Hot Topics: Social Security, Mick Jagger, Dara Torres and Lance Armstrong

The federal budget President Obama introduced this week includes cuts to a variety of programs to deflate a ballooning deficit but leaves Social Security spending virtually untouched -- at least for now. Reuters explains that the proposal would reduce the deficit by $1.1 trillion over 10 years through cuts and tax increases, though Republicans say it doesn't go far enough to trim government spending.

The budget does not include a 2010 deficit reduction commission's recommendation to raise the Social Security retirement age to reduce spending on the program, which along with Medicare and Medicaid account for 44 percent of noninterest federal outlays. However, Obama's statement that he will not accept an approach that "slashes" benefits for future generations is being interpreted as leaving the door open for modest cutbacks. The New York Times published an annotated, interactive version of the federal government's 2012 spending plan here.

Start Me Up: Mick Jagger didn't need to hatch out of an egg to win over viewers in his first-ever appearance at the Grammy Awards on Sunday (in case you missed it, that was Lady Gaga in the egg). The 67-year-old Rolling Stones front man sang a white-hot version of late soul singer Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love" -- and showed Justin Bieber a thing or two about working a crowd.

Armstrong Is Out: America's most famous cyclist and seven-time Tour de France winner is hanging up his spokes, again, and this time he says it's for good. Lance Armstrong, 39, a cancer survivor and currently the target of an investigation into doping in cycling, says his biggest commitment right now is to raising his five kids. Armstrong tweets to his followers this week: "Thanks for all the messages on retirement 2.0. And thanks for ALL the support the past 2.5 yrs. Onward!"

Torres Is In: Olympian Dara Torres is getting back into the swim of things. According to USA Today, the 43-year-old 50-meter freestyle specialist will swim in the Missouri Grand Prix in Columbia this weekend, her first meet since 2009. "My intention is to go to trials and to try to make another Olympic team. That's why I'm doing this," she says. Torres recently shared her workout tips with SecondAct here.

The Not-So-Plugged-In President: He championed the information superhighway, but President Clinton concedes he was no early adopter. During two terms as president, Clinton says he sent just two e-mail messages: one to the troops in the Adriatic and another to John Glenn while the astronaut-turned-senator was in space, Fast Company reports. When Clinton took office in 1993, there were just 50 sites on the internet, and cell phones were so big you could use them for bicep curls, Clinton told the Wired for Change conference in New York this week. Technological developments since then have been good and bad; cell phones are "heroic figures" in helping rebuild Haiti, he says, but information technology led to the financial industry meltdown. "Our financial institutions worked arguably too well, at warp speed."

American Idol: National Public Radio book reviewer Maureen Corrigan gives an enthusiastic thumbs up to I Think I Love You, Allison Pearson's new novel about youth, yearning and David Cassidy of the Partridge Family. The book recounts a young girl's obsession with the '70s teen heartthrob and the trip to Las Vegas she and her BFF took years later to finally meet Cassidy. Corrigan writes: "For any middle-aged woman out there (and there must be hundreds of thousands of us) who long ago cried herself to sleep because Bobby Sherman or Donny Osmond or Davy Jones of The Monkees was sooo cute and sooo out of reach, I Think I Love You is both an anguished trip back to the mad possessiveness of puppy love and a respectful acknowledgment that it mattered."