Christianity Today interviews Joe the Plumber, bringing our prediction of a porn video that much closer:

People don’t understand the dictionary — it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do — what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins.

We count greed, wrath, envy and pride, with a strong case for lust, a tossup for gluttony, and sloth something of a judgment call. Does Joe ever work?

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You’ve probably heard by now about Condoleezza Rice ducking a torture question from a fourth-grader Sunday, but this footnote catches our attention:

According to Misha’s mother, he originally planned to ask a tougher question — “If you would work for Obama’s administration, would you push for torture?” — but he was asked to change it. “They wanted him to soften it and take out the word ‘torture.’ But the essence of it was the same,” Inna Lerner said.

That moment may sound familiar to cult fans of Freaks and Geeks, the high school series set in 1981. In a late episode, Vice President Bush plans to visit the school and take questions from students, but the students are surprised to discover their pre-screened questions have been mangled before the visit.

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We just discovered these cool CDC Social Media Tools from Barry’s new Twitter feed, and… and…

Shit. It’s like the Internet just bought a leisure suit.

White House joins Facebook, MySpace, Twitter [USA Today]

Title: Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir

Author: Christopher Buckley

Rank: 40

Blurb: “As Buckley tells the story of their final year together, he takes readers on a surprisingly entertaining tour through hospitals, funeral homes, and memorial services, capturing the heartbreaking and disorienting feeling of becoming a 55-year-old orphan.”

Review: “It’s too damn bad his poor parents can’t disinherit from the grave!”

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So last year around this time we were chatting about some important issue of the day, and then somebody said Look! Horsies!, and then we thought, well, this might be interesting, and then we wondered what the hell happened, it was over so fast.

Which is as good excuse as anything to declare it a tradition.

And so with no point other than the joy of inventing legends on the fly, we welcome you to the Second Annual Kentucky Derby Open Thread/Existential Crisis, in which we spend an hour anticipating a moment that will pass faster than a pinball game.

Hey, could be worse. Could be NASCAR.

Last year at this time, we stumbled into a commenting frenzy around the Kentucky Derby, so this year we’re declaring it an annual event. Jam photos can be whatever the hell you want, as always, but remember to check back at 5:30 p.m. Eastern for our Open Thread/Mint Julep Marathon. That’ll give us an hour to get good and wasted before NBC broadcasts the most hyped two minutes in sport.

A Jam at the Races [Flickr]

Moments like this, we’re not even going to try to top Britain’s Sun, home of the Page 3 hotties:

These are the brazen bonkers who had sex on the Queen’s front lawn at Windsor Castle.

Posh blonde Joy Taylor, 35, and balding romeo Phil Carden, 30, are both high-flyers in business. The pair were seen laughing on the steps of Joy’s West London flat.

But both fear they could lose their jobs after police caught them romping while Her Majesty was in residence at one’s favourite home.

They stripped for action after an all-day booze bender in which they sank champagne and wine in the Royal town’s bars.

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