• President Barack Obama announced his nominee to replace David Souter: Sonia Sotomayor. Jeffery Rosen wishes conservatives wouldn’t use his critical article about her from a few days ago as a source for criticism of her now. He won’t get his wish.
• California’s highest court upheld Proposition 8, but maintained that existing same-sex marriages were still recognized.
• Rumblings that North Korea is only getting warmed up in its latest campaign to bum the rest of the world out.
• Everything you learned in sex-ed was a lie.

A headline/subhead pairing headed straight for the SEPFM hall of fame:

Stocks decline on swine flu concerns

Stocks fall moderately as investors worry that swine flu could spread, slam economy

Did they take a survey? Wiretap the offices of psychiatrists catering to Wall Street traders? Or perhaps they just made this up. Either way, who cares about stock prices when we’re all gonna die?:

The flu is not yet a global pandemic.

Yet. If you have any stock in Life As We Know It [LWK 2.149 0.459 (+27.16%)] I strongly advise selling.

(h/t CWB)

From Zero Hedge:

(click for a larger, legible version)
King Felix comments:

In a nutshell, the problem is the classic one: on the left-hand side nothing is right, and on the right-hand side nothing is left, at least absent government intervention. Says Tyler:

As the government has the best information about the true sad state of affairs, it is likely that as more and more information about the weakness of the financial system comes to light, more of these support guarantees will become utilized to their full extent. This also means that the asset side of the balance sheet is potentially “inflated” by almost 75% and the net result could be the most dramatic collapse in a banking system’s assets in recorded history as over $8 trillion in “assets” are reevaluated.

This doesn’t need to be probable to be terrifying: it just needs to be possible. And Tyler’s point is that the government has put all of these programs in place precisely because it’s possible. So: fear is entirely rational here.

As FDR cautioned (according to the Onion): We have nothing to fear but a crippling, decade-long depression.