Take a look at this woman's face. It could be the face of a family member. Or a good friend. It may even be the slightly stunned expression - with cheap shades cum hair fillet - staring out from the bathroom mirror. (I always look a little side-swiped in the morning.)

Thats' right! Take a good look at the face of Jammie Thomas-Rasset. Today, she's the copyright infringement Joan of Arc who's been broken on the turntable of the music industry!

But, tomorrow, it could be you!

Jammie just got jammed with an almost $2 million fine for downloading and sharing 24 songs on the internet. Don't bother jumping on the Metacalc site - I'll bust down the figures for you ('cause I've already read the story): That averages out to $80,000 per song Jammie must pay to get out of this... well... jam.

That's right!

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This site is overblogged with Iran updates. Can we ease off a bit? Some of us aren't obsessed with this issue. Interested? Sure. Enthralled to the point we want input from every waterbug colonizing Tehran's utilities conduits? No. We don't need a running blow-by-blow. The Iranians will work it out - or they won't. I consider my own responsibility as doing everything I can to prevent an American attack on Iran - for any reason and regardless of whose behest propels such an idiotic scheme. But as a wage-earner struggling through America's sorrowful era of diminishing expectation, I have my own agenda. Let me be frank, here: Right now, I don't care as deeply as I know I should whether Iranians blow up themselves.

Pull the plug on Tehran. Enough. This is what CNN is for.

Evidently, Democrats' "Hope and Change" revolution can't make its omelettes without laying a few eggs.

The Treasury Department's wish list for overhauling the country's financial system - which we now recognize as profoundly flawed enough to trigger a seemingly endless meltdown - stuffs a silk pillow with down feathers and the softest foam rubber, to gently tap money and banking sectors that deserve a relentless ass-kicking.

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It's apparent I can presume disagreement with any given piece I encounter on the Huffington Post, and today is no exception - since Sam Stein has given his sober, reflective thumbs-up to Attorney General Eric Holder's troublingly nebulous speech yesterday.

Hailing Holder's references to recent violence in Wichita and Washington, D.C., Stein wrote:

The brief speech - roughly seven minutes in length - was one of the sharpest denunciations of violent extremism since the recent spate of murders began.

I would've phrased it "since the recent spate of murders occurred", since there's no indication the violence marks the beginning of a nationwide Honkie Jackass Insurrection, except, evidently, in the minds of liberal-minded bloggers like Sam Stein. And, truthfully, how much grit is required - in this country, in these times - to denounce violent extremism?

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In the early '90s, I spent almost four mostly miserable years driving a cab in San Francisco. One stark memory I have of the ordeal was the day I watched a cabbie recount a tense encounter with some upper-income yuppies in Golden Gate Park.

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News cycles surf the constant ebb and flow of fickle public fascination. Last week, it was the tragic shootings in Wichita and at the Holocaust Museum. There was a lot of huffing and puffing about hate in the hinterlands, white extremist violence, yadda-yadda - a whole lot of folks who should know better seemed convinced yankee Hitlers were about to pop out of their pantries. Then the fever broke.

The week before, topics were Sonia Sotomayor and her alleged "racism" - whatever that arbitrarily defined term currently means. This silly meme was hammered hard by the shock-jock commissariat, that loose, loop-headed network of gas-bags self-assigned to spotlight whatever molehill masquerades as Mountain of the Moment. Frankly, Rush Limbaugh spouting in high dudgeon about his own race grievance is virulent hypocrisy as hazardous as any variety of bird-shit flu.

Then, the story faded.

Maybe, at some point, there'll be some action - and news - on issues we really care about, like healthcare reform. Or maybe some dealing with real American problems. I, for one, don't think the signal crisis of this country is "hate"; I think it's violence. Let's see the huffers and puffers tackle possible solutions to drive-by bloodbaths that so mark American neighborhoods - especially mine. It's complicated, as issues go, that's for certain. And something tells me answers to this very real, very tragic scourge won't be found in our bibles of political correctness. There are times - actually, most ot the time - when simplistic dogma pushing discredited agenda fails us... miserably.  

Now an old familiar topic comes down the pike - the Mideast and its constant, never-ending travails. Iran re-elected as president the always zany Ahmedinejad... or it didn't... or the election was stolen... or it wasn't. There's some rioting, some news agencies have accused the Iranian regime of interrupting their transmissions, the opposition is under house arrest. And on and on...

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