What’s funny about the United States defaulting on its debt repayments, losing its triple-A credit rating, and sending the world into a financial crisis that makes 2008 look like child’s play? Exactly. Although you wouldn’t be able to tell from all the joking that’s been going on in the American media of late. Here Daily Maverick ranks the jokes from the least funny to the most. Not. By KEVIN BLOOM.

Bashing Islam has become a lucrative hobby horse for US-based atheists like Sam Harris, whose fear mongering is a convenient marketing tool that buoys book sales and drives funds to his non-profit, pro-reason project. But while Harris clearly benefits from his misanthropy, what kind of legacy will he and other Muslim-hating new atheists leave this world? By MANDY DE WAAL.

Anders Behring Breivik defies easy political or cultural labels. Why does the news media insist on calling a psychopath anything other than a psychopath? By RICHARD POPLAK.

Here we go again. Every time allegations against ANC Youth League president Julius Malema come uncomfortably close to the bone, the responses are searingly crude and effective. In response to the City Press exposé about Malema’s trust fund, they’ve plumbed new depths. So far the League has always managed to divert public attention away from Malema’s vulnerabilities. Will it succeed again? By SIPHO HLONGWANE.

Quick question: Between South Africa and South Korea, which country is dead serious about education? The one with the ruling party that has education as one of its top-five priorities? Baaap! Wrong answer. It’s the country about to invest billions in digitising its school education tools. By 2015, you won’t find a single paper textbook in use in a South Korean school. It’ll all be tablets, PCs and e-books. The future is already here, and it’s in a small Asian country. By SIPHO HLONGWANE.

With the liquidation of Borders, one of the world’s largest bookstore chains, the ongoing laments about the Death of the Book have risen a few notches in volume. The news does not herald the end of reading, of course, but it does herald the end of something. The publisher? The agent? The (heaven forbid) writer? Or is it the bulk-buying model that starves us of choice? By KEVIN BLOOM.

Oliver Hermanus has made a movie called “Skoonheid” which exposes the private shames and secret obsessions of a conservative, white, Afrikaans man. A study in regret, lust and self-destruction, this film is a distinctive lens on the subject of beauty. By MANDY DE WAAL.

British songstress Amy Winehouse was declared dead on 23 July 2011. While the authorities initially declared her death to be “unexplained”, her enthusiastic substance abuse habit and history, lead us to deduce she was finally consumed by those infamous inner demons that have plagued artists so. SIPHO HLONGWANE says farewell to this generation’s Janis Joplin.

From its use by aboriginal South Americans in ancient times to its inclusion in the original formula for Coca-Cola, the active ingredient in the cocaine alkaloid has given human beings the confidence to express themselves forcefully. Which also means that users don’t know when to shut up. Was Sigmund Freud’s “talking cure” a direct result of his coke habit? A new book suggests it might have been. By KEVIN BLOOM. 

It's hard to believe it's less than two weeks since News of the World shut up shop – so much has happened in the life of News International since then. If closing the paper was meant to somehow protect the parent company's brand, it hasn't worked. And with the latest accusations that James Murdoch misled Britain’s parliament on Tuesday, the favourite son isn't emerging from the crisis unscathed. By THERESA MALLINSON.

Multichoice has launched SA’s first video-on-demand rental service, DStv Box Office, which promises to revolutionise the local video rental market. Maybe – eventually. But the country’s notorious broadband constraints mean it will still be years before the old bricks-and-mortar video rental shops start feeling any pinch. By SIPHO HLONGWANE.

It must be the most famous shower in South African history. The one Jacob Zuma took just after you-know-what happened, back in 2006. Boy, he must regret it. But he has not been allowed to forget it. Zapiro, or Jonathan Shapiro, has referred to it in almost every cartoon since. Now, someone new has had enough, this time very politely so. By STEPHEN GROOTES

What’s it like to be a tabloid journalist? After a day spent rifling through some celeb’s trash or hacking a murdered teenager’s phone, how do you unwind? The death of Sean Hoare earlier this week suggests that the internal conflicts suffered by the men and women who work for the tabloid press are severe, especially since they sometimes do perform a service for society. By KEVIN BLOOM.

Women’s magazines are better known for changing lip colours than changing legislation. Yet, a new project from the Avusa-owned Elle magazine seeks to re-address the continuing imbalances between men and women in South Africa by submitting a White Paper to parliament. Is this laudable move also showing just how the women's magazines need to change to remain relevant? By KHADIJA PATEL.

Once again, Julius Malema’s finances are under scrutiny after it was reported that he was building a R16 million mansion in Sandown, and had spent R78,000 at a luxury lodge in the Kruger National Park. The Youth League convened a hasty press conference to deal with the allegations. Malema’s defence? It’s none of your business. Why? “Because,” that’s why. By SIPHO HLONGWANE and PHILLIP DE WET.

At a UK parliamentary inquiry on Tuesday Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks claimed not to have known anything about the phone hacking that took place at News of the World. And when they did act on related matters – such as paying hush money – it seems they didn't bother to tell each other. Whether their denials are plausible is another question. By THERESA MALLINSON.

There have been a few job opportunities opening up at News Corporation of late. Some reporters have died, others have been let go, still others are staying in rent-free facilities at the behest of the Crown. If you have a dusty MBA in your drawer, you'll be thrilled to hear that some executive positions are also newly vacant. But before you fill out an application, the Daily Maverick offers this short questionnaire to make sure you slide effortlessly into the culture at News Corp, and immediately add to the bottom line. By RICHARD POPLAK.

Evolution is a wonderful thing. Especially when it can turn the staid, sedate art of the waltz into a sizzling, sexy show like “Burn The Floor”. By LESLEY STONES

Pop culture phenomenon Harry Potter just slew a raft of box office records. His evil archenemy Lord Voldemort, however, seems more real with every passing movie. He lives! And the Daily Maverick takes it upon ourselves to out him. By RICHARD POPLAK.

It’s the stuff of Hollywood romances. A man willing to sacrifice the UK's biggest newspaper and the jobs of 200 people to protect one woman. But not even Rupert Murdoch’s loyalty could save Rebekah Brooks in the end. By REBECCA DAVIS.

It would be easy to get swept up in the all-engulfing flood waters unleashed on Planet Murdoch by the ignominious collapse of the News of the World, but, even at 80, Rupert Murdoch is a tough old customer whose empire will likely survive the current turmoil - and emerge, albeit in a very different visage. By J BROOKS SPECTOR.

Capitalism is a good thing. It allows the rainmakers to create and take risks. It allows people in the free world to make a difference by waking up early, working hard, creating value and hopefully making magic. But capitalism only works if there's a set of rules, a code of conduct predicated on commonly agreed principles of right and wrong. When we bend those rules and pervert capitalism, things get ugly. As they did – explosively - in 2008. By MANDY DE WAAL and RONNIE APTEKER

The formation of the Press Freedom Commission is the latest effort by South Africa’s media industry to investigate best practices in self-regulation. But, given the PFC's genesis and its limited mandate, will the ANC take its recommendations seriously when evaluating whether a media appeals tribunal is a good idea? All indications suggest not. By THERESA MALLINSON.

If Rupert Murdoch’s enemies had to come up with a nightmare scenario for News Corporation in the US, they couldn’t do much worse than an FBI investigation into allegations of phone hacking surrounding the victims of the 9/11 attacks. The sacrosanct nature of the attacks transcends partisan politics, and could quite possibly spell the end of Fox News. And, on the other side of the Atlantic, News International chief Rebekah Brooks has yielded to pressure and resigned. By KEVIN BLOOM.

The images most white people exchange about Diepsloot are the stereotypical fragments of crime and murder passed around at dinner parties. They’re complemented by news reports on xenophobia and that mob murder story everyone read in The New York Times. Until Anton Harber went back to his journalistic roots, spent months in the township and wrote “Diepsloot”, there wasn’t any way to get an accurate perspective on the township, bar actually living there. By MANDY DE WAAL.

Journalist Johann Hari was suspended by The Independent on Tuesday while the UK newspaper conducts an internal inquiry into his “interviewing methods”- apparently composed of lifting quotes from books and other journalists' work. Turns out, that’s not his only problem. By THERESA MALLINSON.

Blame it on having just seen the exquisite theatre piece, “Sadako” at the NAF just days before, but the much-hyped “Dragonflies & Astronauts” that debuted at Montecasino’s Teatro on Wednesday came across as a massively indulgent waste of time. By DIANE COETZER.

Readers of The Economist, picking up a copy of the magazine last week, would have noticed a rather aggressive back-page advertisement. There, Apple pimped its range of business apps, specifically for the iPhone and iPad—and specifically not for BlackBerry. Apple knows that RIM is on the ropes. As they go for the TKO, we ask how in the world a tech darling fell so far, so fast? By RICHARD POPLAK.

Did anybody seriously believe former News International chairman Les Hinton’s promise to the UK parliament, in 2007, that illegal phone-hacking at News of the World was the action of a single “rogue reporter”? Seems the parliamentarians themselves did, which is bad news for Rupert Murdoch, because Hinton now heads up the Wall Street Journal, and the Sun and Sunday Times have just been implicated in further illegal activities. Eina. By KEVIN BLOOM.