Wonkette

• This morning President Bush talked with Michael Mukasey, he of the dinnertime collapse, and the AG “sounded well.” [Reuters]
• Senate seniority rules prevent Hillary Clinton from having any real power in the body for years, so Harry Reid is halfheartedly trying to invent some appealing new position for her even as Barack Obama tries to convince her to go to the State Department. [New York Times]
• The UN has given the Indian navy permission to pursue Somali pirates into Somali territorial waters. CHECKMATE, BRIGANDS! [BBC News]
• Iraqis protested the new agreement between their government and the US allowing American troops to stay in country for several more years. [BBC News]
• Five lucky Algerians have been ordered sprung from Guantanamo — by a Bush-appointed judge, no less. [Voice of America]
• Remember like six months ago when gas was $5 a gallon and it cost $456 to get a loaf of bread because of the worldwide grain shortage? Now we have the opposite problem, price-wise, which is called “deflation,” and it is just as bad as inflation — only cheaper! [Washington Post]

Ugh. Why do we even post such things? Breaking News, etc., that’s why! So do us a favor, commenters, and try to control yourselves, show some class, &c., unless Mukasey has specifically done something personally horrible to you. We have no useful update, to this old dude just falling over and people shouting OH MY GOD JESUS CHRIST CALL SOMEBODY. He is in the hospital somewhere in/around Washington.

• RUH ROH: “Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed Thursday night while giving a speech to the Federalist Society in Washington, according to three senior administration officials… At 10:30 p.m. Eastern, medical officials were still working on him on the stage, administration witnesses said.” [Politico]

Sarah Palin pardoned a turkey at an abbatoir today to celebrate Thanksgiving, a full week beforehand. After pardoning the turkey, Palin partook in her favorite post-election hobby — answering questions from the media — while a turkey butcher worked in the background SLAUGHTERING A TURKEY IN A DEATH GRINDER, while smiling, a la Fargo. It is hilarious. Equally hilarious are the MSNBC captions in this clip, such as, “Gov. Palin Not Realizing Incongruity Of Her Words Versus Her Backdrop.” Liberals. [YouTube]

So, uh, the economy doesn’t seem to be doing much, uh, better. The S&P 500 is back down to 1997 levels. 1997! Everybody’s losing their jobs, if they still have jobs. Some are suggesting it will not even be a Merry Christmas, and that the real (Muslim) Jesus is sort of getting a kick out of all this. But do not worry, because some of you will evade foreclosure until January 9. Christmas is back! MORE »

America’s favorite fun comic strip of hopelessness and despair, Get Your War On, wouldn’t exist if not for a) 9/11 and b) David Rees, the creator of the actual comic strip. As we could not get an interview with 9/11, we decided to email five questions to Rees — who will be in Washington this very Sunday to give a FREE speaking/cartoon concert at the 5th & K Busboys & Poets. But how does an artist thank President Bush in Olde Englishe Versee? MORE »

Oh check it out, Joe Biden had his little birthday office party today, on his birthday, at Obama’s office tower in Chicago. Joe is 66 years old, and also for his birthday he gets to be vice president, which is a fun thing! (He also has to live in that creepy Observatory and hear the moaning ghosts of Cheney’s victims for the next eight years, but at least he doesn’t have to take the goddamned train for six hours every night back to wherever he lives … Scranton?) MORE »

It’s the last weekend before this November holiday, Thanksgiving, for which you’re expected do horrible things like eat cranberries and pretend to enjoy watching hours of teevee footage of oversized balloons being stuffed in between buildings in New York City. Probably best to cram as much actual fun into this weekend as possible. Lucky for you there’s David Rees, Cornel West, and the French Kicks, right here in DC this weekend. MORE »

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 »

So we were over at the blog of our Emo-Goth boyfriend Andrew Sullivan and he linked to this nifty site analyzer deal that will stare deep into your blog’s soul and tell you exactly what kind of a human you are. The Typealizer’s take on Wonkette was quite surprising! And … horrifying. MORE »