The News Today

• The Monologue:
• Elena Kagan will become the third sitting Jewish member of the Supreme Court. And you thought we ran Hollywood?
• According to the US Census, Jews made up 2.2% of the US population in 2008. That would mean there should be 0.198 Jewish justices. Maybe Scalia's grandmother intermarried? Eh, suck it, Affirmative Action!
• According to this article, BP has tried to stem the "Spill, Baby, Spill" by shooting golf balls and pieces of tire into the leak. Does that seem like a good idea? I mean, it sounds fun, but helpful to the environment?
• Random Pop Culture:
• The Amazing Race is generally such a fun show that I struggle with whether or not a season can really be bad. This season seemed weak, thanks to some really stupid teams and the inevitable comparison to one of the best ever Survivor seasons running at the same time. The producers removed all doubt from my mind last night with a super lame final episode. None of the challenges were difficult in any way and the margins between the teams came from a clever travel move and a travel difficulty. So the end results may have been surprising, but they were anti-climactic all the same.
• The Pacific is great TV, but it (maybe predictably) jumped over to "disturbing" in the sixth of its ten episodes. The first half of the hour turned into a battle scene reminiscent of the beginning of Saving Private Ryan, as Marines ran across an airfield and a bloody mess ensued. The show really is brilliant, but that was very hard to watch.
• In thinking about The Pacific, I was trying to determine the intensity scale. If The Hurt Locker is one extreme, what's the other? Blue's Clues? Sesame Street? Armageddon?
• Random Music Video:
• Today is Sid Vicious' birthday, but the biggest rock star in the world (I think, right?) turns 50 today: