The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission may come under fire from lawmakers for failing to quash Bernard Madoff’s alleged $50 billion Ponzi scheme after an investor alerted the agency to the suspected fraud. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=awtWspVB8cng&refer=us
Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was examined at least eight times in 16 years by the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulators, who often came armed with suspicions. SEC officials followed up on emails from a New York hedge fund that described Bernard Madoff's business practices as "highly unusual."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123111743915052731.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Brady Campaign Files Suit Asking Court to Strike Down Bush Administration Change to Guns in Parks Rule
News release: The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has filed suit in federal court asking that the court strike down a last-minute Bush Administration rule change allowing concealed, loaded firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and seeks an injunction to block the rule, which is scheduled to go into effect on January 9, 2009...The rule will allow guns in rural and urban national park areas around the country, from Wyoming’s Yellowstone and California’s Yosemite to Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park, home of the Liberty Bell. The suit was filed on behalf of the Brady Campaign and its members, including school teachers in the New York and Washington, D.C. areas who are canceling or curtailing school trips to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Census Bureau: Utah is Fastest-Growing State
News release: Utah was the nation’s fastest-growing state between July 1, 2007, and July 1, 2008, as its population climbed 2.5 percent to 2.7 million, according to estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Arizona was the second fastest-growing state, increasing 2.3 percent between 2007 and 2008. Texas, North Carolina and Colorado completed the top five, each with a growth rate of 2.0 percent. Nevada, which had been among the four fastest-growing states each of the last 24 years, grew 1.8 percent and ranked eighth over the most recent period. Texas gained more people than any other state between July 1, 2007, and July 1, 2008 (484,000), followed by California (379,000), North Carolina (181,000), Georgia (162,000) and Arizona (147,000)...California remained the most populous state, with about 36.8 million people on July 1, 2008. Rounding out the top five states were Texas (24.3 million), New York (19.5 million), Florida (18.3 million) and Illinois (12.9 million).

In Search of Lincoln’s Washington
Lincoln’s retreat during his wartime presidency was a 34-room residence now called President Lincoln’s Cottage. Visitors can tour the restored cottage and the adjacent Robert H. Smith Visitor Education Center. Ford’s Theatre, site of Lincoln’s assassination, renovated in the 1960s—and recently again renovated--will reopen in February in time for Lincoln’s bicentennial. Mary Sueratt’s boarding house, where the plot to kill Lincoln was planned, still has a few Washingtonians living on the upper floors, the Wok’n’Roll Restaurant is located on the ground floor. See Preservation magazine, January/February 2009 for pictures and more information.

Expanded list of U.S. presidents with the same last name
Adams 2
Adams 6
Harrison 9
Harrison 23
Roosevelt 26
Roosevelt 32
Bush 41
Bush 43
http://www.potus.com/

8 Events that Shook the Industry in 2008 - From Hurricanes to Ponzi Schemes, it Was a Year of Disasters, Linda McGlasson, Managing Editor, Bank Info Security: "The year 2008 was marked with significant milestones. Major banks and investment firms around the globe foundered, failed and were acquired or propped up by their governments and regulatory overseers. Stock markets plunged as the subprime problems of investors around the world began unraveling. Opportunistic fraud was uncovered."
Related postings on financial system

"Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place." William Strunk and E.B. White wrote in their venerated Elements of Style. Use of too many adverbs may be a sign of lazy writing. If you show, not tell, you don't need adverbs.
Typically adverbs are recognized as words ending in -ly: partly, happily, hopefully, really, virtually, and so on. But there are dozens of adverbs that don't end in -ly.
seriatim (seer-i-AY-tim)
adverb: One after another; in a series.
From Latin seriatim, from Latin series, from serere (to join). Ultimately from the Indo-European root ser- (to line up) that is also the source of words such as insert, assert, desert (to abandon), desert (a dry sandy region), sort, consort, and sorcerer.
Feedback on adverbs from Sharon Smith (mainelyneuropsych wildblue.net)
Your discussion of adverbs reminds me of the verbal game that specializes in adverbs: inventing "Tom Swifties". As Wikipedia explains, it "is a phrase in which a quoted sentence is linked by a pun to the manner in which it is attributed."
For example, "I NEVER use adverbs!" lied Tom, swiftly. A.Word.A.Day

January 3 is the birthday of the man who said, "All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost," the man called "the father of modern fantasy," the writer John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, J.R.R. Tolkien, (books by this author) born in Bloemfontein, South Africa (1892). His mother taught him Latin and Greek, and then one day he saw Welsh names on the side of railway cars, and he thought it was the most beautiful language in the world. He wanted to learn Welsh and any languages like it. He created simple languages of his own, like Animalic, which came from animal names, and Naffarin, which took elements from Spanish.
On January 3, 1882 the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde docked in New York. Customs asked him if he had anything to declare. Oscar Wilde replied, "Nothing but my genius."
Wilde had come to the United States for a lecture tour, which was set up as a publicity stunt for a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta called Patience (1881), which poked fun at the Aesthetic movement. The producers of the operetta were concerned that the United States wouldn't know what Aestheticism was, since it was a British movement, and that they wouldn't think Patience was funny. So in order to educate the general public about Aestheticism before trying to satirize it, the producers arranged for a lecture tour from England's most prominent Aesthete personality, Oscar Wilde.
His lecture tour did well in surprising places, like the rough mining town of Leadville, Colorado, where the miners loved him, and he enjoyed himself, as well. It was there in Leadville that he saw a sign at the local saloon that said, "Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best." Oscar Wilde later said that it was "the only rational method of art criticism I have ever come across."
January 4 is the birthday of Louis Braille, born in Coupvray, France (1809). When he was three years old, he was blinded in an accident. He invented a system of six raised dots that could be read by fingers, so that blind people could read easily. His idea didn't catch on during his lifetime, but it eventually became a worldwide phenomenon.
January 5 is the birthday of of Jack Norworth, (books by this author) born in Philadelphia in 1879. Jack Norworth had never been to a baseball game, but one day in 1908, he was riding the subway and he saw a sign that said "Baseball Today—Polo Grounds," and he started thinking of baseball lyrics. He wrote them down on a piece of scratch paper, and then took them to the composer Albert Von Tilzer, another man who had never seen a baseball game, who went ahead and wrote the music . And the song became very famous: "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." The Writer’s Almanac