Oh God SHUT UP: Your company/industry/economy did not fail because of a "perfect storm," a chance, disastrous combination of outside events. It failed because you sucked!

Chicago Tribune editors sat on the Rod Blagojevich story starting in October. Publishing Dec. 5th seems to have only pissed off the Justice Department and wrecked what might have been a much bigger scoop.

Fred Armisen finally did a politician impersonation that made everyone laugh! But immediately someone was offended: New York Gov. David Paterson went after the Saturday Night Live cast member for mocking the disabled.

Yes, there's going to be a book about Facebook's creation, adapted for film by Aaron Sorkin, bestselling author Ben Mezrich confirmed. But it won't have lots of sex and cooked Koala, per a Gawker report.

Don Graham, the Washington Post CEO, has joined Facebook's board of directors. Had he not been such a nice guy, he might have had the gig three years ago.

Need more examples? Here are commercials from MSN, Yahoo, and Ask.com. (I found them using Google and YouTube, a Google-owned video-hosting site.) Do any of them articulate a reason to switch search engines?

[Rioters in Athens, who are protesting the police shooting of a 15-year-old boy, use lasers in their clashes with cops; image via AP.]

The Bush administration will be remembered for breaking the law to spy on Americans. One lawyer will be remembered for blowing the whistle.

Remember how you had to move as a kid and you totally promised to keep in touch with your friends, but you didn't? Barack Obama's Chicago buddies worry they're going to be those friends.

Everyone's ready for the Greatest Depression to be done. Economists think it will be over by the middle of next year. What if it isn't?

Now that slushy pop entertainer Britney Spears has come back, what's she gonna do now that she's back on top? Who's she gonna do? And most importantly, will she screw it up again? Let's predict!

Everything that makes YouTube a time-wasting creative desert is just fodder for Gripp's brilliant mind. Take "Young Girl Talking About Herself," which remixes clips of well, exactly that, paired with lyrics of a frenetic energy that reminds me of They Might Be Giants or Weird Al Yankovic.

All the magazines are dying! It's the Internet's fault. No, actually magazines have always died. Statistically, 80 percent of them fail. Which is what makes the medium such a perfect object for nostalgia.

[Update: Now with video!] Hero president George W. Bush placed his own life at risk today by visiting an Iraqi office, where he came under heavy shoe fire:

Everyone's doing Top 10 Lists this time of year! About movies and TV and stuff! So I figured I should too. But just one list, that encompasses everything. Everything bad. Enjoy!

Republican Florida governor Charlie Crist—who can never shake the unverified gay rumors—was forced to commit a sexual act with a woman yesterday, in public! Now he is married to that voracious female:

On SNL last night, Kanye West sounded disturbingly like a quiet man doing bad karaoke. Severe tech problems, or natural talent problems? Click to watch, listen, and judge.

A "landmark" court ruling in the UK means that it is now legal to make jokes there (without having to pay millions in defamation damages). Jokes about Elton John, especially.

Hahaha: Incompetent, litigious superflack Ronn [sic] Torossian is suing a rival for $20 million for calling him a douchebag, on the internet! Hahahaha! This is my favorite story of the holiday season:

Who, exactly, are the rich suckers who just got bilked out of $50 billion (collectively) by Hedge Fund Hustler extraordinaire Bernie Madoff? Here are the names we know so far: