Philly’s financial moment of truth, and Glenn Beck explains Norway

It isn’t exactly the debt ceiling crisis, but Tuesday the state board overseeing Philadelphia’s finances will meet to approve the budget and five-year financial plan Mayor Nutter and City Council have approved.

It would be extraordinary if the board were to reject the plan, but its new chairman, Sam Katz said last month he has serious concerns about the city’ long-term fiscal health. He cited future pension costs as particularly troubling.

I spoke to Katz briefly today, and he said he doesn’t know what to expect when the five member board meets. I don’t either, but for a quick and entertaining primer on the issue, listen to this podcast featuring Doron Taussig and Juliana Reyes from the It’s Our Money team.

Meanwhile the national debt ceiling debate gets crazier, with one Republican Congressman saying President Obama would be impeached if the nation goes into default. And he isn’t the only one who’s used the I-word.

Also of interest…

New York Times former executive editor Bill Keller is giving up his magazine column, which as this piece notes, had errors that had to be corrected in five of his 12 tries.

Also, if you have a spare moment to behold the strangeness that is Glenn Beck, listen to this seven-minute riff on the terror attack in Norway, in which he says that Muslims who are being elected to local offices in Europe are “squeezing the neck of Europe” and that “political correctness and multiculturalism is killing Europe.”

Of the mass murderer Andres Breivik, Beck says he is “doing the work of what all people who want big government always do, and that is commit terrorist acts.” This follows a tortured description of what Beck said was a prophetic commentary last year that I can’t begin to explain. Listen here, if you dare.

Finally, I can’t resist sharing this AP story of the man who woke up in a morge fridge in South Africa after he got so quiet his family thought he’d died. Luckily somebody at the morge heard him yelling and opened the fridge.