"Yes?" No.

​About 40 people have been laid off at the Arizona Republic, which also announced plans to close a Chandler press that prints USA Today and various inserts.

The local pink slips come as part of a 2 percent layoff at Gannett's publishing division nationwide. About 700 people are losing their jobs.

Publisher John Zidich, in a Republic article today, cites weak national revenue at Gannett as part of the reason. As with layoffs at the state's largest newspaper in mid-2008, late 2008 and 2009, the limping economy also is blamed.

Some Republic staffers heard the news well after others -- because they were on mandatory, unpaid furloughs announced last month.

www.zazzle.com

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Today is National "Fuck Prius Day," when those who don't drive the fuel-friendly cars of the future -- and think those who do need to get off of their environmental high-horses -- promise to barrage Prius drivers with F-bombs and middle fingers.

Arizona Senator John McCain is getting credit from Merriam-Webster Inc. for the company's inclusion of a new definition of "earmark" in the dictionary.

The company recently added about 100 words to its dictionary, including "sock puppet," "staycation," and "zip line."

Arizona may have missed out on some of its own earmarks thanks to the senator's anti-pork campaign, but ironically, McCain's frequent use of the word hasn't resulted in much change in Washington D.C. There's earmarking aplenty going on, but it was never really that much of an issue, anyway, since earmarks only about to about 1 percent of the federal budget.

Maybe this Phoenix police recruitment billboard does wonders for recruitment... 

... but it sure as heck doesn't inspire confidence in the police force.

A buddy just sent us a link to this cool little story in the New York Times.

 Seems that a factory worker from Long Island named Saul Linares recently penned a little corrido -- those wonderful Latino folk ditties about love, murder, and about everything between.

The subject? Maricopa Country's duly elected sheriff.

Linares is originally from El Salvador, but word of Arpaio's infamous modus operandi has spread far and wide.

The song is just a few lines long, but it makes its point. One of the stanzas goes like this:

"Synchronizing" is a tough word to spell, even if you aren't high from the ton of marijuana you're trying to smuggle. But you'd think after going to all the trouble of creating this UPS lookalike, the smugglers would invest some of their profit in a dictionary.

The truck, which was carrying 2,118 pounds of marijuana, had a homemade license plate that caught the attention of the state trooper who pulled it over last month in southern Arizona.

Okay, we realize this bumper sticker is a bit hard to see, but it reads "1/20/2013."

Get it? Looks like numerous Web sites are selling these stickers now that the election is a done deal.

It takes a lot of screwing up by a president to fail to win a second term, though. So who's being the country's biggest pessimists now? -- Ray Stern