Forbes has run an alarmist cover story titled “Attack of the Blogs.”

LaShawn opines:

A blog swarm can be a stinging gadfly, a much-dreaded possibility, or someone’s worst nightmare, but in my opinion, blogging is free expression at its purest. If we’re willing to embrace this freedom, we ought to be willing to embrace its power.

Micro Persuasion summarizes:

The gist of Lyons’ soon-to-be maligned story is that blogs are “the prized platform of an online lynch mob spouting liberty but spewing lies, libel and invective.”

If that’s not bad enough they also squarely put the blame here on Google and Yahoo as our “potent allies.” It’s so ridiculous that two companies that have done so much to democratize media are being chastised for it.

Below the Fold:

Then again, I hear Geraldo plans restart up his blog soon, so maybe Forbes has a good point.

It seems that George Gallway has been linked with even more Oil for Food money than previously disclosed.

GEORGE GALLOWAY faced new questions last night after a UN inquiry tracked additional payments of Iraqi oil money into his wife’s bank account.
Days after a US Senate committee tracked a $150,000 (£84,000) payment to the MP’s now estranged Palestinian wife, the UN inquiry reported that Amina Naji Abu Zayyad had earlier received a series of transfers totalling $120,000.

The revelation increases the pressure on the vocal anti-war politician, whom the report says was nicknamed “Abu Mariam” by the Iraqis, a reference to his anti-sanctions campaign, the Mariam Appeal.

…

The report also contained details of an unexplained payment of 20,000 Swiss francs (£8,800) to the son of Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary- General. And Jean-Bernard Merimée, France’s former UN Ambassador, admitted receiving $165,725 in commissions on an Iraqi oil sale in January 2002 while serving as a special adviser to Mr Annan.

M Merrimée told investigators that Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s former Deputy Prime Minister, had offered him the commissions because he was a “fair negotiator” as Paris’s UN envoy in setting up the oil-for-food system in the mid-1990s.

The report found that Marc Rich & Co financed oil purchases from Iraq and the associated kickbacks for the son of a French MP shortly after the company’s founder received a controversial pardon from President Clinton.

I sure wish I had a diagram that showed the connections between all of these people and corporations. It’s getting mindboggling. Has anyone seen such a diagram? Or have the time to make one? It would be a great resource.

The first European Pyramid apparently has been discovered (bottom of article).

More images here.

From Unjournaled (Via Ace):

Near the city of Visoko, 30 km north of Sarajevo, there is a stone pyramid of monumental size, claims the Bosnian archeologist Semir Osmanagić, who lives and works in the USA.

After several months of geological and archeological research, Mr. Osmanagić concluded that under the present hill of Visočica hides a stairs-like pyramid, about 12,000 years old. Osmanagić, who intensively researched on pyramids in Americas, Asia and Africa for the last 15 years and wrote several books on the subject, says he’s quite sure he found the first pyramid in Europe, which is quite similar to ones in the Southern America.

He believes that the project would completely change Bosnia’s significance in the world of archeology.

The AP reports:

The San Antonio-based company, which does business as Remedy Intelligent Staffing, pleaded guilty in January to hiring illegal immigrants and trying to cover it up by falsifying employment eligibility forms. The workers were hired for Wornick Co., which makes MREs — or “meals ready-to-eat.”

James Joyner is rightly concerned.

[O]ne would think there would be more scrutiny at a firm that makes MREs, given the obvious damage that could be done in such a facility.