Minnesota funds ride volatility to profits

StarTribune.com Business
You can't blame investors for still feeling bruised. They carried the Dow Jones industrial average to a record high in mid-July, only to lose confidence by month's end amid news of more subprime mortgages going bad and a credit crunch that made for more expensive borrowing. Add in talk of recession, pricey oil, interest rate uncertainty and a weak U.S. dollar, and investors had plenty to lie awake thinking about during much of August and September. It wasn't until the Federal Reserve swooped in with a rate cut for banks and a larger-than-expected cut for the federal funds rate.
via business, news, lie, profits

Flyleaf

i like that music...

Putin Dissolves Government

Putin removed his prime minister and cabinet in an unexpected move, ratcheting up political uncertainty as Russia heads into parliamentary and presidential elections.

Lust, Caution

Director Ang Lee’s new film, following his Academy Award win for directing “Brokeback Mountain,” is an espionage thriller set in WWII-era Shanghai. Asian cinema icon Tony Leung (“Hero,” “In the Mood for Love”) stars as Mr. Yee, a powerful political figure in 1940s Shanghai. Tang Wei, a rising star in mainland China, makes her feature film debut as Wang Jiazhi, a young woman who gets swept up in a dangerous game of emotional intrigue with Mr. Yee.
In Theatres: September 28th, 2007 (trailer)

My Chemical Romance - Famous Last Words

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The Black Parade is the third studio album by the rock quintet My Chemical Romance, released in October 2006. It is a concept album, centering on a character known as "The Patient", who dies during the course of the CD. The album presents the story of his passage out of life, and his subsequent reflection on his life.
The album was produced by Rob Cavallo, who has also produced albums for Green Day. The Black Parade is also the first album that Bob Bryar played drums in, as Matt Pelissier played drums in Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, not Bryar as is the contrary belief. It was intentionally leaked in its entirety on October 19, 2006. In an interview with MTV, bandmember Gerard Way explained the album's title: "...the words "black" and "parade" made you think of death but [also] celebration. And that's what the record felt like, it felt like a celebration of life and death..." Though several reviewers have dismissed the album as a display of showmanship,The Black Parade has, overall, been a critical success.
The album spawned "Welcome to the Black Parade", "Famous Last Words", "I Don't Love You", and "Teenagers" as its first four singles. The song "Dead!" has also been included in the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II. "Teenagers", "Famous Last Words" and "This is How I Disappear" are also available as downloadable content on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

"I'm Not Dead". i'm alive.

The album is mostly dominated by pop and rock music, with some electronic music present in the bonus track "Fingers". Pink said she titled the album I'm Not Dead because "It's about being alive and feisty and not sitting down and shutting up even though people would like you to"; she said it came from "the awakening" and how "it felt good to feel again ... I turned twenty-five and I just kind of woke up and realized I have so much to learn, whereas before I thought I knew everything. That's definitely a huge part of that title."

She said that she didn't expect to be very emotionally involved in the making of the album because the experience of making her last, Try This (2003), was "draining", but that she was "forced to be almost emotionally involved" by her collaborators, such as Billy Mann. "I guess I was just kind of at that place where I felt like I kind of had something to add to the world", she said. "I feel like there's a hole and I know how to fill it, people aren't talking trash anymore. I was just feeling really creative and really emotionally available again, and it came out great." According to her, she wrote more than forty songs for the album on "everything I could possibly think of."(W)