INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC COMMITTEE rejects women ski jumpers again.

UPDATE: More: “If the B.C. Court of Appeal orders the Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee to put on an event for female ski jumpers, the International Olympic Committee won’t recognize the results or hand out medals, Dick Pound, Canada’s IOC member said Thursday. Even worse, he said, it would likely wreck any future chances of Canada hosting another Olympics.”

Why not just abolish the Olympics? The whole enterprise is increasingly corrupt and lame anyway.

10 WEEKS AFTER PASSING BUDGET, California Is Already In The Red. Plus this: “California, a state that’s been among the hardest hit by the recession, had already issued $22 billion of debt since March, including $8.8 billion of notes that provided the state with an advance on taxes collected next year.”

SO DOES REASON NUMBER ONE pretty much cover things?

OUCH: “USA Today is expecting to report a 17 percent decline in circulation. That would be its largest drop ever. While most large newspapers are struggling to keep print subscribers and newsstand sales, USA Today is also being slammed by the slump in travel. Many of the newspaper’s sales come in hotels and airports.”

THE DNC TAKES THE “BIG TENT” APPROACH: Glenn Greenwald, Ezra Klein, and Peter Beinart as “Republicans.”

MICKEY KAUS: “Funding for 300 miles of actual (not ‘virtual’) fence along the Mexican border appears to have been killed in a House-Senate conference, after the Senate voted for it 54-44. So Senators from California, Arizona and Texas get to say they voted for the fence, but it doesn’t get built. That’s how Kabuki is done!”

A VIRAL CAUSE of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

A BUNCH OF interesting food links.

RED STATE UPDATE on Obama’s Nobel.

“Carter and Gore and Obama — that’s like the Mt. Rushmore of shut-the-hell-up!”

A READER SENDS THIS IPHONE PHOTO FROM today’s Tucson Tea Party rally.

PHOTOVOLTAIC solar shingles.

ENERGY POLICY: U.S. Blocks Oil Drilling at 60 Sites In Utah.

BBC: What happened to global warming? “For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.”

POLL: SOLID MAJORITY OF AMERICANS support same-sex unions.

POLL: 54% Favor Middle-Class Tax Cuts Over New Spending on Health Care. “Thirty-three percent (33%) of voters say new spending for health care reform is more important. But 54% rate middle class tax cuts as the priority over more health care spending. Thirteen percent (13%) aren’t sure. These findings are identical to ones just before Congress’ August recess and prior to President Obama’s effort to jump start his health care reform initiative with a nationally televised speech to Congress.”

JONATHAN ADLER: Release the Koh Memorandum on Honduras. Sounds like Harold doesn’t think it’s his best work.

PRAISE OUR NOBEL LAUREATE, you churlish anti-American.

A BUNCH OF Nobel Prize cartoons.

A SATIRE WITH CONSEQUENCES. Is it a rendezvous with scarcity?

IN THE MAIL: Jay Lake’s Madness of Flowers.

ALLEN BARTON ISN’T A DOCTOR, but he plays one at the White House.

A BEAUTY CONTEST that’s long overdue?

More here.

STEVEN RAMIREZ: Runaway Debt?

I guess that can go with the runaway unemployment.

RICHARD FEYNMAN ON Nobel Prizes. “I don’t believe in honors. Honors is epaulets, honors is uniforms.”

THE HAZARDS OF BLOGGING: “The state of New York has cut off unemployment benefits for a 2008 law grad after she reported collecting $1.30 a day in advertising income from her blog.”