Dumped via Facebook? Probably. Hooked up by stimulus bill? Maybe.

By Ward Harkavy, Thursday, Feb. 12 2009 @ 9:05AM

Categories: Bidness, CHILDREN (LEFT BEHIND), Drugs, Featured, Morning Reports, THUMBS (DOWN)

This'll break you up: Revisiting the January 2007 Facebook parody from USC, directed by Mu Sun

While you're waiting for the stimulus bill to hook you back up:

• It's not you, it's my social-networking. Further confirmation in this morning's Daily News of something that thousands of you already know: Facebook's great for dumping a girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse. Catey Hill notes:

A new poll finds that 48 percent of people under 21 and 18 percent of people ages 22-30 dumped a loved one via a social networking site like Facebook, the Daily Mail reported.

Note the generation gap. If dumping via the net had been so popular with people over 21 back in 2004, maybe the electorate would have broken up with George W. Bush. One major problem: Facebook didn't even exist in 2004.

• Need a car? Go to Dubai. From "Laid-Off Foreigners Flee as Dubai Spirals Down," in the Times:

With Dubai's economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield.

The government says the real number is much lower. But the stories contain at least a grain of truth: jobless people here lose their work visas and then must leave the country within a month. That in turn reduces spending, creates housing vacancies and lowers real estate prices, in a downward spiral that has left parts of Dubai -- once hailed as the economic superpower of the Middle East -- looking like a ghost town.

• Duh. Here's something that our government just can't admit. From the Wall Street Journal's "Latin American Panel Calls U.S. Drug War a Failure":

As drug violence engulfs Mexico, a blue-ribbon panel blasted the U.S.-led drug war as a failure that is pushing Latin America to the breaking point.

"The available evidence indicates that the war on drugs is a failed war," said former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, in a conference call with reporters from Rio de Janeiro. "We have to move from this approach to another one."

The commission, headed by Mr. Cardoso and former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and César Gaviria of Colombia, says Latin American governments as well as the U.S. must break what they say is a policy "taboo" and re-examine U.S.-inspired antidrugs efforts. The panel recommends that governments consider measures including decriminalizing the use of marijuana....

The three former presidents who head the commission are political conservatives who have confronted in their home countries the violence and corruption that accompany drug trafficking.

Other stuff...

NO PARTICULAR ORDER:

N.Y. Times: 'Obama's Battle on Stimulus Shows Threats to His Agenda'

Village Voice: 'Tolling Bridges, Taxing Rich, Chaining City Workers to Desks Among City's Budget Options'

Seeking Alpha: 'Another Round of Farcical Congressional Hearings'

CNET: 'Facebook valuation "shocker" another reason to be skeptical of media hype'

Wall Street Journal: 'Hints of Stability in Financial System'

Even as job losses mount and profits plunge, some glimmers of stabilization are emerging in global markets.

N.Y. Daily News: 'A-Rod mess gets Selig pumped up'

Seeking Alpha: 'What About Federal Gift Cards?'

Wall Street Journal: 'Homebuyers Go Green to Cut Bills'

N.Y. Daily News: 'Mother cries "tears of happiness" after baby's life-saving brain surgery'