Oh boy.

Some Congressional Republicans really want to set up an East Coast missile defense shield to protect the Atlantic Seaboard from Iranian rockets, Mother Jones reports.

If this sounds familiar -- like a throwback to Reagan-era Star Wars shenanigans -- that's because the plan is just like missile defense schemes of the past.

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Only one third of singles expect to get laid on Valentine's Day -- about the same number that Facebook stalk their exes, a new study reveals.

The survey of 515 self-identified singles, conducted by Facebook dating app Areyouinterested.com, finds that 33 percent plan on winding up in bed on what's marketed as the most commercialized romantic day of the year. (Gross.)

Apparently, singles are not deterred by blind dates -- 74 percent would totally meet up with a stranger "indicating singles are not intimidated by the romantic pressure the holiday typically brings."

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You know what Jonathan Franzen hates? The vacuousness of our modern techno-consumerism, and, oh, how he hates his BlackBerry and yet loves its "marvelous clarity of its screen, the silky action of its track pad, the shocking speed of its responses, the beguiling elegance of its graphics." Sorry, Jonathan Franzen doesn't mean to be getting so worked up but he just really hate-loves his phone. Which he elaborates at length in a long essay in the New York Times this weekend about the same old "social media makes it so we can't connect" stuff that old people have been griping about forever.

You know what Jonathan Franzen loves, though? Birds. He's a big old birdwatcher, that guy.

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Not a joke: New York Times bestselling author Snooki will be paid $32,000 by the Rutgers University Programming Association for appearing at two "student-produced comedy Q&A sessions" yesterday. This has generated great controversy, as that's $2,000 more than the amount Toni Morrison, who, you know, won a Pulitzer, will be paid to deliver the school's commencement address in May. Shocking!

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Really? This had to happen? Ugg boots, smelly, slouchy, ridiculous-looking (but comfy!) foot-fungus-encouraging Ugg boots, now have a very special New York City skyline -- yep, that's the Empire State Building -- iteration, and of course they are also encrusted with Swarovski crystals, because if your smelly, slouchy fungus boot doesn't have some fake diamond crust on it, you are NO ONE. These boots cost $800. If all goes well, Ugg will develop this line for other city dwellers who have skylines and enjoy fake diamond crust, and they will make beaucoup bucks, and then we will all die of foot fungus to the brain, but quickly. God help. [via Racked]

Typically impatient New Yorkers are freaking out because we haven't gotten our earthquake yet. And we're due for an earthquake! Where's our earthquake? No, we are not going to wait in line for our earthquake! Nature, do you know who the fuck we are? Fortunately, seismologist Won-Young Kim from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has assured us that we'll get it soon. So, be patient. Good things come to those who wait.

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Are you an optimist? Do you think winter will be over after the upcoming deathstorm kills you and everyone you love? If Las Vegas is to be believed (which they always are), brace yourself for six more weeks of this crap.

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The government has been dealing in some confusing messaging lately. For one, they did away with those color-coded terror alerts, seemingly acknowledging that we're not actually all mental kindergartners after all. But their new nutrition guidelines seem to be something of a step back in estimating our intelligence. It turns out that the end of the day, for all the telling us to eat less salt, saturated fats, and bad-for-us stuff, and to eat more vegetables and healthy things, what they'd forgotten to mention all along is the real key to losing weight: Eating less. (That's the opposite of "more.")

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You may have seen this shirt, which is being upheld as an affront to intelligent humanity, mostly because everyone on the Internet loves to point out 1. That other people are stupider than they are and 2. typos! Typos are funny, we admit, when they are not our doing. But there's more to be concerned about with regard to this shirt (correction, tunic!) than the inability of its creator to conjugate "you're." In fact, given its sentiment -- "IF YOUR SINGLE <3 SO AM I <3," [O RLY?] we're wondering if maybe Wet Seal made the typo on purpose to warn men away from the shirt's wearers for evolutionary reasons. If you want to test that out, you should probably get the whole outfit. [JDoll]

Every day we hear more about how Williamsburg is "over," whatever that word actually means. But now it's like seriously really "over" you guys, according to the 1000th installation in The New York Times Explores That Faraway Place, Brooklyn : it's the next Park Slope. Germy kids and their hip parents who like to "go out in the neighborhood on a Friday night and feel sexy and single-ish" are moving to the neighborhood in droves, apparently, which is for some reason surprising? Have you seen Williamsburg lately?

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