• So. The government sent a plane to New York to spray us all with killer Swine Flu vaccines, and now we are all autistic. This happened because some people forgot about 9/11, which why we embraced the coloring book of terror.
• Then a Secret Service agent caught the Swine Flu, but the president remains curiously resistant! This was all explored in an episode of 24.
• Portfolio died but before it did there was a brief, tense moment when we thought it'd be Adam instead!
• We asked where the Hipster Grifter was, but she was just still out in Brooklyn, grifting away. Grift on, sister.
• Tina Brown, though, should stop grifting. We are getting tired of it.
• This week in MEDIA: Brian Ross is an old-school hard-nosed reporter who gets everything wrong all the time because he believes everything he hears! Glenn Beck is still nuts! Oh, Barack Obama had a press conference to warn us of the SWINE FLU but he was hijacked by reporters. Dangerously gay reporters!
• Hah, Obama's socialite outreach lady fucked up the recession message in WSJ. And WSJ. still exists! And still has that weird period!
• Hey, a crazy lady is pretty sure her dad, JFK, was the Zodiac killer from that movie. You know, Captain Corelli's Mandolin. That movie.
• The mayor of San Francisco has a nutty wife who does nutty things in nutty movies. That's San Francisco for you! Always with the nuttiness!
• Meanwhile here in New York Blair refuses to take the subway because Joe Biden told her not to and Richard contemplated a world in which he liked Alex and Simon.
• We found the shittiest job in the world!
• Julia Roberts: She's just like us! Except rich!

p.s.

This panic is following the script of the 1976 debacle to a tee! Today, Obama asked for the money:

President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.5 billion to fight the fast-spreading disease.

Federal officials suggested the flu may be spreading so fast, there may be no practical way to contain it, and no need to tighten borders further.

So far, there have been no deaths from the fast-spreading virus in the United States.

If you think that the second two sentences make the first pointless, shut up! In 1976 the government only wasted $135 million (a little more than $500 mil in today's dollars). We're already winning! To help ensure that Congresspersons vote to authorize a blank check, Obama has a powerful ally: hysterical NYC parents.

"Many hundreds" of schoolchildren are sick with suspected cases of swine flu, said New York City Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden.

We can only imagine what the Park Slope Parents messageboard looks like right now. Mayor Bloomberg just gave a news conference and pointed out that 2,000 New Yorkers die of the flu or pneumonia in an average year and it sure doesn't attract as many reporters as this, but who cares. He wasn't even wearing a mask! He may already be infected.

Panic faster! [Pic via]

1. The actual "news" part of it is boring: A new case of swine flu in New Zealand. A new case in Queens. On and on ad infinitum. Do you know what immediate worldwide reporting of single flu cases does not add up to? An interesting and newsworthy story. It adds up to scaremongering! Reporting every single new case of anything will make it appear to be a grave threat. See: Crime reporting on local news networks.
And try this test: Are new cases of deadly disease X emerging at a slow enough rate that they can each be reported in individual news stories? Then it's not much of a pandemic! When might it actually become a pandemic that sweeps the globe? Maybe next week, maybe never! Stay tuned for by-the-minute updates, until you starve to death.

2. Tedious images: Pictures of people wearing masks. It's only funny for one day. It would be more interesting if someone explained how these magical flimsy paper masks kept humans safe from germs. What's their secret???

3. Scare tactic overload: Because there's little actual news going on here, every TV news anchor is forced to use the "scare voice" to make this story seem important enough to justify the hours it's filling. The "scare voice" applied to less-than-apocalyptic stories is the prime reason people think cable news is full of shit, generally.
Maybe the print media is better? A little. But not completely. Hey, check out this CNN story on "what the world might see if there is another pandemic":

World health Organization officials believe as many as 1.5 billion people around the globe would seek medical care and nearly 30 million would seek hospitalization. Based on the last pandemic and current world population, as many as 7 million people could die, epidemiologists said.

"Hospitals will become overcrowded, schools will close, businesses will close, airports will be empty," Dr. Lo said.

Will there be an accompanying zombie war? Wait another day or two and CNN will tell us!

4. No good heroes or villains: Faceless low-level health workers versus a microscopic virus? It's a failure of drama. If Bin Laden and Jack Bauer are found to be involved though, watch out!

5. No incentive for news outlets to cut down on the bullshit: Panic is great for the media. Ideally for media outlets, the population would be in a state of low-level panic at all times, punctuated only by frequent crises that boost us into a higher level of panic. Even news people who realize something is bullshit also know that Panic=Attention to News People. For example: Media antihero Michael Wolff is writing columns about what a bullshit story this is. His columns appear on Newser right next to HUGE LEAD STORIES about the Deadly Swine Flu Epidemic.
Wake us up when we're all dead.

[Pic: Getty]

According to a new study in Pediatrics, just being in a room where the evil cancer sticks were once lit is like taking a stroll through Chernobyl.

Freaked out scientists warn:

Small children are especially susceptible to third-hand smoke exposure because they can inhale near, crawl and play on, or touch and mouth contaminated surfaces. Third-hand smoke can remain indoors even long after the smoking has stopped. Similar to low-level lead exposure, low levels of tobacco particulates have been associated with cognitive deficits among children, and the higher the exposure level, the lower the reading score.

You know what else lowers the reading score? Video games.

Whatever. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Kid Rock: We're pretty sure there was only one reason why the Kid Rock/Scott Stapp sex tape was ever released: to prove (to someone, we don't know who) that these two a) have (or at least had) groupies and b) have received oral sex. We're pretty sure we didn't need to know either of those things — but hey, that's the world of celeb sex tapes for you.

Joanie "Chyna" Laurer: Female pro-wrestlers don't get nearly enough attention in the press—though we're not really sure that the kind of attention that Chyna's sex tape generated was really appreciated by her fellow female wrestlers (can you say "inch-long and thick-as-a-pinkie clitoris with a corona resembling the head of a penis"?).

Amy Fisher: Given that Amy Fisher's biggest claim to fame was shooting someone in the face, it is, perhaps, a little odd that she followed that up with her very own sex tape. Then again, Amy's criminal career was spawned by an affair she had with the much older Buttafuoco. When she was a teenager. And seriously, how hot does "Long Island Lolita: Caught On Tape" sound? (Related, but vastly less hot: the Joey Buttafuoco sex tape.)

Verne Troyer: Next up in our list of unlikely pornstars is Verne Troyer (better known as "Mini-Me."). Though Troyer didn't take too kindly to his time in the spotlight, we feel the release of his sex tape was actually a bit of a public service. Firstly, it taught us all that, no matter how different you may look, there's always someone out there who'll be willing to love you (and commit it to tape!). Secondly, it gave us all a very, very detailed lesson in how not to kiss.

Gene Simmons: And speaking of KISSing (ha!): you can't spell sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll without sex. And no one knows that better than KISS front man Gene Simmons, whose all too brief career in adult entertainment we were more than happy to analyze.

Dustin Diamond: If you'd told us, as kids, that Screech of "Saved by the Bell" fame would one day be the star of his very own sex tape, we probably would have run screaming from the room (well, after having you explain what, exactly, a "sex tape" was). That reaction wouldn't have been so far off: Dustin Diamond's last ditch effort to reclaim the spotlight was pathetic at best—but at the same time, isn't the whole pathetic grasp at fame thing the whole point of a self-released sex tape? (Oh, and also: Dirty Sanchez.)

Jenna Lewis: Screech wasn't the first "celebrity" to cash in on a "stolen" sex tape: that honor goes to Jenna Lewis, better known as Jenna from "Survivor," who raked in over $70,000 (and extended her fifteen minutes of fame) with her very own sex tape.

Kim Kardashian: And then, of course, there was Kim Kardashian's romp with R&B star Ray J. We never really figured out why Kim was supposed to be a celebrity, but at least she managed to make it with someone with at least a little bit of cred. And, for that matter, Kardashian managed to rake in a decent amount of money, too (much as she denied that she had had any part in the tape's public launch).

Colin Farrell and Nicole Narain: Given that Colin Farrell and former Playboy Playmate are two people we'd actually want to see get it on (as opposed to, well, many of the people who made this list), we were largely convinced that their rumored sex tape had to be a hoax. Yet somehow, it wasn't! See, sometimes the powers that be really do listen to our prayers.

Paris Hilton: Paris's tape hits the top of our list not so much for its quality (it's shot in night vision, for one thing, and Paris was never much of performer) but instead for its cultural significance. Before her flirtation with amateur porn, Paris was just a D-list party girl and hotel chain heiress; post-"One Night in Paris," she was a full-fledged C-list celebutante with her very own reality show. Using a sex tape to eke out a modicum of fame and launch oneself into the spotlight? Brilliant. (Oh, and there's also the matter of Paris's sexploits hitting the newswires the same day that Fleshbot launched—five years ago today! So maybe we're a little sentimental? It happens.)

Bonus Scandal! Dita Von Teese: Lovely Dita didn't so much make a "sex tape" as star in some arty lesbian fetish porn—but hey, the video was hot enough (and the scandal hyped up enough), that we had to include it somewhere. It also wins points for generating one of the best headlines ever seen: "Dita Von Teese had sex with a shoe." She sure did.

Needless to say, we're not totally convinced by Tancer's super compelling argument. Granted, we haven't seen his data, but the simple claim that searches for porn have dropped from 20% of all searches to 10%, and that social networks are now the dominant search theme, isn't enough to get us preparing for a grand ol' porno funeral. Allow us to explain ...

There's more of the internet than there used to be. As the internet grows, matures, and spreads into homes across America, it's only natural that porn would become a smaller percentage of all the content out there — not because porn is less popular, but because it's gone from being a big fish in a small pond to a big fish in a very, very large pond.

Social networks are work friendly. You (probably) can look at Facebook while you're slacking off at work. You (probably) can't look at Fleshbot. Does that mean that you like Facebook better than Fleshbot? We'll let you think on that one.

Social networks are kid friendly. We hear the kids are big into the internet these days — and they also really like the MySpace. Chances are, their parents are going to be more okay with them looking at MySpace or Facebook rather than porn. And the more that kids become heavy internet users, the more these numbers are going to get skewed.

Adult sites are vastly more profitable than social networks. Unlike Facebook, most porn sites have figured out some decent ways to monetize their traffic (even with smaller users bases). Somehow, we think the money is going to have the final word on this one.

· "Facebook and MySpace are Killing Porn?" (mashable.com)
· "Porn passed over as Web users become social" (reuters.com)

# Recordings of women experiencing orgasms
# Videos of nude men participating in "ejaculation educational demonstrations"
# Detailed photographs of men and women masturbating
# Images of mammary intercourse
# Close-up images of topless women and male and female sexual anatomy
# Large-scale photos of men performing oral sex on one another (and performing oral sex on themselves)
# An illustrated list of sex positions
# Threesomes
# Photos of nude strippers
# An image called "Virgin Killer" depicting a naked prepubescent girl from the 1976 cover of a Scorpions album (banned in the U.S.)

Our first thought upon reading this was that we are not spending enough time on Wikipedia. Our second was that we'd like to see some examples of this salacious content, because we had trouble finding any: those "nude" strippers are actually mostly* covered up, the sexual positions and anatomy photos are no worse than what you would find in a (really cool) biology textbook or on the Discovery Channel, and the gay fluffer pictures are tastefully non-explicit (at least by our standards*). What a ripoff!

Not only is this an unusually misguided display of anti-porn hysteria—anyone looking for free unblocked smut can do a lot better than Wikipedia—but their complaints show a shocking misunderstanding of how Wikipedia actually works. It's completely created, edited and policed by its users —i.e. anyone and everyone—and if there's a problem the users are the ones who fix it.

Take that infamous 1976 Scorpions album cover, which could be considered child pornography: it might have been banned, but one could also argue that it has some sort of historical relevance. If the community doesn't agree, then the community of Wikipedia users can remove it ... which they did are still debating**. (Here's the ongoing discussion about it, which predates the WND article by almost three years.)

Tattling to the FBI about nudie pics on the internet is like complaining to Congress about evolution. Hating it enough won't make it go away. Besides, one way or another people have to learn about strippers—so it's either on Wikipedia or in a strip club. Take your pick.

· "Is Wikipedia wicked porn?" + "Naked young girl photo troubles 'Wikipedophilia'" (wnd.com)
· Fluffing (Wikipedia)
· Wikipedia T-Shirt (bustedtees.com)

* Updated to reflect some specific photos which a reader bought to our attention after we posted this entry; however, we still don't think they're anywhere near as bad as the WND article makes them out to be.

** Update (5/9): Another reader has informed us that the banned Scorpions album cover has been restored to the Wikipedia post in question since we first posted about the issue, and the debate about it among Wikipedia users continues.

"'The one thing that's affecting shark attacks more than anything else is human activity,' said Dr George Burgess of Florida University, a shark expert who maintains the database. 'As the population continues to rise, so does the number of people in the water for recreation. And as long as we have an increase in human hours in the water, we will have an increase in shark bites.'

"Some experts suggest that an abundance of seals has attracted high numbers of sharks, while others believe that overfishing has hit their food chain. 'I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but it's a convenient excuse,' Burgess said. Another contributory factor to the location of shark attacks could be global warming and rising sea temperatures. 'You'll find that some species will begin to appear in places they didn't in the past with some regularity,' he said." [Guardian via Drudge]

Now, we didn't pick up on Debbie Nathan's story last week either, because her piece didn't name a dollar figure. So we thought: Paypal? Porn sites? Okay, so in the course of learning stuff for his story about child pornography on the internet, or in advance of working on the story, he sent $19.99 to a bunch of porn sites. Go figure. (Please. What American hasn't Paypaled money to a porn site, after all?)

Now the Times coughs up a dollar figure for this transaction: $1100. This comes from the same people who are "familiar" with the sealed documents. So, that could be true!

And that's more money. That's interesting!

But really there's another reason we can't stand writing about Kurt Eichenwald, and we're probably not alone. It's the people who email us. Like so:

On 8/3/07, Mike Murphy wrote:

Hey, if you folks are bored with dumping on Eichenwald, let me know. Nothing from you guys all week, even though there was a lot to snark about. Here is the latest from those in the know:
http://www.generationq.net/articles/Justin-Berry-Sex-Lies-and-Videotape.html

Which is too bad. The stuff that's verifiably true IS interesting! The stuff that's not is just scary.

And our correspondent Mike Murphy, who seems like a very nice guy, by the way, whatever his real name is, is very busy disseminating stuff about Eichenwald: he hits all the weblogs, from Texas Monthly's to Jossip.

Check what happens in the comments on this thread over on journalist Daniel Radosh's site. Daniel picked up Debbie's piece last week, and next thing you know, people are writing about Tim Richards and how Kurt Eichenwald put innocent people in jail and blah blah crazy conspiracy land.

And so we never ever ever want to write about any of this ever again. What's most annoying is that we're against the hysteria about internet porn, and against innocent people going to jail and all that. And we figure there's gotta be at least more than one good story in all this. But is it worth the disgusting hassle?