Despite the fact that tax and nanny issues reportedly stymied Caroline Kennedy's move to the Senate — which Governor David Paterson is now denying — tax-and-nanny-issues Tim Geithner was confirmed by the Senate after a minor delay and sworn in yesterday. He then gave a speech that I didn't hear because I was at a bar toasting the fact that a man with documented tax and nanny issues can be elevated to the role of Secretary of the Treasury but a woman with rumors of the same should hang her head in shame and withdraw from public life.

Earlier in the day, Barack Obama spent some time shaming the Bush Administration and its "environmental" policies, directing the EPA to try to figure out away to rescind the Bush era order that California isn't allowed to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from cars and get on regulating emissions on a federal level. Hillary Clinton followed that up by announcing that Todd Stern is going to be the State Department's envoy on climate change — meaning that one of the Clinton-era negotiators of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions is going to be in charge of outreach and negotiations on climate change matters. That's probably a good sign — and a better one than the fact that, for the second time in a week, Obama has decided to wave his own rules on lobbyists joining his Administration and announced that a former Goldman Sachs lobbyist is headed to the Treasury Department. I think we've sort of had enough Goldman guys at Treasury for a while.

In other foreign policy-esque news, Obama's pick for CIA director, Leon Panetta, is in a holding pattern having reportedly forgotten to turn in a bunch of his financial disclosure paperwork for his confirmation hearing (early reports indicate the dog at it) but now that Geithner's been confirmed despite his, it'll all probably be ok. Our new UN Ambassador, Susan Rice, called Darfur an "ongoing genocide" and isn't planning on letting it out of her sights when the cameras are off, which is probably a welcome change after the forgetfulness of the last Administration if she follows through.

And in straight-up fucked up news, the Vatican recently un-excommunicated 4 priests who split with the Vatican over the Church's sixties-era statements that anti-Semitism is bad. One of those priests celebrated by getting on television while in Germany and denying the Holocaust. The Nazi Pope thinks that's very poorly done of him, and plans to do fuck-all about it. In the meantime, the gas chambers that the Nazis tried to destroy at Auschwitz to cover up their crimes are falling into severe disrepair — as is much of the Birkenau complex — because of lack of funding, which will allow the next generation of Holocaust deniers to point and say: "Look! Nothing to see here." You know, sort of like the government of the Sudan is hoping to do in Darfur. It seems that evil people, at least, learn the right history lesson.

DO look way happier than usual, like Condi Rice!


DO rock a figure-flattering silhouette like America Ferrera!


DON'T wear the bodice of a Falcon's Crest star, circa 1982, like Fergie!


DON'T channel Judy Jetson, like Natalie Portman.


DO accessorize, like Jane Goodall.


DON'T let your toddler decorate your gown, like Debra Messing.


DO embrace chocolate, like Hillary Clinton!


DON'T forget large hunks of your bodice, like Kerri Walsh.


DO have fun with color, like Tinsley Mortimer!


DO go clean and menswear-inspired, like Kate Bosworth.


DON'T look freakishly like Morticia Adams, like Tyra.


DO wear the prettiest gown ever, like Taylor Swift.


DON'T mess up a cute frock with lame goth nails like Sarah Michelle Gellar.


DO channel 60's inaugural ball like Selita Ebanks!


DON'T do fairy princess just because you're a grownup and you can, like Nicole Kidman!

[Images via Getty]

• "It is just unreal what can happen when we get fear being spread as it is now, and when the general populace goes out and starts doing idiotic things like lining up at the Sam's Club and the Costco and not buying one bag but buying 10 bags just because they might run out." [WSJ]
  
• "It is shocking that people are now speculating on increases in food prices. Banks are telling their clients to bet on soaring prices. The result is that there is now an incentive for speculators to create food shortages. Casino capitalism has taken a seat at the table of the poor.[Economist]
  
• (Rice, corn and wheat prices have risen 180 percent in the last three years.) [Der Spiegel]
  
• The Egyptian army is baking bread; the Philippines is making rice hoarding punishable by life in prison. "For the middle classes," says Ms Sheeran, "it means cutting out medical care. For those on $2 a day, it means cutting out meat and taking the children out of school. For those on $1 a day, it means cutting out meat and vegetables and eating only cereals. And for those on 50 cents a day, it means total disaster." [Economist]
  
• And for Starbucks, it means measly 12% revenue growth. [WSJ]
  
• For Haiti, dominoes and moonshine. [NYT]
  
• OMG but will it mean the end for weak beer? [WSJ]

• As if modern teenagers weren't worthless enough already, getting a summer job is now officially harder than getting into most Ivy League schools, especially Penn. [WSJ]
• Well look here; an American automaker takes a few cues from Toyota and dedicates itself to making cars that don't break down and the strategy may actually be paying off? [WSJ]
• President Barack Hussein Obama: the four scariest words in the English language? [Reason]
• Some Dutch filmmaker thinks Jesus was the child of rape. Not sure how thorough his research was, but it's definitely not good for the "abortion is okay in cases of rape and incest" wing of the Church. [Reuters]
• Congrats on your promotion, General Petreaus. [NYT]