breaking

Economy Grows 5.7%, Still Sucks

0 views

(Photo: azrainman)

The US economy expanded 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2009, making it the second straight quarter of growth, and the fastest in six years. However, it's important to remember that for 2009 overall, real GDP shrank 2.4%, the largest decrease since 1946. So, it's a gain for sure, but starting from a very low place and there's a long way to go. Like jobs. Some jobs would be nice. [Bloomberg]

Supreme Court Guts Corporate Campaign Spending Limits

4617 views
Corporations can now spend as much as they like on ads supporting or attacking political candidates, the Supreme Court ruled today. [AP]

Senate Passes Credit Card Reform Bill

4845 views

Hooray! 90-5, the Senate has passed the Credit Card Reform bill. The job now is to iron out the differences between it and the slightly weaker House bill, or for the House to approve the Senate bill. Either way, Obama has asked for legislators to send him a bill by Memorial Day. [Washington Post] (Photo: afagenMore Â»

Breaking: Texan Dies From Swine Flu

7186 views

Swine flu has claimed its first US victim. Details were scant but Texas health officials said the woman lived close to the Mexican border and had other, chronic, health problems. [AP] (Photo: law_kevenMore Â»

Obama Picks CPSC Head So They Can Finally Do Their Job

1499 views

Obama nominated Inez Moore Tenenbaum as Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) head and Robert Adler as commissioner. He is also also Congress for $107 million more in funding and plans on beefing up the total number of commissioners to five. [Reuters] (Photo: ashiMore Â»

Markets Rally On Bernanke Comments, Citigroup Profits

4955 views
Full Text of Bernake's Speech [Federal Reserve] (Photo: AGRR 4059More Â»

US Airways Reverses Fee, Sodas Free!

7401 views

US Airways has reversed course and decided that it will no longer charge you for some soda-pop in a cup with ice.   More Â»

Facebook Reverts Back To Old Terms Of Service

41452 views

It appears in the wake of global attention and outcry, Facebook has, as of at least 12:27 am, reverted back to the previous Terms of Service. Phew, now we can all go back to sending each other digital cupcakes without Big Brother watching us. This is a temporary move until Facebook can draft a new Terms of Service that addresses the users' concerns. CEO Zuckerberg wrote a new blog post, and Facebook spokesperson Barry Schnitt released this statement:  More Â»

Comcast To Give $5 To Every Accidental Penis Viewer?

17696 views

How much would someone have to pay you to have your kids watch a penis? Comcast answers that question by giving a $5 one-time discount to every subscriber in Tucson, AZ who had their cerebellum gelatinized by seeing the porno movie that accidentally cut into the Super Bowl last night, according to a rumor a reporter we know overheard in their newsroom.  More Â»

Every Google Result Is Malicious

17571 views

Either Google has a bug or the entire internet is infected because no matter what you search for in Google right now it shows up with the warning, "This site may harm your computer." Judging by the submissions to Digg, this probably started showing up around 9:46 eastern this morning. Nobody knows what's going on yet, just that it's very odd. UPDATE: And of 10:17 eastern, everything seems back to normal. You may recommence your early morning vanity searching. UPDATE: Human error. Someone typed in "/" by mistake. More info at StopBadware.comMore Â»

Teeny Bits Of Mercury Found In High Fructose Corn Syrup Foods

10697 views

Did Jeremy Piven eat 200 lbs of ketchup a day? According to a new study, which found trace amounts of mercury in a number of high-fructose-corn-syrup laden foods like Coke, Nutri-Grain Strawberry Cereal Bars and ketchup, maybe so.  More Â»

SS Id's Heartland Credit Card Breach Suspect

3452 views

The Secret Service has apparently "pinpointed" the location of a suspect in the massive Heartland credit card database breach. No surprise, it's international. [StorefrontbacktalkMore Â»

UPDATED: Breaking: Circuit City Closing 155 Stores

187430 views

According to anonymous insider tips, Circuit City is closing 155 stores and withdrawing from 12 markets. This will be officially announced tomorrow at 8am, says our source. A scan we received of a letter distributed to CC employees helps corroborate the story. The tipsters say that store employees were told this morning. No information was provided at that time about severance pay. Employees in certain departments, like car installation, and Firedog, will likely be out of a job within 48 hours. Warranties will still be honored. UPDATE 6: Here's the complete official list of closing storesMore Â»

TSA To Stop Being So Crazy About Liquids

8052 views

Soon you might be able to take your shampoo and booze on the plane once again without trouble. The head of the TSA told WSJ's The Middle Seat Terminal blog, "I think realistically in one year we, the TSA and foreign colleagues, will be a position to relax liquids restrictions...We are within a year of having the ability to differentiate threat liquids through the screening process.” The rule relaxation is thanks to airports deploying new x-ray machines and scanners that should be able to tell the difference between a bottle of water and a bomb. Just don't expect it to happen any time before 2009.   More Â»

FDIC Sheds Qualifying Beneficary Coverage Rule

8403 views

The FDIC is going to make two changes to their coverage. One affects beneficiaries and one affects trust accounts, according to a bank insider who participated in teleconference call the FDIC held banks this morning as a refresher course on FDIC coverage. The big news is that the "qualifying beneficiary" rule is gone. Here's the specifics:  More Â»

Amazon.com seems to be back up. A bit slow, but functional. All in all, the site was down for 3 hours, which is very very long for a gigantic online retailer to be down these days. [AmazonMore Â»

Amazon.com Is Was Down!

6643 views

Whoa Amazon is down. It just says, "Http/1.1 Service Unavailable." Then I tried again and the front page was there, but when I clicked through, same error message. It looks like it's been this way since at least 1:30 PM, eastern. It was broken for several Consumerist writers who tested it out.   More Â»

General Outage Hits GrandCentral

4500 views

Google's telephone service GrandCentral has been down all morning. The service's first general outage affects all customers; any calls to GrandCentral numbers are immediately disconnected.  More Â»

Massive North American Blackberry Outage

3109 views

Blackberry smartphones are screwed up! There's a massive outage going on in "the Americas" says RIM.  More Â»

Exclusive: CompUSA's Tentative Liquidation Schedule

39177 views

A CompUSA repair tech has leaked to The Consumerist what he says is their schedule for the liquidations happening now until they close everything down after the holiday season. This is in no way set in stone, he says, but it looks like this is how it's going to go down starting this week. (He would also like everyone to know that no one his place steals porn from customers).  More Â»