The comedian, known for his role as wacky Tobias Fünke on “Arrested Development,” admitted to Playboy that he snorted the white stuff in Obama’s presence at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in 2009.

“It was a tiny granule of coke that I put on my wrist and said, ‘Watch this. I need a witness.’ And then I ducked under the table and did it,” he told the gentleman’s magazine.

“It wasn’t like I got high. The jolt was similar to licking an empty espresso cup. It wasn’t about that. It was just about being able to say that I did it, that I did cocaine in the same room as the president. I’m not proud of it, nor am I ashamed of it.”

Source: The Daily Caller.

“We are currently discussing several possibilities with all those concerned, and it includes a cessation of fighting in the most affected areas,” the ICRC’s spokesman Carla Haddad told the Associated Pressfrom Geneva on Monday. “The idea is to be able to facilitate swift access to people in need.”

The ceasefire efforts come as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to travel to Tunisia later this week for an international “Friends of Syria” group meeting on the Syrian crisis.

Meanwhile, Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) called for the arming of the Syrian opposition, to defend itself from Bashar al-Assad’s brutal crackdown. “It is time we gave the (opposition) the wherewithal to fight back and stop the slaughter,” McCain said at a Cairo news conference on Monday, Agence-France Press reported.

But top U.S. officials and analysts dismissed such proposals as hasty and unwise, especially given recent U.S. intelligence assessments that al-Qaida is operating in Syria to conduct attacks against the Assad regime.

“I think it’s premature to take a decision to arm the opposition movement in Syria because I would challenge anyone to clearly identify for me the opposition movement in Syria at this point,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview broadcast Sunday. “There are indications that al Qaeda is involved and that they’re interested in supporting the opposition. … And until we’re a lot clearer about, you know, who they are and what they are, I think it would be premature to talk about arming them.”

CONTINUED at Yahoo News. Video at link.

Long before it became clear that Gov. Romney was not going to be able to wrap up the 2012 GOP presidential nomination in January, he and his campaign often pointed to a robust campaign war chest and political organization that was ready to carry him through the long march to the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Of course, back then such talk was employed against his opponents more as bluster and boasting. Today, it is offered up as evidence of Romney’s professed ability to survive.

“The goal is to stay ahead in the delegate count. Mitt Romney is ahead in the delegate count. He’s always been ahead in the delegate count. And I think he’ll stay that way,” said Virginia governor and Romney surrogate Bob McDonnell on a conference call with reporters on Monday.

The Romney campaign national finance chairman hammered the point home in a statement accompanying the announcement of a $6.5 million cash haul last month.

“We are the only campaign who has the organization and resources to go the distance of a long primary process. We know there is a long road ahead and we will remain steady,” Spencer Zwick said.

There have been no external signs of cracking under pressure from the Romney high command in Boston thus far, but the campaign’s composure should Romney suffer a severe blow in Michigan will be an important dynamic to watch.

The latest polls in Michigan show former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum leading Romney, a native Michigander.

CONTINUED at Yahoo News.

“Satan is attacking the great institutions of America, using those great vices of pride, vanity, and sensuality as the root to attack all of the strong plants that has so deeply rooted in the American tradition.”

MORE

The former senator from Pennsylvania warned in 2008 how politics and government are falling to Satan.

“This is a spiritual war. And the Father of Lies has his sights on what you would think the Father of Lies would have his sights on: a good, decent, powerful, influential country – the United States of America. If you were Satan, who would you attack in this day and age?”

“He attacks all of us and he attacks all of our institutions.”

Santorum made the provocative comments to students at Ave Maria University in Florida.

MORE

The White House contender described how Satan is even taking hold of some religions.

“We look at the shape of mainline Protestantism in this country and it is in shambles, it is gone from the world of Christianity as I see it.”

Developing…

Source: The Drudge Report.

But on this day, they had turned out to meet an unknown college dropout from Utah — and to find out how he was knocking them all into a cocked hat.

The unknown, Allan Mecham, had been posting mind-bogglingly high returns for a decade at a tiny private-investment fund called Arlington Value Management, and the Wall Streeters were considering jumping on board. For nearly two hours, they peppered him with questions. Where did he get his business background? I read a lot, he replied. Did he have an MBA? No. I dropped out of college. Did he have a clever computer model or algorithm? No, he replied. I don’t use spreadsheets much. Could the group look at some of his investment analyses? I don’t have any of those either, he said. It’s all in my head. The investors were baffled. Well, could he at least tell them where he thought the stock market was headed? “I don’t know,” Mecham replied.

When the meeting broke up, “most people left the room mystified,” says Brendan O’Brien, a New York City money manager who was there. “They were expecting to see this very sharp-dressed, fast-talking guy. They were saying, I don’t get it, I don’t understand why he wouldn’t have a view on the market, because money managers get paid to have a view on the market.” Mecham has faced this kind of befuddlement before — which is one reason he meets only rarely with potential investors. It’s tough to sell his product to an industry that’s used to something very different. After all, according to their rules, he shouldn’t even be in the business to begin with.

Over a 12-year stretch, through the end of 2011, Mecham, now a mere 34 years old, has earned an astounding cumulative return of more than 400 percent by investing in the stock of U.S. companies — many of them larger ones like Philip Morris, AutoZone and PepsiCo. That investment performance leaves the stock market indexes and most mutual funds trailing far in the dust. Of the thousands of mutual funds in America, only a smattering of stock-oriented funds have done better, according to Lipper. Arlington, which is structured like a hedge fund, has put most firms in that category deep in the shade as well. It even managed to turn a profit during the crash of 2008, when Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell nearly 40 percent. And Mecham has done this mostly while sitting in an armchair, in an office above a taco shop, in downtown Salt Lake City.

Mecham doesn’t look, talk or act like a typical Wall Street manager. He’s soft-spoken. He doesn’t use jargon. He dresses like he works in a bookshop, with a patterned shirt and a plain tie. And the story of his success, arguably, says a lot about the flaws of the fund-management industry. By his own account, and those of other investors who have vetted his fund, Mecham has no secret sauce or amazing algorithm; what’s extraordinary about this young man is how ordinary he is. But his investment approach relies on a handful of common-sense tactics — focusing on just a few stocks, for example, and avoiding or ignoring short-term statistical analysis — that big money-management firms either can’t use or are reluctant to try. Skeptics and admirers alike agree that Mecham’s approach involves a higher-than-usual potential for hefty losses. Russ Kinnel, director of fund research at Morningstar, says most fund customers would be unlikely to take that chance. “Pension funds, consultants, investors in general are quite benchmark-centric,” Kinnel notes; they get uncomfortable when their money managers deviate.

CONTINUED at Smart Money.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 39 points, or 0.3%, to 12989 in midmorning trading. The Dow remained on the cusp of reaching the 13000 level for the first time in intraday trading since May 20, 2008. The last time the Dow closed above that level was May 19, 2008.

The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was up 1.9 points, or 0.1%, to 1363. The Nasdaq Composite added 3.1 points, or 0.1%, to 2955.

“That deal with Greece was widely anticipated for the last couple weeks,” said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist and portfolio manager at Miller Tabak. “That was a catalyst for this market. We got it, and now we have to figure out something else to rally on. The lack of a follow-through after yesterday’s rally in Europe capped our bounce.”

Seven of the S&P sectors were higher, led by energy and materials stocks. Among blue chips, Alcoa and Home Depot rose the most, gaining 1.5%, followed by Chevron, which was up 1%.

CONTINUED at the Wall Street Journal.

Apple

Apple [AAPL  511.04    8.92  (+1.78%)   ], the world’s most valuable technology company, is fighting lawsuits brought by debt-laden Chinese electronics maker Proview Technology (Shenzhen), causing retailers and resellers in more than 10 Chinese cities to take iPads off their shelves, according to media reports.

Apple’s iPad enjoys a huge lead over rival tablet PCs in China with a 76 percent share. Lenovo [0992.HK  7.20    0.27 (+3.91%)   ] and Samsung trail a distant second and third with about 7 percent and 3 percent respectively, data from research firm IDC showed.

“Apple’s loss could be Lenovo and Samsung’s gains,” said Jonathan Ng, an analyst with CIMB in Singapore.

Samsung likely has most to gain, because its Galaxy tablet competes in the same price segment as the iPad.

“Samsung will probably benefit more from Apple’s ongoing lawsuit because both of them are after the same higher-end consumers given their price points,” said Dickie Chang, an analyst from IDC in Hong Kong.

“The impact on Lenovo may be less because Lepads are lower priced and are aimed more at entry-level users.”

A basic iPad 2 typically costs 3,688 yuan ($585), roughly the same price as 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab, while some models of Lenovo’s Lepad were selling at roughly half that price on online retail sites.

IDC said in the third quarter Apple sold about 1.3 million iPads in China, while Lenovo, the world’s second largest PC maker, sold around 120,000 Lepads in its home market and South Korea’s Samsung sold 58,000 Galaxy Tabs.

The Lepad and Galaxy Tab both run on Google‘s [GOOG  613.845    9.205 (+1.52%)   ] Android operating system.

CONTINUED at CNBC.

“Our strategy now is that if we feel our enemies want to endanger Iran’s national interests, and want to decide to do that, we will act without waiting for their actions,” Mohammad Hejazi told the Fars news agency, NBC News reported.

Iran announced air defense war games to practice protecting nuclear and other sensitive sites, the latest in a series of military maneuvers viewed as a message to the West that Iran is prepared both to defend itself against an armed strike and to retaliate.

The U.S. and Israel have not ruled out military action against Iran’s nuclear program.

The official news agency IRNA said the four-day air defense war games, dubbed “Sarallah,” or “God’s Revenge,” were taking place in the south of the country and involve anti-aircraft batteries, radar, and warplanes.

CSM: What would happen if Iran did get the bomb?

The drill will be held over 73,000 square miles near the port of Bushehr, the site of Iran’s lone nuclear power plant.

CONTINUED at MSNBC.