Gruesome News Day
A massive car bomb in Lahore killed at least 23 people and injured 300, leaving an eight-foot crater and "a vista of flattened concrete and destruction." [ New York Times ]
Republicans will bitch about President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, but in the end they don't really have the votes to stop her, and she's replacing a liberal anyhow so it's not like her addition will radically alter the voting habits of the court. [ Reuters ]
GM bondholders failed to leap at a very crappy offer to exchange their bonds for fairly worthless stock, so now the company will go into bankruptcy instead. [ Bloomberg ]
A cyclone hit eastern India and Bangladesh, displacing millions, and probably killing a couple hundred tigers in one of the world's biggest tiger reserves. [ Reuters ]
The International Booker Prize is awarded every two years not on the basis of individual books but on a writer's whole body of work, and this year it went to Alice Munro, the Canadian lady who writes very sort of quiet and subtle short stories that are also revelatory and terrific and perfect in their own non-show-offy way. [ BBC News ]
A federal wiretap released yesterday revealed that Roland Burris talked with Rod Blagojevich's brother about raising money for the governor, but mostly Burris just cleared his throat and danced nervously around The Issue. [ Chicago Tribune ]