Gas will soon cost less than a buck a gallon, as nobody has a dollar, and nobody has a job to drive to anyway. Even Wal-Marts are closing down. And now Knut the cute polar bear, who was photographed topless by Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair just last year, is an unwanted and unloved victim of the global economic meltdown. MORE »

Rejoice, polar bears! The United States Department of the Interior just announced that the number one source of cute white bears in the world — arctic polar bears — will be designated a threatened species because of the Global Warming, which the Republicans are going to fix because John McCain remembers how tough things were during the last Ice Age. MORE »

Hey guess what, people? Hillary Clinton is still trying to “woo” superdelegates by sending threatening letters to Nancy Pelosi; Barack Obama continues to shake his head sadly, with dignity; and John McCain wants Democrats to vote for him. In other words, boring news rules the Internet today, which is why we bring you this important update on the increasingly fragile emotional state of the bear who drove the National Zoo’s Butterstick to experiment with hard drugs. MORE »

IS HE TALKING ABOUT THE ONCE-CUTE POLAR BEAR BABY, OR OBAMA? “What did you think was going to happen when it grew up? Quit misleading the younger generation that everything will remain cute and cuddly.” — Max, London [Daily Mail]

Knut the Polar Bear celebrated his first birthday today at the Berlin Zoo. They gave him a wooden candle, fruits and veggies to celebrate while they sold slices of cake to visitors. We were going to snark about needing polar bears to thrive in captivity so our children and grandchildren can see them after global warming destroys all their natural habitat, blah, blah, blah, but, really, we just needed to see something cute this afternoon. [Yahoo News]

Above, possible Republican Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, with Knut the Baby Polar Bear. Gingrich has been linked to Knut ever since he learned of former flame Butterstick’s tragic illness and left the formerly cute panda for a younger, more attractive animal. MORE »

The indignity continued for once-popular child star “Butterstick the Panda” today, when the Chinese government refused to take the animal back. MORE »

If you see a disheveled teen-aged panda around Union Station, stinking of urine and crack fumes, that’s the once-popular Butterstick. Everybody knows babies don’t stay “adorable” for long, but the burn rate is even faster for our animal friends because they live “dog years” or something. And there’s always a new, younger, cuter animal ready to take the title of World’s Most Adorable Critter. MORE »