Regarding George Will’s anti-blue jeans column of today, the Wall Street Journal had a much funnier “denim sucks” column, by your editor’s actual relative-by-marriage Daniel Akst, three weeks ago. DO NOT CLAIM YOU DON’T READ THE WSJ, GEORGE. Dan’s column is also far less elitist than Bow-tie George’s thing, because instead of Will’s example of regular American activity — playing golf, natch — Akst’s “you don’t need dungarees for that” example is “people who spend most of their waking hours punching keys instead of cows.” And then he goes in for the kill with “It looks bad on almost everyone who isn’t thin, yet has somehow made itself the unofficial uniform of the fattest people in the world.” [Wall Street Journal]

Obese, constipated hell monster Mark Penn has written a new edition of “Microtrends” — no not the book about how to lose a Democratic primary with a Clinton, but the Wall Street Journal column about pornography! IN WHICH HE WRITES: “Running counter to the pack is almost always the key to real success.” Complete pornography! FURTHERMORE: “Most of the microtrends being created by the financial crisis have been about resetting our tolerance for risk.” In other words there are three Microtrends right now: people taking on risk, people taking on no risk, and people just sitting around doing whatever. So granular! But which one gets to be prom queen hmm? MORE »

Thursday, early evening. She turns the key to her Dungeon of Medicines, an isolated pod floating atop the highest vistas of Park Avenue. It is constructed of the finest Metals and can only be reached by rickshaw. Even after all these years, the scent of myrrh lingers. A glass of scotch is poured and she takes to the shelves. Tonight will be a night of barbiturates. Full bottles of Amytal, Nembutal, Seconal, et. al, are downed within seconds. She takes to her camel fur chair — a special model, in that it is an actual camel — and waits whilst supping on a bowl of cough syrup. The hour becomes 10, then 11, then 12. Midnight. A new day. But still, nothing. She is able to walk; this should not be physically possible. Time to bring out the typing machinery. She is struck, sober, hands on the keys, sitting on a camel, poised, wrought, a wordsmith to the death, honest. Peggy Noonan has written her headline: “There’s No Pill for This Kind of Depression.” MORE »

Oh heavens, Madame Peggy Noonan, princess of the Wall Street Journal banking pamphlet, has journeyed outside her loft again: “A moment last Monday, just after noon, in Manhattan. It’s slightly overcast, not cold, a good day for walking. I’m in the 90s on Fifth heading south, enjoying the broad avenue, the trees, the wide cobblestone walkway that rings Central Park. Suddenly I realize: Something’s odd here.” MORE »

In this Wall Street Journal boring article about how Europeans sure love cigarettes yadda yadda, we were intrigued by this paragraph calling Nazi Pope Joe “the Plumber” Ratzinger a known smoker! Is this some hilarious WSJ New Year’s joke? Because there is no evidence we can locate, outside of some obviously photoshopped images of Ratzi in a cloud of cancer, to suggest our crappiest pope indulges in this particular variety of sucking on cylindrical objects. MORE »

As Gawker points out, this comical footnote is the douchiest possible way Mark Penn — or anyone, ever — could have ended his Wall Street Journal column today. (Oh, yes, he has a regular WSJ column now called… “Microtrends.” His punishment from God is to hawk this dumb book for the rest of his life.) [WSJ, Gawker]

One of the Festivus Miracles of American Journalism is that the Wall Street Journal is such a very good newspaper despite the daily presence of its editorial pages, which are run by a couple of brain-damaged wingnuts who would be unwelcome on AM talk radio, as callers. Today, one of these comical editors has typed up a wonderful economic theory about the current global recession which was caused by unmitigated over-leveraging of fanciful mortgage-based securities whose existence was encouraged by artificially cheap and unscrutinized credit and the resulting collapse of those securities’ values and the resulting credit crunch combined with the deeply intertwined decline of the real estate, construction, mortgage, investment and commodity markets, which was the primary and undisputed cause of the halt in consumer spending which has unarguably created a feedback loop of unemployment, debt default, foreclosures and negative economic activity all over the planet Earth: This was all actually caused by somebody not saying “Merry Christmas” at the mall! MORE »

PEGGY NOONAN WRITES HUMDRUM COLUMN THIS SEVEN-DAY!: Can you even believe it? She just has a bunch of modestly valid points jumping all over the place, but nothing about seeing a Mexican or viewing a “rabbity forest creature darting among the hedgerows” on her television machine. Has our Miss Noonington been reading Wonkette’s weekly scholarly criticism of “Declarations” and decided to tone down the neo-Victorianisms? ‘Twoud be a shame! FREE PEGGY NOONAN! [WSJ]

Wonkette operative hero “Dan the Man” sent us a powerful/artistic photo yesterday of a bunch of Christian nuts praying over a false bronze idol, the Wall Street Bull (or Bowling Green Bull for you dandies out there), asking God to nationalize the economy under the state of heaven so that they could pay for their porn subscriptions and fried NASCAR-themed dildos for a few more months. Well, “Dan” has come through again and sent us a video and a few more hilarious photos, such as the one above featuring, whoa, is that the Regina of Phoenician-Based Symbols Created To Represent Sounds, Madam Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journalshire? Scandal! MORE »

In last week’s installment of “Wonkette posts about Peggy Noonan’s Wall Street Journal column,” your editor Ken Layne did 100 kilos of coke and proceeded to comically insult everyone on the face of the Earth for two or seven million words. If Madam Peggington had chanced by Ken’s post, probably via that “Google Alert” on her name that her loyal butler Winston set up for her, the vulgarities would quite veritably indeed have inflamed her rheumatism! But Peggy has survived another week, another seven-day of the political news, so let us study the elegant paragraphery in today’s dramatic episode of “Declarations.” MORE »

Oh, it’s “Peggy Day,” meaning Friday, the blessed weekly occurrence of Peggy Noonan’s myriad declarations on the sepia-toned pages of the Wall Street Journal. Your morning editor took a whack at this earlier today, and gave up — “I am not old enuff to understand Peggy Noonan’s cultural references,” she said, lazily. Your afternoon editor also abstained. “You should write about Peggy Noonan,” he whines. “I can’t handle her. I don’t have any speed.” Oh what’s the matter little diaper babies? Did Peggy’s terrifying schizophrenia blow your little pussy minds? MORE »