SAR #13323

The world's top bankers have so far solved the economic problems in Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy. Some doctor, some cure.

Yes, But... MF Global, the company run by Jon Corzine - a former U.S. senator, NJ governor and Goldman Sachs chief executive - which converted more than $1.6 billion of customers money to its own use (a felony) and then pretened it had no idea where the money went, has been ordered to pay $1.2 billion in restitution... and a $100 million penalty. No one, least of all the well-connected Goldmanite, will face criminal charges for the multiple crimes involved, because as they argued in their defense, “stuff happens”.

Keeping Things In Proportion: The headline: 'Storms Sweep Illinois, Kill at Least 5, Delay Flights.'

Capitalist Idea: Wal-Mart is encouraging its employees to donate cans of food to help their impoverished co-workers celebrate Thanksgiving. Or Wednesday supper, whichever.

Diagram This Sentence: The FBI says that explaining why complying with FOIA requests for information about FBI investigations of animal rights and other activists constitutes a threat to national security - though they can't explain why because that would threaten national security and they'd have to kill you after they told you about the national security threat from animal rights activists. 
 
Twins: S&P 500 Exceeds 1,800 for First Time Amid Global Rally & Homebuilder Sentiment in U.S. Held in November at Four-Month Low

A Quote: “What if the world we’ve been living in for the past five years is the new normal? What if depression-like conditions are on track to persist, not for another year or two, but for decades?”

Review Reviewed: In the wake of last week's American Heart Association statin love fest, it turns out that the sweeping new set of guidelines for lowering cholesterol were based on questionable 20 year old research that had been seriously questioned by reviewing scientists. The proposal apears to greatly overestimate risk and would mistakenly put millions of people on statins unnecessarily. A past president of the American College of Cardiology to call a halt to the implementation of the new guidelines. After a late night conference, the Association said that the erroneous guidelines should be followed because it was the “best efforts of people who have been working for five years.” What are patients and doctors to do? Actual research indicates that taking statins can reduce the risk to people who have already had a heart attack.

Subjective Enumeration: Fox says that the Affordable Care Act is hurting “many” elderly pregnant women. For extra credit define 'elderly'.

There Wasn't A Bible In The Room: Roman Catholic Bishop Franz Bling-Bling Tebartz-van Elst has paid a 20,000 euro fine for lying in court about flying first-class to visit slums in India. Wonder what prayer was said as he passed the plate.

Majority Rules: According to news reports, the UN Assembly stood and broke out in cheers as Palestine cast its first vote. Well, not everybody stood. And not exactly everybody cheered, either.

Lemonade Stand: The Education Department made $43.5 billion profit from the student loan programs – which is more than all of the funding for Pell Grants, and accounts for half of the Department's budget.

Warm-Up Question: 'Who rules the world, the fossil fuel industry or the people?”

Good Old Days: If we still calculated unemployment the way we did when Bill Clinton was elected, US unemployment would be 25%.

Wrong In So Many Ways: Young Conservatives of Texas plan to hold ‘Catch an Illegal Immigrant’ event on Wednesday. Right after Ted Cruz shows them how to catch an Obama.