weblog

Economic sadism as TV entertainment - MLive.com
"Hoping to get in on the success of The History Channel hit "Pawn Stars," truTV will debut its new show "Hardcore Pawn" on Aug. 16 at 10 p.m. The show revolves around Les Gold and his Detroit pawn shop American Jewelry and Loan." Sickening.

How Max Headroom predicted the demise of TV journalism back in the 1980's - Wired

99 Weeks Later, Jobless Have Only Desperation - New York Times

Annexing unincorporated areas "for their own good" - LA Times
"The 85-acre unincorporated area of about 1,300 was placed under Huntington Beach's sphere of influence about a year ago by LAFCO in an effort to decrease the number of county "islands" — the generally small, unincorporated areas that were hard to serve, such as Sunset and nearby Rossmoor."

weblog

A love note from Colton Harris-Moore - Backwoods Home (Claire Woolfe)
Toronto big-shots expressing doubts about hosting the G-20 summit - New Geography
As well they should. Local politicos and their kindred ilk at the chamber of commerce always tout the financial benefits of hosting such events but as with sporting events, political conventions and other special events they nearly always end up costing the host cities and their citizens way more than they bring in. And the G-20? Better have your riot police primed and ready and alert your hospitals and jails to prepare for an extra duty.
The very lucrative poverty industry - NPR's Fresh Air (Terry Gross) podcast
Pay-Day loans, rent-to-own, tax refund loans, pawnshops and other business entities that thrive from making high interest loans to the working poor.
Ex-Hacker turns in military intelligence analyst for releasing classified data to Wikileaks - Wired
Southern California sports team's revenue way down - LA Times
The masses tiring of bread & circuses? That and they're broke.
The Remington 11-87 shotgun - Remington.com/
A little faster and easier to shoot than pumps, IMHO.