How much has the developed world cobbled together - in what some might say was an indecent haste- to bail out - to stabilize? - banks and financial markets? Must be easily over a trillion dollars. How much would it take those same governments, in addition to the Russians and the Chinese - to rid the world of poverty? Wouldn't this create a much larger market? Just thinking.
What am I reading? Just mulling over the Globe and Mail's 50 Greatest Books. This week's - number 40- selection is Goethe's Faust. Can't complain about that. Nor their inclusion of Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Machiavelli's The Prince, Marx's Das Kapital and pretty much most of the others. I like Nabokov's Lolita - as I did his Laughter in the Dark - but wouldn't include it in my 100 Greatest, much less my top 50. Ditto Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. And Dicken's Our Mutual Friend? What's going on here? There is no Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. No Tolstoy's War and Peace. No Orwell's Animal Farm. Well okay, there are still another ten selections to go.
Just scanning the European papers: both The Guardian and The London Times think that the finding that Sarah Palin abused her powers as Governor in Alaska (Troopergate) does serious damage to the McCain Campaign. I agree. The Timesonline.co.uk has a great piece on James Bond: 100 Years of Fleming & Bond. Great stuff.
I have also been glancing at www.fivethirtyeight.com, a site named for the number of electors in the electoral college, which compiles polling data and analyzes it. I go to it several times daily.
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