By Bob Sullivan

It sounds like one of those crazy rumors you get in an e-mail from a friend: "Did you hear? They're going to tax the Internet!" Only this time, it's true.

For years, brick-and-mortar stores were at an incredible disadvantage to online retailers that could offer tax-free shopping. If you are a fair-minded person, it's hard to muster an argument that this situation — in which online shoppers enjoy a 5 percent to 10 percent "discount" because they point and click instead of drive or walk — was anything but unfair.

On the other hand, despite all the word games being played by all the interested parties — the Senate version of the legislation is called the "Marketplace Fairness Act" — there is only one way to describe why your online shopping bill is about to go up: a new tax.

Interesting and informative report on what the near future likely holds for on-line shoppers.

A new analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council shows that the majority of states where fracking occurs have no disclosure laws at all, and that those that do are woefully behind when it comes to revealing behind-the-scenes details of their operations.

Also:

http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/amall/new_nrdc_analysis_state_fracki.html

Potatoes are an industrial crop; we grow nearly as many of them worldwide as we do corn, soy, wheat, and sugar, and those industries all rely heavily on genetic engineering. And — like corn, sugar, and soy — potato starch is now often valued for its indirect uses, such as in animal feed and biofuel. So it’s not surprising that industry forces would be pushing for giant swaths of industrial-starch-producing GMO potatoes. But to do so in Ireland would involve a unique historical irony.

You see, it just so happens that the Irish potato famine of the 19th century is held up as one of the most striking examples of the way monocrops — those grown with little or no genetic diversity — are vulnerable to disease. Heralded as a miracle when it arrived from South America in the 1800s, the potato produced more calories per acre than wheat and corn, and virtually did away with the mass-scale hunger many European countries were facing at the time.

Mitt Romney’s policy director Lanhee Chen claims that a new study showing 95% of Americans would see a tax hike under Romney’s tax reform plan is “biased” and fails to take into account the explosion of economic growth that will occur under Romney’s administration.

TEL AVIV – Mitt Romney dropped by the Western Wall on Sunday, July 29, but one nearby landmark was conspicuously left off his Israel itinerary: the Jerusalem Center of Brigham Young University (BYU) -- or as locals call it with typical directness, "Mormon University."

Aren't you tired of all those disabled people living like royalty on $1,100 a month?  I passed one on the street today, spending money like Paris Hilton, complaining about the steak at Cipriani's and, of course, the Fibromyalgia.

I'd dissect this nonsense, but Dean Baker beat me too it.

By Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker, August 6, 2012 issue

[.....] Sitting in his office more than three years ago, Ryan could not have foreseen how successful his crusade to reinvent the Republican Party would be. Nearly every important conservative opinion-maker and think tank has rallied around his policies. Nearly every Republican in the House and the Senate has voted in favor of some version of his budget plan. Earlier this year, the G.O.P. Presidential candidates lavished praise on Ryan and his ideas. “I’m very supportive of the Ryan budget plan,” Mitt Romney said on March 20th, in Chicago. The following week, while campaigning in Wisconsin, he added, “I think it’d be marvellous if the Senate were to pick up Paul Ryan’s budget and adopt it and pass it along to the President.”

To envisage what Republicans would do if they win in November, the person to understand is not necessarily Romney, who has been a policy cipher all his public life. The person to understand is Paul Ryan. [....]

While in private business, Mitt Romney utilized shell companies in two offshore tax havens to help eligible investors avoid paying U.S. taxes, federal and state records show.

Romney gained no personal tax benefit from the legal operations in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. But aides to the Republican presidential hopeful and former colleagues acknowledged that the tax-friendly jurisdictions helped attract billions of additional investment dollars to Romney's former company, Bain Capital, and thus boosted profits for Romney and his partners.
 

Investing through what's known as a blocker corporation in Bermuda protects tax-exempt American institutions, such as pension plans, hospitals and university endowments, from paying a 35% tax on what the Internal Revenue Service calls "unrelated business income" from domestic hedge funds that invest in debt, experts say.

Hmmm, lots more of interest in report. But, don't get too excited, it's all legal.

Danny Boyle organizing the Olympics opening pulled a fast one with a stripped down, poignant reference to the bombings 7 years ago that follwed the 2012 awards and kept some "from being with us" (though Boyle also included his father's passing and the choregrapher noted a more universal "mortality" motif and the song chosen has a more generalized wake significance for the Isles)

As 9/11 and subsequent terror is now copyright US o' A, it seems the British 7/7 experience rolled right past the news* guys at NBC - either because they'd forgotten it happened the day after the UK won the Olympics, or because after a disastrous week of Romney in London, we've moved on to our other Special Relationship with Israel - which means remembering the Munich attacks 40 years ago.

Of course if Israel were hosting the Games rather than just Mitt Romney, that might be logical, but despite complaints that the current Olympics program is "too British", we must remember that it is unfortunately being run by the Brits in Great Britain, which seems to provoke a bit of home team feel to it, like the Aussies did with kangaroos in 2000.

Which means they may even pull a sly one and reference socialized medicine or a song or two we've never even heard on this side of our big Pond. Including "Abide By Me" sung by Emile Sandé**. Or the no longer controversial Sex Pistols that NBC still chose to censor  (seems the wry Brits even snuck in a snippet of the irreverent "God Save the Queen" with Queen Liz II sitting there - but not for us blokes). Somehow they left out clips from Germany 40 years ago, because, perhaps, it wasn't in Britain.

But perhaps Bob Costas and the Israeli News Agency were right - they should have also held a 40th tribute for Israel athletes at Munich, a 80th memorial for the 1932 LA games, when much of the world was suffering through the Depression and half the teams couldn't show up, and a 60th for all the countries invaded by Communists between the 1948 and 1952 games.

And maybe in Rio 2016 the Brits can ask for a moment of silence for the 70th Anniversary of the King David Hotel where 91 people were murdered as they carried out their UN mandate.

(note: this isn't a special 40 year occurrence - the widows of 1972 have been asking for a moment of silence every Olympics since, and there have been several toned-down tributes, including 2 such this year, but apparently not sufficient for some audiences. Though to be fair, some like Alex Giladi, Israel's Olympics representative, don't seem to feel it necessary )

On the good side for Israel, the Iranians have now agreed to participate in direct competitions with Israeli athletes - some thaw in relations despite all the saber rattling.

*"News" and similar expressions of journalistic curiosity and professionalism are used euphemistically, as I understand this is a modern TV news entertainment channel.

So instead of showing the 7/7 memorial / tribute relevant to Britain, NBC decided to show a bland interview with the perhaps-fading Michael Phelps. I guess we haven't had enough "how ya feeling?" "I'm going to give it my best shot" interviews to please an easily-distracted American audience.

The also managed to miss the first female athletes from Saudi Arabia - all countries now have female athletes.

By chance, I happened to be flying through London on the 1st anniversary of 7/7, going by Tube for part of the trip, and needing to dispose of large boxes from some reclaimed luggage. Bobbies and security agents were everywhere, every public container was locked down, but I recall the utmost of efficiency and friendliness as one of the cops helped me out, how everyone was determined not to be freaked even as traffic was a bit bolloxed that day. Anyway, brought home a fresh reminder of that day's significance.

As someone pointed out to me, the day after the bombing, seems that all of London woke up, gave it their stoic "fuck it, nothing's keeping *me* from work/school/the clubs...", and got out there as Brits usually do, talking about anything but what had actually happened - weather, cricket, top 40, Prince Harry....  May not have happened like that, but sounds nice.

**Danny Boyle pulled out all the stops in making the Opening a multicultural event - refreshing after Bejing's unicultural & heavy-handed event. While some have complained about it being overreach, I happened to have spent that morning watching a movie on Hendrix, and thinking about his time in London with Eric Burdon (who started touring with black funk band War about that time), where being black didn't necessarily mean playing "black music" or splitting your audience, but where he could just move through different rock or jazz or world music styles playing with whoever he wanted in London's accepting multicultural scene.

Shortly after, Bob Marley moved from Jamaica to London (or got stranded, depending on story), mixing up rock with reggae and inspiring everyone from Clapton to Nina Hagen to The Clash.

And while Boyle's recent success is Slumdog Millionaire based in Bombay, Britain's legacy is tied up in its overseas colonies in Hong Kong & Singapore, India, various parts of Africa and the Caribbean, so that curry and tea houses are almost as British as Shepherd's Pie. Having been through the Hong Kong & Macau handovers, and knowing a number of Pakistani/Indian Brits, and hearing enough of the Tabla-inspired Indian/UK house mixes, I guess I gravitate to that multicultural scene. So Emile Sandé is just another refreshing face - half English, half Zambian, growing up in Scotland, part of the new UK. 

But if they wanted someone who'd support a traditional boys-club-only view of UK society, they might not have wanted to sign on the guy who did Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire - something was bound to go wrong.

My second Op-Ed for Reuters, about our chickeny friends from the south.