In a move that has undermined the ceasefire deal, Syrian rebels declared a new battle against government forces on Monday. Sign of escalating violence is also threatening to derail U.N.-led peace talks. The rebel groups, which included factions fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and powerful Islamist Ahrar al-Sham, said in a statement they would respond “with force” against any government forces that fired on civilians.

Submitted by Fred Elliott via Salina.com,

I recently read an article on rt.com written by Cynthia McKinney, the first black woman elected to the Georgia Legislature. The title of the article was “Why Does The U.S Media Lie So Much?” I’ll continue after a brief aside to talk about rt.com (which stands for Russia today).

Three weeks ago, a recent report by Pew revealed something stunning: one third - the poorest - of US households can no longer afford even the most basic necessities: food, rent and transportation.

Submitted by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Since the end of the financial crisis, economists, analysts, and the Federal Reserve have continued to predict a return to higher levels of economic growth. As I showed in my discussion of the Fed’s forecasts, these predictions have continued to fall short of reality.

Some companies rely on non-GAAP EPS gimmicks to make their earnings looks pretty; others rely on stock buybacks to reduce the number of shares outstanding; a third group of companies merely adds back everything it believes is not part of SG&A to boost its bottom line... and then there is IBM which does all three at unprecedented levels.

Recall that last quarter, just as IBM's revenue was plunging, the company "beat" courtesy of a collapsing tax rate. This is what we reproted last quarter: