The biggest bank meltdown in US history and it has to be Washington Mutual, the bank that's holding most of my money. Geezus! This from the Financial Times :

JPMorgan Chase has acquired the banking operations of Washington Mutual which was seized by US regulators on Thursday night in the biggest bank failure in US history.

Under the deal, which was brokered by government, JPMorgan will pay $1.9bn to the banking regulator, and acquire all insured and uninsured deposits, assets and some of the liabilities of WaMu’s banking operations, including its troubled mortgage portfolio.

Holy crap! Where's my money? AUUUUUUUGH!

I was actually going to take all my money out earlier in the week but decided to leave it for today. I should have done what the thousands of other depositors did. Take my money out of WaMu. Of course, the deposits run killed the bank, but now I have to run over there and find out if I have access to my cash.

Oh, wait! Here's the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC) :

A "crowdsource" request is more than a request for help. I am asking all of you who read this blog to put in a little bit of your knowledge of this situation in the comments as part of my research for this story.

What I need from all of you is to give me whatever information you have about the Taxi Alliance strike that is going on right now and that will continue until Friday morning (that's when the scheduled 48 hours of the strike will end).

I could actually write off-the-bat a littany of reasons why the GPS system that is being rammed down the throats of taxi drivers is a really bad idea --not just from an ethical standpoint but also from a legal one; especially if we are talking about how this would impact not just the civil rights of drivers but of passengers as well.

But the one sticking poing in this situation is the division between the two unions. On one end is the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, led by a woman called Bharavi Desai. On the other end is the opposing union, New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, led by a Fernando Mateo.

I have spoken to Ms. Desai and have gotten background on their grievances. I have tried contacting Mr. Mateo to no avail.

This is what I am missing in this story :

With all the campaign finance reform scuttles clouding the New York political landscape, I'd like to direct you to some of the tools I have been using to better understand the dynamics of politics and money in New York state.

Follow the Money is one of several campaign finance reform initiatives that have created tools that breakdowns electoral contribution data several different ways.

I, Liza Michelle Sabater-Tirado, am the father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter, Dannielynn.

It was a freak accident of telepathic autogenesis that made me the father of Anna's daugher. Seriously. Since the father of my children doesn't want more kids, I was using all my mental abilities to immaculately conceive the baby girl I want so much. Unfortunately my powers got transferred to Anna Nicole.