• A good bill that’s not going anywhere.
• Krugman’s take.
• Fallows’ take.
• More from the Texas miracle.
• Wingnuts: almost everything is a Ponzi scheme.

Discretion in remembrance is the key to the weekend.

Gina Sicilia — Addicted.

Hey, Al Gore! Come on down to the White House fence where the Tar Sands protesters were arrested and dare Obama to arrest you!

Brains…BRAINS! Teh Gay Activists® are “kidnapping the brains” of California’s kids! It must be true because Randy Thomasson of Save California said so in a Fox 40 video! …umm, right?

As a single mother whose life’s work has largely focused on solving the climate crisis, I’m often in a quandary: how much do I share of the work I do on this issue — which overwhelms those rare adults who immerse themselves in the details with grief — with my 11-year-old son?

When I posed this question in an interview with NASA’s top climate scientist, Dr. James Hansen, who often speaks of his grandchildren as his motivator for speaking out on climate change, he advised me that it is more important to let a child be a child

Remember back in July when actress Mila Kunis agreed to accompany a Marine to the Marine cotillion/prom/coming out party thing? Conservatives got all bonerfied because, finally there was an upstanding (and hawt) Hollywood actress who understood that freedom isn’t free and, omigawd , she’s Ukrainian! so she KNOWS how good she has it here unlike all those Hollyweird homos and America haters.

Yeah, good times.

Here is a summary of the American Jobs Act that the White House is putting out. I don’t have a ton of time to analyze it right now, but much of it will be familiar, albeit with a few new wrinkles. There’s $35 billion for state fiscal aid, which is somewhat robust and good bang for the buck in terms of saving jobs. All in all there’s $105 billion in infrastructure/public works (that includes a replenishing of the Neighborhood Stabilization Fund, which helps address the foreclosure crisis). And there’s an attempt to restart the TANF Emegency Fund with $5 billion or so. That’s on top of the $170 billion for the payroll tax cut and extending unemployment insurance. So all in all, back of the envelope says about $315 billion.

President Obama addresses a joint session of Congress tonight at 7:00 pm ET to discuss the need for measures to improve the economy and create jobs. The White House has been releasing preliminary summaries — see David Dayen’s post — while the GOP has spent recent days dismissing the speech in advance and insulting the President. We’ll see if the speech has more to add and provides a convincing narrative.

The Super Committee, what we’ve been calling Catfood Commission II, held its first meeting today. There wasn’t much on the agenda, just the internal governing rules of how the committee will proceed, under the direction of co-chairs Patty Murray (D-WA) and Jeb Hensarling (R-TX). Both sides are talking about compromise and the need for action, but a lot of that talk can be dismissed as empty. The fault line that’s starting to emerge is over whether job creation strategies should be part of the Super Committee’s work.