Things we ignored today!
• Ha! Dumb failed insurance company AIG has been replaced in the Dow by ... Kraft! Who make cheese products and stuff! Things that Americans actually like!
• Oh my God, failed bond trader (okay, and excellent journalist) Michael Lewis is giving us five reasons to enjoy the economic collapse. It's almost as if an editor said to him, "Give me something counterintuitive!"
• So for some reason Condi Rice totally went off on Russia. Maybe it was over their habit of rolling tanks into other nearby countries, but sheesh! Meanwhile, Russia's stock market has halted trading for most of the week and things are, like, bad.
• In exciting local Alaskan news—isn't it weird that we all follow Alaskan politics now?—Senator Ted Stevens will be allowed to subpoena medical records of a witness: Stevens claims this witness got hit on the head real hard and therefore is misremembering how he gave Stevens sexy illegal gifts. And! The Alaskan Republican primary for the House seat is over—Lt. Governor Sean Parnell has conceded to highly indictable longtime Rep. Don Young.
• UK comic Russell Brand's attempt to take over America is a disaster.
• Do not look at Donatella Versace's feet. DO NOT.
• Joan Didion on politics at the Brooklyn Book Festival.