"Claimed to be near invisible to radar and able to dominate any future battlefield, the F-35 will replace most of the air-combat aircraft in the inventories of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and at least nine foreign allies, and it will be in those inventories for the next 55 years. It's no secret, however, that the program -- the most expensive in American history -- is a calamity."

"There were two "moments" in the defeat of liberal centrist politics in Germany, Austria, Spain etc. in the 1930s: the first, where polite society realised the working classes were swinging to the right and left, but patronisingly reassured themselves that the world of Jazz, surrealist poetry and foreign holidays could never end. That is, they said to themselves: the workers are clinging to the past, but we, avatars of a more liberal and progressive future, have economic history with us, which points only in the direction of liberalism and economic co-operation."

"Thoughts for today: the situations where the buyer or seller will shift a measurable value (cash, money) into other less comparable forms (fapioa, …) to disguise the real value of the exchange. Who they are disguising it from. The legal and social rules surrounding the exchange. Aftermarkets for the receipts."

" I unearthed this rather charming and naive, cheque book size, direct mail piece produced for the Midland Bank in 1975, although its design styling is pure 60s…"

"A banking scandal, identified by Iranian authorities as the "largest embezzlement in the country's banking history", has further shaken confidence in the government whose legitimacy was already under question after the contested results of the 2009 presidential election."

"Cocaine-related emergency-room admissions, overdoses and requests for rehab have declined since the economy started its 2008 decline"

"...And therein lies the answer to why hardware manufacturers are so eager to prematurely declare the PC dead: they need to sell more devices quickly before the silicon chip maxes out. And, they can already see that Moore's law will collapse entirely within the next 10 or so years. In other words, their desperation is showing."

"The SEC drafted the new rules after a lengthy analysis of the "flash crash", which was triggered when a trader using a high-speed trading program placed an order to sell $4 billion of futures contracts."

"Swyngedouw points to a climate of global consensus that has become pervasive over the past twenty years, effectively suppressing dissent and excluding most people from governance. He explains this consensus as limited to a select group (e.g., elite politicians, business leaders, NGOs, experts from a variety of fields) and perpetuated through "empty signifiers" like the sustainable/creative/world-class city. He argues that this consensus serves a "post-political" neoliberal order in which governments fail to address citizens' most basic needs in order to subsidize the financial sector and take on grandiose projects designed to attract global capital."

"The prices of staple foods will more than double in 20 years unless world leaders take action to reform the global food system, Oxfam has warned."

"Canada will soon join a growing list of countries that use a polymer-based plastic instead of paper for its cash. The new plastic money will be rolled out in phases with the $100 bill scheduled for introduction in November. In March 2012, a $50 bill will be added to the mix and the rest of the smaller bills will be introduced by the end of 2013."

"A recent paper published in the Physical Review has some astonishing suggestions for the geographic future of financial markets. Its authors, Alexander Wissner-Grossl and Cameron Freer, discuss the spatial implications of speed-of-light trading. Trades now occur so rapidly, they explain, and in such fantastic quantity, that the speed of light itself presents limits to the efficiency of global computerized trading networks. These limits are described as "light propagation delays.""

"Although it was not confirmed what activities might be covered by the data Mr Elmer has passed on, the Wikileaks head noted that previous data from Julius Baer provided by Mr Elmer had shed light on tax evasion, the hiding of proceeds of criminal acts and "the protection of assets of those about to fall out of political favour"."