“New York City, New York, United States” on The Daily Caller

1.) Washington’s Funniest Celebrity tries new routine on ‘This Week’ — White House economic advisor and stand-up comic Austan Goolsbee told some really bad jokes yesterday on “This Week,” alleges David Frum. “I don’t see why anybody’s talking about playing chicken with the…with the debt ceiling.” Goolsbee said yesterday. Also: “If we hit the debt ceiling, that’s…essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history” and that it would “be the first default in history caused purely by insanity.” While the aforementioned superlative is debatable, the rest of Goolsbee’s claim is not. As David Frum points out, Goolsbee is jousting with windmills: Two weeks after the election, Rep. John Boehner said, “Whether we like it or not, the federal government has obligations and we have obligations on our part.” More likely, writes Frum, is that Obama is playing chicken not with debt, but with Americans’ confidence. That’s not funny at all. (more)

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. (AP) — The New York Jets are paying for their sideline shenanigans. (more)

New York City sanitation bosses think they’ve got it so bad that they intentionally delayed snow-removal, according to the NY Post. (more)

1.) Will Paul Ryan’s ‘Road Map’ remain trapped in the glovebox? — The ‘Road Map’ that Rep. Paul Ryan devised when he saw that America was lost in the fiscal woods has received plenty of kudos over the years. Now that Republicans control the house, the bigger question is, Will anybody use it? “Passing the Road Map as part of the House budget would likely go nowhere in the Senate and would undoubtedly draw the president’s veto even if it made it to his desk,” writes The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. “But it would be a conscious decision by Republicans to do more than say no to Obama’s plan, moving beyond mere opposition to advocating a vision of their own.” Reps John Boehner and Eric Cantor refused to comment when TheDC asked about the Road Map’s role in restoring America’s fiscal sensibilities. Doug Mainwaring, a Maryland Tea Party activist, was less reserved: “If the Republican leadership doesn’t get behind Mr. Ryan and actively promote the Road Map, I predict that Tea Partiers will be looking for a new crop of congressmen in 2012.” (more)

These Marines have their Times Square marching orders for matrimony – and they couldn’t be happier. (more)

Stranded by the massive winter storm that battered the East Coast this week, a New York mother of five paid $900 for a cab to drive her family home through heavy snow and high winds, ABC News reported Wednesday. (more)

We’re starting to get a handle on how much the ongoing Snowpocalypse will cost. (more)

Increased warm temperatures indicate global warming. Severe winter storms also help prove global warming, according to a recent op-ed in the New York Times. So is there any weather pattern that would disprove or call into question the existence of global warming? (more)

ICE STATION ZEBRA — On Sunday, in the warmth of the NBC Studios, I found it absurd the NFL called the Eagles-Vikings game because of snow and wind in Philadelphia. You play football in snow and wind. I’ve seen fabled, unforgettable games (The Tuck Rule Game, Michael Vick beating Brett Favre at Lambeau) in snow and wind. Part of NFL lore. And I agreed with Cris Collinsworth, who said last night on NBC that postponing the Minnesota-Philadelphia game until Tuesday night is a dangerous precedent, because, as he said, it opens the door to more weather-related postponements for whatever reason. This can’t have been the first time a municipality declared a weather emergency on the day of an NFL game. (more)

More than nine out of 10 Americans celebrate Christmas – even atheists, agnostics or believers in other faiths, according to surveys by LifeWay Research and USA TODAY/Gallup. They might be roasting chestnuts over an open fire, decking the halls with boughs of holly or trying to get the Chipmunks Christmas song out of their heads, but they are celebrating. The problem is, what are they celebrating? (more)

1.) Joe Biden doesn’t know how to feel about Wikileaks, chooses to feel everything — As the human face of the Obama Administration–we will never forget his honesty during the great swine flue crisis of 2010–Vice Pres. Joe Biden can be expected to accidentally tell something resembling the truth whenever he appears alone in public. Occasionally, Biden feels torn apart by his dual roles as National Billy the Largemouth Bass (singing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”) and his desire to be treated like a grownup human being. Wikileaks has only exacerbated his angst. Last Thursday, Biden told Andrea Mitchell on the air that “leaked cables created no substantive damage — only embarrassment,” and “nothing that I’m aware of that goes to the essence of the relationship that would allow another nation to say: ‘They lied to me, we don’t trust them, they really are not dealing fairly with us.’” A day later, Biden taped an interview with David Gregory for Meet the Press in which he told the MSNBC host, “[Assange] has made it more difficult for us to conduct our business with our allies and our friends,” and “In my meetings — you know I meet with most of these world leaders — there is a desire to meet with me alone, rather than have staff in the room: It makes things more cumbersome — so it has done damage.” Can you now show us on the doll where Hillary Clinton touched you, Joe? You are not going to get in trouble! (more)

It is going to take awhile to think about the Phillies as the overlords of baseball, the team that can outspend and outrecruit all of the others. (more)

According to the research Jim Brooks did for his new movie, “How Do You Know,” many athletes set aside part of their homes for their trophies. If he did the same thing, he’d have to build a separate wing to accommodate all the hardware he’s received in more than 40 years in show business: three Oscars (for writing, directing and producing “Terms of Endearment”) plus nearly two dozen Emmys for his work on such programs as “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “Taxi” and “The Simpsons.” (more)

A Catholic nun broke one of the Ten Commandments by embezzling $850,000 from a suburban New York City college and gambling it away in Atlantic City, according to federal prosecutors. (more)

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In the span of less than a day, independent film cognoscenti on both coasts have declared the teeny drama “Winter’s Bone” a top film of the year. The bleak tale set in the Ozark Mountains grabbed seven nominations Tuesday for the Spirit Awards including best feature, just hours after taking home the best-film crown Monday night at the Gotham Awards in New York. (more)

By failing to promptly pay therapists for their work with New York City (NYC) school children, the Board of Education (BOE) is damaging both the practitioners’ livelihoods and children’s access to services. (more)

New York is looking for a few good dogs. (more)

Steven Rattner began Thursday basking in the glow of a job well-done, as the one-time auto czar watched General Motors Co. emerge from a government bailout to be warmly received by the stock market again. (more)

Let’s be honest: This weekend is just killing time until next weekend, when a season’s field could get flipped at Tuscaloosa’s Iron Bowl and Reno’s “Biggest Little Football Game in the World,” Boise State at Nevada. (more)