Reuters

While we were the first to mock co-workers' contention that Farook's radicalization could be confirmed by the size of his beard, we would note that although you cannot judge a book by its cover, it does indeed appear as though some manner of transformation might have taken place in or around Farook's two visits to Saudi Arabia.

Less favourable financial market conditions, combined with a weaker macroeconomic outlook and increased sensitivity to US interest rates, heighten the risk of negative spillovers to EMEs once US rates do start to rise in the United States”

• Obama in speech to nation vows to defeat 'new phase' of terrorist threat (Reuters)
• Clinton Urges Social-Media Intelligence Sharing in Terror Fight (WSJ)
• Obama urges tech, law enforcement to address social media used for plots (Reuters)
• NATO says won't send ground troops to fight IS (Reuters)
• Le Pen Scores Historic Victory in France's Regional Elections (BBG)

The West Coast Of North American Could Be Slammed By Fukushima Radiation In The Near Future

"When US officials say they don't see how the terrorists' oil is smuggled to Turkey... it smells badly of a desire to cover up these acts."

Perhaps the best way to show what a mess Europe is in is the €3 billion deal they made with Turkey head Erdogan, only to see him being unmasked by EU archenemy Putin as a major supporter, financial and who knows how else, of the very group everyone’s so eager to bomb the heebees out after Paris. But Brussels thinks it’s found a whipping boy for all its failures. Greece. It’s fast increasing its accusations against Athens’ handling of the 100s of 1000s of refugees flooding the country. Everything that goes wrong is the fault of Greece, not Brussels. The EU has so far given Greece €30 million in ‘assistance’ for the refugee crisis, while the country has spent over €1.5 billion in money it desperately needs for its own people. But somehow it’s still not done enough.

Here is what really happened: the ECB tried to engineer a modest market selloff because the "market needed to be disappointed", coupled with a modest rise in the EUR to give the Fed some rate-hike breathing room. Instead the market's dramatic overreaction in stocks and FX forced Draghi to not only panic but to publicly come out and admit that the only purpose of his Friday speech was to offset the damage from his failure to defeat the opposition at the governing council and to send markets surging. Which they promptly did.

The point is, if you are going to attempt to catch a proverbial falling knife on a chart, at least do so only at a point you deem to be a “make or break” type level. Whether or not you can likely accurately identify a “make or break” level is another matter. The point is that, should that level fail, like it did on the CRB Index a year ago, you know the security is broken and it is time to walk away.

"Two soliders of the Khilafah executed an attack on the Inland Regional Cener in San Bernardino, California on the 20th of Safar. Light weapons were used, which led to the deaths of 14 disbelievers."

When at first you don't succeed (having failed in their bid to draw physical gold from the 'cold, dead' hands of Indian citizens), find another group to exploit. As is standard operating procedure with government, if voluntarism fails, use coercion...

"You can't 'comply' because there is no rule of law. The best thing you can do is establish processes for who is likely to be taken away, and how to make sure they aren't disappeared forever."

Magic ‘Super Mario’, the ECB’s monetary magician, disappointed markets yesterday as continuing and unprecedented monetary easing failed to prevent a sharp sell-off in stock and bond markets yesterday which has continued today.