a Sunday morning miscellany

CNN: South Dakota hears threats of tourism boycott

PIERRE, South Dakota (AP) -- The superintendent of Mount Rushmore was surprised at first when people from all over the country started calling up to express their opinion about South Dakota's ban on nearly all abortions.
Some callers said they were so upset that they would never visit Mount Rushmore, South Dakota's No. 1 tourist attraction. Others said they were so thrilled that they would make a point of coming to see the chiseled faces of four U.S. presidents in the Black Hills.

Slate:How Much Does It Cost To Buy a Judge in Illinois?


Mark Jurkowitz, Boston Phoenix:
"Attack of the 50 foot Oprah:
Why America’s most powerful celebrity should be more feared than loved"

Mark Schmitt, the Decembrist
who owns bipartisanship?

from Common Dreams(via body n soul):

The United States has tied with Myanmar, the former Burma, for sixth place among countries that are holding the most journalists behind bars, according to a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Each country is jailing five journalists. The United States is holding four Iraqi journalists in detention centers in Iraq and one Sudanese, a cameraman who works for Al Jazeera, at the United States Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. None of the five have been charged with a specific crime.

from Live Science.com: a U of Michigan study says

"Death Less Painful for the Rich"

and,

the recent 1st round of Koufax voting spurred me on to check out various blogs I hadn't heard of before. Many have quaint names, like

Prawfsblawg,
duck of minerva,
and The Terminal Velocity of Sausage.
(makes Hugo Zoom sound positively sober and old-fashioned.)

and, from phronesisaical:
"misery loves company:"

Rumsfeld cashes in on bird flu

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has made more than US$5 million ($7.8 million) from selling shares in the biotech firm behind Tamiflu, the drug being bought to treat a possible bird flu pandemic.

illustration via altweeklies.com