Overnight Briefing & General Reality Check - Oct 11, 2011

Wall Street protesters:

Anyone hoping the Occupy Wall Street protests would just go away should probably start hoping for something more realistic.
Yesterday, on a day when rapper KANYE WEST and talk show host AL SHARPTON dropped by the protest's Zucotti Park epicenter, NYC Mayor MICHAEL BLOOMBERG told the demonstrators they're free to stay as long as they want. "The bottom line," he said, "is that people want to express themselves."
New York magazine poked at the irony of West wearing gold chains to a demonstration that targets wealth inequality. Alongside him was hip-hop impresario RUSSELL SIMMONS, whose net worth is $340 million, according to a recent profile in CNN Money.
Today, hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters are planning a march to the homes of RUPERT MURDOCH, JAMIE DIMON, DAVID KOCH, HOWARD MILSTEIN AND JOHN PAULSON --five of NYC's richest residents.

Recall:

General Motors is recalling some six thousand Corvettes because of a problem with rear hatch hinges.
According to the Detroit News, the issue was discovered during testing. It affects 2011 and 202 model Corvette Coupes. The problem could lead to the rear hatch separating from the vehicle in a crash.
FYI: Dealers will replace both rear hatch hinges. Letters will be sent out to owners this week with instructions on how to get vehicles repaired. (Page)

Money Talks:

"Whoops! Guess we made a mistake!"
The folks at Netflix didn't exactly say that, but yesterday they decided to abandon their plan to split the DVD rental business from the online streaming business while hiking the price by 60 percent.
The new DVD service was gonna be called "Quikster," but that's apparently over now, too, after the company bigwigs took a look at the projections for subscribers, which showed the company was on the way to losing 600-thousand users --instead of gaining 400-thousand.
On his blog which was e-mailed to the remaining Netflix users, CEO REED HASTINGS wrote that he was going back to the original service: "no change: one website, one account... in other words, no Qwikster," he said. However, the price change will stay.
Netflix reportedly has around 25 million subscribers, so the "temporary" loss --although major-- is not enough to cripple the company permanently. But the company's stock dropped to a 52-week low, yesterday, and marketing outsiders say the move to split the company base in two could have been the largest marketing disaster since "New Coke" in 1985.

Like you really care:

Serial monogamist GEORGE CLOONEY is giving his latest squeeze a special birthday vacation. Us Weekly says George took his new lady, former W-W-E Diva STACY KEIBLER to Cabo San Lucas, to celebrate her 33rd birthday this week. Stacy apparently Tweeted a picture of their pool and the palm trees and called it "paradise." (Bartha)

Scrap metal roundup part 1:

You won't see it on a milk carton anytime soon, but there's still a big reward for its safe return.
A $1,000 reward is being offered for information leading to the recovery of a huge bronze statue of a pelican that went missing in Novato, CA, over the weekend. The 700-pound statue, titled "Omay" (a local native American Indian word for pelican) was commissioned by the city council in 2007 at a cost of $27,500. It's 9 feet tall with a 10-foot wingspan.
Police are certain someone must've seen something, but so far leads are coming up dry. At $3 per pound, the bronze is worth $2,100 or so to the thieves if they cut it up and sold it for scrap.
Editor's note: They won't get far on foot.
--If people made their pelican statues out of paper Mache, this wouldn't happen.
--Seems to me the real news here is that taxpayers paid $27,500 for a statue. (Maiman)

Scrap metal roundup part 2:

These thieves in Pennsylvania really wanted to some scrap metal. So, they stole an entire bridge.
The NY Post reports the unidentified group of thugs took an entire 50-foot by 20-foot privately owned bridge, Officers confirm the Coverts Crossing steel bridge in New Castle, Pennsylvania, was worth 100-thousand bucks. Thieves dismantled it with a blowtorch sometime between September 27 and October 5th. (Still)