By the time you read this, I’ll be on a plane there. So here’s something for your reading pleasure. Happy Holidays, I’ll try to check in from time to time.

• The entire Egyptian cabinet offered to resign, as protests against military rule continue. Juan Cole has a good summation. We could see Mohammed ElBaradei appointed Prime Minister in a government of national unity.

• Initially the claim was that $600 million in depositor money had gone missing from MF Global. Now it’s up to $1.2 billion. And rising, I assume. Brad DeLong has the official statement from MF Global.

• Republicans are promoting Simpson-Bowles now? Do they know anything about it? It has even more tax increases than what Obama proposed!

• Spencer Ackerman on Leon Panetta’s long war against reverting the defense budget back to 2007 levels.

• At least Occupy LA and Occupy Philly get to negotiate with the authorities before getting kicked out of their encampments. Meanwhile, the march from Occupy Wall Street to DC has been completed.

• Mitt Romney’s first ad of the Presidential election takes Barack Obama egregiously out of context.

• Germany continues to resist the only efforts that would prevent a collapse of the Eurozone. This time they don’t want the tighter fiscal integration that would come with Eurobonds.

• Pennsylvania gives up on its scheme to subvert the Electoral College. They ought to just throw in with the National Popular Vote.

• Joe Nocera is pretty good today on the FDA’s nixing of Avastin.

• The Administration is using its power under the Affordable Care Act to encourage a health insurer to reconsider a rate hike. Under the law they can’t unilaterally block it, which is a flaw of the law. But shaming has actually worked in the past.

• The parties appear to agree on cutting farm payments, but that was left at the wayside of an abandoned Super Committee deal. Will it get put into a farm bill now?

• The New Yorker profiles Kalle Lasn and Micah White of Adbusters, and their role in generating Occupy Wall Street.

• And my Silvio Berlusconi obsession just goes and goes. Thankfully, he only wrote the love songs.