The ruling family of North Korea may be made up of homicidal despots currently threatening South Korea with nuclear war, ...

...but they know their British rock legends.

(Slate)

This is so many million dollars for a bottle of wine!

"The auction record was previously the 105,000 pounds ($168,000 million) paid for a single bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite engraved..."

(Bloomberg)

YDN: "10 of 14 students interviewed said that drinking is more central to their experience at the Game than the football itself."

I don't even come close to believing this.

Wait, what?

Bloomberg:

The U.K. government won’t go ahead with plans to enforce the substitution of generic medicines for
branded drugs, Health Minister Frederick Curzon said.

...

“We know that there are valuable savings to be made from the use of generic medicines where it is clinically appropriate,’’ Curzon, also known as Lord Howe, said in the statement.

Bloomberg, in one of the best quote contributions in recent memory:

Oct. 13 (Bloomberg) -- The New Jersey-bound tube of the
Lincoln Tunnel was closed due to a traffic accident, New York
City said. The information was disclosed in an e-mailed
statement.

NYT:

After “Up,” the overtly commercial “Toy Story 3” arrives in 2010 and “Cars 2” in 2011, and there is much talk that a sequel to “Monsters Inc.” is in the works.

NYT:

American consumers aren’t buying many vehicles at all, let alone the small cars and hybrids that are clogging dealer lots and creating big inventories for the ailing industry. That S.U.V. in the garage isn’t the costly liability it was last year, when gas prices hit $4 a gallon.

But the American auto industry, under pressure, has invested heavily in the small-car and hybrid market. So it should probably not be a surprise that auto industry leaders like Alan Mulally of Ford have called for higher gas taxes, an idea Detroit once abhorred.

Reuters:

More than half of Nevada's mortgage holders now owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth. Arizona holds second place with 32 percent of homeowners have negative equity, and Florida and California follow with 30 percent each, according to First American CoreLogic, an affiliate of property services firm First American Corp.

The total value of U.S. residential properties fell to $19.1 trillion in December 2008 from $21.5 trillion a year earlier. California's losses came to more $1.2 trillion -- roughly half the nationwide decline, the firm said.

Apparently 90% of those with access to the internet in the Philippines have a friendster account.

Maybe the best article I've read in months:

But the discovery that London's reaction to a minor snowfall is even more hysterical than Washington's annual panic inspired a set of more serious, more philosophical reflections: Events really do look different to people who live in different places, after all. (Slate)

Slate:

"Do any of you moms hold it against [Obama] that he chose to go for it anyway, even though [becoming president] would almost certainly make a 'normal' childhood impossible for his daughters?" My answer is yes: It's the least appealing thing about the man.

CNN:

The company that brought the world Beanie Babies is now selling dolls named Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia, but a spokeswoman insists that the dolls have nothing to do with President Obama's young daughters.

From Slate:

Last month, Karl Rove revealed that he and Bush spent the past three years in a furious competition to see who could read the most books. It started, fittingly, with Team of Rivals. In 2006, the year Republicans lost the Congress, Rove out-read Bush 110-95. Rove went on to win the next two years, 76-51 and 64-40.