My title says "Bitcoins Join Global Bank Network", which is only half true. You can transfer Bitcoin to your Bitcoin address, and have it set up to convert them to Euro on your bank account instantly as they arrive, and this bank account is joined with the global bank network. Bitcoin can not travel through the global clearing systems banks use for fiat money and arrive at another bank as Bitcoin on a bank account. Bitcoin-Central is now an European Payment Services Provider which exchange Bitcoin as well as handle fiat money like a bank normally does. Not a Bitcoin bank and not even a bank by the proper definition (it doesn't issue credit).

I'll switch to this bank (PSP for the nitpickers) for my daily banking until my old bank can handle Bitcoin in the same way.

1. They do not claim to be a Bitcoin bank.
2. They do not claim to be a bank (just licensed to operate as one).
3. They are technically a PSP, which means they are not allowed to issue credit, i.e. increase the money supply.
4. Bitcoin banks are not impossible, just not necessary. You see the difference?

They don't claim to be a Bitcoin bank.

There is no official exchange rate from EUR to USD either. The only currencies operating with official exchange rates are IRN (Iran), KPW (North Korean won), and a few others. For those there is a black market using completely different rates.

If you check the currency rates from different banks, you will see they differ. Usually by very small amounts, because every time a robot discovers it can buy USD with EUR in one bank and sell in another at a profit, the market rates at both banks will even out. The same mechanism is at work in Bitcoin. Sometimes however, the bots run out of funds and the exchange rate stays sparated by a few percent.

As for taxation, I have reported my bitcoins and Bitcoin earnings to the tax authorities every year, and they still have no clue what to do about the information. Bitcoin is an undefined entity. All their calculations return undef, NaN, null or similar.

Google can't sue Microsoft for breaching a patent held by Motorola. Neither can Google's owners (their shareholders). Motorola has to do that. Do you really think Google should spend valuable time and effort to transfer all patents and patent licences from Motorola to Google first, just to have their name on the plaintiff?

Depends if he his right or not. Obama isn't a mormon (my spell checker wants to correct that to moron) as far as I know, so at least I would tell Linus to do better research.

Wouldn't be appropriate in this case. I think his comment is representative of the Linux/Open source community.

Is this a joke as well? Let me quote:

For example, his “Utility MACT” rule is purportedly aimed at reducing mercury pollution, yet the EPA estimates that the rule will cost $10 billion to reduce mercury pollution by only $6 million (with an “m”).

It is very clear that Romney doesn't know what mercury is. Why do you think he knows what air pressure is? It's science, you know. Poison for the minds of religious fanatics. When it is so obvious he didn't follow the normal science curriculum in school, he should be very careful when joking about it, If it was a joke.

Yeah, the White House was completely open and abandoned in those three years. No security at all. In fact there are still homeless people living in the attic.

Me neither, but I couldn't see him all the time of course.

I'm sure both Merkel and Netanyahu have better things to do than watch Broadway shows with Obama. Such people usually prefer to talk in a more private atmosphere. I don't recall Bismarck tagging along Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theatre either, by the way. Bad US presidents not hanging out with foreigners allt he time.

Nope. The breaking down of U.S. enconomy employed a lot of people full time. Many people even had two or three jobs to do it properly.

Yeah, because it's all his wife's fault and responsibility. G. W. Bush didn't destroy the U.S. economy. Barabara did!

Must be easy to be a US company. Make a product. Doesn't matter if it sucks or not. If someone else make a better competing product with their own technology, sue their ass with bogus patents on rounded corners and whatnot, which are only possible in the US, and grab all the competitors profit in the entire world.

This sentence from Mitt Romney just doesn't compute:

How do you reduce mercury pollution by "$6 million"? Does this guy have any idea what mercury is?

This will an unfair advantage to the runners far away from the gun. The eye reacts very quickly to movement on the side. Try looking at the side of the traffic light when waiting for green, and you will react faster than if you look straight at it. If the runner closest to the gun starts fast enough, the runner farthest away will react on his movement instead of waiting for the sound. And while the closest runner only have the sound to react to, the runner farthest away will have both sound and movement.

Drafted recruits in general, I think. We weren't there for the exercise. I didn't even choose the navy. When I had to put up three choices, I put the navy on second and crossed "can't swim" to make sure the draft office wouldn't place me there. It didn't work.

This reminds me of my time in the navy. There was a minimum requirement for everything, including 60 meter sprint. I ran it once, and got clocked in 1/10th of a second to late. Fearing I would have to run 60 meters once more, I protested because the starter gun was at the finish line! The sound would take almost exactly 1/10th of a second to reach the starting line from the finish line, I argued. They had to accept the protest, of course, and I made the requirement exactly.

And the price for best connected island goes to... Guam! If you zoom satellite view in to the north-western airport, you can see at least four B52s. And the main road is called "Marine Corps Drive". I guess those guys need a lot of porn.