MY TV TOLD ME, TWO
I really wasn’t paying attention. As many of you are well aware, when I’m working – writing, that is – a TV is usually burbling somewhere close at hand, and news items enter by osmosis, and are most times, quickly dismissed as half-digested media clutter. I almost dismissed the tale of the mom who mail-ordered her kids Ritalin from Canada and received a whole bunch of Methadone by mistake and the poor little fucker could have died if mother had been so vigilant – but then a worm in my brain turned. "Hold on a minute," the worm snarled, "this is surely bullshit most mendacious. Who orders Methadone from Canada? Methadone needs a triplicate script. A canuck mail-order house would not be handing it. What?" This item surely has to be an under-the-radar, fear-story planted by some black-bag PR for a US pharmaceutical industry running scared from the threat of cheap and government regulated, north-of-the-border drugs to their monstrously obscene profits. The factoid is now in place, and will doubtless be rote-repeated by bought-and-paid-for politicians, and also Debs Norville, or some other talking hairdo. It’s now urban disinformation that will be cited as proof that Canadian drugs can’t be trusted. Which is crap. But that’s how the game is currently played. Another case of blog this, aye? (See yesterday)

CRYPTIQUE – I can get you a deal on some cheap moral fabric.

DON’T FORGET
There’s a bunch of good stuff on Funtopia News (over on the right there.)

The email address is – byron4d@msn.com

QUOTE OF THE DAY
From Nicholas von Hoffman
"The crappiest supermarket bread costs two bucks a loaf. A gallon of milk costs four bucks, and heating oil is already 20 cents a gallon higher than it was last year. The cost of housing is through the roof. Medical services are so famously high it doesn’t bear mentioning. The price of everything is going up, but every month the Bush people say that inflation is "contained," "tamed" and barely moving if you look at the "core" numbers—that is, the inflation number after throwing out the cost of food, fuel, shelter and unessential services such as medical care and education. This is the situation before the election. You can imagine what next year is going to be like after the election, when the Bush people have nothing to worry about and nothing to do for the next four years but grab everything in sight."
Full story – http://www.observer.com/pages/observer.asp

LINK
Ashcroft continues to seek new powers
http://www.aclu.org/NationalSecurity/NationalSecurity.cfm?ID=16491&c=24
[notice how they haven't shown ashfeld, minute rice, rumscroft or any of the other failure czars all year?]

(Many of these links, especially the political ones, come courtesy of – and with comments by – People’s Daily Briefing)