snapped photos of her "reclining topless in her back yard, wearing only her panties." The pictures were then sold to the magazines.

Nice view for the neighbors, eh?  It's sort of odd that she'd sue over this, I mean is she planning on holding up some movie company for an extra $5m her first topless scene?  It's not as if she's holding much back, being as she's done a nude Rolling Stone cover, and many other shots with her tits all but revealed.

I've never found her all that attractive myself; Courteney Cox is the one on that show I think is hot, at least in magazine photos and such, and mostly for her face, which is painfully striking.  Once in a while I'll happen upon Friends on a rare channel surfing escapade, and if she's on I'll just mute it and stare at her.  The guys on that show all look singularly idiotic and goofy to me, so I've been known to hold my hands up to the screen, covering their idiot smirks, while watching just the spot Courteney's face occupies.  After 30 seconds I'm okay and can go back to my life. IMHO, Aniston and the other one are pretty for TV stars, but well below model-quality, if I can be cold and harsh in my appraisal (and if you've seen the Hot or Not page, my abilities in that arena are not in doubt).

Anyway, you're probably wondering why I waste time on this?  Well, I have what is purported to be the photo of Aniston that the lawsuit was about.  Copied it from a newsgroup posting some months ago when I heard about these lawsuits for the first time.  It's not a very good picture; bad angle, and there's no way you could determine who's actually in the shot, with no visible face, so I wonder why Aniston didn't just deny it was her and let the whole thing die a publicity-free death?

Click the thumbnail to see the full size pic, and let's hope that, 1) it doesn't get google-linked as "Jennifer Aniston Nude" and devour my entire monthly bandwidth in about 10 minutes, and 2) get me nasty letters from her lawyers.

I find it mostly interesting for her weird boobies.  The left one looks like it was damaged with a razor blade, making a dent right across it.  I wonder if that's a birth defect or she somehow cut it?  Hard to imagine an accident that would do such a narrow slice across one though.  Piercing that was torn free? *ouch* Or maybe it's just a little ridge she has, and the shadow from the sun is making it look like a slice/divot?

Aside from that weird bit, she's got oddly-shaped breasts as well.  They look natural, and are a nice size (size doesn't really matter to me on breasts, as long as they aren't too big), but the shape is strange, with the way they abruptly narrow at the areola. It looks almost like the ends were heated too much and shrank, or like someone squeezed and twisted them, like the end of a balloon.  Obviously that's not the case, it's just the shape she was born with/grew into, but it's an unusual one you don't see very often in nude photos.

Imagine the old days, pre-internet, when you couldn't see several thousand naked breasts a day with virtually no effort?  Next time your dad and/or granddad starts going on about how kids today have it so easy, you'll know where he's coming from, and be able to commiserate.  "Yep, granny's got a rack like a Denny's breakfast special; pity you couldn't do some online comparison shopping before they clamped on the ball and chain, gramps."  This will draw you two closer than every before.

And yes, this page will probably turn up on about 7000 Google searches in the next week.  Not that I'll know, since my site stats are broken.  Again.  I've been trying to get them to work again for a week, but no luck thus far.  As much as I enjoy them, I should just look into some site stat software I could install, since I have script and cgi-bin access, and the automatic stats my hosts provide aren't very detailed, and have broken about every 4 weeks since I've been running anyway.