The Beer Barrel

Nobody is allowed to smoke in the Sampoerna Rescue camp.

The cluster of leaky, ash-covered canvas tents that has been set up in a muddy field here, on the slopes of erupting Mount Merapi in Central Java, has been designated a smoke-free zone by volunteers and employees of Sampoerna, one of Indonesia’s largest tobacco companies.

The camp is...

WASHINGTON — Regulators shut down four more banks Friday, bringing the 2010 total to 143, topping the 140 shuttered last year and the most in a year since the savings-and-loan crisis two decades ago.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over K Bank, based in Randallstown, Maryland, with $538.3 million in assets, and Pierce Commercial Bank,...

This undated image provided by the Volusia County Sheriff shows the booking photo for Patty Bigbee the Florida woman and her boyfriend who have been charged with trying to sell her infant grandson for $30,000. Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents arrested 45-year-old Patty Bigbee and 42-year-old Lawrence Works on Friday in Daytona Beach...

George W. Bush is not a fan of Sarah Palin and thinks that she spoiled the GOP's best laid plans in 2008 and could potentially do it again, a friend of the former president recently said.

The New York Daily News reported Friday:

"Naming Palin makes Bush think less of McCain as a man," a Republican official familiar with Bush's thinking told...

How Obama might recover

By David Broder
Sunday, October 31, 2010; 12:00 AM

When the midterm election cycle began, the prevailing opinion was that Barack Obama was cleverer and more inspirational than anyone...