Dear ETS!,

In Maria's article on "The Fraudulent Corporate Fraud Bill", there was mention of federal accounting standards. Is it true that in this country, corporations can have one set of accounting books for tax purposes (where they understate profits), and another set for enticing investors (in which they overstate profits)?

If accounting rules are so flexible as to allow a corporation to calculate less profit in tax returns and more profit in financial statements for investors, maybe it would be a good idea to allow corporations only one accounting statement annually, and whatever they want to claim to please stockholders is what they pay taxes on (and if they want to attract investors with inflated claims of profits, they pay more taxes). Such an accounting reform would mean corporate greedheads would be paying more, and maybe other people could pay fewer taxes (or there would be more tax revenue for public services, or whatever).

The level of Freedom & Democracy could be enhanced right here at the top of the global food chain by having new regulations that would standardize accounting procedures in ways that cause corporations to have the same financial statement for both the SEC (or other official financial statements for investors) and the IRS (or any other version of the Taxman).

It would also be nice to have corporate rules putting a ceiling on political donations that could be no greater than the amount of taxes paid in any given political jurisdiction, and having per diem expenses for food, lodgings, and entertainment limited to what a single person on welfare gets. Are such dreams of corporate accountability and reform of accounting standards likely to happen anytime before Maria Cantwell votes in the United States Senate to protect citizens against stock options for corporate execs?

Tony Formo, Seattle

Until then, what should you do with your money? You don't have to take it out of your 401(k) and put it under your mattress. Some people buy homes, pay off their debts, or start a small, eco-friendly business. Others spend money on foreign travel (self-enrichment that can change their lives and their views about the world and where they fit in it). Some invest in socially responsible investment funds or in certificate of deposit in banks that invest in inner cities and neighborhoods of color. Some folks go back to school and make a career change. Some folks decide to get out of the rat race, earn less, spend less, and have more free time to plant a garden, spend with family, or volunteer for a cause. Some folks put their extra money into activist groups, environmental causes, public land purchases, collective businesses, you name it. And some people put their energy into preserving and expanding Social Security and Medicare, so there will be less need for folks to gamble their retirement funds on the stock market.

And Don't Get any GM Soybean Ink on Your Hands

Here are some other environmental tips:

Drink only milk that is from cows that are not organic. Cows that do not use the growth hormone use 20 times the resources. Don't live in the city, go somewhere else and live. Don't write dumb articles and them post them in a newspaper that uses servers which use electricity which might harm the salmon.

Andrew Johnson

Visit This

I think your readers (including me) would enjoy this website. Lots of talk in its forum about subjects such as police shootings, transportation and other fun stuff: www.seattlesucks.com.

Steele, via e-mail

Ashcroft Logic

I'm from Missouri.

When John Ashcroft was here, as a prosecutor, he expressed the certain knowledge (which some would call opinion) that "only the guilty are accused". This fact is based on the unassailable logic that prosecutors do not have the time nor the energy to pursue cases without merit, that before they go to the trouble of indicting the guilty they are sure that the malfeasant are certainly identified. It's simple resource management. Now, it is true that not all those charged are found guilty, or even brought to trial, but that is a demonstration of how easy it is to get away with murder (or b&e or embezzlement or possession of more than 35 grams); the courts are canted to the left and bend over backwards on behalf of the criminal. It is also proof that there is no danger inherent in this "only the guilty are charged" attitude, because if you can afford one of those slick "trial lawyers" (who always sit at the defense table) you can get out of it with a slight tap on the wrist - or clean away if you can afford that.

The fact that we know that only the guilty are accused means that, in certain, particularly obtuse and opaque cases, where the evidence of certainty that we have is not permissible in court or might compromise our sources or expose our agent provocateurs, we are forced, not because we want to, but ... well, sometimes you have to get a little dirty to muck out the barn ... some times we are forced to create evidence (which is to avoid the word "fabricate") to present in court ... some times we have to encourage (which is to avoid the word "suborn") testimony that may not, strictly speaking be "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" (which to avoid the word "perjury").

This view was exposed naked with the whole reaction to the WTC-5gon-rural field thing. It is the logic behind responding to the Taliban's accession to hand bin Laden over for trial in an Islamic court if the US would produce evidence of his involvement by having the petulant little bully who is currently fronting for the people running this country throw a foot-stomping, fist-clenched tantrum whining, "We don't have to show you. We know he did it. He's guilty. He's guilty. He's guilty." And then going in and bombing our former "freedom-fighter" allies in Afghanistan, armed and trained by Dubya's Daddy. And it is the logic behind the tribunals. And the continuing assault on America. That is, "the republic for which it stands ... with liberty and justice for all". You know how it is, sometimes the Constitution get in the way of doing that whole "protect and serve" job thing. And, sometimes, we must, reluctantly, and with a profound and resigned sadness, put aside the hopeful-and-optimistic rose-glassed starry-eyed radical softness that was possible at the beginning of this country and take the brutal and ugly world by it's vicious and evil horns and rastle the thing to the ground and, well, if some of our so called "rights" must be over-ridden, reluctantly, and with a profound and resigned sadness, that we may preserve our heritage, our way of life and our homeland security, well, that's just the jackboot we must, reluctantly, and with a profound and resigned sadness, pull on.

Ashcroft is, however, only one example of Dubya's astounding ability to scour the country to get the worst possible installants into his cabinet. Tommy "Wisconsin-organs-only-for-Wisconsonian-transplants" Thompson - as H&HS? Well, we've made up a sort of a game: you go down the list of the appointees yourself and try to find someone worse for each post.

The only individual of ANY integrity, Powell, is in the absolute worst-fit position available.

I'm done with my rant for now.

Thomas H Sears

Hemp

Maria Tomchik mentioned planting of "crops that require less irrigation" as one of the sensible solutions to the problem of dams and the real cost to the public of salmon ("What You Really Pay For Salmon" 5/22).

So tantalizing. It would not have distracted from the content of the story to parenthetically mention hemp as prime example of such crops. Hemp is notable for, among many thing, not needing much water. It's agricultural competitor, cotton, is one of the most water wasting, aquifer-drying crops. Big Cotton was, and surely still is, one of the forces behind hemp/cannabis prohibition.

Relating to salmon and water, hemp needs none of the pesticides that other crops need. Cotton is matched only by industrial tobacco for high pesticide use. Hemp agriculture would not soak up precious water, it would not contaminate salmon and every other living creature, it forms excellent soils for retention of run-off and prevention of erosion, it could provide jobs for any number of laid-off or current timber workers, it would make taking of trees and forests unnecessary for paper and building materials, and it would provide non-toxic work for any number of industries from the fields to foods, livestock feed, lubricants, plastics, paper, paneling, soaps, packaging, fabrics and others.

Added benefits: it would be a major step to calling off the cops and the incredibly costly, divisive, vicious "war on drugs" and it would cause zero toxic waste, health and environmental problems thus saving the public enormous fortunes and, of course, the inconvenience of diseases and death caused by industrial alternatives to hemp.

The POPs Treaty, signed even by the US, calls for global phase-out of dioxin (and 11 other Persistent Organic Pollutants) which comes from man-made chlorine...as found in pesticides, typical cigarettes, petroleum-based plastics, bleached paper, bleached fabrics and on and on.

Hemp does not need chlorine. Is the direction clear? The petroleum-based, petroleum-using and other alternatives to hemp are profitable and viable for one reason: the industries that profit from the alternatives have exempted themselves from responsibly paying for the negative consequences. Imagine if there was Hemp Spill on the Columbia. Not a thing would be harmed...unless it landed on someone's canoe.

If the hemp issue is continually treated as a "taboo" subject (even by "lefties")...and if hemp supporters are allowed to be marginalized as if they are retro hippie potheads or something, the atrocities will simply continue.

John Jonik

The War against What?

The more details I read of Ashcroft & Ridge's growing assault on the same American freedoms they claim to champion, the more details I read on the U.S. Afghanistan campaign going ever-more abysmally awry, and the more details I read of the thankfully as-yet-only-proposed war on Iraq, the less it seems any of this has to do with justice for the people who died in the bombing of the World Trade Center, and the more it seems it has to do with some other agenda entirely. And while attempting to stay away from conspiracy theorizing (it's just too hard to tie all the details together), I must say it does seem as though it has mostly to do with an exercise of power by the people in power. "They" (sorry) have become so infatuated and obsessed with what they consider the obvious pre-eminence of the United States (culturally, spiritually, technologically, economically, politically, whatever-ly) that they will go to any lengths necessary to validate their world-view -- no matter how skewed that "view" may seem to the entire rest of the world or how truly dangerous it could be to us. The most alarming thing for those of us not into this game is wondering how the empire will end and how we can minimize the damage to our selves.

Kerry Canfield Portland, Oregon