At face value, Sarah Palin's announcement yesterday that she wouldn't seek the Republican nomination for President in 2012 seemed tame in comparison to her usual antics. But nothing Palin does is without sinister intentions and on tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart reminded us of that reality when he suggested the only reason Palin delayed announcing her plans not to run was to squeeze more money out of her supporters.

Yeah, so, here's a counterpoint take on Steve Jobs' death, from Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, screamed to thousands of fans at a concert in Lima one year ago. I won't repeat what he said here, but it's pretty horrible and shocking. It happens at 2:10 in the video above.

Cats and the internet: They go together like peanut butter and jelly. But until now, we could only enjoy online cats in the most passive of ways. No more! Thanks to the iPet Companion, you can control robotic cat toys at humane shelters around the country with the click of a computerized mouse! You can even move the camera around. It's really fun!

Reluctant to have your little ones participate in a demonic (but delicious!) pagan ritual? Then choose to celebrate Jesus Ween this October 31st instead. Jesus Ween is not, in fact, a celebration of Jesus's ween, but rather "a non for Profit Organisation [sic] also known as JesusWin...focused on helping people live a better life."

Feeling a little jumpy around the NYPD lately? Worried they might use their new surface-to-air missile technology to take out a mouthy Gossip Girl star? Well, fret not. Only Mayor Bloomberg could make the final call for an air strike.

Selectively senile media magnate Rupert Murdoch has set up a special "hotline" for staff to report any "illegal activity" they spy around the various News Corp newsrooms. Which of course raises the question: Is the hotline tapped? And if so, will Murdoch-owned tabloids be the first to get scoops on News Corp employees who are about to be arrested for their shady journalistic practices? Because that ouroborosian arrangement could keep him in scandalous headlines for years to come.

Septuagenarian comeback kid Woody Allen told U.K. talk show Daybreak, "If I was in a room with Michelle Obama, and I thought she was right for a part, I wouldn't hesitate to ask her." And he isn't just whistling out of his clarinet hole with that offer: He cast Carla Bruni, wife of French president Nicolas Sarkovy, in Midnight in Paris after having dinner with the couple.

Speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Thursday, shit-canned former head of the United States Army, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, said that the war in Afghanistan is a botched operation:

Where some see loss, others see opportunity. That would at least appear to be the case at the Apple store in Little Rock, Arkansas where two mourners who had come to pay tribute to Steve Jobs noticed something unusual: that the store was being robbed.

A federal government crackdown has issued shutdown notices to 16 California marijuana dispensaries — part of a larger effort by the Obama administration to curb the fast-spreading weed trade, which now makes finding some indica easier than a Venti latte.

Looking for a bad-ass time? You've come to the right place! Our commenter live blog of Project Runway is about to get started, and this party is more bad-ass than a plaid ass!

Today we boldly declared that Steve Jobs was not god. We were pretty resolute about that. Unwisely, suggested a commenter.

The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded tomorrow, and people are taking seriously the possibility that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg might win it. These people seem to be confusing the concepts of "world peace" and "procrastinating at work."

Yes, our beloved football friends may yet live. Also today: good news for an American Horror Story, bad news for an American idol, and James Bond has a new title.

Japanese toilet maker Toto has invented the world's first Toilet Bike, which converts human poop "harvested directly from the driver" into biogas, Treehugger reports.* The seat is a toilet, so if you ride it with your pants down, you could theoretically defecate while you ride, thereby fueling it.

Here's a trailer for Young Adult, the new movie from Juno collaborators Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman. Do those names send chills through your spine? Good ones, or bad ones?

Michelle Obama is gathering hundreds of children at the White House tomorrow to attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Records record of the number of people doing jumping jacks at the same time. She's part of a push by National Geographic Kids to get more than 20,000 people around the world to do jumping jacks for one minute at the same time.

The House has rejected, on procedural grounds, a resolution calling for Rick Perry to apologize for not immediately "doing away" with that rock that bore his ranch's name, "Niggerhead," for so long. Society will never change without this resolution!

In your weary Thursday media column: a fun cokey journalism blind item, Steve Jobs makes the media work, plagiarism at the Examiner, micromedia evolution, and layoffs are coming to the BBC.

Filthy rich Hollywood power players, they're just like us: totally embarrassing dancers at weddings.