Daily News Roundup, 1/24/08: Stock Market Recovers, So Economy Must Be Great

After a miserable Tuesday and a less-than-stellar opening bell yesterday, the stock market made a bit of a rebound from its tumble.

At their low point yesterday, the Dow industrials were down 323.29 points, but they ended the day up 298.98 points. The 630-point swing was the second highest daily point swing since the metric started being tracked, in a year where only two days have not had a triple-digit swing.

"Volatility is certainly the norm now and not the exception," said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Jefferies & Co.

The article also notes that in light of the rebound, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spent a good deal of yesterday trying to convince world leaders and economists at the World Economic Forum that clearly the U.S. economy wasn't doing that badly, and was proving its resilience. But it seems that a number of prominent economists disagreed, and showed concern that the problem was possibly leading the global economy into a recession.

The blow to the U.S. economy was predicted by many, as the continued war in Iraq and the consequent increase in the price of oil was bound to hurt the U.S. economy. Economists had predicted that the U.S. economy could go into recession when oil hit $75 a barrel, a number we've long since eclipsed with oil having hit $100/bbl earlier this month.

Speaking of the Iraq War, want to know how many lies and falsehoods were spit out for the purposes of getting us into the "quagmire" in Iraq? 935, it turns out. Josh dug up a searchable database of all of them, so you can slice and dice that data however you like.

(Josh would also like you to know that you should get your flu shot, so you don't end up like he did.)

In campaign news, Rudy Giuliani must be getting more and more worried about his prospects in Florida, as he's dropped to third place in Florida in recent polls and is being outraised in New York by John McCain. Tonight's Republican debate will be a crucial one for him, as if he loses in Florida, his entire campaign may collapse.

In local news, we have a little more clarity in the confusion with the indictment of Texas Supreme Court Justice David Medina and his wife in the arson of his house, and the subsequent dismissal of the indictment due to a technicality. Harris County Assistant District Attorney Kate Dolan has taken responsibility for the clerical error that led to the dismissal, saying that allegations that she was just being put up as a fall guy for District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, who is having legal problems of his own, is "a crock."

We somehow always seem to have at least one race here in Texas where a candidate is kooky enough to say something that gets him in the national news. The Republican candidate for Kerr County treasurer, Ed Hamilton, seems to be our go-to guy for that this year. He's decided that the position needs to be done away with, and is running for it so that he can shut it down. Apparently he's willing to get rid of budget oversight in the name of small government. Anyone else see some irony in that?

He also says he'll petition for an amendment to the state constitution that would allow for the position to be eliminated. A simpler and more permanent tack to meet his goal, one would think, than running for a position he'd have to run again for every few years to keep it "shut down." But then again, I imagine he wouldn't have made national news with a petition.

And Farmers Branch continues in its quest to somehow circumvent the federal government's responsibility for managing immigration issues by trying a third time to stop undocumented immigrants from renting apartments in the city. Yes, that refrain is getting old, so much so that even some local residents are starting to protest the decision of the city council. I can't imagine what the city will get out of this new attempt other than more legal fees. Apparently they have little better to do with taxpayer money.

And as a reminder, yesterday we ran the Texas Progressive Alliance blog roundup (a day later than we normally do — my mistake!). Check it out to see the best of last week's progressive blogging from all over Texas.