In the odd couplings department, AOL has just paid $315 million for The Huffington Post. It's more like a merger, and the whole shebang will be run by Arianna Huffington.

The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.

I actually like the idea, but then, I'm one of the few people I know who still uses an AOL e-mail account. So aside from the merger reassuring me that AOL isn't going out of business anytime soon, what does it mean for the news, other than a behomoth conglomerate? [More...]

What's the White House serving for the Super Bowl? Hotdogs, hamburgers, pizza and ice cream. What's on your menu?

Sam Elliott has a great voice. It looks cold in Dallas. Here's Christina Aguilera and the national anthem, only they just went to commercial. (Ok, there she is, I think she did great, even though she missed a few words, and I loved her shoes.)

Update: The line "O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming" came out "What so proudly we watched as the twilight's last gleaming"

Whether you're watching the Super Bowl or not, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

My picks: Christina Aguilera's national anthem length (1:54) (OVER) - Lock of the day.

Time Aguiliera will hold "brave" (6 seconds) - (OVER) - 2nd lock of the day.

Number of times Fox will show Jerry Jones (3) (OVER) (Bonus, will also show Jerry Jones' daughter once.)

Mentions of Brett Favre (2 1/2) - (OVER.)

Time left when Gatorade bath given to winning coach (0:45 second)- (OVER).

Packers player will attempt a Lambeau Leap - (YES)

The keys word for the Super Bowl is OVER, as in OVERdone.

Let me add to the overdone by adding these picks -- TAILS in the coin toss, the Steelers (+3) and the Over 45 points scored.

Open Thread.

Dana Carvey hosts SNL tonight. Jon Lovitz appears during the monologue. Mike Myers shows up in the opener to do Wayne's World (video here.) Carvey also brings back The Church Lady.

Justin Bieber will make a (not very) surprise guest appearance (as part of the Church Lady skit) and Linkin Park is the musical guest.

It hasn't started here yet, but that's what's running on Twitter right now, and the reviews are good.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Update: Congratulations, Ed Sabol! The Hall of Fame Class of 2011: Richard Dent, Marshall Faulk, Ed Sabol, Chris Hanburger, Les Richter, Deion Sanders and Shannon Sharp. Video telling NFL Films story with Steve Sabol (already wearing his red socks) accepting award for his father here.

Update: Live: Ed Sabol makes the final 10. Other 9 are Dawson, Dent, Faulk, Kennedy, Martin, Reed, Roaf, Sanders and Sharpe. Now waiting for them to get down to 5.

Bump and Update 2/5/10: 4:30 pm MT: The meeting lasted 7 hours and 27 minutes. Announcements in 30 minutes. You can watch Steve Sabol discuss his dad's potential induction here. They will all be wearing red socks at the Superbowl in honor of his dad, including the Commissioner. (His dad wears red socks when watching the Superbowl every year. Steve said 130 people will tomorrow.)[More...]

Hosni Mubarak has still not stepped down, but his son, Gamal Mubarak, has resigned his leadership position in Egypt's ruling party.

We're expecting another snowstorm.

What's on your agenda this weekend? This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

Open Thread.

“I will change our bankruptcy laws to make it easier for families to stay in their homes,” [Barack] Obama told supporters at a Colorado rally on September 16, 2008, the same day as the bailout of AIG. [. . .] Obama promised to change that, describing it as exactly “the kind of out-of-touch Washington loophole that makes no sense.”

You know about Tim Geithner's disgraceful tenure as head of the New York Fed. You know about Tim Geithner's disgraceful performance on the 2009 stimulus. You know about Geithner on AIG, TARP and HAMP. Now, via Atrios, Pro Publica reports on Geithner's malfeasance on bankruptcy cramdown for primary residences:

The Obama Administration has discovered the secret to dropping the unemployment rate --get people to stop looking for work:

The United States labor market slowed to a crawl in January, adding just 36,000 jobs last month, far below consensus market forecasts. With 13.9 million people still out of work, the unemployment rate actually fell to 9 percent in part because of a readjustment of population figures and also because fewer people looked for jobs during the month.

Happy Days are here again!

Speaking for me only

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak tells Christine Amanpour he won't leave office now.

"If I resign today, there will be chaos," he said. Asked to comment on calls for him to resign, he said: "I don't care what people say about me. Right now I care about my country."

The New York Times reports the Obama Administration is discussing proposals with Egyptian officials for Mubarak to step down now.

More marches are planned for tomorrow. Will he stay or will he go?

Awal Gul, a 48 year old detainee at Guantanamo, has died. The Pentagon says he suffered a heart attack in the shower after exercising on an elliptical machine. Its press release is here.

Gul is the 7th detainee to die at Guantanamo. Five committed suicide (according to the Pentagon) and one died of colon cancer

The Center for Constitutional Rights responds here. His public defenders, W. Matthew Dodge and Brian Mendelsohn, call the press release outrageous. Here's their statement: [More...]

Via Digby:

Anderson Cooper: if your crew is getting beat up in riots in every country you go to-might that suggest UR the 1 doing something wrong?

-Jay Newton-Small [Time magazine reporter]

What's interesting about this is not only that Newton-Small claims to be a journalist, but that her magazine is owned by the same company that owns CNN. I guess solidarity, journalistic or corporate, is not something Newton-Small adheres to.

Open thread.