Bill de Blasio wants you to know he shovels his own snow-encrusted sidewalk, arranging feel-good photo-ops to show off his civic pride. The New York mayor feels a bit differently, however, about wooing the powerful pro-Israeli lobbying group AIPAC, whose members he spoke to in a Manhattan hotel on Thursday night, for a speech omitted from his public itinerary.

Yesterday, Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley gave his State of the State speech. Things were going well... until the governor paid accidental tribute to Anchorman and read the subhead "conclusion" from the teleprompter.

Stocks were down 175 points yesterday, and they're already down 150 more today, because people are worried about the financial situation of emerging markets. It's expected "to get worse before it starts getting better." Not enough to burst any bubbles yet, but hey, give it some time.

Teen Mom alum and "sex tape" maker Farrah Abraham is on this season of VH1's Celebrity Rehab replacement, Couples Therapy. Except she's not in a couple, so for her this show is therapy therapy, which is to say theater (she's into that less-is-more style of acting where you start to whisper at times of heightened emotion). She apparently conned producers into letting her on the show without a significant other. I'm sure producers were willfully conned, though, figuring that having her on the show solo in any capacity would make for good TV. They weren't wrong.

Yesterday, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchel interrupted a conversation about the NSA with former congresswoman Jane Harman to introduce some breaking Justin Bieber news.

If you are a "normal" person with "common sense" values who doesn't always "get" the way that Wall Street works, here is a very simple lesson.

"Millennials looking for a 'revolution' at Davos." Keep on looking.

This happened on last night's episode of Here Comes Honey Boo Boo. The tongue action is explicit. This show is Pink Flamingos.

On Thursday, a Kansas judge ordered a man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple to pay child support, despite the fact that the man and the couple signed a contract waiving him of his parental rights.

Bill Gates wants to offer the world a better, thinner condom. You know, for the ladies: "We're a big funder of innovation in that area, as well."

On Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that he would be open to negotiations with Edward Snowden's lawyers but only if the former NSA contractor pleaded guilty first.

The bank accounts of Menachem Stark, a real estate developer recently found burned and dead in a Long Island dumpster, are missing $1.7 million, according to a court-ordered review.

Just a few days after Barack Obama told the New Yorker that he doesn't think weed "is more dangerous than alcohol," Attorney General Eric Holder is finally clarifying that federally insured banks can accept cash from legal marijuana purveyors without having to worry about potential drug racketeering charges.

The Syrian Electronic Army briefly took over CNN's Twitter and Facebook accounts tonight. According to the network, the "posts were deleted within minutes and the accounts have since been secured." The SEA also successfully hacked the Times back in August.

The drought currently squeezing Southern California into a bone dry pile of dust also comes with a few unfortunate side effects like browned lawns, dangerous fire conditions, oh, and bears.

A Florida man on trial for fraud has come up with a graphic defense — his sex tapes.

This evening, New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan wondered in her "journal" (blog) whether the Times should have devoted more coverage to the annual "March for Life" in Washington D.C., happening this year for the 41st time. She quotes an email from one "Francis H. Hoffman":

Today the Pope cleared up the age-old question: God, not Al Gore, invented the internet.

GOP hero and Obama’s America director Dinesh D’Souza—remember him?—has embarrassed his party once again.