This should have been easy: Sarah Palin releases financial disclosure forms, world learns that she received a $1.25 million (!!) advance for her memoir, blogger Photoshops silly fake image of the memoir's cover, commenters respond with remarks like "Trig H. Christ, is that in American dollars?" and "not bad considering she did not even write this thing herself" and "whatevr you are just jelus Sarah Rulez."

And yet, and yet…

Palin's report also lists her as owner of "Pie Spy LLC," described as a marketing business. It's referred to as "Services for the Elderly and Persons with Disabilities" in the state's corporation database. The address of the business is listed as the office of Palin's lawyer in Anchorage, Thomas Van Flein.

What the… "Pie Spy"? Marketing services? Elderly and disabled people?

You know, if this were coming from anyone else, I'd be wondering how it's possible to combine these things into a single concept that makes sense. But we're talking about Sarah Palin! Words simply lose all meaning whenever she enters the picture, which is why soft fusion blackboard pillow in the climbing chicken open green.

When the nation's jobless rate edges up near 10 percent, and winter's coming, and there's no relief in sight, and you are but a humble Ex-First Dude with an unemployed wife and a dozen children to feed, what do you do?

Answer: Ask not what you can do for unemployment, but what unemployment can do for you…

Todd Palin won't be pulling a hard-core winter shift on Alaska's frozen North Slope, home to the richest oil fields in the country — at least not with energy giant BP.

Company spokesman Steve Rinehart said Todd Palin submitted his resignation effective Sept. 18. Todd was a production operator on Alaska's North Slope. Production operators manage oil gathering centers, hubs where oil comes together from multiple wells.

See that? See how the Palins have created well-paying jobs, two of them at least, in the state of Alaska?

International/financial/extraterrestrial expert Sarah Palin's big speech at a Hong Kong investment forum happened yesterday, and lucky for us, the Wall Street Journal gotcha'd its hands on a tape of the double secret event (closed to press, of course).

It seems Sarah Palin talked about everything, literally everything, from the econopocalypse (blame over-regulation) (??) to China ("makes people nervous") to Afghanistan to health reform to the Fed to, who knows, Trig's bowels?

Let's listen in as the unemployed lady tackles another hot-button issue: immigration…

She also spoke about how Alaska once shared a land bridge with Asia. And she noted that her husband's Eskimo ancestors crossed that bridge. "To consider that connection that allowed sharing of peoples and bloodlines and wildlife and flora and fauna, that connection to me is quite fascinating," she said.

INCORRECT. There is nothing "fascinating" about sneaking off to a foreign country to admit that your husband's family is full of Illegals. Come on, Sarah.

Todd Palin better not be getting any health care, ever.

A little more than a year after John McCain threw conservative debutant Sarah Palin her coming out party, the country still finds itself with a chronic case of Wasilla Fever!

Just take Levi Johnston. Not only is he getting his own not-brave-enough-to-get-naked spread in Gay Fancy Magazine (or something), but he's also having tales sung of his brave adventures by ironic-pianist balladeer Ben Folds, whom, I promise, Levi Johnston has never ever ever heard of.

But what about Sarahcuda? Where's her folk ballad? She's twice the folksy ballaverick her granddaughter's father is. Well, she doesn't get a song; she gets a whole opera!

"Say It Ain't So, Joe," a presentation by Guerilla Opera, opens Saturday at Boston Conservatory's Zack Box Theater. The work is composer Curtis Hughes' musical take on America's favorite moose-hunting winker, you betcha. It focuses on that contentious — and sometimes comical — debate from October 2008 between Palin and Joe Biden…

"It is a tragedy about Palin," he said. "Both characters view themselves as saviors of America. And even though I'm not trying to hammer people on the head with a single interpretation, you know that Biden will triumph in the end. But the central figure certainly is Sarah Palin. I found myself having this odd pathos for her, a pathos I would not have felt if I were not writing music for her."

What an interesting coincidence! I've found myself with an odd pathos for a lot of things for about a year or so now.

This probably won't come as any surprise, but you'll find the country's biggest dicks in Washington D.C….

(link probably NSFW)

In Alaska's defense, that cold weather can't be doing any good.

I suppose it is our duty to address the new Vanity Fair article "written" by Alaskan humping enthusiast Levi Johnston, because it promises to "turn a number of commonly held beliefs about [Sarah Palin]… upside down," and that sounds exciting, in an as-told-to kind of way.

So do we learn that Sarah Palin is, in fact, the author of several economics textbooks? Do we discover that she has been studying foreign policy, or English grammar, in a secret office under a hockey rink? Well, no. We "learn" that Sarah Palin is a hypocritical twit who spends most of her time thinking up ways to become more famous and/or wealthy, which, wow, that sure turns a lot of commonly held beliefs about the former governor the opposite of upside down.

I'm sure Levi Johnston "wrote" this "scoop" for reasons completely unrelated to any desire to become more famous and/or wealthy himself, and certainly he'll only take off his pants for Playgirl because of moral obligation, so to thank this young buck for service to his country, I've coined a new word in his honor:

john·ston (jŏn'stən) noun. A thing that holds a prominent place in American culture for reasons that seem increasingly insignificant the more prominent the thing becomes; a thing whose contribution to American culture is, largely, to prompt discussion about whether or not the thing deserves to have a place in American culture.

Feel free to use it yourself, in sentences also too — or just tell it to other people and have them write it down for you. Enjoy!