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Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said Monday he would consider guaranteeing all bank deposits if necessary, Jiji Press reported. — AFP

Bets being taken on Morgan Stanley failing to meet its financial obligations * Simon Bowers * guardian.co.uk, * Sunday October 12 2008 18.55 BST * Article history The collapse in Morgan Stanley's shares late last week has led to a wave of bets being taken on the blue-chip investment bank failing to meet its financial obligations. Investors fear that the bank's debt would return only a fraction of its face value in the event of a bankruptcy filing and are pushing up the cost of insuring its bonds against default. The annual cost of insuring $10m (£5.8m) Morgan Stanley senior...

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is leading his Republican rival John McCain 53 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, according to a Washington Post-ABC News opinion poll released on Monday. On taxes, an issue McCain has been aggressively highlighting, Obama has gained a significant lead over his opponent. According to the poll, Obama now leads McCain 52 percent to 41 percent on the question of who is trusted to handle taxes. In late September, the candidates were near even on that question with Obama ahead of McCain by two percentage points, 48 percent to 46 percent.

Hillary Clinton, once a front-runner herself, warned Barack Obama's supporters Sunday that, though he leads John McCain in the homestretch of the presidential campaign, it's not over. "Sure, the polls show Barack and Joe [Biden] ahead now, and that's good news," said Clinton during her first joint appearance with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, to tout the Obama ticket. "But I don't pay much attention to polls - nobody should be lulled into any false sense of security."

Two solitudes In Canada, the expression "two solitudes" was traditionally used to describe relations between the English and French, two founding "nations" (in the French sense of the word) "warring within the bosom" of our one "nation" (in the English sense). This has become somewhat dated, for under our official state policy of "multiculturalism," today it would be more accurate to refer to "innumerable solitudes." The idea of "two solitudes" itself we lifted from Benjamin Disraeli (our invisible Father of Confederation, in so many ways), who applied it to the "two nations" he thought had formed within early Victorian Britain,...

Omer Goldman is a pretty girl, slender as a model. Never still, very restless, she is filled with anxiety by the expected loss of her freedom. For months before she refused to be drafted into the Israel Defence Forces, she went to a psychologist every week to prepare for what was to come: incarceration in a cell in a military prison. I met her several times last month in an apartment with other girls who are conscientious objectors. Together they would hand out flyers against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza at the gates of a high school...

Children and grandchildren are making trips to their Jewish families in Florida to persuade them to vote for the DemocratsJonathan Packman has spent the past few days enjoying poolside views of the Atlantic at his elderly Jewish grandparents' condominium, eating quantities of their Mandel Bread – while trying to ensure that “pop pop” and “mom mom” vote for Barack Obama. “I think my grandmother is moving towards Obama,” he says. “My grandfather is still undecided. He is old-fashioned and is having a hard time getting his mind wrapped around voting for a black man.” Mr Packman has travelled from the...

HONG KONG, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Most Asian stock markets rose slightly on Monday after policymakers around the world took increasingly bold steps to rescue the financial system, including guaranteeing bank desposits and taking stakes in banks. However, the yen and gold also edged up, highlighting investor caution and an unwillingness to dive back into risk taking, especially with credit markets still barely functioning. U.S. stock futures SPc1 rose 2.9 percent, pointing to a sharply higher open on Wall Street, after the U.S. government said it would inject capital directly into financial institutions, and European leaders hatched a plan that...

If you want to know exactly how far left a candidate is just take a look at their ACLU scorecard. The ACLU scores the entire Senate and House every year on based on the issues they think most important. Obama didn’t beat his VP pick Joe Biden’s 91%, but he didn’t do bad for a first term Senator with an 82% lifetime score. If he would have actually vote more than just “present” his score would be higher. The only issue he voted against that the ACLU wanted him to vote for was the FISA Amendments Act of 2008 in...

Amendment 12 - Choosing the President, Vice-President. Ratified 6/15/1804. Note History The Electoral CollegeThe Electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall...

CAMPAIGN 2008: How did Barack Obama’s community-organizer training with the radical IAF organization shape him as a leader? On the seventh anniversary of 9/11 last month, Barack Obama told an audience at Columbia University that his best education came not from Columbia (where he earned his bachelor’s degree) but afterwards, when he became a community organizer in Chicago. Obama intended no offense to his alma mater (and none was taken). But his remark raises the question just why he thinks the lessons of community organizing exceed the lessons of an Ivy League education. The “community organizer” training Obama received in...

Someone is lying. According to Obama's Kenyan (paternal) grandmother, as well as his half-brother and half-sister, Barack Hussein Obama was born in Kenya, not in Hawaii as the Democratic candidate for president claims. His grandmother bragged that her grandson is about to be President of the United States and is so proud because she was present DURING HIS BIRTH IN KENYA, in the delivery room. -This, according to several news sites and Pennsylvania attorney Philip J. Berg (see video below) who is, surprisingly, a life long democrat himself. Berg is the former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania, and he has...

The relentless persecution of Christians in Kandhmal, forcing them to remain in relief camps scattered across Orissa, is now presenting a new problem — unsafe deliveries by women. Stranded without access to doctors, hospitals or medical kits, most women are delivering in relief camps with the help of fellow refugees and — if they are fortunate — some anganwadi workers. But not all have been lucky to be able to give birth. "There have been 10 miscarriages in the past week," said Jyotirmoy Naik in Cuttack. "Nirmala Digal, Mita Digal, Ranju Naik, Padmini Naik, Mithila Naik — all miscarried because...

GORA -- Kosovo Albanian authorities have torn down a school built from the Serbian government funds in the Gora area. Beta news agency reported on Saturday that the school, financed by the National Investment Plan (NIP), was located in the village of Mlike, inhabited by one of the province's minorities, the Goranis. Gora municipal president Alija Abdi said that citizens unsuccessfully tried to prevent bulldozers, accompanied by KFOR soldiers and Kosovo Albanian inspectors, from demolishing the premises, including new toilets and an IT classroom. The justification for this act, Abdi said, was that the reconstruction and building works on the...

Hope Saturday 20th September 2008 Dear Family and Friends, On the evening of the 15th September 2008 I sat outside as dusk fell over Zimbabwe and I could almost hear a sigh of relief rising up from our broken country. It had been a day of such high expectation and with so much emotion that sitting quietly as the sun fell and the stars rose was necessary for the soul, to take it all in and to look back, and forwards. The "Zimbabwe Situation," as our collapse is called, started at different times for different people. For me it began...

A month later, piles of Sheetrock, appliances, furniture and family mementos dot most streets in this island town. Electronic road signs in southeast Texas flash, "Watch for cows next 20 miles," a reminder that few fences remain to hem in livestock. Blue tarps cover 11,000 roofs for 100 miles from Houston to the Louisiana line. (snip) The storm is the most expensive in Texas history, with an estimated pricetag of $11.4 billion — so far.

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., fighting to salvage his Presidential campaign, today acknowledged ''a mistake'' in his youth, when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., fighting to salvage his Presidential campaign, today acknowledged ''a mistake'' in his youth, when he plagiarized a law review article for a paper he wrote in his first year at law school. ... The plagiarized article, ''Tortious Acts as a Basis for Jurisdiction in Products Liability Cases,'' was published in the Fordham Law Review of May 1965.

As widely reported, John McCain’s campaign has demanded Barack Obama’s ties to ACORN, an activist organization that runs voter-registration drives, be probed. Registration cards submitted by the group prompted fraud investigations in Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri, and at least five other states — including some in the name of Dallas football players. Bertha Lewis, ACORN executive director well known in New York City politics, issued a detailed rejoinder with Steve Kest, saying status quo forces were playing up isolated irregularities to deter voter registration. Just to help keep the players straight: Lewis has been co-chair of the state Working Families Party....

With quiet vows and an eye toward November's Proposition 8 referendum, Stephanie Sue Spencer and the Rev. Arlene Nehring made their 16-year union a legal California marriage in Hayward's Eden United Church of Christ, where Nehring presides as pastor. This "much-awaited day" wasn't quite the wedding they'd hoped for, but with voters going to the polls in a month in an election that could make their union unconstitutional, the couple felt it was better now than never. "People are hedging their bets," said Todd Bove, a member of the church who married his partner of 10 years just a month...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — A U.S. military judge has denied a request from professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for Internet access inside his Guantanamo cell, ruling he does not need it to prepare for his death penalty trial. Judge Ralph Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, said Mohammed knew he would face prison restrictions when he chose to act as his own lawyer. His Oct. 6 ruling — which also applies to four co-defendants — was reviewed Sunday on a Pentagon Web site.

THE MONETARY IMPACT OF ACORN CAMPAIGNS: A Ten Year Retrospective, 1995-2004 PUTTING A DOLLAR VALUE ON COMMUNITY ORGANIZING:

Many reporters are well aware, even though Mr. Obama has described his connection to Ayers and Dohrn as "flimsy," that the senator's relationship with his radical Hyde Park neighbors is actually quite warm, even close

Satellite images taken just after a battle between Georgia and Russia over the region of South Ossetia show fresh damage to villages continued for days after the initial clash, researchers and human rights activists reported Thursday. The images analyzed by the American Association for the Advancement of Science's Science and Human Rights Program do not show who was responsible for the damage -- Georgia, Russia or other groups. But they may be evidence of war crimes, said Amnesty International, which commissioned the study. "These images do not lie -- the additional destruction shown from August 10 to August 19 must...

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THREE more products from China have been found tainted with melamine, including one meant for manufacturing use, the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) said yesterday. They are Cadbury Choclairs in the coffee and blueberry flavours, and Panda Dairy Whole Milk Powder. The AVA gave the assurance that the levels of melamine detected in the tainted products were very low and should not cause ill heath unless consumed in very large quantities. It said the Choclairs had melamine concentrations of 21.4 to 92.3 parts per million (ppm) and a 60kg adult can consume between 108 and 292 pieces of the candy...

Our Troops Rock!  Thank you for all you do!   For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.   Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ~ Hall of Heroes ~ SSgt Henry "Red" ErwinInfo from this website.              By: DaveTroll Without counting the cost to himself, SSgt. Henry Erwin did what had to be done to save the B-29 crew. We may marvel at the heroism and tenacity of the men whose stories have been told in this column,...

"We're a couple points down, OK, nationally, but we're right in this game," McCain said to cheers. "The economy has hurt us a little bit in the last week or two, but in the last few days we've seen it come back up because they want experience, they want knowledge and they want vision. We'll give that to America." McCain said he and running mate Sarah Palin would continue campaigning hard in the three weeks left before Election Day, in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado. The two planned a joint appearance Monday in Virginia, a Republican...

Since the Associated Press announced its controversial rate change last year, many newspapers have started considering other content options. And things are not likely to calm down any time soon. A handful of dailies — including several who admit their AP rates actually fell — have given notice to drop the service, editors in several states are forging content-sharing alliances, and Politico and PA SportsTicker are quickly positioning themselves to help replace the 160-year-old news cooperative in daily news pages. "AP is going to lose newspapers, it is a question of how many," says Editor Dean Miller of the Post...

Sunday, October 12, 2008Honor Flight: Bound for Glory Chris Casey Raymond Wells, a nominee for the Medal of Honor for gallantry in battle, sits among the grizzled veterans as the plane taxis toward the runway. In minutes, the jet will whisk off for Washington, D.C. The men, some using wheelchairs, others using walkers and one suffering from advanced stages of cancer, settle into the cabin. They buckle in for an adventure to bookend the life-changing one they embarked upon six decades ago. One last battle — this one against time. They chat and joke. They don’t mind that the plane...

Please go here, view and share with as many people as possible. This is a site that was originally set up to "draft" Palin but is now being used to fight for McCain/Palin to win the election. Check it out and forward to as many folks as possible. Thanks! http://www.palinforamerica.com/obama/

BAGHDAD - While the rest of the world is facing a financial meltdown, the Iraq Stock Exchange is booming. The ISX index soared nearly 40 percent during September, boosted by increasing confidence in security gains. The ISX is only open two hours a day, three days a week and brokers track trading activity on the floor with colored markers and white bulletin boards instead of computers. But investors are seeing gains, especially in the hotel sector, even as markets elsewhere are taking a tumble.

VICTORIANS are growing uneasy about immigration amid a record migrant intake by the Rudd Government. More than 40 per cent of Victorians want the intake cut, up from 27 per cent three years ago, a major survey has found. Most dissatisfied with the high level of migration are blue-collar workers, while a big majority of professionals want the intake either increased or left as it is. More than 200,000 migrants are entering Australia annually after the Government increased the intake by 20 per cent this year. A further 110,000 people are arriving on temporary work visas. The big increase in...

While many Americans in other parts of the country feel they're getting the cold shoulder from lending institutions, South Mississippi banks and credit unions say they welcome those seeking loans for homes and cars. "We are lending money," said Cheryl Johnson, community bank president of Regions Bank. "Our credit standards have tightened, but we are lending, just not approving as many." Conservative banking practices across the Coast have contributed to the calmer atmosphere, she said. "The Coast is a little bit insulated. South Mississippi has not been a part of that," she said, referring to subprime mortgage loans that have...

Thousands who should be ineligible are registered to vote More than 30,000 Florida felons who by law should have been stripped of their right to vote remain registered to cast ballots in this presidential battleground state, a Sun Sentinel investigation has found.

Suspension in hurricane affected areas will continue through Dec. 31stFreddie Mac is ordering servicers to suspend all foreclosure sales on properties with Freddie Mac-owned mortgages in the federally declared disaster areas caused by Hurricane Ike in Texas and Louisiana. "Freddie Mac is taking this step because the extensive damage Hurricane Ike caused has made it difficult for our servicers to get the information they need to make case-by-case decisions about forbearance or other workout options," said Ingrid Beckles, vice president of servicing and asset management at Freddie Mac. The suspension will extend from October 8 to December 31, 2008 and...

From the New York Times, August 24, 2003 "they [the Weather Underground] employed revolutionary jargon, advocated armed struggle and black liberation and began bombing buildings, taking responsibility for at least 20 attacks. Estimates of their number ranged at times from several dozen to several hundred." Article: Quieter Lives for 60's Militants, but Intensity of Beliefs Hasn't Fadedhttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E4DE1539F937A1575BC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2 ________________________________________________________ From David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com/DiscoverTheNetworks.org: "FBI files from 1976, recently made public under the Freedom of Information Act, confirm the connections between Weatherman, Havana, and Moscow. Weatherman leaders like Mark Rudd traveled illegally to Havana in 1968 to engage in terrorist training. There,...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Somali forces raided one of the many ships hijacked off the country's coast Sunday as a deadline loomed in a standoff aboard another, arms-laden vessel, officials said.

Georgia Rep. John Lewis said Saturday that controversial remarks he made comparing the feeling at recent Republican rallies to those of segregationist George Wallace were misinterpreted. The civil rights icon issued a statement Saturday evening which said a "careful review" of his remarks made earlier in the day "would reveal that I did not compare Sen. John McCain or Gov. Sarah Palin to George Wallace." McCain said Lewis' earlier statement was "a brazen and baseless attack" and called on Sen. Barack Obama to repudiate it. Lewis had said earlier that he was "deeply disturbed by the negative tone of the...

Red State Update at Belmont Debate

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican presidential candidate John McCain is considering rolling out a new comprehensive economic package to tackle the U.S. financial crisis, one of his closest supporters said on Sunday. "I think it goes along the lines that now is the time to lower tax rates for investors, capital gains tax, dividend tax rates, to make sure that we can get the economy jump-started," said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. McCain, 72, was in the Washington area and off the campaign trail on Sunday, prepared for his debate on Wednesday against Democratic rival Barack Obama. That debate...

SNIP And even though we have yet to elect the next president, it's never too early to start thinking about 2012. This week's news suggests that Gov. Bobby Jindal isn't waiting. Jindal has been a popular John McCain surrogate for months now, and he's also traveled to other states to raise money for Republicans. That helps them, but it also helps him establish contacts for the future. Now, he's taking it a step further. Yesterday, Jindal went to Florida, and he's heading to Houston on Monday -- not just to attend a McCain rally and appear at a fundraiser for...

SECRET talks are under way to bring Islamic sharia law courts to Scotland, The Scotsman has learned. Qamar Bhatti, director of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal (MAT), which runs the courts, admitted discussions were taking place with lawyers and Muslim community groups in Scotland. The group is believed to be aiming to set up courts in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Barack Obama's statement that he "assumed [William Ayers] had been rehabilitated" raises an interesting issue. In some press coverage of this matter, "unrepentant" has virtually become Ayers' middle name. And while Ayers indeed appears unrepentant, it is important to note that he has never specified just what it is that he is unrepentant about. In other words, he's never owned up to any of the crimes he committed. It would be one thing for him to say, "I did this, and I'd do it again." But Ayers doesn't do that. Ayers opens his memoir, Fugitive Days, with the statement, "Memory...

Leaders of a support group for gay and lesbian Mormons on Saturday criticized their church for its efforts to ban gay marriage in California. Olin Thomas, executive director of Affirmation, says The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is using fear to sway voters.

Barack Obama picked up at least eight newspaper endorsements this weekend, including four in swing states Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri. John McCain, as far as we know, gained none. The Wisconsin State Journal had backed Bush in 2004. The St. Louis daily called his opponent, John McCain, "the incredible shrinking man" who had made a horrific pick for his running mate. Backing Obama: In Ohio, The Blade in Toledo and the Dayton Daily News; the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Tennessean of Nashville, the Wisconsin State Journal and in California the Fresno Bee and The Sun of San...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Sarah Palin says she has mixed feelings about the results of the report from the so-called Troopergate controversy, which were released by Alaskan lawmakers Friday. Palin says she's happy the report affirmed her right to fire public safety commissioner Walter Monegan. But Palin says she still doesn't think she abused her power like the report says she did. In a brief conference call with reporters from Alaska, Palin says she thinks the investigation "did turn into a partisan circus."

"Troopergate" Report: "A Proper and Lawful Exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority"by Mark Rhoads If you are surprised that a committee of partisan Democrats and anti-Palin Republicans from the good-old Alaska legislature would release a report critical of Gov. Palin, then you must have been astonished that the sun came up this morning. If this is the worst that they have on Palin, it is not going to sway many voters one way or another. There are four findings. Two are inconsequential and one of those deals with a workman's compensation case for Trooper Wooten, Gov. Palin's ex-brother-in-law. The...

This campaign gets ever more surrealistic. For most of August and early September, Obama on the stump was complaining about the McCain campaign's "lying" and "lies"; yet last night on CNN Ed Rollins and David Gergen were lamenting the "new" McCain who had authorized an ad that said Obama had "lied" about his relations with Bill Ayers. Then Fightin' Joe Biden was on the stump, veins bulging, hands pumping, screaming that "John McCain could not bring himself to look Barack Obama in the eye and say the same things to him. In my neighborhood, you got something to say to...

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No matter who wins, the next president promises to take back Washington from powerful interests and lobbyists. It is the same stirring promise Congress made last year when — rocked by scandal and under new leadership — lawmakers passed what they trumpeted as some of the most significant ethics reforms in years. Key among those reforms: rules requiring lawmakers, for the first time, to disclose their earmarks — federal dollars they were quietly doling out as favors. But time after time, Congress exploited loopholes or violated those rules, a Seattle Times investigation has found. An in-depth examination of the 2008...