Ex-Wal-Mart Exec Pleads Guilty to Fraud

From AP via Yahoo! News

FORT SMITH, Ark. - A former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. vice chairman who was a protege of founder Sam Walton pleaded guilty to fraud and tax charges Tuesday, admitting that he stole money, gift cards and merchandise from the world's largest retailer.

Tom Coughlin, 57, faces a maximum of 28 years in prison after pleading guilty to five counts of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return. He also could be fined $1.35 million.

[...]

Wal-Mart lawyers referred Coughlin to federal prosecutors after discovering Coughlin had embezzled money from the company and used expense vouchers to buy products as varied as snakeskin boots, hunting trips and Bloody Mary mix. They estimated losses at up to $500,000.

[...]

As the company vice chairman, Coughlin received a base salary of $1.03 million in his final year with the company. A filing with the
Securities and Exchange Commission last April said Coughlin also received $3.09 million in bonuses and other income in fiscal 2005. Coughlin held about $20 million in Wal-Mart stock, according to an SEC filing last February.

click here for all of it

I thought this was a pretty funny story until the last two sentences:

No mention was made in court of Coughlin's claim that he used money obtained from Wal-Mart to pay for anti-union activism. Wal-Mart has said there is no such project.

So he's telling the truth about everything that he did, except the stuff about paying for anti-union activism? and Wal-Mart can just sweep it under the rug and say, "Yep, he's lying about that one thing, he's just trying to bring the rest of us down with him. Shame on you, Tommy!" because he's the bad one, the rest of the CEOs are just saintly as can be. Just another "isolated incident", I guess.

the future

I've been kind of wondering lately what my life will be like when I'm 30.

I think when I get to that age, I'm going to go on an all-rice diet, because both my grandfathers had heart attacks at some point in their lives and I know it was because of their childhood diets of eating bacon and eggs every single morning for breakfast. Just think of eating rice for every meal, how ninja is that? That'd be bad ass!

-"Hey, Adam, try this casserole!"

-"Sorry, I only eat rice."

-"Wow you're totally disciplined like a ninja, lets make out!"

-"You're not worthy."

Obviously that conversation was with a totally unworthy chick from the future. I'd probably experiment with different spices and seasonings to put in the rice, but not meat, unless its like fish or something, but most of the time it'd be a simple rice/spice mixture in a bowl, maybe eaten with chopsticks. Oh, and NO MORE SODA, only water and various fruit juices, not even MILK, 'cause milk is so not ninja.

Thats the future.

College

I can almost smell graduation. The lights of Stallworth Stadium are already burning in my eyes, I can feel the cold metal chair on my rump, and two great Texas music schools seem like they may accept me.

The University of North Texas, well known all around the country for their music program, has sent me all kinds of mail. Today I received an audition/scholarship application from the Moores School of Music, which is the University of Houston's music school. The only problem is, I'm not sure if I've actually been accepted by U of H. The only other school that has sent me anything has been Stephen F. Austin, but I have no interest in going there. At all.

If I'm accepted by U of H, I'm pretty sure I'll be going there, but the idea of going to North Texas (in Denton, 30 minutes north of Dallas) is actually kind of attractive too. Even though Dallas/Fort Worth SUCK and have no good live music scene that I know of, its still UNT. Mr. Moore, my band director, commented just today that UNT's music performance majors are pretty notorious, and I plan on majoring in music performance. U of H, however, is a more well known school altogether, and the Moore's School of Music is nothing to be ashamed of either. The other good thing about going to U of H would be that I wouldn't necessarily have to move out of the house, but the next question is: do I want to move out now?

SBTC Removes Church over homosexual controversy

From BP News

BAYTOWN, Texas (BP)-—The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s executive board has acted unanimously to disaffiliate a church for violating the convention’s constitutional provision concerning churches that “affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior.”

The SBTC credentials committee and two SBTC staff members met Dec. 20 for one hour and 45 minutes with the pastor of Faith Harbour -- previously an SBTC congregation in Baytown -- with a redemptive aim, SBTC minister-church relations director Deron Biles wrote in a summary of the meeting.

Biles recounted that the committee hoped to clarify Faith Harbour’s stance toward a church it is helping sponsor and allowing to meet in its facilities, which bills itself on its website as welcoming and affirming of homosexual, bisexual and trangendered people.

Additionally, the new church, Eklektos, has a female senior pastor. Biles said the committee and Faith Harbour pastor Randy Haney were unable to resolve their differences over Faith Harbour’s involvement with Eklektos.

SBTC board chairman Joe Stewart, pastor of First Baptist Church of Littlefield, said the board followed the biblical guidelines of Matthew 18 in confronting an erring brother with hopes of restoration.

“The credentials committee went through that process,” Stewart said, “and sat down and talked with the pastor about what constitutes a church that they are hosting in their building which has a female pastor and basically affirms the homosexual lifestyle.

click here for all of it

I know I'm really late on this news but as soon as I heard about it I meant to find an article, I just haven't really gotten around to it. Faith Harbour is an awesome place. They have a lighted stage where they let secular bands play on the weekends. My band, The Drafted, has played there many times. I know Randy Haney personally and I had no idea he was so tolerant as to let a strange new age church use his facilities, breaking his church convention's rules.

The most shocking thing for me is actually that I haven't heard about this from anyone except my friend Aaron and Randy Haney himself. No one seems to be talking about this, but maybe my head's just up my ass.

I found the Eklektos website, the Harbour's site is www.theharbourbaytown.com and I'm pretty sure their blog is blog.theharbourbaytown.com. Randy and other people from the Harbour post stuff there.

My band was on the radio today

My band, The Drafted, was on the radio today in Washinton via Central Washinton University's radio station: 88.1 The Burg.

Here's what the program director said in an email:

"Dude, I think you guys rock. The host of the punk show is playing them right NOW. And, he is only 6 minutes into his show. He loved it, and thought it was awesome. Since the album went to a spec. show, the album will not be charting in our top 30. But, it is getting airplay!"

This is way, way, way too cool. If only college radio had more listeners...

Pakistanis Rail Against Deadly Strike

By Riaz Khan of the Associated Press, courtesy of Yahoo! News

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Thousands of Pakistanis took to the streets Sunday to rage for a second day against a purported U.S. attack on a border village, chanting "Death to America" and demanding U.S. troops leave neighboring Afghanistan, as more details emerged about the airstrike.

Pakistani intelligence officials said the reported target, al-Qaida No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri, had been invited to the attacked village for a dinner marking a Muslim festival on the night of the missile strike but he failed to show up.

[...]

Protesters demanded an end to the U.S. presence in Afghanistan, where loyalists of the ousted Taliban regime and other militants are battling an Afghan government supported by American and other foreign troops. Many insurgents are believed to use Pakistan's border region as a haven.

click here for all of it

The U.S. bombs country: the people of that country hate the U.S. This method is how we're trying STOP terrorism. I don't like al Qaida or the Taliban either, but how are we supposed to stop them by recruiting members for them, and what makes us hero's and them terrorists when we both kill innocent people? When we do it, its "colateral damage", but when they do it, its "terrorism". We do it in the name of "freedom" and "democracy", they do it in the name of "Allah" and "Islam"; if aliens are watching us, I doubt they can tell who's the patriot and who's the terrorist. We should make all of our policies follow this logic so we'd look more consistant, lets start putting fires out with gasoline!

Bush Urges Congress to screw the poor

From the Associated Press via Yahoo! News

WASHINGTON - Boasting that the economy is strong and growing,
President Bush urged Congress on Saturday to save tax cuts from expiring and adopt the first spending restraints in nearly a decade on such benefit programs as Medicaid, Medicare and student loans.

In his weekly radio address, Bush said the federal budget faces the challenge of long-term deficits driven by mandatory spending on those entitlement programs.

"We do not need to cut entitlements, but we do need to slow their growth," he said.

Before leaving for the holidays, the Republican-controlled Senate passed legislation to cut federal deficits by $39.7 billion. The measure passed by the narrowest of margins, 51-50, with Vice President Dick Cheney.

The legislation, the product of a year's labors by the White House and congressional Republicans, imposes the first restraints in nearly a decade in benefit programs.

click here for all of it

(sorry I haven't posted in a while)

Yeah, remember where that deficit came from? The trickle-down theory failed again, darn the luck. Not to mention going to war, but instead of getting rid of what caused the problem in the first place, lets get rid of this other stuff that doesn't result in death and destruction!

Why don't we cut spending on the space program, what good has space exploration done for us in the long run? And instead of spending 50 billion dollars to protect 19 billion dollars worth of oil, maybe we should have invested it in alternative fuel sources or perhaps education. But NO, remember 9/11? We have to show them terrorists who's boss by invading countries and killing more innocent people than "terrorists", breeding new terrorists in the process and therefore creating a war that cannot be won! We can't cut military spending during a war so I guess we HAVE to cut aid to the poor, its not like the average CEO is making 500% more than their employees, oh wait... well, its the poor people's fault for being poor, right? Why should they get federal aid? They've got an equal opportunity to get a good education, right? Oh wait, not anymore now that Congress is going to cut student loans. Well its not our fault that Middle Eastern people hate us and took their Jihad to us, right? Its not like we gave them weapons and trained them to fight the Soviets and then completely deserted them once the Union fell, leaving them to fend for themselves on demolished land that would become further destroyed by civil wars fought with the weapons that we didn't take back....

2006, pick up sticks

I started off the new year by listening to my new cds, one of them being Jello Biafra's spoken word album "Machine Gun in the Clown's Hand".

This quote is awesome:

We've had human cloning for as long as we've been alive, its called the American Public School Sytem!

Excellent.