1) Don't think of this as "The End." Technically, it's the end of the world. But every end brings a new beginning! Instead of focusing on the bombs and the toxic clouds and the eventual death of every living thing on earth, consider, instead, what might spring to life next. A vibrant and adventurous new species that thrives on the ashes and nuclear toxins we left behind? A deeply intuitive breed of mutant slugs that can suck oxygen out of the tiny bubbles found between styrofoam Hardee's cups, seeping car batteries, and decomposing copies of Snooki's autobiography? When one door closes, another one always opens. In this case, there won't [...]

Our friends at WorldNetDaily have a real winner in today's email blast! Here is my favorite part: "Tom Horn says from deepest antiquity, a plot involving pagan sun-worshippers, America's Founding Fathers, Masons and Freemasons has apparently been in the works, culminating in the end time with the return or resurrection of an evil, supernatural being. That character may actually be pictured as the all-seeing eye on top of the uncapped pyramid on the Great Seal of the United States, found on the back of a $1 bill." Are you upset that he didn't mention Hitler yet? GOOD NEWS. Says our author: "It's very easy to take extraordinary circumstances to [...]

Britney Spears, who is 29 years young, would have you believe from her latest communique that she is prepared for the end of the world (either this May, in the rapture, or late 2012). I declare that this is horsepucky. Like she's going to do that upheld-arm-elbow-bang dance move (technical term) while people's faces are melting and the cities slide into the sea and just bop off down the road? Has she seen The Book of Eli? (I have, I was sick recently, and boy howdy, that was not ideal.) It's rough out there in the last gasp of civilization, and she has few viable skills necessary for the end [...]

It was a close thing, but in a demurely tasteful ceremony this weekend, the nation's honor was restored. Now, however, comes the hard part: Like the other cardinal virtues, honor requires extreme vigilance, cautious oversight and constant care and feeding to sustain. How can we strengthen our collective moral fiber without succumbing to the telltale atrophy of mind, body and spirit?

As usual, the nation's lords of finance are here to lead the way. In this moment of unique moral-cum-calisthenic peril, they are stepping forth as exemplars of the extreme adventure challenge.

Yes, that's a real headline, from the Sacramento Bee, and yes, that means one million children on welfare may no longer be. That's one way to move those poor people off the welfare rolls, am I right? Now that the California budget cuts choices have been announced by recently suspiciously liberal governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, we can say hello to a 10% pay cut for state workers! Essentially an end to school mental health programs! Goodbye, after-school care for low-income children. What's more, your firefighters may (or also may not!) be paid with the money from a new insurance policy tax! A tax on, you know, the insurance people [...]

$91,500 for a t-shirt? Yes. It finally happened. Congratulations to us, and to the Hermès men's store on Madison Avenue for just hanging it quietly on a shelf with some rather more normal clothes. (I mean, expensive clothes! But everything looks cheap next to this price tag.)

This t-shirt, to be fair, is made out of crocodile, hence its price. Literally, the entire shirt is just luxurious, beautifully sewn swaths of crocodile. This makes it possibly rather uncomfortable, and perhaps a little heavy, for a t-shirt. Seems like you might feel a little clammy in it? Also kind of awkward to just have everyone stare at your shirt. ("Is [...]

We guess this is it. Goodbye forever! Here's some of what we're glad to be skipping.

• The 2012 presidential election

• Titanic 3D

• Having to stand outside a park to finish a cigarette

• Unavoidable and mostly identical essays on the meaning of Bob Dylan on the occasion of his 70th birthday

• Unavoidable and mostly identical essays on the meaning of Bob Dylan on the occasion of his demise (I mean, stay healthy, Bob, but it's gonna happen some day)

• The rap-rock revival

Yes, this is what's on TV: wall-to-wall Nazis, prison porn, "true crime," Sarah Palin and "When Vacations Attack!"

Every science fiction book I have ever read suggests that letting fertilizer-fueled oil-eating microbes loose in the world to clean up our disgusting oil spills ends very terribly. And also: "There's already a 6,000-square-mile dead zone in the Gulf off the mouth of the Mississippi River, created years ago by the same fertilizers washing down from upriver farms."

The same kind of scientists "frauds" who talk about "climate change" are also claiming that we are "running out of oil." Sarah Palin is going to be pissed. Just insert scare quotes throughout: The scientist and researchers from Oxford University claimed official figures are inflated because Opec member countries over-reported reserves in the 1980s when competing for global market share. The new research, released today, said estimates of conventional reserves should be downgraded from 1.15 trillion barrels to 1.35 trillion barrels to between 850 billion and 900 billion barrels, adding that demand may outstrip supply as early as 2014." And what's more? Shia LaBeouf agrees that now is [...]

Here is a long look at the state gay marriage votes last month, and how all four were won. The successful tactic in the field was personal appeal and one-on-one conversation: the majority of people are conflicted fence-sitters, who are likely struggling between concepts of fairness and the values they've grown up with. And it's safe to say it worked: "In Minnesota, 20 percent of Mitt Romney's supporters voted against the gay-marriage ban; in Maryland, 25 percent of Republicans voted to legalize gay marriage." And what now?

In the weeks since Election Day, the same-sex marriage campaigners have been conducting follow-up research, debriefing, and planning their next steps. [...]

I'm going to go around and collect all the Christians' puppies! Those puppies will never be bored on Sunday mornings again. Yay puppies! What are you going to do on 6:59:59 a.m. on Sunday, May 22nd in the hedonist new world?

You know what, YES, thank you for asking, I would very much like to buy your $62,000 Hermes-Yamaha motorcycle! That motorcycle 110% makes me not give a fuck about starving children and unemployment and ever-increasing financial inequity and bullshit like books! I would buy the shit out of that and then the newspapers could all die and then I would go buy one more for my exceedingly limber masked accomplice and then we would go out and get some In-n-Out Burgers and adopt every unadoptable FIV kitten in the no-kill shelter system and stuff them all in our sidecars and get on our Hermes bikes and be all VROOM [...]

Maybe, just maybe, the just-announced investigation by the US Attorney General into the companies involved with the Gulf Oil Disaster will actually reveal something illegal and they can be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law (this may at some point come to involve a sudden reversal of my strong opposition to the death penalty), despite any possibly changing liability caps. Or maybe not! The best part is that, despite the oily consequences, it's perfectly likely that everything was perfectly legal. Still, I'm looking forward to how Anne Womack-Kolton explains about how BP will be fully cooperating. (Or, you know, maybe she'll get confused from [...]

It's a sacred right of the states, guaranteed by the Constitution, that at its whim it can put you down like a cat that scratches someone's baby too many times. But some states can't even handle that God-given responsibility! Like Ohio, which tried for two hours to find a vein in Romell Broom and then finally gave up. This unfortunate event points out a major flaw in the death penalty: why are we trying to kill people by giving them drugs? Really we should drag them out in the town square and have cloaked virgins flay them with their fingernails and pull them limb from limb. Or maybe [...]