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If entering a recession were a race, then Germany would be your winner. The German GDP has shrunk for two consecutive quarters, making it officially in recession. The rest of the world’s major industrial nations are not expected to be far behind—the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development forecast today that all will contract in the fourth quarter. The United States is expected to join Germany in recession when it releases its next report on November 25—its GDP shrank by 0.3 percent in the last quarter. Other Western European countries are supposed to release their numbers on Friday. The O.E.C.D. predicted an overall economic decline for its 30 member countries of 0.3 percent in 2009.
Hello? Anyone out there? We may be one step closer to knowing. For the first time ever, astronomers have snapped a photograph of a another multi-planet solar system. "This is the beginning of a capability that is really going to move the search forward," Peter Michaud of Gemini Observatory told Wired.com. "Now we can refine the technologies and continue the exploration process until we perhaps someday find something more similar to the Earth." Though we've long known other solar systems were out there, we've never been able to see them before. In the past, most were discovered through "spectroscopy," which measures the slight wobble of a host star as it is tugged by orbiting planets. Michaud called the finding "pretty exciting in terms of gaining a perspective on our place in the universe."
Remember last year how, when politicians made a big fuss over how hedge funds are unregulated, Wall Street sent a bunch of lobbyists down to Washington and those same politicians went silent? In the wake of the financial crisis, the Congressional Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has reopened the hedge fund issue. "Currently, hedge funds are virtually unregulated," said Chairman Henry Waxman in a hearing today. "They are not required to report information on their holdings, their leverage, or their strategies. Regulators aren't even certain how many hedge funds exist or how much money they control." Waxman said he was concerned that hedge funds, which are highly leveraged, might “blow up” like other financial sectors. George Soros, who testified before the committee and manages one himself, suggested that they “will shrink by between 50 and 75 percent.” Hedge funds lost $100 billion in October.
In August, Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Moscow and, according to his chief adviser, convinced Vladimir Putin to not overthrow Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili. The Times of London reports their conversation, which, if true (and the dialogue seems like something out of the Marx Brothers), is one for the annals of diplomatic history. Putin: “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls.” Sarkozy: “Hang him?” Putin: “Why not? The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.” Sarkozy: “Yes, but do you want to end up like Bush?” Putin: “Ah, you have scored a point there.”
The auto industry fails, the financial industry goes kaput, and Wal-Mart is surging. That's the news out of Arkansas, where the world's largest retailer has reported a 10 percent increase in third-quarter profits, exceeding expectations. Wal-Mart earned $3.14 billion, or 80 cents a share, in the quarter ending October 31. Analysts had expected that number to be 76 cents per share. "At a time when our customer is feeling the pressure of a tough economy, Wal-Mart's price leadership is more important than ever," said CEO Lee Scott. Despite all this good news, the super supermarket is downgrading fourth quarter expectations by 6 cents per share on the expectation that a strengthening dollar and troubled global economy will negatively impact international sales. But for today at least, Bentonville-based executives can pop the cork on a few bottles of $1.99 champagne and celebrate their success.
Equal-opportunity employer NBC is apparently similarly fair-minded with its pink slips: It kicked both Christian Slater and Brooke Shields out of its lineup this morning, cancelling their respective vehicles My Own Worst Enemy and Lipstick Jungle. Michael Ausiello at Entertainment Weekly says the network told the shows’ producers that no additional scripts would be ordered. Based on Candace Bushnell's book, Jungle hoped to win over Sex and the City’s old crowd, but was recently relegated to the ratings Siberia of Friday night. Five additional episodes for each show might air (Hulu, perhaps?) but the career resurrections of both headliners may remain permanently stalled.
On the eve of his 60th birthday, The Guardian has gathered up the collected letters and memos of Prince Charles. Reaction: Boy, is he pissed off. A sampling of the prince’s prose: “If one more [New Zealand] child asks me what it's like to be a prince, I shall go demented … What is wrong with everyone nowadays? Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities? … … I am also struck by the degree to which our lives are becoming ruled by a truly absurd degree of politically correct interference … [English literature has] arrived at such a dismal wasteland of banality, cliché, and casual obscenity." And commenting on London architecture: "You have to give this much to the Luftwaffe: when it knocked down our buildings, it didn't replace them with anything more offensive than rubble."
How's this for discipline? According to Haaretz, an Israeli soldier has been sentenced to 21 days for yawning during a memorial service for assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The yawn "was allegedly long and loud,"causing the senior officer who was speaking to pause "for a few minutes." The soldier was tried for the "disrespectful act," but his mother insisted that he was not disrespectful, only tired, and that "yawning is known to be an uncontrollable physical act." Brief thought experiment: Imagine if America had a similar law. What would have happened to this kid?
When Gero Huetter, a German hematologist, performed a bone-marrow transplant on a leukemia patient who was also suffering from AIDS, as a side experiment he transplanted the marrow of a donor who was naturally resistant to HIV, figuring that the new marrow would produce white blood cells resistant to the virus. Twenty months later, Huetter claims that the man shows no signs of AIDS. However many are skeptical whether the patient is really cured. HIV is known to hide in various parts of the body, and though Huetter has tested the patient, doctors wonder if he has been thorough. And even Huetter says that bone-marrow transplants are not a viable cure: They kill about a third of their patients and can’t be justified in treating anything but late-stage leukemia.
On Monday, the Bushes met the Obamas for a dutifully cheerful White House tour. Today, we’ll be treated another Kodak moment, as the Cheneys give the Bidens a tour of the Naval Observatory. Cheney’s office released a terse statement—"The Cheneys and the Bidens will have a private meeting and then tour the residence”—but one can imagine the rich possibilities. Will Cheney tweak Biden for mocking him on the stump? (“Dick Cheney has been wrong on everything the last eight years.") Will he remind Biden to always lock the undisclosed location? Stay tuned for the awkward photos.
Tabloid cover boy and part-time singer John Mayer will be bounding on stage a la Ed Sullivan and The Smothers Brothers to host his own music, variety, and sketch show on CBS early next year, reports TMZ. The news begs many questions: Will he tap his ever-revolving harem of romantic partners for his inaugural show and will his sign-off be, instead of an ear tug, a whispery love song? CBS executives reportedly liked what they saw in a TMZ video, and Grammy and Emmy producer Ken Ehrlich is onboard, which makes this one of the more notable jumps from a short online video to prime-time.
Here’s an interesting hypothetical: CBS News’ exit polls asked voters how they would have voted in a Hillary Clinton-John McCain matchup, and she beat McCain 52 to 41—exceeding Obama’s victory margin by 5 percent. A whopping 16 percent of McCain supporters said they’d have voted for Clinton. Poll watcher Nate Silver cautions to take the poll with a grain of salt, however. “What would Clinton's numbers have looked like if she had actually endured ... you know ... a campaign?”
Will Barack Obama also require two forms of identification? Those seeking Cabinet and high-level posts in the Obama administration are being sent a seven-page questionnaire that includes 63 requests for personal and professional records. They must report traffic tickets over $50, send along personal emails that might "embarrass the president-elect," and reveal their Facebook pages. The application—which The Times calls the "most extensive—some say invasive—application ever”—also requires extensive information on family members as well. That seems to be for a good cause, though: Obama is seeking to curtail the influence of lobbyists on his administration.
From The Independent: Every January, Utah hosts the Sundance film festival. But this year, things may be changing. Gay activists, angered that Proposition 8 passed thanks in part to the generous funding of Mormons, want to punish the state of Utah by boycotting the festival. Festival organizers say it’s too late to change venues and want activists to boycott local business that donated to Prop 8 instead. “At a fundamental level, the Utah Mormons crossed the line on this one,” said John Aravosis, a blogger who has organized several boycotts over gay rights. “They just took marriage away from 20,000 couples and made their children bastards.” The catch is that Sundance plays a key role in promoting indie films, many of which will be already endangered by the poor economy.
Sarah Palin’s media rehabilitation continues. Today for the first time, well, pretty much ever, she hosted a national press conference at the Republican Governors Association summit. Though the format may have been new, the answers were typically Palinesque. She responded to two questions about her lack of previous press conferences with expositions on the greatness of Republican governors. Also, she declined to say whether it was a personal or campaign decision to not host press conferences during the election. "I don't want to even talk about strategy within a campaign that is over," she said. Which is strange, considering that she is participating in a discussion on the 2008 election later today.
The Times of London reports on India’s version of Brokeback Mountain—though, by the movie’s plot, it may turn out to be India's version of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. The film, which is called Dostana, is about two men who only pretend to be gay in order to get closer to a woman they love. In a country where homosexuality is still a crime, that constitutes progress. It’s also a Zeitgeisty picture, as acceptance for homosexuality has been growing in the major cities and the country is battling an HIV epidemic. One of the film’s stars says, “I respect my gay fan base and have gay friends.”
In this morning’s Times, Cathy Horyn points out that President-elect Obama has begun dressing down. Gone are the dark suits; in are “a baseball cap with a North Face warm-up jacket, jeans and white sneakers, and a black windbreaker that some observers assumed was leather but, more likely, was nothing fancier than cotton.” Compared to Obama’s formal confidence, the casual Obama is a bit of a letdown; it suggests a man who doesn’t know how to relax. Hornyn suggests that with the jeans and sneakers Obama is referencing a ‘90s fashion icon, Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld says, “I don’t know that I can make a proprietary claim to that look.”
An attack on a military convoy in a crowded market in Afghanistan today killed one U.S. soldier and 18 civilians, including a 12-year-old boy. Seventy-four additional people were injured in the attack, in which a suicide car bomber drove into a crowded market in Southern Afghanistan. The violence occurred a day after a separate attack in Kandahar killed seven.
It's been a disappointing week in firsts for Alaskan Republicans. After Sarah Palin failed to become the first woman elected to the vice presidency, it's appearing as though Ted Stevens will fail in his bid to become the first convicted felon elected to the Senate. In the race for Stevens' Senate seat, Democratic challenger Mark Begich has taken an 814-vote lead. Begich was trailing by about 3,000 after election night, but the tallying of 60,000 absentee ballots pushed him ahead. The state still needs to count 25,000 absentees and 15,000 questioned ballots. According to the liberal blog Daily Kos, most of those ballots come from Begich-friendly districts.
When the bailout bill was first debated, Congress was applauded for promising oversights on its implementation. But The Washington Post reports that "no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste." And Congress has missed the deadline for its first monitoring report. The Congressional Budget Office, which also has oversight responsibilities, is worried it won't be able to find people with the expertise to carry them out. "It's a mess," said the Treasury Department's inspector general. "I don't think anyone understands right now how we're going to do proper oversight of this thing."
Zimbabwe’s inflation rate currently sits at 516 quintillion percent—that’s 516 followed by 18 zeros. Remarkably, that’s not the all-time record, which belongs to Hungary, whose monthly inflation rate after World War II was 12,950,000,000,000,000. Zimbabwe’s prices double every 1.3 days, whereas Hungary’s doubled every 15.6 hours. Weimar Germany’s prices in 1923 doubled only ever 3.7 days. Zimbabwe, according to the Telegraph, “could reach an all-time world record within weeks,” which would be pretty cool if it were for something like swimming, and not hyperinflation.
Want another sign that Sarah Palin will run for president in 2012? Her rivals are—gently—setting their sights on her. The New York Daily News reports that there was "a hint of chill in the air" at Palin's reception at the Republican governors summit. "'Drill, baby, drill!' by itself is not an energy policy," said Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, while former eBay CEO Meg Whitman said, "What happened here is the party and John dropped Sarah into the ninth inning of the World Series three runs down." When Florida Governor Charlie Crist was asked if she's a legitimate choice for the White House in 2012, he originally demurred, "I think that's up to her to decide. It's a little early." Maybe all of this explains Palin's sudden enthusiasm for the other team. "I'm proud of Barack Obama," she told Larry King last night. "I pray for him, his family, the new administration. I look forward to the good things that are in store for this nation."
In case you’ve been wondering what exactly has been going on with that Austrian man who fathered seven children with his own daughter while keeping her locked in a cellar for 24 years: Josef Fritzl has been charged with the murder of one of the children who died shortly after childbirth. That brings the horrifying tally of charges up to murder, rape, enslavement, incest, coercion, and deprivation of liberty. He is charged with having murdered the child through neglect in 1996. After the baby died, Fritzl burned it in a furnace.
Today in capitalism: Lego's monopoly over the studded rectangular plastic brick market has been busted. After a challenge from rival Canadian toymaker Mega Brands, judges decided that a rectangle with studs is "necessary to obtain a technical result" and is not a specialized feature of Lego's blocks. Lego tried to argue that consumers identified such bricks with their brand and that consumer perception should be taken into consideration, but the court disagreed. Perhaps Lego can salvage some satisfaction from the fact that people will call their new competitors' toys "Legos" anyway.
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