links for 2009-03-16

"Violence and insecurity are no longer the main concern of most Iraqis, for the first time since the 2003 US-led invasion, an opinion poll suggests. It says Iraqis are much more hopeful about the future and are increasingly pre-occupied with more conventional worries like the economy and jobs. But Iraqis remain unhappy about the role foreign powers play in their country, notably Iran, the US and UK. " That's good news.

"The head of the US central bank, Ben Bernanke, has said he expects America's recession to end this year." Make sense.

AOL has a new CEO.

What classic Star Wars terms were never actually uttered during the movie.

Awesome news, not.

"Email is dead. If your company is relying on email for communication and collaboration, your company is walking dead in this new economy." !00% agreed.

"But, in addition, we need to make a few big bets on potential game-changers. I am talking about systems that could give us abundant, clean, reliable electrons and drive massive innovation in big lasers, materials science, nuclear physics and chemistry that would benefit, energize and renew many U.S. industries." Defiantly.

And we wonder why the US falls behind in science and math test scores?

No duh.

What happens when the FDIC takes over a bank. Really interesting video.

Really awesome post contradicting a lot of what we commonly think about Tibet.

"The legendarily beautiful Egyptian queen Cleopatra was part African, says a documentary team who believe they have found the tomb of her sister." Archaeology at work.

"The disclosure included counterparties to both its credit default swap operations and its securities lending businesses, both of which contributed heavily to A.I.G.’s troubles, as well as to muncipalities who participated in certain investment programs. All told, Sunday’s statement detailed payments of more than $94 billion, excluding payments to municipalities. All were made using government loans."

"Treasury officials and management experts hired by the Obama administration quietly began combing through General Motors’ latest downsizing plan in Detroit last week, in a last-minute effort to assess whether more government aid could make the company viable, or whether the better choice was a managed bankruptcy." My vote is bankruptcy.

Never knew that the OS X widgets were just basic html/css/javascript files.

Waste of ink.

The BBC reports on what Iraq is like currently.

"The broad package of measures to be announced Monday includes $730 million from the stimulus plan that will immediately reduce small-business lending fees and increase the government guarantee on some Small Business Administration loans to 90 percent. The government also will take aggressive steps to boost bank liquidity with more than $10 billion aimed at unfreezing the secondary credit market, according to officials briefed on the plan who demanded anonymity to avoid pre-empting the president's announcement."

"In addition Rose said that MMS and video recording would not be present in this release nor the ability to run background applications. Finally Rose made a mention the Palm Pre and how Apple will match all the features of the handset." SO what does that mean??

Well I guess that's some form of good news, though the balance fell 20% since January of 2008.

"A new audio message said to be from al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden accuses moderate Arab leaders of conspiring with the West against Muslims." <sarcasm> Never would have thought this would be coming from him.</sarcasm>

"Oil ministers from the 12 Opec countries meeting in the Austrian capital Vienna have decided to keep oil production at current levels." FYI.

Where are you?