Friday Special 56

Best of Foot in anticipation of the upcoming UEAFA EURO 2008

Portrait of the typical German of the 21st century

Not really innovative, but simplicity and completeness does the trick: Radiotime

Concept of the day

A Big Brother contestant [complained] against programme maker Channel 4 [for] infringement of privacy.

You really don't want to read this, but if you must...

Trailblazers

Look ma, Ben is smoking a cigarette! See how unfair you've been to complain about my burning down the house?

As Monetary Authorities, we have been humbled and have taken heart in the realization that some leading Central Banks, including those in the USA and the UK, are now not just talking of, but also actually implementing flexible and pragmatic central bank support programmes where these are deemed necessary in their National interests.

That is precisely the path that we began over 4 years ago in pursuit of our own national interest and we have not wavered on that critical path despite the untold misunderstanding, vilification and demonization we have endured from across the political divide.

A few months ago, the USA economy confronted a severe mortgage crisis, which threatened to spark an economy-wide recession.

The USA Central Bank again responded by injecting over US $160 billion between December, 2007 and March, 2008, to provide impetus to the American economy and prevent a worse crisis from happening....

Here in Zimbabwe we had our near-bank failures a few years ago and we responded by providing the affected Banks with the Troubled Bank Fund (TBF) for which we were heavily criticized even by some multi-lateral institutions who today are silent when the Central Banks of UK and USA are going the same way and doing the same thing under very similar circumstances thereby continuing the unfortunate hypocrisy that what’s good for goose is not good for the gander....

As Monetary Authorities, we commend those of our peers, the world over, who have now seen the light on the need for the adoption of flexible and practical interventions and support to key sectors of the economy when faced with unusual circumstances.

Brilliant! Tip of the hat to Greg Mankiw.

Oligopoly

The no Ponzi game restriction, hitman edition

A loyal reader reports from Ireland:

Thursday 22 May, 2008: A man and a woman have gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court charged with conspiring to murder the woman's former partner and his two sons.

The State says she agreed a contract with Mr Eid to kill Mr Howard and his sons and sent him €15,000 in cash through Fed Ex on August 15 2006.

The court heard Mr Eid demanded €100,000 from Robert Howard to cancel the hits. He was arrested on 27 September in Ennis after Mr Howard alerted gardaí and gardaí mounted a surveillance operation.

Addendum: For reliable results, try this website.

Friday Special 55

Typical rush-hour situation in some stations in Tokyo

Google released long-anticipated Google Health

Immense big air skateboard trick by Jake Brown

Mp3 & pdf essentials before your next travel journey

FlickrVision for your daily dose of location aware images

BreathingEarth - Carbon dioxide emissions per country visualized

Wtf?! The unlikely guardians of competition

This is the weirdest story I've read in a while. Check out who is objecting to the emerging acquisition of yahoo by google:

Alarm at Google Yahoo partnering

Regulators in the US are being urged to investigate any potential online advertising and search partnership between Google and Yahoo.

The call by a coalition of 16 American civil rights and rural advocacy bodies [DC: What do civil rights and rural advocacy?!?? bodies have to do with competition?] comes despite the fact no firm deal has actually been announced.

"We all suffer in such mega mergers," Gary Flowers of the Black Leadership Forum told BBC News.

[The] coalition is made up of the League of Rural Voters, the National Black Chamber of Commerce and the American Agriculture Movement.

It also includes the Black Leadership Forum, an umbrella group of 36 civil rights organisations including the NAACP and the National Urban League.

League of Rural Voters' executive director Niel Ritchie claims that the do-no-evil mantra may no longer apply in today's marketplace in which Google's reach is apparently without bound, touching more and more aspects of our everyday lives.

"We believe the government should give this agreement very careful scrutiny," he says.

Can someone explain me what rural advocacy and agriculture groups have to do with the Google-Yahoo! merger?