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December 31, 2011 | | END OF DAYS Rocked by key staff defections and behind in the polls, the Minnesota congresswoman heads into Tuesday’s vote in serious trouble. The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove reports from Iowa on the happy warrior’s smiling determination—and why she thinks she can still pull off an upset win. POWER PLAY Iran's recent military bluster has certainly been good for any of its neighbors seeking massive weapons deals from the United States. The U.S. will sell the United Arab Emirates $3.48 billion in missiles and other technologies, part of a military buildup in allies surrounding Iran. The deal, which the Pentagon says will promote a “secure and stable” Persian Gulf, includes 96 sophisticated missiles and a contract for a missile defense system. Thursday the Obama administration announced a deal to sell Saudi Arabia $30 billion in F-15SA fighter jets. ANONYMOUS Hacker collective Anonymous is continuing its campaign to embarrass the security think tank Stratfor, dumping the names, email addresses, and passwords of around 860,000 customers, as well as credit card information for 75,000 clients. “The time for talk is over,” said an Anonymous member before dumping the data. “Did you notice 50,000 of these email addresses are .mil and .gov?” Stratford, a private intelligence-analysis firm, gathers non-classified data on world events. Anonymous then threatened a new campaign for New Year's Eve—protests outside jails and attacks law enforcement targets. HARSH Ron Paul is currently just behind Mitt Romney in the days leading up to the Iowa caucuses, but the congressman is already saying that he may not support any of his rivals for the nomination. In an interview with Bloomberg News, Paul says that he could not back them unless they adopted some of his priorities as their own. He added that the other candidates represent the “status quo.” However, Paul did say that Romney’s business experience would make him a better choice than Newt Gingrich. Meanwhile, Herman Cain is trying to grip tightly to his last bit of relevancy before he drifts off into the land of forgotten candidates by holding out on his endorsement until after the Iowa caucuses start Tuesday. In fact, Cain's campaign manager suggested to the AP that the former hopeful doesn't think any of the GOP candidates have proven themselves worthy of his endorsement. DEJA VU The stock market may have dipped and soared this year but in the end it landed less than a point away from where it did in 2010. This is the smallest annual change ever. With economic volatility across the globe—from the Middle East to Japan and, of course, Europe, investors are relieved to be done with 2011—and grateful for the uneventful finish, which had the potential to be much worse. | | 
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