1. AIG names recipients of bailout money. I understand that AIG underwrote all of these shit loans, and that somebody’s got to pay out the money to keep the banks afloat, but jesus christ, man, why wasn’t the company regulated to capitalize more than it was? Which leads me to…

2. AIG’s Insistence on bonuses raises ire in Washington …as well as everywhere else.

AIG Chairman and CEO Edward Liddy said his company was taking steps to limit compensation in AIG Financial Products — the British-based unit responsible for issuing the risky credit default swaps that have brought the company to the brink of collapse.

While I understand that the bonuses are written into the contracts of these employees, we, the American taxpayers, now own most of this company. Fire their asses, and give them nothing.

3. Cheney: Hey, Don’t Blame Us For Mess

While discussing the question of fault, Cheney suggested that Democrats on Capitol Hill had tried to block his administration’s efforts to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Right. You couldn’t fix that with a majority in the House and the Senate? Tool.

Yet it was a lobbying group with GOP ties that convinced leading Republicans in the Senate to kill a Republican-sponsored reform bill in 2005. And Politico reported that it was Republican holds in the Senate that delayed a reform bill in late 2007 that would have allowed the terms of mortgages to be rewritten.

4. Possibly the best piece of non-journalism ever committed to tape: Jon Stewart vs. Jim Cramer. This will take a few hours out of your day, but it is well worth the time if you’ve seen your 401k drop by 1/2 in the last six months. (I can’t find an easy link to the whole series, so do a search for Cramer on the Daily Show site).