Final Word from Monday, January 30, 2017

How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all, asked the Firesign Theatre on its comedy album from 1969? On the album, two tough guys say they're gonna get even with all the rotten cops in the city. One is gonna do it by turning in his badge, the other by burning his uniform. The punchline is that they are cops too and that there's nothing their corrupt colleagues would like more. Andrej Babiš insisted again yesterday that he won't do any such favor to the dirty rotten politicians trying to run him out of politics. He'll solve his conflict-of-interest problem instead by founding a trust fund. The punchline is that this will put him in an even worse conflict-of-interest situation. He won't be a "controlling person" under the conflict-of-interest law, but he'll still have material interest in Agrofert. He'll still have to declare his conflict when debating issues that could benefit his companies. But how will he know, if he isn't running Agrofert? [Czech Republic Theater going]