Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin yesterday shrugged off the findings of a state inquiry into the 'Troopergate' affair, which concluded that she had used her position as governor to pursue a private feud with a State Trooper. 

Pentagon officials have prepared a new estimate for defense spending that is $450 billion more over the next five years than previously announced figures.  

A new opinion in the United States gives the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama a 6 per cent lead over his Republican rival John McCain. 

The poll shows 49 per cent support Senator Obama compared with 43 per cent for Senator McCain. 

Derivatives traders were yesterday nervously picking their way through the wreckage of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in what was the biggest test to date of the unregulated $60 trillion (£35.4 trillion) credit default swaps market. 

Investors who had placed bets on Lehman's creditworthiness held an auction aimed at clarifying who owes what to whom after the investment bank went bust four weeks ago, and analysts believe that several hundreds of billions of dollars will change hands.

At any other time, what happened in the U.S. Justice Department last week would have been big news.

At any other time, when internal reports by Justice Department call for more investigation into a case of unethical, if not criminal, conduct on the part of lawmakers and the White House, the administration would have a lot of explaining to do. 

The G7 group of nations have formulated an "aggressive" plan to counter the global economic crisis, they said last night. 

Henry Paulson, the US Treasury Secretary, said the G7 finance ministers "finalised an aggressive action plan to address the turmoil in the global financial markets and the stresses in our financial institutions". 

Until 3 pm on Thursday, it seemed as if the stock market might escape another dark day.

Then the selling hit — and hit and hit again, mimicking trading on Tuesday and Wednesday. What had been a moderately down day ended in a rout, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing down 679 points, or 7.3percent, leaving it below 9,000 for the first time in five years.

"It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it".

- George Carlin 

The U.S. is on the verge of a revolutionary paradigm shift as not only is the finance system faltering but the old energy economy of fossil fuels has become too expensive and dangerous due to primarily to its carbon emissions.  

Banks are supposed to lend money, but they aren’t doing very much of it these days. That is not the only cause of the global recession that is unfolding, but it is hard to see how economies can begin to recover without functioning financial systems. 

The American government has responded by taking over more and more of the lending itself, while using indirect means to shore up the banking system. It has not worked.

It's painful to be a cartoonist. It's feast or famine. And I do not mean moneybux as most of us would be on the bread-line every Thursday...  

We do it for the glory and the squishy tomatoes thrown at us... No, really... I mean feast of material to lampoon. Sometimes we could be scouring the web or the papers for inspiration, but blah... Nothing. Dubya is laying low...  

from Crikey ….. 

CBA rips off customers whilst devouring rivals 

Crikey founder Stephen Mayne writes: 

Every few years, the world seems to face a new testing time. After Sept. 11, leaders had to figure out how to respond to Islamic extremism. Now we face another test. Today, leaders around the world have to figure out how to stabilize economies amid volatile global capital flows. 

Iranian women can drive cars but are not allowed to ride motorbikes. 

Iran has announced plans for a new car designed specially for women. 

Less than a week after the federal government offered an $85 billion bailout to insurance giant AIG, the company held a week-long retreat for its executives at the luxury St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif., running up a tab of $440,000, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said today at the opening of a House committee hearing about the near-failure of the insurance giant.

Showing a photograph of the resort, Waxman said the executives spent $200,000 for rooms, $150,000 for meals and $23,000 for the spa.

Biden on Cheney's worst thing: 

I think he's done more harm than any other single elected official in memory in terms of shredding the constitution. You know - condoning torture. Pushing torture as a policy. This idea of a unitary executive. Meaning the Congress and the people have no power in a time of war.