Who says nobody needs yesterday’s news and a bunch of old wire stories and couch ads thrown in your neighbor’s bird bath at 4:15 a.m. every day? The Chicago Tribune, one of our nation’s leading bankrupt newspapers, today offers this Roland “Pinocchio” Burris paper doll, so your poor kids can have something to play with — it’s kind of like a Star Wars action figure, but it’s free! And it teaches kids an important lesson about black senators from Illinois. [Chicago Tribune PDF]

ALL NEWSPAPERS FAILING: Tribune Co. went ahead and declared bankruptcy, which is surely good news for the battered half-dead Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune. The New York Times is scheduled to go bust later this week, probably. The prognosis for print newspapers has been pretty grim since the 1980s, but the specific financial collapse of Tribune Co. and the NYT is, like everything, the fault of the real-estate bubble and credit swaps and whatever. [AP/WSJ/Gawker]

Wonkette fishwrapper operative “Alicia” writes to us about the unusual demand today in Washington for wads of cheap paper covered in ink: “The Washington Post sold out of its run this morning. They apparently are doing a second run because right now there is a line around the block to buy more editions of today’s paper. The line goes up 15th and has wrapped around M Street.” The year is 2008, and people are waiting in long lines to buy a daily print newspaper that is available for free on the Internet. MORE »

Loser presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul told the Chicago Tribune today that he will not support John McCain unless he “has a lot of change of heart.” See, a simple “change of heart” would not suffice! He needs to have many hearts, and have them all change many times, forever. MORE »

Uh oh, Barry “Clean as an Articulate Whistle” Obama might be in some deep trouble now: Chicago “slum landlord” Tony Rezko, who Hillary said was Barry’s best friend during last week’s debate, has been arrested. Apparently he and Barry were running some kind of global drug circus through the Panama Canal and cocaine and heroin and Jesse Jackson and stuff! That’s what an “alleged bond violation” means, right? Just trying to predict the Clinton spin. [Chicago Tribune]

When Mike Huckabee went hunting in Iowa Wednesday to prove that he had a penis or something, he bagged him a pheasant or two, but he was really hoping to kill reporters. At least that’s the account of one reporter there, who notes that, “At one point, Huckabee’s party turned toward a cluster of reporters and cameramen and, when they kicked up a pheasant, fired shotgun blasts over the group’s heads.” Huck, you crazy wombat! The press has been so nice to you recently, by like, not bringing up your hatred of gay people and all that other crazy Jesusery at all. MORE »

By day, Jeff Zeleny is the wunderkind of the Chicago Tribune’s Washington bureau. By night, Zeleny is… running a flourishing business selling stuff on eBay? MORE »

The Chicago Tribune looks at Dick Cheney’s hard-on for Iraq:

Sure, you could try to use this headline to make a smart, wry commentary on an unpopular war in which American soldiers and Iraqi citizens are dying for a cause that the White House has yet make good on. But, come on: ass-fucking. Hilarious. MORE »