Save The Children's an awesome, nonreligious, independent charity doing great work worldwide, providing everything from shelter to education to medical care for kids who aren't within reach of it, for whatever reason. By no means do you have to buy the book to give a buck, but if you, it'll be well worth it.

Spider Man 2 thespian and recent Columbia MFA graduate James Franco signed it sometime before telling our photographer, Mo Pitz, to fuckoff. Mo will forgive him one day, but we're still thankful for the sign. Same with 2009's National Book Award fiction prize winner, Let The Great World Spin author Colum McCann. We also got I Was Told There Would Be Cake author Sloane Crosley, College Humor founder Ricky Van Veen, media reporter Jeff Bercovici (signing as Dave Eggers), the New York Times' Allen Salkin, cartoonists, other National Book Award nominees, and a bunch of other people who—like you—care about books.

Signature Gawker editors past and present grace the thing, too: Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Snyder, New York Magazine's Jessica Coen, The Awl's Alex Balk, founding editor Elizabeth Spiers, Page Six's Neel Shah, and and our very own weekend cleanup hitter, Foster Kamer, who braved the National Book Awards to do this, and also ambushed a Mediaite's live broadcast to plug it (fast-forward to 48:30 for the surprise). Besides which, if The Dark Lord Balthazar himself can pitch in...

....so can you. It's for a great cause, it's a literary treasure, and is the best copy of a Historically Important Book, Going Rogue, in existence. Hands down. Don't miss out: get your last bids in here.

[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 offered her encouragement "storming the castle." True story: Sloane had no idea what she was signing.

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. Someone who isn't Vice writer Jamie Peck, apparently, talked to her about wolves. Claim your identity here!

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.]

Daily Finance's Jeff Bercovici did some poking around and discovered that Limbaugh hasn't bothered to put his Fifth Avenue penthouse on the market.

Limbaugh has yet to make any such arrangements — or, if he has, he's been keeping them from Kit Carson, his producer and "chief of staff." When I attempted to contact Limbaugh to ask him about his relocation plans, I was directed to Carson, who told me he'd forwarded my remarks to his boss, to no avail. "All I can tell you is, I put the question into him, and I got nothing back," Carson said.

Rush, what the heck are you waiting for, man?! Remember when Alec Baldwin lied about moving to Europe if Bush won? Do you want to be viewed as the conservative version of a lying liar like Alec Baldwin? Of course not! You have a sterling reputation for personal integrity to uphold. Now get the hell out before it's too late! Just go man, please. Texas beckons you.

Rush Limbaugh Threatens, Fails To Leave Manhattan After Tax Tirade [Daily Finance via Cityfile]
Illustration by the amazing Jim Cooke

Jeff Bercovici of Daily Finance reports:

Spanfeller did not respond to messages, but his departure is thought by insiders to be a result of pressure by Elevation Partners, the private equity group that bought a large minority stake in Forbes three years ago. In May of this year, Elevation co-founder Roger McNamee resigned from the Forbes board and was replaced by Bret Pearlman, another Elevation Partners executive whose arrival was seen to herald a round of cost-cutting. Since then, rumors have circulated that Spanfeller's days were numbered, even though he is said to be favored by president/COO Tim Forbes.

Forbes CEO Steve Forbes announced the news in a memo to company employees tonight. In it he said:

Jim has done a monumental job of bringing Forbes.com to the lead position in business websites, and secured Forbes.com as the must visit site for not only global business leaders but also anyone interested in the finest business reporting and analysis available. At present Forbes.com has 18 million unique visitors a month.

Along the way, Jim has overseen the development and growth of Forbes Digital, which includes Forbes.com, ForbesTraveler.com, Investopedia.com, RealClearPolitics.com, RealClearMarkets.com, Real Clear Sports, and Forbes Business and Finance Blog Network, which together reach 40 million unique visitors a month.

This immense growth on the digital side of the business was spearheaded, pursed, and led by Jim with enormous success. The digital world is still uncharted with few rules, and Jim's intellect, creativity, and business acumen helped bring us our number one position. For this the Forbes family is very grateful and we wish him all the success in his future plans.

Nothing further is known at this time about who will replace Spanfeller or what his future plans are.

Sources Say Forbes.com CEO Stepping Down [Jeff Bercovici/Daily Finance]
Forbes CEO Jim Sapnfeller Out: Here's the Internal Memo [Peter Kafka/All Things D]

Reports Bercovici:

Speaking last night at an Internet Week event sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter, Jonathan Miller, News Corp.'s newly-installed chief digital officer, said he envisions a future where at least some of the TV shows and movies on Hulu, the premium video site co-owned by News Corp. (NWS), NBC Universal and Disney (DIS), are available only to subscribers.

Bercovici also quoted Miller as saying that the issue could come up as soon as Monday at a Hulu board meeting, though it's not not on the agenda at present. He also closed by saying, "I don't see why over time that shouldn't happen."

Oh well, we suppose that moderately web savvy people will be forced to find ways to illegally circumvent paying for Hulu's content on the internet, just like they always do with everything else they don't feel like paying for.

Soon, You'll Have to Pay For Hulu [Daily Finance]

Back in April Jeff Bercovici of the now defunct Portfolio speculated that Taibbi's absence from the Rolling Stone website was the direct result of publisher Jann Wenner's famously clueless web strategy.

You might wonder why Wenner, the magazine's owner and editor in chief, would allow a marquee writer to peddle his talents elsewhere rather than on Rollingstone.com. I wondered that myself — until I remembered hearing from a source that Tabbi had offered, during last summer's presidential campaign, to blog for the site, for free, only to be turned down by Wenner, who worried that it would detract from his work on the column.

As of this writing the last post on Rolling Stone's Taibbi Unbound blog is dated March 2nd of this year and implores readers to check out their National Affairs blog, where they can check out their "favorite Taibbi broadsides," but when readers follow the link there is nothing written by Taibbi on the National Affairs blog. Everything is written by Tim Dickinson, save for a single post written by Sean Woods.

I contacted Bercovici over the weekend to see if he'd picked up any additional information on the matter after his Portfolio post ran.

"Nope, didn't really find out anything beyond what I put in that item. Jann Wenner was too stupid and/or cheap to see the value of Matt Taibbi as a blogger, so he went to a place that will let him write whatever he wants and promote him. He's True/Slant's biggest traffic getter so far, by a comfortable margin, I think."

Yes, Taibbi is blogging up a storm over at True/Slant. He recently posted another vicious spanking of the pornstached Friedman, expressed bewilderment at the peasant mentality so pervasive in America today, and explained why Yankees' general manager Brian Cashman is an utter failure at what should be the world's easiest job.

So what gives here?

Yesterday I received a short message from Taibbi saying that his True/Slant material will soon be posting to Rolling Stone's website, and that much of Bercovici's Portfolio post was incorrect.

"I have a blog at True/Slant and the same material is going to be on the RS site very shortly, once my page there is redesigned. Portfolio got a number of things wrong in that story."

By all accounts Taibbi seems to be a good guy and we're willing to take him at his word. However, there certainly appears to be so much more to this story. If you work at Rolling Stone and have some insight you'd care to share anonymously, please, by all means, feel free to indulge us.

Oooooh, how snug indeed, that synergistic Commieloving capitalist News Corp embrace! Nah, for real though: Thomson has a right to be legitimately stoked that his newspaper is just now getting into the "read it at home and peruse it in your leisure hours" business because unlike his pals over at the Times he doesn't have to now endure the wrenching financial fallout of non fetish-inclined old people finally discovering Craigslist. But next time you give a press conference, bro, maybe remember that you're talking to the press, as in the "broke-ass former journalists who have to blog this now because yes, that is what it's come to for most of us" and that a lot of them are past the point of "schatenfraude."

*Ha ha ha, you like how we juxtaposed those two sentences? Anyway, "eschatalogical" may be a little internerdy at this point, but it's still a twelve-Euro word in my book, Bob! (Side note: love what you've done with the bloggy digressions over there, Bercovici!)

The Ron Paul Effect helps explain why Jeff Bercovici and Silicon Alley Insider both covered Fox's decision to uninvite Paul from the next GOP debate, and stuck Paul's name in their headlines (much like we did!). Duncan Hunter, similarly uninvited by Fox, got no such treatment.

Bercovici admitted the whole game to acting Gawker Managing Editor Nick Denton:

I wanted to write the item anyway but putting his name in the hed was definitely a traffic ploy. I tried to get "Julia Allison liveblogging" in there also, but it wouldn't fit.

(Ron Paul Ron Paul Ron Paul Ron Paul Ron Paul.)

Sorry, Ron Paul> Why Fox Should Limit Debate [Portfolio]
Fox Snub Boosts Ron Paul [Silicon Alley Insider]
Related: The Ron Paul Blog Bomb [Anti-Positivist]

We're sure Matt Drudge, Time Inc. guy Jim Kelly, the TV critic of the Washington Post, and conservative blogger Michelle Malkin really enjoyed watching Laurel praise her staff. Uh oh! Here comes novelist and former Page Sixer Ian Spiegelman!
Eeek! And Portfolio blogger Jeff Bercovici!
Uh oh, did someone say former Page Sixer and Ron Burkle-suer Jared Paul Stern? (It's like Candyman—say his name and here he comes!) We sure wish we knew!

And yet... we never did find out who the hell this "Hunter" was that Laurel mentioned; the Mediabistro item was written by someone called "Noah." Perhaps, as it was lower-cased in Laurel's praise email, she was referring to her staffers as "hunters"—they hunt and gather information and bring it back to the Mediacave! It sounds fun there, maybe we will go apply for jobs.

Related: Lewis Lapham Mag is the New Ambien