Almost as good as Microsoft patenting ones and zeroes.

John


"Add a little to a little and there will be a big pile."  -- Ovid

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Wirt Atmar [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>Sent: Friday, March 30, 2001 1:42 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: OT: Actually, wildly off-topic
>
>
>Simply because the list is quiet this afternoon, let me put on
>my finest show
>of extrasensory perception and predict the future with aplomb,
>elan and verve:
>
>Prediction No. 1: Christie Todd Whitman, the new Environmental
>Protection
>Agency administrator, will resign her position in less than
>three months.
>
>The reason for her resignation, although not put in these
>terms, is her being
>substantially publicly embarassed a half dozen times by the
>Bush White House.
>Every environmental policy that she believed in (most of which were
>carryovers from the previous administration) were either
>outrightly cancelled
>or being "reevaluated", often just hours or days after her public
>endorsements of the policies, due to Bush being pressed hard
>by generally
>unknown and unseen large money contributors, who have been operating
>essentially as a shadow cabinet.
>
>Her most substantial embarassment occurred at the Montreal
>Conference in late
>March, in which she personally and Bush in particular were
>simply raked over
>the coals for their complete abandonment of the Kyoto
>Agreement. Bush instead
>cited the presence of an "energy crisis" in the US as the
>reason why the US
>must maintain its overwhelming lead as the world's polluter,
>and once again
>announced a need to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife
>Refuge as a means
>of solving this crisis.
>
>
>Prediction No. 2: Colin Powell, current Secretary of State,
>resigns in less
>than a year, in order to pursue other opportunities.
>
>The reason for Powell's resignation is essentially the same as
>Whitman's. A
>similar, very conservative, pro-Pentagon group has argued for a strong
>military buildup, even though no actual enemies have presented
>themselves in
>recent years, a program that includes a massive National
>Missile Defense
>program, while simultaneously arguing for a withdrawal from the
>leadership/interventionist positions that the previous administration
>advocated.
>
>Powell, who generally agreed with the Clinton's
>administration's policy of
>suppressing local conflicts before they got out of hand, as well as an
>increased involvement in trouble areas such as China, North
>Korea, Iraq and
>Iran, was publicly personally embarassed a sufficient number
>of times by
>these shadow advisors that he felt he no longer could do any
>good, nor that
>Bush trusted or even listened to his advice.
>
>Gentlemen, mark your calendars.
>
>Wirt Atmar
>