"Two senior United States trade negotiators who sealed the trade deal with Australia have accepted plum jobs representing U.S. medical and drug companies," reports the Sydney Morning Herald. Ralph Ives, the current U.S. trade representative for pharmaceutical policy, will become the industry group AdvaMed's vice-president for global strategy. Claude Burcky, head U.S.

The Richmond Organization, a humor-challenged corporation that owns the copyright to Woody Guthrie's classic folk song, "This Land Was Made For You and Me," is suing over a hilarious parody that uses Guthrie's song to lampoon George W. Bush and John Kerry. Columnist Dan Gillmor points out that the company is "dishonoring Woody Guthrie's memory, not that it seems to care.

The CIA's favorite PR firm, "the Rendon Group is playing a major behind-the-scenes role at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, arranging first-time/real-time video broadcasts each morning to each of the 56 caucuses, serving as the event's project manager, and coordinating 20 convention-related events, Rick Rendon, co-founder of the firm, told O'Dwyer's. Rendon hired Polycom Video Systems to set up secure servers in 22 hotels so leading Democrats can address each caucus at their 8 a.m.