VIVA ICELAND

Thank you Iceland for saying NO to the banks and their greedy dictatorship over the world.

Once famous simply for its singer, Bjork Gudmundsdottir (all Icelanders' last names are their father's name plus son or dottir), this island of 300,000 people is bucking the world bailout trend.

Today, the President of Iceland refused to sign into law a measure passed by its Parliament that would borrow $5.5 billion from international banks to pay off bad debts of their own banks.

This amount sounds like small change compared to US, EC and Japanese bailouts, but it's equal to $13,000 per person or about $50,000 per family in Iceland.

Why did the President back off? Because an incredible 62,000 people signed a petition opposing the bailout. Almost one third of the entire adult population of the country, an equivalent of 62 million people signing a petition here in the US. Plus mass demonstrations and near riots on this traditionally quiet corner of the world.

The Icelandic President is promising a referendum on the bailout. I can hear the scare tactics already. Well that's in the future, but TODAY, here's to the working people of Iceland for saying NO to the fat banks. VIVA ICELAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!