I’m sorry, but I’m really enjoying this.

The first public poll of Alaska conducted entirely after GOP Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted on all counts in his corruption trial shows a probable Democratic pickup in this deep-red state — but Stevens is doing surprisingly well for a newly-minted convicted felon.

Call me a bad person, but this is fun.

The new numbers from Rasmussen: Dem candidate Mark Begich 52%, Stevens 44%, with a ±4.5% margin of error. Three weeks ago, Uncle Ted had taken a 49%-48% edge over Begich. So apparently getting convicted of a felony a week before the election can be quantified as taking five points off of a candidate’s poll numbers.

More after the jump.

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The Talibunny has forsaken him.  The Psychogeezer says he should resign. The head of the NRSC calls his conviction a “disgrace“. Even Mitch “My Old Kentucky Homo” McConnell has had enough.  But the Hulk vows to smash everything in his bid for another Senate term:

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) is returning to Alaska tomorrow to resume his re-election campaign, “despite being convicted of felonies that carry the potential of years in prison.” “It’s not over yet!” Stevens said yesterday. “You’ve got that right,” said his wife, Catherine Stevens.

And the best part?  Ted can’t even vote for himself. 

That’s a voter purge we can be proud of, my friends.

An update from The General after the jump:

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The right-wing blogosphere is going supernova over this.  And you know what they think it means?

He’s going to take white people’s money and give it to black people.

It’s as if he’s ready to join the reality-based community:

Scotty used to entertain us with mind-boggling lies, but later wrote a book that confirmed what all us dirty fucking hippies knew all along – not only did the emporer have no clothes, he had no clue.

Roubini predicted this mess in 2006, but did anybody listen?  Nooooo ….

Hundreds of hedge funds will fail and policy makers may need to shut financial markets for a week or more as the crisis forces investors to dump assets, New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini said.

“We’ve reached a situation of sheer panic,” Roubini, who predicted the financial crisis in 2006, told a conference of hedge-fund managers in London today. “There will be massive dumping of assets” and “hundreds of hedge funds are going to go bust,” he said.
…
“Systemic risk has become bigger and bigger,” Roubini said at the Hedge 2008 conference. “We’re seeing the beginning of a run on a big chunk of the hedge funds,” and “don’t be surprised if policy makers need to close down markets for a week or two in coming days,” he said.

See you on the breadlines.  More after the jump.

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In today’s episode of NCHP, we once again find the Bush administration hard at work hiding shit that we’re supposed to know about:

The Treasury Department has hired three outside firms this week to help administer its $700 billion, taxpayer-funded bailout of troubled banks. But some key details of those contracts remain a mystery.

The agreements with Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP that the Treasury Department posted on its web site each had blacked-out paragraphs in the sections dealing with compensation.

Keep in mind, fellow Stinquers, that the costs of the accountants, law firms, and bankers that will be cleaning up after the Bush administration’s administration of our economy will be over and above what cash we’re injecting into the banks and insurance companies we now own.

More on this latest outrage after the jump.

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Since none of you bothered to bid, it looks like Iceland is officially bankrupt:

The credit crunch claimed its first sovereign scalp last night as Iceland readied itself to accept an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout. … The IMF may provide about $1 billion in emergency cash for Iceland with the balance lent by Norway, Sweden and Denmark and additional money possibly coming from Russia and Japan.
…
The IMF is likely to attach stringent conditions to the loan, including the stipulation that Iceland quickly deleverage its three nationalised banks Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitner.

Who’s next?  Pakistan? California? Did you forget Poland?

Report: Iceland to Accept IMF Bailout [Calculated Risk]