Open up the floodgates

Newest Cain Accuser Has History of Financial Trouble - ABC News

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Newest Cain Accuser Has History of Financial Trouble ABC News Ginger White, an Atlanta businesswoman, appeared on Fox News' Atlanta affiliate WAGA to accuse the presidential candidate of carrying on a 13-year affair with her. (WAGA) Like one of his earlier ... Cain Denies Allegation From Woman of 13-Year Extramarital AffairBusinessWeek Allred on Cain: He's accused five women of lyingPolitico Cain denies new allegation of affairmsnbc.com USA Today -Washington Post -AFP all 1,348 news articles »

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Just in time for your holiday shopping

The 8 germiest places in the mall

By Cari Wira Dineen, Health.com

updated 10:36 AM EST, Sat November 26, 2011

http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/25/health/germiest-places-mall/index.html?hpt=hp_bn10

Stalin daughter, Svetlana, dies at 85

Svetlana Peters died from colon cancer in Wisconsin. She defected from the Soviet Union in 1967, which came as a major embarrassment to the ruling communists. Peters, who later became a best-selling author after releasing her memoirs, was denounced as morally unstable' by the Russian premier.

That's $TRILLIONS with a 'T' and a bunch of zeroes.

While the nation's largest banks were publicly reassuring nervous investors of their stability during the height of the financial crisis, they were also quietly approaching the Federal Reserve, hat in hand. The total price tag: $7.77 trillion, many times the amount of the better-known TARP bailout.

The magnitude of the government's assistance to struggling banks allowed them to grow even bigger and continue paying executives billions in compensation, a report in Bloomberg Markets January issue said Monday.

A win in court against a group representing the banks and a FOIA request filed by Bloomberg LP revealed the extent of the central bank's largesse — as well as the $13 billion in profits banks earned from those bailouts. The so called "big six" — JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley — accounted for $4.8 billion of that total — nearly a quarter of their net income during that time.

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/11/28/9067808-fed-lent-banks-nearly-8-trillion-during-crisis-report-shows

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" above $100,000 for the first time

The price of partridges, pear trees and turtle doves has spiked, pushing the cost of every item mentioned in the carol "The Twelve Days of Christmas" above $100,000 for the first time.

Holding mostly steady this year: maids-a-milking, ladies dancing, lords-a-leaping and gold rings.

The 364 items repeated across all the song's verses would cost $101,119, an increase of 4.4 percent over last year, according to the annual Christmas Price Index compiled by PNC Wealth Management. The broader government Consumer Price Index increased by 3.9 percent over the same period.

Those with the money to spend would end up with 12 drummers drumming, 22 pipers piping, 30 lords-a-leaping, 36 ladies dancing, 40 maids-a-milking, 42 swans-a-swimming, 42 geese-a-laying, 40 gold rings, 36 calling birds, 30 French hens, 22 turtle doves, and 12 partridges in pear trees. (The price does not include bird maintenance.)

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/11/28/12-days-christmas-items-would-cost-100k/#ixzz1eyZjANx3

Iranian missile base shows extensive damage

Two weeks after a mysterious explosion at an Iranian missile base, a Washington-based research group has released a satellite image showing extensive damage to the site.

The image of the compound, near the city of Malard, doesn’t provide any clues as to what caused the Nov. 12 explosion, which Iranian authorities described as an “accident” involving the transport of ammunition. But it does make clear that the facility has been effectively destroyed.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/checkpoint-washington/post/image-shows-than-an-iranian-missile-site-was-destroyed/2011/11/28/gIQA7KZW5N_blog.html

Fitch Keeps U.S. Credit Rating at ‘AAA’, Cuts Outlook to Negative

Fitch Ratings kept its pristine AAA rating on the U.S. on Monday, but the credit-ratings company downgraded its outlook to “negative” in the wake of the Supercommittee’s failure to find $1.2 trillion in spending cuts.

The development, which had been hinted at last week, could have been worse for the U.S. as McGraw-Hill’s (MHP: 41.20, +0.66, +1.63%) Standard & Poor’s slashed its credit rating for the first time ever in August.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/2011/11/28/fitch-keeps-us-credit-rating-at-aaa-cuts-outlook-to-negative/

Climategate part II

Last week, 5,000 files of private email correspondence among several of the world's top climate scientists were anonymously leaked onto the Internet. Like the first "climategate" leak of 2009, the latest release shows top scientists in the field fudging data, conspiring to bully and silence opponents, and displaying far less certainty about the reliability of anthropogenic global warming theory in private than they ever admit in public.

This is the real significance of the climategate emails. They show that major scientists who inform the IPCC can't be trusted to stick to the science and avoid political activism. This, in turn, has very worrying implications for the major international policy decisions adopted on the basis of their research.

That brings us to the motives of the person calling himself "FOIA" who leaked the emails onto the Internet last week.

In his introductory notes, he writes: "Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Every day nearly 16,000 children die from hunger and related causes. One dollar can save a life. . . . Poverty is a death sentence. Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels. Today's decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline."

For the service he has performed in pursuit of this larger end, FOIA deserves not opprobrium but gratitude.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204452104577059830626002226.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Amazing Video: 'Jet Man' stunts alongside fighter jets over Alps

NYT: Obama campaign set to abandon white working class...

Thomas B. Edsall writing in the NYTimes:

For decades, Democrats have suffered continuous and increasingly severe losses among white voters. But preparations by Democratic operatives for the 2012 election make it clear for the first time that the party will explicitly abandon the white working class.

All pretense of trying to win a majority of the white working class has been effectively jettisoned in favor of cementing a center-left coalition made up, on the one hand, of voters who have gotten ahead on the basis of educational attainment — professors, artists, designers, editors, human resources managers, lawyers, librarians, social workers, teachers and therapists — and a second, substantial constituency of lower-income voters who are disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/the-future-of-the-obama-coalition/

Rep. Barney Frank won’t run for reelection

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) will announce Monday that he is not seeking re-election, ending a 32-year career in the House.

Frank, 71, is the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee and the architect, with former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), of the sweeping Wall Street regulatory reform law enacted in 2010.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/195579-rep-frank-wont-run-for-reelection


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I consider Mr. Frank the poster boy for a term limits amendment in the Congress. He did great mischief by being Fannie Mae's biggest cheerleader during the subprime mortgage mess.