#TBT: George W. Bush Didn’t Want Arthur Andersen Looking For WMDs That Didn’t Exist

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez

So infamous were Andersen’s false audits that President George W. Bush joked about them at the 2002 annual Alfalfa Club dinner in Washington, D.C. The president claimed he had good news and bad news from Saddam Hussein: “The good news is he is willing to let us inspect his biological and chemical warfare installations. The bad news is that he insists Arthur Andersen do the inspections.” [Salon]

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Overstock.com Receives Delisting Notice, Really, Really, Really Needs an Auditor

patrick_byrne.jpgJust a brief follow-up on the three ring circus known as Overstock.com. After Wednesday’s bizarro conference call, Ringmaster Patrick Byrne and his company filed an 8-K on Friday letting the SEC know that the NASDAQ wasn’t impressed with the unreviewed 10-Q that the company filed last week.
The NASDAQ notice informed OSTK that since the company thought it would be cute to file an unreviewed 10-Q, they will delist the OSTK from the exchange if they are not back in compliance with listing rules by January 18th.
It was an especially nice touch that OSTK filed the 8-K “two minutes after market close today, a day after the letter was received.”
Getting back into compliance will involve finding an auditing firm stupid enough desperate enough willing to be the next humble servant to sign off on the 10-Q.
The issue at hand is worth putting to a vote. For whatever reason you like, choose the firm that should be the next auditor of OSTK. We’re not privy to all the possible independence issues that may exist, so anyone that brings them up to point how one firm would be disqualified can piss off.