Slate's Jack Shafer notices a disturbing trend that has more or less saved the ass of every single Gawker editor ever on slow news days: wacky headlines at CNN.com. The tabloidization of CNN.com has Shafer, well, mildly concerned. All the stories are about babies being mauled by tigers and sex offenders setting kindergarteners on fire! "Nuns-and-nude ad upsets Catholics!" Ladies in peril! "CNN.com's, MSNBC.com's, and Foxnews.com's celebration of and reliance on stories like today's "Human Tongue Accidentally Served Up in Hospital," which are explicitly designed to momentarily rouse and titillate the Web audience, says worlds about how the site thinks of us. Life is a freak show, the Web sites instruct, and we viewers just another bunch of freaks." So true, Jack. Life is a freakshow, and CNN just wants to hand you a free ticket. To illustrate: after the jump, Gawker's vast and rich archive of embarrassing CNN.com screengrabs, available in one place for the very first time. Watch it now!Click to view

Frankly, the Gothamist joke here is so easy, we're surprised they didn't make it themselves.