Daily Archives: September 12, 2006

Thinking about global climate change

Posted on by
Reply

climate2.jpgAndrew Dessler is an associate professor in the Texas A&M University Department of Atmospheric Sciences. A couple of months ago, I came across his interesting new blog that focuses on the science and politics of climate change. In this Chronicle article, the Chronicle’s science reporter, Eric Berger, interviews Professor Dessler, who makes the following common sense observation about the climate change debate:

[T]here are a lot of really legitimate uncertainties [about global climate change] that people don’t seem to argue about. It’s a little bit disappointing that people are still arguing over whether the Earth is round or not. Whether humans are causing the increase in CO2 is really like arguing whether the Earth is round. We know it is. There’s no question. We’ve got lots of evidence. The debate isn’t really where it should be at this point: We need to view climate change as a risk. It’s a somewhat uncertain risk, but it’s a risk nonetheless. The question really becomes, as a policy, how do we address this risk?

Eric has a podcast of his entire interview with Professor Dessler over at his SciGuy blog.

Dell in the crosshairs

Posted on by
1

dell_logo4.jpgDespite Hewlett-Packard’s current problems with its board of directors, my sense is that Dell, Inc. would prefer to have H-P’s problems rather than the ones that the Round Rock-based computer manufacturer faces (previous posts here and here).
This NY Times article reports that Dell will delay filing its fiscal second-quarter reports because of a widening Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and an internal company probe into its financial accounting. To make matters worse, Dell also reported that the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has subpoenaed records in regard to an investigation of the company’s financial reporting from 2002 to present. Continuing a trend that has knocked 30% of the value of Dell’s stock this year, Dell shares declined over 2% yesterday to $21.19.
Dell was already being investigated by the SEC for the timing of its revenue recording, but yesterday’s announcement stated that the investigations have branched into areas “relating to accruals, reserves and other balance sheet items.”
Translation: “We many need to restate prior earnings.”

The Enronesque prosecution of Conrad Black

Posted on by
Reply

conrad_black_250_1.jpgWashington attorney Alykhan Velshi writing in this New English Review op-ed examines the Conrad Black indictment and doesn’t like what he sees:

The trial by attrition of Conrad Black has exposed the dark underbelly of the legal system, where the government can ruin a man, take his property, his means of livelihood, and make him a social pariah ñ all without the hassle of securing a conviction. There is an insidious little worm that has crept into the legal system, an iconoclastic mentality that is distorting the rule of law. Focused less on securing justice than on bringing down the high and mighty, all the while pandering to the politics of envy, it affects the entire system of corporate governance.
This is highlighted by three developments in the law of corporate governance: the concentration of power in the hands of minority shareholders, the criminalization of technical regulatory violations, the abandonment of the rule of law in favor of aggressive prosecutorial tactics, and the entrenchment of a culture that penalizes success.

Velshi doesn’t get everything right, but his piece is nevertheless worth reading for his analysis of the troubling (and all-too-common) characteristics of the Black prosecution. Check it out.