"Dick Cheney vehemently denies that talk of war, just weeks before the midterm elections, is designed to divert attention from other matters. But in that case he won't object if I point out that the tide of corporate scandal is still rising, and lapping ever closer to his feet....An article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal confirmed what some of us have long argued: market manipulation by energy companies — probably the same companies that wrote Mr. Cheney's energy plan, though he has defied a court order to release task force records — played a key role in California's electricity crisis. And new evidence indicates that Mr. Cheney's handpicked Army secretary was a corporate evildoer. Mr. Cheney supposedly chose Thomas White for his business expertise. But when it became apparent that the Enron division he ran was a money-losing fraud, the story changed. We were told that Mr. White was an amiable guy who had no idea what was actually going on, that his colleagues referred to him behind his back as 'Mr. Magoo.' Just the man to run the Army in a two-front Middle Eastern war, right? But he was no Magoo.... By maintaining the illusion of success, insiders like Mr. White were able to sell their stock at good prices to naïve victims...."
New York Times
17 September 2002

"the Grid's big function in this System is iceboxery, freezing back the tumultuous cycles of the day to preserve this odorless small world, this cube of changelessness"
Gravity's Rainbow, p. 678