Posters to various message boards tell stories of seeing bumper stickers with the message "Pray for Obama—Psalm 109:8" on the highway, only to look up the verse and find, "Let his days be few; and let another take his office." People — like the commenter "Panama" on INGunOwners.com, to pick one guy completely at random — think this is "too funny." The next verse in Psalms is, "Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow."

Anyway, now it's a real thing: CafePress is selling T-shirts and bumper stickers, the Christian Science Monitor is wondering whether it's "funny or sinister" to pray for Obama's death, and Rachel Maddow referenced it last night on her show.

UPDATE: CafePress appears to have halted sales of all the Psalm 109:8-related merchandise.

Psalm 109 is known as "A Cry for Vengeance," which is one of the foundational values of Christianity, along with small-business tax cuts. It's actually quite a little psalm, as psalms go, and the opening lines sound really familiar:

Hold not thy peace, O God of my praise;
for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me:they have spoken against me with a lying tongue.
They compassed me about also with words of hatred; and fought against me without a cause.

Then it gets into the part where you pray for God to smite Barack Obama and condemn Malia and Sasha to poverty for the rest of their lives, a fate they deserve because they sprang from the loins of the sinful:

Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg: let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

The Psalm 109:8 gag is one in what's becoming a long line of cheekily coded Obama death threats: There was the classified ad someone placed in a Pennsylvania paper hoping that he follows in "the footsteps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy," all of whom were assassinated. And there was the gun-toting New Hampshire teabagger with a sign saying it is time to "water the tree of liberty"—a reference to Thomas Jefferson's reminder that the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time with the "blood of tyrants and patriots."

Why not a T-shirt that says, "Will Somebody Please Kill That Guy Already?" The word games are getting tedious. If you want Barack Obama to die and for curses to "come into his bowels like water, and like oil into his bones," and for his name to be blotted out in one generation, just say so!

Here's our favorite part of Psalm 109:

Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame; and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle.

That sounds about right.

• South Park: In its famous "Cartoon Wars" episode, Cartman decides he hates Family Guy, hilarity ensues.

• Deborah Solomon: The NYT's stern question lady had a decidedly pissy interview with Seth Macfarlane last month. Sample Solomon questions: "Personally, I find the show's rape jokes especially unfunny...Why is that funny?...I would say Groening is a better colorist...Are you contemptuous of families?...Are you straight?" God, shut up, Deborah Solomon.
• Richard Lawson: Famous cultural critic who did not care for the show. He called it "crude, sloppy, shamelessly Simpsons-derivative non sequitur humor," which is relatively non-debatable, as insults go.
• Microsoft: Microsoft and their supercool ad agency Crispin Porter Bogusky were all signed up as sponsors for an upcoming prime time Family Guy special, but then somebody at Microsoft accidentally watched Family Guy, and, whoa! Microsoft can tolerate jokes about nerds, Apple, the blind, barely legal hoes, and Rwanda, but this show's "riffs on deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest" were too much, according to Variety.

Remaining Family Guy Fans:

• Seth MacFarlane: That guy is so rich now. Filthy, unclean rich.
• News Corp. Executives: Family Guy makes money.
• Millions of 18-34 year old males: Their taste is America's taste!

"This is the best story of the day!" Jonah writes. And then quotes:

At a town hall meeting last night in Morningside Heights, residents wept and shouted at Ms. Rolnik. They complained about deteriorating public housing, the lack of housing subsidies for AIDS patients, landlord harassment and many other issues, large and small.

Hah! Ha ha ha! Isn't that just a laugh riot, to you?

We suppose the "joke" is... the U.N. is ineffective? Like, it will investigate all of this and then send a sternly-worded letter to the president, or something. Right? Is that we we are supposed to find funny, here? Or is the very idea of the stupid UN thinking that "housing" is a "human right" the funny bit?

Look, there's a follow-up that will make you split your sides. Hope you can suppress the giggles long enough to hit publish on this one too, Jonah!

At an hour-long presentation at the Sedgwick Branch Library on University Avenue and 176th Street — a futuristic 90's building that looks part space shuttle and part Star Wars, — the rapportuer was told that in a four-square-mile area of the North and South Bronx, six private equity firms have officially driven 2,738 apartment units into foreclosure or risk of foreclosure.

Cesar Guzman, who lives at a building formerly owned by Ocelot Capital Group, said when Ocelot officially "disappeared" — meaning they literally can't be traced, they "packed up everything and left town" — they also left his 16-unit building in foreclosure and total disrepair, with things to this day "getting worse."

Other tenants told the the rapporteur similar horror stories. Dina Levy, organizing and policy director for the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board, who helped organize the tenants, found one common denominator in all these cases: buildings with over-leveraged mortgages that their rent revenues can't support.

And when a building is over-leveraged, said Levy, the landlord inevitably fails to maintain it. "The landlords have these outrageous mortgage payments," she said. "And they either have two choices: they can pay the mortgage, or they can fix the building."

Every single building holding the 2,738 endangered or foreclosed units saw a dramatic increase in violations, going from a handful to over 200 in less than a year. For Guzman and many others, this meant no heat and no hot water last winter. (He told us he took a cold shower this morning because the boiler broke down — again.)

Well, maybe you had to be there.

There's so much funny on Regretsy, I'm not sure where to begin. I'm not the only one.

Maybe its name, a streak of obvious brilliance. Or the two anonymous posting names Knitler Youth and Helen Killer. Etsy is inherently funny, so finding the most insane things on Etsy just works. It's not like eBay, where people are selling ridiculous things. These people are expressing themselves. Sure, you could make an argument that Regretsy might be mean-spirited; after all, someone's pouring their heart into these things. Let me assure you that after about five minutes on Regretsy, you'll understand. Also, they link to all of the sellers, which makes for an awesome punchline: people are buying these things after being linked on Regretsy. Often. Occasionally, the internet will turn out a win-win situation. This is one of them. My three favorite Regretsy items below. Throw yours in the comments.

Yes, it's a Leopard Pink Goat Coat. Because your goat is caught in the never-fashion of fourteen years ago and wants to be on The Grind.

Yes, it's a catnip fetus. Because your named your pet Patrick Bateman.

Yes, it's a knit Christmas Nativity Meerkat Manger Scene. Because you're a festive meerkat.

Chen and I are in disagreement as to whether or not this is intentional. I say it's a coincidence, but he's convinced that Mario was a definite inspiration for this background. What do you guys think? [Serious Lunch]

See, you can't expect the combined efforts of a highly paid writing staff and a ridiculously highly paid star comedian TV host to be enough to come up with five minutes of jokey monologues every night. So most big time late night shows—from Leno and Letterman to SNL—buy jokes from freelancers, for pennies.

Johnson says he has gotten more than 160 of his jokes on the "Late Show With David Letterman" and, before that, "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."

The 39-year-old is part of an underground network of comedy writers who supply the late-night programs with a constant stream of material. If one of their jokes gets on the air, they get a check for $75 or $100. What they don't get is any credit or union pay.

This pisses off the writers guild, but they can't do too much about it, because the shows don't mind it, and the writers are so dazzled to get their material on air they don't complain. But here's the benefit of union membership:

While the guild's contract permits the hiring of freelancers, it requires that they be paid union minimums — $3,215 for a comedy sketch under 10 minutes — if they are employed as professional writers on a guild-covered show.

$3200 for one little sketch. Good money, right? (PAUSE) Yea, or as Bill Gates calls it, "Pocket Lint."
(PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER).
Call me, Jay!
(PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER).
[LAT]

[via Adrants]

Virgin America is suing Adrants, one of the small handful of actually readable ad blogs, because they ran this parody Virgin ad (made by someone else!) that you see at left. They've pulled it now after Virgin sent them a huge threatening attorney's letter, but apparently the lawsuit (for defamation and other ridiculous things) is still a real threat. Of course their lawsuit has now caused the fake ad to be posted in ten times more places than it ever would have had they just left it alone.

I thought you were good at PR, Richard Branson. [Agency Spy]

• The name "Kappa Beta Phi" is "Phi Beta Kappa," but, wackily, backwards. Not funny.
• "'Today, the FBI put out a warning that Al Qaeda was planning an attack to cripple the U.S. economy,' inductee Martin Gruss joked later in the evening. 'I've got news for them, Congress has already done that.'"
• "'There's Wilbur Ross over there,' Mr. Gruss said at one point, referring to the member who recently became the society's 'Grand Loaf,' one of Kappa Beta Phi's four offices. 'Doesn't he look like a visitor from another planet? That's the reason brothers and sisters shouldn't marry.'" Oh-for-two, Mr. Gruss.
• "There was at least one attempt at rap, by Mr. Hill, who was quickly jeered offstage. Rockefeller's Mr. McDonald tried to sing a version of 'Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho,' renamed 'Treasury Fought the Battle of Lehman Bro.' and met a similar fate." At least they jeer correctly.
• "Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a former Goldman Sachs CEO who is not a member, also made it into the Grinch tune: 'Where's the TARP money, Mr. Hank? Did any of it fall through the cracks? You let Lehman go under but not your beloved Goldman Sachs.'"

Leave the jokes to the poors. [WSJ]

Currently it's worth $365, according to eBay. And there are still three days left! For that price you may be the proud winner of this:

I am selling a joke that I can't find a contextual home for. To be fair, it's less of a joke and more of a dated, Capote-esque cocktail party bon mot, but decidedly more feeble. The best one can reasonably expect from this item is a self-satisfied chuckle, such as can be observed issuing from someone wearing a turtleneck while reading the Harper's Index. If that didn't make you barf, please continue reading.

The item in question will be clearly hand-printed on a 3x5 index card and mailed to the winning bidder upon receipt of payment.

Better be pretty fucking funny. At this rate a single issue of the Onion is more valuable than the S&P 500. [Ebay]

Elton, a touchy man, sued the Guardian over a satirical piece making fun of him. He did this because libel laws in the UK are absolutely bananas, and if you print anything bad about anybody you will be sued, to death. But in a stunning reversal of tradition, Elton lost!

In a groundbreaking libel decision, the judge said that "irony" and "teasing" do not amount to defamation. The ruling offers protection to writers of satirical articles clearly not meant to be taken seriously and was welcomed last night by media lawyers and journalists.

The Guardian was awarded costs and the singer, who brought the action, was refused leave to appeal by Mr Justice Tugendhat. John's legal team indicated that he might now seek leave to appeal.

I hear Elton John and The Queen wear dirty knickers! USA! [Guardian UK; pic via]

With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared.

Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”

Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”

Oh man, Putin totally zinged us! Zinged by Putin!

That won't happen now that Barack Obama is in charge. No, he commands respect. Another added bonus of an Obama presidency? When people try to zing him, it just shows how boorish and lame the zinger is! First Silvio Berlusconi made that lame "suntanned" joke, and everyone was like, what? Now the Poles are doing it! Polish people are making jokes about us! This aggression cannot stand!

"Poland has been forced to deny its foreign minister 'joked' that President-Elect Barack Obama's grandparents were cannibals. In an episode that could potentially strain relations between Warsaw and Washington, Radek Sikorski, an Oxford-educated politician who has lived in the US, was reported to have made the jibe by an opposition politician, Ryszard Czarnecki. Writing in his blog, Mr Czarnecki, an MEP, quoted the foreign minister as saying: 'Have you heard that Obama may have a Polish connection? His grandfather ate a Polish missionary.' A spokesman for the Polish foreign office conceded that Mr Sikorski had made the controversial comment, but denied that the foreign minister had intended to insult Mr Obama, whose father was Kenyan."

Sheesh, Poland. We're not letting you in any more of our coalitions of the willing. Is it so funny now?

Comedy Central Insider puts this crisis in perspective:

First of all, expecting us to laugh at politics less in an Obama administration is like expecting us to have sex less in an Obama administration. Fun things are fun to do, no matter who's President, dummy. If we're hungry for a Whopper, but we're at McDonald's, we will not starve to death. (You see, George Bush is a Whopper and Barack Obama is a Big Mac and I'll show myself to the euthenasia clinic.)

That's comedic! And the Daily Show is doing fine. They've enlisted the services of a Black Correspondent:

[To be fair, Pareene knew how to make fun of Obama way back in July.]

The L.A. Times sent a reporter out to the comedy clubs this weekend to watch black comedians make their black comedian jokes about Barack Obama, the new black president.

Tommy Davidson's centerpiece joke about President-elect Barack Obama at a Los Angeles comedy club over the weekend "killed" — in more ways than one.

Davidson, who was a regular on Fox's hip sketch comedy show "In Living Color," bounded on stage Friday at the Comedy Union on Pico Boulevard and said he would like to perform a bit from Obama's upcoming inaugural speech. He stood at an imaginary podium — then, a "shot" rang out and he collapsed in a heap.

The audience was momentarily shocked, then erupted in laughter. But for some, the laughs stuck in their throats.

Chris Rock's Head of State features the same joke, of course. And Richard Pryor did a First Black President routine back in the 70s that was mercifully free of assassination material.

But honestly, we're not particularly worried about the "challenge" comedians face in an Obama presidency. Sure, the man himself is not particularly funny, or at least not easily mockable so far, but the "Bush is stupid" and "Clinton is a horndog" jokes were the worst parts of the last 20 years worth of popular political humor so god bless a guy who'll make everyone have to try a little harder.

Barack: This Dude Even Changed Comedy Tuesday
By Jordan Carlos

The political balance of power may not have been the only thing that shifted Tuesday. The world of comedy got a bit of a shake up too. Though it's difficult to predict the misty future with any certainty, Obama's win does beg a couple of obvious questions; namely, "Do Black comedians have much to complain about anymore?" Now before you tear my nuts off for asking this, let me say I'm just raising this extreme question for the sake of argument. I don't actually think Black people don't have anything to complain about anymore, though cabs were remarkably easier to come by yesterday in the city. But things have changed—and who are many comedians of color, if not people who point to the old saw of differences between white and Black and all the hi-larious inequalities surrounding those differences? Remove that brand of humor from the mix, and what's left for Black comedians to fall back on?

Plenty, of course. The world is full of comedic opportunity. But it will be intriguing to see how audiences will respond when a Black comic moans about the everyday racial politics he or she faces when a Black person holds the highest office in the land.

For anyone who can do an impression of Obama, congrats! Your stock just went through the friggin roof! Bush impersonators, report to your local soup kitchen or shanty town. Obama impersonators are guaranteed at least 4 years of career opportunity. For me, a fairer-skinned black dude with newly close-cropped hair and larger-than-average ears, things are looking up. I've already been able to do my impression for TV (once on Headline News and once on a Japanese morning TV show – Yeah, I know. What the F?) and I look forward to at least four more years of it. Though I was asked by the folks at Gawker to give my take on Fred Armisen's impression of Obama, I'm gonna have to pass. Other art forms encourage a lover's quarrel among artists – boisterous roundtables and bustling salons, etc. — comedy, not so much. Take it from me, comics are a sensitive bunch – me more than most (we're not talking Kanye West levels here, but you get where I'm going with this). We want to be liked (obveeez!!!). Did I dance around that enough? You can watch my Obama impression here, OK? [Ed.: And also here]

I think the existential question of what comedians can complain about now is shared by not only Black comedians, but also the good folks at The Daily Show and Real Time with Bill Maher. They got what they wanted, right? So now what? Feast on Obama like they did Bush? That would be kinda weird. Recently on his show Bill Maher declared a new rule: that President-elect "Obama must give comedians something to work with." When questioned about this statement by America's favorite old man, Larry King, Maher said, "But look, [Obama]'s going to be the president and we're going to have to get over our nervousness about making fun of a Black person. He's not a black person. He's the president." OK, Maher lost me at the whole, "he's not a black person" bit, but you get what he's trying to say. Eventually ALL comedians are going to have to take off the kid gloves and skewer the newly anointed commander in chief. How they do it will be something that I, for one, am interested to see. To me there's plenty you can make fun of when it comes to Obama:

— Because of him the high concept movie about a jazzy black dude being president is dead and over.

—People maybe just maybe expect too much from him.

—He's got huge, honking ears.

—You can make fun of the fact that it's hard to make fun of him.

—You kind of have to do a lot of self-deceiving to back the guy (doesn't believe in gay marriage, tough on immigration, tosses friends when they become political liabilities – Rev. Wright, Ayers).

—He may kinda owe Oprah a place in his cabinet.

—Does Jesse Jackson still want to cut his nuts off like he said? And why the hell was he front-row Chicago victory rally after saying something like that? Obama must have known he said that. Where's my front row seat? I didn't call for castration.

You could make sketches out of all that stuff and more if you've got the salt. You should always be able to laugh at your leaders – even if they're awesome people who happen to be Black.

Not long after getting an infusion of capital in 2006, it was revealed that Heavy was inflating its traffic numbers by buying pop-up ads featuring Heavy content on other sites, and counting them as visits. Which is not something any advertiser wants to hear:

The concern over pop-up content goes beyond traffic numbers. Many advertisers pay premium prices to reach readers of certain Web sites. Through pop-ups, these advertisers may find their orders are being fulfilled with low-cost page views that users never requested and may never have seen.

Instead of being satisfied with what it was—a reasonably popular humor site—Heavy promised hypergrowth in order to attract investment dollars. The problem is, they've never had enough extra content to support the growth they wanted. Hence the pop-ups.

We also hear Heavy co-founder Simon Asaad tried to sell the site to Break.com, but the deal never went through.

So if even the "Heavy Men's Network" can't gin up enough extra traffic to satisfy those investors (and it would need some fantastic new plan to do it), Heavy—minus its best salesmen—could be on the way down.

[More details on Heavy's decline at Valleywag]