Stucco housing tracts, evil investment banks, ugly big-box retail strips, dumb show-off high-rises, land-raping golf resorts, Hummers — the nation’s financial collapse has taken down so many awful trophies of American Culture, we should probably send it a Thank You note, maybe with a Linens ‘n Things gift card. But who can afford a card, or postage, when we’re all either out of work or making a lot less money or barely hanging on to some diseased sham of a career that probably never should’ve been a career anyway? What is next for this nation’s Shame Parade? Foreclosures of Napa vineyards and wineries, that’s what. MORE »

Unsatisfied with the terrible death and destruction in Chile, the Evil Earthquake is now hoping to wipe out the Hawaiian Islands with a Terrible Tsunami. Alleged Hawaiian Barack Obama just warned his people on the Sandwich Islands that the killer wave spawned by the 8.8 Chilean quake should start bashing the shores in about an hour. Why does Nature hate everybody? MORE »

By the Comics Curmudgeon
Readers! Are you aware that each and every one of you are mortal, and will die? I know, pretty depressing, right? Even worse than the dying — which, by all accounts, doesn’t sound like any kind of picnic — is the fact that, by sheer chance of health or age, millions upon millions of unworthy chumps will outlive you! Sure, those jackholes will themselves die, eventually, but don’t you kind of resent them for getting to find out who wins the 2093 World Series or whatever when you won’t? I believe that this sort of resentment is exactly the psychological origin of the notion of the End Times, when not just you but everyone is killed by nuclear fire, or perhaps raptured up into the skies to be Judged by Our Lord. Such an important event has of course been studied in great detail by the most learned theological thinkers of our day (i.e., political cartoonists). MORE »

Ken Layne: Hello former colleague, may I briefly interview you in Real Time about the most significant political development of the decade, the Blingee?
Alex Pareene: YES of course.
KL: Hooray! Okay now I will make up these questions. Umm … let’s see, you first discovered the Blingee, is that right? MORE »

Michael Steele you have got to stop it with the funny today, we can’t take much more. NO NO DON’T GO ON TV! Oh no he’s going to say something too hilarious! Uh oh: “It’s a new platform for us. It’s not even really a web site.” No! A website is *exactly* what it is! This is too much. Let’s read some arbitrary news outlet to get away from all this, it doesn’t matter which… ah, New York Daily News, as good a choice as any, let’s see what’s in the ollll’ NYDN… “GOP Posts Password, Admin Instructions on New Web Site.” GAHH. [TPM, NYDN]

NATION OF CRAP: “The Self Storage Association notes that, with more than seven square feet for every man, woman and child, it’s now ‘physically possible that every American could stand — all at the same time — under the total canopy of self-storage roofing.’” [New York Times]

Whoa, Newsmax, what kind of crazy are you sending us on this lazy summer afternoon? WHAT?! Famous millionaire Doctor Pizza is giving away free guns? For the coming race war? Sign us up, for FREE! Seriously go sign up and get these free guns because guess who will get them if you don’t?

Huzzah for the Golden State, where crazed prisoners will soon wander freely and the poor will wrestle for rat crumbs and all the parks will be closed and all the counties will be robbed of various monies and the GOP threatens to wreck even this rotten deal, because there is still a chance to make things even worse. Feeling smug out there, rest of America? Don’t. You’re next. MORE »

South Carolina granola hippie Mark Sanford just couldn’t take the pressure, man, so he put on his Tevas and headed up to the mountains to clear his head. Nothing like some Kinhin walking meditation to get the fear of The Man — that man, the prez — out of your soul. At least out here on the Appalachian Trail, mean old Barack Obama with his suits and his money and his power trips can’t bum you out …. unless uptight Obama is even using his Power Trip Stimulus Money on the trail itself. MORE »

Whoa hey gay marriage in Maine now too! While both chambers of the Maine legislature had passed the bill, no one knew if Gov. John Baldacci would sign it because, you know, gays, culture war, wedge issues, etc. But then this morning he did sign it! He explained: “In the past, I opposed gay marriage while supporting the idea of civil unions. I have come to believe that this is a question of fairness and of equal protection under the law, and that a civil union is not equal to civil marriage.” And that’s about all there is to say. [HuffPo]

Bob Dylan will have to write his next album about the terrible mice plague sweeping the nation of Australia, and by “the nation” we of course refer to “a single nursing home in Queensland.” Still, we must ask the important question: if the pig AIDS doesn’t kill us, will the mouse plague do it instead? MORE »

When word of a surprise new Bob Dylan studio album reached your Wonkette on March 20, we wondered what sort of Actual Hell this record would release, as it is established fact in this first awful decade of the 21st Century that Bob Dylan only releases new studio albums to mark the arrival of another Horseman of the Apocalypse. We’ve been listening to the new record for two days now, and have reached various conclusions, most of which can be summed up like this: JESUS CHRIST THE WHOLE ENTIRE ALBUM IS MEXICAN MUSIC. MORE »