QuickLinx. Friday, Sept. 16.

 
At left, Male, capital of Maldives, population 298,842 (about the size of Iceland), with the world's fourth-highest population density, after Monaco, Singapore and Vatican City. About 200 of Maldives's 1,192 islets are inhabited. (Wikipedia Commons) (Click on left photo for much larger image.)

Residents of Maldives, world's lowest lying nation, forced by rising sea level due to global warming to relocate. (Toronto Star)

Looking for work? Try Canada. (John Ferri, Salon)

Ottawa to fight "Buy American" provisions in Obama's jobs bill. (Les Wittington, Toronto Star)

In one of the biggest opinion polls in Toronto history, residents in every part of the city oppose the Twin Freaks' proposed budget cuts. (Robyn Doolittle, Toronto Star) And yes, that includes Doug Ford's Etobicoke riding.

U.S. banks quietly lending billions to prop up European lenders. (Gareth Gore, International Financing Review) I worry far less about rumored sovereign debt defaults in Europe than the ticking time bomb of that sovereign debt and "toxic waste" from the 2008-09 global financial meltdown that's on European bank books. As is the wont of U.S. business, the American banks, for the most part, took their hits early and completely, in order to start over clean. The chief reason for Japan's "lost decade" beginning with the spectacular 1990 collapse of the Nippon real estate and stock markets - it's actually two decades now; Japan still hasn't recovered - is the stubborn refusal of Japan's biggest lenders to fess up on their bad loans, in which the complicity of the government-for-life LDP was craven. Now Europe's in denial, and when the plug finally is pulled, much of the losses will wash back to U.S. lenders holding euro-denominated assets of dubious value.

FBI teaches its agents that even "mainstream" Muslims "Violent, Radical." (Spencer Ackerman, Wired)

 
Bachmann at the Sept. 12 G.O.P. presidential debate. (Reuters)

Michelle Bachmann's anti-vaccine advice is "toxic," doctors say. (Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters)

Dem-controlled Senate probing G.O.P. "war on voting." (Ari Berman, Rolling Stone)

Matt Taibbi: That UBS employee alleged to have lost $2 billion for the firm was no "rogue trader." (Rolling Stone) "They’re not "rogue" for the simple reason that making insanely irresponsible decisions with other peoples’ money is exactly the job description of a lot of people on Wall Street. Hell, they don’t call these guys "rogue traders" when they make a billion dollars gambling.

G.O.P. presidential contenders are a pack of liars. (David Corn, Mother Jones) Hey, if Rep. Joe Wilson (R) can falsely call out Obama as a liar during the State of the Union, let's call the entire other side's genuine mendacity.

Rick Perry's Texas "miracle" - for corporate welfare bums. (Siddhartha Mahanta, Mother Jones) When employers paid by Austin to create jobs reneged, Rick fudged the numbers.