1. DealBook: In Goldman’s Facebook Deal, an Opening for Private Clients 13 hours ago   permalink

DealBook: In Goldman’s Facebook Deal, an Opening for Private Clients
SUSANNE CRAIG / NYT

As part of a deal that values Facebook at $50 billion, Goldman Sachs is offering wealthy clients a chance to invest in the company without it trading publicly.

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Mashable.com
$1 Billion Isn’t Cool. You Know What’s Cool? $50 Billion. Goldman And Facebook Agree. What Will Facebook Do With All That Money?   —  Under the terms of Facebook’s massive new round of funding, Goldman Sachs will invest $450 million in the social network, while previous investor Digital Sky Technologies will add an additional $50 million. Not only that, but Goldman Sachs will help Facebook raise an additional $1.5 billion through a “special purpose vehicle” ...

Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch
$1 Billion Isn’t Cool. You Know What’s Cool? $50 Billion. Goldman And Facebook Agree. Facebook Now Worth More Than Yahoo And eBay   —  Facebook's latest round of financing from Goldman Sachs at a $50 billion valuation , which is about the same valuation its shares are trading on SecondMarket , clearly puts it in the pantheon of the most valuable Internet companies. At $50 billion, Facebook is now worth more than Yahoo (which has a $22 billion market cap) and eBay ($37 billion), ...

2. Majority of RNC against Steele 5 hours ago   permalink

Majority of RNC against Steele
Www.politico.com

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele faces an all-but-impossible path to reelection this month, as a majority of the RNC’s 168 members indicate that they will not support the controversial chairman for another term.

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Daily Kos / Daily Kos :   Midday open thread

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Thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com
A Steele Disappointment Steele to Debate Rivals for R.N.C. Post   —  Cliff Owen/Associated Press Michael Steele, Republican National Committee chairman, spoke during an election night gathering in Washington. The men and women hoping to unseat Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican National Committee will gather in Washington on Monday for a face-to-face debate that could be a nasty airing of political ...

3. Issa reveals list of investigations 40 minutes ago   permalink

Issa reveals list of investigations
Www.politico.com

Rep. Darrell Issa is aiming to launch investigations on everything from WikiLeaks to Fannie Mae to corruption in Afghanistan in the first few months of what promises to be a high-profile chairmanship of the top oversight committee in Congress.

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Yahoo! News
Rep. Issa: Obama Administration 'One of the Most Corrupt'   —  The Atlantic Wire - Rep. Darrell Issa Sunday said the Obama administration is "one of the most corrupt"--a slight downgrade, since a few months ago, Issa said the president himself was one of the most corrupt "in modern times." President Obama might brush aside the confrontational clarification as typical Sunday talk show bluster if it weren't ...

Noreply / Hullabaloo
The Overseer   —  The Overseer by digby The new congressional overseer was all over the TV this morning, with a message for the President: Issa, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, suggested the administration needs to move faster. [on Wikileaks] The California Republican said Sunday that if President Obama is not ...

4. Australian floods 'to last weeks' 4 hours ago   permalink

BBC News

Huge swathes of Australia's Queensland could remain submerged for weeks, hampering recovery efforts, the state premier says.

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Associated Press / All Salon
Australia flooding of 'biblical proportions' slashes coal, agriculture exports Relief flights help flood-affected Australian city   —  Military flights rushed Monday to restock an Australian city before it was cut off by floodwaters that have turned a huge swath of the Outback into a lake, while police confirmed two more deaths in the crisis.

5. Act 5, Scene 3 16 minutes ago   permalink

Act 5, Scene 3
Nfs.sparknotes.com

Get this No Fear to go!

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6. Oil inches closer to $100 on 'economic growth' 1 hour ago   permalink

Oil inches closer to $100 on 'economic growth'
Www.americablog.com

Now that is funny in a painful sort of way. If they are suggesting 1% or 2% growth is a cornerstone for a global recovery, the analysts are completely nuts. The US is years away from significant growth and kicking consumers with higher gas prices will only hurt the feeble attempts to get back to reasonable growth numbers. Once again the industry ...

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News.yahoo.com
Oil inches closer to $100 on 'economic growth' Oil climbs above $92, anticipates economic growth   —  LONDON (Reuters) – Oil climbed above $92 on Monday to its highest since October 2008, spurred on by expectations economic recovery will boost energy demand and as market bulls set their sights on $100 a barrel.

7. Spectec CameraJet adds UWB wireless to your digital camera 1 hour ago   permalink

Spectec CameraJet adds UWB wireless to your digital camera
Www.slashgear.com

Up until now, unless you’ve bought a WiFi-enabled camera or an Eye-Fi card, getting photos off of your digital camera usually involves plugging in a USB cable or whipping out the memory card. Spectec want to change all that; they’ve slotted an Alereon UWB radio into their CameraJet Wireless system, with the SD Wi-Jet Card SDU-7200 ...

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8. Media Decoder: John Roberts Leaves CNN for Fox 31 minutes ago   permalink

BILL CARTER / NYT > Media

Executives at CNN confirmed Monday that John Roberts, who served as the morning anchor for the network since April 2007, would be joining Fox News as a national correspondent.

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BRIAN STELTER / NYT > Media
Media Decoder: 'Daily Show' May Return to Hulu   —  Executives at Hulu and Comedy Central held talks as recently as last month, and both sides are said to be eager to make peace.

BRIAN STELTER / NYT > Media
Media Decoder: 'Tough Enough' Wrestling to Return on USA   —  The program was retired by MTV in 2003, but the USA network is bringing it back and pairing it with "Monday Night Raw."

9. Debt ceiling: DeMint threatens to blow up government; Ryan, Graham look for hostages 1 hour ago   permalink

Daily Kos / Daily Kos

Chief Senate Nihilist Jim DeMint is ready to blow government up, demanding a "show-down" with Obama over the debt ceiling. DeMint, a de-facto leader of Senate conservatives and many Tea Party senators, called for an all-out battle early this year, when Congress will face a tough vote to legally authorize the government to take on more debt. "I ...

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Thehill.com
DeMint wants 'big showdown' with Democrats over raising debt ceiling   —  Republicans should prepare for a "showdown" with President Obama and congressional Democrats over raising the debt ceiling, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said Monday.

Daily Kos / Daily Kos
As popular Affordable Care Act provisions are enacted, GOP focuses on repeal   —  It's a new year, and health insurers will be reined in in one important way: the minimum medical loss ratio kicks in. That means from here on out, insurers will have to report what percentage of the premium dollars they receive are spent on clinical services, quality, and other costs. If the share of the premium spent on clinical services and ...

10. Peter King: NFL playoff field, draft order set; coaching carousel begins 43 minutes ago   permalink

Peter King: NFL playoff field, draft order set; coaching carousel begins
SI.com

Twelve teams are headed to the playoffs. For the 20 also-rans, it's time to look to the future. Peter King analyzes Week 17's big headlines and gives his first wild-card weekend thoughts.

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Emptywheel.firedoglake.com
Peter King: NFL playoff field, draft order set; coaching carousel begins Peter “Material Support for Terrorism” King   —  The NYT has an editorial rightly condemning ascending Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee Peter King’s upcoming hearing to attack Muslims.

SI.com
Playoffs' seeding format under scrutiny again   —  Now that the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks have made dubious history and become the NFL's first division champion with a losing record, the debate about how the league seeds its 12-team playoff field is sure to intensify in the coming days, weeks and months.

11. Pete Postlethwaite was a classically British actor 51 minutes ago   permalink

Pete Postlethwaite was a classically British actor
Personal View

Pete Postlethwaite was part of a great theatrical tradition that emphasises ability over looks, writes Harry Mount.

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Associated Press / All Salon
Pete Postlethwaite was a classically British actor Oscar-nominee Pete Postlethwaite dies at 64   —  Oscar-nominated British actor Pete Postlethwaite, described by director Steven Spielberg as "the best actor in the world," has died at age 64 after a long battle with cancer.

BBC News
Pete Postlethwaite was a classically British actor Pete Postlethwaite dies aged 64   —  Oscar-nominated British actor Pete Postlethwaite has died in hospital in Shropshire at the age of 64, a spokesman announces.

12. Apple iPhone alarm woes continue across the globe 55 minutes ago   permalink

Reuters

HONG KONG/HELSINKI (Reuters) - Some iPhone users across the globe complained of malfunctioning alarms on the first working day of 2011, even after Apple reassured users that its phones' built-in clocks will work from Monday.

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Darren Murph / Engadget
Apple iPhone alarm woes continue across the globe MiLi HD iPhone / iPad charging dock boasts internal speaker, HDMI output   —  MiLi Power -- the same guys who pushed out the thinnest iPhone battery case earlier this year -- are back in Las Vegas, but this introduction represents quite the deviation. The MiLi HD is fairly simplistic in nature, and we get the feeling that iPhone and iPad owners may actually appreciate the understated motif. Aside from being a fully- ...

Dondodge.typepad.com
Apple iPhone alarm woes continue across the globe 2011 The Year Of Android vs iPhone - who wins?   —  Prediction season has started early this year. Fortune, Techcrunch, Scoble, Louis Gray, and others are already picking winners in the Smartphone market, which most see as a two horse race between iPhone and Android. My prediction? Both will win because they are playing different games. Android will win the market share battle, but Apple will ...

13. Even the Tories now foresee chaos in Lansley's NHS | Polly Toynbee 1 minute ago   permalink

Polly Toynbee / The Guardian newspaper

The health secretary's reforms will not bring slow and stealthy change, but a radical explosion. Cameron must sack him In a startlingly forthright article on Comment is free last week, the new Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston challenged the fundamental principles of the coalition government's National Health Service upheaval. As a GP, she knows ...

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Allegra Stratton / The Guardian World News
Ed Miliband shuns quick fixes   —  How the Labour leader intends to woo back lost supporters, while taking the fight to the 'Tory-led' government Just before Christmas Ed Miliband turned up at Billingsgate fish market, the vast warehouse in London's East End, improbably as cool as the ice-locker temperatures outside. At 6.30am, he had come to talk to the porters who were worried ...

14. Bjorn again 3 hours ago   permalink

Bjorn again
Www.mirror.co.uk

Agnetha Fältskog, the youngest of the legendary pop group at 60, gave the biggest hint yet that they could reform for a one-off charity gig. The group have vehemently rebuffed all previous suggestions they would perform again after splitting in 1982.

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15. Israel arrests UK staff over plot 38 minutes ago   permalink

Israel arrests UK staff over plot
BBC News

Two local employees of the UK consulate general in Jerusalem are arrested in Israel over an alleged plan to attack a football stadium.

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World News
Israel arrests UK staff over plot British consulate employees in Jerusalem linked to terror attack   —  Employees of British consulate in Jerusalem arrested by Israeli police investigating planned terror attack on a sports stadium.

16. Stewart Mandel: Jim Harbaugh's future hanging over Orange Bowl, all of football 47 minutes ago   permalink

SI.com

What will Jim Harbaugh do? That's the question that hangs over the Orange Bowl, as well as some college and NFL teams, writes Stewart Mandel in the Bowls edition of Overtime.

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Latimes.com
Lawry's 'beef bowl' for college football players; Jonah Goldberg on the rise of the gay bourgeoisie; attracting faculty at the UCs   —  I find the spectacle of numerous athletes involved in an (over-) eating contest somewhat disturbing in these times of economic malaise and high unemployment in California.

17. With Hearst In Talks To Buy Hachette, New Pres. David Carey Addresses the Troops 4 hours ago   permalink

With Hearst In Talks To Buy Hachette, New Pres. David Carey Addresses the Troops
Www.foliomag.com

David Carey kicked off his first official day as president of Hearst Magazines with a note to the troops outlining in general terms his plan for the new year, urging "entrepreneurial thinking" and an "end to playing it safe." The full transcript of his note follows below:

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18. Snowball thrower's court hearing 8 minutes ago   permalink

Matthew Taylor / The Guardian World News

Dean Smith charged with common assault and case adjourned to give CPS time to decide whether to proceed with case A man who threw a snowball at a police officer faces a second court appearance next week after being charged with common assault. Dean Smith had been playing with his family when he took aim at the officer. Three days later police ...

19. Sri Lanka: Homegrown Reconciliation Process 12 minutes ago   permalink

Sri Lanka: Homegrown Reconciliation Process
Rezwan / Global Voices in English

By Rezwan Kanishka Ratnapriya at Groundviews wonders whether Sri Lankans can create more opportunities for themselves “to establish a sustainable peace with the end of war in Sri Lanka by creating a culture of inclusiveness, equality and respect for all communities.”

20. West 'didn't learn anything' from chief of staff stepping down 14 minutes ago   permalink

Thehill.com

Rep.-elect Allen West (R-Fla.) said Sunday that a radio host who stepped down as his chief of staff who stepped down after controversial comments was a victim of an attack by the left.

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Daily Kos / Daily Kos :   Midday open thread