1. “Chico and the Man” — Hey, SCREW The Man! Always trying to stick it to a brother. Don’t play all sentimental and shit with me, Mister Man. Behind that dirty fedora and mustache lurks the heart of a soulless penny-pinching spirit-crushing monster! If Freddy hadn’t died he totally would have exposed you, you capitalist pig!

2. Guy Smiley — You know why you didn’t see him in the new Muppet Movie? He’s too busy running for the Republican presidential nomination, that’s why. Except he’s not the guy you think he is. He’s actually Michele Bachmann! Oh yeah! Totally. Just look at those crazy eyes of hers and tell me they aren’t the same dead half-ping-pong-ball eyes of a Muppet. Plus the stuff that comes out of her mouth, it HAS to be the rantings of an escaped denizen of Sesame Street. You might think maybe she was really Oscar the Grouch or Grover, but I am here to tell you if you scratch beneath her caked-on makeup, it’s all Guy Smiley underneath.

3. Inkjet printers — In the future, when all of humanity is reduced to a small band of cave-dwellers who spend their days sifting through the ruins of our technological utopia, the wisest of them will look at these devices and wonder how it was that we were able to suck the precious juices from their black plastic pits. And why did we paint so many pictures of kitties, bar graphs, and three-bullet-point lists in supplication to the great gods? Was it in exchange for the sweet, sweet nectar of those pods? They will scratch their heads in confusion, sacrifice a virgin or two just to be sure, and keep digging.

4. The Massachusetts Turnpike — Oh so dreamlike, covered with frosting-like snow all the way from Stockbridge to Boston. It’s ten thousand miles long, you know. Oh, yes, it is. Well, that’s about how many hours it takes to get from the Weston tolls to Natick on a Wednesday morning, so it might as well be ten thousand miles. Do you suppose James Taylor was strung out on horse when he wrote that song? It would explain a couple of things.

5. Big Melons — nice and heavy, oh yeah.

6. Occupy Wall Street — channeling the spirit of the late Freddy Prinze as they save every last one of us from the unbridled gluttinous, rapacious, criminal machinations of Jack Albertson. Chico, don’t be discouraged. The Man, he ain’t so hard to understand. ¡Viva La Revolución!

7. Pimento loaf — I don’t even know where to begin with this shit. Green olives and pimentos pressed into the offal they call “lunch meat”. Gaaaah! It had to have been designed by a filthy capitalist pig like Jack Albertson. He must have been sitting at his giant mahogany desk, lighting his cigar with thousand-dollar bills, thinking to himself “What sort of shit can I cram down the throats of those lousy proles? Maybe tapioca pudding with dirty band-aids and cat turds? Naaah, too good for ‘em!” But at least it doesn’t compare to the horror that is Macaroni and Cheese Loaf.

8. Tamerlane — so if all these Central Asian horsemen were such bad-asses, how come civilization doesn’t speak Mongol and live in yurts? Huh? Yeah, I thought so. Pussy. More like Tamerlame, amirite?

9. Toejam — be glad Jack Albertson thought of pimento loaf first. Be very glad.

10. The White-taled Deer — Yeah, he looks all noble and stuff, but ask him how many bottles of Smirnoff he goes through a week. Total lush. All the other woodland creatures tried to stage an intervention, and he spent about four days in rehab, until the counselors found him in a janitor’s closet drinking Windex with a strung-out woodchuck named Phil.

1. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, was made entirely of Swiss cheese.
2. There is a cat in Montevideo, Uruguay who only eats deviled eggs, except during Lent.
3. Ducks will not listen to Susan Boyle songs, even if you ask them nicely.
4. A single kernel of popcorn contains the entire genetic code of the population of Sicily, but nobody is sure which one.
5. The last time anyone looked, there was still one piece of cheesecake left in the refrigerator.
6. “No, Margaret, I can’t lift the ottoman” is an anagram of “Napoleon Bonaparte’s penis is missing”.
7. Seven plastic pocket protectors were given to Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni as a wedding present from the original Broadway cast of “Young Frankenstein”, but they have never been used by either of them.
8. Horses can sense the presence of custard from as far off as a quarter of a mile.
9. My recliner can be used as a flotation device in the event of a water landing.
10. There is no such place as Liechtenstein; it is a complete fiction made up by Germany and Switzerland to annoy the hell out of France.

2. Jumpin’ Jehosophat!

3. Leg warmers

4. Alimentary canal

5. Kudzu

6. Windows Server 2003

7. Gallifrey

8. Maraschino cherries

9. Callista Flockhart

10. Baby poo

The Number One item 25 years ago: MEATS

1. 2005
2. 2007
3. 2009
4. 1998 (hey, how’d that get in here?)
5. 2002
6. 2003
7. 2006
8. 2004
9. 2001
10. 2008

Noticing a trend? No? Maybe this NY Times infographic might help:

The first six months of 2010 have already cinched this year taking the #1 spot on this list.

You might like the NYT article that graph came from. It’s actually about how Congress and the Obama Administration are avoiding bringing up the climate bill that desperately needs passing. This Orion Magazine article by author Bill McKibben is even a little more pointed.

And for the denialists among you, a different Top Ten List: Ten Key Indicators That Global Warming is Undeniable. Stick that in your teabag and drink it.

Numero Uno: Vomito de Gato — Sure, blame it on the cat, but I ain’t cleaning it up.

Numero Dos: The Arizona State Police — Obergruppenfuhrer thinks you look a little too Jewish…Mexican. Show him your papers, schnell!

Numero Tres: Huitlacoche — Or, what the gato ate that made him vomito in the first place.

Numero Quatro: Cameron Diaz — All the Jose Cuervo in the world ain’t gonna help you tap that, amigo.

Numero Cinco: Virginia Mayo — Cinco, Mayo, get it? Huh? Huh? Oh, I *am* good.

Numero Seis: Chad Ochocinco — Singlehandedly destroying the myth that black people have rhythm every Monday at 8:00 p.m. (7:00 p.m. Central) on ABC.

Numero Siete: Tamales — Get your own damn tamales, mang!

Numero Ocho: Tijuana Donkey Show — Oh, yeah, you did.

Numero Nueve: The Most Interesting Man In The World — Well that certainly is an interesting smell, anyway. Stay sober, my friends.

Numero Diez: An Elmo Piñata — Because I have always wanted to beat the shit out of Elmo with a stick, and so have you.

1. If you take two, they provide instant relief!
2. Rumor mill says it will hold up to TWENTY Commandments!
3. Available in easy-to-swallow chocolate coating
4. Will finally make that annoying “I’m a PC” guy shut the fuck up
5. You will absolutely look like a dork holding this up to your ear to make a call
6. Next time someone calls you out for giving them the finger, you can say “I was just using gesture commands”
7. At least you can’t spill coffee on the keyboard
8. That Dilbert strip about the “Etch-A-Sketch” is one step closer to reality
9. Can also be used as a makeshift cafeteria tray
10. 100% effective as birth control, because if you buy one you’re never gonna get laid again.

1. They have those awesome retractable metal claws…oh, wait, that’s Wolverine.
2. All badgers are born knowing how to do quadratic equations, but lose this skill within days after birth.
3. They have a delicious vanilla creme filling.
4. In 1876, a single badger held off an entire division of Austrian hussars for three days. Later, Archduke Ferdinand himself presented the badger with a commission as field marshal and a big purple sash.
5. Badgers are deathly afraid of citrus fruit, particularly pomelos.
6. Aaron Copland wanted to write an entire symphony about badgers, but Leonard Bernstein convinced him not to do it. He regretted the decision for the rest of his life and often muttered “Fuck you, Lenny, badgers kick ass” as he sank into dementia.
7. You can make a musical instrument out of a badger carcass by sticking a piece of bamboo in its ass and blowing air in its nose. Aaron Copland knew about this. Draw your own conclusions.
8. The University of Wisconsin chose the badger as its mascot only after rejecting the star-nosed mole and the pollock.
9. No one has ever seen a badger wearing suspenders.
10. They are frickin’ awesome!

1. Single-handedly turned GOP from a party of lunatics and morons into a party of lunatics and morons plus a guy with a pickup truck.
2. As the newest member of the Senate, he is required by tradition to buy pizza for everyone on his first day in the chamber.
3. His daughters probably aren’t hookers, but his family is definitely a bunch of attention whores.
4. Saved Massachusetts the horror of having a diligent, competent, boring woman in national office.
5. His pickup truck has a sticker of Calvin peeing on Ted Kennedy’s grave
6. John McCain giggles every time he hears Brown say “Obamer”
7. Voted “Republican senator least likely to get caught picking up rough-trade homos at truck stop” by his peers
8. With the wave of his hand and the wink of an eye can spread rainbows all across America
9. His agent is already in negotiations with Sarah Palin for a porn video
10. Can’t wait to get to Washington to screw over all the people who voted for him.

1. Lasagna

2. Totie Fields

3. Zircon-Encrusted Tweezers

4. Sacred Cows

5. “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles”

6. M16A2 5.56mm Semi-Automatic Rifle

7. Voltaire

8. Accordion-Playing Beavers

9. Leatherback Grandmas In Bikinis

10. Jocelyn Wildenstein