Look, Google News, all I want to do is troll the headlines for some quick hits, and all I get is fucking National Spelling Bee links all over the fucking place.

Stop it. Stop it now. Or I’ll, um, riant your thermolysis.

Yes, it would be easy to joke about the contest being nothing more than an advertisement for Scrabble dictionaries. Or how the real spelling issue isn’t eidetic miscible brininess, but there, their and they’re.

But here’s what gets my sufflaminate in a galimatias: those poor abused children have to spell these words out loud, making the exercise completely irrelevant. I’m a champion fifth-grade speller, but my ability is entirely visual. I know how words look. On the page. Where we read them.

All you’re doing is teaching kids meaningless skills that will only prepare them for pointless, frustrating lives. Better to just drop the ruse now and hand them a spatula.

Scripps National Spelling Bee

Now that Psychogeezer’s ass has been given a clean (if freckled) bill of health, and Hillbot’s maintenance records have been inspected by factory technicians, America’s attention turns to the dark-lunged past of the Magic Negro.

Send the children from the room and sit down: Unicorn has been revealed to smoke cigarettes.

And not just a few just to be social with the outcasts on the sidewalk — as many as 70,000 over 25 years, although the campaign refuses to release a detailed accounting. “Long term risks for pancreatic, esophageal, bladder, and kidney cancers,” not to mention stroke, are raising fears of a crippled president, unable to lead his nation at war. (No, that one.)

Reports that Hillbot operatives have been leaving cartons of Kools around Unicorn HQ remain unconfirmed.

Will smoking past affect Obama’s health? [Politico]

Breaking news from the Oz cultural beat: the hallowed pub crawl is under threat from nanny-state politicians. Late-night patrons would be refused re-entry after leaving, and establishments would be required to close their doors as early as 2 a.m.

“This would prevent all-night pub crawls and drunken louts wandering the streets from watering hole to watering hole,” reports the Opera House rag.

Even more stunning: “The ministers also agreed to a ban of fruit-flavoured and confectionary-flavoured cigarettes by December 2009.”

With Australia’s reputation already under attack from New Zealand’s fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo, Americans are now forced to consider whether consumption of Foster’s supports an oppressive regime, and whether to switch to Steinlager instead.

Locks go on late night pub crawls [Sydney Morning Herald]

Match the gazillionaire with the Unicorn evaluation:

1) “I personally think he would be a terrible president.”

2) “I will be very happy if he is elected president.”

Hint: Neither is Donald Trump, who is not a plutocrat but a failed reality-series star.

Did you guess right?

1) Carl Icahn, who fears raising taxes on the filthy rich will ruin the economy.

2) Warren Buffett, who has parlayed his Margaritaville royalties into a major fortune.

Thanks for playing!

Billionaires differ on Obama [Boston Globe]

Now that Shrub has taken the walk of shame after his Arabian night, oil executives are back in Washington, calling on Americans to “send a signal to the world about the United States’ resolve to deal with its own energy problems.” Their visionary plan calls for smaller cars, more public transportation, substantial tax credits for hybrids—

Oops. Got that mixed up with the Tralfamador news feed.

No, what they want is to suck Alaska dry, or what’s left of Alaska after global warming takes care of the rest. A few more million barrels a day should do it:

“If the nation set a goal of increasing domestic production by 2 (million) to 3 million barrels a day by opening up new sources of exploration and production, we could demonstrate to the world that we are in control of our own destiny,” Shell Oil Co. President John Hofmeister told a Senate panel today.

The problem, of course, is that Americans are already taking matters into their own hands: Because of high prices, oil imports are expected to fall for the first time since 1977.

Oil execs ask Congress to allow more U.S. drilling [Houston Chronicle]