Washington Post sells access, $25,000+ - Mike Allen - POLITICO.com

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" -- Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it's a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its "health care reporting and editorial staff."

The offer -- which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters -- is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

And it's a turn of the times that a lobbyist is scolding The Washington Post for its ethical practices.

I'm tired of this backslapping, aint humanity great BS, we're a virus with shoes Bill Hicks

Spent ten minutes chasing a blackbird round the house, the one direction it would not fly towards was the large open door into the garden.

Much time now to be spent cleaning.

I'm tired of this backslapping, aint humanity great BS, we're a virus with shoes Bill Hicks

Al Jazeera English - Europe - Eurozone jobless hits ten-year high

Unemployment in the 16-nation euro zone has climbed to 9.5 per cent, its highest rate in a decade, EU data show.

More than 15 million people are out of work across the zone, with around 273,000 jobs lost in May, the Eurostat data agency estimated.

The increase in jobless was expected, with the eurozone experiencing a 2.5 per cent drop in output in the first quarter of 2009.

"Deep and extended economic contraction, depressed business confidence and deteriorating profitability is pushing unemployment up sharply across the eurozone," Howard Archer, an economist at consultants IHS Global Insight, said.

I'm tired of this backslapping, aint humanity great BS, we're a virus with shoes Bill Hicks

EurActiv.com - Parliament set to delay Barroso vote | EU - European Information on EU Treaty & Institutions

The European Parliament will not hold a vote on José Manuel Barroso's re-appointment as Commission president at its July plenary, it emerged yesterday (1 July) after the liberals and socialists agreed to wait until the second Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty this autumn.

Guy Verhofstadt, the new leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), said his group will oppose holding a vote on Barroso's re-appointment during the Parliament's opening plenary session on 15 July (EurActiv 25/06/09).

The former Belgian prime minister, who was elected unopposed as ALDE leader on Tuesday, said he and his group will "not accept timetables imposed on Parliament," dealing a blow to the centre-right EPP group and the Swedish EU Presidency who were pushing for a quick decision on the new Commission President.

Earlier, the Greens group had announced that they would oppose a July vote on Barroso, joining calls made on 18 June by the socialists.

Unless positions change, it therefore appears that there will be no majority for putting a vote on the Parliament's agenda when the Assembly's political group leaders meet on 9 July to discuss the issue.

When locusts move on, they leave nothing behind

In Kars, heading over to Ani tomorrow, which should be pretty neat. I have to admit that on this trip the bus rides have been some of my best memories and riding through the steppe of Anatolia has been no different, and as such I'm looking forward to that as much as the ruins and photography. Today on the way down from Erzurum we passed a lot of little villages backdropped by green rolling hills and locals on horses. Really nice.

I've been online a lot more lately - this is because wireless internet is ubiquitous and free all over Turkey. Kars isn't a small village, but it isn't really a tourist spot either (more locals approach me here as I am more of a novelty than I am in Istanbul). Turkey has had the best internet access of any of the countries I've been in. I'm only commenting here now because I popped open the compy before heading to dinner and lo, an open access point.

At some point I'll discuss travel in the era of the omnipresent internet along with web 2.0. Bottom line - I think it's a good thing, and like any tool as long as you use it correctly - in this case not spending the whole day online.

you are the media you consume.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Looks like Ted Kennedy and Peter Orszag got some good news today from our masters at the Congressional Budget Office on the HELP committee's plan with a public option.

The price tag looks like it's actually less than the $634bn Obama allocated in his budget for the reconciliation process.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

Dead Art

I'm tired of this backslapping, aint humanity great BS, we're a virus with shoes Bill Hicks

How busy is your train station? Every one detailed | News | guardian.co.uk

There are some things just made for data: rail travel is one of them. At a time when the train operating companies are calling for an expansion in the number of stations out there by reinstating lost railway lines we have one of the most complete data sets about rail travel ever published.

This dataset, from the Office of Rail Regulation show exactly how many people use every railway station in the UK. And how it's changed since the previous year.

I'm tired of this backslapping, aint humanity great BS, we're a virus with shoes Bill Hicks

Working on yet another Paris diary (rich pickings :-)) - this time photos in the tracks of Sartre and De Beauvoir, and about the book on them "Dangerous Liaison". Given the "understated" praise, SK, :-) for the Impressionist one, I feel I have to work hard on this one. At first I worked inside with windows closed, despite the heat, due to the bloody traffic, electric drills of builders, etc. Then went out and, appropriately, worked in a cafe, one with a terrace big enough to get away from the omnipresent French smokers. Luckily this part of Av. Jean Medecin is on the tram line and mostly closed to other traffic, though some motorcyclists use the pavements, so it's relatively calm:

It's not the Deux Magots or the Flore:

 - but then are almost no tourists. Last night at an English- French Meet-up, an American guy working here, a Texan in fact, said: "Why do American tourists have to talk so loudly and use 'like' every five words?" Exactly :-)

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice. Blog - Nice Experience

Let's learn more about Sweden.
Today: Privatisation and public outsourcing as crooked as ever.

Matfabrik stod klar före storaffären | Inrikes | SvD		Food Factory was built before large order | Domestic | SvD
När Sodexo den 28 januari 2008 invigde matfabriken var det med perfekt timing. Två veckor senare lanserade det multinationella företaget vad man i ett pressmeddelande kallade "en helt ny måltidsservice för sjukhus, som endast är möjligt i ett modernt utrustat kök."		When Sodexo January 28, 2008 inaugurated their food factory, it was with perfect timing. Two weeks later the multinational company launched what it in a press release called "a completely new food service for your hospital, which only is possible in a modern equipped kitchen."
Då återstod bara 11 dagar innan landstinget skulle dra igång Sveriges största upphandling någonsin av just sjukhusmat.		That was just 11 days before the county council would begin the largest procurement ever of exactly food for hospitals.
När Sodexo i juni samma år skrev under ett kontrakt med landstinget värt 1,6 miljarder var det efter en upphandling utan konkurrerande anbud.		In June the same year, Sodexo signed a contract with the county with SEK1.6 billion (€150 million), after a bidding process without competitive bids.
Och flera av kraven som landstinget ställde var skräddarsydda för Sodexo:		And many of the requirements of County Council were tailor made for Sodexo:

some adventurous recommendations for Norway?

I might mysteriously disappear off-line for a few weeks... Soonish...

Sand art, from "Ukraine's got talent" (get over that part, it's pretty cool!)

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

From this article:

Vaillant's other main interest is the power of relationships. "It is social aptitude," he writes, "not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging." Warm connections are necessary--and if not found in a mother or father, they can come from siblings, uncles, friends, mentors. The men's relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses. Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger. In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, "What have you learned from the Grant Study men?" Vaillant's response: "That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people."

The bold text I've understood since I was in my early 20's, although I've never lived it very well. I've rediscovered its truth on this trip.

you are the media you consume.

Er, poemless, you might want to go get your money out of the bank.  [At this rate, it looks like the FDIC is basically seizing every bank in Illinois today.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

Still think it's funny...