Cheat Sheet

In the wake of Senate Democrats' decision to begin debating America's health-care makeover, several key centrists went on the Sunday talk circuit to announce they will not support the bill as it currently stands. Every Democratic senator and two independents voted in favor of the procedural motion to begin debate on Saturday, but a powerful handful of them spoke up on national television on Sunday about the need to revamp the legislation. Sen. Ben Nelson said on NBC’s Meet the Press that he voted for debate only to get the opportunity to later change the bill. Meanwhile, Joe Lieberman said he would filibuster a final version of the bill that included a public option. "I do not want to fix our health-care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis," he said. Liberals remained upbeat: Senator Charles Schumer argued that a final bill with a centrist public option will succeed in the face of filibusters. Senator Dianne Feinstein said that the incremental nature of the legislative process will allow them to resolve problems up until 2014, when a public option would be implemented. "We can watch; we can change it," she said. Pro-public option legislators have not said whether they consider a government insurance program negotiable.

Some homeowners are receiving help from a mysterious firm offering discounts on their mortgages. In an unusual relationship between Wall Street and homeowners, investment funds have begun buying home loans at a discounted rate, and passing along the savings. What homeowners don't realize is that these "vulture" funds, as they're known in the industry, are profiting from taking on the loans by refinancing through lenders that work with government agencies such as the Federal Housing Administration, which then sell them as securities to investors. In doing so, these funds shift the risk of the loans to the federal government and, something the American public knows all too well now, taxpayers. “From the systemic point of view, there is something disturbing about investors that had substantial short-term profit in backing toxic loans now swooping down to make another profit on cleaning up that mess,” said a financial industry consultant.

As the U.S. readies for the climate summit in Copenhagen next month, scientists and experts are realizing that the current climate looks much more dire than what models predicted in 1997, at the last international accord in Kyoto. At the time, the U.S. withdrew from signing the accord, and China and India weren't a part of it either, even though the three countries comprise the world's top carbon polluters. Since then, world carbon-dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have risen 31 percent, much of it due to China. "The message on the science is that we know a lot more than we did in 1997 and it's all negative," said the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "Things are much worse than the models predicted."

The American war on terror has come to a slow halt because of a shortage of helium 3, a crucial ingredient to machines the U.S. is developing to sniff out smuggled nuclear bombs. The machines were intended to be placed in ports around the world to detect plutonium or uranium in shipping containers headed for the U.S. Detectors using helium 3 tend to be more stable, sensitive, and reliable than other technologies. The element is rare in nature, and derives from the decay of tritium, an ingredient of hydrogen bombs. So far, the Energy Department has been extracting helium 3 from a stockpile of nuclear weapons, but a White House spokesperson said that method "was not sustainable." Demand now outstrips supply 10 times over. Though some government agencies anticipated the shortage, it appears the Homeland Security Department didn't get the memo.

Has Wikipedia's ethos of crowdsourcing sabotaged the Web site? In the first quarter of the year, the Internet encyclopedia lost more than 49,000 editors, compared to one-tenth of that number during the same period in 2008. Contributors to the site speculate that the open democracy has led to infighting among them when it comes to controversial topics, a "too many cooks in the kitchen" dilemma. Another problem with crowdsourcing is that at some point, after inaccuracies, spammers, and "virtual graffiti" littered the site’s entries, executives from the Wikimedia Foundation had to tighten the reins on contributors. The renewed approach led to hundreds of rules and a byzantine hierarchy in which it became difficult to post or edit information at all. The open policy that was the foundation of the service has slowly narrowed, but executives from the Wikimedia Foundation aren’t too worried about the dwindling number of contributors. They say their concern is quality, not quantity.

Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) comes from the nation’s most famous Catholic family, but the liberal politics also attached to the Kennedy name is getting him in trouble. Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin banned Kennedy from receiving Communion in Rhode Island in response to his political support for abortion rights. “The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion,” Kennedy said, adding that Tobin said he was not a good practicing Catholic. According to Kennedy, the two had agreed to no longer discuss his faith in public, after which Tobin published an open letter to Kennedy saying, "Sorry, you can't chalk it up to an 'imperfect humanity.' Your position is unacceptable to the church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your Communion with the church."

The competition was stiff, but 19-year-old Taylor Swift managed beat out Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Kings of Leon, and Eminem for Artist of the Year at the 2009 American Music Awards. Swift also took home awards for favorite female pop/rock artist and best country album. Jermaine Jackson accepted favorite male soul/R&B artist, best soul/R&B and pop/rock album, and favorite pop/rock male awards on his brother Michael's behalf. Other winners included the Black Eyed Peas and Green Day. Sunday night's show included a few notable showstoppers. Rihanna took to the stage to perform a single from her new album Rated R. Lady Gaga put on one of the night's most memorable performances when she sat down to play a grand piano and it caught fire. Jennifer Lopez had a blooper moment when she slipped up on a dance move and landed on her bottom.

What ever happened to the days of the afterschool special? Material once reserved for MTV is now hitting kid-friendly networks such as Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. Programming focusing on the glitz and glamour of a celebrity lifestyle are the central narratives to new shows such as Big Time Rush, about the makings of a popular boy band, and Victorious, about an up-and-coming starlet. Only a few years ago, the channels were still delivering traditional coming-of-age sitcoms about popularity, sibling rivalry, and school. "YouTube and digital technology and social networks, the idea of fame has changed. It's a lot easier to become 'famous'" says one media executive. Another reason for the new trend is that its offshoot can also be lucrative for networks; Miley Cyrus is signed to Disney's Hollywood Records.