Russian navy sails to Venezuela
Russia's Peter the Great warship.

Russian warships have set off for Venezuela for joint exercises unprecedented since the Cold War.

If there's another cold war, maybe spy novels will get good again!

Russian navy sails to Venezuela | BBC NEWS | Americas |

If a Democratic administration were proposing this plan, Republicans would realize that having Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Dodd (the largest recipient of political funds from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) as chairman of the Banking Committee guarantees that the Obama-Reid-Pelosi-Paulson plan that will emerge will be much worse as legislation than it started out as the Paulson proposal.

If this were a Democratic proposal, Republicans would remember that the Democrats wrote a grotesque housing bailout bill this summer that paid off their left-wing allies with taxpayer money, which despite its price tag of $300 billion has apparently failed as of last week, and could expect even more damage in this bill.

But because this gigantic power shift to Washington and this avalanche of taxpayer money is being proposed by a Republican administration, the normal conservative voices have been silent or confused.

It’s time to end the silence and clear up the confusion.

Newt Gingrich sounding... reasonable?

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!?

The Corner on National Review Online

“In February 1995, working in conjunction with nutritionists at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, I adopted a super fiber-rich diet which allowed me to successfully produce a single extruded excrement the exact length of my colon: 26 feet. I documented the extrusion at the Cranbrook-Kingswood High School Bowling Alley, Bloomfield Hills, MI, which offered a length of floor suitable for the process and measuring the results. The cathartic diet was supplemented by a high intake of Metamucil fiber substance. The weeklong endurance prior to the event was ensured by the employment of a plug specifically designed to curtail any premature excretions.”

I'm filing this under Arts.

Poor Mojo Newswire: World's Longest Shit - 26 Feet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMU-wXsgyR8

Oh man this is great!

YouTube - Sesame Street - How Crayons Are Made

“They say there are no atheists in foxholes.   Perhaps, then, there are also no libertarians in financial crises.”

Quote of the Day

Were the financial crisis to end today, the costs would be painful but manageable.... Unfortunately, however, the financial crisis is far from over, and it is hard to imagine how the US government is going to succeed in creating a firewall against further contagion without spending five to 10 times more than it has already, that is, an amount closer to $1,000bn to $2,000bn.....

It is hard to predict exactly how and when the mega-bail-out will evolve. At some point, we are likely to see a broadening and deepening of deposit insurance, much as the UK did in the case of Northern Rock. Probably, at some point, the government will aim to have a better established algorithm for making bridge loans and for triggering the effective liquidation of troubled firms and assets, although the task is far more difficult than was the case in the 1980s, when the Resolution Trust Corporation was formed to help clean up the saving and loan mess.

Of course, there also needs to be better regulation. It is incredible that the transparency-challenged credit default swap market was allowed to swell to a notional value of $6,200bn during 2008 even as it became obvious that any collapse of this market could lead to an even bigger mess than the fallout from subprime mortgage debt.

It may prove to be possible to fix the system for far less than $1,000bn- $2,000bn. The tough stance taken by regulators this past weekend with the investment banks Lehman and Merrill Lynch certainly helps.

Yet I fear that the American political system will ultimately drive the cost of saving the financial system well up into that higher territory.

naked capitalism: The Great Unwind Has Begun

START Atlanta Kick-Off Agenda

Date: September 19-21

Friday:

· 6:30pm: Networking

· 7:00pm: Keynote Introduction of START Atlanta and kick off

· Give an overview of the vision and value proposition

· Munchies and refreshments will be provided by Angus McRae & Peak 10

· 7:15pm: Break Outs

· Entrepreneurs (discuss need and functions)

· Investors (discuss need and functions)

· 9pm: Break outs return and present needs assessment to entire group.

· 9:30pm: Open Discussion regarding functions of START Atlanta

· 10:30pm: Select group will meet to begin to design wireframe

Saturday:

· 9 am: Work starts. Munchies and Coffee will be provided by Angus McRae & Peak 10

· 9 am: Business Development – Creating business plan, goals and objectives for year 1

· 9:30 am: Start the process of creating user flows.

· 12 pm: Lunch.

· 1 pm: Coding

· 4 pm: status meeting

· 6 pm: Coding, Coding and Coding

· 9 pm: Close up at the office and a group get-together for drinks and to talk about the products everyone is working on (location TBD).

Sunday

· 9am: Work Starts. Breakfast and coffee will be provided by Angus McRae & Peak 10

· 9:30 am: Quick review of goals and deadlines

· 12pm: Alpha Testing

· 3 pm status meeting

· 6pm: Sink or Swim for Weekend launch

· 9pm: Close of weekend

Its kinda of like a startup commune, kinda.

START Atlanta | Fostering the Atlanta Early-Stage Technology Community

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., whose insurance fund has slipped below the minimum target level set by Congress, could be forced to tap tax dollars through a Treasury Department loan if Washington Mutual Inc., the nation's largest thrift, or another struggling rival fails, economists and industry analysts said Tuesday.

The FDIC needs cash. Fuck.

The Associated Press: Federal bank insurance fund dwindling

Matt has created a local instance of Amazon's SimpleDB. It allows you to develop for SimpleDB if you don't have a SimpleDB account and helps you reduce the costs of SimpleDB development if you do have a SimpleDB account. Originally enough he has called it "SimpleDB/dev". It is an open source project and it is available on Google Code today.

Local instance of Amazon's SimpleDB :: kusiri :: enterprise 2.0 :: blog

"We suggest that the transient may be one of a new class" I get a chill of oooh-aaahness down my spine. Especially when after a hundred days of observation, it disappeared from the sky with no explanation. Get your tinfoil hats out, because it gets even weirder.

Hubble: Hubble Finds Unidentified Object in Space, Scientists Puzzled