US Dollar Mighty No More

Experts Worry Euro Might Replace US Dollar as Primary Reserve Currency

WASHINGTON - Things in the U.S. sure are tough. Brother, can you spare a euro?

Signs saying "We accept euros" are cropping up in the windows of some Manhattan retailers. A Belgium company is trying to gobble up St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch, the nation's largest brewer and iconic Super Bowl advertiser.

The almighty U.S. dollar is mighty no more. It has been declining steadily for six years against other major currencies, undercutting its role as the leading international banking currency. The long slide is fanning inflation in the U.S. and playing a major role in the run-up of oil and gasoline prices everywhere.

Vacationing Europeans are finding bargains in the U.S., while Americans in Paris and other world capitals are being clobbered by sky-high tabs for hotels, travel and even sidewalk cafes. Northern border-city Americans who once flocked into Canada for shopping deals are staying home; it's the Canadians flocking across the border now.

Everything made in America - from goods to entire companies - is near dirt cheap to many foreigners. Meanwhile, American consumers, both those who travel and those who stay at home, are seeing big price increases in energy, food and imported goods. The dollar has lost roughly a quarter of its purchasing power against the currencies of major U.S. trading partners from its peak in 2002.

Since oil is bought and sold in dollars worldwide, the devalued dollar has made the recent surge in energy prices even worse for Americans, leading to $4 gasoline in the United States (all figures U.S.). Analysts suggest that of the $140 a barrel that oil fetches globally, some $25 may be due to the devalued dollar.

Further declines in the dollar will add to oil's appeal as a commodity to be traded.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/06/10152/

Calif. group proposes George W. Bush Sewage Plant

Exterior view of the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant is shown in San Francisco, Monday, July 7, 2008. Supporters of the Presidential Memorial Commission have turned in their application to propose to rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant. The supporters are hoping to put the idea before San Francisco voters as a November ballot issue.

By MICHELLE LOCKE

SAN FRANCISCO - A California group submitted a proposal Monday to rename a sewage treatment plant after President Bush, calling the initiative a fitting tribute to the outgoing chief executive and the "mess" he'll leave behind.

The Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco wants to switch the name of the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant to the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

Supporters hoping to put the issue on the November ballot turned in more than 10,000 signatures to San Francisco election officials, organizer Brian McConnell said. The measure needs just over 7,000 valid names to qualify and McConnell expects to find out later this month whether they made it.

Proponents of the renaming plan see it as fitting tribute to a president they contend has plumbed the depths of incompetence.

"We think that it's important to remember our leaders in the right historical context," said McConnell, a member of the group that was formed after friends came up with the renaming idea.

"In President Bush's case, we think that we will be cleaning up a substantial mess for the next 10 or 20 years," he said. "The sewage treatment facility's job is to clean up a mess, so we think it's a fitting tribute."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080707/ap_on_re_us/presidential_putdown

Wolf Blitzer looks back at 10 years of Iraq War Bush lies

By: SilentPatriot

 

During a 10 year tribute to his show "Late Edition" this morning, Wolf Blitzer opened up the CNN vaults to revisit some of the most deceptive things Bush administration officials have said to him throughout the years about Iraq and the reasons for the invasion. Oh, memories…

 Download | Play   Download | Play 

Cheney in Jan 2007: You can go back and argue the whole thing all over again, Wolf, but what we did in Iraq in taking down Saddam Hussein was exactly the right thing to do.

Full transcript

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/06/wolf-blitzer-looks-back-at-10-years-of-iraq-war-bush-lies/

Lieberman: After Iran wipes out Israel and ‘Arab countries’ in the Middle East, ‘we’re next!

Yesterday on ABC's This Week, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I- CT), chief surrogate for Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) presidential campaign, complained that the "Iranians have consistently" refused to suspend its uranium enrichment. When host George Stephanopoulos asked if Israel should then attack Iran, Lieberman said, "That's up to Israel," warning that Iran not only represents an "existential threat" to Israel but also the Middle East and the United States:

LIEBERMAN: That's up to Israel obviously, but I would say that obviously Israel is first in the line of Iranian fire. And it represents an existential threat to Israel. But you know who is next? The Arab countries in the Middle East and they're worried about the Iranian program and want us to ask strongly to stop it. And we're next! Because Ahmadinejad in Tehran constantly leads the mobs in shouts of death to America. And they mean it.

Watch it:

 

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/07/lieberman-were-next/

Summit that's hard to swallow

World leaders enjoy 18-course banquet as they discuss how to solve global food crisis

By James Chapman

Just two days ago, Gordon Brown was urging us all to stop wasting food and combat rising prices and a global shortage of provisions.

But yesterday the Prime Minister and other world leaders sat down to an 18-course gastronomic extravaganza at a G8 summit in Japan, which is focusing on the food crisis.

The dinner, and a six-course lunch, at the summit of leading industrialised nations on the island of Hokkaido, included delicacies such as caviar, milkfed lamb, sea urchin and tuna, with champagne and wines flown in from Europe and the U.S.

G8 leaders discussing the world food crisis in Japan raise their glasses ahead of an 18-course dinner

But the extravagance of the menus drew disapproval from critics who thought it hypocritical to produce such a lavish meal when world food supplies are under threat.

On Sunday, Mr Brown called for prudence and thrift in our kitchens, after a Government report concluded that 4.1million tonnes of food was being wasted by householders.

He suggested we could save up to £8 a week by making our shopping go further. It was vital to reduce 'unnecessary demand' for food, he said.

Last night's dinner menu was created by Katsuhiro Nakamura, the first Japanese chef to win a Michelin star. It was themed: Hokkaido, blessings of the earth and the sea.

But Dominic Nutt, of the charity Save the Children, did not approve.

'It is deeply hypocritical that they should be lavishing course after course on world leaders when there is a food crisis and millions cannot afford a decent meal,' he said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1032909/Summit-thats-hard-swallow--world-leaders-enjoy-18-course-banquet-discuss-solve-global-food-crisis.html

G8

 

Activists from Oxfam, wearing masks depicting G8 leaders, place an activist dressed as a corn cob into an oil barrel during an anti-G8 event in Sapporo during the Group of Eight (G8) Hokkaido Toyako summit, July 7, 2008.
Photo by Vivek Prakash

Mercedes to be Gas-Free by 2015

From the Left

Pssssst, don't tell King Abdullah.

Proving that with leadership and innovation anything is possible (are your listening Detroit?) Mercedes-Benz is aiming to phase out fossil-fuel powered vehicles over the next seven years, replacing its entire lineup with autos powered by electric motors, fuel cells, and biofuels.

The company has already invested almost $4 million in its Sustainable Mobility program, and plans to invest another $14 million by 2014.

Imagine? Within 7 years, no Mercedes will need fossil fuel to zip down the highway. Call it, the seven year ditch.

http://fromtheleft.wordpress.com/2008/07/05/mercedes-to-be-gas-free-by-2015/

CONSTITUTION À LA CARTE

 

by Ted Rall

One Amendment from Column A, Another from Column B

Antonin Scalia's dissent--"[granting Guantánamo detainees the right to a fair trial] will almost certainly cause more Americans to get killed"--was widely ridiculed as baseless and hysterical.

What a difference a week--and your politics--make.

Then Kennedy cast the swing vote in another major decision. Declaring Washington D.C.'s handgun ban unconstitutional, he accepted the NRA's argument that the Second Amendment's reference to "a well-regulated militia" is not a conditional clause. Wherever they live, Americans are indeed entitled to purchase and keep a handgun.

"What an idiot!" my friend e-mailed me. "Doesn't he get it? Kids are going to die!" Shades of Scalia; irony included free.

"À la carte" airline pricing--$2 for a Coke, $15 to check a bag, $30 for a coach seat that sucks 95% as much as the regular ones--pisses people off. When it comes to constitutional questions, however, we Americans like to pick and choose our favorite parts of the Bill of Rights like items from a Chinese menu: one from column A, another in column B.

Liberals revere the right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment. The right to bear arms, not so much. With conservatives, it's the other way around. Sometimes they clash over the meaning of the original ten amendments. It's freedom of, not from, religion, say right-wingers. Freedom from, argue advocates of the separation of church and state.

http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/

YouTube Users Vent Anger In Anti-Viacom Videos

 

By Thomas Claburn

Viacom has reassured the YouTube community that it only wants YouTube viewer log data to prove its copyright case against Google, but the YouTube community hasn't gotten the message.

Rather, the video-sharing site's users have launched an expletive-laden counterattack, calling for a boycott of the media giant.

In the past week, the number of videos associated with the search keyword "Viacom" has increased by 871, more than 28.5%. Already on Monday, 341 new videos associated with the "Viacom" search keyword have been uploaded. (In a subsequent search, the number dropped to 320, suggesting that some anti-Viacom videos are being removed.) Mostly, the videos are critical of Viacom.

Among titles that can be reprinted on the InformationWeek Web site, user sentiment is evident: "Viacom is a Copyright Bully," "VIACOM VS YOU = BOYCOTT," and "Screw You, Viacom."

A Viacom spokesperson declined to comment. However, Viacom's publication of a statement on its corporate Web site promising to keep YouTube's data confidential shows that the company is aware of the sensitive nature of this issue.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cmp/208803047;_ylt=AhfGwRnxCg4ZX1dv5V7SCsIDW7oF

 

Big brother is watching you

 

I cannot tell the truth

 

With his gun-case majority opinion, Antonin Scalia proved that he's a fraud

 

By TOM DANEHY

 Antonin Scalia is a fraud.

This man who claims to have studied the Constitution his entire life and to have dedicated his professional career to upholding the document exactly as it was written has, through some of the clumsiest legal verbiage ever put down on paper, shown his true stripe, that of an opportunist laying in wait. In doing so, he joins the sad historical pantheon of people who, through happenstance and circumstance, wound up with too much power and not enough heart.

By providing the only written opinion for the 5-4 majority in the Washington, D.C., handgun case, he wiped away just about everything he has ever said or written about what he claimed to be his beloved Constitution. If this is the way he treats the things he loves, I feel sorry for his wife.

Scalia had always come off as the unashamed martinet, a Napoleonic little twit who was smarter than everybody else in the room. I've got no problem with people who disagree with me, as long as they walk their own talk. In his writings and speeches, Scalia always claimed only to care about the Constitution. He said that he went by what it said, not by what people thought the Framers had meant. He bristled at those who used the term "living document" to describe the Constitution. Nothing could be further from the truth, he argued; the Constitution was perfect as-is, and its meanings were clear, and its writers had written down exactly what they had meant to say.

That would have been fine with me had he been a man of his word. But his actions belied his words. This "man of integrity" went duck-hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney and then refused to recuse himself when a case came before the court with Cheney smack-dab in the middle of it. Then Scalia nibbled around the edges and cherry-picked facts to bolster his wafer-thin case for handing George W. Bush the presidency in 2000. (When questioned about that case these days, he invariably snaps, "What, that? That's old news.")

Even so, when I saw him on 60 Minutes a few months back, I listened intently as he spoke of his devotion to the Constitution and how he held it in such high regard. Now all I can think about is Roy McAvoy in Tin Cup, asking: When a man's defining moment comes along, how will he handle it? Scalia's defining moment came last week when he had the opportunity to state clearly what the Constitution says (quite clearly). Well, the moment played him. He swung and missed. He evacuated himself, then sat down to play in the dookie. He spiraled out of control like those he has been quick to heap derision upon in the past.

He made stuff up; he distorted facts; he wove new "rights" out of thin air. And that was only in the first couple of pages. Then things got seriously weird. He spent pages on British history, this after he (and his right-wing political and talk-radio buddies) went out of their way to ridicule that approach in others' written decisions. He referred to common law, which, while important, is not in the Constitution! He then deigned to tell us that not only did the writers of the Constitution get the Second Amendment wrong; he knows why they got it wrong, and he feels it's his destiny to set it right for all time.

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/gbase/Opinion/Content?oid=oid:112530

Roadmap to victory

 

Judging the Torture Presidency of George W. Bush

Building a case for a prosecution that likely won't happen

by Nat Hentoff

 

In Standard Operating Procedure, a definitive account of what happened at Abu Ghraib published by Penguin Press, author Philip Gourevitch writes of the American interrogators who so degraded the humanity of prisoners:

"Even as they sank into a routine of depravity, [the interrogators] showed by their picture taking that they did not accept it as normal. They never fully got with the program. Is it not to their credit that they were profoundly demoralized?"

The much more compelling question—in view of the extent to which Abu Ghraib and other American war crimes have degraded us around the world—is whether the president and all the others at the top of the chain of command ever felt themselves in the least demoralized by the results of their orders.

And, even more important, will these perpetrators ever be put on trial as a deterrent to future presidents, Defense Department and CIA heads, and their eager lawyer-accomplices in these crimes?

General Ricardo Sanchez, former commander of the coalition forces in Iraq, in his recent memoir Wiser in Battle, writes that George W. Bush's 2002 memorandum—that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to our "detainees" suspected of terrorist ties—"constituted a watershed event in U.S. military history. . . . And that guidance set America on a path to torture." (Emphasis added.)

Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, signed by the United States and thereby part of our law, guarantees that any detained person has the right to be free from "cruel treatment and torture; outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment."

This right applies whether the detainee is a prisoner of war, an "unprivileged" belligerent, a terrorist, or a noncombatant. Moreover, this right is in effect "in all circumstances" and "at any time and in any place whatsoever."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0827,judging-the-torture-presidency,499204,4.html

Jefferson Bible reveals Founding Father's view of God, faith

 

Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

SCHOLAR: Robert C. Ritchie says many people would consider it desecration to take a scissors to the Bible. "Yet, it gives a reading into Jefferson's take on the Bible, which was not as divine word put into print, but as a book that can be cut up," he says.

He compiled the four Gospels into one text without miracles, ending with Jesus' burial rather than the resurrection.

By Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

 

Then, relying on a cut-and-paste technique, he reassembled the excerpts into what he believed was a more coherent narrative and pasted them onto blank paper -- alongside translations in French, Greek and Latin.

In a letter sent from Monticello to John Adams in 1813, Jefferson said his "wee little book" of 46 pages was based on a lifetime of inquiry and reflection and contained "the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man."

He called the book "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth." Friends dubbed it the Jefferson Bible. It remains perhaps the most comprehensive expression of what the nation's third president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence found ethically interesting about the Gospels and their depiction of Jesus.

"I have performed the operation for my own use," he continued, "by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter, which is evidently his and which is as easily distinguished as diamonds in a dunghill."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-beliefs5-2008jul05,0,7730914.story

 

Don't go mum on us, Obama

 by Garrison Keillor

I was at a playground with my daughter the other day, reading "The Two Kinds of Decay" by Sarah Manguso (good book) and watching my girl as she stood at the perimeter of children playing and studied them, exactly as I did when I was a kid, working up the nerve to plunge into the fray. She is braver than I—she plunges. I tended to retreat and have been backpedaling ever since.

I was sitting on a bench in the shade with the nannies and mommies, most of them on cell phones, talking about problem men, problem cleaning ladies, problem mothers, and the woman sitting next to me got up to go see to her child, and then stopped and came back and got her purse out of the stroller and took it with her. I was offended. I am an author, not a purse snatcher. Does a purse snatcher sit on a bench reading the latest Manguso book?

When she came back I wanted to tell her, "I am not a crook," but remembered Richard Nixon saying that and how the very words immediately told you what a liar he was, so I sat and brooded, and then it occurred to me that if you play it cool and don't talk to people, then people are entitled to assume the worst. I hadn't said so much as "Good morning" to her and so she was wary.

The willingness to put yourself out there and let people poke you and examine your teeth and look in your ears and up your nose and trot when they tell you to trot is what good politicians have in common, unlike us writers who are secretive brooders, observers on the perimeter, and what's notable about Barack Obama is that he is both: He has the self-confidence but also the smarts and integrity to put himself down on paper. His is the only candidacy I can think of that was launched by an autobiography. Usually that comes later and is written by a ghost.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped0626keillorjun26,0,3557698.column

Rainbow Family of Living Light Attacked

by Wes Unruh

Victim Account 6 minute MP3 - Download

Fortunately there was a radio show with a contact on a cellphone who were able to cover the event as it happened.  Look for the July 3rd episode, with the above victim account taken from a few minutes in during the second hour: Hour 1, Hour 2

My initial coverage: Police Fire Pepper Spray Into Crowd In Attempt To Start Riot

Here's a short video clip of the gathering before the event happened:

 

I find the way the RFLL is covered in the various news articles fascinating:

Before Attack - News Coverage: 'Om'-ing in Wyoming

Rainbow gathering inspires odd jurisprudence

Current News Reports:

400 members of Rainbow Family surround, attack federal officers
Forest Service officials stoned by hippie group allowed to displace Boy Scouts' service project

ACLU plans to investigate Rainbow Family treatment

http://key64.net/article/1402-rainbow-family-of-living-light-attacked

Nation Buys Porn With Stimulus Package

President Bush's economic stimulus package, which appears so far to have been ineffective in stroking the economy to life, is giving an unexpected raise to the porn industry.

From an Adult Internet Market Research Company press release:

An independent market-research firm, AIMRCo (Adult Internet Market Research Company), has discovered that many websites focused on adult or erotic material have experienced an upswing in sales in the recent weeks since checks have appeared in millions of Americans' mailboxes across the country.

According to Kirk Mishkin, Head Research Consultant for AIMRCo, "Many of the sites we surveyed have reported 20-30% growth in membership rates since mid-May when the checks were first sent out, and typically the summer is a slow period for this market."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/nation-buys-porn-with-sti_n_110457.html

“He used race very effectively.”

by Dan Savage

That's NPR-speak for, "He was a racist piece of shit."

Jesse Helms was also a homophobic piece of shit who did everything he could to torment people with AIDS during the darkest hours of the AIDS epidemic—and now he's dead.

I realize that the death of a prominent piece of shit puts people on the radio and teevee in an awkward position. We're not supposed to speak ill of the dead… and any honest accounting of this piece of shit's career requires us to speak very ill of the dead indeed. So perhaps simply noting the piece of shit's passing—briefly, and just the facts—would be the prudent thing to do. It would certainly be better than inviting a few people on the radio to discuss the piece of shit's life and accomplishments at the precise moment when decorum requires us to put the nicest possible gloss on the piece of shit. To polish the turd, as it were.

Waking up to a discussion of the highlights of Helm's career and listening to the oh-so-polite NPR host and his oh-so-polite guests dance around the issue of race—never mind the gay or AIDS issues, which weren't even mentioned (well, not in the section I caught; I literally woke up to this)—until the host delicately observed in admiring tones, "He used race very effectively," and the guest chuckled and agreed, well, let's just say that's was a very unpleasant way to start the day.

http://slog.thestranger.com/2008/07/he_used_race_very_effectively

State didn't try to collect fine from Blue Cross

Health care enforcers admit they knew they'd be outgunned in court

by Shaya Tayefe Mohajer

California regulators admitted Thursday that for more than a year they didn't even try to enforce a million-dollar fine against health insurer Anthem Blue Cross because they knew they would be outgunned in court.

In early 2007, the Department of Managed Health Care pledged to fine the state's largest insurer for "routinely rescinding health insurance policies in violation of state law."

But it never did.

The department's director, Cindy Ehnes, said Thursday that, when it comes to rescissions, the agency has succeeded in forcing smaller insurers to reinstate illegally canceled policies and pay fines, but Blue Cross is too powerful to take on.

"In each and every one of those rescissions, (Blue Cross has) the right to contest each, and that could tie us up in court forever," Ehnes said of about 1,770 Blue Cross rescissions since Jan. 1, 2004.

"They have the largest number of rescissions, so as a practical matter for the department it does present some practical challenges that are different from a Health Net (of California) or a PacifiCare," referring to providers who, along with Kaiser Permanente, have made settlements with the state to reinstate health care coverage.

That means that although Anthem Blue Cross has the highest number of alleged illegal rescissions, it may face the least regulatory consequence simply because of its sheer size and its skill in legal intimidation.

Anthem Blue Cross, a unit of WellPoint Inc., acknowledged Thursday that it had seen the March 22, 2007, announcement of the $1 million fine, but noted that "Anthem Blue Cross has not been fined by the DMHC."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/04/BUSB11JV3B.DTL&hw=blue+cross&sn=001&sc=1000

What now?!!

 

Quote of the day

 "The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now -- with somebody -- and we will stay at War with that mysterious enemy for the rest of our lives. It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. Guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. All Bush knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it."

- Hunter S. Thompson: published Sept 12, 2001 -

Link

Flying Priest Found Deceased in the Atlantic, God Positioning System Still Missing

Father de Carli, the flying priest who got lost last April, has been found deceased in the middle of the Atlantic. In an effort to raise funds for a local charity organization, De Carli planned to stay for more than 19 hours up in the air using a thousand party balloons, taking a GPS with him to communicate his position in case emergency. Unfortunately for the generous man, the trip ended in disaster.

His body was found yesterday by the Anna Gabriela, a tug working for Brazilian oil company Petrobras, 683 miles (1,100 kilometers) from Father De Carli's starting point. His trip started on April 20 after a mass, and his last contact was a desperate attempt to learn how to use his GPS and communicate his position as the wind took him deep into the Atlantic Ocean.

http://gizmodo.com/5022283/flying-priest-found-dead-in-the-atlantic-god-positioning-system-still-missing

U.S. Arms Dealer Tests Legal Bounds in Middle East Arms Bazaar

By Sharon Weinberger

 

Defense Solutions has proposed teaming with the Russian arms-export agency, Rosoboronexport, for several arms deals, including supplying Mi-17 helicopters to Afghanistan. Rosoboronexport is blacklisted by the U.S. government for allegedly violating the Iran and Syria Nonproliferation Act. 

Former congressman Curt Weldon is helping broker deals between Russian and Ukranian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments as part of his new job with a private American defense consulting firm, Wired.com has learned.

Weldon, who is currently being investigated by the FBI over alleged corruption during his time in office, visited Libya in March to discuss a possible military deal, according to a letter describing the trip from Weldon to Defense Solutions CEO Timothy Ringgold. In May, Weldon, together with Ringgold and another company representative, traveled to Moscow to discuss working with Russia's weapons-export agency on arms sales to the Middle East.

Both trips were part of the company's effort to tap into the growing -- and often legally murky -- market for selling weapons from former Eastern Bloc countries to the Middle East and Afghanistan.

Ex-Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pennsylvania, is helping broker deals between Russian weapons suppliers and the Iraqi and Libyan governments through his company, Defense Solutions.
Photo: H. Rumph Jr/AP

The Russians want to sell weapons to Iraq directly, but "must go slow on Iraq because of political reasons" and want to work with an "intermediary" like Defense Solutions, CEO Ringgold subsequently wrote to colleagues. "They have not spoken with any American company that can offer the quid pro quo that we can or that has the connections in Russia that we have," he boasted.

http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2008/07/defense_solutions

Ransom claim in Ingrid Betancourt release

by Haroon Siddique

France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, kisses freed French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt on arrival at Villacoublay military airport in Paris. Betancourt and 14 others were rescued on Wednesday Photograph: Philippe Wojazer/REUTERS

Ingrid Betancourt arrived in France today after being held captive for six years in the Colombian jungle, amid claims that a ransom was paid to free her.

The Colombian government said that she was freed in an audacious operation after the military tricked Farc into handing the French-Colombian politician over without a shot being fired.

But quoting "reliable sources", Swiss Radio reported that a ransom was paid of around $20m (£10m).

It said that the US, which had three citizens among those freed, was behind the deal and that "the whole operation afterwards was a set-up".

The station reported that the wife of one of the hostages' guards was the go-between, having been arrested by the Colombian army.

If proved true, the allegations would be hugely embarrassing for the Colombian government which was showered with praise for the efficiency of the operation. Many commentators had predicted that it would even spell the end of Farc as a credible force.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/04/betancourt.france?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront

Independence

 

Closed-Door Deal Could Open Land In Montana

Forest Service Angers Locals With Move That May Speed Building

 

By Karl Vick

MISSOULA, Mont. -- The Bush administration is preparing to ease the way for the nation's largest private landowner to convert hundreds of thousands of acres of mountain forestland to residential subdivisions.

The deal was struck behind closed doors between Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and Plum Creek Timber Co., a former logging company turned real estate investment trust that is building homes. Plum Creek owns more than 8 million acres nationwide, including 1.2 million acres in the mountains of western Montana, where local officials were stunned and outraged at the deal.

"We have 40 years of Forest Service history that has been reversed in the last three months," said Pat O'Herren, an official in Missoula County, which is threatening to sue the Forest Service for forgoing environmental assessments and other procedures that would have given the public a voice in the matter.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/04/AR2008070402772.html

Why We Need Movie Reviewers

Despite popular belief, critically acclaimed movies actually sell better.

By Erik Lundegaard

It's almost a given these days that movie critics are elitist, while moviegoers are populist. When the highest-grossing films get panned by critics, what good are critics? As publishers across the country dump their reviewers, this is not exactly a rhetorical question.

Believe it or not, though, critically acclaimed films generally do better than critically panned films at the box office—if you measure their performance in the right way.

Here are the highest-grossing movies from 2007, along with each film's rating from Rotten Tomatoes, a Web site that quantifies critical opinion. (In the Rotten Tomatoes vernacular, films that garner positive reviews from at least 60 percent of critics are considered "fresh," while those below 60 percent are considered "rotten"):

You hardly need the Rotten Tomatoes rating. Four of the top five films are sequels; the fifth a sci-fi flick based upon a 20-year-old cartoon, which was itself based upon a toy. None is exactly Citizen Kane. Or even Jaws.

But here's something else they have in common: They were the only five films in 2007 to open in more than 4,000 theaters. Beyond the cause-and-effect question—do people see what studios make available and market, or do studios make available and market only what people want to see?—the popularity of a movie, via box office grosses, is to a great extent a self-fulfilling prophecy. So is there a better way to judge a film's popularity?

http://www.slate.com/id/2194532/

West condemns Mugabe, ignores other Africa despots

By MICHELLE FAUL

Supporters gather at the Harare airport Friday July 4, 2008 to welcome Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, portrait on placard, on his return to Harare from Egypt, where he attended the African Union summit.

Nigeria. Rwanda. Uganda. Ethiopia. Gabon. Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe has plenty of competitors for the title of "least democratic in Africa."

But while he has been singled out for condemnation by the West, leaders of other autocratic states in Africa have largely been able to avoid sanctions and isolation. Many have friends in Western capitals. Or play a strategic role in the war against terrorist groups. Or sit on oil.

With corrupt and authoritarian governments close to the norm on the continent, it is not surprising that African leaders ignored Western demands that they censure Zimbabwe's president at a summit this week and some welcomed him with hugs.

As Mugabe himself has asked: How many African leaders can point a clean finger at him? How many held a better election than his one-man runoff that followed a campaign of violence against his foes that induced the opposition leader to quit the race?

While some African leaders have condemned Mugabe, many admire him for thumbing his nose at the West and pointing out its perceived hypocrisies, like the Bush administration appealing for human rights in Zimbabwe while facing criticism over the U.S. prison at Guantanamo.

"We Africans should learn a lesson from this," Gambian President Yahya Jammeh said in praising Mugabe's election to a sixth term.

"They (the West) think they can dictate to us and this is not acceptable. Africans should stand for Zimbabwe. After all, what did the West do for Africa?" said Jammeh, a former army colonel who seized power in a 1994 coup.

http://www.kansascity.com/451/story/692076.html

wiretapping

Who owns the national debt?

 

Why Fly When You Can Float?

ZLT Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik

The view inside the cabin of a Zeppelin NT during a flight over southern Germany. The dirigible can carry 12 sightseers.

PARIS — Imagine gliding in a floating hotel over the Serengeti, gazing down at herds of zebra or elephants; or floating over Paris as the sun sets and lights blink on across the city as you pass the Eiffel Tower.

Such flights of fancy may one day be possible, if the dream of Jean-Marie Massaud, a French architect, comes true.

As the cost of fuel soars and the pressure mounts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, several schemes for a new generation of airship are being considered by governments and private companies. "It's a romantic project," said Mr. Massaud, 45, sitting amid furniture designs in his Paris studio, "but then look at Jules Verne."

It has been more than 70 years since the giant Hindenburg zeppelin exploded in a spectacular fireball over Lakehurst, N.J., killing 36 crew members and passengers, abruptly ending an earlier age of airships. But because of new materials and sophisticated means of propulsion, a diverse cast of entrepreneurs is taking another look at the behemoths of the air.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/business/worldbusiness/05dirigible.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Judge Rejects Bush's View on Wiretaps

by: Eric Lichtblau

A federal judge ruled that Bush's views on wiretapping were beyond the constitutional authority of the president.
(Photo: ABC News)

    Washington - A federal judge in California said Wednesday that the wiretapping law established by Congress was the "exclusive" means for the president to eavesdrop on Americans, and he rejected the government's claim that the president's constitutional authority as commander in chief trumped that law. The judge, Vaughn R. Walker, the chief judge for the Northern District of California, made his findings in a ruling on a lawsuit brought by an Oregon charity. The group says it has evidence of an illegal wiretap used against it by the National Security Agency under the secret surveillance program established by President Bush after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

    The Justice Department has tried for more than two years to kill the lawsuit, saying any surveillance of the charity or other entities was a "state secret" and citing the president's constitutional power as commander in chief to order wiretaps without a warrant from a court under the agency's program.

    But Judge Walker, who was appointed to the bench by former President George Bush, rejected those central claims in his 56-page ruling. He said the rules for surveillance were clearly established by Congress in 1978 under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires the government to get a warrant from a secret court.

http://www.truthout.org/article/judge-rejects-bushs-view-wiretaps

Human rights body condemns counter-terrorism bill

Government plans to extend pre-charge detention for terror suspects to 42 days are "unnecessary, disproportionate and counter-productive" and should be rejected when they come before the House of Lords next week, an international human rights group said today.

Human Rights Watch said that the 28-day detention period introduced by former prime minister Tony Blair is already "excessive" and violates Britain's obligations under European and global conventions.

And the report warned that other features of the counter-terrorism bill - such as post-charge questioning and secret inquests - are incompatible with the UK's duties under international human rights law.

Gordon Brown needed the support of the nine Democratic Unionist MPs to get the bill through the Commons and faces further difficulties in the Lords, where it has its second reading on Tuesday - a day after the third anniversary of the July 7 bombings in London.

Human Rights Watch's western Europe researcher Judith Sunderland urged peers to reject key parts of the bill, including 42-day detention.

"The third anniversary of the 2005 bombings in London reminds us that Britain faces a real terror threat," she said. "But locking people up without charge for six weeks will not make the country safer. The Lords should take a principled stand against this dangerous and unnecessary proposal."

In today's report, Human Rights Watch said it was convinced that the current 28-day period "already violates the right to liberty under the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights".

It concluded: "Further extension would be unnecessary, disproportionate and counter-productive."

The report warned that the bill's provision for post-charge questioning "lacks adequate safeguards against violations of the right to silence and against oppressive questioning, undermining the right to a fair trial".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/jul/04/terrorism.civilliberties

 

RIP Jesse Helms

North Korea Smackdown: How the "Dear Leader" blackmailed Bush

by Mike Whitney After seven years of nonstop belligerence, the Bush administration has caved in to all of North Korea's demands and gotten nothing in return. The UN's nuclear watchdog agency, the IAEA, will not gain access to Kim Jong-il's nuclear stockpile or its "Top-Secret" file on weapons programs or be allowed to conduct surprise "go anywhere, see anything" inspections. None of the main objectives have been achieved. At the same time, Kim will continue to develop his long-range ballistic-missile delivery system, the Taepodong 2, and (allegedly) continue to export nuclear weapons technology to allies in the Middle East and elsewhere. The present agreement does nothing to mitigate the danger of a nuclear-armed North, but sends a message to America's rivals that the US can be blackmailed if the stakes are high enough. The administration has been humiliated by a man who many believe is an unstable megalomaniac and a ruthless tyrant. It's another black-eye for US foreign policy. There was a time when George Bush would have nothing to do with Kim Jong-il, he privately scoffed at the reclusive dictator and called him "a pygmy". He placed North Korea on the State Department's list of sponsors of terrorism, froze their foreign bank accounts, refused to honor the terms of the Agreed Framework (which was negotiated by Bill Clinton) and threatened to take military action if Kim did not comply with US demands. What a difference a few years and a few nuclear weapons make. Now the blustery bravado and swaggering insolence has changed to hand-wringing and hyperactive backroom diplomacy. The Bush team has shifted from its ritual chest-thumping to damage-control.Unfortunately, the change comes too late. On Thursday, Bush announced that he would remove North Korea from the terrorism list and lift other economic sanctions. This follows an earlier decision to provide Kim with massive quantities of oil to meet the North's energy needs; a fact that is predictably ignored by the establishment media. On virtually every issue, the sullen despot in the oversized Foster-Grants has gotten whatever he's asked for. This has infuriated many of Bush's biggest supporters. Last week, former United Nations ambassador John Bolton blasted the agreement saying: "I think it's actually a clear victory for North Korea." http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/15621

war profits

 

What John McCain Didn’t Learn in Vietnam

 

 

 

 

 

by Joe Conason

Nobody has denigrated the service of John McCain or his suffering in captivity as a prisoner of North Vietnam, as much as his supporters wish to pretend that someone did. Nobody has denied that his valor in captivity offers insight into his character. But so far almost nobody has asked the most important question about McCain's military experience, which is how his past might influence his future as president.

The most pertinent issue is not what McCain did or didn't do during the war in Vietnam, but what he learned from that searing, incredibly bloody and wholly unnecessary failure of U.S. policy. Clearly he learned that torture is morally wrong, illegal and counterproductive, and he has spoken with great moral authority on that issue. But listening to him now and over the past decade or so, he also seems not to have learned why that war itself was a tragic mistake — and why we needed to leave Vietnam long before we did.

Indeed, what is most striking about McCain's attitude toward Vietnam is his insistence that we could have won — that we should have won — with more bombs and more casualties. In 1998, he spoke on the 30th anniversary of the Tet Offensive. "Like a lot of Vietnam veterans, I believed and still believe that the war was winnable," he said. "I do not believe that it was winnable at an acceptable cost in the short or probably even the long term using the strategy of attrition which we employed there to such tragic results. I do believe that had we taken the war to the North and made full, consistent use of air power in the North, we ultimately would have prevailed." Five years later, he said much the same thing to the Council on Foreign Relations. "We lost in Vietnam because we lost the will to fight, because we did not understand the nature of the war we were fighting, and because we limited the tools at our disposal."

Very few military historians agree with McCain's bitter analysis, which suggests that a ground invasion and an even more destructive bombing campaign, with an unimaginable cost in human life, would have achieved an American victory. But perhaps because he is obsessed by the humiliation of defeat — which fell directly on his father, Adm. John S. McCain Jr., who served as the commander in chief of Pacific forces during the Vietnam conflict — the former prisoner of war seemingly can formulate neither a rational assessment of that war's enormous costs nor of its flawed premises and purposes.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/04/10116/

quote of the day

 "A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."

- Albert Einstein -

Ron Paul: I hear members of Congress saying "if we could only nuke Iran"

Congressman warns of imminent confrontation

by Steve Watson

Congressman Ron Paul has warned millions of radio listeners that the US is heading into a deadly confrontation with Iran, revealing his disbelief at members of Congress who have openly voiced support for a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the country.

"If we do (attack) it is going to be a disaster," the Congressman told the Alex Jones show this Thursday.

"I was astounded to see on one of the networks the other day that the debate was not are we going to attack? but are we going to attack before or after the election?" Paul continued.

The Congressman recently voiced his concern over House Congressional Resolution 362 which he has dubbed a 'Virtual Iran War Resolution'.

"If that comes up it is demanding that the President put on an absolute blockade of the entire country of Iran, and punish any country or any business group around the world if they trade with Iran." Paul told listeners.

http://www.infowars.net/articles/july2008/040708RonPaul2.htm

China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo

By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON — The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of "coercive management techniques" for possible use on prisoners, including "sleep deprivation," "prolonged constraint," and "exposure."

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/02/us/02detain.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Arabs find barriers insurmountable

by Vita Bekker, Foreign Correspondent

Abed and Asma Nasar and their two children live in Jaffa near Tel Aviv. Asma is an illegal resident in Israel and is unable to go out or work. Ilan Mizrahi for The National

JERUSALEM // Asma Nasar is afraid to leave her home. Like many other Palestinians married to Israeli Arabs, the 21-year-old from the West Bank city of Hebron is living illegally in Israel with her husband and two young daughters.

During the four years she has resided in the central Israeli city of Jaffa, she has not worked, remains in the family's apartment for entire days and barely ventures out of her predominantly Arab neighbourhood.

Her husband, Abed, 26, who works at a shawarma stand, said he was afraid his wife would get caught by police and be sent to Hebron. "I'm dying to take her on a trip to Jericho or Tiberias, but it's not possible," he said, smoking a cigarette in the family's living room as his blue-eyed wife sat quietly nearby. "It's like carrying a large pack of [illegal] drugs on you – it's a risk."

Abed and Asma Nasar are only one of thousands of mixed Israeli-Palestinian couples facing an uncertain future as a result of Israel's strict limitations on granting citizenship or permanent residency to Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who are married to Israelis.

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080703/FOREIGN/564898162/1002/NEWS

Would the White House be Able to Eavesdrop on Obama Under the FISA Bill Barack Supports? You Bet.

 

FISA Amendment Just In Time To Steal Election

By Elliot D. Cohen

Senate Democrats and Republicans alike are now poised to pass H.R. 6304, known as the FISA Amendments Act of 2008, a bill touted by both House and Senate leaders to be a compromise proposal to prior Senate Bill 2248. Unfortunately, H.R. 6304 may give the Bush administration, in its last months, the ammunition it needs to hijack the 2008 presidential election.

It has been known for some time that, since 2001, the Bush administration has conducted mass surveillance of the email and telephone calls made by American citizens. All electronic messages passing through switches in the US, regardless of whether they were international or domestic communications, have been systematically intercepted and screened by the National Security Agency (NSA). Technologies, which were installed at major hubs of telecommunication companies throughout the nation copy and deposit all electronic messages into a giant NSA computer network. The NSA then uses complex algorithms to parse through these messages using matching criteria such as key words, phone numbers, and dates, and linking these data to further data--anything from credit card and bank records to movie rentals.

H.R. 6304 does not, on the face of it, require that these complex algorithms that are used to parse through our electronic messages be examined and approved by a FISA Court. The role of the FISA Court seems to be limited to approving the general design of the software used in conducting acquisitions of information. This consists of reviewing the authorizations made by the Attorney General and Director of National Intelligence to see if this general design satisfactorily conforms to "minimization procedures," that is, that they take reasonable precautions to avoid targeting American citizens. However, without access to the algorithm itself, as well as to the actual source code and a representative sampling of the data that ultimately get caught in its electronic net, there is no way to confirm that the actual procedures pass legal muster and are constitutional.

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/1677

The Manchurian President

 

IRAQ: Journalist Charges Censorship by U.S. Military in Fallujah

By Dahr Jamail

Remains of U.S. Marines killed by a suicide bomber in Fallujah on Jun. 26. Credit:Zoriah Miller

SAN FRANCISCO, Jul 3 (IPS) - U.S. journalist Zoriah Miller says he was censored by the U.S. military in the Iraqi city of Fallujah after photographing Marines who died in a suicide bombing.

On Jun. 26, a suicide bomber attacked a city council meeting in Fallujah, 69 kms west of Baghdad, between local tribal sheikhs and military officials.

Three Marines, Cpl. Marcus Preudhomme, Capt. Philip Dykeman, and Lt. Col. Max Galeai, were assigned to 2d Battalion, 3d Marines, 3rd Marine Division, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.

The explosion also killed two interpreters and 20 Iraqis, including the mayor of the nearby town of Karmah, two prominent sheikhs and their sons, and another sheikh and his brother. All were members of the local "awakening council," one of the U.S.-backed militias that have taken up arms against al Qaeda in Iraq, according to U.S. and Iraqi authorities.

Miller was embedded with Marines on a patrol one block from the attack when it occurred. He had originally turned down the option of going to report on the city council meeting that was bombed.

Miller ran with the Marines he was with to the scene of the attack. "As I ran I saw human pieces...a skull cap with hair, bone shards," he told IPS during a telephone interview from the so-called Green Zone in Baghdad. "When we arrived at the building it was chaotic. There were Iraqis, police and civilians running around screaming. Bodies were being pulled out of the building."

"I went in and there were over 20 people's remains all over the place," Miller continued, "Of the Marines I jogged in with, someone started to vomit. Others were standing around, not knowing what to do. It was completely surreal."

"At that moment I realised this was far beyond anything I'd experienced, and I realised I wanted to focus and make sure I could capture what it felt like, and the visual horror," Miller explained.

"I thought, 'Nobody in the U.S. has any idea what it means when they hear that 20 people died in a suicide bombing.' I want people to be able to associate those numbers with the scene and the actual loss of human life. And to show why soldiers are suffering from PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]," Miller told IPS.

Miller was taken out of the building by Marines, but then allowed back inside where he took one last photo of the carnage before they closed the scene to him.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43066

Towards a Second American Revolution

 

NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

That existing government by engaging in criminal wars, embargoes, blockades and other black-listing of foreign nations has made the United States not just an international bully but a piranha, world's leading perpetrator of genocide and dislocation of people By Ben Tanosborn 04/07/08 -- A Re-Declaration of Independence By the People of the United States of America On This Fourth of July 2008 When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with its own government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the denunciation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, a new government must be instituted, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of the people of the United States of America; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their existing system of government. The history of the Executive in this government, exemplified and accentuated by the current administration; together with a long history of a lobbies-corrupted Legislature and a politically-appointed Judicial, are histories of repeated injuries and usurpations, not acting as to balance power but jointly providing a unified corruptive government, all having in direct object the establishment of a world empire and a domestic ruling class able to exercise absolute tyranny over the people. The present and recent past administrations of the United States of America are hereby deemed non-responsive to the interests and well-being of the people of this nation while also acting as an imminent and constant danger to the cause of peace in the world. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. …That existing government has made itself a self-perpetuating tyranny where the channels to change and impeachment are de facto blocked by the duopolistic party system.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20239.htm

 

Barlow's Forth of July message

Vinay sez, "John Perry Barlow is in Iceland for the Icelandic Foundation for Digital Freedoms' conference. We shot this Fourth of July talk with him at Thingvellir, the ancient site of Iceland's historic parliamentary republic, B. 930 AD, D. about 3 centuries later." Link

A Modest Proposal for the 4th: Take Back Old Glory

by Paul Slansky

 

In Dr. Seuss's The Sneetches, there were two kinds of these odd beach-dwelling creatures -- those with stars on their bellies and those without. The ones with the stars saw themselves as inherently superior:

When the Star-Belly Sneetches had frankfurter roasts

Or picnics or parties or marshmallow toasts,

They never invited the Plain-Belly Sneetches.

They left them out cold, in the dark of the beaches.

Then along came a stranger, one Sylvester McMonkey McBean, who had a contraption that applied -- for a price -- stars to the bellies of the decoratively challenged:

Then they yelled at the ones who had stars at the start,

"We're exactly like you! You can't tell us apart.

We're all just the same, now, you snooty old smarties!

And now we can go to your frankfurter parties."

Then the snobby Sneetches had their stars removed -- yes, McBean's machine could do that, too -- and starlessness became the coin of the realm, after which it all descended into on-again-off-again chaos until it was impossible to keep track of who'd been who and they decided to just all get along as equals -- albeit impoverished equals, as they'd given all of their money to the con man who'd repeatedly applied and removed their stars.

But enough, for now, about Sneetches.

Of all the stupid things done by the anti-war crowd, the most gratuitously moronic was allowing the sanctimonious hypocrites of the right to co-opt the nation's most basic icon, its flag. The emblem of the country's highest aspirations was mindlessly ceded to the holier-than-thou zealots who used it as a bludgeon against the less fanatical.

Having unburdened itself of patriotism, the left proceeded over the years to also give away religion, national security and, finally, the elections themselves, but this devolution, into the pathetic puddle of unprincipled, acquiescent wimpiness that the Democrats have become, started with -- or rather, without -- the flag. It's hard to remember a presidential election in which that cavalier surrender hasn't exacted a serious price.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-slansky-/a-modest-proposal-for-the_b_110821.html

Who owns you?

George Carlin - 3 Minute Video

The game is rigged! Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care.

 

Suffering from HIDDEN TALENTS -- 1950 magazine ad

The March, 1950 Popular Science ad for International Correspondence Schools entitled ARE YOU SUFFERING FROM HIDDEN TALENTS? may well have been the best thing in the entire issue.

Link