Oh, heavens: Barack Obama's been elected, the economy imploded and suddenly it' s no longer chic to be a superficial consumerist idiot! But how to cope if that's all you've ever known?? We were going on three decades of nearly uninterrupted insane boomtime for the rich, after all, and change is difficult. Fake it hard, advises the kept lady's favorite well-connected fashiongay, Barney's creative director Simon Doonan, in this morning's Observer:

Look, it's Ron Paul! But what is he doing in New York, the fancy magazine for elites, alongside establishment finance types like a former Morgan Stanley economist and a famous investor? Isn't he sort of "kooky?" Everyone (who didn't live in a basement or wasn't a furry) laughed at Paul's quest for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, especially since Paul wanted to get rid of the Federal Reserve and take America back to the gold standard, in which money is backed by something other than the worthless promises of filthy bankers and shiftless bureaucrats. But now it looks like the Fed's board of governors may be leading us into depression, and even that capitalist bible the Wall Street Journal ran an article this weekend speculating that the thinking behind the gold standard, if not the standard itself, "will have its day again." So Paul's stock is rising! Let's hear what terrible things he has to say about our future:

"Everything seemingly is spinning out of control." [AP via Wonkette and everyone else]

A Brazilian newspaper is running a series of ads with the slogan "Understand the real value of money." So what's the real value of a dollar? Apparently it's terrorism, pollution, the Challenger disaster, war, and tornadoes. Oh, and weed. They didn't forget the weed. I won't pretend to be able to identify the underlying philosophy here, but I will point out that even dumb people have figured out that using 9/11 in ads is a bad idea. The takeaway: Give all your dollars to me. Below, the full ad from the Brasilmofascist menace:

Worried about the next "episode of profound chaos" headed our way? Don't be! Your friendly International Business Machines Corporation is on the job. In 2006, IBM filed a patent for "computer usable program code" designed to optimize skills and resources during "episodes of profound chaos during hurricanes, earthquakes, tidal waves, solar flares, flooding, terrorism, war, and pandemics to name a few." As "human beings," IBM explains, we are "generally very ill prepared at a mental level for planning for and dealing with chaotic events." Which is true, but can we call it off if the program starts to get too good at chess?.

We didn't have the heart to post this entire flyer, so if you must know further details, go here. The festivities are on Tuesday night, and the locale is — wait for it — Williamsburg. Expect Wiley to launch its new ... For Hipsters guidebook series in early 2007.

We don't know what it means, but no good can come of this.

The kids at Gothamist provide some of the most comprehensive metro coverage of our fair city, and so it is not at all surprising that we learn from them — and only from them — that we are apparently headed for imminent annihilation. Seems some folks in London have deciphered the "true bible code" — mind you, "not the Da Vinci Code of Dan Brown," but the real bible code — and they have now put out a press release, which Gothamist got hold of, predicting with 98 percent certainty that "the UN Plaza in Midtown Manhattan will be hit by a terrorist nuclear bomb between Thursday evening June 29th and Tuesday evening July 4th, 2006." Which really sucks, because we just made drinks plans for the 5th.

Everyone is half-expecting Armageddon today, 06/06/06. But that's too easy. As the Copyranter points out, it's clearly coming on 06/23/06.