Friendly Reminder: Please Stay Scared This Holiday Season!

• Ho ho ho, Merry AL QAEDA WILL KILL US ALL, and to all a good night! This is not a joke, people: Iraqi authorities have "obtained confessions" ("obtained" -- is that what they call it now?) from captured insurgents who say Al Qaeda is "planning suicide attacks in the United States and Europe during the Christmas season." The Christmas cockbombing thing didn't really work out, so maybe someone will try shoving a whole bunch of Bomb Bags up their bunghole instead? These sorts of threats are always very credible, so please take these torture-extracted confessions seriously and hide in your basement for the rest of the year. Ah, Yuletide Fear. [ AP ]

• Julian Assange will appear in court today to hear whether he can post bail. Meanwhile, the U.S. government claims Assange "encouraged" Bradley Manning to download all those secret documents onto his Lady Gaga CD. Desperate much? [ ABC ]

• The number of foreclosure notices filed in November plunged more than twenty percent, mostly because of "the robo-signing controversy." [ CNN ]