A popular job for attractive young women -- often underage women -- is to serve as a "club promoter." This person is almost always a well-groomed young woman who gets paid based on how many of her attractive female friends she brings to bars to hang out.

She can also be remunerated when she gets male friends to make "bottle reservations," which often entail paying $100 or more to reserve a table that comes with a "complimentary" bottle of expensive alcohol, such as vodka.

"It's no secret to New York businesses that the mere presence of attractive women at their establishment can have a positive impact on both revenues and image," says NYFlirts.com Web site, a company that hires out club promoters to bars and clubs.

"In a highly competitive atmosphere like Manhattan, businesses such as bars, clubs and lounges are willing to go the extra mile to gain the patronage of attractive women.   more »

I have a dream, my friends. I have a dream that we are approaching the day when a ranch-owning millionaire Republican like George Bush will make peace with a vineyard-owning millionaire Democrat like Nancy Pelosi.

I have a dream that Pelosi, who was chauffeured to school as a child and who, with her investor husband, owns minority shares in the Auberge du Soleil resort hotel and the CordeValle Golf Club, will look over her famous strand of South Sea Tahitian pearls and forge bonds of understanding with the zillionaire corporate barons in the opposing party.

Furthermore, I dream of a great harmonic convergence among the obscenely rich — between Randian hedge fund managers on the right and helipad environmentalists on the left.

I dream that the big-money people who seem to dominate our politics will put aside their partisan fury and discover the class solidarity that Karl Marx always said they shared, and their newfound civility will trickle down to the rest of us.   more »

If there is anything black people the world over have learned from Hollywood - and there isn't a whole lot - it's that no matter how bleak the situation seems, they can always rely on some resourceful, charismatic and, in some instances, shapely white person to bail them out.

The latest film is the exciting but characteristically idiotic Blood Diamond, in which Leonardo DiCaprio plays a ruthless Rhodesian smuggler who specialises in spiriting precious stones out of war-torn nations whose diamonds the G8 nations have promised not to purchase, as the profits are invariably used to do very bad things. They are called "conflict diamonds".

As the film proceeds, and as more and more horrible black rebels kill off horrible black soldiers representing the horrible black regime - every black person in the film is either a victim or a monster - DiCaprio gradually comes to realise that there are more important things in life than money, that ebony needs ivory, that diamonds are not forever.   more »

Soon they'll have Tariq Aziz to deal with. Will they execute him in the same manner?

He's a Christian, a friend of Pope John Paul, and literate, well-spoken, Anglicised evidence of how broad-based a secular government Saddam ran.

How much do 4 million university graduates, civil servants, medical professionals, lawyers, judges, soldiers, police and schoolteachers miss him now, in a world of veils and checkpoints and daylight kidnappings and suicide bombings and 10,000 policemen killed in two years.

Will Tariq Aziz hang? Will his breaking neck and open eyes and slowly swinging corpse be telerecorded too? Will he be allowed his beloved P. G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie paperbacks in his cell on death row? Will he get a final press conference? Will he be allowed to wear a suit and tie? What questions will he be allowed to answer?

In freedom's name we have helped the US start this barbarous process. In freedom's name we too are called barbarians now, by fairly civilised peoples who may have a point.   more »

The Bush/Republicans agenda in the Slaughter of Iraq was oil, military bases, a puppet government, a giant embassy and to protect Israel.

The people of the United States of America are not getting one lousy thing out of this terrible misadventure.

The Rich Bitches, Politicians, Military Commanders, Iran, Construction Companies, Private security companies and employees are gettng rich off of this terrible mess and we are getting to pay for it. Lock stock and barrel.

We will pick up the whole tab in lost lives, wounded soldiers, the worlds hate and ridicule and our money, which we need to pay for our own failing infrastructure.

Saddam Hussein died like a man. How are our glorious leaders going to die?   more »

Early this year the Bush administration is to ask Congress to approve an additional $100bn for the onerous task of making life intolerable for the Iraqis.

This will bring the total spent on the White House's current obsession with war to almost $500bn - enough to have given every US citizen $1,600 each.

I wonder which the voters would have gone for if given the choice: shall we (a) give every American $1,600 or (b) spend the money on bombing a country in the Middle East that doesn't use lavatory paper?

Of course, there's another thing that George Bush could have done with the money: he could have given every Iraqi $18,700. I imagine that would have reduced the threat of international terrorism somewhat.   more »