The Big Picture: Want to know why financial reform has been dead in the water so far? "The banks run the place."

Southern Beale: No wonder Republicans didn’t bother to fix healthcare all those years they were in power. There’s too much money to be made by keeping it broken.

Truthdig: The chief justice of the California Supreme Court has a choice word for the state’s method of operation: dysfunctional

PERRspectives: The Nobel Prizes for Conservatives

Fafblog!: Our Threatiest Threat

HOLY CRAP: Clueless Christian...Biblical figures return to cleanse Conservapedia...Christian baseball?...Bill Tyndale's Bible...Jesus is their Health Care...Pray for me...Murder is caused by legalized abortion?...The First Question...Mr. Deity...Your friend & brother in Christ...Polygamous Marriages endorsed

The Bobblespeak Translations: What Obama really said yesterday on Meet the Press. Later in that hour, David Gregory actually did his job...for once

Prairie Weather: The most important health-care document released this week was not Sen. Max Baucus's Healthy Future Act. It was the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2009 Employer Benefits Survey.

Calculated Risk: Senator Dodd pushing new bank regulatory plan

skippy the bush kangaroo: Environmental news

The Washington Note: Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu might be Obama's Khrushchev

Rising Hegemon: Conservatives and Porn

From PBS:

In this sneak peek from "Inside the Meltdown," FRONTLINE revisits a pivotal moment in the fall of Bear Stearns: CEO Alan Schwartz appears on CNBC to address Wall Street rumors that the investment bank is in trouble.

In "Inside the Meltdown," airing Tuesday, February 17 at 9 pm on PBS, FRONTLINE investigates the causes of the worst economic crisis in 70 years and how the government responded. The film chronicles the inside stories of the Bear Stearns deal, Lehman Brothers' collapse, the propping up of insurance giant AIG, and the $700 billion bailout. Inside the Meltdown examines what Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke didn't see, couldn't stop and haven't been able to fix.

If you missed the show tonight it can be watched in its entirety on line on Frontline's web site.