Welcome to The Faster Times update. In today's edition, we bring you Wisconsin's uprising, the end of Jersey Shore, Carmelo Anthony, "fat" girlfriends, and a hit to Planned Parenthood. Enjoy!

Teachers and other state employees have taken to the streets of Madison in protest over the questionable specifics of a recent budget-cutting proposal. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker may have given himself an inadvertent promotion with his controversial new legislation, placing himself in a surreal pantheon alongside Ben Ali, Mubarak and other Middle Eastern and North African dictators as opponents of the people’s will. While it’s admittedly overkill to equate the enormity of the political revolutions sweeping the Middle East with the protests in Madison, it would also be foolish to suppose that the recent spectacle of successful foreign demonstrations does not inform and inspire these domestic agitations.

Let me start out by saying that I originally liked Jersey Shore. In fact, if you were unfortunate enough to be my friend during that period when Jersey Shore first came on the air, then you probably had to hear my spirited defense of the show, wherein I called it the “Platonic ideal” of a reality show, since I am apparently a pretentious bastard in real life.

For the past six months, speculation over where the Denver Nugget’s All-Star Carmelo Anthony would wind up has had prime real estate on both the Internet and old school sports media. For a while, all signs have been pointing to New York. And after this weekend, with a deal likely coming down as early as this afternoon, there seems to be little doubt that New York is soon to be the new home of Melo. After months of work, it looks like New York is about to get its second super star. But at what cost?

Dear Veronica,

Both my girlfriend and I are freshmen. We’re both heterosexual; we met in November at a party and hit it off immediately. Our relationship is going well, but we’ve both been drinking heavily, and we’ve both put on quite a bit of weight as a result. It’s getting to the point where I am noticeably (one can imagine how) less attracted to her, and I suspect she feels the same way toward me. And, as much as the loss of attraction bothers me, the self-consciousness she feels as a result is worse. Neither of us wants to break up, but at the same time, this is placing some unspoken strain on our relationship. Is there a healthy (non-dickish) way to deal with this?

Another day, another ill-advised anti-choice bill. According to Jezebel and the AP, the House has just voted to strip federal funding from Planned Parenthood and other family planning and women’s health services. The Democratically controlled Senate should (hopefully) ensure that the bill never sees the light of day, but another depressing step into the dark for women’s rights and health, nonetheless.