"It's all about the 'memes,' " says Stan Jonas, head of interest rate strategy at Fimat USA in New York... "Those guys say it and about a week or two later, the guys on Wall Street pick it up."

The Big Picture: WSJ: Economists Join Blogging Frontier

Decius wrote:
You may have noticed that I haven't been posting much. I don't plan to post for a while. I am hereby turning over all reponsibility for administration of this site to Nick Levay (Rattle). I am not managing MemeStreams or Industrial Memetics for the time being. All queries should be sent to Nick.

I think its appropriate for this community to be able to express its views without implicating any conflicts of interest that I may have, so I am stepping back for now. The perspective of this community belongs to the community and not to me or Nick or anyone else.

Furthermore, to avoid any rumors, there has been absolutely nothing from any of the parties involved in this dispute that has prompted this action, nor to I really believe that any of the parties involved in this dispute would have a problem with what this site consists of, presuming they understood what it is. This is simply a precautionary measure that I am taking to avoid any potential problems and to ensure the freedom of the people in this comunity to express their views.

It is my sincere hope that all of this drama dies down as quickly as it began.

I officially acknowledge receipt of this message, and assume control of The Industrial Memetics Institute as the Acting CEO. In light of the situation, and full recognition of your importance to Industrial Memetics and The MemeStreams Community, your status will be classified as "on sabbatical".

Industrial Memetics will make a formal press announcement sometime within the next 24-hours.

We fully expect that your sabbatical will be short yet fruitful. It should be noted that in your entire service since our great company's founding in September of 2001, you have not taken a vacation.

I look forward to seeing if what happens in Vegas, truly stays in Vegas.

Nick Levay, Acting CEO, Industrial Memetics Institute

I assume the helm. Stay the course..

YouGov sought to gauge the character of the Muslim community's response to the events of July 7.

As the figures in the chart show, 88 per cent of British Muslims clearly have no intention of trying to justify the bus and Tube murders. However, six per cent insist that the bombings were, on the contrary, fully justified.

Six per cent may seem a small proportion but in absolute numbers it amounts to about 100,000 individuals who, if not prepared to carry out terrorist acts, are ready to support those who do.

Moreover, the proportion of YouGov's respondents who, while not condoning the London attacks, have some sympathy with the feelings and motives of those who carried them out is considerably larger - 24 per cent.

A substantial majority, 56 per cent, say that, whether or not they sympathise with the bombers, they can at least understand why some people might want to behave in this way.

I really hope this study was flawed. There needs to be more. The actual POV of that community needs to be directly discussed. I would like to see surveys like this done in the US as well.

Telegraph | News | One in four Muslims sympathises with motives of terrorists

Police officials... have also said that anyone found to be carrying illegal drugs or weapons will be subject to arrest, a provision that lawyers have found troubling.

One has to be sympathetic to the idea of performing some searches. However, one of the basic ideas behind the notion that random searches at airports are legal is the idea that they are specifically limited to AT and do not target other crimes. There is a bit of a legal grey area here about whether they have the right to prosecute for other crimes if they discover them in the course of one of these searches. That grey area needs to be resolved now. The NYPD have clearly expressed their opinion on the matter.

If we establish a policy that says we can do random searches where ever because of terrorism and we will prosecute any crime we discover in the process of performing these searches then essentially we're saying that we can perform random searches where ever. If the police think you're up to no good they can stop and search you and just put you down on their quota of "daily anti-terror searches." The connection with terrorism eventually becomes irrelevant other then as a loophole that popped the whole thing wide open.

This is really going to push the 4th amendment. If its ok to do it at airports, can we do it at the subway? If its ok to do it at the subway can we do it on the street? If its ok to do it on the street, then when is it not ok to do it? Is it ok to search random houses for bomb labs. You might discover some that way...

This is the slippery slope that concerns people with the rise of searches at airports, schools, and border crossings. We're slipping down that slope. The subway is so pervasive in NYC that this will have a significant effect on the culture of the city. If you live there you ride the subway. If you ride the subway you may be searched. So, if you live there you may be searched. NYC suddenly seems more prickley then Singapore.

The government there should have presented this as a temporary measure. They should have performed the searches with teams that are firewalled from the regular police and have no authority to prosecute anything except terrorism. Declaring it an "indefinite" fixture of the city, and doing it with regular police, was a mistake.

You want to have a free and open society, but that society requires cooperation. Mutual respect. When people begin to seriously abuse the society you have to respond. Its really hard to figure out how to do that without sacrificing openness, but this announcement doesn't reflect a genuine effort to try. This is the image of terrorism changing our way of life.

Look for the spin to be that anyone who raises questions about the way this is being handled is either opposed to the searches in totality or is simply helping the enemy.

Privacy Rights Are at Issue in New Policy on Searches - New York Times

Could it be part of a greater geopolitical game? In other words, what President Bush is really worried about in Asia is North Korea. He does not really care about the RMB; he just pretends to care. This allows him, in negotiations with the Chinese, to say: "I will fold on the RMB, if you give North Korea up; in that way, you guys can give up your embarrassing ally without losing face".

North Korea IS China. Intrigue.

The Big Picture: Playing With Fire?

What is not uncertain, however, is that our Current Account
Deficit has granted a degree of control and authority to another sovereign
nation over our own economy. The net results of that may be determined over the
coming decade.

Buffett (who I've come to dislike inspite of my respect for him) warned of this in 2003. Bill Gross specifically predicted this for 2005.

The Big Picture: Federal Reserve Responsibilities Outsourced to China

BEIJING (AP) -- China dropped its politically volatile policy of linking its currency to the U.S. dollar but retained controls on its exchange rate, switching the link to a basket of foreign currencies in a move that could push up the price of Chinese exports to the United States and Europe.

China dumps dollar in favor of basket of currencies

The News Corporation, making one of its largest bets on the Internet, announced today that it is paying $580 million in cash to acquire Intermix Media Inc., a Los Angeles-based company whose chief asset is MySpace.com, a Web site that is enjoying surging popularity with young audiences.

News Corporation to Acquire Intermix for $580 Million - New York Times

Frustrated by MemeStreams? Sick of our bad UI design? Tired of all these stupid people and their insipid political ideas and boring personal interests? Why start a flame war when you can take out your frustrations like a man... with firearms! Send an email to tom@memestreams.net with your mailing address and I'll mail you some MemeStreams sitckers! Stick them to your car. Stick them to your laptop. Stick them to your little sister. Or better yet, take them down to the range..

Disclaimer: "Industrial Memetics testing indicates that its new sticker product will not protect against 45 cal, 9mm, 7.62x39, .223, or 12 guage slug. However, other tests indicate it may survive for a short time on the bottom of a skateboard."

MemeStreams Stickers!

Last week Healthcare Advocates sued both the Harding Earley firm and the Internet Archive, saying the access to its old Web pages, stored in the Internet Archive's database, was unauthorized and illegal.

Keeper of Expired Web Pages Is Sued Because Archive Was Used in Another Suit - New York Times