It occurred to us yesterday that 600 Starbucks closing and SUV sales tanking, really has marked a sea change. It's the end of an era. It's the end of the time where Americans could commute in a RV while drinking a $10 cup of joe, borrow against their interest-only sub-prime mortgage and rest assured they would all be taken care of in their cushy print newspaper job. Nope those days are over. Not to be here again.

But as much as we see the harsh, brutal winds of change blowing...and uhm just blowing. There are some hold outs to the old ways. We read this story, and it could only happen in America. And as we celebrate our independence, let us pause and think about this:

From CNSNews.com:

Group Asks for Divine Intervention to Ease Oil Prices

The Pray at the Pump Movement, founded by Rocky Twyman, has been holding prayer vigils at gas stations across the country. On Monday, Twyman decided to take his movement from Exxon and Shell stations straight to the steps of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., hoping to encourage the oil-rich country to raise the amount of barrels they release each day from 200,000 to 1.2 million.

Praying at/to the Saudis? Yes we can. Yeah, we did. Yes we have.

People do.

Happy Independence Day.

We received this in our inbox:

Subject: Why are you scared to cover Bilderberg/NWO meeting in D.C. now... Bilderberg, Shadow Super-government:

It was particularly difficult this year to find out when and where the annual conclave of world powerbrokers, the Bilderberg Group, would take place. Finally, it appears certain that the highly secret meeting of western political-military elites will take place from June 5 - 8 in Chantilly, Virginia, near Washington, in a luxury hotel immersed in nature, the Westfield's Marriott.

Bilderberg is routinely attended by the world's top CEO's, Prime Minsters, Presidents, NATO officials, UN officials, Federal Reserve members, European Central Bank heads, banking heads, oil heads, University Professors, as well as people like Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and Bill Gates.

continued...

We'll warn you to turn down the sound for this one. Not all the way off...just down.

We can't decide if this is an example, metaphor or parable for this election...or even if that matters.

But we are scared for what they would do to a candidate they don't like.

The Tribune Co. issued this April Fool's Day press release:

TRIBUNE COMPANY ANNOUNCES NAME CHANGE Zell Tells Employees of Switch in an Email;

Company Announces Revenue Generating Efforts To Offset Debt

CHICAGO, April 1, 2008 -- Tribune Company, the largest employee-owned media company in the nation, today announced it has changed its name to ZellCoMediaEnterprises Inc. or ZCMEINC. Zell, who made a fortune in real estate before deciding he'd like to dabble in an industry completely unfamiliar to him, announced the change in his record-setting 437th email to exhausted employees this year.

"H---, I put $315 million into this thing, and we're on the hook for $13 billion -- the least I ought to get is my name on the company's stationery," said Zell, who remains chairman and CEO of the newly named enterprise.

Which would be funny, if it were not totally and maddeningly possible.

A week after reports revealed US state department workers improperly snooped into the passport files of three presidential candidates, word is out that those rights-violating little buggers got their noses in Anna Nicole Smith's files too.

According to the AP, Smith was not alone (she rarely ever was):

State department officials told AP the review involved several hundred US citizens whose passport files are flagged for extra protection because of their prominence. These people include politicians, entertainers and athletes. Accessing their files triggers an automatic record that it has been viewed.

Celebrities getting their privacy violated? Get out of town! (And don't forget your passport!)

People magazine devoted a cover each to new moms Nicole Richie and Christina Aguilera, who each delivered their spawn a day a part at Cedars Sinai.

Both mammas sold their baby's first pics for obscene sums, but in Nicole's case, that might have been a good investment for the mag, which is on target to sell more than 1.8 million copies.

Aguilera's numbers, it's been widely reported, have been far more disappointing.

We'd feel bad reducing a child's value to a dollar sign -- if the moms hadn't beaten us to it.

Turns out the whole premise behind Be Kind Rewind isn't based in scientific fact! In the movie, Jack Black--with a brain magnetized by a civil disobedience act gone wrong--erases all the tapes in a Passaic, NJ video store, thus impelling the re-shooting of all the movies destroyed.

According to professional spoil-sport Jeremy Berlin, no way, Jose. He cites Jerzy Bodurka, a Polish physicist who works at the National Institute of Mental Health:

Overall, soft brain tissue has weak diamagnetic properties and cannot be magnetized to [that] level. If it could, then the kitchen, the mechanical shop, the hardware store, and many other places would be very dangerous environments for all human beings. So the answer to that question is NO.

In a few dozen years, or perhaps sooner, when nanotechnology, robotics, and power-generation technologies advance into something like a human-machine hybrid...such a hybrid [could] have a part of its body--say, an arm-equipped not with a deadly gun or flamethrower (like that cute-but-dangerous lady aka Terminator 3) but with a magnetic conduit.

That explains so much.

Trend watch: knock her up to seal the deal. Baby daddies are sowing their seed everywhere, it seems.

Britney Spears is allegedly preggers by maybe-husband Adnan Ghalib (can she even spell that?):

"Britney is Adnan's dream come true. He knows that if he has a child with Brit, he'll be made for life," one friend of Adnan's tells the Star.

and that's what a friend says.

One time hotshot Jeff Stein is hitching his wagon to Angela Janklow's star, with a baby on the way.

Who wouldn't want a mini-version of these guys?

This ad for Hillary Clinton.

This latest ploy by the Orange County Register to lose money, readers and self-respect.

The admonition, following Sam Zell's visit to the L.A. Times, that colorful language and a love of pussy were the purview of the king, not the hoi polloi.

The Hilton family.

E! Online's The Answer Bitch (aka Leslie Gornstein) has the breakdown:

* a dozen LAPD motorcycles and squad cars
* one helicopter
* a special mental health unit
* and the ambulance

The estimated cost: $25,000, according to the L.A. Times. But the police tell the Answer Bitch that that money was well spent:

The last time Britney had to go to the hospital -- on Jan. 3 -- the scene got pretty nuts.

One photographer even attempted to jump on top of Spears' ambulance, Aguirre tells me. "At that point we were out-resourced," Aguirre explains, and the police didn't want that to happen again.

She may have a point: After Britney's first hospital haul on Jan. 3, another city government source tells me, police and city hall types were abuzz that the paparazzi had endangered the operation.

Maybe. But considering, we've never even coughed up the $20 for one of her albums, we still feel like we want our money back. Or at least some store credit at Amoeba.

Earlier:
Obligatory Britney Spears Post