- Global, synchronized, recession.
- Recession continues through 2009 with weak, 1%, growth in 2010.
- Unemployment at 9% in 2010. Job losses easily at 500k/month through 2009 and may be worse. Stimulus may lower that to 200k/month.
- $1.8 trillion loss for banks; need another $1.4 trillion for banks to recover.
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Top 3 banks in US are technically insolvent. Nationalization only reasonable approach. Re-privatize them in 2-3 years. Otherwise, end up with zombie banks like Japan: a decade of stagnation.
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Deficits this year: 2 trillion; next year 1.5 trillion.
Month: January 2009
The world is getting better one step at a time
It’s William Kristol’s last op-ed in the NY Times — ending one year of the worst written columns in NY Times history. Or as Political Animal “His columns combined the three worst qualities a columnist can have: Kristol’s work was wrong, predictable, and boring.”
From Will Obama Save Liberalism?:
This is William Kristol’s last column.
Editing
I re-edited a bunch of posts to fix the stripped out angle bracket. Interesting writing.
Warren Buffett and Obama
Here is Warren Buffett interview by Tom Brokaw on Dateline NBC. Buffett is very positive on Obama’s leadership. (7 min):
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Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Interactive map of Gaza fighting
This is a great map from the Wall St Journal about the fighting in Gaza. Click on the image below to go to the interactive map. Once there, you can click on the calendar for day to day events.
From 
:
Inaugural Parties in NY
Some parties in NY to celebrate the inaugural
The Living Liberally Inaugural Ball. Sunday, January 18th - 8pm Rush - 6th Avenue @ 16th Street
Date: from 1/19/2009 7:00 pm to 1/20/2009 1:00 am (Eastern Time)
Fixing libxml2, php, WordPress, and the missing angle brackets
Someone posted a temporary fix for WordPress that takes the raw xml and replaces the offending entities with characters. He found three places. The fix looks like:
//xmllib 2.7.0 -2.7.2 stripping leading angle brackets bug patch
if(LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION == '2.7.0' ||
LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION == '2.7.1' ||
LIBXML_DOTTED_VERSION == '2.7.2') {
$xml =str_replace("<","<",$xml );
$xml =str_replace(">",">",$xml );
$xml =str_replace("&","&",$xml );
}
//end Fix
xml_parse($parser, $xml);
Seeing a Virus in Three Dimensions
Sometimes my jaw just drops when I read about scientific advances. If the reporter understood this and I understood the reporter they are using a magnetic field causing protons to vibrate which is then measured with a tiny scale.
What makes me astounded is how quickly we are reaching into the molecular level. 15 years ago this was just some wild eyed, theoretical paper.
From A Breakthrough in Imaging – Seeing a Virus in Three Dimensions:
Magnetic resonance force microscopy employs an ultrasmall cantilever arm as a platform for specimens that are then moved in and out of proximity to a tiny magnet. At extremely low temperatures the researchers are able to measure the effect of a magnetic field on the protons in the hydrogen atoms found in the virus.
By repeatedly flipping the magnetic field, the researchers are able to cause a minute vibration in the cantilever arm which can then be measured by a laser beam. By moving the virus through the magnetic field it is possible to build up a 3-D image from many two-dimensional samples.
History of the Internet
Here is a five minute video history of the Internet.
History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.
Fixing libxml2, php, WordPress, and the missing angle brackets
I was having problems with MarsEdit after updating to OpenSuse 11.1 because of a bug in php aggravated by a recent release of libxml2 (details here).
I was waiting for a real fix but lost my patience today. The advice was to “fall back to libxml2-2.6.32” so here’s what I did:
- Grabbed the RPM from the OpenSuse 11.0 cd. Or, if you trust me you can download it from here: libxml2-2.6.32-11.1.i586.rpm
- Install the RPM overriding any recent release which is what the “–force” flag does. Do the following as “root” from a terminal window:
rpm -i --force libxml2-2.6.32-11.1.i586.rpm
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Now fix the symlinks in /usr/lib so everyone uses the new (but old) library:
cd /usr/lib rm libxml2.so libxml2.so.2 ln -s libxml2.so.2.6.32 libxml2.so ln -s libxml2.so.2.6.32 libxml2.so.2
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Actually, I didn’t do the above but instead replaced the actual 2.7.2 library:
mv libxml2.so.2.7.2 libxml2.so.2.7.2.orig ln -s libxml2.so.2.6.32 libxml2.so.2.7.2
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Restart apache so that PHP uses the new libraries:
/etc/init.d/apache2 restart
Pete Ware 