Fiscal cliff helps mend Obama-CEO relations
November 25, 2012

Fiscal cliff negotiations are proving to be the perfect excuse for President Obama and the business community to smooth over a rocky four years.
The White House has struggled to make and keep friends in the business community, thanks to contentious policy fights over financial and health care reforms. Obama famously dubbed Wall Street as "fat cat bankers" and bashed health insurers for raising premiums and denying coverage.
The tension grew worse during the election when business groups doubled down their contributions to defeat Obama. The financial sector spent more $50 million supporting the President's opponent Mitt Romney, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
Thanks to a new crisis at hand -- the fiscal cliff -- there are some signs that the ice may be breaking. It helps that the White House and leaders of big businesses are united in their desire to avoid the fiscal cliff -- the Jan. 1 expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the Jan. 2 across-the-board spending cuts -- which economists fear will lead to an economic maelstrom.

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Obama Should Bring Back CIA Chief Petraeus, Pundits Say
November 24, 2012

The idea of a David Petraeus rehire has been floated by several political writers, including Emily Yoffe at Slate, who says that Barack Obama should nominate the former chief to serve as the next CIA director.
There is good reason to think that a David Petraeus rehire could be in the cards, The Week noted. For one, he remains very popular with both Republicans and Democrats in Washington, having been first nominated by George W. Bush and re-appointed by Obama.
Also, though his now very public affair with Paula Broadwell may have caused controversy and brought some shame to the CIA, Petraeus broke no laws and didn't violate national security.
"Thanks to our ever-faster cycle of humiliation and rehabilitation, [Petraeus] has already been punished and paroled," Yoffe write. "It's time to let Petraeus get back to work. It would probably even please Mrs. Petraeus to see less of him around the house right now."
A David Petraeus rehire could also be seen favorably by Americans. Before the affair scandal that ended his tenure with the CIA, Petraeus was viewed favorably by many Americans and even floated as a possibly vice presidential candidate for GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

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From Tom Parsons - Cheap Hot Flight And Airlines Deals Nationwide For Winter Travel
November 23, 2012

Each day we have a hot deal of the day,and if you are lucky you can book these great deals before they disappear. We have deals from Delta, American Airlines, US Airways, United, Frontier, and more!

We are seeing the cheapest days for travel on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and some Saturdays. However, other cheap days may be available from your departure city.

Check out these hot fares we found for travel between January 8 thru March 6, 2013

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US Ambassador Rice defends comments on Benghazi attack
November 23, 2012

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice is defending her early account of the attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans in Benghazi, saying that her statements were made based on initial information from the intelligence community.
Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has been under fire after she appeared on television five days after the Sept. 11 attacks and said in several interviews that the strikes on U.S. outposts were "spontaneous" and were sparked by outrage over an anti-Islamic video.
But three days later, National Counterterrorism Director Matthew Olsen acknowledged the Benghazi attacks were acts of terror and that Al Qaeda might have played a role.
"When discussing he attack against our facilities in Benghazi, I relied solely and squarely on the information provided to me by the intelligence community," Rice said Wednesday evening to reporters outside the U.N. Security Council.
"I made clear that the information was preliminary, and that our investigations would give us the definitive answers," she added. "As a senior U.S. diplomat, I agreed to a White House request to appear on the Sunday shows to talk about the full range of national security issues of the day, which at that time were primarily and particularly the protests that were enveloping and threatening many diplomatic facilities, American diplomatic facilities around the world, and Iran's nuclear program."

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Deals Today From Build-A-Bear, Amazon and More!
November 23, 2012

Build-A-Bear: select Bears or Outfits for $7.00!

Through 11/25, select Bears or Outfits have been marked down to $7.00 each online during the Build-A-Bear Online Sale!

Find out more HERE!

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Cardstore Christmas Cards: 75% off + FREE Stamps + FREE Shipping!

Right now you can score Cardstore Christmas Cards for 75% off + FREE Stamps + FREE Shipping!

Here's how to get yours:

Go to Cardstore
Select any Christmas or Holiday cards
At checkout, enter promo code: CCN2175
Get 75% off + FREE Stamps + FREE Shipping!

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FREE e-Cookbook: 30 Sweet & Savory Gourmet Popcorn Recipes

Right now you can get the '30 Perfect Popcorn Recipes : How to Make Sweet & Savory Gourmet Popcorn at Home' e-cookbook for FREE!

Get yours HERE!

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FREE Lego Magazine Subscription!

Do you have some Lego lovers in your home? If you do, too, go HERE to request your Free Lego Magazine Subscription!

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Get ready for Small Business Saturday Nov. 24th.

Saturday Nov. 24th is Small Business Saturday - a day to patronize and support the mom and pop owned small businesses in your town. And if you're an American Express Card member, you'll get a $25 one time credit when you spend $25 or more at a participating business! To find out more go HERE.

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Birthday boy finds that helping the neediest is plenty rewarding
November 23, 2012

Five years ago Blaze Trumble made a birthday wish that baffled his parents. He decided he wanted to spend his sixth birthday distributing hot chocolate to the homeless.
His mom thought it was a joke. Surely he'd want to have a party like most kids, maybe with a theme, she thought. She asked him again, but Blaze persisted. He had seen the homeless in downtown Las Vegas during trips to pick his mom up from work, and they were honest with him about the life they lived.
He wanted to help, but hot chocolate wasn't the answer.
"I wanted to do hot chocolate, but we couldn't. So we decided to do blankets and jackets because it starts to get cold outside (in November)," said Blaze, whose birthday is on Nov. 25.
His parents helped him set up donation boxes at various stores to collect blankets, and they worked with the Las Vegas Rescue Mission to distribute them. Every year since, Blaze has sacrificed birthday gifts and money for donations, and distributed them around Thanksgiving.
"I wanted to do this because some people don't have what I have," Blaze said.
Blaze's mother, Fannie Trumble, said she initially thought the donations would become an afterthought, but every November, he has asked to do it again. He even asked friends invited to his birthday party for donations in lieu of gifts. This year they plan to apply for a nonprofit license after Blaze said he wanted to do the donations forever.

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9-year-old Utah girl Samantha Gordon featured on Wheaties box
November 23, 2012

Nine-year-old youth football star Samantha Gordon can add another accolade to her collection: a special-edition Wheaties box.
An ESPN report states that General Mills is creating a one-of-a-kind box featuring Gordon in honor of her achievements this season, as she ran for more than 2,000 yards and 35 touchdowns while playing in a league where she is the only girl. The box won't be sold in stores.
From the ESPN report:
"I think it's really great," Gordon told "SportsCenter" when asked how it felt to be on a Wheaties box. "My mom, she told me that this is a real athletic breakfast and that only real athletes get on it and that Michael Jordan was on it for a long time. So I'm really proud to be on the Wheaties box."
Gordon became an Internet sensation when a highlight video featuring her play went viral. She has since appeared on "Good Morning America," "Fox and Friends," and was the special guest of the San Francisco 49ers during their Monday Night Football matchup on Nov. 19.

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Wild Turkeys Overrun Massachusetts Town
November 23, 2012

Wild turkeys have been a strange but common sight in suburban and even urban areas in metropolitan Boston for some time, but some residents of nearby Brookline say the birds are becoming more common and increasingly aggressive in their town.
Emily Spieler, a Brookline resident for eight years, told ABCnews.com that it wasn't until around two years ago that she and her husband saw a turkey in their neighborhood.
"And there were a couple of them," Spieler said. "In our backyard."
Spieler described the area where she lives as the urban and densely settled end of Brookline, very close to the center of Boston.
Brookline police say complaints about wild turkeys in the town have doubled in the past two months, according to CBS Boston. One officer said he spends nearly every morning protecting students at Brookline High School from the turkeys.
"I've had them come after me," Brookline resident Jocelyn Guggenheim told ABCnews.com. "I cross the street to avoid them and I've never done that around a wild animal, even though I grew up in the woods."
Guggenheim said the birds often crowd sidewalks and both she and Spieler said the turkeys have caused several traffic jams by grouping together in the middle of busy intersections.
Massachusetts has an obvious connection to the turkey. It was in the commonwealth where the Pilgrims landed and later held the first Thanksgiving. Accounts vary on whether the Pilgrims and Native Americans shared turkey that day, but species meleagris gallopavo was hunted out of existence in Massachusetts by the mid-19th century.
Successful reintroduction efforts have brought the state's fall turkey population to around 20,000 birds. And such population growth definitely shows as more and more people encounter the birds.
Towns around Boston are beginning to respond to the problem by holding town meetings and informational sessions and hoping to find a solution to the nuisance birds.

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$4.2 million Gold Christmas tree
November 23, 2012

For those seeking a glow to their Christmas this year, a jewelry store in downtown Tokyo has just the answer: a pure gold revolving "tree" covered in Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, Tinker Bell and Cinderella.
The tree-like ornament is made of 88 pounds of pure gold, standing nearly 8 feet high and 3 feet in diameter. It is decorated with pure gold-plate silhouette cutouts of 50 popular Disney characters and draped with ribbons made of gold leaf.
The price tag? A mere 350 million yen ($4.2 million).
But the ornament is actually a deal, said Tomoko Ishibashi, in the marketing department of Tanaka Kikinzoku Jewelry, which runs the Ginza Tanaka jewelry store.
"Right now gold is over 4,400 yen per gram. We used pure gold and had an expert craftsman form each Disney character by hand," she said of the decoration, which took 10 craftsmen two months to complete.
The combination of gold and Disney characters had spectators mesmerized.
"It is very vivid and the gold is very pretty," said Takashi Miura, a 36-year-old jeweler. "The characters on it are also really cute and it really looks like a Christmas tree."
For those with less ready cash, the store offers a scaled-down version that features 20 Disney characters for a mere 2 million yen ($243,000).

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Twinkies are here to stay
November 23, 2012

Last Friday, Hostess Brands Inc. in Sacramento, California made the decision to liquidate its brands after failing to resolve demands by striking workers that refused to return to work. The result: a Twinkies supermarket sweep by brand loyalists afraid those cream-filled cakes that many of us loved as a child will ultimately disappear. However, what shoppers may not realize yet is that Twinkies is in a position for rebirth with line extensions that will make the brand stronger than ever.

In a broadcast on Money Markets and More, branding strategist, Adam Hanft of Hanft Projects made a strong case for Twinkies' prime opportunity to reinvent the brand despite the unfortunate circumstances leading to Hostess' bankruptcy.

Twinkies embodies "classic brand awareness," says Hanft, and also "represents a trend in America that is pure hedonism." Although health and wellness is a growing trend, there's still a demand for pure self-indulgence, and in Twinkies' case, that type of satisfaction is accompanied by nostalgic appeal.

So how does the brand reinvent itself to have modern appeal? Hanft suggests the brand focus on today's culture, today's flavor profiles, and in addition position the brand to have a "hipster" profile. Two suggestions from Hanft are perhaps license the brand for a Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor. Or what about a Smirnoff Twinkie-flavored vodka?

Hanft also points out that through a partnership with Lady Gaga, iconic brand Polaroid has found a way to dodge death, so Twinkies may benefit largely with similar help from a celebrity personality.

Before the Twinkie hoarding gets out of control, shoppers may be relieved to know that the brand's potential has yet to be seen. Think Twinkies cereal or breakfast pastries, new flavors such as pistachio or raspberry, or how about a Twinkie cake with a healthier profile? Consumers may get more than the wished for if Twinkies' future new owner can quickly leverage this opportunity.

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