For the last few months, the Propeller team has been hard at work on a major upgrade to our social news experience. As we near our community's two-year anniversary, I am pleased to announce that this work will soon be complete. We have a lot of exciting news to share! But first, I want to thank all of the great users who have helped our service to mature. We have learned a lot from you, and continue to appreciate your input and enthusiasm.

Now, back to the new site. In the coming weeks, we will post details about the new Propeller, along with screenshots of particular features. We want the new site to be easier, faster, and more fun to use. To accomplish these goals, we have completely rewritten the entire Propeller website and platform.

The first thing you will notice is our new look, complete with a mascot we call the Propeller Professor. With his fashionable beanie and goatee, this character's job is to aid navigation and participation by pointing out all of our new help resources. We also have a new logo and an entirely new user interface. All of this should make Propeller much easier to use, whether you're a longtime user or a curious newbie.


The geek in all of us will be happy to learn that our developers have changed the algorithm that calculates the ranking of each story on the site, making it smarter and more robust. Additionally, vast improvements to moderation tools will allow for swifter response times to user reports. Throw in an enhanced archival system and plenty of performance tweaks and you have a whole new experience for the community.

We wouldn't do all of this if we couldn't also make Propeller more fun. We're adding new features, such as the ability to form groups with like-minded users. We want conversations and friendships to flourish-if you're so inclined, create a group and have at it! We will also recommend stories and groups we think you might like. After all, why should you have to scroll through the whole site when we can bring the information right to your (figurative) doorstep? We will also phase in an awards system, which will recognize our most ardent users for their participation. If these features make Propeller more fun for you, then we've accomplished our goal.

As if that that weren't enough, the new platform also allows for a more seamless integration with AOL. With the new release, you'll be able to use your AOL Screen Name to establish a Propeller account, and to participate in Propeller content directly from sites like AOL News and FanHouse. Find a great story? Post it to Propeller--and it could end up on the AOL.com homepage! That's right, in addition to Propeller, your story could be viewed by millions of AOL consumers who don't yet visit our own site on a daily basis.


We are very excited to launch this new experience. It is an upgrade we are extremely proud of, and we really hope you like it! Stay tuned for more details, and as always, let us know what you think.

VICTORY LAP

Barack Obama was unmistakably back in the center ring this week at Propeller. First, there was "Barack Obama Resigns from Trinity United Church," with 116 votes and 625 comments. "It's about time!" said ADAGUY. "Yes and no," replied Candida. "I feel really sorry for him having been forced into taking this step... [A]fter having listened to more than a few soundbites of Rev. Wright's sermons, I've come to the conclusion that he is definitely not the racist devil the right tries to portray him as." But lvrofwolves took a more skeptical approach to Obama's decision: "I can't read his mind and I don't know his true intentions, but he is a politician, and based on that I will always question his motives." On a more triumphant note, there was "CNN projects Obama clinches nomination," which rang up the most votes of any story this week: 244. Leemck02 gave the news a measured thumbs up: "I hope we don't have people [who] will cut off their noses to spite their face. Obama did win with very little negative campaigning. If we can keep the nation's health in focus, we will be okay." Blackacereturn was more jubilant: "As an African American, I would be remiss if I didn't say thanks to all Americans for making what I thought impossible a reality. When this all started, I said that whites [would] never vote for a black man. There is no one happier today to be so wrong about this feelings." To which Dionys had an interesting comeback: "He's not a black man. He's a black man and a white man. Half of each, last time I checked. I, too, think it's wonderful that some Americans (at least half, I would hope) are blind to race when it comes to choosing someone on their merits." Another story about the candidate's troubled relationship with Trinity Church, this one by way of Rush Limbaugh, rang up 160 votes and 365 comments. (There were a good many denunciations of Limbaugh himself, but at least one Propeller member, NemoShiZniT, cautioned against throwing out the baby with the bathwater: "Even your worst enemy is correct sometimes. Never say never, right?") And finally, "Obama Staffer's Lobbying Work Runs Counter to Candidate's Guidelines" produced 125 votes, 216 comments, and this loop-the-loop from Stephen Johnson, who relished the attack on Obama but regretted that it had been posted by one of Propeller's in-house liberals: "Geez, the WaPo actually writing a negative story about the Obama campaign? I must be dreaming.... This deserves a vote, but I can't bring myself to do that for an Aidenag post."

THE LONG WAR

"Al-Qaida on ropes: Bin Laden is losing" produced 201 votes and 433 comments. As libsRfunny saw it, Bin Laden's plunging poll numbers were pure poison for the Democrats: "This is abhorrent news for the retreat-and-surrender caucus that only a year ago said we were losing not only in Iraq but the war on terror as well." MRCOFFEECAKE found the reliance on Middle Eastern polling a little dodgy: "So Bush ignores American polls about him, but wants you to step in line to declare victory over Damascus and Tehran polls about Bin Laden? I'm sure they were properly monitored!" Meanwhile, pc25 wondered whether the sheik had more serious problems than a wilting approval rating: "According to some reports, Bin Ladin is not only losing, Bin Ladin is dead." But ETproductions pointed to the string of videos Bin Laden has released over the past six years: "Granted, he looks like he's been using Grecian Formula 44 on his beard, but this is very common in the Islamic world. A full dark beard shows vitality, apparently even if it is color by Clairol." (In the accompanying photo, Clairol appears to have let him down.) A related story, "Bush vs. Terror: Something's Working," earned 80 votes and 169 comments. Should we take the battle to where the terrorists are? Said Bobo in Texas: "For the last several years, that has been Iraq, and there are a whole lot less of them alive now." Replied rimbaud: "There's a new one born every minute, who will not mind losing his life to the cause of nutcases like al-Zawahiri and Bin Laden. We have turned those two clowns into heroes, instead of prisoners."

MAC IS BACK

With the Democratic primaries finally wrapped up, John McCain began to focus his firepower on his ultimate competitor. "McCain Speech Tonight: The General Election Begins" generated 193 votes and 446 comments. TemplarScribe considered the Arizona senator's speech something of a sideshow: "Shame all the national press will be in St. Paul, and all the pundits discussing the history-making event of the nomination of an African American for president, instead of the least-favorite conservative trying to dance the tightrope between Bush loyalist and theoretical agent of change." But ranchhand wondered whether Obama might actually appreciate a rival attraction: "Maybe Obama will be grateful that he will have another distraction.... That way, if he sticks his foot in his mouth, it won't be reported on too much tonight." Replied mesodude: "So after 8 years of listening to Bush shredding grammar and the English language beyond all recognition, cons suddenly want a President who can competently speak 'extemporaneously'?" Meanwhile, "McCain Challenge Letter To Obama: Ten Joint Townhalls" produced 142 votes and 296 comments. MichaelRhodente was eager for the candidates to mix it up: "McCain [will] mop the floor with the rookie socialist that Obama is." CaptainLucid felt otherwise: "Five months from now, I will be laughing my ass off at comments like yours. What do Kennedy/Nixon, Clinton/Daddy Bush, Clinton/Dole and Obama/McCain have in common? A young, vibrant orator versus an anal-retentive Republican." Not so, said saintetienne, who saw a McCain TKO in the making: "This obviously sounds like a man who is confident, relaxed, experienced, is intelligent, has integrity, has solutions that he's ready to implement and, most importantly, has been ready and able to assume the White House for quite some time now."

AND DON'T OVERLOOK....

Most members seemed unsure as to whether "Evidence of Dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden," with 164 votes and 143 comments, was a spoof or not. In any case, the conversation had a certain slaphappy charm to it. "They found my dinosaurs that I hid in the Garden of Eden?" said MereMortal. "Damn! I guess I need to build a better fence, and get that flaming sword fixed." Charlson had a more irate response: "What claptrap pseudo-science crap is this? Wow, I can't wait to find out how Pat Robertson can lift 2,000 lbs." Propeller members sounded off about fuel, food prices, and floating airports. And finally, there were some fond farewells to Harvey "That's Hedley!" Korman, who died at the age of 81. Said Alexia: "This man made me laugh for years." Replied rushran: "God rest your soul. Heaven is a funnier place now." And that, folks, will be enough swirling rivulets of thought for one week.

Oh, and don't forget this:

DIRTY LINEN

The publication of Scott McClellan's Bush-whacking memoir created a real stir this week at Propeller. "McClellan Whacks Bush, White House" nabbed 184 votes and 447 comments, including this vote of no confidence from Locky12: "I am not a psychologist here, but there seems to be jealousy here and hurt feelings... [And] despite all this alleged evil, he apparently never objected or threatened to quit. He was fired. Sour grapes." To which loverman replied: "The last thing this administration needs is a sycophant like yourself, spinning the facts. McClellan resigned his post and did not get dumped." MRCOFFEECAKE also spoke up on behalf of the former press secretary: "If there is one person left who has anything good to say about Bush, that will be your expert, to whom you will all flock and keep helping [to] clean Bush's dirty diaper." On a less scatological note, scott4261 decided to give McClellan the benefit of the doubt, despite his turncoat tone in the memoir: "I'm gonna take this for what it is. McClellan may have 'found religion' like Former Defense Secretary McNamara did in the '90s. Then again, maybe not...." And newbie0420 pointed the finger elsewhere, at the hoodwinked members of the U.S. Congress: "Bush himself has already admitted some of the info they used was bad. I'd be more upset with the Rep and Dem Congress that allowed the wool to be pulled over their eyes, if I were you." Meanwhile, a rash of other McClellan-related stories have come flooding in, including "Wehner: Scott's Truth vs. Reality" (91 votes, 282 comments) and "Bob Dole's scathing letter to Scott McClellan" (56 votes, 94 votes). The latter story, about a scorching denunciation from the former senator and Viagra pitchman, included this measured response from berkeley: "While Bob Dole is reacting authentically, McClellan may not be as bad as he seems."

GOING NUCLEAR

Iran, and that nation's nuclear ambitions, were back in the spotlight this week. "Bush 'plans Iran air strike by August'" bagged 225 votes and 272 comments. For rimbaud, this was good news indeed: "If we don't strike Iran before Bush leaves, don't count on the Democrats to do it! Striking Iran will serve both purposes--getting McCain elected and getting regime change going in Iran." Replied dunkirk: "Why would I want to count on it?? It seems regime change was happening until the moron in the White House decided to proclaim Iran part of his axis of evil. That spurred a crackdown on the moderates and reinforced the religious wacks." This led to some interesting exchanges about oil dependency (not to mention some cartoonish images of contemporary Arab life). The next generation of cars, said Mark Stevens, would get 90 miles per gallon, reducing our reliance on foreign crude: "You begin to realize that one day the world will stop buying oil from those wacky Arabs, and they can go back to their tents and camels, and leave us alone!" Natureboy fired back: "Believe it or not, Cletus, much of the Middle East has got cities, and roads, and cars and trucks and even indoor plumbing. And beyond that, if you followed such things, you would know that much of the world has been driving fuel-efficient vehicles that get up to 80 MPG. But they don't get into the USA, nope, no sir." Another story, "Iran withholds nuclear details," generated 184 votes, 299 comments, and this skeptical snort from GWHayduke: "Let's be preemptive and take care of those non-compliant (with our mandates) Iranian dogs. It's proven to be wildly successful in the recent past." This led to a comparison of Israel's long-established nuclear program with Iran's nascent one. Dicax Maximus draw a clear line in the (literal) sand between these two antagonists: "Yes, Israel has nukes. Has never used them, even when it came extremely close to being beaten. Iran, on the other hand, is lead by a nutter with a bunch of religious morons controlling said nutter." At this point several member raised the issue of Mutual Assured Destruction: would the Iranians draw back from such an apocalyptic scenario, just as the US and the USSR had during the Cold War? BB64 wasn't so sure: "While you couldn't trust [the Soviets] on every treaty, they understood the concept of MAD. Iran has taken shots at the USA since 1979. I think the average Iranian is much like you or I, but if his government doesn't share the consequences of using nukes, who knows?"

PAIN AT THE PUMP

On yet another related note, there was "Gas roars higher, pressuring holiday travelers," with 177 votes and 109 comments. STONERS was not happy: "I'm going out soon to fill up, before the evening rush-hour traffic--I know by then they will raise it again. Sometimes I've seen it change three times in one day. This is BS!" Nor was texasangelwings: "It costs about $63 to fill my Pacifica. That is why I am thinking about traveling to visit my kids by Amtrak, [which] would cost me 40 bucks roundtrip. I am hoping that Amtrak will set up more train stations along their routes." Noted tehranchik: "Gas in Oregon is $3.90." At the risk of causing a cross-country stampede, TimALoftis replied: "It's now $3.80 at my corner station here in Georgia." Harbeas was even more blunt about the downside: "I am so sick of this oil price boondoggle. There is absolutely no justification for the current price of oil. If our government doesn't get off it dead arse and do something about it, our whole way of life is in jeopardy!" (Added Eagle Eye: "I'm so glad I have wings.") On a more jocular note, there was also "Gasoline Now More Expensive Than Heroin." For ind06, who posted the original Onion article, this cost-benefit shift was a complete win: "Not to mention that heroin will give you a buzz that's just plain nicer than mainlining gasoline!" Replied Uncle Dave: "Gasoline just hasn't been the same since they took the lead out! It's a completely different buzz!" Now remember, boys: this is your mind on drugs.

AND DON'T OVERLOOK....

The death of Academy Award winner Sydney Pollack saddened the community. "Great director and actor," said cuba1902. "He will be missed." Added DiffeeOnline: "We studied Tootsie in a filmmaking class. It was regarded by the professor as the most structurally sound comedy he'd ever critiqued." Meanwhile, "Obama Claims His Uncle Liberated Auschwitz" earned 77 votes and 174 comments, many of them from jubilant opponents of the Illinois senator. For pc25, who posted the article, Obama was "the ShamWow salesman" and "a 21st-century media-savvy carnival barker." AbuAmirah fought fire with fire, comparing the late Ronald Reagan to "a 20th-century media-savvy snake-oil salesman." Elsewhere, Propeller members sounded off about glaciers, radishes, Jimmy Carter, and the military draft. And finally, during a week with a fairly high vitriol quotient, there were some welcome moments of levity. "Itsy bitsy, teeny weeny," with 134 votes and 238 comments, probably takes the palm in this department. The video may have had more appeal to the guys (who knows?), and not many of the bikinis on display were actually yellow or polka-dotted--but it did inspire an elated, somewhat dotty conversation. Said cowboygrandpa: "Yeah! Man, what a sight for these old eyes to behold.... Makes me want to be 25 again." But perhaps GHOSTWHOWALKS said it best: "WOO WOO." And that's it until next week, folks.

LIVING IN THE U.S.A.

This week's most extensive conversation at Propeller, with 725 comments, was generated by "I'm Proud Of My Country." The post actually directed visitors to a YouTube video assembled by the Tennessee GOP, which tweaked Michelle Obama for her lack of patriotic fervor. But the comment thread was more or less a referendum on America, with responses of every stripe. Nixie opened the conversation with a question of her own: "We live in such a wonderful country, with so many reasons to take pride in our homeland. What makes you proud to be an American?" Replied capecoralIM: "As I have driven many a mile through America, through big cities and flyover country, I have seen small towns having strawberry festivals, crawfish festivals, swamp-buggy races, local stock-car races, Little League baseball games, high-school football games, [and] city council meetings.... I feel so blessed to have been born in such a great country." But there were other responses as well, which alluded to a less idyllic picture of America. Said jordan11: "I'm proud that I didn't vote for the con in the White House, and have spoken out against him and his pals who have screwed my country. And I don't refer to my country as my 'homeland.' Too Hitlerish for me. It's the nation of my birth." A comment from david nwpa was on a similar wavelength: "Patriotism is measured in many ways. Wearing lapel pins, saluting the flag, and grandstanding are not among the ways we show pride in our nation. When we work with the poor of this nation to lift them up from poverty, we show pride. When we teach the young of this nation, we show pride." HannibalBarca, a Canadian member, put in a good word for his neighbor ("It is a great country, just as mine is"), and noted that his own work in the energy industry was keeping the U.S. supplied with oil. This got a grateful response from ranchhand: "My diesel truck loves you and so does my tractor." Then came another testimonial to the entente between the North American neighbors, from cushi: ""Had a very good friend and coworker from Montreal! She loved wrestling, and we used to go to see it at our coliseum. Her name is Joan." (Joan, are you out there? Raise your hand, please.) And finally, Wolfie2007 returned to the conversation to fiscal nuts and bolts: "The United States economy has been named the world's number one for the 15th year in a row. That makes me proud of my country."

A STRICKEN SENATOR

"Ted Kennedy has malignant brain tumor" racked up 212 votes and 290 comments. For the most part, the comments were generous, even from those on the opposite side of the political spectrum. Said libsRfunny: "Given his age and the nature of the treatment, I would think this is the end of his political career. Good luck to him." Blackacereturn had only good wishes: "May god bless him. He is a great American and I wish him and his family well!" But there were those who saw a silver lining in Kennedy's illness. DebraJMSmith hoped that his advocacy for pro-choice legislation would now grind to a halt: "I am just glad to get him out of office, because of his voting for abortions, time and time again. I said one prayer for his 'salvation' in all of this.... [But] other than that, I hope the Lord keeps him from going back to his 'job' as a U.S. senator." Other members were outraged by such comments. Said tkyrchncs: "Blasphemy. You are commanded by your Savior to love. If this is an example of how you think Christians should speak or write, you do not know what a Christian is." Added tdash: "Fundamentalism is to religion as paint-by-numbers is to art." To which pianojan replied: "Let me enlighten you as to the he definition of a Christian fundamentalist. It refers to one who believes in the infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible." But V.O.R. turned the conversation away from theology, recalling the death of Ronald Reagan and his compassionate response to it: "I probably disagreed with his policies as much as you do Kennedy's. It was still an emotional week. Ridicule these people as we may for their politics, they are still giants of American history. They did what they felt was right and fought hard for what they believed in." (A related story, "Sen Edward Kennedy Rushed to Hospital," generated 146 votes and 166 comments.)

BUSH PILOT

Not for the first time, a clutch of stories about George W. Bush put POTUS back in the center ring. "Bush Bashers Beware," with 187 votes and 538 comments, was a tailgunning defense of the president. And yes, the conversation was a contentious one. Candida called the article "pure progaganda." AlphaGnosis, who posted the original link, fired back: "The whole gist of the article was to show that regardless of everyone trying to vilify the president, the facts were different, and that [these doubters] would one day regret doing so." But dissent predicted that not only AlphaGnosis but the publisher of the article, Investors Business Daily, would be proven wrong: "Don't worry, AG. [Investors Business Daily] will be sucking eggs along with you and the author of this article too. In that respect, at least, you're not alone." GLee rebounded to Dubya's defense: "Not afraid to make the unpopular decisions. A man's man. History will judge him well. Thanks for your service, W!" But pybo wasn't buying: "When Bush was first elected, or whatever you want to call that debacle in 2000, I thought, oh well, he's a bit of an embarrassment, and he has no class, but how much harm can he do in four years? Well, it has gone way beyond my imagination." A related story, "Biden calls Bush comments 'bullshit'," racked up 73 votes and 186 comments. Bkumm cheered on the senator from Delaware: "Awesome! Go Biden! I never thought he should be President, but he'd make someone a heck of a Secretary of Call It Like He Sees It." Another member, aniokly, defended the remarks made by Bush before the Israeli Knesset: "[Obama] is an appeaser, and that is why he was so sure President Bush had [singled] him out. Do the Democrats really think Americans believe a word that old Arab sympathizer utters?" (Putting aside the question of whether Obama is an Arab sympathizer, can a 46-year-old candidate really be called "old"?) But Lurch came to the defense of Obama and Biden alike: "Chamberlain is a tiger compared to Bush. Who let 9/11 happen on his watch despite the dire warnings, and then let OBL go from Tora Bora, and still cannot be bothered to go after the terrorist behind 9/11, USS Cole, and more?"

TILL DEATH DO US PART

"California Supreme Court approves gay marriage" bagged 170 votes, 384 comments, and this protest from tweetie08: "This world was made for men and women to get married and not [people of] the same sex getting married." Mark Stevens begged to differ: "People that are against same-sex marriage are not 'Christians,' they're just self-centered jerks. Why isn't there an outrage against adultery? That has ruined the meaning of marriage more than all the homosexual weddings could ever do!" One member, abntv, took a regional approach to the issue: "You can always count on California for a laugh. They deserve themselves." Responded NoWayMan: "Then maybe the rest of the country doesn't deserve the 1 out of every 6 federal tax dollars that [CA] provides for the entire nation." For quiescence, this was a cause for celebration, plain and simple: "I look forward to the day when marriage rights will be extended to gays in all states. To deny someone a basic human right based on their sexual orientation is not only immoral, but it is utterly inconsistent with the notions of equality intrinsic in the U.S. legal system." Replied Locky12: "Maybe you're confusing 'freedom' with 'license'." To which Tangent001 responded: "The 'freedom' to marry is assumed. The government 'licenses' marriage to ensure no harm is done by the union (e.g. the marriage of close blood relatives)." For tanglang, it was the activist approach from the bench that rubbed him the wrong way: "I would think that even the gays who would normally be happy about a victory such as this would be outraged at how the decision came about. Do we really want judges who legislate from the bench making our decisions for us?" But 1-2-Oscar argued that the court's advocacy was part of a great American tradition: "[The] courts have (properly) struck down many laws, including those which mandated racial segregation and denied equal rights to women. What we have here is simply an extension of that very valid principle to a group of citizens who do not enjoy widespread public support--but they are still citizens." Let's leave the last word to Global Warmer, who seems to consider the issue a matter of non-compatible formats: "California was pushing Beta when the rest of the country had VHS. Now this?"

AND DON'T OVERLOOK....

"Veterans peace group blocked from D.C. parade" clocked 196 votes and 257 comments. ETproductions objected to the antiwar contingent's exclusion: "Both sides have the right to free speech. Barring either side is a direct violation of their First Amendment rights. In this case, you only need to bar the opposition to the war to turn the parade into a political speech in favor of it." But joeblowe felt otherwise: "I'm with the guys that want to shut down the Iraq debacle. But I don't want them detracting from the time spent to honor those fallen in WWI or WWII or Korea or Vietnam or even those KIA in Iraq or Afghanistan. I don't really think it's appropriate." Elsewhere, Propeller members sounded off about caves, Karl Rove, and canine obedience. And this video, of Chris Matthews pummeling radio host Kevin James for his historical ignorance vis-à-vis Neville Chamberlain, occasioned a good deal of jollity in the thread. Granted, James didn't win any points for simply shouting appeasement over and over again. But as DeadXXXManXXXTalkin pointed out, there's nothing wrong with a little ignorance, as long as you're willing to admit it: "I'll show you how. I didn't know Chamberlain ceded part of [Czechoslovakia] to Hitler. I probably heard it before, and it was probably in there somewhere, [but] its current cranial location may be occupied by the roster of the '95 Indians or something." So that's where that roster went!

Nightly PBS show The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer may be popular with Propeller Scout Corey Spring, but a New York Times story about the show's funding difficulties wasn't a hit with users. As reported by the Times earlier this week, Archer Daniels Midland--the country's leading producer of ethanol--has withdrawn its funding, ending a 14-year deal that had helped pad out the program's roughly $27 million budget.

The story went on to detail the show's difficulties in securing corporate sponsorship, Corporations "no longer sponsor public television program for purely philanthropic reasons," according to the paper; instead they prefer a more targeted, marketing approach. Overall, PBS has seen its corporate underwriting drop 40 percent in the last five years.

As a result, the budget for the NewsHour is "several million dollars short" this year, according to the paper. According to the Times, Linda Winslow, the program's executive producer, "is still figuring out new ways to operate under a budget squeeze. Open jobs, including a correspondent and a senior producer, are not being filled for now. Longer term, she is investigating partnerships, but covering the news remains her top priority, a sentiment echoed by Mr. Lehrer. 'We've always played it close to the chest financially,' he said. 'That's part of who we are, part of being in public broadcasting.'"

The show, originally conceived as the half-hour Robert MacNeil Report, first aired on New York's channel 13 (WNET) in 1975. Reporter Robert MacNeil moderated the show, while Lehrer served as the Washington correspondent. In September 1983, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour launched, and the revamped NewsHour with Jim Lehrer debuted in 1995.

Anne Bell, public relations manager for the NewsHour, tells Propeller that there has been "a lot of reaction" in the wake of the Times story. "Calls, emails, everyone from individuals and corporations, asking 'How can I help you?'"

Bells says she has been telling individuals to donate to their local PBS stations--that way, individual stations will have the funds to air the NewsHour. Needless to say, this media attention has been helpful. But as Bell points out, long-term strategies still need to be hammered out. "We are looking at all options right now," she says. "We are in discussions with PBS and foundations and we're looking at the overall strategy."

It's worth noting that the fiscal pinch isn't the result of dwindling viewers. While the award-winning NewsHour sees significantly lower ratings than the news shows of the three major networks, the broadcast does pull in about the same nightly audience as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or some of Fox's talk shows.

And NewsHour isn't the only PBS show obliged to rethink its funding strategies. "The entire landscape has changed," says Bell. "It's no longer the three networks and us. There are more and more cable television programs. Now underwriters are spreading out their advertising--it's not one charity that underwrites the program exclusively."

In an email to Overlooked, Spring explained his interest in the story: "I submitted it because I've always respected Jim Lehrer as a newsman. He is very evenhanded and just gives you the news straight, which is what a good journalist should do. It's a shame that the show is on the ropes, because journalistically, it's one of the better ones on television.... And no one knows it." Spring adds that the story's lack of traction on Propeller was somewhat predictable. "I wasn't really surprised it didn't get more votes, because PBS isn't really popular (at least in ratings) with the general public."

MANY HAPPY RETURNS

Which story generated the most lively conversation at Propeller over the past week? That would be "Cindy McCain says she'll never release her tax returns," with 179 votes and 477 comments. Some members defended her right to privacy, including tkyrchncs: "She is a private citizen, neither candidate nor elected official, and she in no way owes the public her tax information. I assert the Republicans' right to privacy even if they don't think anybody else should have any." Glee agreed: "She is not running for office and I'm sure the 'numbers' would take our breath [away]. Good for her!" But PsychoHosebeast disagreed: "She isn't running for office? Well, not technically, but she will be living in the White House at the taxpayers' expense, traveling on the taxpayers' dime, and has sway with, in theory, the most politically powerful man on Earth." And Beau7890 speculated on why the McCains have been filing separately for the past 28 years: "She's trying to hide her mob connections through her family's beer distribution business. And that's why the two of them have always filed taxes separately--to keep that away from John."

APOLOGY FROM THE PULPIT

While John McCain's wife ducked for cover, his ecclesiastical ally offered an apology of sorts. "Televangelist John Hagee Apologizes to Catholics" bagged 125 votes and 174 comments, including this skeptical response from MRCOFFEECAKE: "So now they can get the Catholics to focus on the real issue: How much Rev. Wright is a threat... This country is one giant television commercial that never ends. Americans are constantly distracted by the irrelevant in order to forget the relevance of their vote." There was a similar response from david nwpa: "John Hagee has been running his yap for over a decade decrying the Catholic Church as a bastion of evil. He has insulted the intelligence of Catholics nationwide if he thinks this last minute mea culpa will win over the hearts of the people." Another member, brettodactyl, wondered if it wasn't time for men (or women) of the cloth to sequester themselves from the secular arena: "Truly, it is unfortunate for Christianity to be politicized as it has been lately. That's not what it's supposed to be about. In fact, I wonder if it would be best if pastors refrained from public endorsements." For palama, though, these endorsements were meaningless to begin with: "This is one Catholic who couldn't give a rat's posterior about what Hagee has to say about anything. So his recanting what he said before also means zilch to me. And none of this reflects on my perceptions of John McCain, nor does what Rev Wright has to say about anything reflect on my perceptions of Barack Obama. Loudmouthed, know-it-all, holier-than-thou preachers barely register on my sound receptors as I tune them out." A related story about Hagee and Rod Parsley racked up 84 votes and 163 comments. Tangent001 had no use for either of these high-profile evangelists, and scolded McCain for not denouncing Hagee's entire, delusionary syllabus: "Apparently it's okay that Katrina was a punishment for gays, that confrontation with Iran is necessary to bring about the End Times, and that all Muslims are commanded to kill Christians and Jews. Parsley is a whole other ball of wax. Man, that guy is a full-bore whack-job."

TRAGEDY IN SICHUAN

"Strong china quake felt as far as Thailand" generated the most votes of any story this week: 212. The comment thread included contributions from several Propeller members in the region, including imigran, in Thailand: "We've felt it and run down from the building." From Beijing, MilesAway wrote of his concern for friends in the affected area: "Both I and my wife tried to call their cell phone[s], but no answer. Also, our friend, a senior editor for [the] biggest Chinese weekly magazine here in Beijing, called a few of his reporters and only one, [who] was in another province, answered." Said blinkers: "Hope the Chinese government allows any essential assistance from international agencies, governments, NGOs, etc., full access to the affected region. In disasters like this speed is absolutely essential in providing effective relief to the survivors." And in the midst of many expressions of sympathy and support, canadianrancher57 said it best: "It is stories such as these that show how fragile we as people are. Whether it is hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards or earthquakes, these natural disasters seem to be one thing that we can never be truly prepared for, and my feelings are always the same regardless of where this happens. I can only feel sorry for those who have lost loved ones." Amen.

AND DON'T OVERLOOK....

"Voter ID Battle Shifts to Proof of Citizenship" sparked a lengthy conversation, with 339 comments and 206 votes. For some members, the idea of a national voter ID seemed pointless--another partisan red herring--but Teagen argued that it might actually tamp down pervasive electoral fraud: "In Wisconsin, it would change leadership in many cases. There have been over 5,000 charges of voter fraud. Addresses that don't exist, people dead still voting and the like. They've actually videotaped someone buying votes with smokes. There have been cases of chartered buses from Chicago dropping off people in Milwaukee to vote. They even had 'their' name written on pieces of paper so they could remember their name. Only in liberal Milwaukee and Madison." Stories about Lebanon, Microsoft, and body art got a noisy response from the community. And then there was "Who's That Hiding In My Fox 5 News Logo?" The story produced 149 votes, 138 comments, and a spirited debate about John McCain's mysterious apparition in the network splash. Said GWHayduke: "Damn liberal media!" Asked jovial: "Subliminal messaging or a Freudian slip? You decide." But Shadowolf cried foul: "McCain don't have the legs for a Freudian slip." And that, folks, is all the news that was.

TORA BORA OR BUST

Which was the most popular story on Propeller this week? That would be "Bush Says We're Winning In Afghanistan, State Dept. Says Not," with 191 votes and 239 comments. The thread didn't showcase a great deal of enthusiasm for the president or his policies. As scriblerus1 put it: "Shrub had to say something, didn't he? Don't misunderestimate him." Another vote of no confidence came from tchef: "This whole situation is just insane. Do our leaders learn nothing from history? No one has been able to control this region, not the British, not the Russians, no one. What makes us think that we can?" Added koranagirl: "And on the same day, articles came out [stating] that Afghanistan has one of the highest infant and maternal death rates in the world. There are almost no women doctors or nurses there. Women routinely bleed to death during or after childbirth." But memestryker argued that the president was capable of more effective advocacy than he displayed during the Rose Garden press conference: "I've occasionally seen him get angry and the real Bush comes out and he's fairly eloquent (amazingly) and I finally see someone really is home. Or when his daughter called him from a TV show, and he seemed downright human." (By the way, the president's family also came in for a drubbing in our second most popular story, "History Of Bush Family Crimes," with 184 votes and 278 comments. But 1-2-Oscar dismissed the charges against Prescott Bush, accused of playing footsie with Nazi plutocrats, as partisan nitpicking: "Few American businessmen who were involved in such business dealings were ever linked to any of the war crimes or crimes against humanity. If everyone who did business with these German companies had been prosecuted, it would have been necessary to lock up thousands of unsuspecting Americans, including the board of trustees and officers of the University of Tennessee, which bought (and still buys) many elevators and other equipment from Thyssen.")

PRIMARY TARGETS

The contest down in North Carolina also got the community's attention in a big way. "Obama wins North Carolina primary" bagged 175 votes and 316 comments. The Illinois senator's victory led to a debate about his electability, with lucid arguments on both sides. Said mackiemesser: "Obama's wins in the 31 states [are] illusory because they came mostly from normally Republican states that he will in all probability not win in the general election. Clinton's wins have come from strong blue-collar support in the normally Democratic states." Responded tkyrchncs: "There are plenty of people who would vote for my dog over McCain, and he's black too and not even human." (CRYMTYPHON had some good follow-ups: "I would need to know a lot more about your dog. Does he wear a flag lapel pin? Can he get the cat vote? Is he too old to learn any new tricks?") But at least one member, doppich, wasn't getting on the Obama bandwagon: "In a few years, if [he] is elected, the Obama fan base will be sounding just like Bush's unrepentant 29 percenters--in denial of his failures." Meanwhile, a related story generated the highest number of comments this week: 364. This time, there was a fascinating digression on Southern voters, who confounded at least some of the pundits by not deserting Obama over the Wright fiasco. Georgia50 said: "You left out the part where liberals owe Southern whites an apology." To which Leemck02 replied: "Southerners are very astute, always known as independent thinkers and take humor in the silly notion that anyone has an advantage on them; I am one of them. All races and education levels are losing jobs and the American Dream." At the same time, aceofspades1 refused to celebrate: "Hillary was the best hope America had after Bush. But the cult of Obama has won out--McCain is as presidential as my garbageman, [and] this is a sad day for America."

TRAGEDY IN MYANMAR

"Cyclone Death Toll Soars Past 22,000" generated 149 votes and 48 comments. There was some discussion about how much aid the U.S. should send to the beleaguered nation. HMMace advised a miserly approach, citing past ingratitude from earlier benefactions: "We saved France twice in one century--then they undercut us in iraq." There was a disgusted response from hamy: "The world reacted with enormous generosity towards us when we had a tragedy. Now this idiot wouldn't want to return the same favor? How sad." One member, nostalgia, cited the funds America had already released: "The US will send more than $3 million to help victims in Myanmar, up from an initial emergency contribution of $250,000." Another, quackpot, thought this a fairly stingy sum: "$3 million is one penny each. About the cost of one advanced missile used in Iraq. I'm happy to increase my ante to a whole ten cents (and still contribute to the American Red Cross). The real problem is not the generosity of the U.S. citizens, but the whims of the 'leadership' of Myanmar." However, at least one participant saw a potential silver lining to the disaster. Said thoughtforsale: "Myanmar is one of the most difficult places for journalists to work in. The country is totally closed up from the rest of the world by its government. I hope that this terrible cyclone will be the start of an opening process."

AND DON'T OVERLOOK...

Alchemists have always sought the transformation of iron into gold. News flash: it's been done. "Marvel turns 'Iron Man' into income with $100M-plus debut" racked up 171 votes, and if the comment thread was a little scanty, there was plenty of enthusiasm. "Marvel should be proud," said cosmogenium. Added TemplarScribe: "I'm not only happy for Marvel's success, I'm also happy for Robet Downey Jr. He's a real talent, and his droll personality in the role of Iron Man's alter ego, Tony Stark, is a significant element of the film's success." Elsewhere, Propeller members sounded off about Ronald Reagan, Sun Myung Moon, and antioxidants. "L.A. Mayor to answer Rush Limbaugh race swipe" earned 124 votes and 251 comments, including some diverse opinions about the radio personality's talents. Said dunkirk: "What's disconcerting are the people who listen to him and treat his ramblings as truth." Replied DaneL: "Maybe, just maybe, he says what a large number of people agree with." And finally, there was "A Special Moment on Family Feud," with 110 votes and 96 comments. Spadecaller, who posted the video, declared himself completely undone by Richard Dawson's attack of the sillies: "It caused me to laugh so hard that I had to open my belt buckle and dry my eyes." But as the conversation wandered, Uncle Dave came up with the hardest-hitting question yet posted to anybody in the Propeller community: "Francisca, do you put on brightly colored clothes and sit motionless in lawn chair for hours hoping to attract hummingbirds?" That depends on how you define hummingbirds, doesn't it?

When AOL announced in March that it would acquire social-networking service Bebo for $850 million, there was a collective gasp from those watching the company. At the time, news headlines bluntly suggested that the flailing corporation could be spun off into parts (Variety: "AOL Seeks Reinvention") or suggested a Yahoo-AOL joint venture. While social media sites are all the rage (just last week, LinkedIn valued itself at $1 billion), no one expected AOL to gobble up the third-largest social networking service in the U.S., which trails only MySpace and Facebook.

An acronym of the phrase "Blog early, blog often," Bebo was founded in 2005 by a San Francisco-based husband and wife team, Michael and Xochi Birch. The site remains more popular in Europe than in America, but as analysts saw it, AOL was wise to focus on a younger audience (and to acquire a venue that might bring in substantial advertising dollars). Anthony Valencia, an analyst for TCW Group in Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times that "AOL was in danger of becoming your father's Oldsmobile. This acquisition is designed to prevent that."

But how would Bebo fit into AOL's larger strategy? At the Economics of Social Media conference, held at Los Angeles' Skirball Center earlier this month, AOL President and COO Ron Grant addressed that very question, albeit in rather vague terms. "About 14 months ago, we took a look at the space," Grant told the 400-plus attendees at the conference. "And we believe that engagement is one of the critical things to look at."

According to Grant, he and other executives had heard Bebo president Joanna Shield speak at a conference about a year and half ago, which piqued their interest in the company. Shield herself also appeared on the panel (via satellite) with Grant, and talked about how the company is engaging teens. "[Teens] are using Bebo to live their life online," said Shields. " It's a platform for self-expression."

Self-expression, community, and letting users determine their own experience online--these seem to be the fundamentals of AOL's new strategy. "Bebo is at the center of our international expansion," said Grant, who also noted that Bebo "is the centerpiece for what AOL is doing."

"You will see us embracing the community," Grant added. He also called Bebo the "final leg of the stool" in terms of AOL's existing content sites and its advertising division.

Later, Grant spoke in a bit more detail to the Context Next staff. "We're not trying to build a portal," he insisted. "We're literally putting relevance front-and-center--relevant ads, relevant content, and letting the users decide where to take these platforms. That's what you'll see a lot with Bebo. We're not going to care where the content comes from. We're just going to put the right stuff in front of the right people."

After the conference, which also included panels featuring Jeff Weiner, Executive Vice President of Yahoo's Network Division, and Gordon McLeod, president of the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, Grant's remarks were the subject of some animated discussion at the concluding cocktail party. If the news of AOL buying Bebo seemed peculiar at the moment, least one partygoer noted that the industry was just as shocked when NewsCorp purchased MySpace in 2005 for $580 million. "Go back and read the headlines," he said. "The press were saying just the same things." [Pictured: Context Next co-editor and Executive Vice President Staci Kramer interviewing AOL COO Ron Grant]

The heart of Propeller, you might argue, is the conversation threads attached to each story. That's where the members bat ideas back and forth (and engage in the occasional shoving match). But for those members who wish to explore a speedier method of virtual repartee, there is now Twitter--a microblogging service that allows users to report on their lives in minute detail. For a little more information, you might want to visit the Twitter site or watch this introductory video from Common Craft:

What does this have to do with Propeller? We have created a Twitter stream devoted to our community. If you sign up for the service, be sure to "follow" PropellerDotCom--that way, you will receive updates about breaking news, top stories, interesting comments, featured members, and hidden gems. And remember, Twitter is a two-way conversation! If you have any responses, feel free to send them back to us via the service, and we'll respond in turn.

DO THE WRIGHT THING

Jeremiah Wright's return to the spotlight stirred up some lively and indignant commentary from the Propeller crew. "Bottom Line: Obama Cuts Ties With Rev. Wright," for example, bagged 187 votes and 499 comments. MajJohn rapped the reverend on the knuckles for his attention-getting media tour: "As far as I can tell, Rev Wright is an egomaniac who has been trying to steal the limelight once Obama began his candidacy." But GHOSTWHOWALKS was more critical of the candidate himself: "Too little and way too late. Smacks of expediency instead of outrage. Should have done that twenty years ago." SAAB7699 was even more suspicious of Obama's actions: "Wise move. Next he can cut ties with his wife Michelle." But the senator from Illinois had more than his share of defenders, too. Said Blackacereturn: "I think we are all sweating the small stuff and neglecting the big picture. Obama is not a racist, not by a long shot, and even his detractors... know deep down that he is none of these things they accuse him [of]." A similarly supportive statement came from ETproductions: "Wise move. What else could he do? In the last few days, Wright has proved he is a self-absorbed prophet of division. He has staked out a position that is the exact opposite of everything Obama is trying to stand for." Meanwhile, a host of other Wright-related stories vaulted into our Top Twenty. There was "Obama outraged by Wright's comments," with 117 votes and 391 comments, and "Bill Moyers Interview With Rev. Jeremiah Wright," with 110 votes and 342 comments, including the following exchange about Wright's pulpit performance. Said tanglang: "How much better would his parishioners be if he preached love, instead of hate?" Responded M2007: "The context of his sermon demanded that he call for God's judgment, not his blessings." Ready for more? Take a look at "Rev. Wright Speaks At NAACP Dinner," with 113 votes and 323 comments, as well as "Wright says criticism is attack on black church," with 104 votes and 209 comments. The latter story elicited this novel statement from DeadXXXManXXXTalkin, which Obama fans and foes can interpret as they like : "I prefer people who are bad at lying to their more accomplished brethren."

UNCONTROLLED SUBSTANCE

"Albert Hofmann, Inventor of LSD, Dies at 102" rang up 148 votes and 86 comments. There was, for starters, a debate about the most conspicuous consumers of Dr. Hoffmann's marvelous invention. According to mntnman444, it wasn't just longhairs who messed around with it: "So did Cary Grant... as well as Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Doc Ellis, who pitched a no-hitter in the World Series while under the influence of LSD." But Will1313 was happy to add his personal testimony: "I once caught a 9-foot shark while tripping. I know I did because I still have his jaws hanging in my family room and pictures." (DropkickaLib: "Are you sure it was a shark?") Chuck the Canuck also offered his endorsement: "Acid was legal in Canada until 1967. It was a relatively safe drug as long as you weren't carrying around too much mental baggage." Meanwhile, Mutainia expressed a few reservations about the drug (whose inventor, it should be noted, discouraged all recreational use): "It seems that some people can take LSD and have no problem with it. Others take it, and they end up thinking the CIA is up in the cramped attic spying on them." And 1-2-Oscar was firmly in the anti-acid camp, citing a history of its ill effects: "The book, The Day of St Anthony's Fire, details hundreds of deaths caused by the ingestion of LSD over many centuries. The chemical occurs in Nature--it is a product of a particular strain of ergot which is found in rye and other small grains." I suppose we can leave the last word to bill smith: "Sweet dreams, Albert." (PS: For complicated reasons, we were unable to procure a photo of the late Dr. Hofmann. Instead we offer the image above, which is probably not unlike what Will1313 saw while he reeled in that 9-footer.)

THE LONG WAR

Although it has slipped beneath the radar at many U.S. media outlets, the war in Iraq continues to inspire some vehement debate here at Propeller. "4 U.S. Soldiers Killed; Militants Shell Green Zone" generated 139 votes and 92 comments. At first the thread focused on the efforts by the current Iraqi government to keep American forces in the country. Said quackpot: "If somebody was handing you billions of dollars a month, would you be anxious for them to leave? The Iraqi leaders need to be weaned from the U.S.-provided gravy train." But saintetienne defended the expenditure: "If we can afford to blow trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars on social programs, welfare payouts and the 'war on poverty,' we can afford another few hundred billion dollars to protect our Mideast oil and business interests, maintain a degree of stability in an otherwise nasty, hostile region, and babysit rogue leaders." And speaking of ROI, there was also "Investigators: Millions in Iraq contracts never finished," with 138 votes and 36 comments. Said unome2: "War profiteering. We have squandered eight years chasing our own tails." But engineer may have put it most succinctly: "Is anybody surprised?"

AND DON'T OVERLOOK....

While Barack Obama struggles with his political baggage, John McCain is surely doing a private jig. Or sometimes not so private--witness "McCain: Obama's Relations with Wright Beyond Belief," with 172 votes and 771 comments (the thread was the week's longest). SpareChange was unwilling to grant the Republican candidate much in the way of moral high ground: "McCain changes his religious affiliation depending on the audience he's talking to, Baptist today, Episcopalian the next. Such a flip floppy panderer! Then he seeks out endorsements of end-of-days psychopaths and meth heads like Hagee and Haggard." V.O.R. seemed particularly alarmed by Hagee's apocalyptic fantasies: "People like Hagee are far more dangerous than Wright. Anyone attempting to bring about the hallucinations of John of Patmos should be isolated on an island just like their hero. At least he's got to breed that pure red heifer first." But TonyByron still felt that Obama was on very squishy ground: "One can certainly come to the conclusion that by frequenting a hate-preacher's church for 20 years one is in agreement with that hate-preacher." And so, obviously, did KvilleTX: "Obama, you may want to distance yourself from this anti-American idiot and might I suggest very very quickly!" Elsewhere, the community sounded off on stories about insomnia, Fox News, and our impending rebate checks. (Said fishifanb: "I'm gonna spend mine in Tiajuana.") And finally, there was this video. I couldn't bring myself to click on it for a while, because I thought it was that terrible James Blunt song--but how wrong I was! In fact, this Claymation masterpiece prompted an emotion-drenched exchange between two Propeller stalwarts. Said ind06 (who posted it): "It's not easy being blue." Responded ranchhand: "Oh indi my emotions are all over the place. Boo hoo that was beautiful." Stop, guys, I'm welling up again.

BUSH LEAGUE

With the primary contests at center stage, George W. Bush hasn't gotten much attention from the Propeller community in recent months. This week, however, he led our Top Twenty with "Disapproval of Bush Breaks Record," which bagged 236 votes and 332 comments. Radiofreeeuropa had some sarcastic props for the president: "Congratulations to Dubya! The lowest approval in the history of poll taking! He can add this triumph to the recent poll of 109 historians in which 98% viewed his presidency as a failure." UnusualSuspect seconded that emotion: "A 'downhill racer,' to be sure... and we still have 9 months to go. In the immortal words of Chubby Checker, 'How low can we go?'" Yet there were a handful of pro-Bush comments to be found, including this hopeful calculation from libsRfunny: "Yet Congressional ratings consistently lag even lower. Looks like a plurality prefers Bush." Another member, dearpru, wasn't buying: "Not having a simple majority doesn't matter; what matters is that we're having a dialectic in our party, while the RNC is merely sharpening their knives and beating the bushes (not the right ones, unfortunately) to get out money for their Swift Boat effort to sink whomever is the Democratic contender."

PLAINS SPEAKING

Meanwhile, former president Jimmy Carter was getting decidedly mixed reviews for his meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal. "Carter: Hamas will accept Israel" racked up 179 votes and 378 comments, including this assessment from rdy2rck: "Carter has the right to do what he wants, but there are inherent dangers in being an unofficial emissary, especially [when you're] an ex-president." Another member, tanglang, was more blunt in his disapproval: "Look at the destruction [Carter] caused to Africa by 'validating' the elections of dictators who cut off the arms of people who said they would vote against him. Look at the fact that he is responsible for the nuclear N Korea we have today. I don't trust Carter, or believe one peanut-farming thing that comes out of his [mouth]." Replied lfergie812: "Carter was a religious man when Bush Jr was pickling his brain with alcohol." And Tangent001 was also willing to give Carter a chance: "I'd have to say there's plenty of room between naivety and pure cynicism for Carter to operate. The worst anyone can do is just give up." Meanwhile, KvilleTX counseled patience: "Not so fast, let's see some results. Remember, some of us have been watching this street fight for 4-5 decades."

PROVIDE, PROVIDE

"Food Rationing Happening in the United States" generated 124 votes, 171 comments, and a spirited debate about whether such shortages were actually a major problem in this country. Grrr dismissed the whole crisis as a scam: "It's not becoming harder to feed everyone, it's becoming easier to scare people, manipulate shortages, and fix prices." An even more skeptical response came from simonsez: "The only people starving in the US are fashion models." Other members took the crisis more seriously. For capecoraIM, there were multiple factors worldwide, including climate shifts down under: "The Deniliquin mill, the largest rice mill in the Southern Hemisphere, once processed enough grain to meet the needs of 20 million people around the world. But six long years of drought have taken a toll, reducing Australia's rice crop by 98 percent and leading to the mothballing of the mill last December." And normallysilent proposed a grassroots approach: "It would help if everyone did like they were asked to do back during WW2. Plant those gardens. Provide for yourself a little. Help take the load off the system. The food tastes better and you know what is on it."

AND DON'T OVERLOOK....

A story about spiking oil prices racked up 168 votes, 79 comments, and this speculation from walden3: "Imagine if the price of gas tripled under a Democratic president. Wow. I can hear the big M Media whining now. Rush would have the lemmings throwing rotten tomatoes at the White House." But texasangelwings was already rolling with the punches: "Well, guess that I will get a new fishing license for the year and quit bowling! I can walk to the lake!" Several stories about John McCain also made the cut, including "McCain Winning Back Unhappy Republicans" (145 votes, 173 comments) and "Young Voters Say McCain's Age is No Big Deal" (141 votes, 377 comments). The Propeller community made some noise about intelligent design, Barack Obama (as always), and Hillary's Clinton's win in Pennsylvania. And finally, there was "Earth's Hum Sounds More Mysterious Than Ever," with 176 votes and 121 comments. The latter post first appeared to be one more ringer from the Onion, and I wondered whether the planetary melody would turn out to be Jefferson Starship's "Ride The Tiger." But no, the story was legitimate. And truthiness gets the prize for the best explanation of this mysterious phenomenon: "Maybe the mice who had the earth built as a giant supercomputer to determine what the question was to the answer 42 now know and are done with us and that sound is the machine breaking down as they no longer are maintaining it." That will do very nicely, thanks.

Story: Minnesota's New Ghost Towns
Propeller user: Buglover

If there's an epicenter to the country's real-estate downturn, it may be just be Wright County in Northwest Minnesota. As outlined in the recent three-part Star-Tribune feature "From Boom to Bust," the county, located 30 miles from the Twin Cities, is facing the brunt of the subprime mortgage meltdown and overbuilding.

Starting in the late 1990s, ambitious developers carved out large acreages, building inexpensive subdivisions and selling many of the units to buyers as investments. Today, these same homes in Wright County, which has a population of about 114,787, have gone unsold or been abandoned by buyers unable to pay their mortgage payments. This has in turn created an epidemic of "ghost-towns." As the Star-Tribune notes: "There are few trees or hills in this flat, predominantly rural county to obscure the evidence: Rows of vacant and unfinished homes, often with lockboxes on the front doors and foreclosure notices taped to the windows. Realtors call them 'see-through houses,' so empty of furniture and curtains that it's possible to see right through them."

Values in the country have declined 30 percent in the last year. (By comparison, in Los Angeles County, also considered a down market, the median sale price declined 18.5 percent from a year ago.) Wright County is bracing for 1,080 foreclosures this year, up 43 percent from a year earlier, according to the paper. On average, there are 43 foreclosures a week.

The Star-Tribune story is "a snapshot of what we're going through," says Zachary Adams, a real estate agent at Wright Sherburne Realty Inc. in Monticito. Adams, whose firm was featured the newspaper piece, has typically sold about 6,000 units in the Twin Cities area each year. But he estimates that there is now five to six years of inventory on the market. As to why prices climbed so high, especially in comparison to other regions, Adams is blunt: "These new prices were artificially inflated. Investors were appraising the homes as high as they could get them."

Putting aside the economic strain on the area--many towns had figured on tax dollars from the developments coming their way-- there is the simple matter of the abandoned homes. Inexpensively made and erected quickly, the houses are now a blight on the landscape. "There are no architectural features on the homes," says Adams. "If I am selling to bulk and all I am doing is selling to investors, then it's all about cost vs. sale price." (Some sample listings off the Wright County Minnesota MLS can be found here.)

Given that he's a homeowner in Minnesota, the story caught the attention of Propeller user Buglover. "I'm trying to move to the Twin Cities, " he writes in an email. "With what I can sell my current house for, I wouldn't be able to come up with a down payment. So the real estate market is becoming somewhat of an obsession for me."

But unlike those waiting for the market to recover, Buglover sees investment prospects in all those empty houses. "If I had the cash, I would grab up some of these deals, and just sit on them for a year or two, [waiting] for the market to come back around," he writes. Clearly, that's something that other Minnesotans have in mind. If there's anyone who stands to make money off the real estate downturn, it may be investors who can grab these foreclosed or abandoned properties, Adams told Propeller. "They'll purchase after the units are sold back to the bank."

Part 1: Minnesota's new ghost town
Part 2: Housing bets gone bad
Part 3: Housing downturn has suburbs stuck with the bills

In a career stretching back nearly three decades, documentary filmmaker Errol Morris has trained a cool but compassionate eye on such disparate subjects as a pet cemetery, cosmology, the legal system, and the waffling confessions of Robert S. McNamara. His films are always arguments of a kind, designed to tamper with the status quo. The Fog of War (2004) may have won him an Oscar, after all, but one suspects that Morris is even prouder of The Thin Blue Line (1988), which got an innocent man off death row. Yet he is too fascinated by human ambiguity to divide his dramatis personae into freeze-dried heroes and villains. In almost everybody, he sees the potential for both--which is what gives his latest production its somewhat creepy power. A visual meditation on the Abu Ghraib photographs, Standard Operating Procedure is an elegant movie about profoundly ugly behavior. During a recent swing through Manhattan, the director sat down with Propeller to talk about the photos, the film, and his responsibilities as (to use his own phrase) an "investigative vacuum cleaner, hoovering up stuff as I go along."

Propeller (submitted by not2needy): What was your own reaction when you first saw the pictures?

Morris: I had a feeling of shame, actually. At the same time, the photographs struck me as utterly bizarre--there was something insane about them. They're unique. They're very different from war photographs. They're not taken by journalists or war photographers, but by soldiers themselves. And because they're taken by soldiers themselves, the question arises: are these pictures of policy, or of some aberrant behavior? It's one of the central stories of our time, I think, and I remain as fascinated now as I was when I first heard about it.


Propeller: You mentioned earlier that you've collaborated on a book about the Abu Ghraib photographs with Philip Gourevitch. How will that differ from the film?

Morris: When Philip and I started working together, he saw the transcripts of the interviews that I had done up to that point, and they represented over one and a half million words. So there's a lot of material, and the movie is just one small part of it. I interviewed probably twice the number of people that I used in the movie.

Propeller: How did you decide which people to use in the movie?

Morris: I kept going back to the photographs. If the center of the story is the photographs, then it was important to feature those people who were directly involved in taking them. It was as simple as that.

Propeller: Is there a voyeuristic element to dwelling on the photographs? Are we in some way prolonging the humiliation of the victims by doing so?

Morris: One of the things that's so fascinating about this story is that people were blamed for taking pictures--not so much for what is depicted in the pictures. People were blamed for embarrassing America, for embarrassing the administration, for embarrassing the military. But this loses sight of a fundamental thing: the crime here is not photography. The crime here is what is depicted in the photographs, and as such, the photographs represent very significant evidence, not to be hidden, suppressed, redacted. They should be shown and discussed.

Propeller: Why didn't you interview Joseph Darby, who first turned over the Abu Ghraib images to the U.S. military command?

Morris: I did interview him, at length--I have a six- or seven-hour interview with Joseph Darby. I chose not to use the interview for a whole number of reasons. Darby is really not part of the story that I wanted to tell. First of all, most of those photographs were widely known, I believe, before Joseph Darby turned them in to CID [Criminal Investigation Command]. I also believe that CID is implicated in many ways in some of the things that happened at Abu Ghraib.

Propeller: And how did you decide which photographs to use in the film?

Morris: In a certain way, I did something very simple and crude: I tried to put the pieces in chronological order. Always ill-advised, because chronology never follows the dictates of drama. I picked the photographs that were the most infamous. I mean, there's Gus with Lynndie (left) holding the leash. There's the night of the human pyramids, when everything seemed to go nuts. Then there are the Al-Jamadi photographs, because this was the story of an actual murder that had nothing to do with these guys, with these "bad apples." If they were responsible for anything, they were responsible for uncovering it.

Propeller (submitted by Spadecaller): Can one truthfully assert that the photographs depict a series of isolated events caused by a small group of misguided soldiers--by, as you just said, "bad apples"?

Morris: Everybody loves to imagine what these stories are. You see something really, really, really bad--and I would put Abu Ghraib in that category--and the natural human tendency is to imagine that these people are beyond the pale, they're not like you and me, they're in some deep sense subhuman. And on the flip side, there are the real heroes, who stood up and said, "I won't allow this to happen." Now, I'm not saying that there aren't people who are beyond the pale, and that there aren't real heroes. I just think that the story is far, far more complex.

For both the Left and Right, the bad apples are these odd constructions. Everybody has an investment in seeing them as bad. Part of what the movie is trying to do--and I think it's a risky thing to do--is to show people struggling with a kind of nightmare.

Propeller: The nightmare of Abu Ghraib itself?

Morris: Yes. I mean, the place was crazy. They put a prison in the middle of the Sunni Triangle! One of the standards of the Geneva Convention is that you do not put prisoners in a war zone, where they can be killed. You put them behind your own lines. Abu Ghraib, setting aside all its associations with Saddam's regime, was in a place that was just dangerous. There were two military intelligence officers who lost their lives that September during a mortar attack. Prisoners were killed, too. It was a dangerous place, ill-supplied, understaffed, with people pouring in from random sweeps. People coming into the place were unable to get out, due to endless bureaucratic rigmarole. For all intents and purposes, we were running a concentration camp in the middle of the Sunni Triangle. Congratulations!

Propeller: So does the nightmarish location essentially give these soldiers a free pass? That, plus the idea that they were just following orders?

Morris: First of all: it's the military. Of course they follow orders! They're privates, and specialists, and sergeants! What do you think happens in the military? Philip and I have been talking about writing an essay for the Times on the whole concept of following orders--what it really means in the post-World-War-II period. Obviously it's not an excuse for everything and anything. But this is how armies operate.

Propeller: But sometimes there are people who refuse to follow orders. And Darby did eventually turn in those photographs.

Morris: Take my word for it, I could not in good conscience include Darby. Nobody knows the full story.

Propeller: Do you think there's any chance that somebody like George W. Bush or Donald Rumsfeld will someday submit to an extensive interview for you, the way Robert McNamara did in The Fog of War?

Morris: I don't know. I'd be happy to interview Rumsfeld anytime. I'd do it tomorrow--I'd cancel a lot of these press interviews if necessary! But meanwhile, it amazes me that people will say, "How come you didn't interview Cheney? Why didn't you interview Rumsfeld? Why do I have to listen to fucking privates talking about this?" There's a very simple answer. You have to listen to them because they are right there at the center of it all. To me, the story is about the people who took the photographs. It's not a story of seven bad apples who got caught because they were so stupid. It's a different kind of story. And I like to think that I'm trying to tell it in a way that it's never been told before.

Propeller: Did you interview any Abu Ghraib prisoners?

Morris: I didn't want to talk to prisoners at random, I wanted to talk to the prisoners in these iconic photographs: Gus and Gilligan. I could find neither of them. And it's not because I didn't try.

Propeller: Did the military ever get any usable intelligence out of Abu Ghraib?

Morris: That depends on who you talk to. If you talk to Janis Karpinski (right), the answer is no. I'm sure that they got some intel out of the place. But the great irony is that the main reason for Abu Ghraib's existence was to find Saddam. And there was no intelligence from Abu Ghraib that led to his capture.

Propeller: Your film includes interviews, photos, and stylized reenactments of specific incidents. How are viewers supposed to treat those differing levels of reality?

Morris: Here was my thinking. I was trying to tell a story about photographs. How do you do that? You show the photographs, you put white borders on them to show that they haven't been adulterated--yes, it's anachronistic to put the white borders on, but that's how I think the pictures are read. I then have retrospective accounts, which are themselves a kind of reenactment: they're people speaking two or three years after the fact, about why they took the photograph. They're all retrospective accounts: verbal reenactments, if you like.

I hear what the people say to me. Inevitably there are lines that suggest images, which would allow me to bring their retrospective accounts to life. It could be somebody throwing a Nerf football, it could be somebody talking about how they forced these three prisoners to "low crawl." The images are there, usually in ultra-slow motion, to bring you into that moment when the photograph was taken.

Propeller: But is there some danger of blurring the line between what is authentic and what is not?

Morris: The word authentic worries me. The reenactments are not authentic, and they're not intended to be in that sense. I've probably created the problem myself, by referring to them as reenactments. They're attempts to imagine, or reimagine, what might have taken place. Not because you're reconstructing reality perfectly--you can never do that. But because you want the audience to join with you in thinking about what transpired.

Propeller: A certain kind of postmodernist might say that we're beyond the truth, it doesn't really matter anymore.

Morris: That makes me sick.

Propeller: Yes, well, at what point is exposing the truth not enough?

Morris: If exposing the truth means adjudicating the final details, that's not enough--I would agree. You can uncover useless, irrelevant truths with respect to certain issues. I like to think (in a self-serving way) that some of the things I've uncovered are relevant to the war.


Propeller: Did the making of this film transform your own feelings about the war in any significant way?

Morris: My own two cents--and I shouldn't really interpret my own movie, I should just make it and shut the fuck up--is that we're dealing with some crazy war of humiliation. The idea was to show Iraq and Saddam Hussein who was boss.

Propeller: You see that in the actual conduct of the war itself, or elsewhere in the culture?

Morris: It's taken various kinds of expression. I think it was half a year ago, I was at the MPAA [Motion Picture Association of America] in Los Angeles, arguing for an R rating for the movie. At the same time, I was telling people that I did not want to redact the photos. I didn't like the idea of blurring them out, I wanted them to appear as they were. Otherwise it seemed to spoil the whole underlying idea that these were the real photographs.

Anyway, I started to tell the head of the MPAA my feelings about this being a war of humiliation. And the head of the agency, who has to watch everything, said to me: The horror movies that have been coming in since the war started are different. Now you don't kill people. You humiliate them first, then kill them--the killing is an afterthought. And I think there is some truth to it.

Propeller: Do you think the administration knowingly pursued this scenario of humiliation at Abu Ghraib?

Morris: Maybe the administration didn't order up all these things from some kind of luncheonette menu. I don't think that they did. But what is clear is that they created a setting where things could just devolve into insanity. Whether it's relaxations of what constitutes torture, or abrogating certain conventions, treaties, international agreements, or sending an ill-equipped army to an area where bad things are inevitably going to happen. There's no single element that you can point to. It's a myriad of different things. But the combination of them produces a disaster.

Propeller (submitted by SonOfTheMask): You've spoken about journalism as being a process of recovering reality. What reality do you think your film has recovered for us, and how might that change the national dialogue about Abu Ghraib?

Morris: I remain firmly convinced that Abu Ghraib teaches us something, perhaps something deeply unpleasant, about ourselves. It is a kind of State of the Union address in its most perverse form. It tells us more than what we want to hear and what we want to know.

Propeller (submitted by Spadecaller): Is the seeming indifference by the media and the public a defense against a frightening reality: that our leaders have made it more inviting to look the other way?

Morris: The US government and the military would have loved to suppress all of these photographs. And the photographs rendered an enormous public service, an ironic one: they opened the curtain and gave us a glimpse into Abu Ghraib. But then we stopped--as if somehow, the photographs shouldn't lead us deeper into the place and what it was about.

Propeller (submitted by gamahuche): Exactly. We can have an almost Pavlovian reaction to such photographs, where they seem to prevent us from thinking.

Morris: The photographs became iconic for a reason. They seem to express something, yet it's not really clear what they express. Having spent years thinking about them, I can't say that I understand them fully. They're these weird tableaux vivants--Cindy Sherman from Hell, things created for the camera--yet they captured something about the zeitgeist, something very disturbing.

Propeller (submitted by Radiofreeeuropa): Do you see yourself more as an artist or a journalist? Or to put it another way, what is your responsibility, and what is ours as the audience?

Morris: I think we all have a responsibility to think about this stuff. Why this country is so apathetic about the war, I can't answer. It very quickly devolved into a Battle of the Blogs--the Right and Left could take their positions, and people could get really tired of listening to it. But I truly believe that before you decide what something is, you have to know something about it: you have to investigate it. And the photographs, which horrified me and made me ashamed... well, I needed to know what they were and how they were produced and what they were about.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT?

Barack Obama was back in the spotlight this week at Propeller, and no story prompted a more extensive conversation than "Obama's AG Would 'Immediately Review' Bush Crimes," with 204 votes and 812 comments. Quite a few Propeller members thought such an investigation was way overdue. Said Will1313: "That's why Cheney will head to Dubai, and Bush to South America... Still not out of reach of a Predator [or] a Hellfire." Lincoln85 was a little more skeptical about this proposed housecleaning: "Obama has to be the biggest fool ever if he thinks he will get Bush on war crimes. I am still laughing about this. He is as likely to get Bush on war crimes as we are to get his pastor on racial hate crimes!" Replied quackpot: "Obama was also careful to say that he would not want such an investigation to become a witch-hunt." Stories about what has already been dubbed BitterGate also got a noisy response from the community. For example, "12 reasons 'bitter' comment is bad for Obama" rang up 163 votes and 499 comments. TemplarScribe denounced the whole fuss as a tempest in a teapot: "I am amazed at the false 'backlash' supposedly raining down on Obama for speaking what many moderates feel is simply the truth: many Americans vote for hot-button issues like marriage, gun control and religion." So did mesodude: "It's embarrassing to watch wingjobs falling all over themselves trying to make 'macaca' out of molehills." But slate fired right back at the senator from Illinois: "Some people cling to religion not because they are bitter but because they believe it, and because faith in God gives them purpose and comfort. In times of deep despair as well as times of profound prosperity." A related story bagged 129 votes and 450 comments, while "Obama turns table on Clinton" racked up 186 votes and 271 comments. SusieQ72 turned a jaundiced eye on the whole pack: "They all twist each other's words. Unfortunately, it is part of running for office. And they all throw each other under the bus when a questionable comment gets said."

HEAVEN SENT

"God: The Failed Hypothesis," with 155 votes and 434 comments, was the latest theological rumble at Propeller. Batting for the nonbelievers, RickyDawkins led off with some syllogistic sorcery, culminating in the following theses: "The universe is not perfect. Therefore, it is impossible for a perfect being to be the creator of the universe. Hence, it is impossible for God to exist." There was an answer from engineer: "I understand your argument but disagree. Two sexes with the complexities couldn't come naturally. Birds with their method of flying and the complexity of the aerodynamics couldn't come naturally. God helped in the design but allowed for flaws." He was seconded by Silverghost: "The incontrovertible empirical fact, which would hold up under honest court examination, is that Jesus Christ arose from the dead." But the atheists still had some aces up their sleeves. With his tongue firmly in cheek, djn3nunez3 said: "Another hearsay become incontrovertible empirical fact most often touted is that he was born of a Virgin." (At this point Mdiar contributed a philological curveball: "Actually virgin is a mistranslation. The term is really something closer to 'maiden,' basically a young unmarried woman.") And as the thread turned to the subject of evolution, smithichie took another poke at creationist verities: "You can pretend that a paternity test isn't proof of paternity, but it won't keep you from having to pay child support. Why? Because genetics is hard evidence that has proven to be very accurate, to the degree [that] we trust it to decide matters of life and death." Yet disraeli, evidently the recent father of a baby girl, had to concede some sort of miraculous margin to human existence. The cut-and-dried science of cellular division, he said, "leaves me somewhat cold when the facing the spark of life that shows in someone's eyes, rather than a mass of protoplasmic blobs merrily swapping enzymes like some well-ordered miniature petrochemical plant." (Just remember, even a miracle need to have its diapers changed.)

THE RESURRECTION OF HILLARY

While she hasn't been getting as much attention from the Propeller community as Obama, the former First Lady has hardly been swept under the rug. A perhaps dubious report of her 20-point lead in Pennsylvania generated 170 votes and 274 comments, including this one from RTV1957: "If I were a Penn voter, I would show my displeasure at Obama's narrow-minded stereotype by going to the voting booth and electing Clinton in a landslide." Added JohnQPublic: "The only poll that matters is the one taken on election day by the voters themselves!" Meanwhile, "Raw Video: Hillary Clinton does whiskey shot!" produced 164 votes and 162 comments. (You can see the actual video here.) For cloud15, the footage of the First Lady nursing her shot of Crown Royal was oddly reassuring: "I for one enjoy seeing candidates acting like normal everyday people. But if Hillary is going to do this, she can't take a sip of a shot, she's gotta do the whole thing." And as always, there were some welcome pockets of expertise among the membership. It was zaph22 who dispelled the idea that Clinton was in some down-and-dirty gin mill: "I've been to Bronko's many times, so I had to laugh at it being called a 'tough guy bar.' If you want to see any of them in a tough guy bar, send them to Kenwood Tap or the Silver Nickel, a couple of biker bars in my area. Now, that would impress me." Another Indiana stalwart, newbie0420, had an alternate suggestion: "Better yet, send her to Bottom's Up anytime after 2:00 AM... There's anywhere between 4-8 bouncers because there's so many fights. I used to play football with these bouncers, and I can assure you there isn't a tougher group to be found." Lurch stuck up for Hillary: "Actually, Hillary looks great. Like a 'real man' compared to Dubya or McCain, anyway." And ranchhand got in a final dig: "I want to know, did she hit on anybody?" Nope, the video looked pretty chaste.

AND DON'T OVERLOOK....

"Bomb explodes at Mosque in Iran" racked up 112 votes and 166 comments. Who did it? At least one member, Candida, pointed a finger at the CIA, and cited one of Donald Rumsfeld's Greatest Hits to prove her point: "The absence of evidence is not evidence for the absence." (Subsequent reports suggest that a display of munitions in the mosque [!] was somehow detonated.) "Banned in the USA: Censorship Part 2" generated 193 votes and 82 comments. Nobody really spoke out on behalf of censorship--way to go, Propeller!--but baddad59 did testify to the value of books as fundamental nourishment for the soul: "When I was a child, my parents were dirt poor, but they found a way to buy a new set of encyclopedias. With it came many other books like Black Beauty, Mark Twain's works, The Arabian Nights, etc. I can't imagine what my childhood would have been like if they had not provided me with those great books." The community spoke out on such issues as PMS, the oil supply, and dog training. And finally, there was "Hibernation To Blame For Bear Stearns Collapse," with 148 votes and 19 comments. The comment thread was almost unbearable, with contributions from Uncle Dave ("Man, I hope Winnie the Pooh and Tigger aren't involved in this!") and simonsez ("These may have been the infamous 'bi-polar' bears"). But let ind06, who posted the story, wrap up the whole grisly affair: "Bear Stearns has also been known to become dangerously irate when a person gets between it and one of its junior investors." Well, you know the old saying: sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you--unless there's a tastier treat on hand, like a $3.2 billion bailout.

Few Americans likely noticed when a new website, Let Them Return.com, run by the Chagossian Refugee Committee, launched two weeks ago. With scant coverage from the blogs or press, the site received about as much attention in the U.S. as the story of the Chagossians themselves, a group of indigenous people who were expelled from the island of Diego Garcia in the 1960s and 1970s by the U.S. and British governments.

"The story is almost entirely overlooked by the U.S. media," says David Vine, an assistant professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C. who is writing a book on the plight of the Chagossian people. "People may know there is a U.S. military base there, but they don't know the history of Diego Garcia."

Once home to about 2,000 Chagossians, Diego Garcia, a V-shaped, 13-mile-long island situated between Africa and Indonesia in the Indian Ocean, is now solely used as a U.S. military installation. The base has been instrumental in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and according to a New York Times story, it was also used as a fueling stopover for at least one prisoner bound for Guantanomo Bay in Cuba.

Since their removal, the Chagossians, most of whom are scattered in Mauritius and Seychelles, have sued for the right to return home to their island. Twice they have won in Britain's lower courts, and last May they won once again in the Court of Appeals. Yet the British government has continued to file appeals, and in June, the case will be heard by the High Court, Britain's version of the Supreme Court. (A similar case was brought against the U.S. government, but ultimately dismissed in 2006.)

"What they have done to us is illegal," says Oliver Bancoult, the London-based spokesman for the group who has led the legal battle. "Since 1997, we have been fighting with the British government to get back our rights." With some of the funds raised through the website, Bancoult plans to bring 2,500 Chagossians from Mauritius to London in June, hoping that their physical presence will impact the court decision.

According to Vine, a series of covert deals between the United States and Britain starting in the 1960s helped secure the island as a U.S. base. Beginning in 1968, any Chagossians who left the island and traveled to Mauritius for medical treatment or vacation were forcibly barred from returning home. Three years later, the U.S. had stepped up its conversion of the island into a military base. As Vine wrote for the Washington Post: "In 1971 the U.S. Navy began construction on Diego Garcia and ordered the British to complete the removals. First British agents and U.S. soldiers on Diego Garcia herded the Chagossians' pet dogs into sealed sheds and gassed and burned them in front of their traumatized owners awaiting deportation. Then, between 1971 and 1973, British agents forced the islanders to board overcrowded cargo ships and left them on the docks in Mauritius and the Seychelles."

The conditions in Mauritius were a stark contrast to life on Diego Garcia. A 2004 UK film, Stealing a Nation, shows the tenement-like structures the Chagosssians were now forced to live in. According to Vine, the islanders had come from a life that wasn't rich in material terms, but comfortable and secure. "On the island, they had jobs, food, health care, retirement benefits, their own land," he says. "And then they were dumped in a place where there was no security, no jobs, and no health care."

As a result, the effects of expulsion have lasted generations, says Vine. "They are still deeply impoverished," he notes. "There has been some improvements, but they are still the poorest of the poor."

The U.S. military base takes up only about one third of the island, so it's entirely feasible that the Chagossians could return. Ironically, the U.S. allows other area islanders to come and work at the base, but the former inhabitants remain barred from entering.

The military also bars civilians from entering the island, Vine says, which makes it hard to pitch the Diego Garcia story to the media. "Editors will tell me, 'Well, we can't send a reporter there,'" says Vine, whose book Island of Shame will published next year by Princeton University Press. Additionally, he believes that the U.S. media has little interest in covering the story because of its location. "This is a story about a small group of people in the Indian Ocean," he says. "It's very far away."

Diego Garcia may be far away, but Propeller member Berkeley certainly noticed the story on the AntiWar.com site (where Vine's story appeared), one of many web sites that he reads every few days. "It's a story that gives an excellent brief summary of the military take-over, " he writes in email. "And it [covers] the crime of removing the inhabitants, and the CIA prison."

As for Bancoult, he is currently in the midst of a two-week tour in America, hoping to raise awareness about the Chagossian people and their story. "I know I have to do a lot of work to let people know," says Bancoult. "But before [their expulsion], people were living in peace on Diego Garcia."