Opium production in Afghanistan has dropped 10 percent, but prices are still at a 10-year low, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (Afghan Opium Survey 2009). Somehow, this is kinda being spun as progress in the war on drugs.

Taking away Afghan farmers' livelihoods may not be the best way to win the overall Afghan War, and the farmers are fighting back the only way they know how. With an efficiency that would put the most cunning Wall Street derivatives genius to shame, Afghan farmers who haven't been rousted by narcs are extracting more of the popular derivative per poppy bulb.

So why are prices dropping? The same reason that oil prices don't really depend upon supply.

News Corp may charge for Web news; blasts Amazon (Reuters)

You mean we've got to start paying to read the Post and even more to read the WSJ? And you're threatening to yank Kindle content, too? C'mon, Rupert. Just because your company's quarterly revenue dropped 10.7 percent drop is no reason. You're already forecasting revenue growth, so lighten up. Good thing you didn't buy Newsday, because we're not going to pay to read that. More from the Guardian (U.K.) on Murdoch's whining. Post's own story here.

California city shuts down girl's lemonade stand (Fresno Bee)

"... Because Daniela didn't have a business license, the city of Tulare shut it down the same day. ..."

Billion-Dollar Suit Filed Against Citi and Credit Suisse

John Quinn and the rest of the crew at Quinn Emanuel have been suing the pants off banks (among many others, JP Morgan Chase) since the meltdown, as AmLaw's Alison Frankel points out. And here's the latest: A giant suit (PDF) that gets down to the basics, claiming the Citi lied about market demand for securities and overvalued those nasty mortgage bundles called CDOs. (See James Lieber's "What Cooked the World's Economy?" for a compact overview of CDOs.)

Google China Search Decline Follows Porn Crackdown (Information Week)

Like the planet's most populous country isn't obsessed with sex?

AIG Breakup Is Fee Bonanza (WSJ)

Definition of "bonanza": Wall Street lawyers and banks will probably collect nearly $1 billion in fees from AIG and the Fed to break apart the giant insurer. Leading the way is Morgan Stanley, which, as you recall, got a $10 billion bailout. It's already collected $10 million in fees in the AIG unraveling and could wind up with as much as $250 million. Liam Pleven and Aaron Lucchetti crunched the numbers.

Giants make Eli Manning highest-paid quarterback in NFL, but he's not best (NY Daily News)

Grossly overpaid.

Behind BofA's Silence on Merrill (WSJ)

CEO Ken Lewis can't blame it all on Henry Paulson. Bank of America's top execs ignored their own staff's loss projections last December for the Merrill Lynch acquisition, according to emails that reporter Dan Fitzpatrick extracted from BofA insiders.

Goldman Winning Streak: $50 Million a Day (WSJ)

More from Joe Bel Bruno on Goldman's second-quarter trading revenue — the details of the 46 dazzling days behind Goldman's record quarterly profit that the bailout recipient is rubbing in our faces. Enough gelt to fend off any messy probes by the government. And to pay the bills for its soaring lobbying. Unusually candid NYT piece today on Goldman's "business as usual": "Now that Goldman is minting money again, the bank insists that it was never in any real danger."

USDA: Pricetag to Raise a Child -- $291,570 (Vos Iz Neias)

Department of Agriculture's annual study.

Madoff Victims Start Getting IRS Refunds (WSJ)

$500,000 to just one of his victims? Arden Dale notes: "In March the IRS set the stage for large refunds with a generous reading of rules that let investors take a theft loss on their 2008 tax returns." Typically kind of the IRS.

Toyota Alarms Agencies With Plan to Launch Marketing Companies (Ad Age)

There goes our chance to land the automaker's $1 billion global advertising account.

Dave's Top 10 Reasons This Recession Will Last Forever (Seeking Alpha)

David Goldman, not David Letterman. Not funny, but provocative: Among his reasons: Too few "clever [read: Asian] immigrants" and too much Barack Obama.

White House Affirms Deal on Drug Cost (NYT)

"Pressed by industry lobbyists," Obama's crew reassures Big Pharma that it will stop the House from forcing it to make too many sacrifices for health care reform. Was it the kind of lobbying practiced by The Wire's Stringer Bell?

Ed Koch Slams The Orthodox Community For Denouncing Informant Dwek (Vos Is Neias)

How does the ex-mayor feel about Rabbi Isaac Dwek publicly denouncing his son for dropping a dime on fellow Jews in the Kosher Nostra corruption scandal? "The news story that incensed me the most in many years involved the alleged corruption of 44 people in New Jersey, about 15 of whom are identifiable as Jewish. ... I call upon the prestigious Board of Rabbis in New York and the Board of Rabbis in New Jersey to denounce Rabbi Issac Dwek for his statement."

For Today's Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics (NYT)

Big paydays for "dronish number nerds," Steve Lohr reports.

Geithner Takes Regulators to Task on Turf Battle (NYT)

FDIC's Sheila Bair, a voice of reason during the fall meltdown who pressed for a bailout of homeowners before a bailout of the banks and who has hounded Citigroup execs, takes another one on the chin from Obama's boy.

"... increasingly sophisticated traps to prey on the desperation of the jobless ..."

Mike Madden's "five right-wing myths about healthcare reform, and the facts."

Fascinating piece in Der Spiegel about investors' big interest in snapping up cheap African farmland.

Setting the scene at last month's Global AgInvesting 2009 conference in New York, the German magazine does a fine job detailing this land rush. Yes, there's a little bit of leftish knee-jerkism about this being a new form of Western colonialism, but a good piece nevertheless. More from a conference attendee, Michael Ferrari, in this Seeking Alpha piece. The conference organizers' own take here. Click on the above video for a more cynical view.