Well, there’s now jokes about the up-coming recession on The Now Show so it looks like when rather than if…

US mortgage giant needs $1bn — The US’s largest mortgage company (which was no-where a few years ago) is now going all but break the US economy just in time for a Democratic President…

quintus_marcius

‘s lead in producing their list of desert island books (c.f. his and mine).

UK:
UK Police Want DNA of ‘Potential Offenders’
UK’s MI5 Wants Oyster Card Travel Data
UK ‘safer than a year ago’

US:
Supreme Court to Hear FCC Indecency Case
After five years in Iraq, Bush hails ‘strategic victory’
What is the real death toll?
Supreme court tests right to guns
Lessig…

American politics:
Would You Like Fries With Those Words, Mr. Clinton?
Toy X-Ray Machine for Kids
The true cost of war
Afghanistan mission close to failing, US official says
Subprime Primer: stick figures explain economic collapse — recession.
Teenagers unhappy about security cameras in school lavatories
Commerce…

Very random linkage…

The world is a very strange place : Transgender man is pregnantGreat Report on Scientology Protests and Pig bladder powder regrows human finger.

Network Solutions Suspends Site of Anti-Islam Film — for those who don’t know Network Solutions is the company that oversees domain…

Another interesting debate tonight — this one was The West is provoking a new Cold War with Russia.

Two interesting things from this one. The first being that I abstained in the vote — the issue was far too complicated for me to make a decision on so little information. It seems that most people in the room voted…

As the world talks its way into recession:
Empty malls send dollar tumbling
Dollar’s tumble rattles global markets
Recession fear cuts Darling’s budget options
US job numbers fuel recession fears

Stupid “security”:
1 in 300 US residents are terrorists, according to gubmint
Heathrow Terminal 5 to fingerprint…

Following on from this post by

quintus_marcius

these are my choices.

Fiction:

1. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. A time-travel / comedy of manners story set in 1888 based around the…