Havent you heard? I'm the king of NY! (news thread)

[FreddyKnuckles]

Yikes, 80+  dead in the Oslo attacks... Sad thing.

[coldforge]

The whole thing is fucked. Last time any report was issued it was 16 people. And some Islamist organization was claiming credit for both attacks. Now it's 87 and it's an extreme right wing nationalist.

[elpollodiablo]

Jesus fuck, the last time I got an update was this afternoon and it was 2 killed. My god.

[FreddyKnuckles]

Sounds like they were slow getting reports cause the camp was on some remote island, and that there was some sort of massacre there. 

[Antero]

Some Jihadi group tried to claim credit, but the guy they have in custody is apparently a white nationalist.

Fucking christ, 87?  This is nuts.

[elpollodiablo]

The guy they arrested is described as "ethnically Norwegian."

[Good Intentions]

Timothy McVeigh wasn't a foreigner either.

I can only wonder what effect this will have on the country.

[peacocks]

It was a youth political party (labour? democratic socialist? I forget which) having a camp on the island and the PM was supposed to be speaking there tomorrow I heard. I saw some pictures that I wish I hadn't of people trying to escape the island and bodies of people who didn't.

[davy]

Somebody please tell me what I'm missing in regards to the Amanda Knox case.

I just found out about a few weeks ago...the name was familiar but I hadn't been keeping up with it and it totally went over my head 3 years ago when it happened. But I read this Rolling Stone article and found it incredibly compelling and I've been reading up on the case ever since. To be honest, I'm getting a little obsessed with it. Literally EVERYTHING I've read about the incident and the proceeding court case screams that the police & prosecutors are corrupt and Amanda Knox is entirely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever. People are wrongfully convicted often enough, but they usually aren't 20 year-old exchange students who have to sit in foreign jails for 3 1/2 years before they get a chance to appeal!

The popular belief seems to be that now that the DNA evidence has been discounted (evidence of tampering, etc), the case will collapse and she'll be freed this year. But still, they stole almost 4 years of her life! And nobody seems to care much! I mean, am I being naive? Was I too gullible when I read the Rolling Stone article? I honestly can't tell. The American public's nonchalance has me totally flummoxed.

I just came across this editorial, and for a short column, it does a nice job of summing up the various injustices.

Why Won't the State Dept. Speak Up for Amanda Knox?

[Little Sixes Little Nines]

I got briefly obsessed with that case when they mentioned it on the Colbert Report a while ago, and yeah, I'm pretty sure she's innocent, and I have no idea why Schapelle Corby seems to have gotten so much more newstime (on BBC, anyway).

[davy]

Maybe it's simply because this case is such a shameful indictment of the media? The story makes almost everyone involved look evil & stupid, including (and especially) the press, so the press just chooses not to cover it?

[Ignatius]

I think it might be fatigue at this point. I remember a LOT of coverage a few years ago, and then a second wave some time last year maybe? Doesn't move magazines so quickly any more.

[Chet]

I'd let her play kinky sex games with me any day of the week.

[davy]

I think it might be fatigue at this point. I remember a LOT of coverage a few years ago, and then a second wave some time last year maybe? Doesn't move magazines so quickly any more.

But I mean, what's happening right now is the pay-off! The exoneration! The appeals process is at a critical stage and you'd think people who'd been the least bit interested in the case would want to know that the prosecution's argument has collapsed.

[Little Sixes Little Nines]

yeah, but this case has shown how completely fucked the italian legal system is - the state of the prosecution's case is almost redundant at this point.

[davy]

So apparently, there were audible gasps from the gallery this morning when they were shown video of forensics team members dropping the evidence, passing it around from hand to hand, and wearing dirty gloves. One wonders what kept them from gasping the first time around.

Two court-appointed experts testified this morning that the DNA evidence is worthless -- contaminated from the get-go and insufficient in any case to be used as evidence. Things are looking pretty good for Knox.

[FreddyKnuckles]

It's pronounced foxy knoxy

[elpollodiablo]

Thread over

[nonotyet]

woo I have to get cable?
Also, this article is the same topic, but written as if I am retarded, so that is fun.

[Good Intentions]

As world economic markets go into freefall, Standard & Poor's downgrades the US's credit rating. I wouldn't pay much attention to the S&P stuff, since the financial crisis has shown the credit agencies to be feckless idiots who do the last thing somebody told them to. The market panic is a little more serious - it's panic-selling, which means that the markets will probably get it out of its system soon enough, but what it does show is that the world economy is on tenterhooks.

[RavingLunatic]

Yeah, these credit-rating agencies are so full of shit. And right now they're using their power to try to coerce the government into enacting policies favorable to the financial industry. And how is it that the US government is going to default? The US debts are in dollars. The US prints dollars. This is freaking crazy.

[FreddyKnuckles]

 

Please god, do not let there be another 2008esque panic.

[Dick]

You can take comfort in two points:

1. There is, you know, an actual market for bonds, so S&P doesn't actually, you know, decide what bonds are worth.  If investors are looking for the safest dollar-denominated assets, US bonds are by definition the only game in town.  You can only jam so much of your portfolio into highly price inelastic gold, I guess the other alternatives would be canned food and ammunition futures or something...

2. A lot of this talk about big investment funds being forced to divest US bonds and municipal bonds is more or less ignorant speculation as, number one the US has AAA ratings at two other agencies which is sufficient for about anyone (if Moody's and Fitch downgrade on Monday they will look like total chumps), and number two generally, most investment prospectuses use language to the effect that they should hold 'Treasury-grade instruments' (which bonds of course are, by definition), rather than giving a specific rating, which of course varies from agency to agency.

However, my outlook on the global economy is still more or less We Are All Completely Fucked, with a negative outlook, unless someone can explain to me exactly what steps the EU has the institutional capacity/will to take in an environment where Spanish & Italian 10 year bonds are at/above 6% yields, and French bonds north of 4% or 5%.

[elpollodiablo]

You can take comfort in two points:

1. There is, you know, an actual market for bonds, so S&P doesn't actually, you know, decide what bonds are worth.  If investors are looking for the safest dollar-denominated assets, US bonds are by definition the only game in town.  You can only jam so much of your portfolio into highly price inelastic gold, I guess the other alternatives would be canned food and ammunition futures or something...

All of my gun-loving friends bought mad ammunition right before the 2008 generals. Time has certainly borne out the wisdom of that one.

[Good Intentions]

Woah, the unrest in London went up a notch.