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[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

from SLATE's on-line news summary (12 Aug. 2005): 
>Knight Ridder [newpaperss] comes across an Iraqi internal audit
concluding that as much as $1 billion appears to have been skimmed off
the top from the Iraqi Defense Ministry. Of the ministry's $1.3
billion budget, the audit found suspicious contracts adding up to
$1.27 billion. Apparently half went to just one guy, a currency
trader. "There's no rebuilding, no weapons, nothing," said one general
who worked in the ministry. "There are no real contracts, even."

>KR's piece says some "U.S. military officials" blamed the former CPA
[Coalition Provisional Authority] for forcing the Iraqi government to
hire unknowns, particularly exiles. The NYT recently had a piece on
the Defense Ministry's general ineffectiveness but didn't get into
corruption. TP will be curious to see if the top papers follow up on
KR's scoop....<

On more important issues, SLATE says:
>The LA [TIMES]  fronts word that just days after Gov. Arnold
announced his candidacy for California's top office, Schwarzenegger's
tabloid publisher buddy and business partner agreed to pay a woman
$20,000 in return for her not talking to anybody else about her
apparent affair with Schwarzenegger. One of the tabloids the publisher
owned, the National Enquirer, ran a story back in 2001 alleging a
seven-year affair with the woman. After Schwarzenegger entered the
race and the deal was signed, the publisher never ran any stories
about her. In other words, some skeptical types might conclude that
the $20k effectively operated as hush money.

>... Of course, none of that means there was really an affair. Long
ago, the woman in question told a Schwarzenegger biographer the
quality time she and Arnold spent together wasn't adultery, it just
consisted of ..."outercourse." Or as the woman's lawyer tells the
Times: "She maintained it was more of a massage situation—however you
want to interpret that."<
-- 
Jim Devine
"Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let
people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.