But Gary Weiss responds

But honestly, I don’t see how it matters all that much. What he did was so awful that it is kind of in the very cellar of horribleness, and cannot sink any deeper. Word emerged today that Bernie allegedly took a quarter of a billion dollars from a 95-year-old “friend” just ten days before the roof fell in. The mind boggles.

Emily Cummins, 21, invented this solar-powered fridge while working on a project for school. It “is now improving the lives of thousands of poverty-stricken Africans” and is entirely self-contained and doesn’t even have solar panels.

Cardinal Martino, president of the Vatican’s Council for Justice and Peace, made the comment to Italian online site Il Sussidiario.

“Defenceless populations are always the ones who pay,” he said.

“Look at the conditions in Gaza: more and more, it resembles a big concentration camp.”

On New Years Day, Johannes Mehserle, a Bay Area Rapid Transit officer, shot and killed an unarmed Oscar Grant in the back after a New Years Night altercation on a train.

The above report from KTVU in Oakland, shows footage from a video taken by an anonymous passenger and given to the the lawyer for Grant’s family (who has filed a $25 million wrongful death suit) is clear. Grant was shot in the back while lying on the ground

KTVU has more video.

The officer has resigned, has received death threats and currently is under protection and being moved from location to location for his safety.

Let’s cut to the chase. Emphasis added.

District Attorney Tom Orloff told CNN on Wednesday the incident is a “pretty clear” homicide and his office will focus primarily on Mehserle’s mental state prior to the shooting.

More from CNN

Some of the young men were handcuffed, but not 22-year-old Oscar Grant. The video from the anonymous passenger shows Grant seated on the floor with his back against the wall. iReport.com: BART protests turn violent

Grant holds up his hands, appearing to plead with police. Burris said Tuesday that Grant was asking police not to use a Taser.

“He said to them, ‘Don’t Tase me; I have a 4-year-old daughter,’ ” Burris said.

The interaction on the video is not audible.

Seconds later, police put Grant face-down on the ground. Grant appears to struggle. One of the officers kneels on Grant as another officer stands, tugs at his gun, unholsters it and fires a shot into Grant’s back.

Oakland exploded in protest last night, at least one car was burned and shop windows were broken.

The CEO of Satyam Computer in India just resigned after admitting he and others had been fraudulently inflating revenue for years. Satyam stock lost 90% of its value and the India stock market dropped 7%. This is a serious big deal, maybe of Enron proportions.

Pricewaterhouse, one of the big four international accounting firms, was their auditor, and somehow managed to just miss the whole thing, darn it.

Clusterstock

PWC, how are you going to explain this Satyam thing? How is it possible for two people to produce enough documentation to hide personal transfers of $1 billion of cash into company accounts, along with massive faked revenues and expenses?

They suggest a workable solution, given the obvious corruption and incompetence involved.

1) Nuke the SEC. It’s worse than worthless.

2) Stop allowing companies hire their own auditors. This is akin to a defendant in court being able to hire and pay the judge. An outside entity should hire and pay the auditors. Then they will be more genuinely independent.

3) Make companies pay a fee to an independent auditing organization that funds the audits.

Sue, a CPA and Certified Fraud Examiner who will soon have a Masters in Taxation, agrees completely, saying a plan like this is best way to avoid the glaring conflicts of interest and obvious systemic corruption inherent in the current system.

What’s worse, Ohio is running out of money to pay unemployment claims, and may (surprise) ask the feds for a loan.

Other states, New York, Michigan, and North Carolina among them, are having similar problems.

Al Jazeera is the only major media with reporters inside Gaza.

Tip: Eli of Lefti on the News

Major escalation. Rockets hit Israel from Lebanon

Why? Because everyone else is too…

Therefore, we here at Polizeros believe that bloggers - who do such a selfless, noble, and unsung job of reporting and commenting on news - should also share in the bailout. Besides, few if any of us have actively managed to destroy the economy, like so many of the fine minds at investment banks did. That should be worth something right there.

So, no need to be piggy about it. $500,000 should tide me over until next year.

Doug Kass at TheStreet.com speculated a few days ago that perhaps the Russian mafia and Russian oligarchs were large investors with Madoff.

Guess what?

Some the big investors in Sonja Kohn’s Bank Medici, which was a feeder bank to Madoff, were Russian oligarchs. She has disappeared, following the collapse of her bank and its seizure by authorities.

“With Russian oligarchs as clients,” said a Viennese banker who knew Mrs. Kohn and her husband socially, “she might have reason to be afraid.

This blog is written by 2 friends. One lives in Sajaia refugee camp in Gaza and the other lives in Sderot, a small town near Gaza on the Israeli side. There is ongoing violence between Israel and Gaza which has intensified greatly since October 2000. Many have been killed and many have been injured. The media coverage on both sides has been extremely biased. Our Blog is written by 2 real people living and communicating on both sides of the border.

NPR profile, with audio and transcript.