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Brazil slaps trade sanctions on US over cotton dispute

The Brazilian government has announced trade sanctions against a variety of American goods in retaliation for illegal US subsidies to cotton farmers.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) approved the sanctions in a rare move.
Brazil published a list of 100 US goods that would be subject to import tariffs in 30 days, unless the two governments reached a last-minute accord.
It said it regretted the sanctions, but that eight years of litigation had failed to produce a result.
It said it would raise tariffs on $591m (£393m) worth of US products - from cars, where the tariff will increase from 35% to 50%, to milk powder, which would see a 20% increase in the levy.

Cotton and cotton products would be charged 100% import tariff, the highest on the list.
The Office of the US Trade Representative said it was "disappointed" by Brazil's decision and called for a negotiated settlement.
Critics say the US has given its cotton growers an unfair advantage by paying them billions of dollars each year.
In 2008, the WTO ruled that subsidies to US cotton producers were discriminatory.

http://www.google.com/publicdata/home

Google Launches Public Data Explorer

Yesterday Google flipped the switch on their newest Google labs product "Google Public Data Explorer", a tool that allows anyone to browse, compare and visualize information from a dozen or so public data sets (World Bank data, US Census Information, Eurostat etc.). While a limited in what you can do today it provides some interesting insight into what might be coming down the pipes.

Data visualizations can also be linked to, or even embedded in a webpage (as I've done below) and, where the data exists, the charts can even be animated to show the progression of time. There's loads of options to explore and tinker with.

Europe bars Wall Street banks from government bond sales

European countries are blocking Wall Street banks from lucrative deals to sell government debt worth hundreds of billions of euros in retaliation for their role in the credit crunch.

For the first time in five years, no big US investment bank appears among the top nine sovereign bond bookrunners in Europe, according to Dealogic data compiled for the Guardian. Only Morgan Stanley ranks at number 10.

Goldman Sachs doesn't make the table. Goldman made it to number five last year and in 2006, and number eight in 2007, the data shows. JP Morgan was in the top ten last year and in 2007 and 2006 but doesn't appear this year.

"Governments do not have the confidence that the excessive risk-taking culture of the big Wall Street banks has changed and they still cannot be trusted to put the stability of the financial system before profit," said Arlene McCarthy, vice chair of the European parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee. "It is no surprise therefore that governments are reluctant to do business with banks that have failed to learn the lesson of the crisis. The banks need to acknowledge the mistakes that were made and behave in an ethical way to regain the trust and confidence of governments."

European sovereign bond league tables are now dominated by European banks such as Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank, and Société Générale, the Dealogic table shows. Their business model is usually seen as more relationship-based, while US investment banks have traditionally been focused on immediate deal-making.

Good. Hit them where it hurts.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

It may not be immediately obvious to everyone, but one family are convinced they can see the face of Jesus on the lid of a jar of Marmite.

Chevra Mehadrin, a Jewish group in Monsey, N.Y, recently released a list of food items that should no longer be considered kosher.

According to the group, a tiny parasitic worm called anisakis that is found in smoked salmon makes it unfit for kosher cuisine.

Despite reports, some are skeptical of the radical claims made by the extreme groups.

"This issue has been resolved in Jewish law for hundreds of years already,"  Rabbi Moshe Elefant [not kosher either...] of the Orthodox Union, the largest kashrut certifying organization in the world reported to the NY Post.

what is tribext ? What does it do ? And does it run on FF 3.6 (melo says no) ?

keep to the Fen Causeway

And it's all Helen's fault.  ;)

Following a tip from her, I bought a 1000 litre water tank from ebay, and I thought I'd arranged to have delivered in the first week of the school holidays.

I came home tonight to find it left in front of the front door.  And it was at this point I realised, that although I'd measured carefully where it was going to go, I hadn't actually given any thought as to how it was going to get there.

At its narrowest point, it's 40cm wider than the gate.  And too heavy for the three of us to lift over.

We've had to take down a fence panel, and both sides of the greenhouse frame...

Not one of my more glorious days.  Oops...  :)

In this five pictures combo, taken Sunday, Dec. 6 2009, a uniformed motorcycle policeman and a plainclothes officer are seen placing a bottle in a white backpack which is then left next to a detained youth in pyjama trousers, as three more policemen stand above in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. Greek police have apologized to the 23-year-old, who was arrested during riots Sunday and charged with having a petrol bomb in his bag. The youth denied any link with the riots - saying he was caught up in the fracas when he left home to put the rubbish out - and said the bag was planted on him during his arrest. After video footage emerged backing his claim, police withdrew their initial evidence and said the bag had been erroneously linked with the suspect. A prosecutor has ordered an investigation into the incident, which police described as "very serious." AP

Our local corrupt bottom-feeding political machine was decisively beaten in recent election, just when they thought they could make a come back.  Truth be told, there was an opening for their resurgence.  That door has now closed and I don't think they can wedge it open again; they will have been out of power for too long and their political contacts in Santa Fe will have evaporated.

The thing is ... you can't win in local government.  There's not a lot of good that can be accomplish.  There IS a lot of harm that can be done and has been done here by graft, skimming, & so on.  We're a poor community - the joke is we aren't noticing the recession because we've never moved out of the Depression - and the 'liberating' of $10,000 here, $5,000 there, hurt us bad in the past.  The last town administration really cleaned-up and this one promises to continue to spend Public monies on the Public.

So in one small corner of the world: A Win.


No one could have predicted

ja. And in other rumor, milleniatti pwnd again.

Tague told students a canard about Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stepping down, students promptly spread the news into the blogosphere. Later in class, Tague revealed that the tip was false, part of a lesson on credibility...

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

Proving once again that Al Gore is fat.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

<<vill ni att jag vänder om>>

is translated by Google as:

"I want you to turn on"

doesn't vänder (to turn back, to return, to the original) + om translate better as "turn back, turn around?"

so this would be better translated as:

"I want [Imperative] you to return"

?

No one could have predicted