Bodhi would be pleased, but not too pleased, for this ain't the 100-year Storm
Investigators looking into corruption involving reconstruction in Iraq say they have opened more than 50 new cases in six months by scrutinizing large cash transactions — involving banks, land deals, loan payments, casinos and even plastic surgery — made by some of the Americans involved in the nearly $150 billion program.
Some of the cases involve people who are suspected of having mailed tens of thousands of dollars to themselves from Iraq, or of having stuffed the money into duffel bags and suitcases when leaving the country, the federal investigators said. In other cases, millions of dollars were moved through wire transfers. Suspects then used cash to buy BMWs, Humvees and expensive jewelry, or to pay off enormous casino debts.
Good, because school’s are for learnin’, not tailoring for tests:
By announcing that he would send his education blueprint to Congress on Monday, President Obama returned to a campaign promise to repair the sprawling federal law, which affects each of the nation’s nearly 100,000 public schools. His plan strikes a careful balance, retaining some key features of the Bush-era law, including its requirement for annual reading and math tests, while proposing far-reaching changes.
Hang Ten to the Tenth:
An international group in their early 20s, they were raised on films of free surfers, who perform radical maneuvers at prime locations without the pressure of scoring.
They have begun vaulting barriers between free surfing and contest surfing.
“That’s the future of surfing,” said Kelly Slater, 38, a nine-time world champion from Cocoa Beach, Fla. “It’s really in the air. The deepest barrels that are ever going to be ridden have already happened. Probably the best carving that’s ever going to be done is being done now or it’s been done.”
They love Landon, they really love Landon:
Sighs abound because the dreamboat tourist must go home to California by Monday. The air brims with remarks like “Don’t want him to go” and “If we could get him here permanently” and “I can’t picture him out of the team, to be honest.” Around a stadium tucked snugly into narrow roads of row houses and pubs and fish-and-chips stands, it is trendy to root openly for a distant workers’ strike on the faint hope that it could enable his return.
He thinks that $300 trash-pickup fee is just property-tax-monte (Kind of saw this one coming, didn’t’I?):
The “Keep Philadelphia Clean Initiative,” a $300 mandatory user fee to have your trash picked up, is a backdoor property-tax increase. The “Healthy Philadelphia Initiative,” a tax on sugary beverages, is a front-door sales-tax increase. A better name for them might be the “Tax and Spend Initiatives,” because that is what they are.
Hey Inky, forgetting about the separation of church and state, are we?
As to the message – this is what [State Insurance Commissioner Joel] Ario would like to convey and does every time he gets a chance, even holding sessions in his church in Hershey:
For health reform to work, Ario preaches, everyone must buy insurance, the government must help those who can’t afford it, and insurance companies must end their most egregious practices.
And to make it all happen, individuals and small businesses who are buying insurance need to have access to the same kinds of buying pools that allow risk to be spread over a bigger group, the way large companies do.
Over.
And out.
But won’t be posting this next Sunday as I’ll be out of town.