The interview continues below.

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm / 10c.

Latinos In A Lose-Lose Situation: The economic reality of Mexico is hardly hopeful, which is why immigrants risk life and limb to scurry over the border to America, just so they can face gringo hostility. Daphne Eviatar highlights a report about immigrant discrimination. [washingtonindependent.com]

Racist Rally About Racism: Why is that, in the manicured world of international diplomacy, walking out of a meeting in a huff is a masterly insult? Anthony Lerman wants the West to debate racist loonies who rant at anti-racist conferences about other races. [guardian.co.uk]

Chrysler to Big Government: Nuts To You: Blogger Rob is a true Darwinian capitalist: if you're company sucks, it should go down. And that means, if you're a struggling car company, you shouldn't accept government handouts. Build a better car, or hit the bricks. [sayanythingblog.com]

But, I still think I prefer GraphJams…

[Link]

And another pertinent one after the jump…

[Link]

U.S. congressional budget analysts have raised their estimate of the net cost to taxpayers for the government's financial rescue program to $356 billion, an increase of $167 billion from earlier estimates.

The Congressional Budget Office had originally projected the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program would cost taxpayers $189 billion.

$356 billion?! Jesus! I don't know; that just seems like a lot.

I don't know about you, but, frankly, I was gonna be struggling to pay back the original $189 billion. This additional $167 billion is kinda demoralizing. Ya know?

I might have to get second job in a coffee shop or something. Hopefully some place with a tip jar.

Stimulate The Economy, Forgive Student Debt! Bailing out banks and other financial institutions might benefit robber barons, monocle salesmen, and ducks who surf waves of gold coins. But what about those of us who got liberal arts degrees? Where's our bailout? Nice. [baltimoresun.com]

Country Club's Totally Open To Hobos!  Country clubs use to be stuffy places where rich men in plaid pants walked around a park, following little white balls. And now, they're inviting scrubs like us! [scotsman.com]

For Sale: One Fabulous, Infamous Prison! Cheap!  Have you ever watched one of those cable documentaries about life inside hellish penitentiaries like San Quentin? They're awesome and terrifying, and for $2 billion dollars, you could make your very own version! [marketwatch.com]

Adorable Marshmallow Whales To Save Actual Ones  The Japanese love eating some endangered whale: whale soup, whale sandwiches, whale cake. The joke will be on them when they accidentily catch a gigantic, marshmallow decoy! Ha!  [planetsave.com]

But, then again, this isn't exactly the country at its in-the-mood-for-funniest…

He made the video for something called Take Back the Economy.

This should be pretty entertaining, considering that its budget is a couple hundred billion dollars more than the original.

We're heading over to Tim Geithner's place…

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told CNN Thursday his department asked Sen. Chris Dodd to include a loophole in the stimulus bill that allowed bailed-out insurance giant American International Group to keep its bonuses.

In an interview with CNN's Ali Velshi, Geithner said the Treasury Department was particularly concerned the government would face lawsuits if bonus contracts were breached… Geithner told Velshi Thursday he takes full responsibility for the situation.

What's the appropriate etiquette in such financial matters? Drawing and quartering or burning at the stake?

Oh, can we do both? I wish we could do both.

Wait — breaking news. Here's a statement from the Fed, the Treasury, and some official-sounding "bank regulators" about a new capital assistance plan to keep banks afloat. This better explain everything, in unconditional terms everyone can understand…

"This additional capital does not imply a new capital standard and it is not expected to be maintained on an ongoing basis," the regulators said in their statement, in wording designed to signal that this wasn't bank nationalization.

The regulators closed their statement with even more explicit language that tried to calm markets' fears that the government of the world's largest economy might be forced to take over private banks: "Because our economy functions better when financial institutions are well managed in the private sector, the strong presumption of the Capital Assistance Program is that banks should remain in private hands."

Blah blah "not expected to be maintained"? A "strong presumption" that banks "should" remain private? Uhh, sorry, that sounds awfully vague and conditional.

Financial markets should have seen the announcement as positive, but the administration's lack of a coherent message to explain what it meant and how it works sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average almost 100 points into negative territory by midday.

There you go. Now that's what I call an unequivocal statement.

Developing…