Gawker

Adam Lambert is not Sorry About His AMA Performance [Double Standards]

Ravi Somaiya — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:01:21 -0500

"I'm not a babysitter. I'm a performer," explained Lambert on CBS's The Early Show. He said he got "carried away" but did not apologize for his racy kissing and blowjob-simulating antics. "I think it's because I'm a gay male."

An eloquent Lambert said, in an interview somewhat ham-fistedly captioned 'Straight Talk' that the moves had not been part of the rehearsal of the performance and "kind of came from a more impromptu place. ABC was taken a little by surprise." He added that he does see how people got offended, but that his theater background meant that he didn't consider children watching at home. "I'm programmed to see who's in the live audience," he said. "If it had been a female performer doing those things up on the stage I don't think there would be nearly as much outrage." He pointed out that Eminem had boasted of 17 rapes, and that Janet Jackson had grabbed the crotch of one of her dancers, to little comment.

And then came the apology to America moment: "If you had it to do over would you do anything differently?" asked Maggie Rodriguez. "I would sing it a little better."

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Tipster Confirms Ten Layoffs at the New York Post [Layoffs]

Ravi Somaiya — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:34:07 -0500

A tipster at the New York Post confirms there will be ten editorial layoffs in this round, and that they'd all have come this year if it hadn't been for the Sandra Guzman lawsuit.

The tipster, who is clearly no fan of the reporters on the chopping block, says the dismissals are not economically motivated, but are based on performance reviews that happened in spring and the current salaries of the journalists - that go as high as $95,000. He does not pull his punches:

All these people should have been canned years ago, but management was just too lazy to do anything.

We had heard rumors that this round of layoffs was disproportionately targeting minorities. Another source at the paper claims that soon there will be no black or hispanic reporters left. The tipster seems to corroborate this.

They were going to get rid of most of them by the end of the year, but the Sandra Guzman lawsuit halted the whole thing because many on this list are minorities and are more likely to sue.

Jersey Shore : Racist Against Italians? [Trade Roundup]

Adrian Chen — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:52:18 -0500

There was a time when it meant something to be racist against Italians. These days, no one bats an eye if you make an "A-pizza pie!" joke. Except this Italian-American organization has drawn the line at MTV's "Jersey Shore".

According to UNICO National, the new reality show "relies on crude stereotypes and highlights cursing, bad behavior and violence in depicting renters at a New Jersey beach house." Sort of proves the old adage about stereotypes: They put little kernels of truth into an air popper to make delicious, bigoted popcorn. [THR]

•TLC's "Jon & Kate Plus 8" got a big farewell for its last episode ever. 4.3 million people watched the reality television equivalent of a tow truck finally dragging a mangled car out from the quarry into which it had started plummeting nearly three years ago. [NYT]

•GLAAD is SAAD that Adam Lambert wasn't allowed to perform on ABC's "Good Morning America because of his face-humping antics. "Some music performances, regardless of the sexual orientation of the performer, are tailored for a prime time audience but not for a morning show audience," read a statement. (Lambert was booked instead on CBS' "Early Show".) [NYT]

•The revolutionary new, interactive "Avatar" trailer is to regular trailers as a video game is to a movie, except imagine that video game consisted only of being able to click "hot spots" on a picture with your mouse, which plays little movie clips. [The Wrap]

•The TV Guide Channel is showing a documentary on ugly-woman-with-a-pretty-voice Susan Boyle on Dec. 13. Which makes that YouTube video of Susan Boyle singing the first viral video adapted into a made-for-TV documentary. [The Wrap]

•"You can prick your finger but you can't finger your prick...": George Carlin's classic comedy album "Class Clown" is one of 25 recordings being introduced into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Also: The Beach Boys' "California Girls". [LA Times]

Racist Picture of Michelle Obama Will Live on Forever in Google Image Search [Gfail]

Adrian Chen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:03:00 -0500

Yikes, we need a moment to wash our eyes with cool, clear water after looking at that thing . OK: Google is refusing to remove a picture of Michelle Obama photo-shopped to look like a monkey from image search results.

(We will not reprint the photo here, since that will boost its rank. But if you're feeling too optimistic about the world just do a Google image search for "Michelle Obama"; the photo should be in the first page of results. Or you can check out TPM's coverage here.)

The image was hosted on one of those obscure malware-spewing blogs that seem to have no point except to contain phrases like "Jennifer Lopez Sex Tape Free Cadillac Adam Lambert Boyfriend" in order to lure unsuspecting searchers. (It's been removed from the site, but still appears in search results.) Somehow, the picture rose through the ranks to become often the first result seen by anyone googling "Michelle Obama". (IRONY ALERT: The Washington Post reports that a Google spokesperson posited the pic's high ranking might be the result of people linking to it to condemn it.)

About two weeks ago, the blog Search Engine Roundtable pointed out that, Uh, Google? You're image search is acting sort of like a guy who lives in a compound in Montana and searches the web for tips on cleaning his high powered rifle while muttering misremembered passages of the Declaration of Independence to himself! But Google refused to take the image down, instead appending a little ad which directed offended searchers to a page explaining that:

The beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google, as well as the opinions of the general public, do not determine or impact our search results... We do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it.

Don't judge a company by its search results.

It's hard not to agree with Google on this: If they start removing every image someone finds offensive then the only results left will be pictures of babies dressed up as flowers. (Although: child labor!) But it's also hard not to really wish that picture was gone. So, here is a plan: If someone can get their social security number imprinted on every copy of the image then Google will take it down, as social security numbers are one of the few things they're willing to remove from search results.

Come on, take one for the team!

Meet Obama's (Other) Gay BFF [Dinner Date]

Adrian Chen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:52:24 -0500

It's well known that movie mogul David Geffen is Obama's Gay Friend. This was reinforced by tonight's state dinner, where Geffen sat at Obama's table. Oh, and Geffen's plus one was there, too: His hunky, 26 year-old boyfriend.

We are definitely not in the Bush White House anymore, people. According to the Washington Posts' Reliable Source blog, sitting at the President's table for his first state dinner were "David Geffen, the Hollywood titan" and "Jeremy Lingvall, Geffen's Boyfriend."

Geffen and Lingvall have been linked as early as September 2008, when EW reported the two attended an Obama fund-raiser. (That night Obama presumably revealed to them that his pledge to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell was bullshit.) But who is this 26 year-old Jeremy Lingvall, boyfriend to 66 year-old David "Richest Man in Hollywood" Geffen? And what the hell could he and Obama possibly have talked about over their heaping plates of arugula? (We can only assume that Barack and Jeremy are pretty tight, since the sole other complete couple at the table were Nancy and Paul Pelosi. John Kerry was there—flying solo.)

We will use the time-honored journalistic practice of looking at Jeremy Lingvall's old Friendster account to attempt to answer these questions.

UPDATED with sexy pixxx from Jeremy's Facebook page. (All young billionaire-dating dudes: Lock your Facebook accounts.)

Jeremy is a 26 year-old surfer dude who graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2006. So maybe they talked about that?

The happy couple arrived to the ball in a carriage that transformed into a huge luxury yacht at midnight.

"Hello, President Obama! Do you remember me? You thought I was my boyfriend's son that one time. Pass the salt?"

"I like Arianna a lot, but she keeps dropping all these hints about how much she wished she was invited to this dinner. I mean, it's just a stupid dinner, right? No, no, no: I'm having a great time! Uh... pass the salt?" (Huffington and Geffen are old jetting buddies.)

"Hey Barack: Do you like to ROCK!?"

"Yeah, China was pretty chill. Weren't you just there or something?"

"This one I got from kiteboarding, and this one is from jumping off the eighth largest yacht in the world."

Is it enough to just say that out of all the words Jeremy could have used to describe himself on his Friendster profile he used these ones?

It is reassuring to know that if Obama choked on one of his green curry prawns during dinner there would be a sexy lifeguard on hand to perform rescue breathing on him until he swooned back to life.

Honestly? We were feeling bad about making fun of this kid until we saw this picture.

OK, it was all fun and games until this delightful pose. Now it's just <3 <3 <3 all the way to Obama's 2012 re-inauguration ball. See you there, Jeremy!

The White House State Dinner Menu: Delish! [Yum]

Adrian Chen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:03:37 -0500

What are you eating tonight? Whatever it is, it's not as good as what they're serving at Obama's first state dinner. Unless you are actually at the state dinner, in which case: You're in for a real treat!

[via NYT]

The dinner welcomes India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, and all of the guests have arrived which meant the sad end of Politico's unintentionally hilarious live coverage of the parade of celebrities and politicians walking past the media scrum. ("There we have Katie Couric... I wonder if she got that purple shawl today to go with the purple colors of the state dinner?")

However: serving a main course of Indian food ("Roasted Potato Dumplings with Tomato Chutney", "~~Green Curry Prawns with Coconut Aged Basmati~~" This is not Indian food, actually. We're not racist, we promise!) to the Indian prime minister? Doesn't he get enough Indian food in, um, India? What's wrong with a huge burger and a Caesar salad?

Marcus Brauchli — [Pullquote]

Gabriel Snyder — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:57:09 -0500

executive editor of the Washington Post explaining the newspaper's decision to close its remaining U.S. bureaus in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, to the Washington Post.

A Forced Miscarriage Is a Most Gruesome and Fascinating Crime [True Crime]

Adrian Chen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:51:41 -0500

Three things make a good true crime story: sex, death and lacing things with poison. The crime of forcing a woman to have a miscarriage invariably has all three of these things—plus the added "zing" of abortion politics.

Exhibit A: Joshua Woodward.

This famous restaurateur—co-owner of L.A.'s 8 Oz. Burger bar—was arrested last month for allegedly killing his lover's fetus. (Death? check.) How did he do it? Here's where the "lacing things with poison" part comes in; only the "thing" in question is... well, just read what TMZ wrote about the story:

Woodward's baby mama says one night back in October — when she was pregnant — Woodward kept putting his hand in a plastic bag and then touching her sexually.

The woman says she lost the baby a few hours later ... and remembers seeing a white powdery substance on her underwear.

Ew. Cops think the powder in question was Misoprostol, a drug used by obstetricians to induce labor.

The obvious implication is that Woodward was trying to cover-up an affair gone awry. Sexy! Even sexier is the fact that his girlfriend at the time (not the pregnant one) is a freelancer for the New York Times who was just called out by NYTPicker for writing up her now ex-hubby's restaurant in the Times' T Magazine. Sexy scandalous!

Untangling these labyrinthine story lines of love and betrayal is one of the macabre attractions of these bizarre crimes. Consider this story from the Mirror of one Edward Erin, a doctor accused of trying to poison his secretary, Bella, to kill the fetus he put inside her:

Erin, who has a son of seven and a daughter of two, spent New Year's Eve in a hotel close to his West London home with Bella. But a month into the affair, Bella fell pregnant. After she told him, he texted her saying: "Oh my God, no."

He then began to emotionally blackmail Bella – bombarding her with texts pleading for an abortion.

He wrote: "I am in a very dark place, love. I want to die but that would be too selfish. I don't know what to do. I'm not stable. I need help." In another, he said: "I have been with you for four weeks. I'm beginning to love you. I think we can make it, but it's too much too soon."

Dr. Erin gets bonus points for the quaintness of his attempted poisoning: He laced her tea. (What is this, Clue?)

Bella first became suspicious after she saw yellow powder at the bottom of a cup of tea Erin had made for her after spending the night at her flat in Tulse Hill, south east London.

He told her it was limescale from the kettle and urged "don't forget to drink your tea".

(This Alaskan Air Force guy gets negative points, though, for googling "at-home abortion methods" before allegedly lacing his pregnant wife's food with ulcer meds. Ditto for you, doctor-who-stabs-his-mistress-with-a-syringe-while-yelling-I-AM-GOING-TO-GIVE-YOU-AN-ABORTION)

Then there is the never-ending debate of whether a forced miscarriage—or any abortion—counts as a "murder" or not. Woodward is being charged with murdering the 13-week-old-fetus, and Pro-Life blogs will frequently pick up stories like this as proof that a fetus is a human being. Which, sure, this certainly resembles murder. But the fact that it's "just a fetus" seems to make enthusiastically following these crimes more morally defensible than those of, say, a serial-killer.

For readers who like their crime stories sexy and laced with poison but feel bad about people dying, the forced miscarriage is the perfect, horrible crime.

Hillary Clinton Has No Flaws Whatsoever [Pic Of The Day]

Brian Moylan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:48:35 -0500

[Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—alongside Indian ambassador to the U.S. Meera Shankar—beams at the arrival of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the White House today. Step inside to see Joe Biden's reaction. Image via Getty]

[Between Clinton, Jill Biden, and her shifty husband Joe, no one is looking in the same direction, but still there are no flaws in sight. Image via Getty]

The Best of 00's Derby: Was It the Age of Quirk? [The 00's]

Richard Rushfield — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:39:52 -0500

The last five weeks of every decade generally bring a frenzy of media list-making. However, in this first decade of the blogging era, the cataloging of best and worsts should approach H1N1 emergency levels.

Today, with Avatar and Carrie Underwood's Christmas Special still unseen, the first lists are in. Time Out New York gets ahead of the pack with a Top 50 Movies of the Decade list and the Hollywood Reporter is calling it a wrap on the ten best TV series of the past ten years.

What early conclusions can we draw about our decade based on the first two lists? Well, we may not have liked to see entertainment about the Iraq War, but it would seem our entertainment was a lot like the Iraq War: long, drawn out and very dark. And for the listers of Time Out, not filled with two many words.

On both the film and TV lists, big, heavy, bleak slow-moving dramas dominate: There Will Be Blood, Dogville, The New World, Zodiac, The Sopranos, The Shield, 24, Damages. A lot of fine works in that list but the citizens of tomorrow will certainly look back on the artists of the 00's and say, boy, that must've been a fun crowd to hang around with.

On the other end of the pendulum however, when the decade tried to lighten up the results were almost more depressing. The lists are heavy on the affected zaniness that passed for free-spirited in the past decade; movies and shows which were distinguished by their uses of trippy twists and free-floating design and characterization. Mulholland Drive, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I'm Not There, I Heart Huckabees, Inglorious Bastards, Modern Family. Again, some fine works in that list but the collective sense our outer space visitors will take away when they find them is, these people really were trying to hard to be "special" weren't they?

But this is just where the list-making begins and its hard to judge a decade by its first two Best Of Lists. The next five weeks may reveal untold wonders from the depths of our past ten years.

World's Least Respected Conservative Thinker: There Are Too Many Gays and Whores in Newsweek [Complaints]

Pareene — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:09:16 -0500

Former National Review Online editor Kathryn Jean Lopez is outraged that Newsweek disseminates the opinions of wanton harlots and avowed sodomites. Specifically, Dan Savage and Sasha Grey.

That [porn star Sasha] Grey is not a fan of Mrs. Sanford, of course, is not shocking. What's shocking is that I even know her opinion on the woman, on the situation, on politicians and their wives, and that she thinks we should all openly have something extra on the side.

Why is that shocking, exactly, Kathryn? Ms. Grey is a famous person, and a wealthy entrepreneur who owns her own business. (Republicans should be proud!) She recently starred in a film by one of America's most critically acclaimed directors. And she is commenting not on politics but on sex, which is, arguably, her area of expertise.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, on the other hand—why the fuck do we know her opinion on anything?

The Rules of Director Jail [Rules Of Hollywood]

Richard Rushfield — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:59:43 -0500

Show business does not (yet) have its own judicial branch empowered to imprison and, if necessary, torture people who commit unspeakable crimes against studio profits. It does however, have an even more effective tool at its disposal — director jail.

In today's LA Times, Patrick Goldstein reports on the redemptive journey to freedom of director John Lee Hancock; imprisoned for the crime of directing The Alamo, Hancock was apparently granted some kind of work release furlough and allowed to make The Blind Side; that film's surprising box office success this weekend has apparently restored him to full movie director citizenship.

Was a time when the rules for director jail were simple: when there was a big bomb, someone had to pay and the person attached to the film who had been the biggest pain in the neck to studio bosses was it. After two simultaneous disasters, Orson Welles, for example, found his big-time career as a director effectively brought to an end and had to struggle for the rest of his days, working when he was allowed, under probation and heavy official supervision.

But today, as with so much in our society, the rules are much murkier. For the citizens of Hollywood, director jail still exists as a looming deterrent against bomb-making, but what gets you there can be very unclear; some directors these days are allowed to make bombs forever, while others seem to be imprisoned after making a hit. Is anyone safe? Has the world gone mad and is it just by Fortuna's whims that any one of us has not found ourselves dragged off and locked away in the dankest, bug-infested cell in movie dungeon?

Well, the rules are more complex, more flexible, with many loopholes but they still do exist. Here's our guide to what it takes to get in to and stay out of Director Jail:

The Law: The general principle remains the same since time immemorial; every director has a bank of capital built up by their hits. Each successful film earns a credit. Every movie-losing film costs you one credit. A bigger hit may earn more credits however, as a bigger flop costs more. When your account gets to zero credits, you are sent to director jail.

The case of the aforementioned Mr. Hancock remains one of the most straightforward, classical cases of movie justice. He began his film career with The Rookie, a modest success made on a modest budget, which earned him two credits. But he then went on to make The Alamo, a huge flop on a huge budget, which cost both his credits, earning him his jail sentence. Likewise Michael Bay had ample credits in his account to weather the debacle of The Island.

The Grosses Speak Law: Whether the film is good or not, whether the director could have been replaced by a monkey, matters not at all if the film is successful. Bret Ratner the titular visionary behind the abomination of the Rush Hour trilogy, which combined grossed the better part of a billion dollars worldwide, has earned himself enough credits to stay out of director jail forever and ever.

The Beholder Codicil: However, the twist of the modern world is that perception matters far more than the actual facts. Even if Bret Ratner's career were nothing but a string of bombs, in a business where, as William Goldman said "nobody knows anything" you can in fact fool all the people all the time. Unshakable belief in yourself and the ability to play the part of great auteur on a grand scale can, if needed, be everything and can keep one out of director jail for a very long time.

The Laughingstock Law: A couple decades back, Renny Harlin was the Bret Ratner of his day. A high-profile, on-the-town action auteur, with a starlet wife and who, with Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger under his belt, could do no wrong. Until he did something very wrong; he made a movie that was not just a flop, it was so bad it made everyone involved with it look like abject maroons. The director jail authorities saided out to Cutthroat Island and carried Renny Harlin off for an extended vacation.

The Franchise Killer Act: No substance sustains life in Hollywood more than a successful film franchise — a series which can keep the spigots of cash flowing forever. And for the director who would kill a golden goose, no punishment is too great. Having made Speed and Twister in the 90's, Jan De Bont could have coasted for decades. But then he followed up Speed with the franchise killing Speed 2 - a sin which he just might have been gotten away with as it was his franchise to kill after all - but then he went on to bring down the might Lara Croft with The Cradle of Life, the third installment of her series. De Bont has not been heard from since.

The Coolness Exemption: In many instances, coolness creds can override profits and can keep a director out of director jail. There is a long line of entertainment poohbahs for whom being cool is almost as important as being successful, dying to work with anyone who can confer secondary cool. Donnie Darko, for instance, may have barely grossed a million on a $6 million budget, but its status as cult icon and ultimate cool film has created a long list of poohbahs wanting to work with director Richard Kelly. Even after the massive flop of his star-studded follow-up Southland Tales, Kelly continued to walk the streets. However, having now made an uncool flop with The Box, he may soon find there is a cell being readied with his name on it.

The Big Cool Friend Exemption: Director jail can also be avoided, or postponed, if a director can produce big movie star friends. Kevin Smith, for instance, whose bombs should have sent him to the movie guillotine long ago, remains at liberty thanks to his ability to get a long line of big name actors from Ben Affleck to Seth Rogen to vouch for him by appearing in his movies.

The Oscar Exemption: So long as smell of trophies cling to an auteur, they can buy their freedom indefinitely. Paul Thomas Anderson's films may always been more favored by critics than popcorn eaters, but so long as his genius-of-the-cinema creds remain off the map, so will never see the inside of a cell in director jail.

Now defunct: there used to be a disgrace to the entertainment industry law which carried with it a 20-year sentence, but since the term "disgrace to the entertainment industry has become an oxymoron, the law has been unenforced for years.

Washington Post Pulls Out of the Rest of America [Newspapers]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:26:23 -0500

At the end of December, the Washington Post will close its bureaus in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. This is the biggest write-off of on-the-scene domestic news coverage by any major paper yet.

The Washington City Paper broke the story, and has the full internal memo on the bureau closures. Key graf:

At a time of limited resources and increased competitive pressure, it's necessary to concentrate our journalistic firepower on our central mission of covering Washington and the news, trends and ideas that shape both the region and the country's politics, policies and government.

Total economic move. The Post is smart to protect its core competency, but this is pretty...sudden. But they may look smart for it, eventually, by not sucking themselves dry covering shit WaPo readers can get elsewhere, better, if they actually want it at all. The NYT, meanwhile, recently expanded its coverage in San Francisco and Chicago, so we have a nice little dichotomy to see which strategy looks smarter a couple years from now.

Murderous Pistol Cannot Hurt You [Classic Ads]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:17:14 -0500

Iver Johnson Revolvers "are not toys: they shoot straight and kill." Nevertheless, they're "absolutely safe," and "Papa says they won't hurt us." In 1913, as now, gun owners were mainly schizophrenics. [Copyranter]

A Glimpse of Google without News Corp.: No Big Loss [Media]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:51:16 -0500

The media world is in a (relative) uproar over what the implications of News Corp. pulling its content off Google would be. But! A three-part Gawker investigation-type thing indicates the impact might be quite minimal for you, the consumer. Observe:

The most popular story on WSJ.com today has been their semi-exclusive about Joe Lieberman saying he's never going to vote for a health care bill with the public option. If you heard about Lieberman making news on health care today and went to Google "lieberman public option," you'd get these results. The shaded red boxes are the News Corp. properties: WSJ.com and Foxnews.com. Those would disappear, but there would be no shortage of results showing you what Lieberman told the WSJ in the top results.

But let's say you were really motivated to find the specific Wall Street Journal story about Joe Lieberman derailing health care and you searched "lieberman public option" and "wall street journal." That would currently bring up the story in question, as well as the Fox News result and an old WSJ blog post. But it would also bring up plenty of other sites that can tell you what was in the WSJ story. Those all likely will also provide a link to the WSJ story, but if they put up the pay wall Murdoch has promised, why would you bother to click through?

Lastly, here's a search for "lieberman public option" and "wall street journal," but with results from WSJ.com and FoxNews.com filtered out—in other words, what Google would return if they weren't allowed to index News Corp. pages.

All but the top two results — irrelevant HuffPo stories — show you exactly what Lieberman said in the Wall Street Journal. And would conceivably show you a link to the WSJ. So, no big loss.

Outer Space Wishes You a Happy Thanksgiving [International Space Station]

Adrian Chen — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:22:18 -0500

Pay attention Obama: Here is how you wish people a happy Thanksgiving: FROM MOTHERFUCKING OUTER SPACE!

Yes, those are two human beings—astronauts Jeffrey Williams and Nicole Stott—wishing you a happy Thanksgiving while LITERALLY FLOATING 341 KILOMETERS ABOVE YOU IN A PERMANENT LOW ORBITAL DWELLING. Do you see that space food floating around? No strings, bitches! Because they do not have gravity in outer space! WHERE THESE PEOPLE ACTUALLY ARE!!

Screw Velcro: This video is why we must continue to fund the human spaceflight program.

(What the video doesn't show is the part of Thanksgiving where everyone gets drunk and fights about who ruined Thanksgiving last year.)

Gawker.TV: The Five Best Videos Ever of the Day [Clipjob]

Whitney Jefferson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:00:00 -0500

Today at Gawker.TV, a criminal channels television during his arrest, a little girl's unknowingly racist, a documentary from "the future" remembers the present differently than we do, sexting gets its own song, and we examine the best literal music videos.

Life Imitates Art As Criminal Copies It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Who knew that The Gang could inspire one of the world's dumbest criminals. Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and a bank robber both eat important pieces of paper to solve their respective problems.

Futuristic Documentary: "Everything You Thought You Knew About The Beatles is Wrong"
Interesting tid-bits of information in this alarmingly insightful Beatles documentary. Did you know that Scottie Pippen was an original member, and that The Beatles beat the New York Giants in the Superbowl? Learn something new every day, I guess.

Salt 'n Pepa's Let's Talk About Sex Updated for Sexting Teens
If a new medium of communication is created-no matter how hard adults try-teens will find a way to use it to have sex with each other. Texting is no different. The purity of phone sex is forever tainted.

Worst Parents Ever Teach Daughter to be Unintentionally Racist
Saying "sparkling wiggles" may sound like a cute thing for this little girl to say until you watch this video.

Gallery: The Best Literal Music Videos
Song parodies used to belong to Weird Al and comedians with pianos, but the recent proliferation of video editing programs have made song parodies the people's genre. These literal takes on music videos show us how silly they can be.

How to Deal With Teens [Advice]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:45:09 -0500

"A 13-year-old girl won't interact with her long-distance father, and she even called him 'gay' for caring. What's a dad to do?" Point out that she's the gay one, and she looks like a slut. Kids' respect is earned. [WaPo]

Precious Moments [Open Caption]

Brian Moylan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:41:21 -0500

[The whitest boy alive, Zac Efron, gets a posing lesson from Gabourey Sidibe after a screening of his movie, Me and Orson Welles, in New York last night. Image via Getty]

Lindsay Lohan has not been fired by fashion ... [Fashion]

Ravi Somaiya — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:39:06 -0500

Lindsay Lohan has not been fired by fashion house Ungaro. Despite designing nipple pasties.

Demonize the Homeless Long Enough and No One Will Notice You Moved Back Home [Recessionomics]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:26:11 -0500

The Way We Live Now: At home. With Ma. And Pa. And the leaky basement pipes, and the laundry machine, and our broken dreams. And the jug we rent from the United Homeless Organization. It's a living, hey! Amirite?

No, it's not just "Some Imaginary Trend We Made Up From Our Imagination Cause It Seems Like The Sort of Thing That Would Happen In a Recession." Adults really are moving home to mom and dad's place, because the [DREAM JOB IN MANHATTAN] just couldn't afford to keep them on.

We won't make a joke because, ha, who knows who might be next? Maybe us! We're somewhat confident now that we've procured a more stable career, though: We rented a little jug from the United Homeless Organization, then we stand at a table with the jug, see—right outside the Starbucks on Spring Street—and shake it, and say "penny, nickel, dime or a quarter..." in a sing-songy voice until people feel guilty and give us their meager change. Then we keep that money, and the head of the UHO takes his cut and pays his rent and cable bill and shit.

It's all a scam, technically. Although, what, do you want your 15 cents back, cheap Starbucks bastards? If the people holding the jugs really are homeless, well, then, it's helping homelessness, so, shut up.

It's not so bad being homeless these days. You don't have to live with mom and dad. You don't have to worry about an underwater mortgage. You don't have to go bowling with other jerks who are unemployed in order to "network." You don't have to do much at all, except shake that jug of change, and worry about how you're going to meet your basic needs without dying in the cold, heartless streets.

So don't feel so bad about your current conditions. It could be worse, economically: You could be black! Ha. Oh. You are? Yea. You are screwed.
[Pic via]

Happy Surplus Tuesday! [Mta]

Pareene — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:20:52 -0500

If you're not following the New York City Transit Authority on Twitter, you are missing out on some great deals. It's Surplus Tuesday! Everything must go!

This Conformal Coating System can be yours for a song. Buy a horn from a B-Division subway car for someone on your list! Have you caught the Surplus Tuesday fever? There's so much more where that came from.

*NEW ADDITION* STANCHION POLES

This handy structure is what you use to hold on to as the subway takes you to your destination.

AND!

*NEW ADDITION* SUBWAY SEATS

Can you imagine adding an authentic seat from the subway car to your home, work or office? The "oohhs" and "ahhs" you will get from your family, friends, co-workers and customers!

I mean, can you imagine? I can't! It would be insane!

There is a Deadly New Drug to Kill Our Kids [Stay In School Kids]

Ravi Somaiya — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:08:05 -0500

There's a menacing new drug around. And it's called... meow meow. Really. The press in Australia and Britain, who love a new drug they can moralize about, say it's deadly and legal and kids are all doing it.

It's real name is mephedrone and you snort it. Reading from the big book of newspaper cliches, it is a 'designer drug,' which is a phrase that means nothing and that no-one under the age of 50 has ever used. The Daily Mail, Britain's resident outrage-sheet sums it up:

The 'legal' drug, also known as Mephedrone and MCAT, can be bought over the internet and is billed as a cross between Ecstasy and cocaine

The paper was reporting on it after a 14-year-old girl suffered a heart attack while high on Ketamine and mephedrone. They play down the heart-attack-causing tendencies of the former, because then there's no story. The Australian press are making even more tenuous excuses to scare people. This story is about a teenager who died while on Ecstasy. See if you can spot where they conflate it with mephedrone for no apparent reason.

The most interesting report is from Vice. They ordered some off the internet and tried it. See also: this.

Kentucky Census Worker Was Not Murdered [Sad]

Ravi Somaiya — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:49:43 -0500

When a census worker was found hanged with 'fed' scrawled on his chest, many across the country denounced anti-government nuts like Glenn Beck for inciting a lynching. It now seems that wasn't the case. Prepare for some unbearable crowing.

The AP now report that Bill Sparkman, who was found in September bound and gagged with duct tape in Daniel Boone National Forest, staged the scene to look like a homicide.

Expect to see extensive discussion of this on Fox News, perhaps quoting in a fair and balanced way from articles like this. Which are correct despite today's news.

Glee Just Exploded a Glitter Grenade in My Brain [Soundtrack Of Our Lives]

Brian Moylan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:36:50 -0500

We just got the music for tomorrow's episode of Glee: "Bootylicious," "True Colors," "Imagine," acoustic "Papa Don't Preach!" I'm dancing and crying at the same time. Wednesday night can't come soon enough. And come back Friday for my recap.

The Gawker Sarah Palin Slam Book: Bid on This Literary Treasure for Charity [Gawker Cares]

Foster Kamer — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:32:13 -0500

At 2009's National Book Awards we honored Sarah Palin's Going Rogue as 2010's frontrunner for the NBA Fiction Prize by getting it signed by the gathered literary luminaries. And now, it can be the best charitable, tax-deductible present ever.

[BID ON THE BOOK HERE. SERIOUSLY. IT'S FOR CHARITY.]

Realize: this is the best copy of this book in existence. Period. Bar none. And at a ceremony when the books and authors being honored have the sales of their books disproportionately inverted by their quality, it only seemed appropriate to get everybody in on The Big Joke of the evening: that more people would read Sarah Palin's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Bullshit than any of the nominees' and winners' books, combined.

We offered the book up to some of our favorite literature and media luminaries that were in the house that evening. Dave Eggers—that asshole!—was very nice about refusing to sign our book, probably because it wasn't for his 826 charity. But he was kind. How's that for an endorsement?

Not good enough? What about super awesome sleepy Columbia MFA graduate and Freaks and Geeks actor James Franco signing our book?

Yes, this man signed our book. Okay, Jim. Maybe you made our photographer cry. But you did this one for the children. You're okay, today. Also, the nerds at Slate think you're The Sexiest Man With A Pulse, for what it's worth (read: the most ostentatious pillow talk ever). Congrats. But what if an awesome hunky dreamy movie star with an MFA from Columbia isn't enough reason to spend lots of money on a book people drew on?

Maybe 2009 National Book Award winner Colum McCann signing this bad boy is! YES THAT IS COLUM MCCANN SIGNING THE PALIN BOOK. This took a lot—a lot—of convincing. Charity, huh? But it's Sarah Palin's book! Sarah Palin! I can't put my name on anything of hers! Are you sure this is for charity? What charity?!

Funny you should ask, Mr. McCann. I've picked a charity so great, you can't even say their name out loud without feeling awful for never having done something for them until now: Save The Children. Yeah, you're gonna stiff these guys?

They've done great work bringing literacy programs to kids in need across the country, among other great things they've done for kids that otherwise don't get things done for them that should be. If I were running these programs, I would have them all reading Gawker Weekends and Calvin and Hobbes, because that's what I grew up on, but I'm not, and these people are, and we're all better off. You don't have to buy the book to give a buck. Oh, and if you complain about the charity I picked, I'll come to your house and personally beat you with an unsigned copy of Ms. Palin's 2010 NBA Fiction Winner. But yes, people actually signed this thing.

You want proof?

2009 NBA Fiction Prize winner Collum McCann (fourth page, center) really, actually did take this much convincing. He wrote: "'For we must love this poor earth, for we have not seen another...' Go Obama!" Awesome.

Ricky Van Veen and Neel Shah marvel at how incredibly awesome this book is, while Jessica Coen is laughing to herself imagining Sarah Palin read her fabulous, fierce nugget of wisdom.

Here's the guy who I thought was Toph Eggers, right. I got everyone's name wrong that night. At one point I think I remember identifying Keith Waldrop as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Jeff Bercovici signed the book as Dave Eggers, since Dave Eggers doesn't care about Saving The Children so much as making them read George Saunders or whatever.

Here're the first two pages:

And here're the second two:

And here's the full list of who we know we got:

2009 NBA Fiction Winner, Let The Great World Spin author Colum McCann.

Spider Man 2 actor and recent Columbia MFA graduate James Franco wrote (third page, top-right): "FUCK YEAH!" with a strange vampire-smiley face.

2008 NBA Fiction Finalist Salvatore Scibona (second page, middle-right) gave her "hugs."

2008 NBA Fiction Finalist Rachel Kushner (second page, bottom-left) offers her insight on context clues regarding snowmobiles.

I Was Told There Would Be Cake author by night and Random House book publicist by day Sloane Crosley drew hieroglyphics.

The Seymore Hersh of the Sunday Styles, New York Times writer Allen Salkin took up the entire bottom-third of the fourth page ensuring that I wasn't conning him. He also drew a fairly accurate drawing of himself.

Dave Eggers! As performed/signed by former Portfolio and current Daily Finance media columnist Jeff Bercovici (fourth page, top-right).

Columnist Katie Bakes tried to start a #hashtag, while the New York Observer's publishing beat gangsta Leon Neyfakh wrote...something.

Vice and New York Press writer Jamie Peck (second-page, bottom-right, I think) talked to her about wolves or some shit.

College Humor founder Ricky Van Veen gave Sarah a big CHILL, BABY, CHILL while Former Radar, Gawker, and Page Six writer Neel Shah got tactful.

The Awl writer Alex Balk.

Flavorwire's Kelsey Keith had more sage advice for Palin's future career aspirations.

Cartoonist Laurie Sandell drew a woman holding a smoking gun on the third page. Get it?

Gawker Past and Present: Media Overlord Nick Denton and current Gawker Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Snyder both thanked her for pageviews—heh—while founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers wished her luck, and Gawker J²-era/New York Magazine editor Jessica Coen gave her hair tips.

Oh, and me, lending to this the extent of my own profound, political insight.

We also got Gawker's Altarcations writer Phyllis Nefler. and some guy who looks like Dave Eggers brother, who turned out not to be Dave Eggers' brother after I thought he was Dave Eggers' brother. His name is Alec Friedman.

[Alas, because we were drunk, there may be signatures in here we missed. Seriously! If you see your John Hancock—heh: cock—please email me with it. It's for charity. You don't want children growing up to one day actually think that was funny, do you? Right. Neither do I.]

The book's sanctity has been preserved by only having been signed on the night of the 2009 National Book Awards, by attendees of the ceremony. That said, if you win it and want to have anybody else in the Gawker Media offices sign it, sure, fuckit, I'll get them to sign. Hell, we know people who are experts on books that are imaginary that are supposed to be real, and I bet we could get them to sign if that's what you wanted. Or I could eat the book, or I could drop-kick it, or I could detonate it with whatever fireworks you send us, or I could read it, but who's that awful? Not you, potential charity-giver. Anyway. You could do any of those things, or none of them, and just keep it as one of the most awesome literary collectibles ever. You know? You know.

Because one day, you can show this to your children's children, and tell them: I bought this so you could see how happy the people were before it was like this. Now that James Franco is the new Daniel Mendelsohn, and every book published is full of shit, and they all come from blogs, and they're the only things that sell, and they are read on calculators, there was this. There was this night. There were these drunk people signing Frau Palin's book.

And then you can blame it on this guy:

But seriously, it's for charity. Buy the goddamn book. Now. Please. Our auction is here.

[Photographs via Gawker Party Crash photog Mo Pitz.]

Pass the Thanksgiving Horror Stories, Please [Thanksgiving Of Horror]

Brian Moylan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:26:04 -0500

We're elbow deep in Thanksgiving terror stories, and we want you to keep them coming. There's whiskey (or $50) at stake! Go to the original post and leave yours in the comments or share the pain—and your Xanax.

Time Inc. Folding InStyle Weddings [Great Magazine Die-off]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:15:38 -0500

We've just confirmed that Time Inc. is folding Instyle Weddings, a quarterly publication. The wedding magazine category is rough these days.

The mag's closure will come with about nine layoffs. Its final issue hits newsstands on Dec. 25, and will be there through March. InStyle will continue to publish other similar types of spinoffs (i.e. InStyle Hair), but no mas for the weddings.

Conde Nast folded Elegant Bride and Modern Bride last month, and its flagship Brides is having problems of its own.

Condolences to the layoff victims.

Just FYI [Mark Halperin]

Pareene — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:15:08 -0500

Time's Mark Halperin: still the worst.

Electro-Abs Really Work! [Fitness]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:58:04 -0500

Ab scientists say that those electric ab muscle stimulators really do make your abs stronger. Your abs, guys. Only abs. [WSJ]

People Who Hate Immigration Already Fundraising for Lou Dobbs' Presidential Campaign [President Dobbs]

Ravi Somaiya — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:50:07 -0500

According to the doublespeak-named Americans for Legal Immigration (which means something more like 'Americans against them swarthy fellas') 3514 people have pledged to support the Dobbs at loudobbsforpresident.org — and activity has gone up since he quit his show.

The extremely excited immigrant-suspecters explain their love for Dobbs thus, in a press release:

...his show was one of the few national media shows that continued to broadcast accurate information about illegal immigration and America's broken borders

The organization aims to raise over $1m by the end of the year, and will consider turning pledges to the political action committee over for a Senate campaign too. A spokesman ended a press release on the topic looking towards the future. Except for his choice of media on which to present Dobbs with their immigrant-bashing achievements:

I look forward to a day when I can hand Lou Dobbs a maximum donation from our PAC, a maximum donation from my family, and a CD Rom disk with a list of donors and our URL for his campaign.

Meet the Gaddafi Boys [Dictator Style]

Ravi Somaiya — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:24:18 -0500

Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi's kids are a hoot: Saif is a painter who keeps pet tigers, while Hannibal enjoys sports cars and turning fire extinguishers into weapons. And, according to sources, they're paying the U.S. a visit on daddy's dime.

Last week there was much moralizing when it was revealed that the son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator was rolling around the US spending his country's oil wealth. But he may not even be the worst case of a dictator's offspring turning America into their personal playground.

People with knowledge of their movements say Saif and Hannibal have been in the U.S. this year. The State Department would not confirm or deny the reports and the Libyan Embassy did not return repeated calls for comment.

They're every bit as ridiculous as Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the heir to power in Equatorial Guinea, and have — if anything — greater freedom to spend their ill-gotten gains in the US. Let's start with Hannibal, pictured on a placard here in a protest against his imprisonment by Swiss authorities (more below):

He enjoys beating women (allegedly) and driving his Porsche the wrong way down the Champs-Elysees in Paris at 90mph. He has pulled a 9mm gun on police in that city and attacked Italian cops with a fire extinguisher. He wriggled out of charges in each instance using diplomatic immunity. Again, the State Department would not confirm or deny that, if Hannibal was here, he was travelling on a diplomatic passport. But it seems unlikely he'd leave it at home after he sparked an international incident in Switzerland in 2008.

His brother Saif, in the main picture, is known as the sophisticated one. He impressed the Council on Foreign Relations on a recent trip to New York, and hangs out with the Rotshchilds, according to this Daily Beast report on his efforts to free the Lockerbie bomber. He's also well-known for keeping two pet tigers. His charm offensive is not winning fans everywhere though - one journalist, who met him when he was promoting his own paintings in Canada, described him as "clearly a little shit" beneath his calm exterior.

Western relations with Libya have warmed in recent years. But it seems that tolerance is as blatant an oil-grab as the collective ignoring of Obiang's Bugatti Veyrons and Rodeo Drive spending sprees. Like Equatorial Guinean dictator Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo, Gaddafi is strongly rumoured to take a cut of each barrel of oil he sells to the West. Like Equatorial Guinea, Libya is rated as not a free country, and receives the lowest possible scores for Political Rights and Civil Liberties from watchdog Freedom House.

And as with Equatorial Guinea any efforts to enforce a presidential order and act of congress that bar corrupt foreign officials will probably be met with an awkward silence.

Let's just hope that Saadi, another of Gaddafi's eight children, doesn't decide to visit the US. He's a failed soccer player who took steroids, once had a crowd shot at for booing him and tried to make movies with his dad's money.

Time Inc's Pre-Thanksgiving Layoffs [Media Crack]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:18:22 -0500

In your trepidatious Tuesday media column: we hear the Time Inc. layoffs hit Fortune (and others?) today, BusinessWeek speaks robot language, Dave Eggers will not stop saving print, and a horrible massacre of journalists in the Philippines.

A tipster tells us that three assistant managing editors have been laid off at Fortune magazine, presumably as part of the ongoing companywide Time Inc. layoffs. Mediaite confirms that the company did do a round of layoffs today. If you have more details, email us.
UPDATE: We hear five staffers were laid off at SI.com: Two associate producers, a copy editor, a producer, and a production editor, according to our tipster.

Gary Weiss got a peek at a BusinessWeek corporate post-layoff memo, in which the people not fired are referred to as "Individuals ineligible or not selected for inclusion in the restructuring program." Well. How Bloombergian.

Dave Eggers continues to save print! This time by producing a $16, 300-page "newspaper" with content "ranging from Stephen King's reporting on the World Series to explanatory graphics on subjects as diverse as the conflict in eastern Congo and how to make the perfect bowl of ramen." The whole thing sounds great. Except, of course, this six-month long niche literary project has absolutely nothing to do with newspapers or with the continued viability of print, which is dying as a mass medium, naturally, due to its obvious limitations.

From Roy Greenslade: "Twelve journalists were among 46 people murdered yesterday in the Philippines in what is thought to be the greatest loss of life by news media in a single day. Several of the victims were beheaded or mutilated in the massacre carried out by a huge force of gunmen."

Bill O'Reilly Declares Victory as 75-Year-Old Man Retires [Feuds]

Pareene — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:03:01 -0500

In 2007, Bill O'Reilly's attack dog Jesse Watters ambushed veteran lefty journalist Bill Moyers at home and yelled at him for a while, about hating the troops. Now, Moyers is retiring. Advantage: O'Reilly!

Moyers, who is 75, had planned on ending his weekly news show at the end of the year, but PBS convinced him to stay on through April 30, 2010. This means, in O'Reilly's fantasy world, that Bill and Jesse totally embarrassed PBS into firing Moyers.

Bill ambushed Moyers again in 2008, but he didn't show that clip, because Moyers upstaged the second-string ambush producer that time.

Dear Adam Lambert, We're Sorry We Asked You to Be Too Gay for GMA [Apologies]

Brian Moylan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:02:41 -0500

Last week we were telling Adam Lambert to gay it up because no one cares he's a 'mo. Now his über-gay performance at the American Music Awards cost him a spot on Good Morning America. We're sorry, Adam.

We're sorry that this country is so full of homophobic prudes that kissing a guy on stage and simulating oral sex will elicit more than 1,500 complaints and get you kicked off of GMA.

Lambert was scheduled to appear on the show tomorrow—a critical gig, since his album, For Your Entertainment, just came out—but that has been canceled. "Given his controversial American Music Awards performance, we were concerned about airing a similar concert so early in the morning," a spokesperson for the show told the NY Times Arts Beat blog.

This is all the gays fault. We did what we always do and we overestimate just how much we are accepted by society. It may seem like apples and oranges (or butches and femmes) but Adam Lambert is just like what happened in California with Prop 8. We thought there was no way that the good people of California could hate gays so much they would vote down gay marriage. Well, we were very wrong.

The same thing happened here. All of the gays were telling Adam, "Keep it real. Get all faggy. You owe it to us, and they'll love you for it." He responded with a performance that was so gay that he shot rainbows out of his eyes and turned Whitney Houston in a unicorn that he rode across the stage and threw Ryan Seacrest on the back of it and they made out for 17 minutes straight. Oops, too gay. Now we've ruined it for Adam and he's going to end up playing piano in a gay bar and dying bitter and alone just like Jobriath.

The worst part about this whole thing is that we have now negated all the progress Lambert made by being an openly gay pop star in the first place. Now when the next very talented flamboyant rocker comes along all his managers and agents (most of them gay) will say, "Oh, you have to stay in the closet. Look what happened when Adam Lambert sashayed on stage at the AMAs. America will hate you."

That said, this isn't the worst thing that could happen to Lambert. He's getting plenty of attention just as his album is coming out—negative or not. The people who were offended by his dry humping were never going to buy the album anyway, and this flap might just give him enough street cred to get some people clicking the download button iTunes. We hate to make the same mistake twice, but maybe getting all nelly was the right move.

Apparently Lambert has been offered a replacement gig on CBS' The Early Show (caution, Perez Hilton link ahoy). Adam if that doesn't work out, you are welcome to perform here at Gawker HQ, and we'll let you get as queer as you wanna be. You can even put pink pancakes on Nick Denton's head. The only thing gayer than that is—well, your performance at the AMAs.

[Images via Getty]

Seeking Slim Vegan Morrissey Fan from Non-Dominant Culture for Occult Activities [Personal Ads]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:27:02 -0500

Turning to Craigslist in search of love: A grand American tradition! And not one deserving of mockery. Rather, let us marvel at the craft of composing a Craiglist M4W ad that excludes every woman on planet Earth. Except, perchance...you?

Contact him now. Before he becomes a star. [Pic via]

The Final Word on Chris Brown [Open Caption]

Brian Moylan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:58:48 -0500

[Diane Sawyer had to go and ask about Rihanna's abusive ex during the singer's performance on Good Morning America today, and this was all the response she got. Image via Getty]

Playboy Now Able to Afford Tara Reid [Magazines]

Hamilton Nolan — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:46:21 -0500

Playboy, which is really just hobbling along waiting to be sold at this point, is outsourcing its non-editorial production duties to AMI, which now has the weirdest stable of publications in the business.

In addition to (some of) Playboy, AMI has the National Enquirer, Star, and zombie RadarOnline. And then a bunch of muscle magazines! Perfectly capturing America's true, vapid obsessions with unattainable celebrity, unattainable sex, and unattainable bodies, all under one roof. As for Playboy, they say that the money they'll save with this deal will let them bring a touch of class back to the ol' cover page:

Though Mr. Jellinek said buzz-generating covers need not be costly, citing a recent cover with "Simpsons" cartoon star Marge, Mr. Flanders said freeing up cash for celebrity pictorials is a chief aim of the deal. Actress Tara Reid will pose nude for the first time in the combined January/February issue.

A bargain at any price.

You Must Be This Much of a Dick to Receive RNC Support [Tests]

Pareene — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:31:04 -0500

The Republicans were embarrassed when their candidate in NY-23 turned out to be too electable to be acceptable to the psychos who've seized control of their party. RNC members have proposed a solution: a purity test!

RNC member Jim Bopp and nine other committee members sponsored a resolution, to be considered at the party's winter meeting, outlining the nine essential tenets of the modern Republican party: calling Obama names and opposing everything he tries to do (besides escalating wars, unless he doesn't escalate them enough).

"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy position of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee; and be further

RESOLVED, that upon the approval of this resolution the Republican National Committee shall deliver a copy of this resolution to each of Republican members of Congress, all Republican candidates for Congress, as they become known, and to each Republican state and territorial party office.

So. You are allowed to disagree with two of those, if you would like to be a Republican, but disagree with three of them and you will be shunned.

Wait, you might be saying, I thought "cap and trade" was a market-based alternative to a carbon tax? To you, the RNC says "go back to Russia."

This does open up the door for a Republican who is pro-gay marriage and anti-gun, as long as they hate immigrants and love war. So, you know, still a big tent!

But they really should've gone further.

(11) We support the right of people to assemble and demonstrate peacefully, as long as they have guns and racist signs.
(12) We support keeping government out of Medicare.
(13) We support being oddly terrified of a loosely organized network of community organizers.
(14) We support claiming that everyone who accuses us of racism is a reverse racist.
(15) We support pretending we didn't support the bank bailout and purposefully conflating it with the stimulus bill.
(16) We support believing that angry southern white males are all the votes we'll ever need.

The War Against Gingers Continues [Ginger Wars]

Ravi Somaiya — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:20:22 -0500

Our red-headed brethren are still being set upon by angry mobs. It's all TV and the internet's fault — the kids today are on the Facebook and the YouTube and get these crazy ideas and then savagely beat others.

A new series of attacks were apparently started when this eugenics-promoting South Park episode led to a Facebook group which led to 12 or so kids at a school in California setting upon a 12-year-old then going on some kind of rampage.

The brutality was first revealed on Friday, and now authorities in Calabasas, California have admitted that several other gingerbeatings have occured at AE Wright Middle School, report the LA Times. The paper also, solemnly, describe what a ginger person is:

"Ginger" is a label given to people with red hair, freckles and fair skin.

Thanks! Now we can target them more effectively. Before bands of flame-haired people set out to take their revenge on South Park and its writers, it should be remembered that anti-ginger prejudice is nothing new. Especially across the Atlantic. In 2003 a man was stabbed after a fight following "comments about his ginger hair." In 2007 a family were forced to move repeatedly after an extended campaign of anti-ginger behavior. In the same year a waitress got almost $30,000 in compensation after taunts from co-workers about her strawberry blonde-ness.

They asked me if my head hair was the same colour as the rest of my body hair," she said. "They thought it was funny and liked to see me going red in the face with embarrassment.

Any gingers reading should consult this website.