Michael Collins reviews The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder by Vincent Bugliosi, the famous former Los Angeles prosecutor of Charles Manson and author of Helter Skelter. Bugliosi is undeterred by the virtual major media black out on interviews and advertising. He's taking his case directly to the people through alternate media and the internet

[Image © Tim Davis/AllPosters.com]

Some of the members of this committee have observed that there is no military solution to the problems of Iraq. They are correct. .. Success will . . . depend on improvements in the capacity of Iraq’s ministries, in the provision of basic services, in the establishment of the rule of law, and in economic development.
[General Petraeus’s Opening Statement, Senate Armed Services Committee Confirmation Hearing (NYT, 23 Jan '07)]

Zusha Elinson/theRecorder:
Can MySpace Suits Can the Spam?:
Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook are dropping the legal hammer on spammers. The question is: Can they really nail the elusive disturbers of Internet peace? [Via Law.com]
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So ok, I read the headline wrong-ishly. Sue me. But read the canned spam article, as well as the Space Fashion piece over @ MIT.edu. It's Thursday, still a few days 'til Armageddon. (Just kidding).

promoted - cho

Big Oil tells us, as they plead to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, as Senator John McCain calls for drilling off the shores of the Lower 48, it can't happen again.

They promise.

Greg Palast

intriguing view of one possible future -- cho

Bye Bye Barry

Joel S. Hirschhorn

The final results are in on this historic November day. Despite the hundreds of millions of dollars he raised, Barack Obama has lost the 2008 presidential election. American voters have boldly spoken truth to arrogance. Turned out that all those pre-election opinion polls that showed Obama’s inability to get over 50 percent support were prescient. Much of the public was never comfortable with Obama, though he clearly was so comfortable acting like he already was president.

Andrea Brambila/sacbee:
Cosmetic surgeons blame hard times for slump in elective procedures:

Despite the economic downturn, the $12.4 billion plastic surgery industry is expected to grow, driven by the growing popularity of nonsurgical options. The ASPS predicts that by 2015, plastic surgeons will be performing more than 55 million procedures a year, up from almost 12 million in 2007.

Sonofabitch it's hard out there. Imagine the pain of walking around bald, getting wrinkles as you grow older, or (god forbid) realizing your couture-covered ass has grown by a staggering quarter-inch. Pauvre petit vache.

promoted - cho

When the International Olympic Committee awarded the Olympic Games to Beijing (北京) one of the stipulations or conditions was that the press would be free to report freely on China and the games. Protests were also to be allowed. The opening of the International Press Center meant reporters were met with incomplete access to the internet and though the Chinese set-up three "protest areas" for which permits are required, no protest permits have been issued.

Even though the Labor Department is known to massage its statistics, the numbers are so bad that its latest report registers an increase in the Producer Price Index of 1.2% in July and 9.8% in the last year. CNN carries the story. Even with a dip in oil prices over the last month, CNN says that this is the highest rate of increase in the past 27 years.

The Dow is sinking and should dip below 11,000 once again. It well may test new lows in the next couple of days.

On Friday August 15 the Bush administration sent Condoleezza Rice to meet with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili as a "show of U.S. support." Yikes. They sent Condi? Talk about giving somebody the goodbye look. If this were a Marty Scorsese movie, Saakashvili would have been sleeping with the fishes come Saturday morning. You'd think Keystone Kondi would have lent sufficient slapstick to the Georgian situation, but no. Adding to the antics, John McCain announced on Friday August 15 that he would send along as his personal representatives Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, the Bea Arthur and Betty White of neoconservatism. Then, to cap things off, McCain himself dropped the atomic punchline: "In the twenty-first century, nations don't invade other nations."

You could hear irony clawing at its coffin lid.

The bananastans are going bananas, Iran's down the can, al Qaeda is a more dangerous enemy than ever and our "victory" in Iraq has gone off in our faces like a joke shop cigar. Less than a decade into the New American Century, young Mr. Bush and the neoconservatives who promised us an empire have squandered everything our forefathers achieved in the America's first two and a quarter centuries as a nation. Yet, incredibly, bewilderingly, stupefyingly, a septuagenarian Senator who steals Christian prisoner stories from Alexander Solzhenitsyn and promises to protract the Bush foreign policy fumble-rama is a viable contender for the presidency of the United States.

We live in hysteric times.