Slugger’s Daily Blogburst…

Kicking off with P O’Neill, who finds that amongst investors there is now an expectation that the Republic stands a 10% chance of defaulting:

…despite our surge to the top of the EU per capita income tables that seemed to have us on a par with Germany, France, and the UK, the debt markets look now and see a fragile economy sitting outside the safety of the EU core.

– Jess the Dog notes that in the merger between HBOS and Lloyds TSB, “up to 50% of the new organisation may well be culled, particularly if the Halifax mortgage book proves to be a serious debt burden.” Its causing difficulties for the Scottish First Minister…

– Sticking with Scotland, Shuggy reckons the SNP has been mugged by reality…

– And it’s the Glenrothes by election this week, and Calum thinks Labour’s panicking, but with the latest poll results on independence Scottish Unionist thinks the SNP should be panicking…

– At home, Malachi has added thoughts to his own blog on the film Hunger after a lengthy and contentious response to it here on Slugger…

– Oh and Cranmer resents having had to run the flak of Catholic intolerance when he recently pointed out the ‘bleedin’ obvious regarding Cardinal O’Brien’s unfortunate allusion to the Nazis…

– On the Unionist side of the House, Chekov’s readers back a deal between the UUP and the Tories…

– On the other side Adelante reckons the GAA is codding itself about the issue of whether to pay players or not:

…the GAA is a multi-million Euro sports organisation. The revenue generated from gate receipts is astronomical. Add to this the ever increasing cost of merchandise, the range of which is ever expanding. I mean now you have everything from kits, to school bags to air fresheners to play station games. The monetary gains from such a range is unbelievable and I think it is futile to argue that a sport that can generate such vast amounts of revenue is genuinely amateur.

– And via Jonathan’s BritBlog Round up Chris observes of the post Brand/Ross BBC that:

This affair has shown that the corporation is excessively sensitive to moral panics manufactured by a business rival, whilst insufficiently sensitive to those of us who are more tolerant of its many failings.

– In the States one particularly idiotic Republican talking point comes to an end…

And finally what Mickey did for Hallowe’en:

Went to a Halloween party dressed as The Bradley Effect. The elemental conceptual simplicity of my costume somehow failed to terrify, even in a Dem heavy Hollywood crowd. … This may be the first election where average Web-surfing, procrastinating liberal comedy writers know more about the last Insider Advantage poll in Pennsylvania than Howard Fineman does…. Unfortunately, they thought the photo of George Deukmejian on my costume** was Robert Rubin.