It shouldn't surprise anyone that McCain's campaign team is trying to reach out to bloggers overseas, given the very poor coverage he's receiving in the MSM here. However, what trade paper PRWeek's UK edition reports is something a bit more worrying.

Their strategy may not work, but it's fun to watch. The British Labour party is in massive trouble: it is on the verge of bankruptcy. Traditionally, it was, um, a "Labour" party--financed by and supposedly working for working people, as represented by the unions. Blair's project was to gradually cut this tie, repositioning "New Labour" as something more like the US Democratic Party, moderate and funded primarily by big business.
But now Labour's fair-weather friends in business are defecting to their true home, the Conservative Party. Labour is left at risk of literally having to sell off its HQ and let go staff, having lost hundreds of thousands of members since Blair's rise to power, the Iraq war, and many, many policy decisions that have hurt working people. They are very likely to lose the next  national election.
This has put the unions in an interesting position. More about what they want below the fold.

I emailed Sen Ron Wyden a few weeks ago to encourage him to endorse Sen Obama. Today I received a thoughtful reply from his office. I'll share an excerpt below the fold.

I count many interesting people among my friends, and none more so than Jerod Poore, who runs CrazyMeds, a sort of consumer resource/social networking site for people who have mental ill health or neurological conditions. So it's with great interest that I can direct you to what Jerod has to say about the difference between the three candidates on these issues.

Yesterday was a major day for local elections in Britain: hundreds of seats at stake across the nation on local councils, as well as mayoral races--including the hugely important Mayor of London's post. Tonight the results are coming in, and it ain't pretty. I happened to be in London on business today, and my friends and I discussed the merits of buying a funeral wreath for No 10 Downing St as we walked past the entrance to Gordon Brown's road.
These by-elections are a barometer of sorts for the party. For "New" Labour, the weather conditions are looking extraordinarily bleak.
Why, and what lessons American Democrats might take away from Labour's May Day debacle, below the fold.

Some of you know that one of the reasons I left the US with my family is that we had become "uninsurable." I've just come face to face with what could have happened to one of us if we had stayed--and worse yet, it's happening to someone who was a friend of mine.
More below the fold...

OK, it's all about schadenfreude, I admit it. But my heart leapt when I learned that ClearChannel is in clear trouble as wary private equity companies pull out of a planned buyout deal for the faltering company.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling graces the front page of every British paper this morning (Well, except for the Daily Sport, but that's OK, he would look scary in a short skirt). He's carrying the red box that traditionally Chancellors use to deliver the budget to Parliament.
So what's in that box--a gift, or something else altogether?

These ominous words were found scrawled on a wooden post in a secret basement room of the Haut de la Garenne, until recently a children's home on the island of Jersey off the coast of England. Investigators opened the room when a child's skull was found under concrete on the property, following up a tip from an investigation elsewhere on the island. What makes it less than remarkable is that the children who have apparently been victimised were disabled.

This one's personal for me. I have a grandchild in Oregon who has not had coverage since my daughter's employer dropped coverage for dependents. She's hoping to get a spot for her on the Oregon Health Plan--but that's not looking likely.

More below the fold.

I blogged previously about the bad omen that was a run on a bank--Northern Rock Bank--here in the UK. A bad omen indicating that the subprime loan crisis and the credit crunch are worldwide phenomena.
Since then the UK government offered the troubled lender unlimited credit from the public purse to stop the run on one of the nation's larger banks from continuing. They are now into the UK government for at least £25 billion (that's about $50 billion in US funny money). A consortium led by Goldman Sachs (irrational exuberance personified) and another led by promoter disguised-as-business Richard Branson have been in negotiation with the UK government to come up with competing buyout plans. Nationalisation means these have been rejected.

Overseas voters will send 22 delegates to the Democratic convention this year. And I just did something I've never done before--voted on the Internet!

When I saw a reference to this in last week's Private Eye I had to look a little closer. It seems that Steve Morgan, a British fundraiser whose name has been paired with "sleazy" in several recent news reports here, is now working for Hilary Clinton's presidential campaign. I would suggest that this is not good news for her. Details below the fold...

News reports today indicate that London Scottish Bank no longer has enough ready cash to pay its stockholders or make good on obligations.
Unlike Northern Rock, the bank that was subject to a "run" by customers rushing to withdraw their funds, London Scottish is not a major mortgage vendor. It is one of the few UK banks that actually specialises in sub-prime mortgages, but while that part of its business surely played a role in its current situation, it appears to not be the major problem.
That's because ...

It just came across the wire that Benezir Bhutto has died from injuries sustained this morning when a suicide bomber first shot into the group around her at close range, then detonated himself.
What does this mean to you?

I read an interesting news story in today's Observer newspaper (the Sunday paper published by the same folks who do the Guardian here in the UK. It suggests that the banking crisis is about to get worse, with major banks being put in a position of either having to dun shareholders to invest additional real money or sell themselves out to Asian/Middle Eastern interests or fold.  I will excerpt a short bit below.

Just wanted to let folks know that the "Ransom Notes" advertising campaign by the NYU Child Study Centre, which I blogged about earlier this week, has been ended due to public pressure.

I've never talked about here before, but I'm mom to a young person with autism. I've recently found out about a highly offensive advertising campaign by an organisation that ought to know better--the NYU Child Study Centre--that discusses kids like mine as though they have been kidnapped and turned into some sort of terrible creatures.