SharedThought

From Huffington Post:

Yet the creeping truth must frighten them late at night: there is no currency left to buy the big lies.

There is no more money left to loan or borrow the big lies or to sell them. No more money left to pay off the debt, the wreckage in the wake. The orgy of excess has drained every bottle, smashed the furniture and left the cupboards bare. All that\'s left is derivative debts — bets between liars and lies. Trillions of dollars. Turned capitalism into a Ponzi scheme for trading worthless paper. No real value anywhere. No matter how much money Ben Bernanke prints.

Here’s a great cartoon from the Globe and Mail by Graham Roumieu. Via Boing Boing.

Roger Ebert comes through with a money quote:

Movies are an empathy machine, drawing us into other lives, allowing us to identify with those of other races, genders, occupations, religions, income levels or times in history. Good films enlarge us, and are a civilizing medium. Bad films narrow us. No films at all impoverishes us.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times, September 10, 2008.

David Pogue’s review of the new iPhone due to be released on Friday is out. This is probably the best overview of the phone’s new features I’ve seen in a review. Pogue’s favorite new features are the iPhone 2.0 firmware/software/OS upgrade and the AppStore. Both of these features are available to existing iPhone users.

Disappointingly, Pogue says the iPhone’s GPS is too weak to support a turn by turn application. Bloggers have noted that the terms of service of the iPhone SDK prohibit development of such an application, so perhaps the underpowered nature of the GPS device itself explains this prohibition. I hope that the GPS device is powerful enough to support an application like Nike+. I am hoping for an upgrade to the Nike+ service that would allow the iPhone to use the built in GPS in place of the existing shoe chip and iPod nano system it currently uses.

The LA Times is reporting that Vice-President Cheney’s office pressured EPA officials to alter their testimony related to the impacts of global warming. The upshot appears to be that states will use Cheney’s interference as proof that EPA’s relaxed emissions standards should be set aside, and that states should be allowed to impose more stringent emissions limits for themselves.

Here is a very cool implementation of Google’s street view. Look for the yellow line in the picture below. You might have to use the controls to pan the image a little, but once you see the yellow line you can click on it to follow the individual stages of the race. You can find and follow the other stages of the 2008 Tour de France course using Google’s street view site devoted to the race.

View Larger Map

Consortium News reports that the Reagan administration carried out a domestic propaganda campaign supported by the NSC and the CIA. It was uncovered by a congressional committee investigating the Reagan era covert operation, but not revealed as part of a compromise to get Republican votes for the committee’s final report.

Back when the September 11, 2001 attacks were still fresh in the public’s conscience, President Bush stated publicly that Osama bin Laden was public enemy number one and that he was wanted “dead or alive.” According to a New York Times article published Monday, the Pentagon has been facing resistance from other agencies in Washington, including the White House, in its efforts to put together a Special Forces unit to target areas in Pakistan where bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders are suspected of hiding. Pathetic.