Hidden Value

Family Values

The values party takes another one on the nose and shoots itself in the foot.

When the Republicans talk about 'family' values, do they mean the crime family, is it the Gambino family?

CNN: Feds: Renzi made $700,000-plus in deal that led to indictment

U.S. Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted on charges he promised to support legislation in exchange for a land deal that netted the Arizona Republican more than $700,000, the Justice Department said Friday.

The idea is that you actually embody moral virtue then you allow people to recognize it in you. It doesn't work the other way around.

MacMansions into MacSlums

The sub prime mortgage fiasco is literally changing the American landscape. Foreclosures and people simply abandoning a home that is beyond one's means are leading to suburban slums.

The Next Slum?

At Windy Ridge, a recently built starter-home development seven miles northwest of Charlotte, North Carolina, 81 of the community’s 132 small, vinyl-sided houses were in foreclosure as of late last year...

In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, California, south of Sacramento, the houses...once sold for well over $500,000—but the phenomenon is the same. At the height of the boom, 10,000 new homes were built there in just four years. Now many are empty...

Whenever there is tragedy an economic opportunity arises - bargain prices for your own MacMansion village, impressive solvency required.

Turkey into Iraq

Remember, nobody invades Iraq unless they have US approval.

BBC: Turkish troops enter north Iraq

Turkish ground forces have crossed the border into northern Iraq to target Kurdish rebels...

More than 30,000 (closer to 40,000) people have been killed since the PKK began fighting for a Kurdish homeland in south-eastern Turkey in 1984.

Who are the PKK?

BBC: Profile: The PKK

Formed in the late 1970s and launched an armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984, calling for an independent Kurdish state within Turkey.

...allow more cultural rights for the country's estimated 15 million Kurds and release imprisoned PKK members.

See my article from December 20, 2007 - Turkey, Iraq, the PKK After you click it will appear under this article.

Sculptures by Arp