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A shocking report released Monday by the Internal Revenue Service revealed that more than 65 percent of the money donated at churches across the world never reaches God. "Unfortunately, almost half of all collections go toward administrative expenses such as management, utilities, and clerical costs," said Virginia Raeburn, a spokesperson for the Lord Almighty, adding that another 25 percent of heavenly funding is needed just to cover payroll for the angelic hierarchy. "People always assume God is filthy rich, but they’d be surprised to learn His net worth is only around $8 million—and most of that is tied up in real estate."

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World governments should prepare a co-ordinated action plan in case Earth is contacted by aliens, according to scientists.

Scientists argue that a branch of the UN must be given responsibility for “supra-Earth affairs” and formulate a plan for how to deal with extraterrestrials, should they appear.

The comments are part of an extraterrestrial-themed edition of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A published today. In it, scientists examine all aspects of the search for extraterrestrial life, from astronomy and biology to the political and religious fallout that would result from alien contact.

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The problem in media goes much wider than Palin and Limbaugh and Beck. The entire media business needs to do some soul-searching. News in general, in all forms, has become so debased and vulgar and unserious. Now all of us are paying the price. Because maybe it sounds pious to say that news is important to a culture. We’ve all had our fill of hacks who take themselves and their “profession” too seriously. But on the other hand, there was a time, in the days of Walter Cronkite, say, when reporting news was something that people took seriously, and maybe I’m just an “old,” but you know what? We were better off in those days.

The problem began when news became tied to profits. The networks at one time used to run news as a loss leader, subsidized by entertainment. When that changed, and news started chasing ratings (and dollars), the problem began. When dollars started to try up, things only got worse. Networks became desperate and resorted to making the news more like entertainment.

The Internet made things worse, in two ways. First, the Internet exacerbated the decline in revenues, and heightened the desperation in the news business. Trust me, I’m in a position to know, because I’m in the business of seeing just how far I can make news people bend in order to keep getting my advertising dollars. That influence is stronger now than it has ever been. The TV networks and magazines and newspapers are desperate and terrified. Stuff that 10 years ago they would have thrown back in our face they now do willingly — in fact, they don’t even wait for us to suggest it. They suggest it themselves.

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Two days ago Pima County Sheriff Charles Dupnik made a strong statement against the “vitriolic rhetoric” which he believes contributed the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others.  While Dupnik did not point at any political party, it was fairly clear to everyone that he was criticizing the right-side of politics.  Yesterday, Dupnik did away with any pretenses and plainly named Sharon Angle and Sarah Palin as two individuals he believed contributed to this “political vitriol.”  Yesterday, Fox News also began what appeared to be an organized campaign to discredit Dupnik.

There’s a support line, where you can voice your opinion of the Sheriff: +1 520 351-4900

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Another Ohio Democrat, Steve Driehaus, clashed repeatedly with Boehner before losing his seat in the midterm elections. After Boehner suggested that by voting for Obamacare, Driehaus "may be a dead man" and "can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati" because "the Catholics will run him out of town," Driehaus began receiving death threats, and a right-wing website published directions to his house. Driehaus says he approached Boehner on the floor and confronted him.

"I didn’t think it was funny at all," Driehaus says. "I’ve got three little kids and a wife. I said to him, ‘John, this is bullshit, and way out of bounds. For you to say something like that is wildly irresponsible.’"

Driehaus is quick to point out that he doesn’t think Boehner meant to urge anyone to violence. "But it’s not about what he intended — it’s about how the least rational person in my district takes it. We run into some crazy people in this line of work."

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STANFORD, Calif. – President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

It’s “the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government” to centralize efforts toward creating an “identity ecosystem” for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

To save you from the Wikileaks terrorists.

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(Reuters) – President Barack Obama will host Chinese President Hu Jintao for a state visit on January 19, and the leaders of the two economic powerhouses are expected to discuss thorny issues such as China’s trade surplus and its currency policies.

The United States will tread carefully as Beijing is the country’s largest creditor, holding more than $900 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds.

Below are the top 10 largest holders of U.S. debt as of the end of October.

The United States will tread carefully as Beijing is the country’s largest creditor, holding more than $900 billion worth of U.S. Treasury bonds.

Below are the top 10 largest holders of U.S. debt as of the end of October.

– China, mainland: $906.8 billion

– Japan: $877.4 billion

– United Kingdom: $477.6 billion*

– Oil exporters, which include Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain,Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria: $213.9 billion.

– Brazil: $177.6 billion

– Hong Kong: $139.2 billion

– Caribbean banking centers, which include Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles and Panama: $133.7 billion

– Russia: $131.6 billion

– Taiwan: $131.2 billion

– Canada: $125.2 billion

* UK figure may include government debt bought by other countries through London intermediaries

Source: Treasury Department

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French lender Credit Agricole S.A. (ACA.FR) said Monday that it expects to pay EUR64 million to the French government as part of a new European bank tax, but declined to comment on a report that the levy would wipe out as much as 24% of its pre-tax profits.

In an emailed statement, a spokeswoman for Credit Agricole said its share of the EUR504 million tax that the French government expects to raise from French banks will be EUR64 million, which represents 4% of the lender’s pretax profit for 2009.

The Dutch Rabo and ING banks have said it will each cost them a 100M.

Sounds like they won’t even notice when it’s taken from the bonus pool, but trust them to complain it’s too high.

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It’s true that the shooter in Arizona appears to have been mentally troubled. But that doesn’t mean that his act can or should be treated as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate.

Last spring Politico.com reported on a surge in threats against members of Congress, which were already up by 300 percent. A number of the people making those threats had a history of mental illness — but something about the current state of America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or actually engaging in, political violence.

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The point is that there’s room in a democracy for people who ridicule and denounce those who disagree with them; there isn’t any place for eliminationist rhetoric, for suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed from that debate by whatever means necessary.

And it’s the saturation of our political discourse — and especially our airwaves — with eliminationist rhetoric that lies behind the rising tide of violence.

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And there’s a huge contrast in the media. Listen to Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann, and you’ll hear a lot of caustic remarks and mockery aimed at Republicans. But you won’t hear jokes about shooting government officials or beheading a journalist at The Washington Post. Listen to Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly, and you will.

Of course, the likes of Mr. Beck and Mr. O’Reilly are responding to popular demand. Citizens of other democracies may marvel at the American psyche, at the way efforts by mildly liberal presidents to expand health coverage are met with cries of tyranny and talk of armed resistance. Still, that’s what happens whenever a Democrat occupies the White House, and there’s a market for anyone willing to stoke that anger.

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“I don’t understand how anybody can be held responsible for somebody who is completely mentally unstable like this,” an adviser to Ms. Palin, Rebecca Mansour, said in an interview with a conservative radio host, Tammy Bruce. Responding to accusatory messages on the Web, Ms. Mansour added: “People actually accuse Governor Palin of this. It’s appalling — appalling. I can’t actually express how disgusting that is.”

Ms. Mansour said that the cross hairs, in fact, were not meant to be an allusion to guns, and agreed with her interviewer’s reference to them as “surveyors symbols.” Aides to Ms. Palin did not respond to interview requests on Sunday.

“Surveyors symbols”? And in other news, pigs can fly.

And about the responsibility for mentally unstable people… Well, just look at the responses to the target-symbols on Palin’s map: “You’d have to be crazy to take that sort of rhetoric literally”, some say.

“Exactly”, I say. That’s indeed the problem – that’s what Jared L. Loughner did. And is.

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The Royal Family is to be granted absolute protection from public scrutiny in a controversial legal reform designed to draw a veil of secrecy over the affairs of the Queen, Prince Charles and Prince William.

Letters, emails and documents relating to the monarch, her heir and the second in line to the throne will no longer be disclosed even if they are in the public interest.

Sweeping changes to the Freedom of Information Act will reverse advances which had briefly shone a light on the royal finances – including an attempt by the Queen to use a state poverty fund to heat Buckingham Palace – and which had threatened to force the disclosure of the Prince of Wales’s prolific correspondence with ministers.

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