SAR #8017

For years we've been off-shoring factories and jobs;
now we're off-shoring ownership.

Spy vs Spy : Just as we suspected, Microsoft is Big Brother. Bill is proud to announce software to monitor “heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, facial movements, facial expressions and blood pressure”. Markers for loyalty and subservience are under development. Meanwhile, Apple's got this neat ultra-skinny new laptop.

Your End of the Boat: Trillions of dollars in paper wealth is disappearing. Unlike the few who owned stocks during the Great Depression, today millions own overpriced houses, and pension funds invested in fraudulent securities based on loans for these houses. In the 1930s, many people could return to family farm. Know anybody with a farm?

Patience is a Virtue : What bankers do best is to create bubbles, make a lot of money for themselves and then take their money and run. Gains are private, losses public. American capitalism at its best. A cure? Put a 10 year horizon on bonus pay; what you earn today you get paid in 10 years, if it doesn't all fall apart.

Not the News Last November, CBS News reported that during 2005 alone, with data from only 45 states, 6256 veterans committed suicide. Why didn't we know this? Not all of them Iraqi vets, but many. Five years of that would add 30,000 more to the fatalities from Bush's Big Adventure.

Privatize the Parks ! Recession is quickly followed by slower growth in tax revenues. State legislatures will be forced to take belt-tightening measures to balance their budgets - mandatory in a lot of states. Wonder how many GOP-controlled states will use this as an excuse to gut social programs even further?

All the News that Fits : A NYT poll shows that Hillary will lose to any of the GOP top 4. Obama beats them all except for McCain. But Edwards - populist, corporation thumping John Edwards - beats all of the GOP candidates. Funny how the corporate media doesn't report much about him. Even the NYT report on the poll barely mentions this. Or this: Edwards is the only candidate whose favorability improves the more voters hear about him.

Motel 666 : I was shocked to read "Eight Killed in Attack at Luxury Hotel in Afghanistan". No, not the eight dead - no big deal about 8 dead in Afghanistan. But a luxury hotel? In Afghanistan?

Socking It To Us : The shortage of socks at Wally World was caused by Bhuto's assassination. Her death was followed by rioting which is blamed for shutting down energy and transportation systems throughout the country which shut down the sock factories which make much of the world's sock supply. Everything, really everything, is connected. Pakistani politics in my sock drawer.

Round and Round : Burning oil causes global warming. It's caused so much that oil companies are rushing to look for oil in areas in Greenland opened by the melting of glacial ice that was caused by the carbon dioxide buildup caused by burning the oil that the oil companies previously found. Yet the oil people keep denying global warming...