Hurray-hurray-hurray! suffering and dismay!

It's been a grey, drizzly and uninspiring day. The news seems almost all bad - even the tabloids have gone all panicky and apocalyptic over the economic news - I noticed the Sun on the news stands today had abandoned the usual tosh about immigrants eating our swans or some manufactured confrontation on a reality TV show, to wail that it was the "blackest Monday on the markets" (in my humble opinion they should have gone for "even blacker" - once you've used "blackest", you've got nowhere to go if things get even worse). When the economic outlook is so bad that even celeb-obsessed gutter journos at the Sun are putting the economy on page one, we're probably all doomed.

At least there's a little silver lining to the universal trans-global gloom. I notice that it's not only the global economy that's looking like a car crash - apparently the public pronouncements of the know-nothing red-neck creationist idiot and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin have an air of burning rubber and twisted metal about them, too. So refreshing to see that idiocy doesn't always triumph, but sometimes receives the mockery it so richly deserves. Here's the Toronto Star observing her embarrassment with semi-detached Canadian amusement. Perhaps she could come over here and help Dave Cameron out - heaven knows, we could do with a laugh, too.