flickering pictures

A neat new U.S.-based news service called the Global Post has started covering events around the world, with an emphasis on regions that traditionally fly under the mainstream radar and a novel insistence that its reporters must live full-time in the countries they cover. It’s too early to say if it’ll live up to […]

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Born on January 8, 1935, Elvis Presley would have been 74 years old today. Other notable events on this day:

1835: For the only time in U.S. history, the national debt is exactly zero dollars. Today’s debt is just over $10.6 trillion, or about $35,000 for every man, woman and child in the country.

1867: […]

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When I first saw this little story on the Consumerist, I thought it had to be a joke. But out of curiosity, I googled it — and came up with 113,000 hits, a flag-waving liberty dollar nutbar website, and a too-strange-to-be-true article in the Washington Post:

Once upon a time, a “monetary architect” named Bernard […]

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CNN reports:

Exxon Mobil, the leading U.S. oil company, said its third-quarter net profit was $14.83 billion, [or] $1,865.69 per second, nearly $400 a second more than the prior mark.

No U.S. company has ever earned more profit in a single quarter.
To put things into perspective, $14.83 billion is enough to wipe out the crippling external debts […]

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According to the U.K., that there is a map of the world’s newest terrorist state.
As stock markets continue to dry-heave at the toilet of the world economy — and as financial-sector CEOs continue to dry-hump the American taxpayer — we’re discovering that British municipalities, police forces and other investors had a lot of money in […]

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A comment on America’s financial woes, as reported in the latest edition of Harper’s Weekly:

“The private market has screwed itself up,” said Representative Barney Frank (D., Mass.), “and they need the government to come help them unscrew it.”

A close second, also from Harper’s Weekly:

“My first instinct,” said President George W. Bush, “was to let the […]

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Eight people have paid $1,000 each for an iPhone application called “I Am Rich” that does absolutely nothing except put a shining red ruby on your screen, signalling to people that you’ve got far more money and obnoxiousness than you know what to do with.
From the Times:

Cheaper than a Porsche, and arguably as tasteless, the […]

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Okay, maybe unofficially.
On June 6, the National Post reported that “It’s a sad day when those that can afford to buy a loaf of bread need to cart 600-million Zimbabwean dollars to the store.” Less than two months later, a sad day has turned downright miserable: you could trudge to that same store with […]

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