Bush to Hold Sham Economic Forum. At least, so claims the Democratic National Committee. I find it amusing when politicians start accusing each other of shams and staging events, since modern politics has become all about manipulating appearances and posing for photo ops anyway. Though in this case I'm inclined to agree with the DNC. The economic forum does appear to be what the historian Daniel Boorstin would describe as a "pseudo-event." Boorstin offered 3 criteria for identifying a pseudo-event:
1) It is not spontaneous;
2) Its success is measured by how widely it is reported;
3) Its relation to the underlying reality of the situation is ambiguous.
This checklist comes from Boorstin's book THE IMAGE: A GUIDE TO PSEUDO-EVENTS IN AMERICA. First published back in 1961, but still relevant reading today.

Cheney promises crackdown on corporate fraud. I don't know. Somehow it seems a little fishy.

Got a few e-mails about the Dr. Pepper/Pledge of Allegiance issue that's circulating through e-mail. Here's the text of the e-mail that people are receiving:
Just sharing the info with you that I received!

For those who have not heard, the bottlers/manufacturers of Dr. Pepper and their other products, have started a "new" can campaign. They are putting patriotic scenes on them. One, is the Empire State Bldg. with the pledge of allegiance...but ... they left off the words..."under God". They felt it might "offend" some. I don't know about you, but as a Christian, I am boycotting their products! They said they didn't "have room" for those words, but yet they had room for "indivisible" on the can Please pass this along to others and see if we can get a message out to Dr.Pepper ....ifhaving "under God" on cans offends them, then they don't need our money with "in God we trust" on it!!!
It turns out that Dr. Pepper did quote part of the Pledge of Allegiance on a patriotically themed can, and they did leave out the phrase 'Under God.' But then they only quoted three words from the pledge: "One nation... indivisible." So they also left out all references to the flag, the republic, liberty, and justice.

Here's Dr. Pepper's official response to the controversy: Dr. Pepper

Some alternative presidential candidates from the past: fig bar man, pogo, and nobody.