President Obama has been campaigning up in Iowa lately and there he’s calling out Mitt Romney on this and that (distortions).
Not often I will offer free political advice, but I’m concerned that most of America would be inclined lately to vote for a Backward candidate instead of the Forward candidate. You know: Back to lower taxes, back to smaller budget deficits. My list goes on, but this is all part of the street-theater and media hornswoggle that fattens the purses of everyone but we poor taxpayers.
Which should really be revised in Merriam’s to taxpaypaypaypaypayers.
Outside the auto racing this weekend, if this is what’s ahead in weekend “news” coverage, might as well leave the boob toob off.
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On the other hand, I couldn’t help but notice that a lawmaker was injured in a brawl at the Ukraine Parliament’s meeting Thursday.
From a marketing perspective, maybe the WWF could coach C-SPAN and we could go into something like gladiator politics, since the Checkbook Republic, having been taken over by corporate interests who just write checks, has gotten a little stale.
Speaking of Elections
The Muslim Brotherhood has advanced to the second round of elections in Egypt – like this is a surprise?
What’s News?
Warren Buffett, say reports, may be adding to his stable of newspapers, since the Sage of Omaha seems to think that the present net conditions of “free news” are unsustainable. Might be, but there are tons of publicly available news releases that come flying over the desk of small one-man online newspapers like mine every day and some of them are worth reporting on. I mean as much as some of what passes for news out of Gollywood does…
To be sure, there’s going to be a crash and burn of sites that rip off content (whole articles and the like) but sites like Urban which comment and post links to sources will be around for a long while, I expect, since we honor sources and never reprint anything but an odd quote (with attribution). If such links to sources are banned, there will go Google and other search engines. Does the WB really get the idea that barriers to entry are what raise prices or, is there maybe some suggestion he knows about plans for the net to become less wide-open? Hmmm…
When You’re Hot
Looks like a pretty warm weekend in much of the country. Don’t forget the sunscreen.
The Future of Europe
LA Times has a good survey piece on how the woes of Europe are spreading around… And, seems Bankia of Spain is looking for a $19 billion handout.
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Maybe in my next lifetime I can incarnate as a multinational banking corporation. Being rich, heartless, soulless, and self-serving would be a nice change up: Living the Mr. Nice Guy approach doesn’t pay fer sh*t, which is a big clue that this Earth ain’t paradise.
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So, while rumors of bank runs and speculation as to how a Greek exit of the European Onion (sic) would work out, our news analyst fellow up in Winnipeg has been looking at oddities in the Eurozone:
Dear Mr. Ure,
It appears the director of The Vatican Bank has perhaps become a casualty of the unfolding drama at Gruppo Bancario Credito Valtellinese. The latter’s press releases paint an interesting picture of the bank transacting in its own shares to the tune of E19 million during the month of April alone, a shakeup of its board at the beginning of May, and a Moody’s downgrade with a negative outlook at mid-May. The Council of Europe’s Moneyval group received face to face time with the Pope and the Cardinal Secretary of State during a 5 day November 2011 visit. Perhaps a planned July 2012 preliminary report will be informative.
Further to Polish connections, it may be worth keeping Warsaw on the wild card pile. It is the headquarters for Frontex, the EU border control agency, as well as being the birthplace of prime minister Netanyahu’s late father.
Duly noted and flagged for watching…
Iran Ran
…from the latest round of talks, but promising more in June. Yeah, sure, you betcha…but how is this gonna play in Tel Aviv? Remember, markets are closed for the weekend and therefore lots of time for a quickie war to resolve before Tuesday trading.
Care to guess who’s revived their military option? Now, which three day weekend will it be…
Reader Picture of the Week
This one I’ve been saving so you can enjoy it this weekend if you missed the W. Coast view of the eclipse last weekend. The story here:
“One hundred eclipses on my wall…
(well really many times that number!)
Through the big oak tree leaves onto the shingle siding of my house in the wind.
Now that was both unexpected and beautiful ! I was just outside the maximum eclipse annular path.
That is a great shot…but even more amazing is the movie with them all moving in the breeze. Click here or on the picture above for that (even though it will cost oodles of bandwidth — You can thank Peoplenomics subscribers for providing the b./w).
Beauty ain’t in hiding after all…
More after this:
