Is hockey-masked killer Jason Voorhees the new President of Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services? It would seem so, as on this day, Friday the 13th, it was reported that S&P is downgrading the credit ratings of 5 European nations.

In a decision that is expected to be announced around 4:30pm EST, S&P will

• Downgrade France one notch, from AAA to AA+
• Downgrade Austria one notch, from AAA to AA+
• Downgrade Italy to BBB+
• Downgrade Spain two notches
• Downgrade Portugal two notches

Officials say that Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, and Luxembourg will keep their AAA ratings intact.

The euro fell more than 1 per cent to a 16-month low against the US dollar; US stocks are down in reaction to the slashing; obviously not huge fans of horror movies. (And what is the world economy if not one unstoppable horror franchise?)

Said French Finance Minister François Baroin:

“It’s not good news, but it is not a catastrophe. It is not the ratings agencies that dictate the policy of France.”

Hmm, sounds suspiciously like the countless police, camp counselors, and teenage campers who refused to believe that the local woods slasher is still alive and kicking.

Sources: CNBC, New York Times, Financial Times

Two of Research In Motion’s execs found themselves in a dilly of a pickle recently – but not because the dog ate their BlackBerry. No, because they got a little too drunk on a flight to Beijing. You might infer they were a bit rowdy. The two were eventually charged with ‘mischief’, ordered to paid restitution and were given their walking papers by $RIMM. Recently, CBC News was able to get details of the case – here’s the ‘mischief’ George Campbell and Paul Alexander Wilson actually got into:

The two boarded a flight from Toronto to Beijing already drunk, according to documents obtained by CBC News, and proceeded to badger attendants for more booze once onboard before falling asleep. After a brief snooze they carried on drinking, before starting a loud argument between themselves…Cabin crew eventually subdued them, using plastic restraints as handcuffs, and backing this up with adhesive tape. Nevertheless the two “chewed their way through their restraints,” and began to kick up a stink again.

There was also a bout of wrestling in there somewhere. If anyone has the video, get in touch with Joe Francis – we hear he’s working on a series called Execs Gone Wild.

From the “Pureeing While Rome Burns” department, we have one of those stories that looks like it came from Idiocracy, The Onion or at the very least one of those “where do you bury the survivors” trick questions – how much pureed fruit, likely infused with high-fructose corn syrup, does one have to put atop a piece of bread in order for it to constitute a vegetable? The answer is two tablespoons:

But let’s leave aside the horticultural definition and talk about how Congress failed the quiz. It chose 2 tablespoons, blocking sorely needed nutritional upgrades to the $11 billion federal school lunch programs. It did so because members’ brains (and quite possibly their bellies) are controlled by lobbyists.

Two tablespoons is about the amount of paste commonly found on the cardboard slices that pose as pizza in far too many school cafeterias. That amount will continue to qualify as a vegetable serving. Did I mention the frozen food lobby?

Now, on the upside, pizza day was my favorite as a kid. It was the only time I would ask my mom for lunch money in lieu of a packed lunch. So this is a probably a win for Junior’s taste buds, as much as it is for the frozen food industry. It also likely keeps costs down, given the percentage of students who receive subsidized lunch.

But I’d feel a little better if they’d come out and admit it. “We’re broke, so kids are going to get processed food and like it” is so much more honest than this kind of maneuvering, which absolutely smacks of giving us a little panem et circenses to blither about instead of actual issues. No one’s bleeding, it’s just a little tomato paste. Pay no attention to the fail behind the curtain.

(h/t Glossolalia Black for the image)

MF Global CEO (and former Goldman Sachs CEO, and former New Jersey CEO) Jon Corzine resigned this morning, which is what you do when your company goes bankrupt. Oh, MF Global went bankrupt earlier this week. We hope you’re getting your breaking financial news from sites that update every day.

Anyway, MF Global found itself in financial hot water after investing a few billion dollars in European sovereign debt, which sounds like a good idea if you’re not the kind of person that keeps up with current events. And not even sweet debt like Germany’s, either. They were heavily (read: leveraged over 80:1) long Portuguese, Italian, Irish, and Spanish debt. You could argue they PIIS-ed their money away.

Except, here’s the thing, it wasn’t all their own money they were PIIS-ing away. You know how most firms have a thing where they don’t use customer money for in-house trading? I think that thing is called a “law” or something. Anyway, MF Global supposedly did not have that thing, and may have somehow managed to misplace a solid $600 million in customer money. So they’ve got that going for them. Also, the SEC is investigating some of MF Global’s traders for insider trading on the firm’s bonds just prior to its downgrade to junk status, but we feel like that’s just dogpiling at this point.

Apparently the whole “might have lost hundreds of millions of customer monies in a stupid gamble that was also illegal” business scared away everyone who might have bought MF Global, so it’s good to see there is still some sense left on Wall Street.

Also, it’s worth noting that Corzine was on everyone’s shortlist for Treasury Secretary as recently as August, so if that doesn’t make you want to hug Timmay, nothing will.