Midday Open Thread

• In case you missed it, Digby has an immoderate proposal:

  I have a moral objection to paying for any kind of erectile dysfunction medicine in the new health reform bill and I think men who want to use it should just pay for it out of pocket. After all, I won't ever need such a pill. And anyway, it's no biggie. Just because most of them can get it under their insurance today doesn't mean they shouldn't have it stripped from their coverage in the future because of my moral objections. (I don't think there's even been a Supreme Court ruling making wood a constitutional right. I might be wrong about that.)  [...]

  I realize that many people disagree with my moral objections to men getting erections which God clearly doesn't want them to get, but my principles on this are more important to me than theirs are to them. So too bad. If you want a boner, pay for it yourself.

• CNN has announced that John King will take over Lou Dobbs' time slot after yesterday's abrupt departure by the batshit insane, xenophobic hate-monger.
• Meanwhile, Greg Sargent wonders if the progressive blogosphere will receive any credit for Dobbs' exit.
• Dede Scozzafava, the one-time Republican nominee in New York's 23rd District, says that she's staying with the GOP, but:

  ... warned Republicans that “you have ideology that’s really not based on any sort of substance that can move an agenda forward, that can really help people in this country.”

  Apparently she's sticking it out because of how great the party was ... in 1854.

• Read one man's account of his chance meeting with President Obama at Arlington National Cemetery.
• Oh no. Kenneth Feinberg is worried that forcing pay cuts on the people who helped run the economy into the ground may mean they'll quit and have to be replaced with ... people who didn't help run the economy into the ground?
• ACORN is suing the U.S. government:

  Saying a resolution by the House of Representatives that barred Acorn from receiving federal aid violated the Constitution by singling the antipoverty group out for punishment, lawyers for Acorn filed a lawsuit on Thursday that seeks to restore the financing.

  The lawsuit, filed in United States District Court in Brooklyn, says that the Congressional resolution constitutes a “bill of attainder,” or a legislative determination of guilt without a trial.

• If a man is judged by the friends he keeps ...
• Is Diaper Dave Vitter's (R-LA) block on a nominee for the EPA because of his "close ties" to the formaldehyde industry?

  Today, the future of the formaldehyde industry is very much in jeopardy. A few years back, the International Agency for Research on Cancer definitively announced that the chemical, used in building materials and household products, causes cancer in humans. The EPA, which has studied formaldehyde's risks for more than a decade, doesn't go quite so far, saying it's a "probable human carcinogen." But that could soon change. The EPA has recently signaled that it plans to definitively assess formaldehyde's health effects. "This is not the time for more delay," an EPA spokeswoman told the New Orleans Times-Picayune in September. As the agency's research director, Anastas would surely have a role in this assessment. Given that one of Anastas' specialties is researching "the design of safer chemicals and chemical processes to replace hazardous substances," the formaldehyde industry is predictably concerned about his nomination.

• Who said the following?

   The American people deserve an open and honest debate to ensure the best possible solution to our health care problems ...

  Michele Bachmann. And no, I'm not kidding.