Whole Lotta Wednesday Going On

* TSA: Total Sexual Assault.  The TSA's new scanners and groping policy have inspired T-shirts and a backlash from travelers. Now one blogger says she was sexually assaulted by a TSA inspector. Bonus: Israeli security expert says, "I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747."

* I have great agents. No, really. I'll say that even when they're working for other people: "Machinist Closes Major 3-Book Debut Deal" and "Fox 200 Buys Hot Dystopian Novel"

* Freshman congressman breaks the land-speed record for hypocrisy: wants to know why he doesn't immediately have government health care after running against government health care.

* Speaking of douchebag politicians, a councilman called the cops on two kids selling homemade cupcakes. When people say they hate the government, this is what they mean.

* Matt Taibbi looks at the foreclosure process. Surprise: it's just as messed up as everything else about the economic meltdown.

We ponied up billions to help Wells Fargo buy Wachovia, paid Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch, and watched as the Fed opened up special facilities to buy up the assets in defective mortgage trusts at inflated prices. And after all that effort by the state to buy back these phony assets so the thieves could all stay in business and keep their bonuses, what did the banks do? They put their foot on the foreclosure gas pedal and stepped up the effort to kick people out of their homes as fast as possible, before the world caught on to how these loans were made in the first place.

* Interview with Christopher Hitchens as he continues to battle cancer, glass of whisky in hand. My favorite line: "Not for the first time, I feel a twinge of pity for that tumour. Does it realise what it's up against?"

* If you haven't read this story about a little girl killed in a police raid gone wrong in Detroit, you really need to.

"You might say that the homicide of Aiyana is the natural conclusion to the disease from which she suffered," Schmidt told me.

"What disease was that?" I asked.

"The psychopathology of growing up in Detroit," he said. "Some people are doomed from birth because their environment is so toxic."