FRESH AIR The cost of war in Iraq reaches far beyond the tab for bullets and bombs, says professor Linda Bilmes, co-author (with Joseph Stiglitz, our guest in the second half of today’s show) of the new book The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict. According to the book, Americans will spend decades treating the physical and psychological wounds of Iraq veterans, and when the economic consequences of the invasion are taken into account, the costs are staggering. Linda Bilmes is a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. An expert on U.S. budgeting […]
WHEN PIGS FLY: Auditors Downsize Inky Circulation
ASSOCIATED PRESS: The Philadelphia Inquirer’s circulation numbers have been reduced after an adjustment by industry auditors. The Audit Bureau of Circulations cut the Inquirer’s posted Sunday circulation by 15,718 to 670,022 for the 12 months ended April 1, 2007. The weekday circulation count was adjusted down by 392 to 341,384. The change enlarges the Inquirer’s Sunday circulation decline from the March 2006 audited report to 5.7 percent, instead of the previous 3.4 percent decline. The weekday circulation decline for the 12 months remained at about 3.6 percent. The 15,718 reduction is unusually large in the newspaper industry, which typically sees […]
NOW HEAR THIS: Military Industrial Complex Announces Hostile Takeover Of Diebold
REUTERS: United Technologies Corp said on Sunday it made a $2.64bn unsolicited bid for Diebold after trying to hold merger talks with the automatic teller machine maker for more than two years. United Technologies, the world’s largest maker of elevators and air conditioners, said Diebold would make an ”excellent fit” due to its ”strong market position, US footprint, and balance between product and service revenues.”The $40 a share cash offer marks a 66 per cent premium to Diebold closing stock price of $24.12 on Friday on the New York Stock Exchange. Based on Diebold’s roughly 66m shares outstanding as of […]
CRITICAL: Fumo Hospitalized After Heart Attack
INQUIRER: State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo (D., Phila.) suffered a heart attack Sunday night, his spokesman Gary Tuma said.Fumo was eating dinner at his Spring Garden home at around 7 p.m. when he began experiencing chest pains and shortness of breath. He traveled by ambulance to Hahnemann University Hospital, where doctors determined he was suffering a heart attack … DEVELOPING … UPDATE: The senator was taken by ambulance to Hahnemann University Hospital, where doctors said he had a myocardial infarction and a blocked right coronary artery. Doctors did an emergency angioplasty and inserted a metal stent to restore normal blood […]
TELECOM IMMUNITY: What Are They So Afraid Of?
[via MOCK, PAPER, SCISSOR] GLENN GREENWALD: In his Press Conference yesterday, Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush candidly explained why he was so eager to have Congress grant amnesty to telecoms: Allowing the lawsuits to proceed could aid our enemies, because the litigation process could lead to the disclosure of information about how we conduct surveillance. The bit about Helping the Enemies is purely false, just standard Bush fear-mongering. Federal courts receive and rule on highly classified information with great regularity without any public “disclosure.” FISA (in 50 USC 1806(f)) specifically provides that secret information can be submitted to the Judge without […]
DJIVAN GASPARYAN: Eshkhemed
WIKIPEDIA: Djivan Gasparyan is an Armenian musician and composer. He plays the duduk, an Armenian double reed woodwind instrument related to the orchestral oboe. Djivan Gasparyan is widely known as the “Master” of Duduk. MORE CNN: Armenian President Robert Kocharian declared a state of emergency Saturday night after a day of clashes between police and protesters, a spokeswoman for the Armenian Foreign Ministry said. The protesters claim last month’s presidential election was rigged. The clashes began when authorities used force to clear Freedom Square of thousands of demonstrators who had camped there for the past 10 days, according to a […]
HIGH ROLLER: Q&A With Mob-Rocker Michael Imperioli, AKA Chris-tuh-fuh From The Sopranos
BY AMY Z. QUINN Life is, in fact, pretty sweet right now for Michael Imperioli. He’s the darkly handsome 41-year-old New York actor best known for playing Italian-American guys who meet untimely-yet-unsurprising ends, like that stutterin’ prick Spider from Goodfellas and everybody’s favorite cousin, Chrissy Moltisanti, on The Sopranos. As an actor, Imperioli has done stage work, TV (everything from Mitch Albom’s For One More Day to “The Simpsons” to “Law & Order”) and movies (including one of my own favorites, Household Saints). He and his wife, Victoria, have two kids; the couple are co-artistic directors of Studio Dante, a […]
JACK NICHOLSON: Hillary Endorsement
Wow, turns out every Jack Nicholson movie going back to China Town contains some thinly-veiled Pro-Hillary meme. And they say truth is stranger than fiction.