At about the time Williams and NBC was producing these non-independent experts, two thirds of the American people supported the war. From the viewpoint of the networks the purpose of their efforts was not to contradict the logic of the reasoning behind the war, and tell two thirds of America they were wrong, when there wasn't any information to support that position, but to explain the war they, the American people agreed was justified.

NBC then became an infomercial for the war, and they hired Keith Olberman to provide contrast.

From a news business point of view, they stayed too long on the wrong side of the issue. However the polls were never concise about the moment public opinion shifted, even as the facts came in. The news is always obligated to balance the facts.

Finding and reporting the truth is only a small part of what these corporations do. Giving background, color and texture, reducing these stories to neat packages which they can provide to the American people is most of what they do.

Since just about all the information these people receive is handed them by government officials, and they do very little fact checking, or independent analysis, their moral obligation rests on portraying the trustworthiness and reliability of their sources, and not in glorifying, or deifying them to the American public.

This is the kernel of what propaganda is, and why impeachment was and is the most important thing the Congress should be doing right now. An impeachment resolution tells the American people that despite what the news is telling them, the President is neither reliable, nor trustworthy. All information flows from government sources, impeaching the source, is the only logical method of questioning the information.

If the news understood this, they would report on the Congressional dustups with the Executive branch, but Congressional Democrats made a big mistake leading up to the Iraq war, and they are still paying for that error. It was up to them to impeach the source, which the news media packages and promotes as information. Otherwise would you expect a news broadcast to spend time and money explaining the facts they are provided, and then claim the facts are really not reliable?

Mostly these matters, about independent contractors, and smarmy newscasters, are secondary to the process.

Commoditization is a vital element in creating large, liquid markets in food and other commodities. Uniform quality assures a fair price, and allows products to be shipped to urban centers, and processed into finished products. (By the mid-century experts say 2/3's of the worlds' people will live in cities).

There is no doubt that this global market allows us to eat a balanced diet all year, regardless of what crops are in season. The primary threats to this are fertlizer shortages, and global warming, which could disrupt the weather in the grain planting zones, where mechanical harvesting is used to keep costs down.

What happens when it is no longer economically feasible to fly grapes from Chile to American supermarkets? As one economic analyst noted, the American consumer is facing a period of diminished choices. In the final outcome monoculture growers will drop their prices, government will subsidize their losses, and smaller farmers will be forced out of business because they cannot compete. During the first great depression farmers couldn't find a market for their products, and facing pressure from increasing property taxes many of them lost their land. This time around it probably won't be any different, simply because shifting agriculture to small farms implies that growers will be unable to keep up with demand.

Republicans have done a better job of helping small business owners, and might benefit poltically in that case.

The birth death model, and hedonics, makes the jobs report a fabrication only a stats freak could love. For I don't know how many months the monthly report was positive, but was subsequently revised lower. They could say a million and nobody would believe it. Add it to the long list of lies this administration keeps pushing, the biggest of which is inflation, in reality about 8%. Wait until Bush is out of office and Congressional Republicans put the bit in their teeth.

I recall the SF poet's poem, "Banners Of Our Own Choosing", and I wonder why you require some imported exotic god to represent you. Are you secretly elitist? Richard Brautigan might suggest any sort of found object to anchor the lid on yoru protean dreams. Then maybe things are done (were done) differently (In Watermelon Sugar perhaps) on the other side of the bay.