Europeans on this date in history:

1803 - birth of Hector Berlioz, a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts (Requiem) (d.1869)

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Your thread for winter fun...

Global bond rout deepens on US fiscal worries

The yield on 10-year Treasuries – the benchmark price of money worldwide and the key driver of US mortgages rates – has rocketed to 3.3pc, up 35 basis points since President Barack Obama agreed on Monday to compromise with Senate Republicans on tax cuts. (...)

The White House deal with Congress will renew the Bush tax cuts for rich and poor alike for two years, as well as adding a further a 2pc cut in payroll taxes and an extension of unemployment aid.

For the past several months, we've been told by various Serious People that European governments were being punished by markets for being too lavish on social spending, despite bond rates being at record lows (other than in peripheral countries subject to more specific attacks) - or would be punished if they didn't "reform" and lower taxes. Well, the US government did just what the Serious People wanted, with a nice fat tax cut for the rich, and bond rates jumped - ie markets actually literally hated the measures, selling off US bonds violently.

In other words, bond vigilantes are telling us that they don't want tax cuts for the rich. Just sayin.

Europeans on this date in history:

1928 - death of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, a Scottish architect, designer, watercolourist and sculptor.

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An Evening with... (not Wednesday)

Turkish and Israeli representatives held two days of talks - on Sunday and Monday - in Geneva to discuss a resolution to the Turkish-Israeli diplomatic crisis. There has been a lot of coverage and speculation about this in Turkish and world media this week.

One of the most interesting things I have noticed is that there has been a complete lack of any mention that the IDF commandos were `just defending themselves' when they shot and killed nine people and wounded dozens more on the Mavi Marmara during the IDF's attack and seizure of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

The reports I have read and heard state that the talks are not about whether Israel would apologize and pay compensation but about how it would.

This is a summary of what I have read and heard in the past two days.

frontpaged with minor edit - Nomad

Europeans on this date in history:

1842 - birth of Pyotr (Peter) Kropotkin, zoologist, evolutionary theorist, geographer, and anarcho-communist (d. 1921)

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Out with it!

[Last week]'s Irish Sun Red C opinion poll estimates party support levels as follows (2007 General Election results in brackets):

Fianna Fail 13% (42%) -29%
Fine Gael 32% (27%) +5%
Labour 24% (10%) +14%
Green Party 3% (5%) -2%
Sinn Fein 16% (7%) +9%
Independents/Others 11% (9%) +2%

In other words, Fianna Fail, which has led Irish Governments for a total of 60 years since 1932 (and Fine Gael for the other 19) faces the prospect of becoming the fourth largest party in the state with Labour and Sinn Fein picking up most of their 29% loss of support.

What is also clear from these opinion poll results  is that the National political dispensation, which arose out of Independence from Britain and a civil war (over the non-inclusion of Northern Ireland in the independence Treaty) in 1922 is unravelling, and Sinn Fein is recapturing some of the revolutionary credentials which led to it being the dominant political force in the last years of British rule.  Angela Merkel had better not come looking for the Irish to pass any Referendum on a new EU Treaty any time soon.  The next time the Irish will likely reject EU overtures to facilitate another EU Treaty as firmly as the Brits were rebuffed and ejected in 1922.  That is the damage that the ECB is doing to the European project in Ireland.

from the diaries - Nomad

Europeans on this date in history:

1660 Margaret Hughes, Becomes first Female to appear on the English public stage

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For your guilty pleasures

Par the BBC:

The founder of the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police.

The 39-year-old Australian denies allegations he sexually assaulted two women in Sweden.

Mr Assange is due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court later.

A Wikileaks spokesman said Mr Assange's arrest was an attack on media freedom but it would not stop the release of more secret files.

Good timeline by the Guardian here. This also includes the news that the notorious mass-dump of information which would occur were Assange to be arrested is not in the cards, but that the drip-feed of released cables will continue as usual.

More updates can be posted in the comments as things develop.

Europeans on this date in history:

43 BC - death of Marcus Tullius Cicero , one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists, is assassinated by Herennius and Popilius.

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Frost, snow, fog.

Any alternatives?

It's been a busy week but still it is remiss of me to have not commented on the protests against Government proposals to increase the cap on University tuition fees.

Back in the day(!) when I was studying for my undergraduate degree at Cardiff, I was lucky enough to start in 1997, the last year where grants were still available (albeit minimal) and no tuition fees were charged.  Student loans saw me through on my living expenses and I worked each summer to make up the rest of the money I needed. Doing a chemistry degree involved most days being full of lectures and lab sessions, and being deaf meant that I had to use all of my time outside lectures to catch up on what I missed from not hearing the lectures.  The additional reading involved for me was huge. I just didn't have time to work whilst studying.

frontpaged - Nomad

Europe on this date in history:

1921 - The Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed in London by British and Irish representatives. The Irish Free State comes into existence one year to the day from signing (1922).

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A second Wiki Weekend

Europeans on this date in history:

1492 - Christoffa Corombo is the first European to set foot on the island of Hispaniola, now Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

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Bailout this, Wiki that...

Europeans on this date in history:

1670 - birth of John Aislabie, British politician, who as Chancellor of the Exchequer was instrumental in creating the South Sea Company Bubble (a scheme in which a slave-trading company re-financed Britain's national debt by issuing stocks, then inflated its own stock prices) and was imprisoned for it (d. 1742)

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