Wonkette

• If you thought Marion Barry could dance, think again! Because Al Sharpton is nimble as a ballerina. [Michelle Malkin]
• With all its student loans and Mongolian hordes of credit card debt, California is having a hard time paying the bills! But that hasn’t stopped the California State Legislature from jerkin’ the gherkin and debating into the wee hours about COW TAILS and other issues concerning cow anatomy, like, for example, why they have tails and we don’t? Sounds like a job for a new ad-hoc committee! Oh dear, Arnold Schwarzenegger IST SEHR ANGRY. [Hit & Run]
• Andrew Sullivan, his keyboard still dipped in Hezbollah green, continues to blog for freedom, in his bathrobe. And just like everyone else who fights the Man, Andrew Sullivan listens to the hip-hop. Behold: the KRS-One of Iran. Woop-Woop! [Andrew Sullivan]
• A few deeply concerned Republican lawmakers held an intervention for Michele Bachmann, because they were justifiably worried all the paint huffing was taking its toll. But who are you going to listen to, Michele? These Republican faggots, or Alex Jones? [HuffPost]
• The other day we reported that Matt Yglesias was writing a blog about all the fun he was having reading Infinite Jest. Well looky here! The game is the same, but the rules have changed! [Read Infinite Jest Until Ken Layne's Book Is Published]

HOBO KEN LAYNE TO WANDER BEACHES AND WRITE BOOK ABOUT CALIFORNIA: If the publishing industry isn’t officially dead yet, this is sure to kill it! At some point in 2010, HarperStudio will publish “a history of California’s culture, environment and politics framed by [Layne's] bravely idiotic solo hike up the entire 1,000-mile coastline of America’s weirdest, most populous state.” It will sell like hotcakes, as long as he publishes under the moniker “Meg McCabe.” [New York Observer, HarperStudio]

Watching this weirdly edited video clip makes us feel like we just downed a coffee mug full of Liquid Vicodin, but perhaps you people will get something deeper, or maybe your heads will explode, just like poor Al Franken’s … or, Senator Al Franken’s head, right? [The Connecticut Forum]

Throughout the history of American journalism, reporters have upheld one vital standard: asking the tough questions and holding to account the most powerful person in the nation, which is to say, the First Lady. But is our national legacy of unbiased investigative East Wing reporting suddenly in peril because some black gals are writing about Michelle Obama? MORE »

America’s neo-con pamphlet the Washington Post can be found festering in certain driveways from Reston to Chevy Chase, but sometimes that’s not good enough for the powerful CEO or lobbyist who wants to, say, beat the shit out of Richard Cohen in person. This is why Post publisher Katharine Weymouth is now hosting intimate sexy gatherings at her home, where for a small admission price (between $25,000 and $250,000), the lonely business leader can dine with WaPo editors and journalists, get a loving hummer from Krauthammer or Kristol or (imagine!) both of them. MORE »

This Independence Day is going to be amazing because our savior, Barack Obama, is in the White House, and therefore America is once again a country worth celebrating! Follow our Do’s and Don’ts to make this July 4th the most enjoyable than any since 1776. MORE »

Somehow it seems unlikely that this dude, who vows not to read Wonkette ever again, has read much of it in the past. MORE »

Yesterday while the rest of you were out shopping for booze or maybe just emptying out the still in anticipation of today’s 12th annual National Unemployment Day, President Obama was hard at work hanging out with a bunch of pilots — some pretty awesome lady pilots from World War II, and also the first female Thunderbird pilot. Sometimes his job does not seem so bad. [The President's Very Effective Propaganda Photo Site]

THE SAD ROMANTICAL BALLAD OF MARK SANFORD: “Of course, when you’re a middle-aged man facing the collapse of your life’s work and abandoning hope of being with the woman you call your ‘ soul mate’ rational decision making or a clearly considered plan may be too much to expect.” Illustration by our pal Lauri. [TPM]

In these difficult times, when it seems everything is declining — corporate profits, individual incomes, assorted varieties and levels of a thing we used to call “hope” — one thing grows ever larger and more robust: our unemployment rate. Let’s hear it for the magical number 9.5, for that is the percentage of Americans who currently don’t have jobs. MORE »

• Now that we don’t have to worry about Iraq anymore, we can start worrying about Afghanistan instead, where a “major operation” was just launched. [CNN]
• Soon California won’t be able to pay its bills and it will start issuing IOUs scratched out on bits of scrap paper as “currency.” [AP]
• Several of Michele Bachmann’s fellow Republicans have urged her to fill out her census form completely, so that the administrators of ACORN-run internment camps can track her down without wasting taxpayer dollars on a private investigator. [Washington Post]
• What is the point of living, really, if you can’t have Vicodin? [ABC News]
• The auctioning of Iraqi oil-development rights that went so well the process attracted one whole bidder was indeed a success because it showed the Iraqis weren’t going to whore themselves out to foreign oil companies. And that stunning success is why they’re going to move up bidding on a bunch of undeveloped or partially developed fields from late this year to “within the next few months.” [Wall Street Journal]
• After days of caterwauling to the press about his forbidden love affair, crybaby blabbermouth Mark Sanford fell suddenly silent as people asked fewer questions about his girlfriend and more about when he was going to resign. [AP]