Obama has accused Pennsylvanians of being bitter, and clinging to guns, god and racism. I hope that we see a lot more of this sort of no-punches-pulled campaigning back on British shores. Perhaps Brown could berate the lazy Mancunians, while Cameron makes a speech attacking duplicitous, gobby Cockneys and Clegg launches into a long overdue condemnation of of whiney, theiving Scousers. Anything to jumpstart real political debate, and get a few politicians egged.

The Newt holds hetrogenous views on guns and God, but is in full support of bitterness.

Robot Soldiers

According to this article in Al-Beeb, the US will introduce "robot" soldiers into combat within eight years.

Forgive me for dreaming, but I hope to eventually see a massive robot surge led by a heavily mechanised Gen. Petraeus.

'Scree at Cowthorpe' by Tod Pughes

After the frost-heaving,
Land is still.

Water waits,
Earth bides its time,
Sky chewing its fingernails.

Until the rock bleeds again its green sludge.

The scree is assembled by small goblins.
Maudlin pixies run to and fro.

The sun weeps like a bereaved Viking,
And all around
Chronic animals vomit over the bodies of dead herdsmen.

LTCM

Long Term Capital Management the hedge fund that famously 'blew up' in 2000 is more topical now than ever.

The below video shows the terrifying power of leverage(borrowing) in financial transactions. Once the mainstay of shamans and narcotic users, predicting the future is massive business in finance.
The latter half of the 20th century saw an exodus from academia to wall street where third rate physicists were tasked with building complicated models to predict the market. From the Black-Scholes options model to rational pricing, it seemed that man's power through mathematics was almost limitless.

Of course not every physicist/mathematician/'quant' was successful, but many on wall street believed large profits could be reliably realised through mathematical methods. As the video implies, ultimately markets reflect human behaviour- and this behaviour, often simplified as greed and fear, is ultimately unpredictable. These people never learn and as history gloriously repeats itself. Try to enjoy the ride and be glad your income is high enough(hopefully) not to be affected by the massive rise in food prices.