NPR's Internal Affairs Department—in conjunction with its Office of Indefinite Detention and its Central Authority for Eliminating Wrong-Thinking—is finally weeding out the last known menace of its member networks: freelance opera contributor Lisa Simeone. She was the host of "Soundprint" (now fired), which aired on (but was not produced by) public radio affiliate WAMU, and is currently the host of the WDAV show “The World of Opera," though not for long, as the officers at NPR are assisting in WDAV's investigation that will surely convict her. Simeone is a member of October 2011, a frightening terrorist organization that opposes the endless war in Afghanistan, now in just its 11th year. (May the next 11 years in Afghanistan be as fruitful, and a noble blessing upon our military industrial complex!) READ MORE

I can summarize the well-informed tripartite New York magazine cover story on Wall Street, while eliding all the details: pretty much no one learned anything, rich people really enjoying spending money, it's not unlikely there'll be a round two mortgage debacle, Wall Street is more consolidated than ever and poses a "greater systemic risk," we're off to enjoy/exploit the BRICs (and CIVETs and EAGLEs, et al), even though Goldman Sachs, among others, took a bath on them over the last few years, slightly fewer Harvard MBA graduates are going straight into Big Finance (they're all becoming consultants, which, same diff!), and lots of people on Wall Street are irritated at the negative attention and don't understand why they can't just keep on rollin'. Also you probably shouldn't trust them with your retirement money, still. Surprise!

Sonia Sotomayor (the activist Latina judge who adjudicates through the lens of her personal experience, unlike Clarence Thomas or the Italian judges, what's his name and what's his name, they're all black to me, since I live in the year 1910) has made it through the sort of grueling, sort of totally ridiculous Judicial Committee hearings with approval for a Senate vote on her elevation to Lord Queen Justice of NAFTA. That will be another boring spectacle. "Among the seven Republicans on the committee, only Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina voted in favor," says the Times. It is sad that the Republican understanding of Sotomayor's deep-seated unfitness to serve, because she believes that judges interpret and therefore create law in the course of their work, law which actually circumscribes human and governmental behavior (instead of Baby God or the Giant Space Jesus Monkey doing so), will not be further heard because of things like democracy and voting and our attention span.

By way of discussing Tony Manero, the 2008 Chilean film just released here to some rapturous reviews, National Review's John Derbyshire offers historical perspective (the picture is set in 1978, four years after the coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power). READ MORE

Here is scientific proof that Twitter either makes you stupid or reveals existing stupidity.

Newish Hollywood site The Wrap presents an "investigation" which reveals "that the reality of reality shows is not nearly so benign: at least 11 reality-show participants have taken their own lives — and two more who have tried to — in tragedies that appear to be linked to their experience on television shows." It's astoundingly tenuous-many of the unfortunate 11 had pre-exisitng mental health issues, and, really, only 11? Out of everyone who's been associated with a reality TV show? (The list includes production people as well as contestants.) It's like the Clinton Body Count list, except that at least topped out near 50 names. Sometimes I hate the Internet.

In re the latest latest foiled terror plot-four small-time criminals planned to blow up a couple of temples in the Bronx and shoot down military planes at an air base in Newburgh-a few questions: Are the authorities only breaking up conspiracies planned by demonstrable idiots, are or are those the only ones they're telling us about? And which scenario is scarier?