Yeah, still not a political post, but I bet you can see where I’m going with today’s theme.

This post is actually a linkapalooza post of some assorted links, all of which revolve around the slimy things that ordinary people do…

We’ll start with one of the slimiest forms of humanity — the CEO. In this case, it’s the CEO of Washington Mutual, which went belly-up over the weekend. His name is Alan H. Fishman, and he became CEO and a member of WaMu’s Board of Directors on September 8 of this year. On September 25, a mere 17 days later, WaMu failed and was swallowed whole by JP Morgan Chase. Now, Mr. Fishman certainly can’t be pinned with any substantial blame for WaMu’s failure, having barely had time to find his was to the Executive Washroom yet, but he certainly didn’t suffer the loss too badly: for his 17 days on the job, Fishman collected a total of $19.1 MILLION between his severance package and his signing bonus. That’s 1.12 million dollars a day simply for being the guy who turned the lights out. If this man had a decent bone in his body, he would refuse the money or donate it to the bailout plan or something, but do not hold your breath waiting for that to happen.

The Consumerist spends a lot of time documenting the slimy practice of what they call “the grocery shrink ray” — that clever marketing technique that puts LESS product in the same old package and charges you the same old price. So, maybe the friendly local folks who run Gorton’s, which is still based in Gloucester, MA, thought they were being good guys when they opted NOT to put fewer fish sticks in each bag, but yesterday the Consumerist had an e-mail from someone who was asked to participate in a marketing study which offered these two different packages for fish sticks. As you can see, thanks to the helpful red arrow, the new packaging informs us that their fish sticks only contain 40% actual fish! Which, needless to say, should cause everyone to wonder what the hell the other 60% is made of. Now, obviously the bread-like coating makes up a significant portion of the rest, but is it really 60%? And if it is, shouldn’t the label call them “frozen bread sticks with fish” or some other more appropriate name? I guess I’m glad that the Gorton’s people are willing to be honest, but now maybe it’s time for them to go back and revisit their approach to food labelling in general.

Okay, no snarking for a moment. Via Daily Kos comes a disturbing story from Dayton, OH: someone sprayed some sort of gas or chemical into the day care area of the local mosque (pictured above). They sprayed it directly into the face of the young girl who was babysitting children while their parents attended Ramandan services. The girl told police it made her face feel like it was burning, and apparently some of the small children and an adult who was present also complained of symptoms. The Daily Kos poster and members of the Dayton mosque have speculated that the incident is related to a DVD that was distributed with the local Sunday newspaper this past weekend. The DVD was entitled “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West”.

The police say they don’t think it’s a “hate crime”, but how else do you explain this? “Haw, haw, just some kids getting out their jollies” does not cut it when something like this happens. For my money, this is nothing less than terrorism. It may not be blowing up a bus or flying a plane into a skyscraper, but it was done with the intent to frighten and discourage a specific group of people for no other reason than a political or racist agenda, and it has succeeded in chasing away innocent people from their community center by physical intimidation. A couple of years ago there was a big brouhaha in my hometown because somebody thought it would be a good idea to throw a pig head into the local mosque there — that’s a hate crime, and there have been a number of other incidents there, both serious and minor. many of which might be said to skirt the same threshold. Spreading the actual terror of the threat of being gassed, however, steps things up to a whole new level, and if the persons responsible are found, it wouls be a travesty of justice if they were not tried as terrorists.