Today’s photo of the day shows an old-school hip hop star. Can you name that rapper?

Today’s video of the day is one of my favorite R&B jams of the ’90s… Enjoy!

In these weird times of privatization fever, selling off bridges, toll roads and airports is no longer considered preposterous — for the billionaires who can afford them it’s good business.

Wait, There Actually Is a Bridge in Brooklyn You Can Sell Me?
By Jim Hightower 

Will Rogers sometimes tucked little moral messages into his one-liners. For example: “I’d rather be the man who bought the Brooklyn Bridge than the one who sold it.”

The gullibility of anyone who thinks it’s possible to buy the Brooklyn Bridge is an old punch line, but today the joke is on us. In these weird times of privatization fever, buying bridges is no longer considered preposterous, and old Will would be appalled by the crass morals of both the sellers and the buyers in these increasingly common transactions.

The Brooklyn span has yet to be sold off, but similar public assets all across the country have been, and many more are up for grabs — an estimated $100 billion worth of highways, bridges, airports, and other public properties could be transferred into corporate hands in just the next two years. Among those already gone or actively being considered for privatization are Chicago’s Skyway commuter route, the city’s entire downtown parking system, and Midway Airport; in Indiana, three major throughways (a 157-mile toll road across the state, a new Illiana Expressway, and a section of the I-69 NAFTA highway) and the state lottery; Virginia’s Pocahontas Parkway and Dulles Greenway; the 537-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike and Philadelphia International Airport; New York’s Tappan Zee Bridge; a vast 4,000-mile network of toll roads across Texas; Colorado’s Northwest Parkway; Alabama’s Foley Beach Expressway bridge; the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel; and, in New Jersey, the NJ Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, and Atlantic City Expressway.

What’s at work here is a convergence of gutless politicians, right-wing ideological fantasizers, conniving investment bankers, and raw corporate greed. What has drawn them together is the incandescent, transformative, blinding, neon-green force that rules American society: money.

For the rest of the story, click here. 

Target Sold Illegal Silly String

Retailing giant Target has been fined $120,000 for selling illegally-imported silly string that contained hydrochlorofluorocarbons, the propellant that was banned for damaging the ozone. What do you think?

Ali Goffrier,
Deck Hand
“Sure the gases eat holes in the ozone layer, but a well-aimed blanket of silly string will patch it right up.”

Sarah Nichols,
Exporter
“Well, this is the simple reality of the situation until America can come up with sustainable, environmentally sound alternatives to foreign novelties.”

Harmony Klaus,
Systems Analyst
“$120,000! Where is Target supposed to come up with that kind of money?”

From TheOnion.com