[Quote:]

The number that stood out for me in the Bank of England’s latest Financial Stability Report, which I would not recommend to those of a nervous disposition, is its estimate that £5,000bn has implicitly or explicitly been made available by central banks and governments since April 2008 to support wholesale funding by banks.

That is a genuinely big number. It’s equivalent to about a sixth of the total annual economic output of the whole world.

So to put it another way, we as the taxpayers of the world are funding our banks to the tune of one-sixth of everything we produce.

Blimey, if I may be so bold.

[Quote:]

Audience members escorted out of Sen. John McCain’s, R-Ariz., campaign event in Cedar Falls questioned why they were asked to leave Sunday’s rally even though they were not protesting.

[..]

“When I started talking to them, it kind of became clear that they were kind of just telling people to leave that they thought maybe would be disruptive, but based on what? Based on how they looked,” Elborno said. “It was pretty much all young people, the college demographic.”

Elborno said even McCain supporters were among those being asked to leave.

“I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said. “They were handpicking these people and they had nothing to go off of, besides the way the people looked.”

[Quote:]

Also, an amateur used an iPhone (and a telescope) to capture this image of Jupiter:

Sure, it’s not the best, but c’mon, it was taken with an iPhone.

We live in the future. Still no flying cars, but we live in the future.

[Quote:]

Burried deep inside the War Crimes Detainee bill recently passed by the House, is a provision that would pardon President Bush and his administration for violation of the Geneva conventions. Some of these crimes are violations punishable by death.

President Bush seeks to Pardon himself and his administration in advance for violating the Geneva Conventions in an effort to avoid possible prosectution in the future.

[Quote:]

I’m sympathetic to Eskew and Wallace, and not just because they’re decent people. They’ve held their tongue from leaking what a couple of McCain higher-ups have told me—namely, that Palin simply knew nothing about national and international issues. Which meant, as one such adviser said to me: “Letting Sarah be Sarah may not be such a good thing.” It’s a grim binary choice, but apparently it came down to whether to make Palin look like a scripted robot or an unscripted ignoramus. I was told that Palin chafed at being defined by her discomfiting performances in the Couric, Charlie Gibson, and Sean Hannity interviews. She wanted to get back out there and do more. Well, if you’re Eskew and Wallace, what do you say to that? Your responsibility isn’t the care and feeding of Sarah Palin’s ego; it’s the furtherance of John McCain’s quest for the presidency.

On the other hand, it had to be hard for Sarah Palin—who has achieved all she’s achieved with a highly personal touch—to take all this ridicule under an enforced gag order. After being introduced to the world as one of the “Team of Mavericks,” she’s admonished not to be one. She’s being called out by some McCainites for not cleaving to all of the senator’s positions. The Republicans who fawned over her superstar looks are now shocked—shocked!—to learn that her much-admired wardrobe has been purchased with RNC funds. I’ve heard from one well-placed source that McCain has snubbed her on one long bus ride aboard the Straight Talk Express, to the embarrassment of those sitting nearby. It has surely been implied to the governor that she should be eternally grateful to have been plucked from obscurity. And yet the high water mark of John McCain’s campaign for the presidency unquestionably began on September 3, when Palin gave her nomination speech—and ended precisely twelve days later, when McCain went off-script—I have that on the authority of the person who participated in the writing of said script—and told an audience that he still believed the fundamentals of the economy were strong.

[Quote:]

While John McCain cancelled one event in Pennsylvania owing to the foul weather, Barack Obama paid tribute to more than 9,000 hardy supporters who turned out at an outdoors rally, despite freezing rain and driving winds

[Quote:]

from math import *

def f(x):
    return int(round(96.75   -21.98*cos(x*1.118)   13.29*sin(x*1.118)   -8.387*cos(2*x*1.118)\
                 17.94*sin(2*x*1.118)   1.265*cos(3*x*1.118)   16.58*sin(3*x*1.118)\
                 3.988*cos(4*x*1.118)   8.463*sin(4*x*1.118)   0.3583*cos(5*x*1.118)\
                 5.878*sin(5*x*1.118)))

print "".join([chr(f(x)) for x in range(12)])

[Quote:]

In the field of humanitarian aid, personnel decisions are life and death business. The UN knows all too well the costs of poor oversight, but aid worker and blogger Michael Kleinman makes another observation, far more disturbing. In the multi-billion dollar humanitarian aid business, some lives are worth less than others, and not only among the populations served.

Local staff are the lifeblood of international charity organizations, and a lifeline for those they serve, yet they too rarely make the headlines, either to celebrate their work or to acknowledge their sacrifice. Is this a symptom of neo-colonialist attitudes in global aid or the evolution of aid into anything but neutral charity (or ngo-colonialism)? Simple racism? Or are the economic conditions in many of these places so dire that the relatively well-paying jobs for international organizations make the risk seem worthwhile in countries where civil society and the middle class have been destroyed or never existed in the first place?

[Quote:]

U.S. consumer confidence plunged to a record low in October as a worsening financial crisis made Americans anxious about their jobs and pessimistic about the future, a report said on Tuesday.

The Conference Board said its index measuring consumer sentiment tumbled to 38.0 in October from an upwardly revised 61.4 in September. That was the lowest reading since the index began in 1967. The previous low was 43.2 in December 1974.

[Quote:]

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann wrote a letter last year recommending a federal pardon for a major campaign contributor who was once convicted of felony money laundering, firearm and drug charges on the basis he had reformed.

So, how reformed do you think he was?

This month, she withdrew that recommendation on behalf of Frank E. Vennes Jr., eight days after the FBI searched his Shorewood home and office and confiscated documents, money, art, coins and jewels that agents think may be related to a $3 billion investment fraud scheme in which Minnesota business mogul Tom Petters has been charged.

Oops.

In the last week, Bachmann also has said numerous times that relationships and advisers of candidates for public office such as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama are “fair game” for public scrutiny, as they may affect the candidates’ views and beliefs.

“The media needs to do their job in vetting,” she said following a St. Cloud Rotary Club luncheon last week. “Those associations are certainly fair game and something the media brings up.”

Okay, sure, so talking about you and Vennes should be fine, right?

CHANTILLY, VA- OCTOBER 22: Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) fists bumps with Ethan Gibbs the son of Robert Gibbs the campaign communication director as he arrives at Dulles International Airport October 22, 2008 in Chantilly, Virginia. Obama continues to campaign with election day less than two weeks away. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

You can see she heard that one, but she just goes on. Racist bitch.

[Quote:]

Two white supremacist skinheads were arrested in Tennessee over plans to go on a killing spree and eventually shoot Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, court documents showed on Monday.

Daniel Cowart and Paul Schlesselman were charged in a criminal complaint with making threats against a presidential candidate, illegal possession of a sawed-off shotgun and conspiracy to rob a gun dealer.

The plot did not appear to be very advanced or sophisticated, the court documents showed.

“We’re unsure of their ability or if they have the wherewithal to carry out any of their threats,” said a source close to the investigation.

[Quote:]

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted of seven corruption charges Monday in a trial that tainted the 40-year Senate career of Alaska’s political patriarch.

The verdict, coming just days before Election Day, adds further uncertainty to a closely watched Senate race. Democrats hope to seize the once reliably Republican seat as part of their bid for a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

That should be very good news for his dem opponent…

[Quote:]

[Quote:]

The Knoxsville News Sentinel recently asked its readers if the paper should make an endorsement in the presidential election.  75% of respondents in its online survey said no.  The newspapers editorial board did it anyway.  They endorsed John McCain. 

In their endorsement editor Jack McElroy wrote, “His maverick Republicanism mirrors well the spirit of East Tennessee.” Apparently the voters on eastern Tennessee don’t feel the same way.  

The editors asked the readers in another online poll if they agreed with the endorsement of McCain.  68% said no.  

[Quote:]

In a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday, Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin told the crowd that an Obama presidency would present the specter of a socialist state in which fundamental American freedoms are undermined. Let’s go to the video:

Does Sarah mean a state:

* That snatches its victims off the street, denies them all form of legal process and whisks them away to secret “blacksites” where they can be tortured using all the techniques described in Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon?
* That arrests and prosecutes its political adversaries for imaginary crimes so as to eliminate them from the running in election cycles in which they could do some damage?
* That destroys the careers of professional military men because they got promotions under a prior regime and therefore considers them disloyal?

[..]

Sarah, you have no need to fear the future.

[Quote:]

John McCain isn’t boasting about a new endorsement, one of the very, very few he has received from overseas. It came a few days ago:

“Al Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election,” read a commentary on a password-protected Islamist Web site that is closely linked to Al Qaeda and often disseminates the group’s propaganda.

The endorsement left the McCain campaign sputtering, and noting helplessly that Hamas appears to prefer Barack Obama. Al Qaeda’s apparent enthusiasm for Mr. McCain is manifestly not reciprocated.

[..]

Yet the endorsement of Mr. McCain by a Qaeda-affiliated Web site isn’t a surprise to security specialists. Richard Clarke, the former White House counterterrorism director, and Joseph Nye, the former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, have both suggested that Al Qaeda prefers Mr. McCain and might even try to use terror attacks in the coming days to tip the election to him.

“From their perspective, a continuation of Bush policies is best for recruiting,” said Professor Nye, adding that Mr. McCain is far more likely to continue those policies.

[..]

In the same way today, an exaggerated fear of “Islamofascism” elides a complex reality and leads us to overreact and damage our own interests. Perhaps the best example is one of the least-known failures in Bush administration foreign policy: Somalia.

[Quote:]

As a beautiful dawn breaks over the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, lighting up the tiny Ohio town of Waverly — where black people were once not allowed to live — David Risner stands puffing on a hand-rolled cigarette, one hand thrust into his camouflage hunting jacket.

“I ain’t gonna lie to you,” he said. “A lot of people around here don’t want Obama because of his colour. And it’s his name that bothers me. It’s Muslim.”

The 44-year-old truck driver took a sip of coffee and added: “Despite all that, I’m pushing more toward him because of the economy. Fuel prices are killing us. To me, McCain is just for the rich people. A lot of us are reconsidering Obama because we like what he’s saying on the economy.”

[Quote:]

On the stump and in interviews, McCain took Bush-bashing to a new level by charging that an Obama presidency would be a replay of the last eight years of Republican rule.

Compare this Jo Biden interview with this John McCain interview.

Barbara West will never work in European media..

[Quote:]

Belgian ISP Scarlet has scored its first victory in an important case that has been dragging on for years. This case is the first real test of how European copyright law can be applied to peer-to-peer networks.

To give you a quick recap:

The Belgian Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers (Sabam, the Belgian version of the RIAA) started a case against Tiscali, one of the largest ISP’s in Belgium. In it, they argue that ISP’s are responsible when their customers transfer copyrighted files via their network. In 2004, Sabam (in their own words)  ”obtained an intermediary judgement by virtue of which the court acknowledged that copyright infringements (regarding the reproduction right and right of communication to the public) were being committed by TISCALI customers. ”

The court then ordered a study into whether Tiscali (now called Scarlet) could be forced to block the transfer of copyrighted material through their network. This was finished last year, and in june 2007 Scarlet was ordered to implement technical measures to block the transfer of copyrighted works via P2P networks within six months. The fine for not following these instructions was set to €2500 per day. 

This year, Scarlet asked the court to cancel this order because the systems Sabam proposed for filtering traffic didn’t work as advertised; Sabam has already apologized to the judge about providing incorrect information. The court has now ruled in favor of Scarlet, staying the fine until the final ruling in this case which is expected about a year from now.

Once upon a time in a village, a man appeared and announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $5 each. The villagers seeing that there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them.

The man bought thousands at $5 and as supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their effort.

He further announced that he would now buy at $10. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms.

The offer increased to $15 each and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50. However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf.

In the man’s absence, the assistant told the villagers “Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $45 and when the man returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50 each.”

The villagers rounded up with all their savings and bought all the monkeys. Then they never again saw the man nor his assistant, only monkeys everywhere!

And THAT ladies and gentleman is how the stock market works…