Wednesday 30 March 2005

White House Eyes Role For Annan

The White House yesterday, offered no criticism of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan following the blistering report on the corrupt Oil-For-Food program and hinted that they may have a role for Annan.

Speaking for the President at the daily briefing, Press Secretary Scott McClellan responded "Hell, yes!" to a question if the Bush Administration would welcome the beleagured dipolmat.

"The President is impressed, first with his ability to conduct such a large-scale scam, and include some heavy-duty patronagism", referring to Kojo Annan, the son at the center of the scandal. "Secondly, that he can ignore his critics, and staunchily deny any wrong-doing, that's the kind of people we like to have on our team".

The investigation led by former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker found no wrongdoing by Annan, but it directly faulted the secretary-general's management and oversight of the scandal-ridden oil-for-food program in Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

Annan indicated that he accepts the criticism and offered a rare invective of "Hell, no" when asked if he would step down.

"It was also impressive", offered McClellan, "how he insulated himself and deflected any direct connection. Vice President Cheney was really bowled over by that".

McClellan refused to say if the White House was offering a position to Annan, and what that position would be.

"A scoundral with that level of world experience … The possibilities are endless … I think MasterCard would say ...Priceless"



Google Acquires Urchin; Sets Up For Revenue Windfall

Google Inc. took a giant step yesterday towards, in essence, printing money, as they agreed to acquire the Urchin Software Corporation. Urchin is a ubiquitous software product that assists tens-of-thousands of companies to review and analyze their website traffic, and better understand performance, advertisements and visitor behavior.

"With taking over Urchin", offered Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's vice president for product management, "We can completely obfuscate the data to highlight the high-performance and impressive return of investment with Google Ad Words"

Insider rumors say that Google had already perfected the algorithm, but lacked the proper platform to run it. Having the Urchin access will give Google unfettered entry to scores-of-thousands of new customers. This, the insiders speculate, will turn into millions of new dollars for Google's Ad Words program.

"They'll never know what hit them" said Rosenburg "They'll come from miles around, pay their money, not knowing what they really are paying for, and be happy to do so"