Wednesday-Night

 
Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question
TBILISI, Georgia — Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.
1 November
Georgia’s Battered Face in a Separatist Republic
For 18 months, […]

Studs Terkel: He’ll Never Be Silenced
Remembering the original guerrilla journalist
By Jeff Cohen, director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College.
The irrepressible Louis “Studs” Terkel was many things – oral historian, radio and TV host, actor, activist, Bronx-born icon of Chicago, the “great listener” who was hard of hearing, Pulitzer Prize-winner. But most […]

World Hunger and WTO News on Wednesday-night.com
WASHINGTON: NO BREAKTHROUGH EXPECTED IN TRADE TALKS
(RCI) A Canadian trade official says a breakthrough in world trade talks is unlikely to happen before US President Bush leaves office in January. But Don Stephenson, a Canadian assistant deputy trade minister, says a meeting of world leaders next month in […]

See Part I of this topic/saga ; The evolving bailout plan ; The world after the (bailout) vote
Reversal of Fortune
How ideology, special-interest pressure, populist politics, and sheer incompetence have left the U.S. economy on life support, Joseph E. Stiglitz puts forth a clear, commonsense plan to reverse the Bush-era follies and regain America’s […]

 
Note from Bill Copp: 79 years today since the crash of ‘29. Just a mean thought, not a serious one, to help start your day
Julius Grey promises to be with us this week and having said that, we can all look forward to intriguing and challenging conversation – just for starters a […]

(FP Morning Brief) The world’s oilfields are declining faster than expected, according to a landmark IEA study leaked to the Financial Times.
24 October
(FP Morning Brief) OPEC, meeting today in Vienna, agreed to cut oil production by at least 1.5 million barrels per day in the hopes of arresting a downward trend that has seen […]

The Triumph of Ignorance
Why morons succeed in U.S. politics
(The Guardian) How was it allowed to happen? How did politics in the US come to be dominated by people who make a virtue out of ignorance? Was it charity that has permitted mankind’s closest living relative to spend two terms as president? How did Sarah […]

 
Wednesday-night.com on Russia
Georgia-Russia conflict (BBC)
Russia & Georgia another viewpoint
The Crisis in Georgia, Strategic Datalink, Canadian International Council (with thanks to Frank Kruzich)
Complicated Task for Critics of Georgian Leader
TBILISI, Georgia — With less than two weeks remaining before Nov. 7, the first anniversary of a government crackdown on demonstrators, Georgian opposition figures remain split […]

There was a time – until quite recently – when we aspired each week to fulfilling our mission “to entertain, inform and occasionally comment on a wide range of subjects of interest to us and to the many participants in and contributors to the Wednesday Night Salon”. However, the entertain part is becoming increasingly difficult […]

The Anatomy of the Financial Crisis and Why We Must Get It Right
Everyone is haunted by the fear our financial crisis might unwind into something like the Great Depression. The world of finance is undergoing a hundred-year storm. It has inflicted the greatest destruction of wealth in our history. It swept away giant blue-chip financial […]