It's Groundhog Day in the market this morning where you wake up and hear about a "Plunging Euro" and "Greek Contagion" and "Angela Merkel." As one of my favorite market mavens in Chicago said, "It's like Chinese water torture." Only, it's more like, Greek water torture... on to the news:

• Euro tumbles to 1-year low vs. the dollar (Reuters). Great, maybe next time I go to Europe I can finally get a beer for under $8.
• Three people killed in Greek protests (New York Times).
• Moody's warns on Portugal (Wall Street Journal)
• Scottish airports closed by volcanic ash (BBC). This time, scientists say the smoke might be coming from Greece.
• "1 or 3 Gulf leaks halted but oil flow same." Okay, so, if you've halted a leak, but the flow is the same, have you really accomplished anything?
• Rupert Murdoch brags about his iPad (Paidcontent.org) Says his makes more money than yours.
• But is the News Corp. subscription strategy months away? (AllThingsD)
• Picasso work sells for $106 million dollars! (New York Times). Is there an ETF for Picasso?
• Ernie Harwell: RIP (Detroit Free Press). Great man, great life.
• Scientists explain why computers crash but humans don't (Physorg.com). I beg to differ. I've crashed many times.
• NASA team claims to have evidence of extraterrestrial life (Washington Post)

Yesterday I remarked about the proliferation of bad news. Well, here's some good news: The NYPD did an incredible job defusing a bomb in Times Square, conducting a quick investigation, and rounding up a potential suspect. Amazing if you think about the alternative. Heroic execution. Not only was there heroic execution on the part of the police in diffusing the bomb and launching a quick investigation, but if they got the right guy, it has a Hollywood twist: They nabbed him as the plane was about to take off. Here's more on that story, as well as other stuff going on in the busy world:

• Times Square bomb plot suspect arrested at last second (CNN). I think he's lucky Jason Bourne wasn't on the plane.
• The suspect allegedly drove to the airport packing a 9MM gun (NPR). I'm ready to see the movie. Now.
• Times Square bomb, oil spill complicate White House agenda (Washington Post). Nobody says it was easy being the President of the United States.
• Bomb suspect may have been targeting military recruiters (Washington Post).
• What we know about the suspect (The Atlantic).
• Shifting gears to market action: More Euro-melting triggered this morning's swoon (WSJ).
• Think you understand the sovereign debt crisis? If not, just take a quick look at this chart, courtesy of Pimco (Business Insider).
• Just when it looks like the VIX has collapsed -- yes, that's the time to sell (Bloomberg BusinessWeek).
• Apple policy said to trigger investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (Bloomberg). Only one entity can stop god: the government.
• Apple feels the heat from the FTC. Maybe it's time to pull a switcheroo? (Electronista)
• Ning is going to stay free for teachers (New York Times). Great, now do you know anybody that uses Ning? Any teachers? Right, didn't think so....
• YouTube is developing a self-serve rental model (MediaPost). Netflix executives must be taking notice.
• Apparently there is a black-market for IP addresses (Infoworld). "Psst.. hey buddy... wanna buy 72.145.228.27!?"
• Was wondering what the local snowpack was like. I found this cool site (NOAA). At least they put some of my tax dollars where I want them.
• Things you learn without running water (The Daily Green). Some of them, I just don't want to know.
• Twitter has launched its "embed Tweet" program (HuffingtonPost). More evidence that civilization will be ending as we know it.

As a long-time journalist, I know that the media world is hopelessly slanted toward negative news. But unfortunately, this week's bad news is all real -- and not exaggerated. Greece is melting down, sovereign debt issues plague the globe, and now we have a massive environmental and economic catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico. Can you cut us a break, boss? Here's a rundown on what's going on on this dreary Monday:

• The Gulf oil spill will probably take months to contain (Washington Post)
• BP says it's ready to pay (Reuters) But it also says it's not to blame... figure that one out.
• Will the spill affect Obama's new "drill, drill, drill" policy?(CNN) That's what Barry gets for pretending to be Ronald Reagan.
• Deepwater Horizon had a history of problems, before the spill (Nola.com)
• Apparently blowout preventers fail frequently... (Kansascity.com)
• On to Greece... The Baklava Bailout is finally here (BusinessWeek). That's the slowest cooking Baklava, ever.
• Germany's share is $30B (Associated Press). And Angela Merkel can say goodbye now.
• Apple iPad 3G estimated to have sold 300K on launch weekend (Apple Insider). AT&T engineers trying to figure out what to do now.
• Is an anti-trust investigation at hand for Apple's app world? (New York Post). Steve Jobs' squeaky clean, integrated world may be just a little too integrated.
• Roger Ebert hates 3D (Newsweek). Funny, given that he's not exactly 2D.
• Is IronMan 2 about Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? (TechCrunch) If so, I'm glad they went with an allegory, instead of real life.
• A detailed analysis of Groupon (TechCrunch).

Good morning on this marvelous Friday. News Brew is behind the times, but we're catching up fast. The world is moving faster than we can track. This morning, the Greek rescue package is on the docket again, as is more on the Adobe-Apple "Flash Wars" and of course, there's news on China (isn't there always news on China?). Is it just me or is the world rife with economic conflict? Everywhere, people are fighting over money. It didn't used to be like this. In the 1990s, people didn't care about money, they'd flip you a few Internet shares or cut you in on their new condo project with a free loan. My have times changes. Nothing more evident than this than the conflict in Europe, where the Europe Union is quickly becoming the Europe Disunion. You see, nobody wants to pay somebody else's bill. And that's why the Germans (and others) are reluctant to bailout Greece. It's kind of like paying your brother-in-law's mortgage after he lost everything on a bender in Vegas. Keep in mind, the same thing can happen in the United States. For example, will taxpayers in Arkansas want to bail out obnoxious Californians? The State of California is almost out of money. So the next fiscal fight is likely to be whether Uncle Sam pays the tab for those whacky Californians. Here's some more of what's going on in the business world this morning:

• More Euro flip-flopping. The Baklava Bailout is coming. No, really, they say it is. (Bloomberg)
• China looks to be prepping for the big "Yuan Reval" (Bloomberg). To you and me, that means the price of iPhones will go up.
• Isn't it a bit strange that as people are talking about China taking over the world, scores of local officials have killed themselves? (Shanghailist)
• Looks like Apple has slipped in some language to ban Flash-to-iPhone conversion (Daring Fireball). For those who need translation: Apple is aggressively trying to ban workarounds that allow people to view Flash content on their iPhone.
• Twitter's got a major redesign in the works (icodom). I wonder if it will be like Facebook, where they change everything around, piss everybody off, and create a questionable privacy faux pas as well.
• How Apple plans to take on Google in mobile ads (BBC). Yes, this war will be juicy.
• The infamous "AIG party hotel" has been sold (Reuters).
• Speaking of a party: Carlsberg brewery workers are striking after told they can only drink at lunch (DailyMail). Is it just me, or can European unions be really twisted?
• Gold is breaking out again (Reuters). Where are the mindless CNBC gold bears when you need them?
• They've discovered a new evolutionary ancestor of humans (DailyTech). No, the creature was not found buried on Wall Street.
• The ten most over-used movie catchphrases (moviefone). My personal favorite, "Say hello to my little friend!"

For those of you who have had your eye on the ball, unable to track the "financial crisis du jour" around the world, we appear to be finally reaching some sort of closure of the Ouzo Crisis, otherwise known as:  "Who's gonna bail out the Greeks?" This is the Baklava Bailout we've been waiting for for months. The Germans finally appear to be softening their stance, willing to toss a few Deutsche marks -- er, I mean, Euros -- in the pot. It's important to watch this stuff, because winding our way through these debt crises is crucial to recovery in the world economy. It's like a version of economic dodge-ball: It's possible we'll have rolling debt crises over the next few years, and we need to work our way through them and hopefully avoid a debt crisis in the Big Kahuna -- the U.S. of A.  Because you know, after everybody else is bailed out, it's not likely there will be anybody left to bail America out. Anyway, on that positive note, let's move on to da news:

• When there's a Euro crisis, you need to brush up than Ambrose Evan- Pritchard (Telegraph).
• Google's China plan gets complicated (Wall Street Journal). You would think "not being evil" would be pretty simple: Censorship or no censorship. Not when billions of dollars and the Chinese market is involved.
• Unemployment claims dropped for the third time in four weeks (MarketWatch). They're at 442,000. Watch the number 400,000. I've heard that's where we need to get to actually create employment .
• Banks still need free money, says Bernanke (Wall Street Journal). Even though they're doing nothing but hoarding it and creating exotic carry trades. Meanwhile, rumor has it Ben has the helicopters idling on the tarmac with the crates of cash lined up.
• Best Buy profits rise 37% (Wall Street Journal). Recession be damned, we need our gadgets!!
• Qualcomm raises forecast, helps spark tech rally (MarketWatch).
• Engadget has an entertaining piece on the WSJ on the iPad, where they say the WSJ says it will charge $17.95 a month. (Engadget). Interesting. Did I tell you they offered me the print version for $10 per month (shhhhh.).
• Google's working on ads that learn how to follow you. Kind of creepy, I don't like the idea of being followed by an Ad.

Marc Faber, always worth listening to. This is from last week but still timely now that gold is down another $20... I'm looking to buy more around $1075.

Happy Thursday and welcome to our news brew, where the headlines are almost as strong as the coffee. There is the usual boring round of news involving Greece, government-owned banks, and healthcare... but we're going to move on to something that's much more interest to us: TV. And more specifically, Tivo, which just won a patent suit against Dish. Tivo is soaring today, up nearly 50% to $15, on news that a Federal court has upheld a lower court's finding that Dish has been violating Tivo's patent on DVR technology. For those of you who live in a cave, those are the little boxes that allow you to digitally record and play TV content, the most effective tool I've found for skipping really annoying ads. In June, Tivo received a judgment in its favor and Dish was ordered to pay $193 million in damages. I think this victory is a victory for technology, and sports fans everywhere who need a way to cram 3 NFL games into 1 hour of viewing time. Elsewhere in the news:

• Pending home sales "unexpectedly" drop (Bloomberg). People don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy houses. Is that really unexpected?
• Greek P.M. demands that aid plan be detailed (BusinessWeek). Tell us how much money you're going to give us, dammit! The Ouzo is waiting...
• Jobless claims fell to 469,000 (BusinessWeek).
• Mortgage windfall misses many (Wall Street Journal). This is kind of sad, pathetic, and depressing, isn't it?
• What labor productivity means for employment (The Atlantic). It means that because executives need to keep their bonuses up, they're going to fire half of your coworkers and make you work twice as hard.
• Gizmodo reports that Microsoft is doing something with Verizon (maybe) related to a device that may or may not be the project code-named "Pink." They think.
• An explosion of mobile patent lawsuits (New York Times).
• Continental Airlines has figured out a way to generate extra revenue from tall people (Houston Press).
• Study says you may be more gullible when in a good mood (Physorg.com). Ah-ha, I'll try to remember that next time I'm in Vegas.
• Virgin Galactic is planning test space flights in 2011 (Reuters). Start saving now!

That's all for now! Time to get back to my Tivo...