Meltdown leaves millions of Aussies without cash.

A freak computer glitch at Australia's biggest bank froze cash machines and left millions of people struggling to access their money.Link

Obama's nice guy image?............

After emerging from a basketball game with a split and swollen lip on Friday, Barack Obama was given 12 stitches by a White House doctor. It was the most serious presidential injury since 2002, when George W. Bush suffered a cut and bruised cheekbone after he choked on a pretzel, fainted and fell off the couch. But Mr Obama's injury, courtesy of the elbow of Rey Decerega, director of programmes for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, was superficial and compared to the body blow he is expecting at the hand of Wikileaks.Link

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GOP Support for Israel.

WASHINGTON — When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel came to the United States recently for another round of tense talks with the Obama administration, he got a decidedly warmer welcome from one of the rising Republican stars on Capitol Hill, Representative Eric Cantor, the incoming majority leader of the House.Link

Chickens.....................

covered in urine.............

A retired teacher from Lansing, Michigan, says he had to walk through an airport and board a plane covered in urine after TSA agents tore open his urostomy bag during a pat-down. Thomas Sawyer, a 61-year-old survivor of bladder cancer, was flagged for an enhanced screening at Detroit Metropolitan Airport Nov. 7 after a metal detector picked up the urostomy bag in his pants. The medical device collects urine through an opening in the stomach.Link

Sanford Airport to opt out of TSA screening.

The backlash continues over those new TSA screening measures, and now one Central Florida airport has decided to go with a private security screening firm. Orlando Sanford International Airport has decided to opt out from TSA screening.Link

48 hour to save the Euro.

The entire European Project is now at risk of disintegration, with strategic and economic consequences that are very hard to predict.
In a speech this morning, EU President Herman Van Rompuy (poet, and writer of Japanese and Latin verse) warned that if Europe’s leaders mishandle the current crisis and allow the eurozone to break up, they will destroy the European Union itself. “We’re in a survival crisis. We all have to work together in order to survive with the euro zone, because if we don’t survive with the euro zone we will not survive with the European Union,” he said.Link

TSA Screener Accosting 3 Year Old Child at Security Checkpoint from RonPaul Fan on Vimeo.

If you won't submit to screening, you won't fly.

Airline passengers who object to any type of physical screening are not going to fly anywhere, the head of the Transportation Security Administration told a congressional committee Tuesday.Link

The American Traveler Dignity Act......

Mr. Speaker, today I introduce legislation to protect Americans from physical and emotional abuse by federal Transportation Security Administration employees conducting screenings at the nation’s airports. We have seen the videos of terrified children being grabbed and probed by airport screeners. We have read the stories of Americans being subjected to humiliating body imaging machines and/or forced to have the most intimate parts of their bodies poked and fondled. We do not know the potentially harmful effects of the radiation emitted by the new millimeter wave machines.Link

Ron Paul's Golden Opportunity.

One of the most exciting features of the new Congress is the prospect that the chairmanship of a House subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve will go to Ron Paul. Final assignments are still being worked out, and the leadership may yet shy away from giving the position to a congressman who doesn't believe the Fed should exist. But Dr. Paul, an obstetrician, has been the ranking Republican of the Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology subcommittee, and tradition suggests he will be the next chairman. This couldn't come at a more timely moment, though Dr. Paul has been working his way up to the assignment for more than a generation.Link

Nader unites us all.

The X-ray security machines coming to an airport near you have been called “dick-measuring devices” by seasoned travelers, inspired TSA employees to commit crimes of passion, and eaten up the Transportation Security Administration’s allocation of stimubucks. In short, no one likes them.Link

Bernanke's worst nightmare: Ron Paul.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ben Bernanke has had his hands full since his first day on the job as Federal Reserve chairman nearly five years ago. It's about to get even tougher. His harshest critic on Capitol Hill, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, is about to become one of his overseers.Link

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Buried By Debt....................

When Connecticut State University System trustees get together today to consider freezing tuition and fees for the first time in more than a decade, they should also consider this: The U.S. reached a very disturbing threshold this year when the amount of money owed for student loans exceeded the money piled up in credit card debt for the first time ever.Link

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US may break promise to leave Iraq.

The United States is open to the idea of keeping troops in Iraq past a deadline to leave next year if Iraq asks for it, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Tuesday. "We'll stand by," Gates said. "We're ready to have that discussion if and when they want to raise it with us." Gates urged Iraq's squabbling political groups to reconcile after eight months of deadlock. Any request to extend the U.S. military presence in Iraq would have to come from a functioning Iraqi government. It would amend the current agreement under which U.S. troops must leave by the end of 2011.Link

Pushing Cheese.

Domino’s Pizza was hurting early last year. Domestic sales had fallen, and a survey of big pizza chain customers left the company tied for the worst tasting pies.Link

GOP must consider military spending cuts.

Government spending is sure to be one of the biggest targets now that Republicans have won back the House, but there have been few details on exactly what programs will see their budgets slashed.Link

That Right moment.

The worst.

Results of Fed Stimulus Could Be 'Horrendous'.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble has sharply criticized the US Federal Reserve's decision to pump a further $600 billion into the country's ailing economy. He says the move could create problems for the global economy. Others have joined in the condemnation. Germany is not impressed. One day after the United States Federal Reserve announced that it would pump $600 billion (€423 billion) into America's banking system over the next eight months, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble sharply criticized the decision. "I don't think they are going to solve their problems that way," Schäuble told German public broadcaster ZDF in a Thursday evening interview. "They have already pumped an endless amount of money into the economy via taking on extremely high public debt and through a Fed policy that has already pumped a lot of money into the economy. The results are horrendous." In a separate interview on public broadcaster ARD, Schäuble said that the move by Fed Chair Ben Bernanke would "create additional problems for the world." He promised to bring up the issue in talks with the US and said that, by following such a monetary path, the US was violating a pledge that all industrialized countries agreed to at the last G-20 summit in Toronto in June.Link

Federal Reserve oversight...........

Republican Representative Ron Paul on Thursday said he will push to examine the Federal Reserve's monetary policy decisions if he takes control of the congressional subcommittee that oversees the central bank as expected in January. "I think they're way too independent. They just shouldn't have this power," Paul, a longtime Fed critic, said in an interview with Reuters. "Up until recently it has been modest but now it's totally out of control." Paul is currently the top Republican on the House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees domestic monetary policy, and is likely to head the panel when Republicans take control of the chamber in January.Link

Six Americans killed...................

(Reuters) - Gunmen have killed six U.S. citizens in separate attacks since Saturday in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez, the U.S. consulate said on Thursday, as Mexico struggles to halt surging murders. University of Texas students Manuel Acosta and Eder Diaz, who studied at the El Paso campus just across the border from Ciudad Juarez, became the latest victims when they were gunned down as they drove through the city on Tuesday. The killings followed the deaths of four other Americans, including a woman who died of multiple gunshot wounds inside a tortilla shop in Ciudad Juarez on Saturday. Two U.S. citizens died on Saturday when they came under fire in their vehicle. "Police said shooters fired 50 rounds, ... peppering the black BMW with bullets during an assault Saturday morning," the consulate said in a statement.Link

Close Encounter With Comet Hartley.

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Bernanke's Case For Quantitative Easing.

What's amazing about the latest bout of quantitative easing is the total lack of pretense. By that we mean Bernanke isn't even pretending that that QE would actually benefit the real economy. We noted yesterday that buy concentrating buying at the short end of the yield curve, Bernanke was punishing savers (pinning short-term rates to the mat) and bailing out banks (keeping the yield curve steep).Link

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‘Damn right’..... I ordered waterboarding.

President George W. Bush admits for the first time in his new memoir that he personally approved the use of waterboarding, a technique in which an interrogator simulates drowning on a suspect. The method, which most describe as torture, has since been banned by the Justice Department. In his book, "Decision Points," Bush asserts that he was asked by the Central Intelligence Agency whether he would support the agency's waterboarding of Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind. "Damn right," Bush says that he said.Link

$100M in Taxpayer Support...............

Freddie Mac said Wednesday that it lost $2.5 billion during the third quarter of this year. Add to that the $1.6 billion dividend payment the GSE had to make to Treasury on stock the company relinquished in exchange for bailout money, and Freddie Mac reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $4.1 billion, or $1.25 per common share, for the quarter. The third-quarter results actually represent an improvement from the previous three-month period, when the GSE reported a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $6.0 billion, or $1.85 per common share.
Freddie Mac had a net worth deficit of $58 million at September 30, 2010, that company officials attributed to the quarterly dividend payment to Treasury of $1.6 billion, which exceeded the GSE’s total comprehensive income of $1.4 billion.Link

He was a ‘dissenting voice’ on Iraq.

Former President George W. Bush says he was a "dissenting voice" on the decision to invade Iraq because he "didn't want to use force" but ran out of options. "I was a dissenting voice. I didn't want to use force," Bush told NBC's Matt Lauer in his first interview promoting his new memoir, "Decision Points." "I mean force is the last option for a President," he continued, according to an NBC News transcript e-mailed to Raw Story. "And I think it's clear in the book that I gave diplomacy every chance to work. And I will also tell you the world's better off without somehow in power. And so are 25 million Iraqis.".Link

U.S. futures steady ahead of Fed decision.

U.S. stock futures tilted mildly higher Wednesday after a private report had companies hiking payrolls by 43,000 in October and as the Federal Reserve considered more stimulus. Futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJZ10 11,120, -32.00, -0.29%) gained 15 points to 11,167, and those for the S&P 500 index (SPZ10 1,186, -6.70, -0.56%) added 1.8 points to 1,194.5. Futures for the Nasdaq 100 index (NDZ10 2,141, -9.25, -0.43%) edged up 1.75 points to 2,152. “You’ve got a bit of a buy-the rumor, sell-the-news type of situation here. From a stock-market perspective, this 18% rally we’ve enjoyed over the last couple of months may have priced in” bullish fundamentals, said Phil Orlando, equity market strategist at Federated Investors, citing improvements in the economy, solid third-quarter earnings, expectations of another round of quantitative easing from the Fed and Republican gains in midterm elections.Link

Obama's Mumbai visit is expensive.

Mumbai: The US would be spending a whopping $200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day on President Barack Obama's visit to the city. "The huge amount of around $200 million would be spent on security, stay and other aspects of the Presidential visit," a top official of the Maharashtra Government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit said. About 3,000 people including Secret Service agents, US government officials and journalists would accompany the President. Several officials from the White House and US security agencies are already here for the past one week with helicopters, a ship and high-end security instruments.Link

Shadow stimulus...................

The Federal Reserve's policy-setting panel began a crucial two-day meeting Tuesday, poised to cast aside its long-held reluctance to micro-manage the economy in a bid to avoid a lost decade of growth.Link

The Freak.

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