1. His Name is No, Dr. No - Some hippie was once so enthralled by his resistance to the word "yes" that s/he sent him a giant "NO" in gratitude. He loves it so.

2. "Effective Nuisance" - That's going on his business card STAT!

3. Healthcare is His Thermopylae -

Mr. Coburn is preparing for what he considers a career pinnacle of havoc. Enacting the proposal, he says, would be catastrophic, and so if precedent holds, he will try to hinder it with every annoying tool in his arsenal: filing amendments (he has done that 508 times since joining the Senate, second only to John McCain's 542 in that period), undertaking filibusters and objecting strenuously.

And that fucking poseur Joe Lieberman can kiss his ass.

4. Friendship Means Paying off Your Friend's Mistress - And then ripping said friend a new one for being such a sick cheating cheaty bastard. Hey! Where do you think you're going, Ensign? Take your public shaming like a man!

5. The Correct Way to Treat Water Moccasins is to Behead Them - It's what Jesus should have done.

What is ACORN??

An evil group that exists to organize poor people into a violent militia and overthrow the government via "voting." Or basically a lobbying group for low- and middle-income families, either one.

Oh no, lobbyists!

Right? ACORN is in some respects a lobbying group like, say, the oil or pharmaceutical lobbies. Except they represent poor people instead of profitable corporations so they're a much less successful lobbying group.

What do they do?

They started as a radical group dedicated to getting welfare recipients and underemployed non-welfare recipients together to demand socialist things like free lunches for kids and emergency room care. Now they lobby Democrats for terrorist things like raising the minimum wage and forcing the government to subsidize affordable housing. Also they organize voter registration drives.

But what about all these crimes they're committing??

ACORN pays local losers in Florida $8 an hour to gather 20 voter registrations a day. So some of these losers are lazy, like all employees, and just make up the registrations. ACORN does try to find these made-up registrations and fire the employees who submit them, but, you know, sometimes they miss a couple. Also the law seems to say that ACORN has to submit all the registrations they gather no matter what, and even though the law is a little bit vague, they're still trying to follow it.

Why do Republicans need to attack and delegitimize a damn voter registration drive??

Because a certain amount of passive voter suppression is built in to the Republican campaign strategy. If all the disenfranchised and disenchanted voters were organized and registered and informed, we'd probably be a crazy socialist 10-party country like Italy or something. The GOP engages in active voter suppression—voter ID laws and legal challenges—and the more passive kind built into the democratic process, like engendering cynicism about the democratic process.

Obviously convincing the guys who disagree with you to not vote is part of any party's campaign strategy, but the GOP's by necessity targets poor people and minorities, and the vast history of suppressing the votes of poor people and minorities is way grosser than any history of disenfranchising white protestants. To us! Maybe you have some totally oppressed landed gentry in your family tree so you may feel differently.

Quite honestly the very heart of the utter bullshitness of this anti-ACORN campaign can be found in one incredibly telling quote from a spokesman for the RNC: "Cairncross accused ACORN of engaging in a 'systematic effort to undermine the election process' through its voter-registration drives." Do you see the problem with that statement?

And basically there is a CERTAIN CLASS of Republican voter that does not think that the poors, the Blacks, the homelesses, and so on honestly really deserve the same power to choose our rulers as a guy who's worked his whole life to get where he is. The politics of resentment are the last, most powerful weapon the McCain campaign has left this cycle. The details of the charges don't matter, actual proof of fraud doesn't matter, any evidence whatsoever of voter fraud being a real problem with a measurable effect on elections certainly doesn't matter, because the "fraud" is just that, you know, no-good hoodlum welfare recipients are being handed voter registration forms, and one type of person sees that as the point of democracy and the other type sees it as an utter perversion of democracy.

Didn't McCain used to totally be in the tank for ACORN?

Well Republicans have been bitching about ACORN and voter fraud for years now, but McCain definitely didn't used to be one of those Republicans. In 2006 McCain did give a keynote address, about immigration rights, at a rally co-sponsored by ACORN.

Can you maybe use a little more false equivalence to explain this in a way I understand?

Sure. ACORN's voter registration drives are to conservatives what Diebold voting machines are the liberals. The possibility of abuse is present and clear, but no one's yet convincingly proved that any abuse has occurred.

OK so what's up with everyone suddenly talking about ACORN?

As we said, nuttier conservatives have been on the ACORN-bashing bandwagon for years now. That it's finally trickled up to Drudge and Fox means they're scared they're losing the election and they need to preemptively delegitimize Obama.

What are my talking points for when crazy relatives argue that ACORN stole the election?

What we're dealing with so far is minor voter registration fraud. The questionable registrations number in the double digits in most states, and most of them have been flagged and caught by either ACORN themselves or election officials. Furthermore in many places the false registrations are required by law to be submitted anyway, so that ACORN isn't guilty of, say, tossing out the forms of Republicans they sign up. They do try to flag the fake ones as fake, but regardless, the fake ones are still being caught. Also: voter registration fraud does not coherently lead to voter fraud, because if you register one man 75 times, how will he vote 75 times, exactly?

More importantly, the election can't be stolen if it hasn't happened yet, and voter registration fraud does not explain in any way a double digit lead for a candidate in national tracking polls. Like, wtf, how are you making this argument, are you slow? ACORN registering Mickey Mouse is why Barack Obama is up 12 in Pennsylvania? Ok, sure, whatever you say.

Track Palin joined the Army to avoid jail time for drugs or vandalism.
True? Unsubstantiated. Pops up without corroboration on message boards and in email chains.
Notable: The Palin hometown of Wasilla is considered the "meth capital of Alaska." There are rumors Track was one of three unnamed teenagers charged with vandalizing 44 school buses while drunk. None of this proves anything, but it makes it much more fun to speculate!
Why someone would make this up: Sarah Palin made Track's military service a key part of her address at the Republican National convention. If he's a delinquent, those comments were disingenuous, and some conservatives would wonder about Palin's parenting, particularly amid the simultaneous SCANDALOUS pregnancy of Palin's 17-year-old unwed daughter Bristol.

Levi Johnston was in court-ordered rehab.
True? Almost certainly false, considering someone enthusiastically emailed us this rumor — and swore up and down to its authenticity — just one day before Johnston appeared at the Republican National Convention.
Notable: Citing courtroom sources, our tipster said the rehab would immediately be followed by a shotgun wedding. A dash of truth makes any smear more believable!
Why someone would make this up: Would make Johnston's engagement to pregnant Bristol Palin seem seriously nutty and Sarah Palin foolish to allow it.

Todd Palin had affairs.
True? There is zero evidence for this. It's pure assertion.
Notable: A Wonkette tipster phrased it as "the first dude has a John Edwards problem times ten zillion."
Why someone would make this up: Because if Todd Palin is having affairs, it means his wife must be doing something wrong. If you're a conservative, you might argue she works too much and isn't performing her wifely duties or whatever. If you're a liberal, you might argue Todd Palin cheats because his wife shuts him out of sex because she doesn't use birth control (even though she probably DOES use birth control since, according to Time, she supports the use of birth control generally and belongs to a anti-abortion, pro-birth-control group).

Sarah Palin had an affair.
True? If you unquestioningly believe the National Enquirer, which alleged Sarah Palin had an affair with an unnamed business partner of her husband. Palin vigorously denied the report, and the Enquirer offered only a tepid backing of its story.
Notable: The tabloid promised more details, but hasn't yet delivered. Bloggers went after the divorce court records of one of Todd Palin's business associates, thinking maybe he was the guy the Enquirer was talking about, but the records proved barren.
Why someone would make this up: To trash Sarah Palin's judgement and character, obviously.

Sarah Palin had a different affair
True? Even less likely than the other alleged affair.
Notable: This rumor started when liberal bloggers noticed that the McCain campaign denied the one specific affair alleged by the Enquirer with one specific person. What if Sarah Palin was sleeping with someone else? Her denial doesn't apply to that! She could be sleeping with tons of people and having affairs left and right and we'd NEVER KNOW!!
Why someone would make this up: Because he is 1> bored and 2> still traumatized by Bill Clinton's narrowly-crafted denials of his hanky-panky 10 years ago.

Sarah Palin faked her pregnancy to cover up for her daughter having a love child
True? Still hotly contested. But the Times weighed in today with a story quoting witnesses in and adjacent to the delivery room, as well as state governors who were with Palin when she began leaking amniotic fluid at an event in Texas. Pretty strong case! Skeptics still wondered if this reporting could be trusted, noting how the Washington Post made a big error in a prior story like this. The doubters also still wonder how Palin hiked briskly around Juneau in high heels while seven months pregnant and how she was back at work three days after giving birth (see Times story).
Notable: Officially, Bristol Palin is five months pregnant, which would have to be a lie if she secretly gave birth in May and had the baby passed off as her mother's.
Why someone would make this up: Because it would show that Sarah Palin was secretly ashamed of her daughter's out-of-wedlock child before she decided she had to embrace it publicly. Also, TWO out-of-wedlock babies are maybe twice as bad as one?

Sarah Palin is racist! She said "Sambo beat the bitch!" when Barack Obama defeated Hillary Clinton.
True? The source on this is a supposed Aboriginal Alaskan waitress named "Lucille" interviewed by the LA Progressive, which also asserted Palin refers to Aboriginal people as "Arctic Arabs" and "fucking Eskimos."
Notable: No one else has interviewed this "Lucille."
Why someone would make this up: The vast majority of Americans have never met or even SEEN an Alaskan up close. They only know these strange pseudo-Americans live in a remote, desolate land and make their money fishing, working with oil and collecting checks from the federal government. In other words, they're rednecks. So what else are they going to do, as far as the elite lower 48 states are concerned, but sit around and be racist all the time?? We're READY to believe Sarah Palin is a big secret racist. So this might seem like an effective and cheap way to smear her. But many of her supporters might also be wary of politically-correct super-elites from the coasts falsely throwing around accusations of racism.

Sarah Palin is a rude, conniving bitch.
True? Well, a blog tipster tried to ask Sarah Palin whether she was supporting corrupt Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, and she totally dodged the question, like some kind of politician or something! Also, a widely-circulated letter from someone identifying herself as Anne Kilkenny of Wasilla, Alaska says Palin "has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help" and is known as "Sarah Barracuda." Juicy!
Notable: Ken Layne at Wonkette said Palin is like the "snarling evil god-obsessed nut who punished you constantly" in junior high but "your parents would never quite believe it because she 'seemed like a nice lady,' from a distance, with her squeaky voice."
Why someone would make this up: Because while Tina Fey will totally vote for a bitch, many voters find bitches threatening. Plus "evil bitch" is way different from "bitch on the side of angels."

Levi Johnston will not go through with his announced wedding to Bristol Palin.
True? This is from our tipster's friend's employee in Alaska, so it's airtight.
Notable: We were told Levi "is not marrying Bristol. He does not want to move to Washington. Sarah is going to abandon her daughter in Alaska... They tried to force a 18-year-old kid to marry. His parents balked. Then they said they are going to sue for child support... This is extortion."
Why someone would make this up: To make Sarah Palin look like a manipulative liar who created a sham marriage to shore up her political future.

Todd Palin is the new Hillary Clinton, wielding undue influence through his spouse.
True? Palin has been accused in a whisper campaign and even in the Times of London of lobbying on behalf of the oil industry, but his work is officially confined to a non-management role as a oil production operator and no reports provide specific information contradicting this. More troubling and substantiated are his ties to the investigation of a state trooper he and his wife wanted punished more severely than had originally been decided by the appropriate state authorities.
Notable: Todd Palin has already, perhaps inevitably, been compared to Hillary Clinton.
Why someone would make this up: Not clear, really. Vice presidents are usually pretty powerless, and it would be surprising if inexperienced Palin was an exception. The amount of damage Palin's husband could do, in turn, through inappropriate influence is miniscule.

Sarah Palin burns books, has a crazy preacher, and wants Alaske to secede from the union!
See our last roundup.

UPDATE:

Sarah Palin conceived her son Track before she was married

True? Unproven. It's been discussed on various random websites. Even if it's true, as repeatedly asserted, that Track Palin was born April 20, 1989, just under eight months after the Palin's eloped, it's possible the child was born premature.
Notable: Fox News commentator Alan Colmes likes this rumor: he floated it in a blog post. It's unclear if he verified Track's birthday on his own.

Why someone would make this up: To make Sarah Palin look immoral to social conservatives who look down on single mothers and children born out of wedlock.

Levi Johnston is a high school dropout.

True? Quite possibly. The Associated Press discovered he as not listed on his team roster for the 2008-2009 academic year. His mom wouldn't say if he graduated. "She said simply he's no longer a student and any further information would have to come from him."

Notable: Johnston's mom also said the couple planned to wed before Briston Palin became pregnant.

Why someone would make this up: To tarnish Sarah Palin's character by making her daughter's choice of husband seem rash and foolish rather than noble.

Sarah Palin hired a sexual harasser as Alaska's top cop
True? Palin apologized for appointing as Department of Public Safety Commissioner Chuck Kopp, who had been issued a letter of reprimand by the City of Kenai for alleged sexual harassment. Kopp denied that charges, saying the incident amounted to a simple hug.
Notable: Kopp replaced Walt Monegan, whose firing by Palin was also controversial.

Why someone would make this up: Calls into question Palin's judgement and abilities as a government executive.

Additions, corrections or elaborations? tips@gawker.com

It's All True!

"Book burner." Not literally. Though as mayor of the tiny, presumably quirky little Alaska town of Wasilla, Palin did inject a bit of old-fashioned culture war politics into the local library. From Time, via Kos: "'She asked the library how she could go about banning books,' he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. 'The librarian was aghast.'" Hah. So much for the "sexy librarian" thing, right?

She has a crazy preacher! Once again, sort of. Though this one is less likely to be relevant to anything, because it's a crazy right-wing white preacher, and we are quite used to seeing them on TV and not even bothering to be shocked by them anymore. Anyway. Sarah spoke before her old church in Wasilla a couple months ago. She grew up and was baptized there. The senior pastor there since 1999 is, obv, a crazy right-wing evangelical nutcase named Ed Kalnins. He once said Kerry voters will go to hell, and people who criticize the president will go to hell, and Iraq and 9/11 were wars of faith and other fairly doctrinaire beliefs for the modern-day Christian right, their recently scrubbed moderate-ish image notwithstanding. Anyway, crazy pastor!

She is a secessionist! So yeah, there's a wacky political party in Alaska that wants to secede from the union. It's called the "Alaskan Independence Party" and Sarah Palin was a member back in the '90s, until she ran for mayor. They hate America! Sarah Palin hates America! Also, awesome logo.

Conspiracies!

Trig Still Not Hers Sarah Palin's most recent baby, four-month-old Trig, was rumored to actually be Palin's oldest daughter Bristol's baby, back until the campaign announced that Bristol is five months pregnant now. Some people are unconvinced! Read the entirely circumstantial evidence right here.

The "real" story still has weird holes. Why was Bristol pulled out of school, is Levi the real father and does he actually intend to go through with this ridiculous wedding? But honestly we're inclined to believe the 44-year-old woman actually did give birth to the baby with Down Syndrome. But still, the timeline is weird.

Now, finally, the Enquirer weighs in: they say the Bristol pregnancy was supposed to be announced after the RNC, at which point the shotgun wedding would've been finished. But Bristol rebelled! Or something!

Myths

She strangled a fucking bear to death once. There is no evidence to support this rumor.

(Up top, the alleged cover of this week's Us Weekly.)

Q: How should you draw Barack Obama?

A. With a prominent chin, and oversized ears that stick out. Toothy. He can be brown. He shouldn't look like Howard Dean. He doesn't have a mustache. [The Root]

Q. What should Barack Obama wear on his lapel?

A. Something hope-y. Or something funny. Or: "If he was honest, Obama would wear a turban and be done with it." [NYT]

Q. If we elect Barack Obama will there be no more racism?

A. Come on. [The Root]

Q. How many times a day does Barack Obama go to the gym?

A. 3. [ABC]

Q. Does Barack Obama sweat, like the humans?

A. No. [AP]

Q. Which Will Smith film performance best provides an unintentional and quite insulting gloss on the early life of Barack Obama?

A. His part as a gay hustler pretending to be the son of Sidney Poitier in John Guare's Six Degrees of Separation.

Either that or his part in I, Robot as a cop who doesn't play by the rules and hates robots.

Q. Why won't Barack Obama cuddle with me?

A. He needs his space. [Slate]

What's Panama? Yahoo's ad system, announced last May, formerly due late last year, finally released at 3 p.m. today. Under Panama, search ads should be better targeted, which should increase the number of users who click on them.

What will I notice? If the changeover goes smoothly, users will notice nothing. From then on, though, more of the ads they see should seem worth clicking.

What will Yahoo notice? Hopefully a higher profit per search. Right now, one analyst estimates Yahoo makes about 60% of what Google makes on any given search. That's the main reason why even though Yahoo gets more pageviews, Google makes more money.

What will advertisers notice? More information and control over their ad campaigns, including a "quality index" that shows them how well a given ad is expected to perform.

Will it work? Eleven thousand employees can't be wrong! Yahoo execs say it'll revolutionize the company, but so do engineers with no press to impress.

What do I say at a business party? "Didn't you hear? Yahoo is back. Yep, I'd grab the stock while it's under $30 before Panama kicks up the earnings later this year."

2. But Silicon Valley's far too dull and serious for gossip.
Yes, that's been the general consensus. Chris Nolan used to write a gossipy column, Talk is Cheap, for the San Jose Mercury News in the 1990s, and Fucked Company provided dirt on all the startups that went bust after 2000. But Silicon Valley hasn't been conducive to gossip. And a lot of the people who work in technology are, at least in up markets, too dazzled by the immaculate future to pay attention to the grime of the present. The less charitable explanation: the companies are uptight; the public relations professionals controlling; and the press supine.

3. So, why start a site?
Well, where there's money, there's excess, and where there's excess, there's gossip. And there's now a lot of money again in Silicon Valley. Oh, and let's not forget Google. Did you know that Marissa Mayer, the anointed queen of Google, used to go out with Larry Page until quite recently? And no one ever ever writes that. So that's why.

4. What stories will you cover?
Well, Marissa Mayer, for a start, and the tech media's obtuse coverage of her background. Unpopular venture capitalists. Larry Ellison's spending habits. The Googlejet. Car park etiquette. The cubicle neighbor's undeserved Porsche. Particularly nauseating examples of corporate jargon. Any story, pretty much, that people talk about, but never see in print. And nothing is too trivial.

5. Who's writing the site?
The writer is Nick Douglas, a hungry little monster who first visited San Francisco just three months ago, plucked prematurely from undergraduate English. Jane Austen's loss is Silicon Valley's gain. Or maybe the other way around. But Valleywag is also open to reader comments, either anonymous or bylined.

6. How can I become a commenter on Valleywag?
Check out the Valleywag comments FAQ.

7. Who's behind the site?
Valleywag is part of Gawker Media, which publishes other gossipy titles such as Gawker in Manhattan, Wonkette in Washington, D.C. and Defamer in Hollywood — as well as tech sites such as Gizmodo and Lifehacker. The company makes money from advertising but not, fortunately, from many of the companies that we'll be poking.

2. Why are comments by invitation only?
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