There's nothing like going to another country to get news about your own.

At least the internet / internets / internest / interwebz / internexus -- whatever you choose to call it -- makes dashing out for an electronic paper tons easier than before, boarding an international flight every morning in your PJs.

There are at least three advantages that come to mind.  First, the United States no longer has a press corps interested in journalism -- they have become professional softball lobbers and the current culture's fluff-and-product-placement pimps.

If you're looking for starched and shellacked hair, capped teeth, tan-in-a-bottle good looks, and someone who can provide the set clothing a fairly good hang, well, that's one thing.  If you're scouting around for those who hunger for hollow fame for fame's sake -- recognition without achievement -- then, you're also in the right place.  Trolling for nominal celebrities with seven-figure paychecks?  Bingo again!

Money, success -- it all gets tumbled and jumbled around together, mixed together and stirred ' round and 'round.  It's little wonder we've lost track of everything that might rightly be beneath any banner called Success.  We usually restrict Success to dance a jig on the rusty insignia of a battered money clip.

Maybe this is a Big Step Up for the Species.  Hard to tell.  We used to invoke Success only on the heads of dead animals we were dragging back to the hearth in the cave.

But, to that law of the jungle:  Money is just bloodsport, turned on its side, and gutted alive, while loved ones watch.  It's called unrestricted, unregulated, unfettered, unchained, vampire capitalism. If you've got a problem with that, you're in the wrong country, my friend, and you're playing by outmoded rules for success.

To be successful, be successful.

Hmmm.  That one almost demands a Homeresque "D'oh!" be parked at the end to spike its inscrutable truth.  On second thought, the only thing here that's obvious is that this opening thought's going to take a few more tries to fully flesh out.

Here's Sir Arthur Helps, from 1868:  "Nothing succeeds like success."  Getting warmer.

All right, with apologies, let's start again.  This time, we'll go a few laps 'round the ol' philosophical cul-de-sac.  After all, if you're going to contemplate the broader Moneygoround, then gathering one's thoughts aboard a conceptual merry-go-round may prove useful.

Ah -- this one might do it:  Success feeds on itself, gathering more success as it rolls down success-covered hillsides, like a snowball increasing its size, collecting more and more snow around itself.

OK, one more time:  After a bit more polish and elbow grease, the central thought final emerges:  The more success one has experienced, the more likely it is that added successes will arrive, and continue to do so with increasing ease.

By Bev Harris, Founder of BlackBoxVoting.org

Colorado election integrity and transparency is now officially out the window, with a series of corruption protection rules and new laws.

1. Let's begin with the unflappable Donetta Davidson, who collaborated with convicted embezzler Jeffrey Dean(1) to remove voter privacy, through a contract specification that required him to redo his absentee mail software in order to embed a method to tie voted ballots to the voters. This shifty business, which now includes all absentee ballots cast on Hart eSlate machines, has led to a blockade on ALL Colorado election accounting records (see #4, below).

2. Next, in a move that has most of us scratching our heads, Colorado Sec. State Gessler proposed new rules in December 2011 to remove requirements for continuous video surveillance.(2) Though billed as "cost saving," note that most video surveillance nowadays is simply piped into digital files stored on a Web site. Since cameras are already installed, there is no significant cost savings in allowing non-continuous surveillance.

3. Sec. State Gessler also decided to reduce the number of seals on voting machines,(2) to the chagrin of election integrity groups like Voter Action, whose investigations and litigation demonstrated vulnerabilities requiring the seals in the first place. The "cost savings" in this measure can be counted in pennies.

That's right, value seekers -- and there's a seeker born every minute -- we're having our quadrennial Presidential Liquidation Sale days early, by popular demand... (and by our own insistence that we get all these odds and ends out of here, and out from under foot, before someone in this overstuffed warehouse accidentally gets hurt or maimed.)

We might have lost our lease!  (Although Aunt Tilly says it might be in the junk drawer.)  We've definitely lost our minds!  (You kidding me?  This campaign has gone on long enough to drive anyone completely bats.)  But, we haven't yet lost our nerve!  (That's right, if you don't come see us today, we can't make any money!)

You name it, we've got it!  Come in today while selection is still best!  We've got slightly irregular online pieces and blurbs... factory-second factoids and full-length facts... as well as custom-spun yarns and well-waxed tales -- and, all with your mind in mind!

Preheat environment to global heating specifications.  Take a bitterly split America.  Smear with layers of rich, premium, Citizens United (TM) dough.  Add an overabundance of cracked, mixed nuts (right side only).  Beat incessantly for 3.9 years, or until population is completely frothy.

Next, fold in sprayable, fully buttered-up and money-sweetened manure.  Turn heat up under mixture via lack of media controls.  Poke at constantly with sharp stick until entire mass is boiling and seething.  Using no intelligent guidance whatsoever, serve with seasonal sides:  Delusional Greed Cakes (Republicans), Repetitive Dismay Bars (Independents and Greens), and Wishful Thinking Cookies (Democrats).

(For extra texture, add Surprise Blowout Frosting, available from Hurricane Whimsies by Sandy -- now with boutique locations from the Bahamas and up into Canada.)