Rotundus.com

Fire extinguishers could be removed from communal areas in flats throughout the country because they are a safety hazard, it has emerged.

The life-saving devices encourage untrained people to fight a fire rather than leave the building, risk assessors in Bournemouth decided.

- The Metro

If only this were a joke...

He's only 9, but this pint-sized pickup artist already knows plenty about pleasing the ladies.

So much, in fact, that Alec Greven's dating primer, "How to Talk to Girls" - which began as a handwritten, $3 pamphlet sold at his school book fair - hit the shelves nationwide last week.

(In the New York Post).

How a 9-year old gets a publishing contract from a major publishing company I don't know.

If CBC News is correct, then the deal that the Canadian opposition parties were working on has been reached. And if you ask me it's hard to find a more stupid reason - where's the evidence that the U.S. bailout has worked in any way, shape or form?

To give you an idea of the scare of the U.S. bailouts so far, someone someone has charted it (in inflation-adjusted dollars) against other major historical spending projects.

An article in today's LA Times seems worth reading. It notes:

Indeed, analysts warn that the nation's next financial crisis could come from the staggering cost of battling the current one.

...

Much of the Depression-World War II spending was on industrial production -- building new factories and converting existing plants to produce tanks, planes and ships. Huge sums also went into developing new technologies.

Those investments, combined with pent-up consumer demand and savings from the lean war years, quickly led to budget surpluses and sharp economic growth in the late 1940s as the baby boom began.

Analysts warn not to expect that to happen again. This time the government spending is largely ethereal, with the Federal Reserve printing more money to inject liquidity into the financial system and keep banks and other institutions afloat. And savings rates are low.

"Too many Americans have overextended themselves with regard to credit and debt, and too many have been following the bad example of the government," Walker said. "It is imperative that we recognize that this country has been living beyond its means and that we face large and growing structural deficits even after we turn the economy around."

If you translate "government spending is largely ethereal" into English, that means something along the lines "expect inflation" or "things will cost more".

Then there are economists at UCLA suggesting the "New Deal" spending programs actually significantly prolonged the Great Depression in the United States.

I mentioned one reason why the American auto industry is going under last week. Here's another:

Dealers are not employees of the car companies—they own local franchises, which, in every state, are protected by so-called "franchise laws." These laws do things like restrict G.M.'s freedom to open a new Cadillac dealership a few miles away from an old one. More important, they also make it nearly impossible for an auto manufacturer to simply shut down a dealership. If G.M. decided to get rid of Pontiac and Buick, it couldn't just go to those dealers and say, "Nice doing business with you." It would have to get them to agree to close up shop, which in practice would mean buying them out. When, a few years ago, G.M. actually did eliminate one of its brands, Oldsmobile, it had to shell out around a billion dollars to pay dealers off—and it still ended up defending itself in court against myriad lawsuits. As a result, dropping a brand may very well cost more than it saves, since it's the dealers who end up with a hefty chunk of the intended savings.

- In the New Yorker