"The US has run out of bullets," Roubini told an economic forum in Italy earlier this month. "Any shock at this point can tip you back into recession." But other economists, who have so far stayed out of the media limelight, are also proselytizing nightmarish visions of the future.

Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff, who warned as far back as the 1980s of the dangers of a public deficit, lent credence to such dark predictions in an International Monetary Fund publication last week. He unveiled a doomsday scenario - which many dismiss as pure fantasy - of an economic clash between superpowers the United States and China, which holds more than 843 billion dollars of US Treasury bonds.

"A minor trade dispute between the United States and China could make some people think that other people are going to sell US treasury bonds," he wrote in the IMF's Finance & Development review. "That belief, coupled with major concern about inflation, could lead to a sell-off of government bonds that causes the public to withdraw their bank deposits and buy durable goods."

Kotlikoff warned such a move would spark a run on banks and money market funds as well as insurance companies as policy holders cash in their surrender values. "In a short period of time, the Federal Reserve would have to print trillions of dollars to cover its explicit and implicit guarantees. All that new money could produce strong inflation, perhaps hyperinflation," he said.

The attack of September 11, 2001, remains a dark cloud in America's history with no silver lining - no awakening to the dangers we face from future subversion by the enemy responsible. It is as if Americans have a collective case of Stockholm Syndrome. Too many of us have become sympathetic to our enemy, the one that killed 3,000 of us and made the rest of us weep.

Who would have believed that only seven years after that attack Americans would elect a president raised abroad as a Muslim, bearing a Muslim name and apparently in love with all things Islamic? It would have been inconceivable. Only when he bankrupted and humiliated the country did Americans begin to wise up. The mosque at Ground Zero represents the tip of the iceberg in terms of a long-term threat to the security of this nation. New mosques are springing up all over America - most of them funded by foreign money and controlled by the hideous ideology that form the basis for the attack of 9/11.

We're all still screened at airports to prevent yesterday's attack - often by Muslims wearing burkas! Islam is now taught as a religion of peace in our schools, despite 1,300 years of history to the contrary. Our media are full of accounts of an imaginary bigotry called Islamophobia. When Muslims go on the rampage in mass-murder attacks like the one at Fort Hood, members of the media class wring their hands about reporting their names and government officials deny they are examples of terrorism despite the fact that they share the same motivation as the 9/11 hijackers. Muslim Brotherhood front groups parade across our television screens on a regular basis condemning Americans for biases they don't show.

Who could have imagined this would be the paralyzing result of that devastating attack? THIS IS INSANITY. IT'S A MENTAL ILLNESS. THERE IS NO OTHER EXPLANATION FOR IT. America is deeper in denial today about the threat Islam poses to our security than it was prior to the attack nine years ago. Like it or not, Islam is not a friend to Americans, Christians or Jews - no matter how it is soft-pedaled in certain politically correct circles today.

The day of remembrance has become a day of fighting and a stage for political battles. Not just in New York, but throughout the United States. Far south of the city, Terry Jones, pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center, a tiny evangelical congregation in Gainesville, Florida, is planning to publicly burn copies of the Koran on Saturday, on a pyre that will blaze from 6 pm to 9 pm - television's prime time.

General David Petraeus, commander of the NATO troops in Afghanistan, has implored the pastor not to proceed, for fear that it will sow hate among Muslims. Petraeus says American troops could be jeopardized as a result. Jones, though, has yet to back down, insisting that the Koran is the work of the devil.

The harsh tones dominating the anniversary are new. September 11 has long been a day of reconciliation. The country drew closer together in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. Even New Yorkers, generally known for their brusqueness, were a little gentler with one another in those first days. President George W Bush declared that the attacks had caused the nation "to grieve together" and "to stand together."

Further cause for concern for such groups is the depths to which political debate has sunk in the US, with Tea Party activists setting the tone. This ultra-conservative movement wants to return the country to the ideas of its white and mostly Christian founders. Tea Party extremists are currently the driving force in the Republican Party, and have Democrats on the defensive two months before important midterm elections.

It is a political landscape with no room for nuance. Anyone who exhibits tolerance is suspect - Obama's apparent sympathy toward the Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero sparked immediate protests and the president quickly backpedaled. Obama's advisors no longer want him to travel to New York on September 11, so great is the concern that the president's appearance could trigger further debates over the "mosque at Ground Zero." The politics of polarization have become stronger than acts of remembrance.

Meanwhile, the president has just celebrated the withdrawal of American combat troops from Iraq - marking the beginning of the end to perhaps the worst overreaction to the September 11 attacks. Nine years on, the war abroad seems to be winding down.

THE WAR AT HOME, THOUGH, MAY BE JUST BEGINNING.

Four demonstrators were seriously wounded when Afghan security forces opened fire as thousands of protestors tried to storm several government buildings in Pul-e-Alam, the capital of Logar province, south of Kabul, a provincial official said. "The security forces did not want any trouble but were forced to open fire when the protestors tried to force their way into the buildings," said Din Mohammad Darwish, the provincial governor's spokesman. Demonstrators also hurled stones at the buildings, including the department for women's affairs, causing some damage. Pul-e-Alam is located some 70km (40 miles) south of the capital, Kabul.

In a statement posted on their website, the Taliban called on all Afghans to join the hardline Islamists in their fight against the Western forces and warned of more attacks if the Koran burning went ahead. "This stupid pastor who wants to avenge the September 11 attacks by burning the Koran will not only cause hundreds of bloody attacks in the United States but also throughout the world," the statement said.

The display - apparently prompted by Florida Pastor Terry Jones' plan to burn the holy books - occurred as families who lost loved ones during the attacks commemorated the ninth anniversary at Ground Zero. Hours earlier, Jones told NBC's "Today" that he would not burn Korans and instead wanted to meet with the imam from Park51.

Official demonstrations - sponsored by the Tea Party Patriots and Stop Islamization of America - were slated to start following the Ground Zero ceremony. But protestors on both sides of the controversy arrived mid-morning. Many held American flags and signs reading "Honor the Fallen. Honor Our Freedoms."

Nothing is as it used to be. In this season of public outrage, the case of Thilo Sarrazin has grown far bigger than Sarrazin. It's much bigger than the man or the Islam-critical book he wrote. The Sarrazin case is also a Merkel case, a case for his party, the center-left Social Democrats, and for the German political and media establishment. Sarrazin has become code for the outrage over how the politically correct branch of Germany's consensus-based society have dispatched their stewards to escort this unsettling heckler to the door. On their way, they seem to be trying to teach him a lesson, as well: "We will beat tolerance into you."

Sarrazin isn't telegenic and he often gets tangled up in statistics. When it comes to styling, he's at a loss - he is unkempt when he appears on the myriad talkshows that keep our entertainment society going. He slips on one banana peel of political correctness after another, opening himself to attack with his statements about genetics. BUT HIS FINDINGS ON THE FAILED INTEGRATION OF TURKISH AND ARAB IMMIGRANTS ARE BEYOND ANY DOUBT.

So far, Congress has only passed two spending bills while funding for the US military, homeland security, diplomatic and development missions, the judicial branch among other critical government functions, all hang in the balance. Operating without a full-fledged budget at the start of the fiscal year is not ideal, said a Democratic aide on the House Appropriations Committee, but it's often hard to avoid.

The aide said political disputes and other legislative priorities tend to make it difficult to get all of the spending bills "wedged in" on time.

"The difficulties arise out of partisanship in the process. It's a battle between leadership and other forces," the aide said. 2011 wouldn't be the first fiscal year to start without a budget in hand. Congress has not passed a budget on time since at least 1998, the earliest budget year posted on the House Appropriations Committee website.

As in previous years, that means Congress will be forced to pass at least one "continuing resolution" to prevent a federal shutdown and continue operating at the 2010 budget level, which is on track to record a $1.3 trillion deficit, the second highest deficit - relative to gross domestic product - in 65 years.

The worst offenders were NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland, part of the RBS group in which the taxpayer holds an 84 per cent stake. Both charged overdraft rates on a range of current accounts of well over 19 per cent. The August average is 38 times higher than the base rate of 0.5 per cent, which means the banks are cashing in every time one of their customers falls into the red. If account holders exceed their overdraft limit they face further penalties in the form of fees and even higher rates.

The idea that banks are profiting from the money troubles of their customers will anger many, who feel that they would not be in the red but for the recession caused by the banks' reckless behaviour. In addition, margins on other services such as credit cards, loans and mortgages have soared while high street banks have enjoyed a surge in profits to 15 billion pounds in the first six months of the year. The overdraft details were released on the day the Bank of England decided to keep the base rate at the record low for the 18th consecutive month.

Last night Eddy Weatherill, of the Independent Banking Advisory Service, said banks are 'fleecing their customers'. He said: 'Banks have been allowed to increase their margins despite the bank rates being so low. There is no incentive for them to do otherwise. The level of profiteering is completely out of control. Nothing about it is fair or reasonable.'

He will praise Britain's role in establishing religious liberty, but warn that it will suffer if it allows a secular agenda to destroy its Christian heritage. Senior Roman Catholic sources said his message would be seen as a criticism of the introduction of equality laws that have impinged on the freedom of religious groups, although he will not directly refer to government policy.

A number of Christians have lost their jobs or faced disciplinary action for practising their faith at work by wearing a crucifix or sharing their views on biblical teaching. The Pope will also use the visit to try to heal the rift with the Church of England following his offer last year to disaffected Anglicans to defect to Rome.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, says Pope Benedict XVI will stress that religious belief should not be seen as divisive, but as "a source of energy and inspiration". Archbishop Nichols added: "When we forget, minimise or even reject this inheritance, then we risk losing our profound identity and creating a vacuum of values at the heart of our society." He described the visit as "an event of great cultural and historic resonance".

Last month, unnoticed in the UK, Denmark's giant state-owned power company, Dong Energy, announced that it would abandon future onshore wind farms in the country. "Every time we were building onshore, the public reacts in a negative way and we had a lot of criticism from neighbours," said a spokesman for the company. "Now we are putting all our efforts into offshore windfarms."

But it is in Denmark, the great windfarm pioneer, where some of the most interesting changes are taking shape. In 1980, the Danish government was Europe's first to bring in large-scale subsidies - on which, just as in Britain, the wind industry depends. The results have been dramatic. According to the Danish Wind Energy Association, there are more than four thousand onshore turbines - two-thirds more than Britain - in a country a fifth the size. Nowhere else has more turbines per head, and Denmark is also a global centre of wind turbine manufacturing - with Vestas, the world's leading turbine firm, based in the country.

Unfortunately, Danish electricity bills have been almost as dramatically affected as the Danish landscape. Thanks in part to the windfarm subsidies, Danes pay some of Europe's highest energy tariffs - on average, more than twice those in Britain. Under public pressure, Denmark's ruling Left Party is curbing the handouts to the wind industry.

"Westboro Baptist Church, the small Topeka, Kansas, church that pickets funerals of American soldiers to spread its message that God is punishing the country for being tolerant of homosexuals, has vowed to hold a Quran burning if Gainesville's Dove World Outreach Center calls its off" (www.ocala.com).

The founder of the Wyoming Tyranny Response Team plans to burn a copy of the Quran on the steps of the State Capitol on Saturday.

Duncan Philp said he will protest the location of a proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero in New York City. He also will protest President Barack Obama's support for the location (www.wyomingnews.com).

The latest entrant is the Happy Meal Project, a burger and a packet of fries that have soldiered on undecayed for 143 days. Started by New York photographer Sally Davies, as a part-art, part-food science experiment, the Happy Meal Project involves Davies documenting a Happy Meal every few days until it spoils. At day 137, the meal still looks pretty great. For its part, McDonald's has remained largely silent. The fast food giant's Chinese arm released a statement this May to counter the hysteria over Joann Bruso's year-long experiment. It announced that all its patties are made of 100 percent USDA-approved beef and are completely preservative-free. Sneakily, though, it made no mention of its fries, bread, cheese or sauce.

McDonald's French fries, for example, which have repeatedly proven their hardiness to spoilage, contain citric acid as a preservative. But a bigger factor might be the fat content of the fries. About 50 percent of the total 250 calories contained in a small order of fries come from fat. McDonald's fries are also coated in a nice, thick layer of salt, something we've been using as a natural preservative for the last 2,500 years. The beef patty is also high in fat - varying between 37 and 54 percent of the total caloric content - and has been cooked at a high temperature. "It's also very thin, which once again means high heat per surface area," says Sean O'Keefe, a professor of food science at Virginia Tech. Davies noted that over time, her patty just shrank and hardened, losing whatever moisture it once contained.

Ultimately, says O'Keefe, the McDonald's haters have gotten their science wrong. "The ingredients are similar to anything you'd see in processed fast food," he says. For better or for worse, McDonald's is no more a chemical laboratory of secret compounds designed to embalm us from the inside than any other processed food maker. A Happy Meal manages to stay unspoiled because it is fatty, salty and practically empty of nutrients - which, really, are all good reasons to avoid it anyway.

"WBC burned the Koran once - and if you sissy brats of Doomed America bully Terry Jones and the Dove World Outreach Center until they change their plans to burn that blasphemous tripe called the Koran, then WBC will burn it (again), to clearly show you some things," the church announced in a news release this week.

In April, a handful of Westboro members picketed outside of the University of Florida Hillel, the Jewish student center, and Trinity United Methodist Church, and Jones and about 30 members of his congregation joined the WBC members outside of Trinity United.

While officials from President Barack Obama to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton have condemned Jones' plan, Fox News reported Thursday that a White House spokesman said the administration is considering contacting Jones to urge him to call it off.

President Hamid Karzai said the stunt had been an insult to Islam, while Indonesia's president said it threatened world peace. Pastor Terry Jones told US breakfast TV he currently had no plans to do it. Mr Jones, pastor of the previously little-known Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Florida, announced on Thursday that he was putting on hold his plan for an "International Burn a Koran Day".

In an Eid message, President Karzai said: "We have heard that in the US, a pastor has decided to insult Korans. Now although we have heard that they are not doing this, we tell them they should not even think of it. By burning the Koran, they cannot harm it. The Koran is in the hearts and minds of one-and-a-half billion people. Insulting the Koran is an insult to nations."

The president of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, warned in a nationally televised address on Friday that Mr Jones's plan threatened world peace. In a speech marking the end of Ramadan, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said: "I'm of course aware of the reported cancellation of the deplorable act by Terry Jones. However, none of us can be complacent until such a despicable idea is totally extinguished."

These highly disturbing video games encourage players to shoot innocent bystanders to win points and to commit acts like using shovels to decapitate people, so dogs can then fetch their chopped-off heads. If you find that shocking to read, just imagine how much more shocking it is for a 7-year-old to see it acted out in gory graphics and to win points for committing such crimes.

Other scenes include having sex with prostitutes and then killing them or committing heinous acts of terrorism. These deadly role-playing games not only desensitize and reward players for acts of extreme violence, but are highly addictive. Parental control isn't the solution, because parents typically have no way to fully review these games before giving or denying permission to their children to play them. Some games are programmed to become more violent while the game is being played, and parents usually don't or can't play the games.

Children don't necessarily know the difference between fantasy and reality. Brain research indicates that teenagers' brains, as well as children's brains, are still developing and may store violent images as real memories. Virtually every school massacre can be traced to the young killers' addiction to violent video games. The video game industry reaps tens of billions of dollars in revenue and now even surpasses Hollywood in profits, revenues and influence.

A case challenging a law limiting the sale of these violent video games to children is now pending before the US Supreme Court. This case reached the high court because a couple of lower federal court judges, the kind we call supremacists, ruled that these games are entitled to as much free speech protection as, for example, Shakespeare, and laws limiting sales to children are unconstitutional. The video game industry is trying to wrap its evil products in the First Amendment. The industry is asking the high court to create a new type of free speech that would make it impossible to put any limit on this victimizing of children.