Things Fall Apart

by: William Rivers Pitt

(Image: Jared Rodriguez / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: US Coast Guard, Darren Hester)

"Things fall apart," William Butler Yeats wrote. "The center cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned." He could have been talking about us, about this past week in America, about what happens when madness, greed and fear combine and conspire to show us what it looks like when the gates of Hell crack open.

Two separate incidents took place in two different parts of the country. The least severe of the two was merely an attempted car bombing in New York's Times Square. An alert T-shirt vendor observed a parked SUV with smoke pouring out of it, and raised the alarm. When authorities arrived, they discovered the car was filled with propane tanks, fireworks and fertilizer that were wired to cheap alarm clocks intended to be detonators. Had it gone off, police say, the resulting fireball could have caused considerable death, injury and damage.

Fortunately, the attempt was thwarted, but the consequences of what could have been are daunting to consider. The event raised the specter of Bush-era "Red Alert" and the possible declaration of martial law. For the last decade, a pile of laws and executive orders have been passed and signed making it spectacularly easy for the government to suspend the Constitution in the event of terrorist activity. Had that bomb gone off, we could very well have seen troops in the streets, and the end of the rule of law as we have known it.

The second event has some people talking, quite literally, about the end of the world.

http://www.truthout.org/things-fall-apart59152

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Oil Companies Pay a Pittance in Penalties to Offshore Drilling Regulator

 

by Marian Wang

 

Men position oil boom barriers to contain the ongoing spill from BP's Deepwater Horizon platform. (Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)

Last week, as part of our coverage of the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, we noted the troubled past of the Minerals Management Service, the agency that regulates offshore oil and gas drilling.

On its website, MMS says that it issues civil penalties for serious safety violations [1]. And there have been violations. A study conducted by the Minerals Management Service found that from 2001 to 2007, offshore drilling accidents resulted in 41 deaths and 302 injuries [2], according to The Huffington Post.

Anonymous Tipline: If you work for BP or a contractor on a rig in the Gulf, or anywhere else, we'd like to hear from you. Tell us about your work conditions, your management, and your observations of what is happening. We will not publish your identity. Call 917-512-0254, fax documents to 212-514-5250 or e-mail Abrahm.Lustgarten
@propublica.org.

In an analysis of civil penalties levied by the regulator, we at ProPublica found that over the past 12 years the average penalty has been $45,000. Currently, MMS can fine oil and gas companies a maximum of $35,000 per violation per day [3] (PDF). The biggest fine an oil company has paid to the agency since 1998 was $810,000, paid in 2001 by Chevron. Overall, the Minerals Management Service has collected $20 million in penalties in those 12 years.

That kind of money is unlikely to sting much, considering the profits that major oil companies take in.

http://www.propublica.org/ion/blog/item/oil-companies-pay-a-pittance-in-penalties-to-offshore-drilling-regulator

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Arizonastan

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The Future… as a Large, Sullen Stranger

By Scott Burns

Q. How about a column on bad times? What happens to different investments if our country goes bankrupt? Or if terrorists do something really bad in a major city? I am 78 years old and want my investments to be as safe as possible.—J.P., by email from Amarillo, TX

A. Most people think the recent bear market was about as close to truly bad times as they want to contemplate. Stocks fell about 50 percent. Lots of debt went bad. Yields on everything secure fell to nearly zero. And it is difficult to sell a house, car, or boat. The current recession beats everything in living memory except for the worst years of the Great Depression.

That's pretty terrible.

In spite of that, most people still own their homes; most people still have jobs, and retirees still have Social Security and Medicare. People are still eating in restaurants and going to movies. Yes, they aren't eating out as much, and lots of purchases are being deferred.

Some deferral is obvious, such as cars. Some is subtle. Recently, an oral surgeon told me that people who would normally have had corrective procedures were electing to defer operations.

Of course, it could get worse.

The question is whether it is possible to protect yourself from truly bad times. Even the highest quality railroad bonds wouldn't have protected your future in Czarist Russia before Lenin. And the French have good reason to prefer gold over paper money. Extremes, however, are extreme— a portfolio designed for an improbable event may serve you well for a 5 percent probability event, but it will fail miserably the other 95 percent of the time.

The world is also filled with mixed signals. The dollar may fall against gold, but it may rise against the Euro. Remember, they've forgotten to have children in Europe. And some European governments are even more profligate than ours is, witness Greece. Not to mention Spain and Italy.

The best we can do is prepare on two levels.

Level one is to adjust our living to a world of increasing dysfunction. This requires paying off debt and increasing savings. It also requires broad diversification of financial assets. It means being flexible and"at the ready" It means facing every day with your feet planted for action, as though you were a constable serving an arrest warrant on a large, sullen stranger.

Level two is to prepare for chaos. This means being prepared with emergency food, water, fuel, and other supplies as though you were going to live through a major disaster like hurricane Katrina. Significantly, the last two years have seen a growing number of books devoted to exactly how to do such preparation, and it can be done with a relatively small"investment"

http://assetbuilder.com/blogs/scott_burns/archive/2010/04/28/the-future-as-a-large-sullen-stranger.aspx

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The Secret Annex Online

 

Discover Anne Frank's hiding place in 3D. Wander around the furnished spaces and get to know the stories from Anne Frank's diary.

 

http://www.annefrank.org/en/Subsites/Home/

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Worse Than 1789?

by James Howard Kunstler

US Sen. Carl Levin. (Photo: Matt Hampel / flickr)

Sen. Carl Levin pretty much had Goldman Sach's (GS) Lloyd Blankfein dead in a casket with that now-notorious email from GS's head of sales and trading, Tom Montag, describing one of their billion-dollar investment "products" as "one shitty deal." Levin seemed to delight in crossing the boundary into the realm of the unspeakable, knowing that even the so-called "family" newspapers and cable TV networks would have to report it. And just to make sure nobody missed the point, the senator repeated that phrase at least 20 times before the day was over. It was like the climactic scene in that old Hammer Films classic, "The Horror of Dracula," where Professor Van Helsing moves from coffin to coffin pounding stakes through the hearts of Drac and all his fellow bloodsuckers.

It's hardly the climax of our story, though. Ours has barely started. It seems to me, lately, that the crack up we've entered is liable to play out more gruesomely for our privileged elites than the orgy of bloodletting that attended the French Revolution. That historical moment was a sharp transition between old, settled, social relations and the new political realities of imminent industrialization and a rising middle class. The elites in charge of things to that moment, an ossified aristocracy, responded to rising discontent with utter feckless stupidity. To make matters worse, a great many of them were hunkered down in the fantasy-land royal palace of Versailles, enjoying what was for practical purposes a nonstop, mega house party. They must have thought they were safe 12 miles outside Paris.

The French Revolution actually got off to a better start than the way for which it is remembered. A progressive opposition put together a new legislature, the National Assembly. They undertook the writing of a constitution. But it all fell apart rather quickly, since the dim-witted king and his cohorts didn't really get into that old changing-times spirit and their lack of cooperation - not to mention their decadence - provoked the more violent factions of the common people to form that kraken of politics, the mob. What a goddamned mess it turned into - a revolving cast of mob masters, each worse than the last, whipping up the crowds to ever more horrible enormities of human vivisection - a political process that had gone hopelessly out of control. Despite the agile precedent of their friend, the new USA, quickly resolving its own rebellion into a functioning government of law, France opted for a bloody cluster fuck - which went on for eight more years.

The France of 1789 and the USA of today have a few important elements in common: a striking inability to sort out any national problems, an arrogant, depraved, ruling elite resistant to reform and an intellectual underclass motivated by blind fury.

http://www.truthout.org/worse-than-178959114

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Which one is the illegal alien?

by Bill Day - "Cartoon Winner" 
in the 2010 RFK Journalism Awards

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EPA Staffers Were Forced to Ignore Science, Investigation Finds

By Sheila Kaplan

EPA staffers say they were forced to ignore scientific data and lacked crucial information needed to fully protect the public.

 

Environmental Protection Agency staffers have been forced to ignore relevant science, have lacked key monitoring data on human health and environmental impacts, and have worked without crucial information needed to protect the public, according to the preliminary findings of a scientific advisory board.

The Committee on Science Integration for Decision Making is still working on its investigation, but has quietly posted draft summaries on the agency's Web site of 73 interviews with 450 EPA employees -- an unusual bottom-up examination that could bring sweeping changes to the 40-year-old federal agency. Some staffers traced the problems in the agency to the Bush administration, while others said the obstacles are longstanding and continue to this day.

EPA has an enormous mandate -- protecting air, water, land and human health from environmental pollutants. While some staffers gave the agency high marks, the interviews overall portray an organization that has been hobbled by political pressure to avoid damaging industry; has lacked sufficient scientists in regional offices; has been slow to act against known hazards, and has had a tendency to let products with harmful pollutants enter the marketplace and the environment without first ensuring their safety.

The review of the EPA followed accusations by a former agency official that President George W. Bush had pressured agency employees to water down concerns of global climate change, a Government Accountability Office report criticizing the agency's toxic chemical review process, and stern recommendations by the National Research Council, a division of the National Academy of Sciences.

http://www.alternet.org/story/146680/

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Obama’s Shadow Government

The bulk of the president's czars are exempt from oversight

 By Alan Caruba  

 

How many of these names do you recognize?

Adolfo Carrion, Aneesh Chopra, Ear; Devamey, Kenneth Feinberg, Carol Browner, Ed Montgomery, Todd Stern, Cass Sunstein, Ron Bloom, and John Brennan. If none of them ring a bell, it is because they and others are all part of a shadow government of some thirty "czars"; advisers to President Obama who did not submit to the Senate confirmation process and are exempt from Congressional oversight.

Article 2, Section 2, U.S. Constitution, an excerpt: He (the President) shall have power, by and with the advice and Consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or the heads of departments."

The Constitution creates two types of positions in the executive branch: principal officers and inferior officers. The first of these are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The latter are not subject to this process.

The Obama administration began with a series of nominations that were found to be tax cheats and forced to withdraw before Senate confirmation. One of them, Van Jones, put in charge of "green jobs" was forced to resign when it became known that he was a self-identified communist. Carol Browner, responsible for environmental and energy issues, was on the board of the Commission for a Sustainable Society, the action arm of the Socialist International.

In the case of "special envoys" George Mitchell, Richard Holbrooke, and Dennis Ross, they all engage in ambassadorial duties, representing the nation to foreign entities and are responsible only to the president. Key elements of the nation's foreign policy, particularly as regards the Middle East, remain hidden from the public, except in terms of the president's public pronouncements.

All of the president's cabinet secretaries in charge of various departments and agencies of the government are vested with administrative powers and all must be confirmed by the Senate. By virtue of the Administrative Procedure Act, these offices must hold public hearings and maintain records when decisions are made, thus creating a paper trail. All of these offices must have separate lines in Congress's annual appropriations bills.

The bulk of the president's czars are exempt from such oversight. They advise and answer directly to the president and a number of them exercise control over the decisions made by cabinet secretaries and agency directors, most of whom have been reduced to a role of carrying out their decisions, their agenda.

The U.S. government is being run out of the White House by a cohort of czars/advisers who do not answer to the American people and operate in the dark.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/22590

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Fears for crops as shock figures from America show scale of bee catastrophe

The world may be on the brink of biological disaster after news that a third of US bee colonies did not survive the winter

by Alison Benjamin

Honey bees are vital insect pollinators, responsible for the healthy development of many of the world's major food crops. Photograph: David Silverman/Getty Images

Disturbing evidence that honeybees are in terminal decline has emerged from the United States where, for the fourth year in a row, more than a third of colonies have failed to survive the winter.

The decline of the country's estimated 2.4 million beehives began in 2006, when a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD) led to the disappearance of hundreds of thousands of colonies. Since then more than three million colonies in the US and billions of honeybees worldwide have died and scientists are no nearer to knowing what is causing the catastrophic fall in numbers.

The number of managed honeybee colonies in the US fell by 33.8% last winter, according to the annual survey by the Apiary Inspectors of America and the US government's Agricultural Research Service (ARS).

The collapse in the global honeybee population is a major threat to crops. It is estimated that a third of everything we eat depends upon honeybee pollination, which means that bees contribute some £26bn to the global economy.

Potential causes range from parasites, such as the bloodsucking varroa mite, to viral and bacterial infections, pesticides and poor nutrition stemming from intensive farming methods. The disappearance of so many colonies has also been dubbed "Mary Celeste syndrome" due to the absence of dead bees in many of the empty hives.

US scientists have found 121 different pesticides in samples of bees, wax and pollen, lending credence to the notion that pesticides are a key problem. "We believe that some subtle interactions between nutrition, pesticide exposure and other stressors are converging to kill colonies," said Jeffery Pettis, of the ARS's bee research laboratory.

A global review of honeybee deaths by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) reported last week that there was no one single cause, but pointed the finger at the "irresponsible use" of pesticides that may damage bee health and make them more susceptible to diseases.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/02/food-fear-mystery-beehives-collapse

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Obama Admin Warned by NOAA It Was Underestimating Offshore Drilling Risks-- To Be Expected Given Big Money

 

By Rob Kall

 

image from Moveon.org ad calling for stop to all new offshore drilling

The admin was warned but it had a political agenda and a government infrastructure still primarily made up of Bush appointees who earned their jobs by blocking regulations

When the Obama administration was developing its new policy on offshore drilling, it was warned by NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) officials that the risks were being underestimated, Dan Froomkin of the Huffingtonpost reports, NOAA is the nation's lead ocean resource agency, and the warnings came in its response to a draft of the Obama Administration's offshore oil drilling plans. The comments were Web-published in October by the whistle-blowing group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

But NOAA's views were largely brushed aside as Obama went ahead and announced on March 31 that he would open vast swaths of American coastal waters to offshore drilling -- a plan now very much in doubt as a blown-out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico spews out an estimated 200,000 gallons of oil daily, for the 13th straight day.

NOAA also wrote that the administration's "analysis of the risk and impacts of accidental spills and chronic impacts are understated and generally not supported or referenced, using vague terms and phrases such as 'no substantive degradation is expected' and 'some marine mammals could be harmed.'"

The NOAA report challenged the administrations claims that leaks had been rare in recent years.

Froomkin cites PEER whistleblower group head, Jeff Ruch,

that as in many other regulatory agencies, Obama political appointees in the Interior Department's notoriously troubled Minerals Management Service (MMS) have not taken enough steps to reverse the anti-environmental and anti-science policies of the Bush years.

"For the most part, the Obama team is still the Bush team," Ruch told HuffPost, noting that beyond a thin layer of political appointees, offices like MMS are run by managers who were "promoted during the Bush years -- In many instances, promoted for basically violating the law. And from what we can tell, their conduct hasn't changed."

Futhermore, Ruch said, Obama "sees environmental issues as a political bargaining chip."

Indeed, Obama's decision to increase offshore drilling was widely seen as a way of getting some Republican support for the administration's climate change bill.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Obama-Admin-Warned-by-NOAA-by-Rob-Kall-100504-678.html

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Los Angeles Marches Against Racist Arizona Law

by Manuel Alderete

Over 100,000 march to protest racist Arizona "immigration" law; diverse crowd shows broad support against law

 

LOS ANGELES - May 1, 2010

The air was electrified by a presence not felt since the Gran Marcha of 2006. At least 100,000 people marched through Downtown in solidarity with Arizona's victims of a new law that legalizes racial profiling. It is a law that has been denounced by President Obama, DHS Head Janet Nopalitano, the Mayor of Phoenix, the Sheriff of Pima County (Arizona), and even some Republicans who see it as draconian legislation.

Many of the protest signs carried bold statements calling the Arizona law "racist" and "Nazi"-like. There was a sense of urgency in their voices, demanding to "Boycott Arizona" and overturn Arizona's SB 1070 law on the grounds that it was racially discriminatory and unconstitutional.

Unlike other marches where several other "niche issues" are brought into the march, this May Day march was focused like a laser: Arizona's new state law is a modern-day version of legalized White Supremacy, smacking of the Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany and Apartheid "Pass Laws" in South Africa.

As usual, the march began at Olympic and Broadway and continued north about a dozen blocks, ending near City Hall. The crowd surged with optimism as music played and ralliers chanted to Boycott Arizona and pressure President Obama to take swift action against Arizona's legalized Apartheid.

It should also be mentioned that Los Angeles Police Department had a very light footprint at the march, with only a few officers monitoring from the sidelines. And just as well: the march was peaceful, upbeat, and a proud statement of civic resistance to "legal" fascism.

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2010/05/237924.php

 

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Choose Privacy Week Video from the American Library Association

Choose Privacy Week Video from 20K Films on Vimeo.

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World Press Freedom Day 2010, after a deadly month for journalists

 

 

by Paul Driscoll

 

This year's World Press Freedom Day, marked on May 3 every year, bears particular pertinence after the highest monthly death toll for journalists in five years.

According to the official site supporters worldwide of media freedom "celebrate the fundamental principles of press and media freedom that are articulated in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights." The day was officially designated by the United Nations General Assembly and is hosted by UNESCO, this year in Brisbane, Australia, a list of the speakers here.

 

This year's theme is freedom of information, which is after all, one of the founding principles of journalism. The spectrum of a journalist's role, working conditions and function in society is vast, pertaining to the level of freedom and development in the country they operate in. But, also dependent upon the chosen role of said journalist.

Some hacks risk death and violence in the effort to bring the public information, to empower them with the truth and grant them the opportunity to question and make informed decisions.

Those journalists should be honoured today, 17 of them died last month, according to the Newspaper Publishers' Association, that link includes more detailed info on April's killings. The International News Safety Institute has recorded in total some 1,500 violent deaths in the past 14 years.

Amnesty International recently took the step to issue its own plea to the Honduran government, after a spate of journalist killings; six in eight weeks during March and April.

"Targeting journalists in this way suffocates freedom of expression, denies the Honduran population access to information, and of course also violates journalists' right to life," said Esther Major, Amnesty International's Central America Researcher.

Reporters without borders have issued their own report, a list of the top "forty predators of press freedom."

 

http://blogs.thenational.ae/mixed_media/2010/05/world-press-day-after-the-bloodiest-month-in-five-years.html

 

Michael Bromley welcomes you to World Press Freedom Day 2010 from UQ School of Journalism & Commun on Vimeo.

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40 bloggers who really count

Meet the online writers, stars and commentators that everybody's talking about

 

(Nikola Tamindzic, ILOVENIKOLA.COM)

From left: Jezebel's editor-in-chief, Anna Holmes, with colleagues Jennifer Gerson and Maureen Ikacik

CELEBRITY

David Byrne
journal.davidbyrne.com
Few professionals in the arts maintain a blog as lovingly as David Byrne, or post at such length about topics of genuine interest (one recent entry, on the recontextualisation of performance art, breaks the 6,000-word mark). Given that Byrne is most famous for his work with Talking Heads, one might expect music to be the order of the day, but he writes just as searchingly about art and film, photography and opera, buildings and food. A treat.

Gwyneth Paltrow
goop.com
Gwynnie's lifestyle blog is easy to deride. Yes, it's a chance for her to show off the breadth of her cultural experience while encouraging the humble reader to "nourish your inner aspect", but it does provide some rather useful tips, not to mention opportunities for celeb-spotting. Her friends Steven, Christy and Sofia, whom she taps for book and movie tips, are Spielberg, Turlington and Coppola respectively.

FAMILY

Justin Halpern
shitmydadsays.tumblr.com
Move back in with your parents, commit your 74-year-old father's obscenity-strewn wisdoms to text, post them on Twitter and, if you're Justin Halpern, end up with 1,288,000 followers, a book deal and a show on CBS. Halpern started after he moved home from LA to San Diego last year. "You look just like Stephen Hawking… Relax, I meant like a non-paralysed version of him. Feel better? Fine. Forget I said it."

FEMINISM

Anna Holmes
jezebel.com
Being in charge of the sharpest, snarkiest, most popular women's blog around sounds as if it should be a lot of fun. Anna Holmes pauses and chooses her words.

"It's not not fun," says the editor-in-chief of Jezebel, which launched in May 2007 and today attracts almost ten million hits a month. "But it's more like the blog is a baby, and it has to be tended to at all times. And the baby might grow up a bit, but it's never going to get past the age of 2 or 3 in terms of how much it demands of you."

From the spare room of her New York apartment, Holmes oversees blogging on a near-industrial scale as she commissions a team of writers who churn out a new post every 10 minutes for almost 12 hours a day, addressing anything from urinary tract infection vaccines, via dating and stupid celebrities, to the evils of glossy women's magazines' airbrushed covers. Typically, a working day will stretch to 11 or 12 hours at her computer.

"I don't want to say it's ruined my life – I don't want to put it that way. But it's reconfigured it in a way that's probably extremely unhealthy. A social life? Nah, I don't have one," she chuckles. "That's the problem with the internet: it's always on."

Julie Zeilinger
thefbomb.org
The town of Pepper Pike, Ohio, doesn't sound a hotbed of feisty young feminist thought. And prior to the F Bomb, it wasn't. The 16-year-old Zeilinger created her blog to address topics ranging from pubic hair to Twilight; to keep the content teen-focused, she's even said she'll pass control to someone younger when she hits 20.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article7108518.ece

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The Military Occupation of Our Minds

by Tom Hayden

 

As Congress weighs Afghanistan funding, the military is escalating what it calls the "war of perceptions" at home and abroad. The question is whether the American media and Congress will collaborate in the Pentagon's press strategy or retain a critical edge.

It is no accident that the Pentagon is shaping the "information battlespace" by welcoming friendly reporters and think tank hacks to beam back commentaries about the Kandahar offensive to the American people.

Nor is it accidental that the US is soft-pedaling any public criticism of its crooked crony in Kabul, Hamid Karzhai, as thousands of American soldiers are being dispatched to face bullets in his defense.

Nor is there any question that Afghan civilian casualties are being downplayed or covered-up. The agency in charge of counting the bodies, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, published a footnote last year admitting "there is a significant possibility that UNAMA is under-reporting civilian casualties."

Paranoia? Do we live under Orwellian thought control? Of course not. But we the people, the media and the Congress, routinely accept taxpayer-funded Pentagon and White House public relations narratives. These often take disgusting forms, such as the false claims and cover-up that soldier Pat Tillman died under enemy fire, or the recent Special Forces' killing of three pregnant women which was followed by digging of bullets out of their bodies to cover up the crime.

The current cycle of military media manipulation began with the Iraq war, when the Pentagon enticed generals, intelligence officers, and defense contractors to become "message force multipliers" for the Bush administration's version of the war, "sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated." It took a New York Times' lawsuit to uncover 8,000 pages of documents showing that the chosen surrogates could be counted on to deliver propaganda messages "in the form of their own opinions."

The strategy goes far deeper than the sleaze of everyday public relations. This is about the Pentagon's turning of computer science into a weapon in the emerging field of information warfare, in which the deaths of men, women and children are less important than the perception of those deaths, or whether they are perceived by anyone at all. As Gen. McChrystal, whose entire career in Iraq remains a classified secret, said during a February briefing:

"This is not a physical war of how many people you kill or how much ground you capture, how many bridges you blow up. This is all in the minds of the participants."

McChrystal also has said, in a recent London speech, that Afghanistan is not like a football game but more "like a political debate after which both sides announce they have won."

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/the-military-occupation-o_b_553709.html

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Bill Moyers last journal

 

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the Journal. Once upon a time, a whole lot of just plain Americans woke up to realize the economic system was working against them. They had believed in it; they worked hard to make it work for them. They knew its shortcomings but saw in it the way to a decent return for their labor and a better future for their families.

Then, one day, calamity struck: The system turned on them. And they discovered that they had been betrayed, bamboozled, by the people at the top.

But they didn't hang their heads and turn tail, like a dog whipped by its master. They organized and fought back — millions of them in a grass roots movement for democracy. What they did became known as the Populist Moment, an extraordinary time in our country's history.

But, the flimflam gang returned with a vengeance in our time — the monied interests and political mercenaries who connived to bring on a calamity that lost eleven million Americans their jobs, robbed people of their homes and pensions, and brought the world's economy crashing down.

But once again, people are organizing and fighting back; as they did in that early Populist Moment that took on the monopolies and financial trusts. The stirrings of a popular insurgency could be seen late this week as thousands marched on Wall Street. These people are angry at the banks that have cost them so dearly and they want reforms to prevent similar disasters in the future. They want to break up the Wall Street oligarchy and require the banks to use their capital to build and revitalize and innovate, to create jobs and security.

Similar protests occurred this week in San Francisco, North Carolina and Kansas City, where people rallied to demand an accounting from the giant Bank of America.

Among their ranks was a contingent from Iowa, proud and vocal inheritors of America's populist spirit. We first met them at a rally last fall.

BILL MOYERS: In October, some five thousand people came to Chicago to rally outside the convention of the American Bankers Association.

CROWD: ABA, you're the worst! Time to put the people first!

BILL MOYERS: This is not the Tea Party crowd, chanting against "government takeovers" and "creeping socialism."

CROWD: We're fired up! Can't take it no more!

BILL MOYERS: They are populists of the old school. They want the government on their side battling against predatory monopolies, trusts, and corporations.

MIKE MCCARTHY: We're losing jobs. We're losing state employees. We're losing industry and businesses. We're losing farms and homes. And meanwhile, these people across the street are trying to divvy up their record profits, in tens of millions of dollars worth of bonuses. And that's not fair, it's not fair.

CROWD: Bust up! Big banks! Bust up! Big banks...

BILL MOYERS: Mike McCarthy and a busload of his Iowa neighbors rode almost six hours to get here.

CROWD: Bust up! Big banks...

BILL MOYERS: They belong to an organization called Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement. Or CCI. They take their fighting spirit, everywhere they go.

LARRY GINTER: If you've seen your pensions or retirement take a hit, stand up. Dissent is apple pie and ice cream. If you think it's time to put people first and hold banks accountable, stand up. Our founding fathers spoke out against the injustice. I mean, they were great populist, great radicals.

CROWD: We're fired up, can't take it no more...

LARRY GINTER: You just can't sit back and let the big boys walk all over you. You have to stand up and fight. Give yourselves a hand!

 

...

 

BILL MOYERS: Finally — and that's for real this time, the Journal comes to an end with this broadcast. Thanks to those of you who have been with us all the way. I am grateful for your loyalty, and for all your letters and postings. I've tried to read every one of them.

To our critics, I'm glad you paid attention; the second most important thing to journalists is to know we're not being ignored. The most important thing is the independence that enables us to do our job without fear or favor. In this I have been unbelievably blessed. When, for the last time, you read the credits at the conclusion of this broadcast, consider that every funder, or underwriter as we say, came to our support asking only that we enrich the public conversation by adding more and different voices to it.

I could not have had more generous or brave partners. Not one of them has ever tried to influence the content; none has asked for a favor; or made a single demand.

Likewise, Mutual of America Life Insurance Company, my sole corporate sponsor for 23 years. Bill Flynn, the CEO when our relationship began, and his successor, Tom Moran are among the best; they've never once mentioned the complaints I know came their way over the controversies ignited here. In my experience, no corporation has been a better friend of democracy.

Time now to let you in on the big secret of broadcast journalism. There's more to it than meets the eye, and in a just world, the credit would not accrue to those of us on camera but to the team you never see.

Pull back the camera and you see the shoulders upon which I stand. Producers and associate producers. Production coordinators and production assistants. Video editors, sound engineers, make up artist, and control room team. Camera operators and floor crew. Directors, art directors, our world class communications and web team. This is an amazingly complex and creative process. And our senior writer, Michael Winship, a longtime colleague who came to PBS about the time I did, almost 40 years ago. Karen Kimball, my personal majordomo.

Our Executive Producer, Sally Roy, master of myriad details who leads us through each week with a sure hand from beginning to end. And three kindred spirits who have been my companions and compatriots ever since we launched our independent production company in 1986:

Diana Warner, our Comptroller, the still, calm center of the storm.

Judy Doctoroff, who began on the bottom rung soon out of college, became our President and COO, our Executive Producer, the conductor of this journalistic symphony and our friend.

And Judith Davidson Moyers, our CEO and Executive Editor, my long-time Executive Producer and creative partner, our maximum leader and my wife of 56 years.

It's been a productive partnership professionally and personally. To quote, once again, what Charlotte Bronte wrote of her Alfred, "We intended to be married in this way almost from the first. We never meant to be spliced in the humdrum way of other people." And that's the Journal.

Thank you for watching. I'm Bill Moyers. See you around.

 

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04302010/transcript5.html

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Big Oil Fought Off New Safety Rules Before Rig Explosion

by Marcus Baram

As families mourn the 11 workers thrown overboard in the worst oil rig disaster in decades and as the resulting spill continues to spread through the Gulf of Mexico, new questions are being raised about the training of the drill operators and about the oil company's commitment to safety.

Deepwater Horizon, the giant technically-advanced rig which exploded on April 20 and sank two days later, is leaking an estimated 42,000 gallons per day through a pipe about 5,000 feet below the surface. The spill has spread across 1,800 square miles -- an area larger than Rhode Island -- according to satellite images, oozing its way toward the Louisiana coast and posing a threat to wildlife, including a sperm whale spotted in the oil sheen.

The massive $600 million rig, which holds the record for boring the deepest oil and gas well in the world -- at 35,050 feet - had passed three recent federal inspections, the most recent on April 1, since it moved to its current location in January. The cause of the explosion has not been determined.

Yet relatives of workers who are presumed dead claim that the oil behemoth BP and rig owner TransOcean violated "numerous statutes and regulations" issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, according to a lawsuit filed by Natalie Roshto, whose husband Shane, a deck floor hand, was thrown overboard by the force of the explosion and whose body has not yet been located.

Both companies failed to provide a competent crew, failed to properly supervise its employees and failed to provide Rushto with a safe place to work, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The lawsuit also names oil-services giant Halliburton as a defendant, claiming that the company "prior to the explosion, was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and, upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these duties, which was a cause of the explosion."

BP and TransOcean have also aggressively opposed new safety regulations proposed last year by a federal agency that oversees offshore drilling -- which were prompted by a study that found many accidents in the industry.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/27-1

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Massive windspill reported in Southern California.

by Jeff Lieber

I'm-- I'm so sorry if this is disjointed (WHOOOSH) or confusing (WHOOSH), but-- I find myself the middle of a disaster of unprecedented proportions (WHOOOSH) and -- oh the humanity -- I'm having a hard time understanding how we progressives (WHOOOSH) (WHOOOSH) could ever let this happen!?

You see, I live in Southern California... just north of the Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm... and this morning a gang of lipstick lesbians lost control of their motorcycles and CRASHED into one of the turbines and now...

THERE IS (WHOOOSH) FUCKING WIND (WHOOOSH) EVERYWHERE!!!!

There's wind on the ground and over the water and filling the sky in a way God never, ever, intended (WHOOOSH) and -- as it spills out uncontrollably -- blowing at speeds (WHOOOSH) fast enough to lift up cows and houses and allegorical crones on bicycles I'm reminded of the opening scene of the environmental disaster film The Wizard Of Oz. (In fact FEMA is (WHOOOSH) dispatching the Army Corps of Engineers just in case someone gets trapped (WHOOOSH) under a house!)

We got cell phone calls all over the ground... fax transmissions smashed through the windshields of cars... and iPhone data strewn from Sacramento to the Mexican boarder.

How in God's name (TUMBLEWEED BLOWS BY) are we going to breathe with all this air in the air?

How are we (AUTOMOBILE BLOWS BY) going to clean it up?

How are animals going to survive when their natural habitat has been contaminated by all this 02?!

(THIS BEING SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA... FREE-RANGE BREAST IMPLANT BLOWS BY!)

And the State has been REALLY slow to respond.

YES, there are now kites in the air. And YES the WSA (Weathervain Society of America) is rushing to the site with all the farm fowl inspired roof art that they have in their arsenal. But why Governor Schwarzenegger hasn't dispatched the hot air balloons... NOBODY KNOWS.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/5/2/862447/-Massive-windspill-reported-in-Southern-California

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Nothing will go wrong

http://davies.lohudblogs.com/2010/05/02/under-control/

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Financial Reform Proposals

 

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"Criminal and Civil Charges" possible for NY Fed

By Michael Collins

Prosecuting those who caused the financial crisis would lead to the next logical step: confiscating all the ill gotten gains and returning them to the people. The market went down and the people lost a bundle. The market is now back up and those losses are still in place. But guess who made a bundle on the fluctuation? This must be corrected.

Neal Barofsky dropped a bombshell in an interview with Richard Teitelbaum of Bloomberg.com yesterday. He indicated that individuals at the New York Federal Reserve Bank may be liable for criminal or civil charges. Barofsky is the Special Inspector General of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (SIGTARP).

Barofsky says the question of whether the New York Fed engaged in a coverup will result in some sort of action.

"We're either going to have criminal or civil charges against individuals or we're going to have a report," Barofsky says. "This is too important for us not to share our findings."

In a statement, the New York Fed said: "Allegations that the New York Fed engaged in a coverup of its intervention in AIG are not true. The New York Fed has fully cooperated with the Special Inspector General."

He (Barofsky) won't say whether the investigation is targeting Geithner personally.

There's a double hedge here, of course. There may just be a "report" and Geithner may or may not be a target. That's far from comforting for the Secretary of the Treasury.

Barofsky was more specific about insider trading by bankers aware of TARP awards prior to public disclosure of the largess.

Barofsky ... says he's also looking into possible insider trading connected to TARP. He says his agency would want to know if bankers bought stock in their companies before it was made public that their institutions would get TARP money, for example.

"There was a time when, if you got that word the stock price would go up, and if you were to trade on that information prior to the public announcement, that would be classic insider trading," Barofsky says.

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2010/04/29/criminal-and-civil-charges-possible-for-

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March On Wall Street: Unions Grab The Bull By The Horn

 

by Sam Stein

Thousands of people marched on Wall Street on Thursday afternoon in a major protest of financial sector greed and lending practices by big banks.

Taking to the streets of downtown Manhattan, an expected gathering of 10,000 AFL-CIO union members shouted and jeered at the offices surrounding them, demanding three major changes to Wall Street culture. The first is to call off the lobbyists fighting regulatory reform. The second is to stop the incessant focus on market speculation over business lending. The third is to chip in money for job creation initiatives.

"Our history and our heritage teach us that America is about more than making easy money and looking out for number one. Our lives and our livelihoods are all bound together. And we are all paying the price for those who knew no limits on their greed," AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was to say, according to advance remarks. "Eight and a half million lost jobs -- that's the price of greed -- that's the real cost of bankers' bonuses and private jets and cute tricks like the one that got Goldman Sachs in trouble last week."

The remarks were far more condemning in tone than those offered by President Obama last week during a speech at Cooper Union, in which he urged financial industry titans to join him in passing reform. But the underlying message was largely the same: the mess made by Wall Street still needs cleaning.

The rally, one of the largest in recent memory to take place at the epicenter of the financial world, was timed to begin at 4:00 p.m. on the dot, the same hour when the trading bells close. Dozens of individual unions were expected to be in attendance, with a slow march planned down a six-block route followed by Trumka's speech at the iconic bull at the corner of Wall Street and Broad.

"He's going to grab the bull by the horns, figuratively speaking," said AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/29/march-on-wall-street-unio_n_557400.html

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Three-year-old boy arrested as suspected terrorist in France

By Peter Allen

A three-year-old was arrested as a suspected terrorist and held at a French police station for more than two hours, it emerged today.

The child – identified only as Daniel – is the son of an illegal immigrant from the Paris suburb of Juvisy.

Last Thursday the pair were arrested as they returned to their car after visiting a leisure centre.

Police officer claimed they were carrying out routine vehicle checks before arrested both father and son.

They were taken to Juvisy Police Station where, after 20 minutes, they were split up.

The father, who is from a North African background, was questioned about links to radical groups possibly linked to Islamic terrorism. Both he and Daniel were formally placed under investigation.

Daniel's mother then arrived at the station and Daniel was finally released after two hours,  but local social services said he was in a 'severely traumatised state after his ordeal.'

A spokesman said: 'He can't sleep and he's crying constantly. He's a terrified little boy. The whole thing has been an absolute nightmare for him.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1269703/Three-year-old-boy-arrested-suspected-terrorist-France.html#ixzz0mbHJkygf

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Do not burn the oil on the sea in the Gulf of Mexico. Do not drill other wells into the existing B P well.

By Chris Landau

Do not burn the oil on the sea. Do not drill other wells into the existing BP well in the Gulf of Mexico.

These actions will burn people, boats and property. Wind gusts will blow the flames out of control. The heat from the flames will create their own winds. This is just making a bad situation worse. Is there nobody handling this situation that is thinking of the consequences of their actions?

Do not drill more directional wells into this well. It will blow out the formation, loosen the casing and create a permanent ocean floor leak.

But of course, nobody will listen. Everybody wants action without thought.

As everybody is going to be sued in this case, they are protecting themselves when the questions get asked in a year at the hearings. "Why did you not do this or do that?" I wonder if they will ask the question "Was that a rational strategy?"The idea is not to look busy, but be effective and to have a well thought out plan. Does anybody have a logical step by step plan?

Seal the spurting casing first. Clamp larger bi-sectional pipes over the existing casing. Anchor these firmly to the existing casing. Build the new casing in sections until the casing end is reached. Bring the casing to the surface. Extend it. Anchor the casing firmly. Pipe the gushing oil into oil tankers and let it flow until the pressure in the rock formations abates in a few months.

Do not allow oil drilling in the 3000 mile fault zone off Los Angeles and Santa Barbara.

Shut down all wells immediately to avert another environmental disaster. Earthquakes, tsunamis and oil wells do not go well together. Somebody needs to start thinking about the illogical dangerous oil pumping in force off coastal Southern California. If not for the environment, stop the oil pumping and future drilling to save peoples lives. Triggering an earthquake and tsunami will kill thousands.

Chris Landau (geologist)

April 28 2010

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Do-not-burn-the-oil-on-the-by-Chris-Landau-100428-299.html

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Do not burn the oil. Do not drill directional wells. Stop pumping oil out of the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles fault zone.

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Ten Animals Most at Risk From Gulf Oil Spill

Sea turtles, oysters and shorebirds are all in danger from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

By Julia Kumari Drapkin

Buenos Aires, Argentina — Oil is spreading across the Gulf of Mexico — the result of the sinking of an oil rig last week. A spill of this magnitude so close to the wetlands, estuaries and national fisheries of south Louisiana is unprecedented.

Though it's unclear how badly wildlife along the Gulf Coast will suffer, the timing of the spill couldn't be worse. This is peak spawning and nesting season for many species of fish, birds, turtles and marine mammals. Many species remain in set breeding areas during this time and there's less instinct to move away from danger.

Disturbances to nests, fish spawning grounds or key links in the food chain might have lasting effects on species already at risk, commercial fish stocks and the people who make a living harvesting them. Minor oil spills are relatively common on the Gulf Coast, but this one has biologists, wildlife agencies, conservation groups and fishermen particularly concerned.

Here's a selection of animals at risk in the open water, along the coasts and in the wetlands.

1. North Atlantic Bluefin Tuna

The Great Bluefin Tuna, prized for sushi and sashimi, is one of the species most in danger of slipping into extinction. Traveling down across the Atlantic seaboard, bluefin tuna spawn in the Gulf of Mexico between mid-April and mid-June.

2. Sea Turtles

Five of the world's seven sea turtle species live, migrate and breed in the Gulf region. Kemp's ridley is the world's most endangered species of sea turtle, and one of its two primary migration routes runs south of Mississippi. Loggerhead turtles, also endangered, feed in the warmwaters in the Gulf between May and October.

3. Sharks

Shark species worldwide are in decline. The grassbeds south of the Chandeleur Islands are very close to the oil spill. These grasses are a known nursing area for a number of shark species, which are now beginning their spawning season in the Gulf. Whale sharks, the world's largest fish, feed on plankton at the surface of the water and could also be affected.

4. Marine Mammals — Whales, Porpoises, Dolphins

Oil spills pose an immediate threat to marine mammals, which need to surface and breathe. Not only does the oil pose a threat, but also the nasty toxins that the oil kicks off into the air. A resident pod of sperm whales in the spill area could be at risk along with piggy sperm whales, porpoises and dolphins.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/the-americas/100428/oil-spills-endangered-species

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Previously 'Dead' al-Qaeda Leader Back to Pupa Stage

By Lori Price

 

Well, he's back again from the grave - to live to fight another day --or, at least live to be re-killed again when Obama needs more troops and killer drones to fight in the Af/Pak undeclared war!

'If he is alive, it won't be the first time Mehsud, believed to be in his 20s, has defied reports of his death.' Pakistan Taliban chief said to survive US attack 29 Apr 2010 Pakistan and U.S. intelligence wrongly reported the death of the head of the Pakistani Taliban in a CIA drone strike and the brash, ruthless commander is now believed to be alive, Pakistani spies said Thursday in an apparent propaganda coup for the insurgents. The reports that Hakimullah Mehsud survived the January missile attack in an area close to the Afghan border will raise questions about the quality of the intelligence being gathered in the region.

In Washington, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said he had seen "no evidence" that Mehsud "is operational today or is executing or exerting authority over the Pakistan Taliban as he once did." [Right, he's dormant again, so he can be 'killed' when Obusha seeks more funds for US mercenaries and killer drones or to open a military tribunal kangaroo court.]

"So I don't know if that reflects him being alive or dead, but he clearly is not running the Pakistani Taliban anymore," Morrell told reporters. [Yup, the CIA has that job.]

The Taliban had always claimed Mehsud was alive and dismissed the earlier reports of his death as lies. The militant network said it was not going to offer any evidence such as a video recording because doing so could help security forces hunt Mehsud down. But until there is proof he is alive, questions may linger about his fate, given the apparently patchy nature of intelligence in the tribal regions lying sacks of sh*t at the Pentagon]. 

http://www.legitgov.org/Previously-Dead-al-Qaeda-Leader-Back-Pupa-Stage

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Why Pants Are Legal in Kansas

While writing Leviathan, I did a fair amount of research on women who passed as men to serve in the armed forces. I also checked out the laws about women wearing men's clothing, to find out what would happen if Deryn were ever caught in her deception. Armed with this knowledge, I can inform you that this is a very important day . . .

It's the hundredth anniversary of the Explicit Legalization of Pants in Kansas! (Otherwise known as ELPK Day.)

As you can see, the word "Explicit" is very important in Explicit Legalization of Pants in Kansas Day. Pants were already legal for women to wear, after all. But note that last clause: "there was no law prohibiting a woman from wearing men's trousers, especially if she were the head of the house."

In other words, it's legal to dress like a man, but really only acceptable if you're already an honorary man—i.e., a widow and a breadwinner. (Seriously, since when is something especially legal? Either it's legal or it's not, dude.) ELPK Day comes with certain restrictions, it seems.

Research gems like this one are what makes writing historicals so strange and wonderful. Every detail of this article reveals a bit more about the tenor of the times, and about how actions may be strictly legal, and yet still cause a stir.

I mean, clearly this woman wasn't writing the governor of her state for fun, or for fashion advice. Was she getting hassled by her neighbors, or even the local cops, for wearing pants? And note that she wasn't wearing pants for jury duty, say, but to work in her own damn garden.

Even more intriguing, this little story from Kansas gets a mention in the New York Times. So these sorts of conversations about the proper role and place of women must have been happening everywhere. So ELPK Day isn't just in Kansas anymore, it's going national!

Of course, it's easy to laugh at this, and reassuring to think that we no longer live in a world where women have to get legal advice for something so simple as wearing men's clothes, right?

Well, um, wrong.

Because just a few days ago, on almost exactly the 100th anniversary of ELPK Day, a student named Ceara Sturgis has found herself erased from her school yearbook. Why? For wearing a tuxedo in her senior photograph. And when I say erased, it's not just that the school administration wouldn't print the photograph. No, they actually deleted every mentioned of Ceara from the yearbook, even though she's an honor student, the goalie of the soccer team, and plays trumpet in the band.

By the way, she's also a lesbian. So wearing this tuxedo wasn't about flouting some imaginary dress code, but about who she is. That's what clothing means in all these conflicts.

http://scottwesterfeld.com/blog/2010/04/why-pants-are-legal-in-kansas/

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New book about Funnyman, a Jewish superhero from the Golden Age of Comic Books

 

 

 

by Mark Frauenfelder

 

Feral House has a great new book coming out about Funnyman, an unusual and short-lived comic book series created by Superman's Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Funnyman was a clown-like superhero who used gags, pranks and Yiddishisms to defeat his humor-deficient enemies. He was a dead ringer for Danny Kaye, one of my favorite comedians. The comic book was a total flop. It ran for six issues and went out of business. Siegel and Shuster tried to keep it going as a newspaper strip, but gave up after a year. The team never worked together again. (Joe Shuster went on to illustrate seedy little bondage booklets, barely scratching out a living. You can read all about it in Craig Yoe's book, Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster.)

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/29/new-book-about-funny.html

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Graveyard of Past Deadlines

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