Can anyone out there in Utah spell N-E-P-O-T-I-S-M? a form of C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N?
"The deals [to buy out grazing rights] seemed to suit all concerned, until a group of local officials decided that they were bad for the local economy and a threat to the ancestral tradition of living off the land. The group set out to end this latest, uncharacteristically civil chapter in the fraught history of cattlemen, environmentalists and dueling visions of the West's future."
So let me get this straight, Michael E. Noel, a Republican state representative from southern Utah, is upset that enviornmentalists are buying out ranchers and then not grazing cattle. so he got ranchers to challange the deals.
just so happens "Trevor Stewart, one of the ranchers seeking the Clark Bench allotment, is Mr. Noel's son-in-law. Mr. Noel said he was able to get $50,000 from the state to support Kane County when it joined Mr. Stewart's suit.
So State Rep. Noel got $50,000 in state dollars to buy grazing permits for his son in law?
A Strategy to Restore Western Grasslands Meets With Local Resistance - New York Times: "Michael E. Noel, a former Bureau of Land Management employee who now is a Republican state representative from southern Utah, "

"Hubris writ large"
Culture of corruption, ad nauseum, continued-
this is actually a good article from American Prospect, byTerence Samuel: via h. Kuntz in the WP:
Media Notes Extra: "'While they may seem like disparate and disconnected story lines, the problems facing the White House and the GOP leadership in Congress are the result of the same mindset that got Scanlon and Abramoff in trouble. Republican successes at the ballot box (and Democratic bumbling in response) created not just a sense of validation for the GOP but a sense of entitlement and an urgency to seize the moment.'"

Jeffry Birnbaum, in the WP says that voters are growing tired of the money and politics connection, he says this will not longer be tolerated,
what he forgets is that the republican party has been largely successful in buying its way into the majority.
The republican mantra "business can do it better" has convieniently led to an increase in contracting out, combined with a simultaneous decrease in government contracting officers basically a mathmatical formula predicting an increase in graft and corruption.
"After years in which big-dollar dealings have come to dominate the interaction between lobbyists and lawmakers, both sides are now facing what could be a wave of prosecutions in the courts and an uprising at the ballot box. Extreme examples of the new business-as-usual are no longer tolerated"A Growing Wariness About Money in Politics: "No fewer than seven lawmakers, including a Democrat, have been indicted, have pleaded guilty or are under investigation for improper conduct such as conspiracy, securities fraud and improper campaign donations. Congress's approval ratings have fallen off the table, in some measure because of headlines about these scandals."

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "It's amazing that somebody in Congress that long could be that stupid;If he wanted to make a ton of money, all he needed to do was retire from Congress and become a lobbyist"
AP Wire | 11/29/2005 | Cunningham plea sheds light on extreme case of corruption: "'It's amazing that somebody in Congress that long could be that stupid,' Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College, said of Cunningham. 'If he wanted to make a ton of money, all he needed to do was retire from Congress and become a lobbyist.'"

Culture of Corruption:
U.S. Newswire : Releases : "Cunningham Caught in Culture of Corruption, Says Democratic National Committee": "'Duke Cunningham may be the latest senior Republican member of Congress to lose his way, but sadly he won�t be the last one to fall from grace, and his behavior is a symptom of a greater problem: the culture of corruption that the GOP has made its trademark in Washington and throughout the country,' said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Karen Finney. 'Cunningham is just one more example of a Party that has lost its moral compass and replaced it with a treasure map of personal and special interest gain.'
'Americans want honesty in government and elected officials who fight for them. America can do better. Democrats are committed to restoring honesty and transparency in the Democratic process, and to ensuring that every elected official is held to the highest ethical standards.'
Cunningham�s guilty plea follows former GOP aide and super- lobbyist Michael Scanlon�s plea bargain in a case following another corruption investigation, the indictments of former GOP House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on money laundering charges, the ongoing investigation into GOP Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist�s possibly illegal insider trading, the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney�s Chief of Staff on perjury charges, the ongoing investigation of senior White House officials over the leak of a covert CIA operative�s name in a time of war, and numerous other scandals in GOP-led state governments throughout the country.
------"

Another Bribery Fraud whatever scandal which has been unfolding for a while but which I had not really been following,
But, I mean, rare coins????
wouldn't that raise a few red flags?
Ohio Scandals May Give Democrats a Lift: "COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The scandal began as a curiosity. Tom Noe, a gregarious businessman and Republican Party leader in northwest Ohio, had been entrusted with $50 million in state money to invest in rare coins, with the idea of winning fat returns for the workers' compensation fund.
It seemed an oddity at most, but like a loose thread on a jacket, the more investigators pulled, the more the garment unraveled, revealing members of Ohio's Republican establishment who had been wined, dined and enriched by Noe."

Guilty to Conspiracy: Bribes
Calif. Congressman Admits Taking Bribes: "Rep. Randy 'Duke' Cunningham pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy and tax charges and tearfully resigned from office, admitting he took $2.4 million in bribes to steer defense contracts to co-conspirators."

just a litle link to a piece on the ultimate scam....
For You, Half Price - New York Times: "Since the bridge was completed in 1883, the idea of illegally selling it has become the ultimate example of the power of persuasion. A good salesman could sell it, a great swindler would sell it, and the perfect sucker would fall for the scam.
But this was not just a rhetorical or a fictional conceit. A turn-of-the-century confidence man named George C. Parker actually sold the Brooklyn Bridge more than once. According to Carl Sifakis, who tells his story in 'Hoaxes and Scams: A Compendium of Deceptions, Ruses and Swindles,' Parker - who was also adept at selling the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Statue of Liberty and Grant's Tomb - produced impressive forged documents to prove that he was the bridge's owner, then convinced his buyers that they could make a fortune by controlling access to the roadway. 'Several times,' Mr. Sifakis wrote, 'Parker's victims had to be rousted from the bridge by police when they tried to erect toll barriers.'"
In writing his book "Hustlers and Con Men: An Anecdotal History of the Confidence Man and His Games," Jay Robert Nash interviewed an elderly swindler named Joseph "Yellow Kid" Weil, who said he had known several criminal vendors of the bridge. Mr. Weil, whom Mr. Nash visited in a Chicago nursing home and described as "probably the greatest con man of the 20th century," recalled a swindler named Reed C. Waddell, who worked the bridge swindle in the 1880's and 1890's. Mr. Weil also claimed to know Waddell's successors in that trade, the notorious Charles and Fred Gondorf.

Global fraud and corruption investigation,
The war on fraud - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune: "It's sad just how predictable it was that the reconstruction of Iraq would be marred by fraud, dishonesty and profiteering. Last week Robert Stein Jr. was charged in U.S. federal court with a slew of crimes allegedly committed while he was a financial officer for the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq. The affidavit in the case says that Stein accepted more than $200,000 a month to steer contracts to an American businessman whose companies often did poor work and sometimes did no work at all"

the kind of democracy we are exporting:
Bring Democracy to Congress: "Some of the most powerful words on the budget cuts came from one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress. Rep. Gene Taylor, whose district was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, couldn't believe that cuts in programs for the poor were being justified as necessary to cover the costs of relief for hurricane victims. Taylor's syntax only underscored the emotion he brought to the floor: 'Mr. Speaker, in south Mississippi tonight, the people . . . who are living in two- and three-man igloo tents waiting for Congress to do something, have absolutely got to think this place has lost their minds. The same Congress that voted to give the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans tax breaks every time . . . suddenly after taking care of those who had the most, we have got to hurt the least. . . . Folks, this is insane. . . . This is the cruelest lie of all, that the only way you can help the people who have lost everything is by hurting somebody else.'"

conspiracy tentacles could extend further:
Ex-DeLay Aide Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy: "Abramoff's lobbying network stretched far into the halls of Congress. Documents obtained by The Associated Press show nearly three dozen lawmakers helping to block an American Indian casino in Louisiana while collecting large donations from the lobbyist and his tribal clients"

Scanlon pleads to Consipiracy,
Ex-DeLay Aide Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy: "Michael Scanlon, a former partner to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to bribe public officials, a charge growing out of the government investigation of attempts to defraud Indian tribes and corrupt a member of Congress.
Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle and agreed to pay restitution totaling more than $19 million to the tribes"

Scanlon pleads to Consipiracy,
Ex-DeLay Aide Pleads Guilty in Conspiracy: "Michael Scanlon, a former partner to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, pleaded guilty Monday to conspiring to bribe public officials, a charge growing out of the government investigation of attempts to defraud Indian tribes and corrupt a member of Congress.
Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay, entered the plea before U.S. District Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle and agreed to pay restitution totaling more than $19 million to the tribes"

A Civil War historian in Iraq, an article well worth reading. I have had the same thoughts, but while reading Eric Foner's magesterial "Reconstruction." I was reminded of the flagrant terorism of the early Klan and the solid south.
so is Iraq a civil war?

Why a Historian Based in Iraq Couldn't Help but Draw Parallels to the Civil War: "As a Civil War historian that conflict was inevitably in my mind as a silent reference point in evaluating my experience in Iraq. For example, on my first Routine Daylight Patrol, as our column left Camp Fallujah�s final checkpoint, I stared out the window and was reminded of Petersburg, 1864. The day was cold and wet and the area between the barracks and outer perimeter was a long, depressing stretch of foliage-denuded kill zone. Rows of freshly bulldozed defensive berms might easily pass for trenches or, as they were once called, parallels. Large Hescoe barriers (named after the manufacturer) were filled with soil and stacked to form walls virtually impenetrable to small arms� projectiles; in 1864 these were called gabions, soil-filled straw baskets of about the same size which appear so prominently in photographs of the Petersburg fortifications. "

Garden variety government conspiracy at the justice department:
Once trumpeted as one of the Justice Department's significant triumphs against terrorism, the case targeting the so-called "Detroit sleeper cell"
As hidden evidence spilled out and the Justice Department abandoned the effort, federal investigators began to wonder whether the true conspiracy in the case was perpetrated by the prosecution
Detroit 'Sleeper Cell' Prosecutor Faces Probe: "Now a federal grand jury in Detroit is investigating whether the lead prosecutor, Richard Convertino, or anyone else should be indicted for unfairly tipping the scales.
It is a highly unusual case. No charges have been brought and many details remain secret, but information in public documents and testimony in U.S. District Court in Detroit suggest an effort by federal prosecutors and important witnesses to mislead defense lawyers and deceive the jury. U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen said the government acted 'outside the Constitution.'"

Corruption Alert!
reminds me of the famous creidit mobelier scandal surrounding the construction of the Union Pacific RR, in that it threatens to engulf multiple members of congress.

Corruption Inquiry Threatens to Ensnare Lawmakers - New York Times: "The Justice Department has signaled for the first time in recent weeks that prominent members of Congress could be swept up in the corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff, the former Republican superlobbyist who diverted some of his tens of millions of dollars in fees to provide lavish travel, meals and campaign contributions to the lawmakers whose help he needed most. "

special provision of budget bill allows private purchase of federal land:
Can anyone out there spell T-E-A-P-O-T D-O-M-E?
Bill Authorizes Private Purchase of Federal Land - New York Times: "'They are called mining claims, but you can locate them where there are no minerals,' said John D. Leshy, who was the Interior Department's senior lawyer during the Clinton administration. Mr. Leshy said the legislation 'doesn't have much to do with mining at all. It has to do with real-estate transfer for economic development.'"

More Fraud, More Conspiracy=Corruption
DeLay Ex-Aide to Plead Guilty in Lobby Case - New York Times: "Michael Scanlon, a former top official for Representative Tom DeLay and onetime partner of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has agreed to plead guilty in a deal with federal prosecutors, according to his lawyer. The deal reveals a broadening corruption investigation involving top members of Congress.
Criminal papers filed in federal court outlined a conspiracy that not only named Mr. Scanlon but also mentioned a congressman, identified only as Representative No. 1, as part of the exchange of favors from clients funneled to lobbyists and officials.
This was the first time that a member of Congress, identified by lawyers in the case as Representative Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio, has been implicated in criminal papers as part of the inquiry, which has sprawled from Indian casinos to the lucrative lobbying firms of Mr. Abramoff and Mr. Scanlon and then reached to the Republican leadership. "

Fraud, conspiracy, redux....more and more and more
Refco ex-CEO pleads not guilty - Yahoo! News: "Chief Executive Phillip Bennett pleaded not guilty on Friday to eight counts of conspiracy, fraud and other charges related to an accounting scandal that drove the futures brokerage into bankruptcy.
Bennett, 57, is accused of hiding hundreds of millions of dollars in bad debts from Refco investors as the New York-based company went public in August.
Refco was the largest U.S. independent futures and commodities brokerage before the scandal prompted customers to abandon the firm, forcing Refco to file for bankruptcy last month."

Confidence Men
Why the myth of Republican competence persists,
despite all the evidence to the contrary.
well, as some of you know, tconfidence men and politics is the subject of my pending dissertation. So, now that I am done with exams, I am getting back on topic.
More to come. (I've noticed that there is never any shortage of fraud and corruption stories)
"Confidence Men" by Joshua Micah Marshall: "This unfamiliarity and heightened expectation, matched with the trappings of competence, gave potency to what has turned out to be the Bush administration's signature political tactic: the confidence game. The confidence man is a stock figure in American culture, originating--perhaps not coincidentally--in the boomtowns of the Old Southwest. He's the snake-oil salesman, the wildcat land speculator who mixes boundless optimism with quick talk, bluff, and bluster. The administration is led by such men. "

Todays subject is Fraud. and today's leading fraud story is the "waiting for the toehr shoe to drop" story wheich we have all been anticipating ever since these no bid halliburton contracts were given out.
the official in charge says this is the first, but definitely not the last. Stay tuned.

America, United States, Times Online, The Times, Sunday Times: "A former official with the US governing administration in Iraq and a contractor have been arrested on charges involving a bribery and fraud scheme.


The defendants were identified as Robert Stein, funding officer for the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2003 and 2004, and Philip Bloom, the owner of numerous construction and service companies.
These multimillion-dollar bribery and fraud charges are the first of a dozen similar corruption cases arising from the postwar reconstruction of Iraq, American officials said yesterday. Mr Bloom, who ran three companies competing for contracts, was charged with paying �bribes, kickbacks and gratuities� of at least $200,000 (�116,500) a month to members of the Coalition Provisional Authority and their spouses. "

Conrad Blac's media empire: guess this is why we should not be waiting for the media to straighten these things out.
Haaretz - Israel News - U.S. orders arrest of former Jerusalem Post owner Conrad Black: "Conrad Black, the conservative media mogul who has headed some of the world's largest papers, was charged Thursday with a 51.8-million-dollar fraud.

The indictment alleges that Black used an elaborate money-making scheme to pay for lavish trips to the South Pacific.

At one time, Black's Hollinger International empire included London's Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post and 60 percent of Canada's dailies, prompting comparisons between Black and Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch."

And the long -running case is Conrad Black, and his bublishing group, which has been going on so long I've forgotten the details, which in fact is what usually happens in these cases: its so complicated that few people can follow, and takes so long to play out that most people just forget about it.
Telegraph | News | Conrad Black faces eight counts of fraud: "Conrad Black was charged yesterday with eight counts of fraud after allegedly pocketing millions of pounds of shareholders' money.
The charges were brought after a lengthy investigation by the United States attorney's office and the FBI into Lord Black and the publishing group Hollinger International, the former owner of The Daily Telegraph, of which he was the chief executive until November 2003.

Lord Black faces eight counts of fraud
He and three other former executives of Hollinger International are accused of diverting proceeds from the sale of some of the group's newspapers by disguising them as non-competition payments."

"Wallmart announces plan to install ten commandments monuments in parking lots"
according to michael 'whad'ya know' feldman, unless I mis-heard
God's Pat Problem - Yahoo! News: "The Nation -- It cannot be easy being God these days, what with so many of His self-proclaimed followers launching wars in His name."

"Bald Ego" was the winner in a name-the-jet contest
held by an Anchorage radio station. Runners-up
included "Murky's Turkey" and, in a reference to the
governor's complaints about the lack of a bathroom on
the turboprop, "Incontinental Airlines."
Polls show him to be the nation's second-most-unpopular governor, topped only by Ohio Republican Gov. Robert Taft.

and thanks to Amy for that hot tip.
US News Article | Reuters.com: "Critics have dubbed it 'Bald Ego,' 'Murky's Turkey' and 'Incontinental Airlines,' but Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski finally has the sleek executive jet he says he and other state officials need."

Idiots in charge of the Funny farm, Part Deux

First the Bill O'reilly remark, re San Francisco, and then the
Bill O'Reilly takes aim at San Francisco - Radio - MSNBC.com: "'Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead,' O'Reilly said, according to a transcript and audio posted by liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America, and by the San Francisco Chronicle.
'And if al-Qaida comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead,' O'Reilly continued, referring to the 1933 San Francisco landmark that sits atop Telegraph Hill."

Idiots running the Funny Farm-
so how will they ever again be able to say tha Intelligent Design is not a proxy for good old fashioned christian fundamentalism?

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Televangelist condemns anti-creationism policy: "America's best known televangelist, Pat Robertson, has warned a Pennsylvania town that it could face divine retribution for voting creationists off its education authority.
'I'd like to say to the good citizens of Dover: if there is a disaster in your area, don't turn to God. You just rejected him from your city,' Mr Robertson said on his Christian Broadcasting Network, which claims a daily audience of one million.
Residents ousted conservative Christian members of the local Dover board who had ordered teachers to tell their classes evolution was a questionable theory."

So I was watching Oprah, who is kind of like America’s fairy god-mother- larger than life, I am sure we all would agree- so after she found, remodeled and furnished a home in Chicago for a struggling single mother of ten children- three of her own, seven of her brothers; after Oprah promised to pay for college for all of them, personally; after basketball star Kevin Garnet gave the boys a signed basketball, and followed up with sending Oprah a note which she opened live-on-the-air promising to help her build one house for katrina victims, a month; that is to pay for one house a month for a year; of course Oprah got tears in her eyes, and so did I. I mean think how much she could do for people if she got all of the basketball stars, and all of the football starts too, to do the same.
Well, after all of that, she jumped to the letter she got from the hardworking first grade teacher in a disadvantaged school wishing that her first graders could some day og on a field trip to see the world outside their own impoverished neighborhoods. So of course Oprah treated the whole class to a trip to Disney World.
There they were with Sleeping Beauty and Jimmeny Cricket and of course Mickey Mouse.
And I wondered if they even knew about all of those long ago cartoon characters. But then I though, Mickey Mouse is arguably more real to these kids than, say, the President. I mean, do they think the President is real? For that matter, I thought as they cut to pictures of Oprah having fun on the merry-go-round with the kids, do they think that Oprah is real? Or is she just as real as Mickey Mouse?
What about Walt Disney, was he a real person? Or just a fairy god father of the world of the imagination? Does it matter?
Just thinking about this as I try to write my comprehensive exams on U.S. History, where we are constantly trying to get people to understand what it was really like. Not the pervasive myths about the west, of the gold rush, but what it was really, really, like. But the myths are so pervasive, aren’t they?

So, just thought I would finish with this little piece about myths and realities.


Perpetual student endures dizzying whirl of sudden celebrity
For One Student, a College Career Becomes a Career - New York Times: "The marketing hoopla whipping up around Mr. Lechner, 29, is making it difficult to separate fact from fable about his college career. He has compiled a 2.9 grade-point average and in one semester got straight A's. But in the topsy-turvy logic of the entertainment world, a record of debauchery has become central to his success, and friends say he has taken to exaggerating his Animal House credentials."
National Lampoon is promising to pay his tuition, and the makers of Monster Energy Drink deliver 30 cases a week, along with advertising posters and condoms, to the house where Mr. Lechner lives and parties, in exchange for his endorsement of Monster as "the official energy drink" of his 12th college year.

He has signed with the William Morris Agency, which is marketing a reality television series based on his life at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater. And in recent days he has referred to interviews with The New York Times on his personal Web site, anticipating new publicity from this article.

ad Absurdam: the non-attributable comments thing is getting totally out of hand. courtesy of Michael Hiltzik, the new LAT blogger, via howard kurtz
Going Positive: "'Determined to paint their own fair and balanced portrait of Sam Alito before the nasty Democrats could flash a distorted image of the man before the nation, three Justice Dept. officials briefed Washington reporters about his record on Thursday. Here's a transcript of this curious session:
'The three officials insisted on being identified as 'Senior Department of Justice Official One,' 'Senior Department of Justice Official Two,' and 'Senior Department of Justice Official Three.' One assumes they chose these monikers to preserve their dignity, since they might just as easily have been identified as 'Winken,' 'Blinken,' and 'Nod,' or 'Moe,' 'Larry,' and 'Curly,' or, for that matter, 'Gonzales,' 'Clement,' and 'McCallum.' The two DOJ flacks who managed the session (I assume they were flacks) are identified as 'moderator' and 'staffer.' Interestingly, they insisted that the reporters asking questions identify themselves by name and employer. These IDs show up on the transcript unenshrouded by euphemisms such as 'Senior Washington Correspondent One.'
'The Washington reflex to put everything off the record continues to amaze. Why these officials required anonymity to peddle their anodyne praise for the nominee's sagacity and integrity is anyone's guess. For a flavor of what they said, here's one of the more controversial statements:
'If you read Judge Alito's opinions and there are hundreds of them, they show that he's a mainstream, principled, and very careful, thorough Judge. If you look at his opinions, you'll see in every one a very thorough analysis and a very careful and meticulous application of Supreme Court precedent.
'Now it can be told: This was uttered by Senior Department of Justice Offici"

Torture Shaming Us All is what Richard Cohen titles this piece, and it perfectly expresses my dismay that we even have to have this discussion. I am appalled and disgusted. But it reminds me of how many years we (as america) ran the school for the americas which trained latin america torturers. America should stand for fairness and respect for human dignity, and torture should never be condoned, ever. under any circumstances.

Torture, Shaming Us All: "Now, though, we are witnessing a debate in Washington that any American at one time would have thought impossible: whether to allow 'cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment of persons under custody or control of the United States government.' The words are taken from the amendment introduced by Sen. John McCain, which would prohibit such practices. It has passed twice, the first time by 90 to 9, the second by a voice vote. It has the support of a former POW, McCain; a former Navy secretary, John Warner; a Reserve military judge, Lindsey Graham -- and, outside the Senate, former military men such as Colin Powell. Nonetheless, the administration vows a veto"

Its about Junk, stuff. Excess.
I was just thinking about stuff when I took a little breeze through the Factory-2-you store here. is paying substandard wages to children in indonesia to produce cheap t-shirts so people who get paid minimum wage can afford to have too much junk too really the route to nirvana for the planet?
Mark Morford has a great way with words. read the whole article.
Why Do You Have So Much Junk? / Oh yes you do. And there are TV shows to prove it. Question is, what are you gonna do about it?: "You have way too much crap.
I'm just guessing. Guessing that right now, in your life, in your closets and in your garage and in your car trunk and in your brain and even in your desk drawer you have way, way too much stuff, far more than any one person or single family needs and, oh my God, have you even seen your closet lately?
Have you seen that riot of old towels and curtain rods and board games you haven't looked at in three years? The old guitar and five pairs of mangy boots and a pile of old T-shirts and two disposable Epson printers and a teetering stack of empty Amazon boxes and four dumbbells and ancient college papers and a power drill and a bunch of old coats and classic porn VHS tapes and an underused Mesa Boogie guitar amp and assorted wrapping paper collected since the Clinton administration? Oh wait, maybe that's my closet. "

Nontycoon?
did anyone notice the word in the Corzine-Ferrar article, below?
what does it mean? googling, this is what i found, a (critical) review of WPost's David Hoffman's book about Russian Oligarchs. and its a great review, too,
so, is there a big connection here. Perhaps.

might be because Hoffman is the only American male to have visited Moscow in the 1990s and escaped without personal knowledge of the term. Whatever the explanation, it seems clear that Hoffman is not the kind of person one would normally consider an authority on the nontycoon Russian experience."


The Oligarchs purports to tell the story of the rise of these men. It is an exhaustive book, impressive in scope, that contains extensive interviews with all of the key figures. But it misses because Hoffman does not know what it is like to sleep in a street kiosk during a Leningrad winter, nor does he particularly care to know; he writes like a man trying to describe the dark side of King George from a trundle bed in a guest room of Windsor palace.

Not that this is surprising. In his tenure as a reporter in Moscow, Hoffman was notorious for being an unapologetic ideologue, the hardest of hard-core cold warriors. The basic structure of a David Hoffman article was generally to lead with a gloomy flashback to some grim Soviet-era scene and then go on to describe how, with the help of American aid, the courageous leadership of the democrat Boris Yeltsin and the heroic efforts of Western-minded reform economists like Chubais, things had since changed spectacularly for the better. In other words, lead off with a picture of a groaning, overweight housewife at the end of a long line to buy shoes that don't fit, and close with a shot of an apple-cheeked cashier at Pizza Hut using her salary to buy Nikes. That was Russia Reporting 101 during the 1990s, and no one was better at it or more devoted to its practice than David Hoffman

eXile - Issue #143 - Press Review - Grabitization (Don't Look) - By Matt Taibbi: "This

the age of the gilded candidates- can politics sink any lower? you decide.
N.J. Governor's Race Gets Personal: "This has been the season for plutocratic politics in the New York metroplex.
Corzine is worth hundreds of millions of dollars from his days at the investment house Goldman Sachs Group Inc. Forrester is worth dozens of millions of dollars from his days as a king of prescription drug plans.
Across the Hudson River, billionaire Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (R) has run the most expensive non-presidential race in U.S. history, having so far spent $80 million of his media fortune in his re-election bid. It has been money well spent: He leads nontycoon Fernando Ferrer, the Democratic candidate, by about 30 points in recent polls."

Looking at Poverty- the historical perspective.
History News Network: "Alexander Keyssar: Why We Shouldn't Be Surprised that Katrina Poverty Hasn't Sparked Reform"