12 March 2009: Morning

Within hours we knew that half a dozen of our friends had been hit, and that my dinner companion's retirement was over. Madoff's most intimate betrayals.

Op: Don't swallow Wall Street's tales of victimhood; in hindsight, the bankers ignored foresight.

More from the bad economic news mill: E.U. shows reluctance to bail out member countries; China posts a 25.7 percent drop in exports.

Today, if you live more than a hundred miles from the Gulf Coast, the shrimp you eat most likely come from a foreign farm. How America's appetite for shrimp is killing its shrimping industry.

Elves, the hidden folk, disrupt business in Iceland.

WORD bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is starting a literary basketball league--participants must prove eligibility by answering book questions.

And speaking of basketball and books, today marks the halfway point in the first round of our Tournament of Books.

Enjoying a 12-hour marathon of CNBC and witnessing the bizarre world of the loud minority.

Lessons learned by Oliver Griswold after a monthlong diet of nothing but conservative media.

Regulate armed robots before it's too late.

Horse tranquilizers, getting wonky to Dubstep, and the post-rave drug-scene in Britain's clubs.

ZineLibrary stores hundreds of radical zines--all ready to print, all ready to win hearts and minds.

Photos: All signs point to "no."