The ruling establishes a major precedent. If you give money to a group engaging in terrorism, you are liable, even if the money was not meant for terrorism. This assumes you knew what the group was doing and they have been deemed as terrorist.

An appellate court has upheld a $156 million judgment against two organizations found to have provided financial support to Hamas and sent the claim against a third back to district court for a new trial. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling Wednesday that eliminated the distinction between supporting the violent and social wings of a terrorist group.

“If you give money to an organization that you know to be engaged in terrorism, the fact that you earmark it for the organization’s nonterrorist activities does not get you off the liability hook,” Judge Richard Posner wrote for the majority.

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“We found injections containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the terrorists and later found drugs in their blood,” said one official.

This is perhaps one of the most bizarre stories yet, that the Mumbai terrorists took LSD and cocaine to stay awake. Cocaine, maybe. But the effects don’t last long, so you need more soon. Amphetamines would be a much better choice as they last for several hours. As for LSD, this is nonsensical. You really don’t want to get distracted by watching all the groovy patterns as the walls are melting while being on the lookout for security forces trying to kill you.

Just one more bizarre story in a terrorist attack that still makes little sense. Maybe the terrorists were deranged in the sense that Jim Jones and Aum Shinrikyo were, so trying to make sense of their lunacies is not possible.

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Sue and I have been considering starting the Bank of BobSue, immediately borrowing huge amounts of money and squandering it on highly leveraged flaky “investments”, then whining to Hank “I Never Met a Bank I Wouldn’t Toss Billions At” Paulson for a loan of $10bn or so to tide things over while we pay ourselves performance bonuses. Tragically though, we just aren’t failures at such an exalted level nor are we amoral or thuggish enough.

From Vanity Fair.

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If the TARP were a private company, it would have a Sarbanes-Oxley problem. The Government Accountablity Office has just published its take on the TARP. Among the many conclusions reached is that the TARP lacks adequate internal controls, one of the key requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley. What’s worse, the Treasury hasn’t figured out how to discern whether the TARP is working to relieve financial markets or whether banks are complying with the requirements of the bailout law.

So, how much is being looted and how much is just another example of the Bush Administration talking a good game but being utterly incompetent when it comes to carrying it out.

Well, the adults are coming on Jan. 20. They can’t get here fast enough…

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A new kill switch detects when an appliance is in standby mode and automatically shuts off power. It can be reactivated by pressing a button, and immediately goes back to stand-by mode without restarting.

A hotel chain in Spain is testing the chip, and plans to install it in 50,000 television sets, thus saving substantial amounts of energy and money.

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