This post reminds me of an excellent documentary by some friends of mine called Democracy in Dakar. They covered the 2007 presidential election there through the lens of local hip-hop artists. They've followed up with similar documentaries on the French and Venezuelan elections of the same year (I think).

http://nomadicwax.com/film/democracy-in-dakar/

Cory, what's with the goofy "exchange rates" you quote in this and an earlier story today? (http://www.boingboing.net/2008/04/09/working-dollhousesiz.html)

A subtle comment on the weak dollar, perhaps?

Even if it makes it through the Senate, which I doubt it will, Bush doesn't necessarily face as stark a choice as described above, due to his copious use in the past of the line-item veto. As he's a lame duck president and has nothing to lose anyway, he might as well take the personal blame for letting the TelCos off the hook - they'll take very good care of him once he's out of office anyway.

I like the Radioclash podcast the best - it's mashups and remixes and general Brit banter from a guy named Tim. Great knowledge of all kinds of young people music!

www.mutantpop.net/radioclash

Wait a minute, doesn't Rosie the Riveter not really count under communist regimes? I mean, it's not like she chose to go to work as an empowered female supporting the war effort in any way possible, as Rosie represents. She was probably forced to.

The ideals of equality in socialism are no doubt, well, ideal, but c'mon let's be honest about what this woman was/is truly facing in North Korea - work or starve.

Or work and starve anyway.

Totally unrelated - is there a way to post a comment after previewing it? I couldn't seem to find a way.

This is pretty old (I live in Hungary and it's made the rounds since about 2005) but is always amusing. I may have even suggested it as a link... Anyway, glad to see it's been imortalized on BB.

jiii, kamon, bizness.

This post reminds me of a recent Op-Ed in the New York Times about how buying counterfeit luxury bags contributes to funding terrorism. Read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/opinion/30thomas.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

What I found so funny about the opinion piece is the way it defeated its own argument in the first paragraph:

"the average luxury bag retails for 10 to 12 times its production cost."

...which is exactly why I would buy a fake one, because the profit structures are so obscene (I won't mention the aesthetics of the bags themselves, but take the LV "mash-up" bag as reference). My favorite quote has got to be the analogy to the war we're DEFINITELY GONNA WIN:

"Much like the war on drugs, the effort to protect luxury brands must go after the source: the counterfeit manufacturers."