Not to be an ass-kiss, but I think your Evacuation Day post is one of the funniest things I've read on this site in a while. Well done!

I would just like to say that you have been on FIRE lately! That ACORN piece is a thing of frigging beauty.

omg the message below mine is so crazy never forget!!!

Well done.

It is vitally important that you shut down and shut up anyone who puts forth troublesome facts about 9/11. The "official story" should never be challenged by details or history or evidence--and those who would dare should immediately be linked to Holocaust deniers, because to point out troublesome, insufficiently investigated facts is, for our purposes, just like saying the Holocaust never happened.

Works like a charm.

Never get drawn into the quagmire of facts or circumstances when you can just slander the questioners, just preemptively blast away the very notion of questioning. Even if they don't have a wild theory for what happened, paint them as if they do--skepticism equals outrageous fantasies.

For the "official story" is sacred. It was Muslims who hate our freedoms. Period. How they did it--not important. They just did it.

Don't ever, ever let people dwell on anything that distracts from that basic brand proposition. Protect big lies by keeping away from little ones. You know... documents forged to link hijackers to training in Iraq or link Iraq to uranium from Niger. So what? Let Seymour Hersh jerk off for a handful of egghead nerds on the Upper West Side. It's just a few little lies that slipped out.

So long as the big lies remain sacred and protected, fuck it.

People are watching. You haven't let them down.

Keep up the good work.

You'll surely be tested again.

hey there, pardner. don't know if you've been following the provocative exchange that has continued in regard to the Olbermann post from yesterday afternoon, but I highly recommend checking in! cheers!

Your articles just get better and better. I loved the Obama Attack Ad post.

I don't know if I have you to thank for the reappearance of my star and/or for having it in the first place, but at any rate, thank you! It's funny how something like a little star can make a grown adults day. I appreciate it and appreciate all your brilliant writing.
-Caryn

Hi Alex, I just wanted to ask if there was anything behind the scenes that I wasn't aware of. Did I do anything wrong? Length? That is definitely a problem in my commenting. Sorry! Will try harder to distill things to their essence. I was just wondering because I noticed to my delight that I had a star today. But, now, it's gone. I don't know why I had it for a moment, but it was lovely. Just wanted to make sure I'm cool with everyone and if no, then what I should do better. Thanks! Sorry, no email at the moment. I'm between accounts. -Caryn

Suppressing unpopular speech is always trivial if you're the one doing the suppressing.

*Ahem* I don't know if anyone important has noticed your 5 figures of viewing madness, but -- Go Pareene! with your Diggity self.

Question - was your Natalie Portman/FINCA blurb supposed to be about international development or simply an excuse to talk shit on a celebrity that has fallen out favor with the Gawker crowd? Because it seems a hell of a lot like the latter.

There are volumes of evidence that microfinance is a hugely successful market-based development initiative that has lifted people out of poverty on every inhabited continent. Microcredit is not loan-sharking! Interest rates do remain high, but loan sharking is what locals would experience if microcredit weren't made available to them (local lenders charge far higher interest rates to the poor). Poor management practices exist in every industry, including international development but this do not mean the idea is fundamentally flawed in the least. As a specialist in the field, I must tell you that nowhere in my World Bank Microfinance Handbook does it teach that best practices include encouraging borrowers to sell their your children as collateral. Are you fucking kidding me?!!! How could you possibly take such an accusation even remotely seriously?

Yet obviously to Gawker, a French journalist who writes an ill-informed, 300-word article on the topic and concludes with the completely erroneous statement that "It is impossible to obtain an interview with Mohammed Yunus, and the Grameen Bank headquarters are off-limits for journalists who are too curious" holds far more credibility than a Nobel Prize winner and the measured successes of millions of loan recipients worldwide.

I lost a ton of respect for the Gawker today. You're absolutely misrepresenting the microfinance movement and doing a disservice to people who were previously unaware of microcredit and now have formed opinions on the topic based on such a biased and ludicrous post.

If you actually want to learn about what microfinance does you should check out the articles on following websites as well as the impressive statistics for Grameen Bank:

[www.cgap.org]

[www.grameen-info.org]

Though now I have no choice but assume that the articles may be too dense and "scholarly" for you to digest….