At the end of last night's fluffy-duffy speech to the public about the debt ceiling, President Obama urged everyone to call their representatives to request his "balanced" approach to deficit reduction, which apparently means $3 trillion dollars in spending cuts along with zero dollars in new tax revenue. What the hell was he talking about? Who cares! Because people too his cue, and are now breaking the phone system.

Speaking of hugely popular chain stores with a liberal reputation which are actually staunch enemies of unions: Starbucks! The Industrial Workers of the World have been trying, with little success, to organize Starbucks workers for years. This week, they're picketing select Starbucks locations in major cities, partly in sympathy with Chilean Starbucks workers who are already on strike. From an IWW press release:

The criminal enterprise formerly known at Blackwater USA, Xe Services, is perhaps best known for murdering civilians and ripping America off for hundreds of millions of dollars and getting away with it. Now, after rebranding itself as a "peacekeeping and humanitarian" force (ha), the company is moving up to the D.C. area to kiss some ass and win some contracts. According to the AP: "Xe Services says 20 people will move from Moyock, N.C., to Arlington to foster relationships with customers in and around Washington." Oh God.

We know that the unprofitable US Postal Service is considering ending Saturday mail delivery, and possibly cutting back to three days per week within the next 15 years. But you won't have to wait that long for your post office to be closed.

Yeah, it's gotten this bad: President Obama will address the nation at 9:00 ET tonight about the debt ceiling negotiations, bringing this fresh hell to your teevee screen! What can you do? The guy loves giving speeches.

There is precisely one person on Earth for whom this terrible debt ceiling debate has been a net positive: Erick Erickson, CNN political analyst and blogger at RedState.com! He's used it to portray himself as the most important person in Republican party politics, with his trenchant blog posts. Did you know that House Republicans need his permission to do anything? It's true! Our politics are just that healthy.

Among the many, many people who irk the anarchic message board 4chan, cyberbullying expert Parry Aftab is one of the most consistently despised. So it's not surprising that an anonymous internet denizen sent a SWAT team to her New Jersey home this weekend.

It's a brand new week in debt ceiling negotiations, as America teeters towards the brink of insane, self-inflicted collapse. Hooray!

2012 is shaping up to be an exciting year for politics. A month after the U.S. presidential election Venezuela will hold its own, and Hugo Chávez said that he's running. He dropped the news to the Venezuelan newspaper Correo del Orinoco and gave a rare rare insight into his way of thinking: "On a personal level, I tell you I have never thought for even an instant of retiring from the presidency." Whoa, really?

A judge in Norway has spared the world from a "marketing" stunt by wet-suited Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, and will hold his arraignment behind closed doors today. Breivik also asked to appear in uniform.

A rep for Amy Winehouse, Chris Goodman said the singer was found dead by her personal security guard: "At this stage no one knows how she died. She died alone in bed." [TMZ]

Every day, celebrities across the world are followed and photographed by the omnipresent paparazzi, often to entertaining results. From Lindsay Lohan in Los Angeles to Tom Cruise in Miami to the Twilight stars in San Diego, here are some of the more amusing shots from the past week.

Amy Winehouse's death yesterday at age 27 has unsurprisingly led many people to ask questions about the property—both intellectual and real—that she leaves behind. Were there any unfinished records? And who will get her money?

French politician Aurelie Filippetti reportedly told police that she never visited supposed sex-binger Dominique Strauss-Kahn at his Parisian apartment because people warned her that the ex-IMF chief maybe attacked women there. Did she actually call DSK's place a "sex den," though?

Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples across New York state are getting hitched today, thanks to legislation passed on June 24. In New York City alone, 823 couples signed up to marry today, while couples in a dozen other cities across the state also walked down the aisle.

What does everyone else in the world think about the ridiculous debt debate going on in Washington? Speaking to the BBC today, British Business Secretary Vince Cable said:

As if today weren't sufficiently SADurday enough: Retired U.S. Army general and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman died today in Washington state. He was 75.

The British hacking scandal has raised many questions, none more pressing than which fictional evil elderly man does factually evil Rupert Murdoch resemble most? Emperor Palpatine? Mr. Burns? Voldemort? Here are the best pictures of Rupert Murdoch looking evil and you can judge for yourself.

We just told you about the bear who stuck its head in a jug and lost 85 pounds. Now a coyote pup's wandering around Washington state with a damn jar on its head and can't eat anything.

British pop singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London home today, various news outlets are reporting.