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Somehow it seems unlikely that this dude, who vows not to read Wonkette ever again, has read much of it in the past. MORE »

Yesterday while the rest of you were out shopping for booze or maybe just emptying out the still in anticipation of today’s 12th annual National Unemployment Day, President Obama was hard at work hanging out with a bunch of pilots — some pretty awesome lady pilots from World War II, and also the first female Thunderbird pilot. Sometimes his job does not seem so bad. [The President's Very Effective Propaganda Photo Site]

THE SAD ROMANTICAL BALLAD OF MARK SANFORD: “Of course, when you’re a middle-aged man facing the collapse of your life’s work and abandoning hope of being with the woman you call your ‘ soul mate’ rational decision making or a clearly considered plan may be too much to expect.” Illustration by our pal Lauri. [TPM]

In these difficult times, when it seems everything is declining — corporate profits, individual incomes, assorted varieties and levels of a thing we used to call “hope” — one thing grows ever larger and more robust: our unemployment rate. Let’s hear it for the magical number 9.5, for that is the percentage of Americans who currently don’t have jobs. MORE »

• Now that we don’t have to worry about Iraq anymore, we can start worrying about Afghanistan instead, where a “major operation” was just launched. [CNN]
• Soon California won’t be able to pay its bills and it will start issuing IOUs scratched out on bits of scrap paper as “currency.” [AP]
• Several of Michele Bachmann’s fellow Republicans have urged her to fill out her census form completely, so that the administrators of ACORN-run internment camps can track her down without wasting taxpayer dollars on a private investigator. [Washington Post]
• What is the point of living, really, if you can’t have Vicodin? [ABC News]
• The auctioning of Iraqi oil-development rights that went so well the process attracted one whole bidder was indeed a success because it showed the Iraqis weren’t going to whore themselves out to foreign oil companies. And that stunning success is why they’re going to move up bidding on a bunch of undeveloped or partially developed fields from late this year to “within the next few months.” [Wall Street Journal]
• After days of caterwauling to the press about his forbidden love affair, crybaby blabbermouth Mark Sanford fell suddenly silent as people asked fewer questions about his girlfriend and more about when he was going to resign. [AP]

Well, this is sort of what we all imagined, in our darkest & drunkest moments. Here’s a Fox News show featuring a weird jabbering middle-aged baby with hair plugs on the left side of the screen and some guy who claims to be a Bush Administration-era anti-Bin Laden agent on the right, and, well, they both share a certain dream for America, which involves the nation being horribly attacked by Osama bin Laden’s secret arsenal of nuclear weapons, from Mexico. THAT WILL LEARN US, RIGHT? MORE »

Oh, there is more to the Runner’s World interview with Sarah Palin than a simple Q&A about the regrets of falling down on the jogging trail and the Secret Service keeping her vile secret. (Which, like everything uttered by Sarah Palin, is also a lie.) There’s a whole photo spread, with seven online pictures of Sarah lookin’ all perky and athletic and just cold mocking John McCain for being a crippled old man who can’t exercise at all: MORE »

Mark Sanford was all set to publish a book about “fiscal conservatism” or some other boring topic, but then he poked that South American lady and now he is a Tainted Whore of Babylon with no credibility, fiscal policy-wise. Will the publisher still put out his dull economics text or what? Will they scrap the whole thing and force him to write a SALACIOUS TELL-ALL MEMOIR instead? We hope so! [Political Ticker]

For years now, various people have been begging to take photographs of Arizona’s State Flower MEGHAN McCAIN posing in her girdle. Well now there’s encouraging news for horticulture enthusiasts around the globe! Meghan says she’d totally do it, except poor PAPA JOHN would probably crash another plane into VIETNAM, if he ever found out. MORE »

EAT LIKE THE FANCY OBAMAS EAT: Finally, a Google Map showing every known food establishment where the National Elitist and sometimes his fancy family dine in and around D.C. Clip and save! (And, uh, tape to your iPhone or whatever?) [Brightest Young Things]

Good news for the Political Arts: Our Chicago pal Lauri Apple is now officially Wonkette’s op-art artist-contributor of Fine Political Arts! And here is her delightful chart of Sarah Palin’s many, many half-dozen regrets in life. Click for the full-size version, and say hi to Lauri. MORE »