Update 4 (May 27):

The more I research this, the more it seems there were some pretty vicious racially targeted killings, but they seem to have been directed not only at Indians, but at other groups – Chinese, for example:

“Killer was out “curry bashing” Ended up attacking, killing Dr Zhongjun Cao Judge says attack was “for pleasure”

A MAN who kicked a gentle university researcher to death for fun while out “curry bashing” to get a new mobile phone has been jailed.

Ringleader John Caratozzolo laughed after inflicting a vicious kick to the head of his prone and dying victim, Dr Zhongjun Cao. Continue reading →

And you thought it was the job of TSA to keep you from feeling insecure. Turns out it’s your job to make the TSA feel secure. To make sure, they’re issuing their personnel uniforms with “police-style badges.”

I suggest that next time you fly, you consider wearing a uniform with one of those “police-style” badges.

Isn’t there something in the law somewhere about impersonating an officer? Continue reading →

Rick Ackerman thinks the fault does indeed lie with the stars:

“We peruse the Wall Street Journal’s stock-market round-up each day not to find out why stocks may have risen or fallen, but to determine what factors are conventionally thought to have caused such price movements to occur. Continue reading →

Update:

A poster’s comment suggests that I might have been uncritical in accepting this report at face value. Here’s some background:

“Perhaps the most severe competition in our government today is between the Special Forces in the DOD and the CIA over who runs clandestine operations” – Chalmers Johnson, in Counterpunch, May 6, 2010 Continue reading →

Useful tip on how self-made millionaires got that way, by Kristyn Kusek Lewis

Note:  ‘Spend, spend, spend’ is not on the list. Nor is ‘they’ve got one’

Nor is ‘more is more‘;  Nor is “I’m worth it‘….

Continue reading →

Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings and blood of their ancestors; and capable, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence…Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.”

—Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution

[Note: I’m not in favor of artificial stimulus of the economy or creation of credit based on this found money. My suggestion would be that if this money exists as a surplus, then it must be returned to the taxpayer, who can then choose to spend it as he or she wishes. That would provide the appropriate level of consumption or production, not any arbitrary make-work program. Continue reading →

Douglas Valentine reviews “Gold Warriors,” Peggy and Sterling Seagrave’s account of  how gold looted from Asia by Japan was used to fund crime and covert operations by the US and its satraps:

“Gold Warriors is more than a book about Japan’s “serious, sober and deliberate” plundering of Asia’s treasure from 1895 until 1945, and its collusion after the war with American officials to recover and use the loot as a secret political action slush fund to promote right wing regimes: Gold Warriors:America’s Secret Recovery of Yamashita’s Gold is a journey into the darkest recesses of history and the human soul. Continue reading →

“I got a simple rule about everybody. If you don’t treat me right – then shame on you!”

— Louis Armstrong