In his fascinating Iraq war account Generation Kill, Evan Wright describes his experiences as a reporter embedded in one of the first Marine units to invade Iraq in 2003.  

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the US package to bail out Wall Street is a step forward in easing the global financial crisis. 

The US House of Representatives passed the $US700 billion package overnight. 

In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld estimated a war with Iraq would cost $60 billion.

Five years later, the cost of Iraq war operations is over 10 times that figure. And by the time the war is finished, it will be 50 times that much.  

What's behind the ballooning dollar signs?  

It will be one of the world’s largest asset management firms with an impressive $700 billion war chest. Nothing short of the global economy depends on its success. 

And the Treasury Department has barely a month to get it up and running.

In the Queen's speech this autumn Gordon Brown's government will announce a scheme to institute a database of every telephone call, email, and act of online usage by every resident of the UK. It will propose that this information will be gathered, stored, and "made accessible" to the security and law enforcement agencies, local councils, and "other public bodies". 

In the 1980s Gore Vidal observed of Reagonomics: "The US government prefers that public money go not to the people but to big business. The result is a unique society in which we have free enterprise for the poor and socialism for the rich." 

The Wall Street financiers and firms whose problems have prompted the $700 billion federal bailout are no strangers to Capitol Hill or to politics.  

Since 2001, eight of the most troubled firms have donated $64.2 million to congressional candidates, presidential candidates and the Republican and Democratic parties, according to data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. 

In June of this year, Andrew Kramer, writing in the New York Times broke the story that the world's oil giants, "Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP ... along with Chevron and a number of smaller oil companies" were "in talks with Iraq's Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields."  

Myriad cultural historians have noted the American belief that success is a sign of God's favour.  

Over the past couple of decades, He has had a downright love-fest with the already-rich - so much so that the richest 400 Americans now have more money stashed away than the combined bottom 150 million Americans. Some $1.6 trillion. 

Concern about Palin's readiness to face Democrat Joe Biden has increased following a series of interviews in which the Alaska governor has been sometimes lost for words to answer a tough question. 

John McCain picked her as his running mate in August, energising conservative Republicans with her positions on abortion and gun rights and her background as a moose-hunting, deeply Christian mother of five from the northern frontier. 

One of the most senior federal ministers has had his political allegiances, views on police corruption, drinking habits, friendships and other personal details secretly documented by the nation's top criminal intelligence body. 

Cherie Blair has never knowingly avoided saying and doing stupid things, but her latest remark – that her husband Tony is comparable to Sir Winston Churchill, the wartime leader, Nobel prize-winner, soldier and historian – will attract understandable mirth.  

"Working together, we are confident we will pass a responsible bill in the very near future," they said.

The House is not due to meet again until Thursday as many members have gone home for a Jewish holiday.

Bush Warning Over Bail-out Delay

The Tories are under fire after it emerged they have been bankrolled by City 'wolves' who have made a killing from the financial crash.  

The party has received hundreds of thousands of pounds from hedge fund managers who raked in vast sums by short-selling shares in British banks.