What is it, Skippy? Bruce is in trouble?

Sometimes it's hard to find a subject line for these messages. Then there are days like this, when it acts like the Santa Cruz bus system and 3 good ones come at once. For those playing along at home, see if you can pick out the 2 I didn't use.

For sale cheap: Iraq’s economy. Not content with a supposedly temporary eclipsing of Iraq’s national sovereignty, the US has decided to sell control of almost all sectors of its economy to international corporations which place the highest bid with the Republican party, not exempting health, the water supply, electricity, pharmaceuticals. Ownership can be 100%, and all profits, interests and royalties can be taken out of the country. Business taxes will be capped (in other words, the Occupation Authority is making promises binding on Iraq after sovereignty is restored). Tariffs will be slashed to show that Iraq is a "country that embraces free trade." Iraqis will be forgiven if they don’t remember being asked if they wish to embrace free trade. Treasury Secretary John Snow says the tax breaks are necessary for companies to risk the lives of its employees by sending them into Iraq. “Capital is a coward,” he says.

Heart-warming story of the day: “A partially blind kangaroo was hailed a hero Monday after helping rescue a farmer who suffered serious head injuries when he was hit by a falling branch. The pet kangaroo banged on the door of the family's house in Morwell in Gippsland, southeast Australia, after discovering the farmer lying unconscious in a field”. The AP fails to give the kangaroo’s name, although it is believed that every kangaroo in Australia is named Skippy, just like every philosophy professor is named Bruce.

A book of Ronald Reagan’s letters are to be published this week. Among other things, we learn that he felt guilty about sex until he found out that Polynesians don’t, and that he didn’t think communists deserved free speech. Guess which one of those was in a letter to Hugh Hefner. Right, the second one.