I have not watched the Edwards trial and I am not intimately familiar with the details of the evidence. But like Amanda Marcotte, I'm glad he was not convicted. I hope the prosecution decides to let it go. Being a horrible person is not a criminal act. If it were, we wouldn't be able to build enough prisons.

But Amanda explains the real reason why prosecutors should close this case. In this day and age, in this era of obscene electoral profligacy, the pursuit was simply ludicrous:

With the news of Karl Rove crowing about how he intends to spend $1 billion in untraceable funds to beat Obama in 2012, it looks particularly ridiculous for the government to waste resources on a showboat prosecution. Even the conservative news magazine National Review had to denounce the prosecution as a waste. John Edwards has been disgraced, humiliated and run out of politics. Bringing the full force of the law down on him on top of it all just seems greedy.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2012/05/john-edwards-justice

James O’Keefe Scams Voter Fraud and Voter ID Laws Into Existence

I told myself I wasn’t going to write about James O’Keefe, mostly because his sophomoric pranks are mostly for the net effect of making his pockets fat. He has his hands out, and I’m not trying to help him get paid. I no more want to discuss voting by reference of O’Keefe than I want to write about Middle East affairs by reference of Sacha Baron Cohen in The Dictator.

But his influence on voting rights opponents and legislators alike is particularly jarring. When you hear activists and state senators say we need voter ID laws because of voter fraud, instead of citing data, or even anecdotes, lately they’ve been citing O’Keefe. When I was in Houston at the True the Vote conference I was hardly surprised when the audience erupted in applause as O’Keefe took the podium. You would’ve thought Tim Tebow entered the room. And sure enough, he presented one of his “Project Veritas” videos of himself telling unsuspecting poll workers in Minnesota that he wanted to register “Timothy Tebow” to vote before given a stack of voter registration applications.

http://www.thenation.com/blog/168162/james-okeefe-scams-voter-fraud-and-voter-id-laws-existence

After a nearly flawless nine-day routine, the Dragon stuck the landing, too.

The first commercial mission to ferry supplies into space ended successfully Thursday when a cargo capsule known as the Dragon fell to earth on target in the Pacific Ocean off Mexico, NASA officials said.

Tethered to three large parachutes, the unmanned capsule, which had carried about 1,100 pounds of food, water, clothing and equipment to the International Space Station, hit the water at the relatively gentle speed of about 10 miles an hour at 8:42 a.m. local time. It came down about 560 miles west of Baja California, witnessed by technicians from the company that built and flew it, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX. They were to load the capsule aboard a barge and haul it back to Long Beach, Calif.

“This really couldn’t have gone better,” Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, said at a televised news conference from the company’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. “I’m overwhelmed with joy. It’s been 10 years, and to have it go so well is incredibly satisfying.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/science/space/first-spacex-dragon-cargo-flight-ends-with-a-splash.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytimesscience&seid=auto

Everyone wants southern Europe's troubled economies to go their own way, except for the people who live there.

One thing we've learned as the euro crisis has unfolded is that the enthusiasm of experts in London and New York for offering advice to the struggling countries on Europe's periphery is matched only by their passion for awkward neologisms. The world was just getting used to "Grexit" (Get it? A Greek exit from the euro!) when "Spexit" began to rear its ugly head in the financial press.

Naturally, the events of recent days have brought Spain back to the forefront of the debt crisis, generating insecurity about the reliability of the official fiscal deficit numbers, the validity of central bank statistics, and new numbers showing capital flight reaching alarming levels. Only this week, Spain announced that the central bank governor, Miguel Angel Fernandez Ordoñez, will be leaving early as part of a government effort to restore its credibility. Some are now anticipating that Spain's exit from the eurozone will come before Greece's departure.

I would hope that those clamoring for these countries to go their own way are at least better intentioned than they are informed, since normally they exhibit a singular lack of understanding about how political systems in southern and eastern Europe actually work.

It is now essentially conventional wisdom in the British and American press that Greece needs to return to the drachma. British journalists are even racing to hunt down the London printing works that have supposedly been given the contract to print New Drachmas, the putative local replacement for the euro. The only snag is, according to all opinion polls, the Greeks themselves are not happy with the euro but have no interest in dropping it. (Perhaps the perfect Solomonic solution here would be to have the New Drachma introduced as a non-convertible currency for use only within Fleet Street bars and the boundaries of the City of London.)

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/05/31/grexit_spexit_let_s_call_the_whole_thing_off?page=full

Even though it is obvious that the major banks wield tremendous influence over bureaucratic political systems worldwide, it is not often that you find the phrase "bankster puppet" illustrated so clearly in the mainstream media. Usually, there is some pretense or alternative justification for doling out billions of euros, dollars, etc. to the banks, such as - "if we don't do this, the entire global economy will implode" (remember TARP?). Back then, people didn't have a clue what was going on and were scared enough to go along with any vague reason presented to them.

So it's interesting to see now that these pretenses for direct wealth transfers from the people to the banks have been dropped like bad habits. In Europe, the financial atmosphere has become so dire and desperate that the PUPPET politicians and bureaucrats can no longer pretend that they care about anything other than saving the banks at the expense of everyone else. Exhibit A are the excerpts from an article in Bloomberg today that are quoted below, written by James G. Neuger:

http://theautomaticearth.com/Finance/desperate-european-bankster-puppets-exposed.html

Source: BBC

The rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) has given the government of President Bashar al-Assad a 48-hour deadline to observe a UN ceasefire plan.

The FSA's Colonel Qassim Saadeddine said if there was no response by Friday lunchtime the FSA would consider itself "no longer bound by the.. peace plan".

The plan calls on government forces to withdraw to barracks.

On Wednesday, UN observers confirmed the discovery of 13 shooting victims near the city of Deir el-Zour.

Col Saadeddine said in a video published online that the government must "implement an immediate ceasefire, withdraw its troops, tanks and artillery from Syrian cities and villages".

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18275183

The tech company’s stock closed at $28.19, a new post-IPO low. The stock is down nearly 12 percent in the two trading days this week. It’s down nearly 26 percent from the IPO price of $38.

Mark Zuckerberg is about $5 billion poorer than he was the day the stock went public.

All the other trouble in the markets today can be blamed on “global economic concerns.”

STOCKS DOWN
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 160.83 points, or more than 1 percent, to 12,419.86. The S&P and Nasdaq were lower as well.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/05/facebook-stock-markets-take-a-hit/

"Romney has won nothing!!"

"With the Tampa convention being the fat lady this event is far from over."

Those are just some of the comments Ron Paul supporters made Tuesday when they learned that Mitt Romney clinched the Republican presidential nomination with a victory in the Texas primary.

"I am honored that Americans across the country have given their support to my candidacy and I am humbled to have won enough delegates to become the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nominee," Romney said in a statement released by his campaign. "On November 6, I am confident that we will unite as a country and begin the hard work of fulfilling the American promise and restoring our country to greatness."

http://current.com/groups/news-blog/93789584_update-ron-paul-fans-holding-onto-fantasy-he-will-magically-become-candidate.htm

Source: SKY

Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson has been arrested and charged with perjury.

A statement issued by Strathclyde Police said: "A 44-year-old man has been arrested in connection with alleged perjury before the High Court.

"A report will be submitted to the Procurator Fiscal."

The allegations relate to the trial of former Scottish politician Tommy Sheridan at the High Court in Glasgow in December 2010.
Mr Coulson, who gave evidence in the trial, was detained in London by Strathclyde officers and later taken to a Glasgow police station.

Read more: http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16238692