skippy the bush kangaroo

we’ve all got our favorite type of girl scout cookie, and it appears lowdown, dirty thieving scoundrels who would steal from the young scouts are no exception. someone made off with almost $19,000 worth of cookies from a south carolina warehouse — all of them either of the thin mints or shortbread variety. - consumerist

governor andrew m. cuomo today announced that a department of financial services investigation uncovered $200 million in insurance funds from superstorm sandy that are being held by banks and have not yet been sent to homeowners who need the money to pay for necessary repairs.

the cuomo administration has sent letters to banks and mortgage servicers asking that they use maximum discretion and effort to speed the release of funds. the department has also sent letters to fannie mae and freddie mac seeking emergency reforms of their rules and policies relating to the release of insurance funds by banks and servicers. - governor cuomo's office

high levels of a dangerous toxin found in bagged dog food on a grocery store shelf in iowa have highlighted the prevalence of a problematic mold in last year's u.s. corn crop, as state and federal officials work on limiting the food safety concern. - reuters

as defense secretary. the gop's little nutter hissy fit has ended....for this nominee.

conservative media outlets spent days beating on hagel, combing through everything they could get on him, and printing even the most baseless of it, like the accusation that he’d accepted money from a group called friends of hamas, which does not exist. the freshman senator ted cruz, of texas, came close to suggesting that hagel was a paid agent of saudi arabia or north korea. as late as tuesday, just before the cloture vote, senator james inhofe, of oklahoma, was on the senate floor trying to link hagel to holocaust denial in iran. (in a particularly bizarre moment, inhofe brought up “schindler’s list,” which came out twenty years ago, and said he’d seen it for the first time three days ago.) none of it amounted to anything.

but after the right put so much effort into tanking the nomination of a man who used to be one of their own, the republicans in the senate couldn’t simply let hagel past without putting on some kind of show. so that’s what they did: they kicked and screamed a little, and they delayed the final vote by a couple weeks, knowing all the while what the outcome would end up being. it was a futile display, but it was fitting, too, as a glimpse of what the gop.’s legislative strategy has become in the obama era: not governing but petulance. - the new yorker

state sen. michael rubio abruptly resigned friday to accept a position managing california governmental affairs for chevron corp., saying a desire to spend more time with his family motivated his decision to step down.

rubio, a moderate democrat who has launched a high-profile quest to overhaul the state's environmental review laws, said he had "missed too many family dinners, bedtime stories and parent-teacher conferences."

"i have realized that my current professional path has left little opportunity to be home for those who are most important to me, which is why I am making a change," he said in a statement.

while legislators routinely step down to take another public office or work in governmental relations after leaving the capitol, it is rare for a sitting lawmaker to resign to take a job in the private sector. - slo tribune

it’s been clear, at least since the 2012 election, that the republican party has abrogated its role—really, abandoned any interest—in shaping or seriously discussing american foreign policy. but only recently has this indifference shifted into toxic territory, and on tuesday the fumes formed a poisonous cloud, the likes of which hadn’t been witnessed in decades. - slate

...there are some potentially serious short- and long-term consequences to all of this, which should worry both parties. if republicans are actually able to derail hagel with a filibuster, it would shatter tradition and might lead to similar filibusters in the future – both for obama’s nominees and for nominees of future presidents from both parties. - salon

as drought continues, texans’ thirst for electricity is drawing down supplies of the water needed to quench it. - fuelfix

a long-running dispute between yale university and some of its alumni over the university’s connections to pepsico, the giant beverage and snack company, has — in a way — reached the supreme court.

pepsico is sponsoring a conference in april for women who attended yale, and justice sonia sotomayor, a graduate of yale law school, is scheduled to make remarks, to the dismay of some alumni. - nytimes

every day, it seems a new report comes out praising the ongoing housing recovery. in georgia, home prices are up 5 percent over last year, a year in which we also had one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country. seems a little odd, doesn’t it? don't foreclosures usually drive down the market?

that’s because the housing “recovery,” as they’re calling it, is fueled almost entirely by wall street private equity firms, hedge funds and the fed's unwavering support. after creating a massive bubble in home prices that eventually burst and caused our economy to go into a tailspin, these guys have decided to come back for more, and figured out a way to profit off their destruction -- by turning foreclosed homes into rentals and securitizing the rental income. - alternet