To the Rescue
We could all use friends in high places right about now.
BBC
Norway joins fight to save Amazon: Joining other nations, Norway commits to a billion dollars to help stop the deforestation of Brazil, one of the biggest contributors to global warming.
Telegraph
Corduroy Mansions: Need an escape from the turmoil? Alexander Call Smith serializes his latest novel for all of us to read.
New York Times
G.M. and Ford Officials Seeking U.S. Loans to Meet Fuel Goal: Sure, now the big car markers want to produce fuel-efficient cars, as long as the taxpayer pays for it. Line up at the trough GM, Ford.
The New Statesman
The Myth of the Super-Rich: Not about whether or not they exist–they surely do–but whether or not they are any good for the rest of us.
Breaking the Buck
What’s a hard-working taxpayer, who’s saving for retirement during a time of few safety nets, supposed to do with a shrinking nest egg?
New York Times
Money Market Funds Enter a World of Risk: The unthinkable could happen, when one of our ’safest’ investment products “breaks the buck.”
Reuters
China paper urges a new currency order after “tsunami”: Beijing newspaper urging their government to reduce financial dependency on US. They cite our lack of “oversight and supervision.” China buys most of our Treasury bonds. How about some regulation with our morning coffee?
NPR
Could Wall Street Woes Set Off a Global Crisis?: Michael Greenberger explains (podcast) to all us what just occurred on Wall Street. It’s not pretty. He says it’s 50/50 that the AIG bailout will work. You need to hear this.
Bloomberg
Savings bonds face ill wind from Treasury: Jane Bryant Quinn questions why the Treasury no longer encourages purchasing government savings bonds? What, the government no longer needs our money?
Ya feel me?
There’s pain all over; we feel it.
Wall Street Journal Blog
Lehman Employees and the Wall Street Compensation: Along with all their other creditors, many of Lehman’s 24,000 employees are fighting for their piece of the pie–their salaries, tied up in stocks. Get in line.
Moscow Times
Mixing Love Triangles With Global Affairs: Russia wants to be liked by the West. Really. But the US can’t love anyone with ties to the KGB. Really?
StandPoint Magazine
Writers, Visible and Invisible: Think you know a writer? Not likely, Cynthia Nozick writes: “Writers are what they genuinely are only when they are at work in the silent and instinctual cell of ghostly solitude, and never when they are out industriously chatting on the terrace”.
in character
Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, I Feel Your Pain After All: “Mirror neurons may hold the key to understanding how human beings respond to one another.”
Sometimes a cucumber really is just a vegetable
Where are all those innocents decrying the nakedness of emperors?
Telegraph
Al’Qa’eda in Iraq alienated by cucumber laws and brutality: Religious extremism is losing followers in Iraq, and the extremes are notable, from murdering children of families who don’t pledge allegiance, to forbidding women from buying phallic vegetables.
Bloomberg
Barclays Withdraws From Lehman Talks Over Credit Guarantees: If taxpayers won’t cover the risk, Barclays will take their marbles and go home.
Beat the Press
USA Today: Companies Lobby For Larger Profits: Do we really expect MSM reporters to call greed a greed?
TechCrunch
Spore And The Great DRM Backlash: Will DRM doom Spore, the most-anticipated video game in years? They may not be buying it, but players are definitely playing it . . . .
Thar she blows!
Take cover, we’re in for a real blast.
Huffington Post
Greenspan: This Is The Worst Economy I’ve Ever Seen: Our much-maligned former financial wizard is worried.
The Hindu
India contests Bush’s stand on fuel supply: President Bush and the government of India are at odds over an American committment to supply them with nuclear fuels. Is the 123 Agreement legally binding? The US says no.
GOOD Wanderlust
The Voyage of the Pequod from Moby Dick: Set sail and follow the route of that elusive white whale on an interactive map.
New Zealand Herald
Whale of a plan to challenge Japan: Japan says its whale-killing program provides us with scientific information about those gentle giants. Australia and New Zealand have come up with a way to provide the science without the killing.
