I Wasn't Going To Post This Moring

But then I saw this article, where the US Education Department paid Armstrong Williams, an African American political pundit, $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind programme. Not that I have looked deeply into NCLB, but it seems one of the better Bush policies, but to PAY to have pundits promote it grrr. This from Williams himself -



'Mr Williams said yesterday he could not recall whether he had informed his viewers and listeners of the contract and that he had "an obligation to be more vociferous about the fact" if he did it again.



"I can certainly understand why people would think it was unethical," he said, arguing that the money had been paid for public service announcements to promote a policy that he had always believed in.'



Grr, it annoys me so much how little shame public figures have. If I were to get paid $240,000 for something I already believed in, before an important election, with the issue of my race and how my race had historically voted, can't anyone see a conflict of interest here? Not even to mention that he should have said this programme was paid for or at least sponsored by the federal government.



AND just reading the last sentence of the story, Williams says that if he was offered a similar contract again, he might take it, depending on a judgement call! Well, I guess that's $240K of the US taxpayers money that won't be coming back...



Now that I'm here I might as well link to this story, saying how the tsunami relief programme could make or break the United Nations. Some in the media and blogosphere seem to think that the UN is basically a government in waiting just waiting for the strong virile democracies to crumble so that it can take over and give orders to red blooded patriotic Americans (for example). The truth is that the UN is only as strong as it's member states, and if the US and Britain can't convince France, Germany and the rest of the Security Council to do something, such as invade Iraq because of WMDs, then, as the article says, the only thing the actual UN Secretariat can do is remain neutral.



Possible quote of the day here - 'An American helicopter pilot delivering aid in Aceh, William Whitsitt, put it more succinctly: "I'd much rather be doing this than fighting a war."'



And found another strand to the where is the shame topic I started today off with, CIBC in Canada is suing former employees who started up their own company, after waiting for the annual bonuses to come through, accusing the former employees of using their work email and Blackberrys to a) plot to set up a stand alone company, and b) enticing other members of CIBC to join up with the new company. Not so much the actual suing and accusations and stuff, though that is bad enough, but this from one of the ex-employees -



'In an affidavit, Mr. Kassie issued a sharp rebuttal to the CIBC allegations, and insisted he was not bound by any non-compete restrictions when he was terminated by the bank. He also denied the suggestion he or anyone else at Genuity poached former colleagues at CIBC or took client files.'



Since when did simple common sense have to be written into contracts or terminations? You leave a company or get terminated, you don't set up a competitor less than a month later - ohhh, you mean there WAS pre-planning? The ex employees cleared their inboxes and Blackberries, but didn't think to do a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible like hit on the bank mainframes LOL...



On a different note, the power of subliminal advertising - was watching one of the episodes off my Seinfeld DVD last night, and George and Jerry are eating pizza (think it is the stranded in Long Island at a party episode), and suddenly I thought pizza, and not just pizza but thick crust pizza, and the pizza in my freezer doesn't have a thick crust. Two large pizzas from one of the take out companies later (two because they don't deliver for only one) and that's like two and a half days food for me... lol so much for the diet :)



Pauly