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He actually survives on blood from Lebanese children and burned books

While the Democrats, the Liberals, the Communists, the Gays, the Atheists, the Jews, the Media, the Jew Liberal Media, the Intellectuals, the Coloreds and other various despicable non-white / non-rich groups are trying to get our Lord and Savior, Slick Dick Cheney impeached, I take another view: I love him. And I suggest that you take a second to learn about how he’s a normal human, just like us, who sells his ‘fellow’ Americans a wonderful war his golf buddies can profit off of, has a lesbian daughter, several slaves, sleeps in a coffin, and who, like most humans, can occasionally breath air:

WASHINGTON, DC—At a special Earth Day event Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney inhaled his first-ever breath of oxygen.

“I am…proud to stand before you today and…breathe in the same gas used by…millions of Americans,” said a wheezing and gasping Cheney, whose body is accustomed to compounds of chlorine and sulfur dioxide. “One breath, however, is enough for me. I’m glad the stuff will be out of the atmosphere forever in a few decades.”

Cheney then left the press conference to attend a cardiac health awareness dinner, where he feasted on human hearts.

Halliburton & Cheney says ‘sorry for your dead kids’:

How Wal-Mart’s TV Prices Crushed Rivals (and the Consumers Gonads)

The Article: How Wal-Mart’s TV Prices Crushed Rivals by Pallavi Gogoi in Business Week. You’ve heard of Walmart wooing the proletariat with cheap wares and bright lights, cripple local enterprise, destroying all sense of local ownership and community in rural areas, and slowly but surely sucking the worlds soul away in with low prices. And now, they’re doing it to other huge multinational corporations and electronic formats:

The Text: Last “Black Friday,” for its annual post-Thanksgiving sales blitz, Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) decided to slash the price of one of the hottest electronics items for the holidays—the 42-inch flat-panel TV—to $988. The world’s largest retailer had staked similarly audacious positions before, in numerous product categories, as part of its quest to remain U.S. retailing’s “low-price leader.” In turn, Wal-Mart’s move caused a freefall in prices of flat-panel televisions at hundreds of retailers—to the glee of many people who were then able to afford their first big-screen plasma or liquid-crystal-display model.

Now, it is becoming apparent that Wal-Mart’s calculated decision to break the $1,000 barrier for flat-panel TVs triggered a disastrous financial meltdown among some consumer-electronics retailers over the past four months.

The fallout is evident: After closing 70 stores in February, Circuit City Stores (CC) on Mar. 28 laid off 3,400 employees and put its 800 Canadian stores on the block. Tweeter Home Entertainment Group (TWTR), the high-end home entertainment store, is shuttering 49 of its 153 stores and dismissed 650 workers. Dallas-based CompUSA is closing 126 of its 229 stores, and regional retailer Rex Stores (RSC) is boarding up dozens of outlets, as well as selling 94 of its 211 stores. “The tube business and big-screen business just dropped off a cliff,” says Stuart Rose, chief executive officer of Dayton-based Rex Stores. “We expected a dropoff, but nowhere near the decline that we had.” Clearly, these retailers are taking such drastic measures because they don’t see any respite in sight.
The ‘Wal-Mart Effect’

Since early February, when the companies first started closing stores and announcing layoffs, most of their stock prices also have been battered. Circuit City shares have fallen 24%, to $18.76, since the end of November, when the price war started. In the same period, Tweeter’s shares declined 32%, to $1.72, near a 52-week low, and Best Buy’s (BBY) stock is down 9%, to $48.73. Shares of Rex Stores have been flat, down 0.7%, to $16.98 (see BusinessWeek.com, 4/9/07, “Stop the Bullying, Wal-Mart”).

The carnage has one phrase written all over it: the “Wal-Mart effect.” For many electronics competitors, the experience with flat panels has been a replay of what happened in other businesses over the past two decades as Wal-Mart’s business stature grew dramatically. The Bentonville (Ark.) juggernaut’s entry into the grocery business in the late 1980s and its ability to offer deep discounts led to the bankrupting of dozens of regional supermarkets over the next 15 years, including Florida-based Winn-Dixie Stores, Eagle Foods from Illinois, and Penn Traffic in Pennsylvania.

And Wal-Mart’s discounting of popular toys sent FAO Schwartz and KB Toys into bankruptcy. Now, Wal-Mart has clearly turned its gaze to electronics. “We recommitted to our customers that we would be their low-price leader, especially on those products that were rising in popularity, such as flat-screen and high-definition TVs,” says Kevin O’Connor, Wal-Mart vice-president and general merchandise manager.

Manufacturers Still Smarting

None in the industry doubted that flat-panel television prices would fall or that Wal-Mart would offer heavy promotions. But most expected the promotions to be limited to lesser-known brands like the Viore TV that Wal-Mart was selling at $988. What caught competitors off guard was that Wal-Mart also cut the price of a top brand name—the 42-in. Panasonic high-definition TV—by $500, to $1,294. That sent dozens of retailers across the country scrambling, and many rushed to match prices: Circuit City offered the same Panasonic TV at $1,299, while Best Buy sold a Westinghouse 42-in. LCD for $999. Others tried to lure customers to larger TVs—CompUSA gave a $500 rebate on its 50-in. Panasonic plasma for $2,499.

Panasonic executives are still smarting from Wal-Mart’s decision to drop the price on its 42-in. model. Panasonic officials won’t discuss the issue. “I’m not going to comment on what Wal-Mart did,” says Andrew Nelkin, president of Panasonic Professional Display Co. in Secaucus, N.J.

Along with Wal-Mart’s determination to lower prices, two other factors played key roles in last winter’s 40%-to-50% flat-panel price drop and the ensuing turmoil. For one, many more retailers such as Sears (SHLD) and CompUSA were starting to stock a wider selection of flat-panel TVs after seeing demand soar over the previous two years. Also, manufacturers like Samsung, Sony (SNE), Panasonic, and Westinghouse had ramped up production last year with new factories in Asia and the U.S. They began flooding the market with new TVs in the latter half of 2006. All these forces combined to make a commodity of what just six months earlier had been a solidly high-end, high-margin entertainment product. “It’s Econ 101: Best Buy and Circuit City had seen fat margins from flat-panel TVs for a while, and as it happens with any product, eventually the margins come down and the music stops,” says David Abella, a portfolio manager at New York-based Rochdale Investment Management, with assets of $2 billion.
Little to Lose

Wal-Mart is the second-largest electronics retailer today, behind Best Buy, which has fared relatively well compared to many of its rivals. But it has done so by imitating some of Wal-Mart’s best practices, most notably an efficient supply chain, by the admission of CEO Brad Anderson himself. It also has more diversified merchandise than other specialty-electronics retailers.

Despite its bold move last year, Wal-Mart currently is not the largest seller of flat-panel TVs. In fact, even though Wal-Mart set in motion the price drops, it has actually been a bit player in the high-definition TV segment. By most accounts, Wal-Mart had little to lose by dropping the price on the Panasonic TVs because it sold out its inventory nearly instantly.

However, for Circuit City, which was in the midst of a turnaround and sells thousands more flat-panel televisions than Wal-Mart, the new price landscape represented a massive hit to its margins. The Richmond (Va.) company lost $12.2 million in its fiscal fourth quarter ended Feb. 28, compared to a net income of $141.4 million in the same period last year. At Tweeter, where flat-panel TVs make up more than 51% of sales, the price declines hurt badly. Sales in its fiscal second quarter ended Mar. 31 declined 12%, to $139 million. The Canton (Mass.) company plans to release earnings on May 10. “We desperately hope that sanity reigns and that the lessons of the past holiday season are not lost on anybody in the industry,” says Joe McGuire, CEO of Tweeter Home Entertainment Group.
Luring the Technophiles

Despite shoppers paying lower prices, Circuit City CEO Phil Schoonover is hoping customers will continue to want their TVs installed and will use the company’s Firedog service, a competitor to Best Buy’s Geek Squad that launched last October. Sales at Firedog grew 80%, to $200 million last year, and Schoonover says he expects them to double this year. He admits, however, that the environment couldn’t be more uncertain. “I’m not here to say that we’re sure what the second half looks like because we have 96 suppliers of flat-panel TVs who market their products in the U.S.,” he says. “With production facilities all over the world and brands from China, we don’t know what their real marketing strategies are. We think it’s going to be a competitive marketplace for the flat-panel TV business.”

As new technology emerges and as LCD TVs with crisper images hit the market this May, some retailers are hoping to lure the technophiles. However, if consumer-electronics purveyors are hoping to maintain sky-high prices on new products, they’d better not count on it. After all, they have no idea what Wal-Mart has in store.

Analysis: Asking me if I feel sorry that Walmart is putting a dent into Best Buy and Circuit City is akin to feeling sorry for Stalin when he was attacked by Hitler. Sorry, I done did it.

A Moment of Opportunity: Darfur and the 2008 Olympics

China, on a domestic and international cleaning binge, is seeking to cleanse its status and reputation by the time it begins hosting the Olympics in 2008 to appear as a developed nation in a first-world prom dress. While this may appear as a farcical whitewash operation by a totalitarian regime, it presents an opportunity for the international community to take concrete steps in resolving the Darfur crisis.

While the Darfur conflict has been well-documented (Wiki on Darfur Conflict) and officially labeled a genocide by the American government, the nations that allowed the situation to continue have until recently seen relatively little outside pressure else than the editorial page. China, as the leader in Sudanese oil imports, is at the center of enabling the Sudanese government. As the BBC states of the rise of China as an energy importer:

“From zero 15 years ago, China last year became the world’s number two oil importer… China has, we are told, been running around the world signing oil deals with everyone from Iran, to Sudan to Angola. In the race to secure future oil resources China is prepared to deal with even the dodgiest regimes, and pay the highest prices.”

China’s economic relations with the Sudanese government provided it with significant leverage that it has chosen not to use until of late. With concerns about manners, proper English, and all things image savvy that will hopefully provide an ideal experience for the foreign traveler visiting China for the first time at the 2008 Olympics, China is similarly trying to improve its image abroad as well. Helen Cooper writes in the New York Times about the collision between the internal worries of public image in China and the relation with diplomacy:

China’s decision to pressure Sudan about violence in Darfur, after years of protecting that government, can be traced to campaign to boycott 2009 Olympic Games in Beijing; Mia Farrow, good-will ambassador for United Nations Children’s Fund, started campaign to label Games in Beijing ‘Genocide Olympics’ and called on corporate sponsors to publicly exhort China to do something about Darfur; she challenged Steven Spielberg, artistic advisor to China for Games, to add his voice, prompting Spielberg to send letter to Pres Hu Jintao of China asking him to use his influence to stop killings in Darfur; senior Chinese official, Zhai Jun, recently traveled to Sudan to push government there to accept UN peacekeeping force, and then visited Darfur refugee camps; turnaround in China’s policy serves as classic study of how pressure campaign, aimed to strike Beijing in vulnerable spot at vulnerable time, could accomplish what years of diplomacy could not…

If the United Nations and the West are serious about ending one of the greatest humanitarian disasters of the decade, it must utilize the chance given in this pre-Olympic window by China. With the first noticeable signs that China is willing to act, a formidable and unified multilateral consensus should take advantage of a diplomatically-sensitive China to leverage a more proactive role in solving the Darfur crisis.

Sources

Darfur Collides With Olympics, and China Yields, by Helen Cooper, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/13/washington/13diplo.html?ex=1177473600&en=6dbe3623040dd8d8&ei=5070

Responsible China, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090501187.html

Sudan vows to cut red tape on UN to support African peace mission in Darfur
http://www.yubanet.com/artman/publish/article_55224.shtml

Manners, Manners, http://www.cominganarchy.com/archives/2007/04/20/manners-manners/

Other Opinions

Black Gold: The Financer of Tyranny
http://www.prosebeforehos.com/international-relations/09/07/black-gold-the-financer-of-tyranny/

China and Sudan, Blood and Oil
http://coalitionfordarfur.blogspot.com/2006/04/china-and-sudan-blood-and-oil.html

Beware hypocrisy on Darfur, China
http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/weblog/2007/04/beware_hypocrisy_on_darfur_chi.html

The Wrong Decision on Sudan
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/04/the_wrong_decision_on_sudan.php

Darfur Crisis: Towards An Ever Greater Tragedy by Amit Pyakurel
http://www.globalpolitician.com/articleshow.asp?ID=2688&cid=8

I think the poison was…. Asiiiiannnn

The Article: They done did it. Yes, THEY, the Chinese, poisoned our pets: From ABCNews: Officials: Pet Food Poison May Have Been Intentional, FDA Investigators Say Chinese Companies May Have Added Melamine to Appear to Boost Protein Content.

The Text: For the first time, investigators are saying the chemical that has sickened and killed pets in the United States may have been intentionally added to pet food ingredients by Chinese producers.

Food and Drug Administration investigators say the Chinese companies may have spiked products with the chemical melamine so that they would appear, in tests, to have more value as protein products.

Officials now suspect this possibility because a second ingredient from China, rice protein concentrate, has tested positive for melamine. So has corn gluten shipped to South Africa. That means there is a possibility for another round of recalls.

The FDA’s top veterinarian, Stephen Sundlof, says finding melamine in so many products “would certainly lend credibility to the theory that it was maybe intentional.”

Melamine, which is used to make plastics in the United States and as a fertilizer in Asia, contains nitrogen. Nitrogen can appear to boost the level of protein in products.

The revelations have led the FDA to expand the number of products it is testing as they enter the United States. So far, those inspections at the border have not turned up any melamine in wheat gluten. Tainted wheat gluten used by Menu Foods is suspected in sickening hundreds, if not thousands of pets.

Some of the tainted pet food has apparently made it into feed for hogs. Federal agencies are trying to determine if it was actually fed to animals and whether it may have reached the human food supply.

Analysis: I told you so. I told you we needed to round up all the Koreans in America and turn them into pet food for the Chinese. But you scoffed and scolded me, but now who is right? Me, that’s who, and now millions upon millions of lonely, pathetic spinsters will be without their Chinese-pet-food-dependent significant others (talking dogs, cats, corpses).

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