bascule

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/03/25/antarctic.ice/index.html Despite allegations by the climate change denialist blogosphere that everything's fine and dandy down in the Antarctic, 220 square miles of an Antarctic ice shelf has broken up and collapsed into the ocean, with an additional 5,282 square miles, comparable to the state of Connecticut or about half the area of Scotland, also on the verge of breakup.

A "Dr." of Homeopathy attempts to explain the science behind it. Her approach seems to be doing a lot of namedropping and pulling random terms out of her ass, then stitching it all together into something completely incoherent: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZEi8l7p56I

Do you also plan on selling your home for more than the purchase price in this market? Unless you're in a unique market where prices are likely to remain artificially inflated, chances are you're going to lose money. I would prefer that to the present state of the US economy. Provided you are actually able to turn a profit on your loan (which even in an artificially inflated market like mine would be extremely unlikely), your case would be extremely atypical. I think this whole fiasco is evidence that deregulating the mortgage market was a horrible mistake. In my opinion the blame falls equally upon Greenspan and Bernanke. True enough. Before being mired in scandal, Eliot Spitzer wrote an excellent editorial on predatory lending practices and the steps the Bush Administration took to prevent state governments from acting to curb predatory lending: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021302783.html

Holy crap! This forum supports animated avatars?

I have mixed feelings about the John Hagee situation, but I think more questions need to be asked. For those who haven't heard, he's McCain's pastor, has been drawing controversy after some of his more insensitive (but apparently quite common) remarks became public. Here are some examples: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/02/28/hagee/index.html Source here Hagee also said that I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they were recipients of the judgment of God for that. and that I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans. Anyway, to summarize, I think it's reasonable for people to ask questions about this, and I'd like to know more about the influence this man had on McCain over the years. How close were they? Has McCain ever echoed his sentiments? If he has, will that adversely affect his ability to lead this country? What do you all think?

Yeah, that's the funniest part of this article: they seem surprised by the trend across a single year. Ho ho, the ice extent goes up too? Global warming is wrong! Here's some fun graphs: September ice extent from 1979 to 2007 shows an obvious decline. The September rate of sea ice decline since 1979 is now approximately 10 percent per decade, or 72,000 square kilometers (28,000 square miles) per year. Source: http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/20071001_pressrelease.html

I definitely prefer an all-you-can-eat approach. However, it obviously fails when there's DRM involved that requires authenticating against a central service whenever you wish to use the content.

Macroevolution has been observed, and the fossil record (among other things) provides evidence that "this process is an on-going endeavor". This list details observed events of macroevolution (i.e. speciation): General 1. M Nei and J Zhang, Evolution: molecular origin of species. Science 282: 1428-1429, Nov. 20, 1998. Primary article is: CT Ting, SC Tsaur, ML We, and CE Wu, A rapidly evolving homeobox at the site of a hybrid sterility gene. Science 282: 1501-1504, Nov. 20, 1998. As the title implies, has found the genes that actually change during reproductive isolation. 2. M Turelli, The causes of Haldane's rule. Science 282: 889-891, Oct.30, 1998. Haldane's rule describes a phase every population goes thru during speciation: production of inviable and sterile hybrids. Haldane's rule states "When in the F1 [first generation] offspring of two different animal races one sex is absent, rare, or sterile, that sex is the heterozygous [heterogemetic; XY, XO, or ZW] sex."Two leading explanations are fast-male and dominance. Both get supported. X-linked incompatibilities would affect heterozygous gender more because only one gene." 3. Barton, N. H., J. S. Jones and J. Mallet. 1988. No barriers to speciation. Nature. 336:13-14. 4. Baum, D. 1992. Phylogenetic species concepts. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. 7:1-3. 5. Rice, W. R. 1985. Disruptive selection on habitat preference and the evolution of reproductive isolation: an exploratory experiment. Evolution. 39:645-646. 6. Ringo, J., D. Wood, R. Rockwell, and H. Dowse. 1989. An experiment testing two hypotheses of speciation. The American Naturalist. 126:642-661. 7. Schluter, D. and L. M. Nagel. 1995. Parallel speciation by natural selection. American Naturalist. 146:292-301. 8. Callaghan, C. A. 1987. Instances of observed speciation. The American Biology Teacher. 49:3436. 9. Cracraft, J. 1989. Speciation and its ontology: the empirical consequences of alternative species concepts for understanding patterns and processes of differentiation. In Otte, E. and J. A. Endler [eds.] Speciation and its consequences. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, MA. pp. 28-59. Chromosome numbers in various species http://www.kean.edu/~breid/chrom2.htm Speciation in Insects 1. G Kilias, SN Alahiotis, and M Pelecanos. A multifactorial genetic investigation of speciation theory using drosophila melanogaster Evolution 34:730-737, 1980. Got new species of fruit flies in the lab after 5 years on different diets and temperatures. Also confirmation of natural selection in the process. Lots of references to other studies that saw speciation. 2. JM Thoday, Disruptive selection. Proc. Royal Soc. London B. 182: 109-143, 1972. Lots of references in this one to other speciation. 3. KF Koopman, Natural selection for reproductive isolation between Drosophila pseudobscura and Drosophila persimilis. Evolution 4: 135-148, 1950. Using artificial mixed poulations of D. pseudoobscura and D. persimilis, it has been possible to show,over a period of several generations, a very rapid increase in the amount of reproductive isolation between the species as a result of natural selection. 4. LE Hurd and RM Eisenberg, Divergent selection for geotactic response and evolution of reproductive isolation in sympatric and allopatric populations of houseflies. American Naturalist 109: 353-358, 1975. 5. Coyne, Jerry A. Orr, H. Allen. Patterns of speciation in Drosophila. Evolution. V43. P362(20) March, 1989. 6. Dobzhansky and Pavlovsky, 1957 An incipient species of Drosophila, Nature 23: 289- 292. 7. Ahearn, J. N. 1980. Evolution of behavioral reproductive isolation in a laboratory stock of Drosophila silvestris. Experientia. 36:63-64. 8. 10. Breeuwer, J. A. J. and J. H. Werren. 1990. Microorganisms associated with chromosome destruction and reproductive isolation between two insect species. Nature. 346:558-560. 9. Powell, J. R. 1978. The founder-flush speciation theory: an experimental approach. Evolution. 32:465-474. 10. Dodd, D. M. B. and J. R. Powell. 1985. Founder-flush speciation: an update of experimental results with Drosophila. Evolution 39:1388-1392. 37. Dobzhansky, T. 1951. Genetics and the origin of species (3rd edition). Columbia University Press, New York. 11. Dobzhansky, T. and O. Pavlovsky. 1971. Experimentally created incipient species of Drosophila. Nature. 230:289-292. 12. Dobzhansky, T. 1972. Species of Drosophila: new excitement in an old field. Science. 177:664-669. 13. Dodd, D. M. B. 1989. Reproductive isolation as a consequence of adaptive divergence in Drosophila melanogaster. Evolution 43:1308-1311. 14. de Oliveira, A. K. and A. R. Cordeiro. 1980. Adaptation of Drosophila willistoni experimental populations to extreme pH medium. II. Development of incipient reproductive isolation. Heredity. 44:123-130.15. 29. Rice, W. R. and G. W. Salt. 1988. Speciation via disruptive selection on habitat preference: experimental evidence. The American Naturalist. 131:911-917. 30. Rice, W. R. and G. W. Salt. 1990. The evolution of reproductive isolation as a correlated character under sympatric conditions: experimental evidence. Evolution. 44:1140-1152. 31. del Solar, E. 1966. Sexual isolation caused by selection for positive and negative phototaxis and geotaxis in Drosophila pseudoobscura. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US). 56:484-487. 32. Weinberg, J. R., V. R. Starczak and P. Jora. 1992. Evidence for rapid speciation following a founder event in the laboratory. Evolution. 46:1214-1220. 33. V Morell, Earth's unbounded beetlemania explained. Science 281:501-503, July 24, 1998. Evolution explains the 330,000 odd beetlespecies. Exploitation of newly evolved flowering plants. 34. B Wuethrich, Speciation: Mexican pairs show geography's role. Science 285: 1190, Aug. 20, 1999. Discusses allopatric speciation. Debate with ecological speciation on which is most prevalent. Speciation in Plants 1. Speciation in action Science 72:700-701, 1996 A great laboratory study of the evolution of a hybrid plant species. Scientists did it in the lab, but the genetic data says it happened the same way in nature. 2. Hybrid speciation in peonies http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/061288698v1#B1 3. http://www.holysmoke.org/new-species.htm new species of groundsel by hybridization 4. Butters, F. K. 1941. Hybrid Woodsias in Minnesota. Amer. Fern. J. 31:15-21. 5. Butters, F. K. and R. M. Tryon, jr. 1948. A fertile mutant of a Woodsia hybrid. American Journal of Botany. 35:138. 6. Toxic Tailings and Tolerant Grass by RE Cook in Natural History, 90(3): 28-38, 1981 discusses selection pressure of grasses growing on mine tailings that are rich in toxic heavy metals. "When wind borne pollen carrying nontolerant genes crosses the border [between prairie and tailings] and fertilizes the gametes of tolerant females, the resultant offspring show a range of tolerances. The movement of genes from the pasture to the mine would, therefore, tend to dilute the tolerance level of seedlings. Only fully tolerant individuals survive to reproduce, however. This selective mortality, which eliminates variants, counteracts the dilution and molds a toatally tolerant population. The pasture and mine populations evolve distinctive adaptations because selective factors are dominant over the homogenizing influence of foreign genes." 7. Clausen, J., D. D. Keck and W. M. Hiesey. 1945. Experimental studies on the nature of species. II. Plant evolution through amphiploidy and autoploidy, with examples from the Madiinae. Carnegie Institute Washington Publication, 564:1-174. 8. Cronquist, A. 1988. The evolution and classification of flowering plants (2nd edition). The New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, NY. 9. P. H. Raven, R. F. Evert, S. E. Eichorn, Biology of Plants (Worth, New York,ed. 6, 1999). 10. M. Ownbey, Am. J. Bot. 37, 487 (1950). 11. M. Ownbey and G. D. McCollum, Am. J. Bot. 40, 788 (1953). 12. S. J. Novak, D. E. Soltis, P. S. Soltis, Am. J. Bot. 78, 1586 (1991). 13. P. S. Soltis, G. M. Plunkett, S. J. Novak, D. E. Soltis, Am. J. Bot. 82,1329 (1995). 14. Digby, L. 1912. The cytology of Primula kewensis and of other related Primula hybrids. Ann. Bot. 26:357-388. 15. Owenby, M. 1950. Natural hybridization and amphiploidy in the genus Tragopogon. Am. J. Bot. 37:487-499. 16. Pasterniani, E. 1969. Selection for reproductive isolation between two populations of maize, Zea mays L. Evolution. 23:534-547. Speciation in microorganisms 1. Canine parovirus, a lethal disease of dogs, evolved from feline parovirus in the 1970s. 2. Budd, A. F. and B. D. Mishler. 1990. Species and evolution in clonal organisms -- a summary and discussion. Systematic Botany 15:166-171. 3. Bullini, L. and G. Nascetti. 1990. Speciation by hybridization in phasmids and other insects. Canadian Journal of Zoology. 68:1747-1760. 4. Boraas, M. E. 1983. Predator induced evolution in chemostat culture. EOS. Transactions of the American Geophysical Union. 64:1102. 5. Brock, T. D. and M. T. Madigan. 1988. Biology of Microorganisms (5th edition). Prentice Hall, Englewood, NJ. 6. Castenholz, R. W. 1992. Species usage, concept, and evolution in the cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). Journal of Phycology 28:737-745. 7. Boraas, M. E. The speciation of algal clusters by flagellate predation. EOS. Transactions of the American Geophysical Union. 64:1102. 8. Castenholz, R. W. 1992. Speciation, usage, concept, and evolution in the cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). Journal of Phycology 28:737-745. 9. Shikano, S., L. S. Luckinbill and Y. Kurihara. 1990. Changes of traits in a bacterial population associated with protozoal predation. Microbial Ecology. 20:75-84. New Genus 1. Muntzig, A, Triticale Results and Problems, Parey, Berlin, 1979. Describes whole new *genus* of plants, Triticosecale, of several species, formed by artificial selection. These plants are important in agriculture. Invertebrate not insect 1. ME Heliberg, DP Balch, K Roy, Climate-driven range expansion and morphological evolution in a marine gastropod. Science 292: 1707-1710, June1, 2001. Documents mrorphological change due to disruptive selection over time. Northerna and southern populations of A spirata off California from Pleistocene to present. 2. Weinberg, J. R., V. R. Starczak and P. Jora. 1992. Evidence for rapid speciation following a founder event with a polychaete worm. . Evolution. 46:1214-1220. Vertebrate Speciation 1. N Barton Ecology: the rapid origin of reproductive isolation Science 290:462-463, Oct. 20, 2000. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/290/5491/462 Natural selection of reproductive isolation observed in two cases. Full papers are: AP Hendry, JK Wenburg, P Bentzen, EC Volk, TP Quinn, Rapid evolution of reproductive isolation in the wild: evidence from introduced salmon. Science 290: 516-519, Oct. 20, 2000. and M Higgie, S Chenoweth, MWBlows, Natural selection and the reinforcement of mate recognition. Science290: 519-521, Oct. 20, 2000 2. G Vogel, African elephant species splits in two. Science 293: 1414, Aug. 24, 2001. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/293/5534/1414 3. C Vila` , P Savolainen, JE. Maldonado, IR. Amorim, JE. Rice, RL. Honeycutt, KA. Crandall, JLundeberg, RK. Wayne, Multiple and Ancient Origins of the Domestic Dog Science 276: 1687-1689, 13 JUNE 1997. Dogs no longer one species but 4 according to the genetics. http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/wayne1.htm 4. Barrowclough, George F.. Speciation and Geographic Variation in Black-tailed Gnatcatchers. (book reviews) The Condor. V94. P555(2) May, 1992 5. Kluger, Jeffrey. Go fish. Rapid fish speciation in African lakes. Discover. V13. P18(1) March, 1992. Formation of five new species of cichlid fishes which formed since they were isolated from the parent stock, Lake Nagubago. (These fish have complex mating rituals and different coloration.) See also Mayr, E., 1970. _Populations, Species, and Evolution_, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. p. 348 6. Genus _Rattus_ currently consists of 137 species [1,2] and is known to have originally developed in Indonesia and Malaysia during and prior to the Middle Ages[3]. [1] T. Yosida. Cytogenetics of the Black Rat. University Park Press, Baltimore, 1980. [2] D. Morris. The Mammals. Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1965. [3] G. H. H. Tate. "Some Muridae of the Indo-Australian region," Bull. Amer. Museum Nat. Hist. 72: 501-728, 1963. 7. Stanley, S., 1979. _Macroevolution: Pattern and Process_, San Francisco, W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 41 Rapid speciation of the Faeroe Island house mouse, which occurred in less than 250 years after man brought the creature to the island. Speciation in the Fossil Record 1. Paleontological documentation of speciation in cenozoic molluscs from Turkana basin. Williamson, PG, Nature 293:437-443, 1981. Excellent study of "gradual" evolution in an extremely find fossil record. 2. A trilobite odyssey. Niles Eldredge and Michelle J. Eldredge. Natural History 81:53-59, 1972. A discussion of "gradual" evolution of trilobites in one small area and then migration and replacement over a wide area. Is lay discussion of punctuated equilibria, and does not overthrow Darwinian gradual change of form. Describes transitionals Overkill 20. Craig, T. P., J. K. Itami, W. G. Abrahamson and J. D. Horner. 1993. Behavioral evidence for host-race fromation in Eurosta solidaginis. Evolution. 47:1696-1710. 21. Cronquist, A. 1978. Once again, what is a species? Biosystematics in agriculture. Beltsville Symposia in Agricultural Research 2:3-20. 24. de Queiroz, K. and M. Donoghue. 1988. Phylogenetic systematics and the species problem. Cladistics. 4:317-338. 25. de Queiroz, K. and M. Donoghue. 1990. Phylogenetic systematics and species revisited. Cladistics. 6:83-90. 26. de Vries, H. 1905. Species and varieties, their origin by mutation. 27. de Wet, J. M. J. 1971. Polyploidy and evolution in plants. Taxon. 20:29-35. 28. Rice, W. R. and E. E. Hostert. 1993. Laboratory experiments on speciation: What have we learned in forty years? Evolution. 47:1637-1653. 42. Du Rietz, G. E. 1930. The fundamental units of biological taxonomy. Svensk. Bot. Tidskr. 24:333-428. 43. Ehrman, E. 1971. Natural selection for the origin of reproductive isolation. The American Naturalist. 105:479-483. 44. Ehrman, E. 1973. More on natural selection for the origin of reproductive isolation. The American Naturalist. 107:318-319. 45. Feder, J. L., C. A. Chilcote and G. L. Bush. 1988. Genetic differentiation between sympatric host races of the apple maggot fly, Rhagoletis pomonella. Nature. 336:61-64. 46. Feder, J. L. and G. L. Bush. 1989. A field test of differential host-plant usage between two sibling species of Rhagoletis pomonella fruit flies (Diptera:Tephritidae) and its consequences for sympatric models of speciation. Evolution 43:1813-1819. 47. Frandsen, K. J. 1943. The experimental formation of Brassica juncea Czern. et Coss. Dansk. Bot. Arkiv., No. 4, 11:1-17. 48. Frandsen, K. J. 1947. The experimental formation of Brassica napus L. var. oleifera DC and Brassica carinata Braun. Dansk. Bot. Arkiv., No. 7, 12:1-16. 49. Galiana, A., A. Moya and F. J. Alaya. 1993. Founder-flush speciation in Drosophila pseudoobscura: a large scale experiment. Evolution. 47432-444. 50. Gottleib, L. D. 1973. Genetic differentiation, sympatric speciation, and the origin of a diploid species of Stephanomeira. American Journal of Botany. 60: 545-553. 51. Halliburton, R. and G. A. E. Gall. 1981. Disruptive selection and assortative mating in Tribolium castaneum. Evolution. 35:829-843. 52. Karpchenko, G. D. 1927. Polyploid hybrids of Raphanus sativus L. X Brassica oleraceae L. Bull. Appl. Botany. 17:305-408. 53. Karpchenko, G. D. 1928. Polyploid hybrids of Raphanus sativus L. X Brassica oleraceae L. Z. Indukt. Abstami-a Verenbungsi. 48:1-85. 54. Knight, G. R., A. Robertson and C. H. Waddington. 1956. Selection for sexual isolation within a species. Evolution. 10:14-22. 55. Levin, D. A. 1979. The nature of plant species. Science 204:381-384. 56. Lokki, J. and A. Saura. 1980. Polyploidy in insect evolution. In: W. H. Lewis (ed.) Polyploidy: Biological Relevance. Plenum Press, New York. 57. Macnair, M. R. and P. Christie. 1983. Reproductive isolation as a pleiotropic effect of copper tolerance in Mimulus guttatus. Heredity. 50:295-302. 58. Manhart, J. R. and R. M. McCourt. 1992. Molecular data and species concepts in the algae. Journal of Phycology. 28:730-737. 59. Mayr, E. 1942. Systematics and the origin of species from the viewpoint of a zoologist. Columbia University Press, New York. 60. Mayr, E. 1982. The growth of biological thought: diversity, evolution and inheritance. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. McCourt, R. M. and R. W. Hoshaw. 1990. Noncorrespondence of breeding groups, morphology and monophyletic groups in Spirogyra (Zygnemataceae; Chlorophyta) and the application of species concepts. Systematic Botany. 15:69-78. 61. McPheron, B. A., D. C. Smith and S. H. Berlocher. 1988. Genetic differentiation between host races of Rhagoletis pomonella. Nature. 336:64-66. 62. Muntzing, A. 1932. Cytogenetic investigations on the synthetic Galeopsis tetrahit. Hereditas. 16:105-154. 63. Newton, W. C. 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Speciation via disruptive selection on habitat preference: experimental evidence. The American Naturalist. 131:911-917. 27. Ringo, J., D. Wood, R. Rockwell, and H. Dowse. 1989. An experiment testing two methods for speciation. The American Naturalist. 126:642-661. 30. Wright, Karen. A breed apart; finicky flies lend credence to a theory of speciation. Scientific American. V260. P22(2) Feb, 1989. 31. Ahearn, J. N. 1980. Evolution of behavioral reproductive isolation leading to speciation in Drosophila silvestris. Experientia. 36:63-64. 32. Barton, N.H. Hewitt, G.M. Adaptation, speciation and hybrid zones (includes related information) Nature. V341. P497(7) Oct 12, 1989. 34. Coyne, J.A. Barton, N.H. What do we know about speciation examples?. Nature. V331. P485(2) Feb 11, 1988.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/03/expelled.php PZ Myers, the blogger behind Pharyngula, was almost arrested when he tried to attend a showing of Ben Stein's new anti-Evolution movie Expelled. However, they completely missed his guest...

I think the Second Amendment suffers from design-by-committee, but then again, so does the totality of American law

America is so broke, it can't even afford to pay attention

I lulzgasmed

What I draw from it is more along the lines of "Because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

It's an awesome speech. One of the best I've heard out of any politician in recent history.

That's a common argument I've heard, but as far as I can tell the intention was for the populace as a whole to effectively be a sitting militia, and for there to be no permanent standing army.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

I'm a strong advocate of gun rights, but not so much the Second Amendment. Personally I would like to see the Second Amendment removed from the Constitution simultaneous with the insertion of the same text into all state constitutions. States can then decide from there what their gun ownership policies should be.

In memory of Arthur C. Clarke's recent death, I would like to post his excellent program on fractals. He considers them one of the most beautiful and remarkable discoveries in the entire history of mathematics: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8570098277666323857 This program explores the far-reaching implications that fractals have both in mathematics and in our daily lives, and interviews a number of highly reputed mathematicians about the nature of fractals and the immense applications they could have in our daily lives. It feels a bit dated now, but still... excellent!

Looking at these two graphs, it would appear that no other administration in history has handled the problem in the manner it's being handled presently: I don't want to be a cargo cult economist, but something tells me this approach will have some consequences which made all other administrations reluctant to handle the problem in such a manner.

Yes, find an HTTP client library, or if you're in a Unix environment configure your program to accept data via standard input from curl or wget

I think it's clear from those graphs that the way it's being handled is abnormal in the absurd extreme

I think it's important to recognize the reality of the situation

76% of Americans think their (and also my) country is in a recession: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-03-17-economy-poll_N.htm For the first time in history, the Swiss Franc is worth more than the dollar: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aeOYYi8PVJG8 Not to mention that the Japanese Yen now outvalues the dollar, which it hasn't been for more than ten years. Oh, and Canadian dollars are worth more than American dollars. So much for all those jokes. This is scary: I know it hasn't been 2 quarters yet, but can we start calling it a recession?

Banks offering ARMs with a low introductory rate then ratcheting it up to an exploitative one, as if a mortgage were the same thing as a credit card. Well, the same idiots who got those credit cards with low introductory rates fell for mortgages with one hook, line, and sinker. Except unlike credit cards, basing your entire business model on this approach is, in 20/20 hindsight, completely f*cking stupid. New Century Financial is probably the prime example (ARMs were practically the entire business model for this "New Kind of Blue Chip") and now they're under SEC investigation for their seedy business practices. And now we have the federal government buying out Bear Sterns mortgage-backed bonds to the tune of $30 billion. The victims now have no home and are living in tents. The predators get bailed out by the federal government to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars. Yeah, I'd say the description is pretty apt. We're in a recession. I'm in the tech/media sector and we're feeling it here. The economy is jacked, and people don't want to spend money on tech gizmos right now. While it's great the bubble has burst and homes may reach reasonable pricing levels again, in the meantime the US economy has been sucker punched and is now staggering around bewildered. Well, that's certainly not what the federal government is doing. They're propping up the banking industry by buying up their "assets" (i.e. mortgage-backed bonds, a.k.a. liabilities)