Save-A-Lot has quietly become one of the nation's most successful grocery chains by courting a demographic supermarkets have long ignored: the poor. The Earth City, Mo., chain is blanketing the country with tiny, cheap stores catering to households earning less than $35,000 a year, generating higher profits than most grocers while doing so.
Save-A-Lot is one of an emerging breed of no-frills supermarkets known as "hard discounters" who are changing the way Americans buy cheap goods and increasing pressure on branded food makers to keep prices low. Their growth illustrates how food retail, like other consumer industries, is splitting away from the middle. Save-A-Lot and the upscale Whole Foods Market Inc. are thriving, while Kroger and other traditional chains flounder in what some economists call an hourglass economy.
There is less of a spectrum and more of a dichotomy of economic classes in America now.
This, when referring to things like retirement assets or healthcare, is what Bush Republicans mean when they say "choice."
Eric Dillon, a money manager from Seattle, flew east on Aug. 16 and took a limousine to the Stamford, Conn., offices of Bayou Management LLC. The hedge-fund firm had abruptly said three weeks earlier it was shutting down its funds, but investors hadn't yet gotten their money back. Mr. Dillon had an appointment to discuss the matter with Bayou's chief financial officer, Daniel Marino.
No one responded to Mr. Dillon's persistent knocking on the entrance to Bayou's offices in a cream-colored cottage on the Connecticut waterfront, so he entered through an open back door, say the local police. On Mr. Marino's desk, he found a typed six-page letter that began, "This is my suicide note and confession," says Stamford Police Sgt. Gary Perna, who responded to Mr. Dillon's subsequent 911 call.
The letter asserted that Mr. Marino, along with Bayou founder Samuel Israel III and a former partner named James Marquez, had "defrauded all these investors" from "about 1998 to now," Sgt. Perna adds.
[...]
Mr. Marino's letter is now a key exhibit in a widening probe by federal and Connecticut law-enforcement agencies of what investigators believe may be a fraud involving hundreds of millions of dollars. Bayou claimed it had $440 million in assets earlier this year, and at one point last year put the figure at more than $500 million.
Bayou is the latest of several hedge-fund traumas in the past year that have prompted fraud investigations. While the industry doesn't appear to be rife with such problems, Bayou underscores the risks associated with these funds, after years of explosive growth in this loosely regulated corner of the investment industry. Wealthy individuals and institutions, lured by the promise of outsize returns, have flooded into the private partnerships. More than 8,000 hedge funds now oversee an estimated $1 trillion, more than double the number of funds and the sum under management five years ago.
I smell a government bailout in the works.
What's the Republican connection? Fraudmasters Marino and Israel are generous contributors to another master of fraud: George W Bush.
Stewart: The people who say we shouldn't fight in Iraq aren't saying it's our fault. . . That is the conflation that is the most disturbing. . .
Hitch: Don't you hear people saying. . .
Stewart: You hear people saying a lot of stupid [bleep]. . . But there are reasonable disagreements in this country about the way this war has been conducted, that has nothing to do with people believing we should cut and run from the terrorists, or we should show weakness in the face of terrorism, or that we believe that we have in some way brought this upon ourselves. . .
Hitch: [Sputter]
Stewart: They believe that this war is being conducted without transparency, without credibility, and without competence...
Hitch: I'm sorry, sunshine... I just watched you ridicule the president for saying he wouldn't give. . .
Stewart: No, you misunderstood why. . . . That's not why I ridiculed the president. He refuses to answer questions from adults as though we were adults and falls back upon platitudes and phrases and talking points that does a disservice to the goals that he himself shares with the very people needs to convince.
[Audience erupts in applause]
Hitch: You want me to believe you're really secretly on the side of the Bush administration. . .
Stewart: I secretly need to believe he's on my side. He's too important and powerful a man not to be.
Hitch: [Sputter, return to talking about his latest book.]
Stewart's verbal momentum was like a runaway train or, from intellectual midget Hitchens' point of view, a steamroller. I have to admit that, like Stewart's audience, I also spontaneously applauded the "He refuses to answer questions from adults" line — an extemporaneous avalanche of truth that demonstrated why Stewart is the most important person on television.
Otherwise we are in Phase 666 or thereabouts of the Final Descent into American fascism, sort of an anti-Rapture, in which we and the rest of the world (at least the oil-producing regions) are plunged into a global hell of our own making.
Eighteen of the top twenty fattest states are red states... [scroll down a bunch of screens — my html skills are sucking]
% Votes cast
Obesity*
State
Bush
Kerry
1
Mississippi
RED
59.6
39.6
2
Alabama
RED
62.5
36.8
3
West Virginia
RED
56.0
43.3
4
Louisiana
RED
56.7
42.2
5
Tennessee
RED
56.8
42.5
6
Michigan
BLUE
47.6
51.1
6 (tie)
(tie) Texas
RED
61.2
38.3
6 (tie)
(tie) Kentucky
RED
59.9
39.7
9
Indiana
RED
60.1
39.2
10
South Carolina
RED
59.9
38.4
11
Arkansas
RED
54.3
44.5
12
Georgia
RED
58.1
41.4
13
Ohio
RED
51.0
48.5
14
Oklahoma
RED
65.6
34.4
15
Pennsylvania
BLUE
48.6
50.8
16
North Carolina
RED
56.1
43.6
16 (tie)
(tie) Missouri
RED
53.4
46.1
16 (tie)
(tie) North Dakota
RED
62.9
35.5
19
Alaska
RED
61.8
35.0
20
Iowa
RED
50.1
49.2
20 (tie)
(tie) Nebraska
RED
66.1
32.6
22
Kansas
RED
62.2
36.5
22 (tie)
(tie) Illinois
BLUE
44.6
54.8
22 (tie)
(tie) Virginia
RED
54.0
45.3
25
Minnesota
BLUE
47.6
51.1
26
South Dakota
RED
59.9
34.8
27
Delaware
BLUE
45.8
53.3
28
Wisconsin
BLUE
49.4
49.8
29
Washington
BLUE
45.8
52.7
29 (tie)
(tie) Maryland
BLUE
43.3
55.7
31
California
BLUE
44.3
54.6
32
Maine
BLUE
44.6
53.4
32 (tie)
(tie) Nevada
RED
50.5
47.9
34
New York
BLUE
40.5
57.8
35
DC
BLUE
9.3
89.5
36
Oregon
BLUE
47.6
51.5
37
Idaho
RED
68.5
30.4
38
Florida
RED
52.1
47.1
39
New Mexico
RED
50.0
48.9
40
New Jersey
BLUE
46.5
52.7
40 (tie)
(tie) Arizona
RED
54.9
44.5
42
Wyoming
RED
69.0
29.1
43
New Hampshire
BLUE
49.0
50.3
44
Utah
RED
71.1
26.4
45
Montana
RED
59.1
38.6
45 (tie)
(tie) Vermont
BLUE
38.9
59.1
47
Connecticut
BLUE
44.0
54.3
48
Rhose Island
BLUE
38.9
59.5
49
Massachusetts
BLUE
37.0
62.1
50
Colorado
RED
52.0
46.8
(N/A)
(N/A) (Hawaii)
BLUE
45.3
54.0
I'm no statistician, but this looks like a correlation. To be fair, the thinnest state (Colorado) is a red state, but in general I think we can safely say that fat goes with stupid.
...the big Enron trial coming up in January featuring former head honchos Ken Lay, Jeff Skilling and Rick Causey as defendants will draw scads of media attention, and Houston's civic leaders want to make sure the city comes off looking good.
Earlier this month, Houston's image makers from the Greater Houston Partnership, Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau, City Hall and county government met to begin forming a strategy to "tell the other side of the story," according to minutes of the meeting.
Among the suggestions discussed: "covert hospitality" — finding out from hotel managers where reporters are staying and then coaching hotel employees on how to answer their questions.
[...]
...the group doesn't want to get too close to the Enron story.
"We should come up with a name for our working committee that does not mention Enron in the title," according to the minutes.
"Possible names suggested were Houston Media Hospitality Committee and Houston Awareness Committee," the minutes said.
Covert hospitality, aka "spin," won't erase the fact that Houston's best and brightest orchestrated the biggest corporate (and possibly political) debacle in modern American history.
And has anyone noticed the price of gasoline lately? Surely Houston has nothing to do with all of that.
Michael Berg, father of slain businessman Nick Berg, who was beheaded in Iraq in 2004, holds a sign at Rodney square in downtown Wilmington, Del., in support of 'peace mom' Cindy Sheehan on Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005. Sheehan, whose soldier-son was killed in Iraq, has sparked the support of anti-war movements all over the country including a group from Wilmington, since Aug. 6, 2005 when she began a vigil near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas. (AP Photo/The News Journal, Ron Soliman)
Tom Taylor stands at a candlelight vigil supporting Cindy Sheehan, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2005, in Chicago. Hundreds of candlelight vigils calling for an end to the war in Iraq got underway Wednesday in a national effort spurred by Sheehan's anti-war demonstration near President Bush's ranch in Texas. (AP Photo/Brian Kersey)
"It seems strange that many Americans idolize protesters in other countries and ridicule them at home." — Gary Hart
Whenever Jason Berkowitz listens to "You're the Best" on his iPod, he recalls that 1984 summer vacation in Fort Lauderdale and seeing "The Karate Kid" for the first time. ("I thought it was the best song ever . I still kinda do and I don't care what people say," says the 29-year-old.) Whenever he listens to Zero 7's song "Destiny," which he first heard at London's Heathrow Airport four years ago, he thinks about meeting his wife, Bethany.
The thing about the iPod is, it's what you bring to it.
"If a song represents a memory in your head, then you listen to your life's memories -- faster than a mixed CD, definitely faster than a mixed tape -- as you listen to your iPod," says the affable, fast-talking Berkowitz, a project manager for a software company, as he sits in his downtown Washington office.
"It becomes an extension of you," he says. "It's like a window to your soul."
Or the lack thereof.
Never outdone by the Post, the Onion already stuck a sharp pin into this piece of puffery two long years ago: "I have my very own iPod--in my mind. I hear those little things carry up to a month's worth of music. Well, so does my mind. I can call up any song I've ever heard, any time I want. And I never have to load software or charge batteries. There are no firewire cords or docks to mess with. I just put my hands behind my head, lean back, and select a tune from the extensive music-library folder inside my brain."
Social Stupidity. Paul Krugman rightly reminds us that the first half of this year was devoted to Bush's failed attempt to privatize Social Security: "...the campaign for privatization provided an object lesson in how the administration sells its policies: by misrepresenting its goals, lying about the facts and abusing its control of government agencies. These were the same tactics used to sell both tax cuts and the Iraq war."
True enough. But one of the chief reasons why privatization is bad is rarely discussed: "individual investors in aggregate are unambiguously dumb." That's what Social Security does — aggregates individuals' assets, minimizes individual stupidity, and unambiguously provides a measure of social security. Hence the name.
Instead of the diversion of Social Security assets, the Bushies have earned the bragging rights to unambiguous stupidity. The administration itself has therefore become its own worst argument for privatization.
One day a group of Darwinian scientists got together and decided that man had come a long way and no longer needed God. So they picked one Darwinian to go and tell Him that they were done with Him.
The Darwinian walked up to God and said, "God, we've decided that we no longer need you. We're to the point that we can clone people and do many miraculous things, so why don't you just go on and get lost."
God listened very patiently and kindly to the man. After the Darwinian was done talking, God said, "Very well, how about this? Let's say we have a man-making contest." To which the Darwinian happily agreed.
God added, "Now, we're going to do this just like I did back in the old days with Adam."
The Darwinian said, "Sure, no problem" and bent down and grabbed himself a handful of dirt.
God looked at him and said, "No, no, no. You go get your own dirt!!!!"
After the fiscal deficit of the GOP takes these people down, the humor deficit will finish them off. And none too soon — "Aristocrats" they ain't.
A lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force has admitted to vandalizing cars bearing pro-President Bush bumper stickers at Denver International Airport.
Denver police say he's responsible for thousands of dollars in damage to at least 12 cars.
Lt. Col. Alexis Fecteau, 42, of Colorado Springs turned himself in to Denver police Friday.
He is director of reserve operations at the National Security Space Institute in Colorado Springs, in charge of more than 40 full-time and traditional reservists.
In the arrest affidavit, police say that after they conducted a sting operation, Fecteau admitted to damaging several cars.
"It was pretty good police work," said Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson. "You still have a right to express yourself in this country, and you shouldn't have your car vandalized because of it."
Jackson said that in late June, a detective parked a bait car adorned with a Bush-Cheney 2004 bumper sticker in the west economy lot at DIA. On July 1, a security camera recorded a man spray-painting something on the car. The bumper sticker was painted over, and the words "(expletive) Bush" were spray-painted on the side of the car.
While [Powell replacement Kevin] Martin has been quiet, he has long been on record as supporting Powell's policy of fining broadcasters for content the FCC deems to be indecent; even saying that he would like to expand the fining criteria to cover more material. Moving in this direction, as Mediaweek reported today, Martin has hired lobbyist and activist Penny Nance as an advisor to the FCC.
As the magazine's Todd Shields writes, Nance is a long-time anti-pornography activist and has worked as a lobbyist for groups that "push for Christian precepts in public policy."
Until recently a board member of Concerned Women for America, which describes its mission, in part, as "helping ... to bring Biblical principles into all levels of public policy," Nance also worked as a lobbyist for a group called the Center for Reclaiming America. On its Web site, the Center claims that it "focuses on five key fronts of the modern-day culture war: (1) Religious Liberties, (2) the Sanctity of Life, (3) the Homosexual Agenda, (4) Pornography, and (5) Promoting Creationism."
Will the FCC argue for the Intelligent Design of network programming? And what will happen to Will & Grace? And isn't "Promoting Creationism" a contradiction of "Religious Liberties"? These so-called Christians cannot claim to be logicians.
See more at the Todd Shields Mediaweek article cited above.
Second, the project's executive producer. As entertaining as it was, Legally Blonde might not be the most qualifying precedent for a six-hour miniseries about 9/11.
Finally, Disney is now starting to behave like Halliburton. Three thousand dead Americans and they're thinking, "What's in it for ABC? How can we monetize it?" You can hear ABC's head of sales yapping: "Have our account executives get in touch with 3M. We can sell this miniseries like the Super Bowl of duct tape commercials." Meanwhile, the network's production drones are thinking: "Developing a six-hour script is hard. Why bother when the Commission does it for you?" (Note: the official screenwriter's previous credits include The Day Reagan Was Shot, another GOP horror movie.) And the director places a call to Central Casting with the direction, sorry, suggestion: Let's have actual Republican babes play the roles of actual Republican operatives.
ABC's 9/11: It's sort of like reality TV, only more tragic.
UNTITLED 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT PROJECT (ABC) - Harvey Keitel ("Be Cool"), Patricia Heaton ("Everybody Loves Raymond"), Amy Madigan ("Carnivale"), Shaun Toub ("Crash") and Stephen Root ("NewsRadio") are all set to star in the Alphabet's six-hour, $30-$40 million mini-series, which will detail the events of the recent terror attacks against the United States, including those on 9/11, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the U.S.S. Cole and the disrupted millennium attacks. Keitel will play F.B.I. agent (and Al-Qaeda expert) John O'Neill, who died when the first plane hit the World Trade Center on 9/11, with Heaton as Barbara Bodine, the U.S. ambassador to Yemen who clashed with O'Neill; Madigan as a top C.I.A. analyst; Toub as the F.B.I. informant who helped bring down the first WTC attack; and Root as famed White House terrorism guru Richard Clarke.
Production recently began in Toronto* on the project with David L. Cunningham ("To End All Wars") directing from a script by Cyrus Nowrasteh ("Into the West") with Marc Platt executive producing. Serving as advisers to the production are former New Jersey Gov. Tom Keane and former ABC News anchor John Miller. As for specifics about the project, it's understood part one will focus on the 1993 bombing of the WTC; part two on two U.S. embassy bombings, the attack on the U.S.S. Cole and a plot to disrupt millennium celebrations; and part three on the planning for the 9/11 attacks. Platt also has said he isn't aiming for Hollywood-style over dramatization but rather a factual account using the 9/11 Commission Report as the basis. He also confirmed they won't be casting actors for Osama bin Laden, President Clinton or President Bush, choosing rather to use news footage of the trio.
*Filming in Canada — blasphemous, insulting, or ironic? You decide.
Hopefully this production will have at least a nanoparticle of merit, unlike the laughable-if-it-wasn't-tragic propaganda vehicle DC 9/11: Time of Crisis from Showtime.
As Bush's month-long respite from his "hard work," August would be a great time for Comedy Central to dust off the 2001 Trey Parker series That's My Bush.
Now, while you may be resigned to the measly 0.5 percent yield on your savings account, the Carlyle people are aiming higher, much higher, to 25 percent... (WSJ):
The $7.85 billion Carlyle Partners IV [private-equity fund from the Carlyle Group], which closed to new investors in March, raised more money from high-net-worth individuals -- some 23% -- than any of the firm's previous funds.
[...]
Carlyle, for example, told investors it was aiming for a 25% annual return for its Carlyle Partners IV fund...
Twenty-five percent is an outrageously high number these days. It's not as if the cesspool of business stagnation we're living in represents a time of high growth. The American stock markets have been flat for the past five years (as opposed to the 300+ percent increase during Clinton's two terms). How can the Carlyle Group pull off a 25 percent return?
The unsuccessful privatization of Social Security was preceded by the highly successful privatization of the Iraq invasion. The public till is the Bushies' playground, from Junior's stadium experiments with eminent domain to Cheney's no-bid Halliburton contracts. "Private equity" does have a nice ring to it, but unfortunately for the non-high-net-worth individuals among us the Carlyle Group's success is based on policies that remove money from our pockets in the form of cuckoo tax policies and wild-ass invasions of non-threatening countries. The belief of members of this administration is that anything public literally belongs to them.
What does this have to do with Jesus? Not a damn thing. I vaguely remember him mentioning something about "blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." The ownership-society Bushies are vastly more interested in the kingdom of earth, and the wealth that accompanies it — not by saving or investing, but by pirating.
Two Air Force prosecutors quit last year rather than take part in military trials they considered rigged against alleged terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Maj. John Carr, then a captain, and Maj. Robert Preston accused fellow prosecutors of ignoring torture allegations, failing to protect exculpatory evidence and withholding information from superiors. Altogether, the actions "may constitute dereliction of duty, false official statements or other criminal conduct," Maj. Carr wrote in a March 15, 2004, email summarizing his complaints to the then-chief prosecutor, Army Col. Fred Borch.
[...]
In his email to Col. Borch, Maj. Carr describes "an environment of secrecy, deceit and dishonesty" in the prosecution office and suggests that despite lack of evidence, officials initially planned to tie the defendants to the most notorious al Qaeda attacks: the U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa, the USS Cole, and the Sept. 11, 2001, strikes on New York and Washington. Such charges were scaled back, he wrote, after Justice Department officials "appeared less than totally comfortable with our theory."
But Borch is backing down from his initial refutation of Carr and Preston: "Col. Borch distributed the Carr and Preston emails throughout his office on March 15, 2004, with a cover note calling the allegations 'monstrous lies.' The next month, Col. Borch was reassigned to the Army's Judge Advocate General's School in Charlottesville, Va., and later retired from the military. He now is court clerk at the U.S. District Court in Raleigh, N.C. 'I've moved on with my life and don't care to discuss the case any more,' Mr. Borch said."
