:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Thursday, December 11, 2003 ::

SacTicket // Music // Sales explosion: "The F-Bombs' first CD, a three-song maxi-single, is a hot seller at two Sacramento Towers Records outlets, the Beat and Dimple Records."

:: Jim Nichols 12/11/2003 07:20:00 AM [+] ::
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Yahoo! News - Diana Krall Marries Elvis Costello: "Jazz singer Diana Krall (news) has tied the knot with her beau of one year, Elvis Costello (news), in a wedding in England, Costello's public relations firm confirmed Wednesday. "

:: Jim Nichols 12/10/2003 01:31:00 PM [+] ::
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"Many people seem to accept passively the fact that over the past 20 years they have sunk to some of the lowest wages and longest working hours in the industrial world, with fewest benefits, and household debt that is out of sight in part because of conditions of life, in part of the mad-dog consumerism that is driven into people's heads from infancy by a most remarkable propaganda system." --Noam Chomsky

:: Jim Nichols 12/10/2003 07:00:00 AM [+] ::
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"Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and
campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other."
-- Oscar Ameringer

:: Jim Nichols 12/10/2003 06:41:00 AM [+] ::
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"Shocking" doesn't register for me anymore:

"The WSJ notes that President Bush is stepping back from his pledge of lots of foreign aid to fight AIDS and poverty. According to the Journal, the White House is budgeting $2.5 billion next year for the Millennium Challenge Account, an initiative to reward good governance abroad. That's about half what the president promised."

:: Jim Nichols 12/10/2003 06:27:00 AM [+] ::
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Let the good times flow....

High Payments to Halliburton for Fuel in Iraq: "The United States government is paying the Halliburton Company an average of $2.64 a gallon to import gasoline and other fuel to Iraq from Kuwait, more than twice what others are paying to truck in Kuwaiti fuel, government documents show."

"'I have never seen anything like this in my life,' said Phil Verleger, a California oil economist and the president of the consulting firm PK Verleger LLC. 'That's a monopoly premium — that's the only term to describe it. Every logistical firm or oil subsidiary in the United States and Europe would salivate to have that sort of contract.'"

:: Jim Nichols 12/10/2003 06:21:00 AM [+] ::
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Its nice to pass these things on to all those terminator voters... told you so...

Schwarzenegger Retreats on Key Campaign Vows: "Retreating from two central campaign promises that helped make him governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday dropped his personal 'guarantee' that cities and counties would be compensated for billions in lost car-tax revenue and reversed his pledge to safeguard spending for public schools."

:: Jim Nichols 12/10/2003 05:52:00 AM [+] ::
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California Insider - Money for nothin...: "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger might have postponed his Sacramento fundraiser Monday night, but he's having no trouble at all bringing in money from the special interests -- er, individuals and businesses who support his political goals. Schwarzenegger on Monday reported receiving more than $750,000 in contributions to his political committee in the past couple of weeks. The money comes from all the usual sectors -- alcohol, finance, real estate, insurance, etc., including many of the same interests that used to contribute to Gray Davis. "

:: Jim Nichols 12/10/2003 05:25:00 AM [+] ::
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This Man can win Dean in The New Republic Online:

"Where we're at right now in this cycle is that we need somebody to mitigate the power of corporations. Corporations are not bad things. They're neither good nor bad. But the problem is, they're a bad influence on society if they get too much power, because their basic interest is the bottom line. And they forget that human being have--human beings have souls. "

For once I actually believe...

:: Jim Nichols 12/08/2003 04:27:00 AM [+] ::
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The New Republic Online: Manservant: "Bush's extremism does not lie in the purity of his devotion to the teachings of Milton Friedman but rather in the slavishness of his fealty to K Street."

:: Jim Nichols 12/08/2003 03:12:00 AM [+] ::
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