Here’s the simple question for the White House, “Why are you still refusing to even consider single payer?!”

Joseph Stack — remember him? He’s the guy who crashed his plane into an Internal Revenue Service building in Austin last week. Fifty-three years old, a Vietnam veteran, Stack killed one IRS manager, Vernon Hunter, and wounded 13 more before killing himself, but you’d be forgiven for forgetting his name, because he largely fell out of the news in the days afterward…

How much senior executives earn, in cash and stock, is public information. How they make it is public too. Trouble is, the two are barely brought together in reporting. One story’s a business story, the other’s, well, for the “human interest” file.

As all humans have a reason to be interested, let’s pull the pieces of one tale together. Let’s take Wells Fargo, the bank whose CEO just topped the charts — as the top earner in the country for 2009.

We were getting ready for today’s show when the fire alarm went off! As if we didn’t have enough trouble to deal with, trying to find a new studio space.

Obviously, this is why you’re not seeing a new show today in this space. We’ll keep you updated as things progress, but we could really use your help.

The Winter Olympics are headed to Vancouver, British Columbia, but activists are pointing out the way international sporting events lead to police crackdowns and displacement of locals. Thanks to our friends at the Vancouver Media Cooperative for the video.

It’s pledge time at many noncommercial, listener and viewer-supported television and radio stations and you may already be feeling irritated by the persistent pleading from your favorite public radio or TV host.

President Obama promised change in Washington, but one year in we’ve got nothing but gridlock. Professor Lawrence Lessig has known Obama for years, and in this video from our friends at The Nation, Lessig calls on Obama to push for real change: change in Congress. We’ll be discussing this issue with Lessig and others on the show soon!

“The deaths of three American soldiers in a Taliban suicide attack on Wednesday lifted the veil on United States military assistance to Pakistan.” So began a Feb 4th piece by Jane Perlez in the New York Times.

It’s Super Bowl season, another year, another scandal. This year’s outburst over CBS’s $3 million Focus on the Family ad has revived the mythology around another Super Bowl ad, that one involving domestic violence. As a player in that story, I’ve come to anticipate game season: the domestic violence Super Bowl so-called “hoax” is one right-wing media-manufactured vampire that just won’t die.

On Tuesday, several the nation’s top military officials, including Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, spoke out in favor of ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Clinton-era policy that can get a lesbian or gay service person fired if their sexuality becomes known.