Signs of the decline and fall of the American Empire

--- Selling your phone number on eBay because it's the title of a 27-year old pop-rock hit.

--- The Super Bowl interrupted by porn.

--- Lying to poor people to kick them off welfare.

--- There may be a time, very soon, when Starbucks cafes will not be located across the street from each other.

--- Everyone's going apeshit because the world's best human swimmer got baked.

--- And finally (for this week), my adopted city lost hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of vaccines, birth control pills, and controlled substances.

2012 cannot arrive soon enough.