(And we need a break from absurd conspiracy theories about devious flacks, too.)

1. HOLY SHIT BARACK OBAMA THINKS HE IS ALLAH!!

Yesterday, on a conference call with rabbis about healthcare, Obama declared that "we are God's partners in matters of life and death," which is evidence that his messianic tendencies have merged with his hatred of the elderly into a potent tonic of cartoonish villainy. He was inspired by a Rosh Hashanah prayer—"On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed / And on Yom Kippur it is sealed / How many shall pass away and how many shall be born / Who shall live and who shall die"—and signed off the call with a hearty "L'shanah tovah," Hebrew for happy holidays (even though Rosh Hashanah's a ways off, but still). Politico's Ben Smith smelled Drudgebait, so he wrote it up without really drawing attention to how insane people would surely interpret the comments. Drudge smelled traffic from insane people, so he linked to it while only subtly drawing attention to how insane people would interpret the comments. Insane people saw the story on Drudge, and went insane: "You know who used to talk like this? Jim Jones and David Koresh." (Interestingly, Smith's source for the Obama quote was a rabbi who was in on the call and "live-Tweeted" it. That rabbi has since deleted all the posts—including the one about being "God's partner"—and apologized for publicizing it.)

2. HOLY SHIT JAKE "THE OCTAGON" TAPPER THINKS BARACK OBAMA IS MALCOLM X!!!!

ABC News' Tapper wrote a blog post yesterday in which he quoted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's spokesman saying, of the healthcare bill, "we are determined to get something done this year by any legislative means necessary." Malcolm X once strung together the words "by any means necessary," so Journalist Jake decided to add a video of Malcolm X to his post just to underscore the point that Barack Obama is a radical Muslim black separatist. We kid! While we've been perfectly happy to mock Tapper in the past for offenses big and small, we think this (crazy) conflation of Malcolm X and the legislative process is motivated more by a misguided attempt on Tapper's part to be cheeky rather than to remind terrified old people that Obama hates "working white people," or to get Drudge's attention. Poor Tapper has been furiously defending himself on Twitter, reminding folks that "President Obama not even mentioned," and the DailyKos says, "Seriously, WTF Jake?"

3. HOLY SHIT SOMEONE THINKS DYLAN RATIGAN SHOULD BE FIRED!!!!!!!!!!

That's right—the president of a group has written an angry letter to MSNBC, and Politico's Michael Calderone has it exclusively! Apparently MSNBC, like Fox News, cut its tape of the guys carrying assault rifles outside Obama's Phoenix town hall to make it look like it was all white guys, when the most prominent gun-toter was in fact black. Which means, according to Greg Gutfeld, that MSNBC is trying to start a "race war." And the president of Americans for Limited Government has written a letter to MSNBC demanding that Ratigan, Contessa Brewer, Touré (!), and "any and all others involved in any way with the fraudulent 'news'" be terminated immediately. Now that we think of it, we've got to get started on our item about the letter we just got from MindY0urOwnBiz demanding that President Obama immediately seek the resignations of "geitner and bernaki." (We don't blame you, Michael, we blame August.)

Dropping off their Twittering this summer are such familiar Twitterti as music writer Touré; Air America snarker Ana Marie Cox; New York Times Oscar obsessive David Carr; Times "conceptual scoop" artist Jennifer 8. Lee; celebrity journalism diva Bonnie Fuller; Yahoo vlogger Sarah Lacy and Digg perpetrator Kevin Rose. See the chart above, assembled with help from tweetstats.com (until we melted their servers by asking for numbers on Times Twitterer-in-Chief Brian Stelter).

Summer vacations could well be playing a role; Carr went on a bike trip to Colombia this month, Rose was inspecting tea in remote parts of China. But that would seem the ideal time to use Twitter, which lets you talk to all your friends back home at once, without much time commitment, and even to share pictures and videos with services like TwitPic. Maybe media and tech types have Twitter firmly slotted into the "work" category and don't want to touch it much on break.

There are some outliers: Salon's Joan Walsh, whose been on a cable-news punditry tear, has spiked her Twittering; the New Yorker's Susan Orlean has been manically chronicling her animal obsession in recent weeks; and Kurt Andersen got a burst of posts out of his trip to the White House. Everyone else should hop to and follow their examples; what else can America export to save its useless circle-jerk of an economy, if not narcissistic navel-gazing media?

There are no McCarren pool parties this summer! All the hipsters will continue thinking Vanity Fair isn't cool, now. Also "summer hours" are actually called "furloughs."

[via Cityfile]

From around 6AM Saturday to 6AM Sunday, seven deaths. All of the shootings that took place last night spanned the city. Something like this happened last year. Most of them are being looked at as gang related, with exception to a few.

The shootings, in no particular order: A grocery store owner was found fatally shot yesterday morning in the back of his store on the North Side. A drive-by on the Near West Side that killed one. Three brothers, one fatally shot in a drive-by on the South Side. Three men shot, two fatally after a verbal spat on the West Side. A 26 year-old fatally shot in a drive-by on the Southwest Side. A 28 year-old fatally shot on the Southeast Side, sitting outside his home.

Elsewhere, Thursday night, five were shot in a drive-by on the South Side, including a 15 year-old kid, Friday evening, a guy who hijacked an empty school bus with one other employee aboard was killed at the end of the confrontation by police, and this morning, a 46 year-old man at a grocery store on the South Side was leaving with his groceries when he - as the story goes - pulled out a gun and aimed it at the store's security guard. After a struggle, the guard managed to shoot his assailant in the leg twice; the assailant's now in stable condition. "Police said the man may be homeless and credited the guard," notes the story, but there's something strange about a homeless guy being able to produce a gun. Possible, but doesn't seem likely. Finally, a 65 year-old man killed himself after a long standoff with police.

What's going on in Chicago that's causing all the violence this weekend? Totally rampant speculation: probably some unconnected extreme instances, and gang violence heating up (as it tends to do in the summer, when younger members are less likely to be in school). It can't help that their cops - like so many other large cities - have a reputation for being crooked. But Chicago's? In the last week, a Fire and Police City Council chair being brought up on corruption charges, in addition to a cop being indicted with a mob boss.

The only story on the wires about this is a small AP piece noting the number of shootings of the last night. Not to suggest some kind of vast, far-reaching, Salinger-backpocketing media conspiracy, but it's going to be interesting to see how these types of things are treated over the next few months in the Chicago and national media with the city's Olympic bid decision coming up in four months. Could just be a random string of shootings. It could be a pattern of American Violence that simply goes unnoticed until it comes up in number clusters like this. Whatever it is, it's really, really terrible for all of us. And a kick-you-when-you're-down item I had nowhere else to put: a Chicago petting zoo burned down Thursday, killing 75% of the animals in it. So maybe Chicago's just having one of those terribly unforgiving weeks. Probably not, though.

"It was an e-mail from a University of Minnesota entomologist, but all it said was that of the three DNA samples sent to the scientist, one was human, one was likely a possum and the third could not be tested because of technical problems.

At least one other Bigfoot researcher, Idaho State University anthropologist Jeffrey Meldrum, called the trio's claims 'not compelling in the least.' He told the Scientific American that photographs posted on the Web site 'just looks like a costume with some fake guts thrown on top for effect.'" [AP]

Damn it, we want real monsters and we want them now!

Here are the terrifying pictures of the Bigfoot set to be "unveiled" Friday at a horrific press conference that will change the history of mankind forever or at least devour a couple of minutes during the slowest news period of the year:

The men who found this thing are noted Bigfoot Hunting Hobbyists and first disclosed their findings several weeks ago in the respected, peer-reviewed journal/internet radio funtime show Squatch Detective. The thing is 7 foot 7 inches tall ad weights more than 500 pounds and is estimated good for a Nielsen 3.2 share.

"French academic Dr. Guy Fournier said while female beach goers in France have traditionally bared their breasts without a second thought, the trend has declined due in part to the declining economy, The (Britain) Daily Mail said Friday. 'Bare breasts are viewed as a totally natural state on the beach,' Fournier said. But public morality follows people's confidence and optimism in their wealth and lifestyle.'

"'During an economic downturn, women are less inclined to let it all hang out and more likely to cover up.'

"The Mail said similar changes in beach fashion occurred in 1929 during the Great Depression and after World War II. Such negative events appeared to influence beach goers to wear more clothing during their leisurely beach activities, the newspaper said." [UPI]

"The attack happened near the inlet in New Smyrna Beach (see map) just before 9:00am. The 17-year-old from Titusville was surfing with his friends in an area where sharks were spotted just the day before. And it was just Wednesday that a 15-year-old Edgewater boy was bitten there after stepping on a shark.

"Beach Patrol said one of the reasons behind the latest attacks is a large run of bait fish in the water. Large schools of the fish are moving along the coast, as they often do in the mid-summer months, and sharks eager to feed are going after the schools of fish.

"It's also hot on the coast and the water is calm and that draws a lot of people into the ocean, which increases the chances there will be a bite." [WFTV]

But, hey, maybe if you just move somewhere far, far away the sharks will leave you alone. Think again, dreamer. The mad beasts are taking over Hawaii too!

"'This is a large shark,' Edgartown Harbor Master Charles Blair told the Herald. 'We don't know the species. It was a pretty big fin spotted about 70 yards from the beach. It's close enough for me. We got like Jaws returning over here.'

"'I got a feeling we gotta be vigilant,' Blair said. 'The same goes for our sister island, Nantucket. If you see them, you just try to see what direction they're swimming.' Blair said shark warnings have been posted at South Beach and Sylvia Beach.

"Wendy Fox, a representative for the Department of Conservation and Recreation, said the state cannot close the beaches, since they are on public land and stretch for miles. 'We can't tell people they can't swim there,' Fox said. 'But we can recommend against it.'" [UPI]

Along 34th Street between Fifth Avenue and Avenue of the Americas, 15 stores flooded the sidewalk with their air-conditioning. On a three-block stretch of Broadway in SoHo, from Houston Street to Broome Street, the number was 29. Among the energy wasters were major retailers like Steve Madden, H & M, Foot Locker, Aerosoles, Lane Bryant, Ann Taylor Loft, Arden B., Aldo, Uniqlo, Esprit and Zara.

Not Lane Bryant! There's a proposed law to fine retailers that do this, but it doesn't look too popular politically. More effective is the "asshole customer" route. Think of it as a free chance to berate Steve Madden.

[NYT]

"A day earlier, a 21-year-old Mexican surfer was killed by a shark off a nearby beach. The two attacks came a month after a shark killed a San Francisco man surfing in the same area. The Guerrero state Public Safety Department identified the man as Bruce Greems but did not give his hometown in the U.S. Vazquez Sobreira said he lived in Zihuatanejo. The U.S. Embassy confirmed an American had been bitten by a shark but did not have additional information.

"Mexican authorities used baited hooks to catch sharks last month after the attack that killed 24-year-old Adrian Ruiz of San Francisco. Local conservationists protested the hunt, and it was not immediately clear if authorities would do it again." [AP]

• So the ladies from Jezebel stopped by for a party and everyone had a superfun time!
• We watched the awesome new trailers for The Dark Knight and Indiana Jones.
• As always, Battlestar Galactica was hotly debated.
• Kanye West said this and then this.
• NewsRadio? Yay!
• And then everyone got drunk.