I estimate the chance of a depression at

This news just in

Wales: The makers of Marmite said it was "disappointing" a council has decided to impose a ban on the spread at their school breakfast clubs.
Ceredigion Council in Mid Wales has taken Unilever's yeast extract product off the menu at its 51 breakfast clubs within the county because of a "high level of salt".

Defenestration, deforestation, and now this....<sob> I can't go on.

You can't be me, I'm taken

from Sky news.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

"Dieu se rit des hommes qui se plaignent des conséquences alors qu'ils en chérissent les causes" Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

Something strange is going on.

You can't be me, I'm taken

time to suspend the election because the markets are obviously threatend by the thoughts of a democrat taking office? ;-)

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

At least I'm practically broke now, and only (still) owe a student loan...so its not so far down ;))

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, 71, on Friday crowned a distinguished career as a diplomat, statesman and peace broker by winning this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

The former Finnish president has been involved in numerous missions aimed at solving international conflicts, ranging from Northern Ireland to the Indonesian province of Aceh as well as the Serbian province of Kosovo.

His breakthrough as a mediator came in Namibia, which achieved independence in 1990, capping years of work by the Finnish national who served as special representative to the United Nations secretary general and head of the UN's transition assistance team.

Ahtisaari and his wife, Eeva, were made honorary citizens of the southern African nation.

Singapore officially slid into recession today after falling consumer demand from the US and Europe hammered its manufacturing exports.

The south-east Asian country's economy contracted by 6.3% in the third quarter, on an annualised seasonally adjusted basis, having shrunk by 5.7% in the second quarter of 2008. This forced the government to cut its growth forecast for this year from 4%-5% to 3%. Analysts had expected a small rise in GDP...

Prime minister Lee Hsien Loong said Asian economies faced slowing growth for at least the next year and will not be spared in this global crisis.

"The problems facing financial institutions in the US and Europe are complex and grave," he said in a speech. "Asian countries cannot avoid the impact of weakening US, European and Japanese economies."

What she wants to know is should she take her £4.50 of savings out of them as the sudden appearance of the spalsh page has her worried.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Thursday's debate took place in front of a highly partisan crowd in the GOP stronghold of Middle Georgia.

Chambliss supporters waved "Saxby" signs and offered up a sustained "boos" when Martin mentioned Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

"Bomb Obama," one woman hollered.

Wow.

Fortunately, Obama is surging in the polls again, perhaps as a backlash against these insane rallies.  Unfortunately, that's probably just going to make them more insane.

And this stuff isn't making the nightly news -- why, exactly?

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

U.S. Has No Plan to Close Its Financial Markets (Update1)

By Holly Rosenkrantz

Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. has no plans to close its financial markets, White House spokesman Tony Fratto said.

``There are absolutely no plans or discussions to interfere with the functioning of markets in the United States,'' Fratto said in an e-mailed response to a question.

Fratto was responding to comments today from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who said that governments may shut financial markets as the credit freeze pummels stocks and threatens a global recession.

Modern conservatism began as a movement of dissident intellectuals. Richard Weaver wrote a book called, "Ideas Have Consequences." Russell Kirk placed Edmund Burke in an American context. William F. Buckley famously said he'd rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the faculty of Harvard. But he didn't believe those were the only two options. His entire life was a celebration of urbane values, sophistication and the rigorous and constant application of intellect.

Driven by a need to engage elite opinion, conservatives tried to build an intellectual counterestablishment with think tanks and magazines. They disdained the ideas of the liberal professoriate, but they did not disdain the idea of a cultivated mind.

But over the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads.

What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole. The liberals had coastal condescension, so the conservatives developed their own anti-elitism, with mirror-image categories and mirror-image resentments, but with the same corrosive effect.

Republicans developed their own leadership style. If Democratic leaders prized deliberation and self-examination, then Republicans would govern from the gut.

And so, politically, the G.O.P. is squeezed at both ends. The party is losing the working class by sins of omission -- because it has not developed policies to address economic anxiety. It has lost the educated class by sins of commission -- by telling members of that class to go away.

you are the media you consume.

Legislators in Alaska have agreed to release a politically sensitive report on allegations that Sarah Palin abused her power as the state's governor.

She is accused of firing Alaska's top law enforcement official for refusing to sack a state trooper who was in a bitter custody battle with her sister.

Mrs Palin, who is John McCain's running mate, denies any improper behaviour.

And Alaskan state Senator Gary Stevens, a Republican, said there were "some problems" with the report.

"I would encourage people to be very cautious, to look at this with a jaundiced eye," said Senator Stevens, after it was announced the report would be released.

page 47, finding number one "Govenor Palin abused her power"

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

According to M.Sarkozy, this person is genetically a sexual predator.

A free fox in a free henhouse!