Saturday night.

* The TSA has finally put an end to the terrorist's favorite toy: snowglobes.

* When your neighbor is unemployed: Bob Herbert has a good column in the New York Times today about the disparate rates of unemployment on different socioeconomic groups.

* 2010 will be the year of the deficit hawk.

* Poetry fight: Stephen King in Playboy vs. an ode to Megan Fox.

* "History should record that whether through unprecedented administrative incompetence or orchestrated mendacity, the American people were misled about the nation’s response to the 9/11 attacks."

* As of July 2009, California's budget shortfall was 49.3% of its general funds. States have considered drastic options to fill such gaps. "I looked as hard as I could at how states could declare bankruptcy," said Michael Genest, director of the California Department of Finance who is stepping down at the end of the year. "I literally looked at the federal constitution to see if there was a way for states to return to territory status." Via Edge of the American West, where eric asks, "Seriously, though, what does it mean—this is not a rhetorical question, I’d really like to know and don’t have an answer—when it seems more plausible to engage in constitutional shenanigans than to, for example, restore the vehicle licensing fee to its full former level, and other measures of that sort?"

Tuesday night politics roundup: Steve Benen once again makes the case for health care incrementalism. Bill Clinton makes the case for not losing. The Senate probably won't pass the Stupak amendment. Open Left, noting a PPP poll suggesting Olympia Snowe can't win a Republican primary in Maine, predicts she'll switch parties; Nicholas Beaudrot concurs and suggests a Mugwump caucus. Contrary to reports, the climate bill does not make Obama dictator. Paid sick leave is a good idea. The GOP is unlikely to take back the House in a context in which it draws all its support from the South. Why employment might not fully recover until 2013. How we can destroy the filibuster. Is Marxism relevant today?

Late night.

* What is the jobless rate for people like you? Post-racial America is awesome. (via)

* Salman Rushdie totally doesn't know his kryptonite.

* DC caught mishandling its recycling. (via)

D.C. law requires recycling at all city buildings, though the law appears to stop at the threshold of all alleys. There, behind businesses and apartment complexes all across the city, this sloppy ritual goes down with striking regularity: In a blur of asses and elbows, workers throw stuff from green containers, black containers, and blue containers in the same truck, creating a jumble of trash and recycling that can never be de-mingled.

* Behind The Men Who State at Goats. (via)

* Alan, who looks much younger than his 72 years, speaks in a meandering monotone, while Sylvia makes tea. "Sylvia is going to put arsenic in our tea." It's an ongoing joke, and one that gets to the nub of their problem. The cryonicists are not dying quickly enough, so the opportunity to hone their skills is limited. (via)

The news from the economy remains pretty grim.

The geography of the recession. Atrios's comment is, I think, perceptive:

I think the colors chosen for this map actually make things "look" a bit better from a national perspective. It's important to realize the second lightest color goes all the way up to 10% unemployment. And then realize a non-trivial numbers of counties are seriously into holy fuck levels of unemplomeny.

The map also demonstrates the extent to which the Northeast (and Durham and the Research Triangle, for that matter) have gotten off relatively light thus far. California and Michigan, in contrast, are looking like disaster areas.

Hard times in North Carolina.