A "hacker" obtained a bunch of emails from climate scientists at the University of East Anglia and posted them to some website, and for some reason Matt Drudge and the right-wing media have decided that these emails are proof of a massive conspiracy to make up global warming, for fun. The emails are mostly scientists complaining about political pressures and people they dislike and things that make their job—and their job is attempting to reconstruct climates of hundreds or millions of years ago based on fucking ice floes and tree rings—harder.

There are precisely two emails that even sound scandalous: one in which a scientist refers to borrowing another scientist's "trick"—which skeptics interpret as falsifying data and which actual legitimate scientists say means "a clever way of doing something"—to "hide the decline," which is a poor way of saying he is attempting to correct for the fact that tree rings don't reflect modern warming trends that are well-documented by actual thermometers.

The other email that is terribly scandalous is even better. As George Monbiot explains:

One of the most damaging emails was sent by the head of the climatic research unit, Phil Jones. He wrote "I can't see either of these papers being in the next [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!"

One of these papers which was published in the journal Climate Research turned out to be so badly flawed that the scandal resulted in the resignation of the editor-in-chief.

So the scandal is that a researcher thought a paper was flawed and said he would do anything to keep it from being published, not because it said something dangerous that he is trying to keep hidden, but because he thought it was bad science. And then it turned out to be bad science.

Ahem:

Half of the journal's editorial board, including editor-in-chief Hans von Storch, resigned from the journal's editorial board because they felt that publication of the paper in question represented a breakdown in the peer-review process. The publisher had refused to allow von Storch to publish an editorial on the topic, but later the president of the journal's parent company stated that the paper's major findings could not "be concluded convincingly from the evidence provided in the paper. [Climate Research] should have requested appropriate revisions of the manuscript prior to publication."

So. The scandal, again, for those keeping score at home, is that academics are bitching to each other about papers they think are bad, written by people they dislike, that are being published in journals they dislike.

Also the scandal is that someone made Andrea Peyser's child sing a song about global warming!

The Post's resident sex goddess and outrage factory reports from the front lines of the Obama/Soros/Polar Bear Indoctrination Campaign:

My daughter came home from school recently with a spring in her step and a song on her lips. With no foreshadowing — or time to call an exorcist — out came this chilling refrain:

"...You can hear the warning — GLOBAL WARMING... "

By the time her father and I removed our jaws from the floor, we had learned that:

A) All the kids had been coerced into singing this catchy ditty, which we called "The Warming Song," at a concert for parents.

B) Further song lyrics scolded selfish adults (that would be us) for polluting our planet and causing a warming scourge that would, in no short order, kill all the polar bears and threaten the birds and bees.

C) There was no deprogramming session on the menu. And no arguing allowed.

Well, we're sorry you weren't allowed to "argue" with a school assembly, Andrea. That must've been hard for you! Also we're sorry that someone is scolding grown-ups for polluting the planet, but, you know, it really can't be argued that that is anyone else's fault.

And by "Google Phone" we don't simply mean another Android handset. We're talking about Google-branded hardware running a version of Android we haven't yet seen.

Over the next few weeks, Google Phones (most probably in early, prototype form) will flood the Mountain View campus. They'll don large LCDs while running a new version of Android—either Flan or the version of Android beyond it—which our source spotted running on Google's handset as well as a laptop. (Whatever the software was, it most certainly wasn't Chrome OS, we were assured.)

But maybe the most intriguing bit is what someone said to our source offhandedly, that the current Android, the we all know and love, is not the "real" Android. So what makes for a "real" version of Android?

Our best guess is an Android OS with Google Voice at its heart.

We've received this from four sources now, including from our dark overlord, who posted it to #tips.

To New York Post Staff:

Most of you have read the sensational allegations a former employee made in a complaint filed against our company and our executives. Her claims of being a victim of unlawful discrimination and retaliation are baseless.

In fact, the entire complaint is filled with distortions and misstatements and virtually every key factual assertion is untrue. We will defend this case vigorously and are confident that the legal process will reveal it to be totally meritless.

While we are in the midst of this litigation, we urge you to do your best to focus on your work and respectfully ask that you not discuss it with fellow employees or people outside the company. Thank you for your cooperation and if you should have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact Human Resources.

Just witness the position Apple is in with the New York Times. After we pointed out that Times editor had casually mentioned "the impending Apple slate" at an off-the-record confab, the newspaper's editor clammed up. When Peter Kafka of All Things D Keller asked him to elaborate, he got a stern quote via PR: "I ain't sayin'" anything about Apple's rumored device. But the horse was already out of the barn. One can only imagine what sort of conversation Keller might have had with Apple's famously caustic CEO Steve Jobs after that slip.

It's a clash of cultures: Keller specializes in publishing information as quickly as possible; Jobs in keeping in secret, for long stretches of time. It's also an unavoidable situation for Apple. To get beautiful content to show off the capabilities of the tablet and its (presumed) sharp color display, Apple has been meeting with magazines, newspapers and book publishers, who have lots of glossy, high-resolution content. There's no way Apple executives would talking to these guys about a forthcoming device if it didn't feel they absolutely had to.

It must be a painful situation for Apple. At least the company has lots of practice in manipulating the media. Just not usually from such an uncomfortably close distance.

The entire letter to—of all people—creepy Church spokescreature Tommy Davis is below, but here are the highlights: Haggis has been asking the church to resign their support of Proposition 8. He registered his distaste for the church's stances on homosexuality via phone calls and letters. Davis told Haggis that "heads would roll" over this about ten months ago. Davis apparently drew up a press release he showed to Haggis, which eventually got canned. Haggis views the church's actions as "cowardly," and thus, after thirty-five years of membership, is resigning.

Furthermore, Haggis saw Davis' interview on CNN, when Davis denied the existence of a "disconnection" policy in which the church orders members to cut non-members out of their lives, as they pose some kind of negative threat towards the work of the church in members' lives.

It's a policy that's been well documented in the press, but especially by the reporting done by the St. Petersburg Times, who've chronicled many members who were once forced to "disconnect" people from their lives. Then comes another bomb: Haggis' wife cut off contact with her parents when they defected from the church. And then another: Haggis cites the aforementioned reporting by the St. Petersburg Times, which including some of Scientology's most high-profile defectors in its history, as accurate and astonishing, considering the level of the defectors. "Say what you will about them now," writes Haggis, "[but] these were staunch defenders of the church, including Mike Rinder, the church's official spokesman for 20 years!" Scientology has claimed that their high-profile defectors hold personal grudges against them for demotions and other bureaucratic failings.

Haggis' final bomb, which is going to ring true to many, many Scientologists on every level, is about that same St. Petersburg Times report, in which the Church dredged up old documents and audits on their members to expose salacious, damning details about their personal lives to paint their defection as a cover for their personal indiscretions. Haggis found this, apparently, to be the first in a series of straws that broke a 35 year-old camel's back.

The bottom line is this: this is bad, bad news for the Church. Besides the fact that so many of the church's most high-profile members have long been subject to gossipy speculation of being gay—to name a few: Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Will Smith—the Church is now going to have to (A) take a stance on homosexuality, (B) come out against Haggis, one of the most revered, successful writer-directors of the last decade, or (C) stay quiet and look even sketchier than they already did after Tommy Davis blew up on national television earlier this weekend.

And it also doesn't help them that Church defector Marty Rathburn has apparently confirmed the letter's legitimacy as definitely coming from Haggis.

So: this ought to be interesting to watch play out, no?

Tommy,

As you know, for ten months now I have been writing to ask you to make a public statement denouncing the actions of the Church of Scientology of San Diego. Their public sponsorship of Proposition 8, a hate-filled legislation that succeeded in taking away the civil rights of gay and lesbian citizens of California – rights that were granted them by the Supreme Court of our state – shames us.

I called and wrote and implored you, as the official spokesman of the church, to condemn their actions. I told you I could not, in good conscience, be a member of an organization where gay-bashing was tolerated.

In that first conversation, back at the end of October of last year, you told me you were horrified, that you would get to the bottom of it and "heads would roll." You promised action. Ten months passed. No action was forthcoming. The best you offered was a weak and carefully worded press release, which praised the church's human rights record and took no responsibility. Even that, you decided not to publish.

The church's refusal to denounce the actions of these bigots, hypocrites and homophobes is cowardly. I can think of no other word. Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent.

I joined the Church of Scientology thirty-five years ago. During my twenties and early thirties I studied and received a great deal of counseling. While I have not been an active member for many years, I found much of what I learned to be very helpful, and I still apply it in my daily life. I have never pretended to be the best Scientologist, but I openly and vigorously defended the church whenever it was criticized, as I railed against the kind of intolerance that I believed was directed against it. I had my disagreements, but I dealt with them internally. I saw the organization – with all its warts, growing pains and problems – as an underdog. And I have always had a thing for underdogs.

But I reached a point several weeks ago where I no longer knew what to think. You had allowed our name to be allied with the worst elements of the Christian Right. In order to contain a potential "PR flap" you allowed our sponsorship of Proposition 8 to stand. Despite all the church's words about promoting freedom and human rights, its name is now in the public record alongside those who promote bigotry and intolerance, homophobia and fear.

The fact that the Mormon Church drew all the fire, that no one noticed, doesn't matter. I noticed. And I felt sick. I wondered how the church could, in good conscience, through the action of a few and then the inaction of its leadership, support a bill that strips a group of its civil rights.

This was my state of mind when I was online doing research and chanced upon an interview clip with you on CNN. The interview lasted maybe ten minutes – it was just you and the newscaster. And in it I saw you deny the church's policy of disconnection. You said straight-out there was no such policy, that it did not exist.

I was shocked. We all know this policy exists. I didn't have to search for verification – I didn't have to look any further than my own home.

You might recall that my wife was ordered to disconnect from her parents because of something absolutely trivial they supposedly did twenty-five years ago when they resigned from the church. This is a lovely retired couple, never said a negative word about Scientology to me or anyone else I know – hardly raving maniacs or enemies of the church. In fact it was they who introduced my wife to Scientology.

Although it caused her terrible personal pain, my wife broke off all contact with them. I refused to do so. I've never been good at following orders, especially when I find them morally reprehensible.

For a year and a half, despite her protestations, my wife did not speak to her parents and they had limited access to their grandchild. It was a terrible time.

That's not ancient history, Tommy. It was a year ago.

And you could laugh at the question as if it was a joke? You could publicly state that it doesn't exist?

To see you lie so easily, I am afraid I had to ask myself: what else are you lying about?

And that is when I read the recent articles in the St. Petersburg Times. They left me dumbstruck and horrified.

These were not the claims made by "outsiders" looking to dig up dirt against us. These accusations were made by top international executives who had devoted most of their lives to the church. Say what you will about them now, these were staunch defenders of the church, including Mike Rinder, the church's official spokesman for 20 years!

Tommy, if only a fraction of these accusations are true, we are talking about serious, indefensible human and civil rights violations. It is still hard for me to believe. But given how many former top-level executives have said these things are true, it is hard to believe it is all lies.

"...the same face that denied the policy of disconnection"

And when I pictured you assuring me that it is all lies, that this is nothing but an unfounded and vicious attack by a group of disgruntled employees, I am afraid that I saw the same face that looked in the camera and denied the policy of disconnection. I heard the same voice that professed outrage at our support of Proposition 8, who promised to correct it, and did nothing.

I carefully read all of your rebuttals, I watched every video where you presented the church's position, I listened to all your arguments – ever word. I wish I could tell you that they rang true. But they didn't.

I was left feeling outraged, and frankly, more than a little stupid.

And though it may seem small by comparison, I was truly disturbed to see you provide private details from confessionals to the press in an attempt to embarrass and discredit the executives who spoke out. A priest would go to jail before revealing secrets from the confessional, no matter what the cost to himself or his church. That's the kind of integrity I thought we had, but obviously the standard in this church is far lower – the public relations representative can reveal secrets to the press if the management feels justified. You even felt free to publish secrets from the confessional in Freedom Magazine – you just stopped short of labeling them as such, probably because you knew Scientologists would be horrified, knowing you so easily broke a sacred vow of trust with your parishioners.

How dare you use private information in order to label someone an "adulteress?" You took Amy Scobee's most intimate admissions about her sexual life and passed them onto the press and then smeared them all over the pages your newsletter! I do not know the woman, but no matter what she said or did, this is the woman who joined the Sea Org at 16! She ran the entire celebrity center network, and was a loyal senior executive of the church for what, 20 years? You want to rebut her accusations, do it, and do it in the strongest terms possible – but that kind of character assassination is unconscionable.

So, I am now painfully aware that you might see this an attack and just as easily use things I have confessed over the years to smear my name. Well, luckily I have never held myself up to be anyone's role model.

The great majority of Scientologists I know are good people who are genuinely interested in improving conditions on this planet and helping others. I have to believe that if they knew what I now know, they too would be horrified. But I know how easy it was for me to defend our organization and dismiss our critics, without ever truly looking at what was being said; I did it for thirty-five years. And so, after writing this letter, I am fully aware that some of my friends may choose to no longer associate with me, or in some cases work with me. I will always take their calls, as I always took yours. However, I have finally come to the conclusion that I can no longer be a part of this group. Frankly, I had to look no further than your refusal to denounce the church's anti-gay stance, and the indefensible actions, and inactions, of those who condone this behavior within the organization. I am only ashamed that I waited this many months to act. I hereby resign my membership in the Church of Scientology.

Sincerely,

Paul Haggis

Ps. I've attached our email correspondence. At some point it became evident that you did not value my concerns about the church's tacit support of an amendment that violated the civil rights of so many of our citizens. Perhaps if you had done a little more research on me, the church's senior management wouldn't have dismissed those concerns quite so cavalierly. While I am no great believer in resumes and awards, this is what you would have discovered:

* Founder, Artists For Peace and Justice,
- sponsoring schools, an orphanage and a children's hospital in the slums of Haiti
* Co-Founder, BrandAid Foundation and BrandAid Project
- marketing the work of artisans from the poorest countries in the world,
* Board Member, Office of The Americas
- supporting peace and justice initiatives around the world
* Board Member, Center For The Advancement of Non-Violence
* Member and active supporter, Amnesty International
* Member, President's Council, Defenders of Wildlife
* Member and fundraiser, Environment California and CalPirg
* Member and Award Recipient, American Civil Liberties Union
* Member and supporter, Death Penalty Focus
* Member and supporter, Equality For All
* Fundraiser, NPH (Our Little Brothers) – for the children of the slums of Haiti
* Member, Citizens Commission on Human Rights
* Patron with Honors, IAS
And formerly:
* Trustee, Religious Freedom Trust
* Board Member and fundraiser, Hollywood Education and Literacy Project
* Board Member and fundraiser, For The Arts, For Every Child
– supporting art and music in public schools
* Board Member and fundraiser, The Christic Institute
- supporting Human Rights in Central America
* Founding Board Member, Earth Communication Office
* Working Board Member, Environmental Media Association
* Fundraiser, El Rescate – Human Rights for El Salvador
* Fundraiser, PAVA – Aid and Human Rights in Guatemala

Awards for outspoken support of Civil and Human Rights:

* Valentine Davies Award – Writers Guild of America
"for bringing honor and dignity to writers everywhere"
*Bill of Rights Award – American Civil Liberties Union
*Hubert H. Humphrey Civil Rights Award – Leadership Conference on Civil Rights
*Peace & Justice Award – Office of the Americas, presented by Daniel Ellsberg
*Signis Award, Venezia, World Catholic Association
*ALMA Award – National Council of Latino Civil Rights
*Ethel Levitt Award for Humanitarian Service – Levitt & Quinn
*Prism Award – Entertainment Industries Council
*Humanitas Prize (2) – Humanitas
*Legacy Award, for Artistic and Humanitarian Achievement
*Environmental Media Award – EMA
*EMA Green Seal Award – EMA
*Image Award – NAACP
*Creative Integrity Award – Multicultural Motion Picture Association
*EDGE Awards (2) – Entertainment Industries Council
*Artistic Freedom Award – City of West Hollywood
*Catholics in Media Award – Catholics in Media Associates

And many dozens of fundraisers and salons at our home on behalf of Human and Civil Rights, the Environment, the Peace Movement, Education, Justice and Equality.

[Photo via Getty Images]

We're reasonably sure this clip was provided to us as a promotional stunt by a production team convinced of its irrepressible awesomeness. Whatever; if the attached clip, and in particular the extensive toilet humor, doesn't make you run screaming from this film, there's nothing we can do for you anyway.

UPDATE: Max wrote in to urge we remove the clip:

That clip was not a promotional stunt, it was stolen illegally. Just take it down, you guys will be welcome to host the trailer as much as you want when it releases next week.

TechCrunch has published financial forecasts assembled by Twitter Inc in February and obtained from management's personal files by a computer hacker. They project $400,000 in revenue this quarter, presumably from those adorable "concept definition" ads. Sales were projected to increase tenfold by the fourth quarter, ramping to $62 million by the fourth quarter of next year.

Twitter Inc., which doesn't like people talking about its hacked internal documents, told TechCrunch the numbers are stale and unofficial. But, specifics aside, they leave the unmistakable impression the microblogging service was serious about making money this year. That goal may have been intended only for company backers; now that it has gone public, there will be even more pressure on the company to make its creative approach to advertising pay off over the next five months.

(Top pic: Twitter CEO Evan Williams at Allen & Co.'s Sun Valley media summit July 10, 2009.)

The documents show fast-growing Twitter estimates it will have 25 million users at the end of this year, 100 million at the end of 2010 and 350 million at the end of 2011, estimates ambitious even by the standards of optimistic Silicon Valley startups to say nothing of a microblogging service that has had trouble serving just it's existing user base.

More revealing: A "wish list" from Twitter's employees, reprinted by the French website Korben. The company has raided top talent from Google's notoriously entitled ranks, so perhaps it should come as no shock that its staff are demanding a wine cellar:

Plans for new offices including a wish list from the employees who would like a nap room, a games room, plants, a chief cuisto, a meditation hall, garages to cycling, Adjustable offices, a gym, a meditation room, a washer / dryer, wifi, lockers, wine cellar, an aquarium and so on ... They have imagination.

Documents revealed by the hacker:

Twitter email account

Evan Williams' Facebook profile

Twitter floor plan

Plans for Twitter reality show

Plans for Twitter reality show, part 2

Plans for Twitter apparel

List of high-profile Twitter users

Twitter's domain name control panel

Thiel's Clarium Capital was gutted during the financial meltdown last year. This year has been slightly kinder; Clarium fell just 1.7 percent January through May as the S&P 500 gained as much. Last month, Clarium fell 1.4 percent even as the S&P rallied, rising 4 percent. (See fund report below.)

No gain means no money for Clarium; the fund reportedly derives its fees only from earnings, rather than as a percentage of assets.

That might explain Thiel's sour comments at a recent Wall Street conference, where minutes (left) reveal the Facebook investor declared major research "to be fraud" and described the "tech boom of the late 1990s as fraud." Does this mean Thiel will refund the fortune he made selling PayPal, which made its name during said boom?

Thiel also apparently "discussed large-cap tech names in a pejorative manor [sic], stating that betting on established technology companies like Cisco, Microsoft and Intel is a bet on no innovation."

"He thinks we should be looking for companies that are truly innovating, of which there are only a handful."

Presumably, only Thiel knows who the truly innovative companies are. Too bad he's not been able to translate that knowledge into cash lately.

(Top pic: Steve Maller for TechCrunch 50)

We got leaked this parody video starring the network's marketing heads Mike Benson and Marla Provencio in which they "pimp" a made-up show called The Smoking Clown. Supposedly it was made a while back for an internal meet-and-greet within the network in which each department tells the others what it is that they do. It's not clear if this was ever shown or if the idea of video showing a bunch of television executives smoking and drinking in the office was squashed before the meeting.

For fourteen profanity-laden minutes, the crack team guides us through the soulless business of commodifying and selling something you absolutely hate. Everything is covered smarmily—from bitchy contract-waving actors, to competition with other networks, to strategies for ensnaring lucrative and elusive kids' eyeballs.

And while it's all pretty ha ha, sure, it's also pretty insidious. In that, while The Smoking Clown doesn't exist, utter ABC dreck like Private Practice does. And, through all of the nefarious means depicted here, the show is fed to and lapped up by brain-addled regular Americans just like you and me. We're being manipulated, people! And they're just sitting back and laughing at us.

Keep an eye out for Lost co-creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse playing themselves. Network cross-promotion!

The photo you have on your site is fake. I just took these photos.

Please update your article to indicate that Apple's subcontractors know how to spell 'bump' when Steve Jobs is on leave.

Look closely at the photo he sent in, though. Why is the area around the "U" discolored? Could it be evidence that contractors hastily fixed the error (or obscure Star Trek joke? Or is this a Photoshop? You can see the pixels, after all).

Update: Mystery solved! We're calling this one: yesterday's photo was real and Apple quickly made the fix. A neutral and very trusted source just went by the parking lot to investigate. His assessment: "Yeah, this was obviously scraped clean very recently and repainted. Can you see the outline of the old lettering? Sorry about the crappy iPhone photo. Nice coverup, Apple." He sends photographic evidence:

Even more update: Another tipster caught Apple contractors in the act of resurfacing the misspelled "BMUP" sign:

Morgenstern runs Valor Equity Partners, which led a $40 million investment in Tesla in February 2008 and controls a seat on the board. The badly mismanaged electric-car startup quickly blew through Valor's money; by October, it was down to $9 million in cash. Despite raising more money from investors, Tesla is running on fumes, and collecting deposits for its Model S electric sedan, a car which exists only as a barely drivable quasi-prototype. Tesla requires hundreds of millions of dollars more than it has to make the Model S a reality — which is why Morgenstern's talk of new money is so interesting.

Morgenstern is briefly visible in the video, apparently recorded by an unknown Tesla fan who hopped in with Morgenstern when offered a test drive, and his face matches another published photo. A Mexican restaurant in Highland Park, a suburb north of Chicago, briefly appears in the shot. According to public records, Morgenstern's family foundation is based in Highland Park. The car is one of Tesla's Founders Series, the first built, and Morgenstern has been reported as one of the buyers in that series. He did not return a message left for him at Valor.

As he pulls away from the restaurant, Morgenstern takes a call and mentions that he's driving around Highwood, a nearby suburban district. During the ride, Morgenstern took a call and discussed Tesla's finances, including rumors previously reported in Valleywag that Tesla was about to take money from a strategic investor. Morgenstern expressed confidence that the deal would be announced Monday or Tuesday. Other sources Valleywag spoke to are less sanguine. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is loathe to surrender control of the company to someone — and yet a new investor would be understandably reluctant to invest if Musk's replacement as CEO weren't a condition of the deal.

So here's the question: Is the video a genuine scoop — or a hoax staged by Tesla?

It does seem curious that Morgenstern's phone just happened to ring seconds after he starts cruising down the street. But if it's a hoax, it's a very foolish one. For one thing, investors don't like their deals getting leaked before the ink is dry. A leak like this, if intentional, may well scuttle the deal, or weaken Tesla's negotiating stance.

And then there's this: Morgenstern uttered something particularly damning on the phone. He said the investment will "make people believers that the sedan will be produced."

Not, mind you, actually allow Tesla to produce its new Model S. It will merely make people believe that it will. That could be read as encouraging optimism among potential buyers. Or it could be read as an intent to deceive people into handing over deposit money for a car that Tesla currently cannot build. Would he really have said that if he knew he was being taped?

Unlike with Sarah Palin's emails, there's not really a public-spirited reason to post the screenshots the hackers took, except, of course, pure voyeurism. The detail-by-detail, appointment-by-appointment depiction of the lifestyle of a rich and famous actress is all engrossing stuff for the masses (and for us). And yet it feels oddly unsatisfying — the same drip, drip, drip of minutiae that the Internet famous overshare on blogs and Twitter.

Screenshots of the shayek@mac.com email account, released by habitués of the online bulletin board 4chan, appear to be authentic. Breaking into the account was a simple matter of knowing Hayek's birthday — September 2 — and guessing at her security word (they claim it was the name of her best known movie role) to reset the account's password. Public-records searches show that the 323-area-code phone number Hayek listed in a sent email belongs to the actress. A spokeswoman for Hayek has not returned a call requesting comment.

The glimpses into Hayek's life revealed by her inbox are fascinating, even if mundane: The stranger-suckling actress has been invited to America Ferreira's 25th birthday party. She downloads a bunch of iPhone applications from the iTunes App Store — and she gets spam from Apple, just like the rest of us. As for the perks of being famous, a driver was scheduled to meet her flight arriving in Abu Dhabi. American Express has given her a new Gold card. (What, she doesn't rate the exclusive black Centurion Card?) Balenciaga and Stella McCartney deliver designer clothes to her apartment. She schedules "Japanese face massages." And she gets scans of stories about her in the celebrity weeklies.

Sara Winge, a vice president at O'Reilly Media, posted a message asking her boss to confirm his plans to speak at a Stanford event in June for a fee of $25,000. (It's since been deleted, but it's still archived in Twitter's search engine.) Since she'd posted about getting a drink earlier in the day, we're thinking that she might have forgotten to use Twitter's direct-messaging feature.

The subject, the "future of manufacturing," hardly seems like an area to which O'Reilly, who helped popularize the term "Web 2.0," might lend his expertise, but hey, times are tough and money is money. On an O'Reilly website, Winge is described as the "maestro of the O'Reilly media message." And yes, the message is clear: O'Reilly is a mid-tier blowhard for hire.

(Photo by kubina)

The email, which questioned why anyone who wasn't "orthodox" might take Good Friday off, is now circulating online, with this preface:

This is an email from one of the MD's in the Healthcare Group at Thomas Weisel Partners where I used to work. He is one of the most unpleasant people I've ever worked with.

Soden's email:
Always amusing to have someone with a "III" after their name lecture employees about the importance of hard work. According to Soden's profile on Thomas Weisel's website, he's not exactly keeping busy doing deals himself. Soden is providing endless entertainment for his workers, though, in the form of a fake Twitter account one prankster set up:

TMZ first broke details about the dog, who was then known as Charlie, at 7:45 on Friday night (the linked story is a version updated on Saturday morning). On Saturday morning, an anonymous web site called firstdogcharlie.com published a photo of Charlie/Bo wearing a Hawaiian lei, apparently taken during a secret visit to the White House several weeks ago. According to the Washington Post, which published a rundown of the leak this morning, the White House is calling the firstdogcharlie.com picture "bogus"—but it's abundantly clear from looking at both pictures that it's genuine, especially considering the fact that, when it was published yesterday, no one knew that Charlie/Bo was in fact wearing a lei during his first meeting with the Obamas.

Why is the Post so interested in how the story got out? Because it was supposed to be theirs!

Bo's story starts sometime around the Ides of March. Word on the street was that the White House was going to plant a vegetable garden. Health gurus had been pushing the Obamas to plant seedlings for months, hoping it would set a good example for children everywhere.

A Washington Post food reporter was making calls, probing, pushing. But the White House was mum. Word filtered out that the exclusive had been promised to the New York Times. But the White House offered The Post, the newspaper that cracked Watergate, a mollifier: A puppy exclusive.

These kinds of arrangements get made all the time in Washington. For a while, the puppy deal seemed to be holding up.

And then the internet ruined everything! The Post whiffs on the chronology of the story, blaming firstdogcharlie.com for breaking it yesterday morning when TMZ actually broke it on Friday night. But either way, the paper is pissed that it screwed the pooch on its exclusive.

And yes, you read that right: Washington Post and New York Times reporters who cover the White House are horsetrading stories about gardens and puppies.

So who is firstdogcharlie.com? Our guess is a dog groomer called in to clean up the first pup before the initial visit to the White House. Or perhaps Charlie/Bo's original owners, eager to dispel the perception that they abandoned their dog and returned him to the breeder—in an "interview" with the dog, the site claims that his "owners at the time knew what a great honor it would be for me to represent as America's first dog," and so gave him up. Or maybe the breeder himself. Whoever it is, we hope this experience has caused the Post reporter who sat patiently waiting for permission from the White House to write about a dog to rethink the way he does his job.

Here's a memo he sent to all staff at Mansueto, which also publishes Inc., the magazine Koten used to edit, last night:

From: John Koten
Sent: Thu 4/9/2009 11:49 PM
To: ALL MANSUETO
Subject: Thought for the day

I realize few of you want a life identical to mine. However, it does kind of amaze me that in the entire time we've been at 7 world trade center, not a single employee has ever directly asked me....how did you succeed in our business. How did you do it.

This surprises me for several reasons: one, because I think I could give an interesting answer. Two, because it's the subject matter we are supposed to be presenting our readers. Three, because it would impress me and show some respect.

It's a question I constantly asked people when I was young, including all of my bosses and every ceo I interviewed. I asked richard petty, I asked michael jackson, I aslked joe mansueto, I asked john delorean. I asked peter kann, I asked norman pearlstine. I asked john huey. It's a pretty easy question to remember.

And that's at least one tip you can have without ever even bothering to ask me.

Earlier in the day, Koten announced that employees' children visiting for Take Our Daughters/Sons to Work Day "are all going over to see the ceos [sic] boat." And then he sent this email:

From: John Koten
Sent: Thu 4/9/2009 6:56 PM
To: ALL MANSUETO
Subject: Sailing

One of my crew on panet claire is the best sailing instructor in New York. He will be happy to teach anyone sailing ir just take you out on my boat this summer. He also gives private lessons, can help you join the manhattan sailing club (free lessons). 800 bucks plus unlimited access to boats a few blocks from our office. Check it out at msc.org.

A tipster tells us Koten bought a boat last year and spent most of summer working on it.

The tipster adds that Koten suggested employees spend $800 on sailing lessons after two rounds of layoffs in September and January, and a move two weeks ago to force everyone to take two unpaid weeks of vacation, effectively cutting salaries by 5 percent. As for how Koten is "succeeding in our business"? Joe Mansueto, the owner of the company, the tipster says, writes a $2 million check every month to keep his magazines afloat.

Update: We heard from Koten!

That was a hilarious article today. I have no personal objection to any of it. However, joe mansueto wrote me from vacation to ask me to tell you that your loss numbers are way off and uninformed.

You are welcome to come over and chat with me, see our place, see my boat, etc.—any time.

I'll have some news you could break whenever you choose to come.

The style of this email confirms the authenticity of our tipster's leaked memo. It's interesting how Koten manages to reach the shift key to capitalize "I," but doesn't manage it on proper names, even his boss's. (Or he's just an iPhone or BlackBerry user who's grown overreliant on his phone's autocapitalization feature.) We also note that Mansueto didn't specify if our source's estimate of losses was high or low, just "way off."

A tipster shares this theory about the timing of Koten's email: booze. Koten is reportedly a Rangers fan, and gets drunk at games. The Rangers played last night. Ergo, drunken email. Koten says: "Yes, the Rangers made the playoffs last night, so I was pretty happy."

A Mansueto tipster confirms that Koten often shows up at the office at noon. One staffer notes that one of the rare occasions when Koten appeared at the office in the morning was when he announced the unpaid time off — after which he promptly left for a vacation in Jamaica.

(Photo by rexhammock)

"People are talking about some senior level offsites happening this weekend to discuss an upcoming round of major layoffs," our source tells us. Googlers have been expecting substantial job cuts for some time, beyond the hundreds of recruiters, marketers, and salespeople laid off earlier this year.

One reason for a sudden, panicked push to slash jobs: Google CEO Eric Schmidt spent most of last fall blithely ignoring the economic carnage. When Google started to feel an impact, it tried to limit cuts to its vast ranks of contractors. (Google has never confirmed the numbers, but some in the Valley believe it fired as many as 10,000 contract workers.)

The company still has 20,000-plus employees, and continues to hire, even though Wall Street analysts think the company could carry on without a hiccup at half that size. The question is when Google's engineers, a powerful clan which effectively rules the company, will start feeling management's knives.

In her haste to get the scoop, AllThingsD blogger Kara Swisher posted a version of Zuckerberg's memo which had a repeated paragraph. She's since eliminated the repeat, but we captured it:

Catch the differences? One says "will report," the other says "will be reporting." One uses treasurer Cipora Herman's last name, the other omits it. One says "we are fortunate," while the other uses the contracted form "we're." And one says Peter Currie will be "an advisor," while the other says only "advisor."

That's not the only oddity about the email. "Several versions I got of this memo had different punctuation in various places," Swisher notes in an update.

Why bother sending employees individual copies of a mass email with subtle changes throughout? There's only one reason to bother: Using the changes as tell-tale clues to identify whose copy got forwarded. That's what Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk did recently in an attempt to find leakers. Each of those changes can, in theory, serve as an identifier; assemble a series of unique identifiers, and it's possible to trace a particular version of an email to a particular employee.

If Zuckerberg is really wasting time on games like this, it means that he has completely failed as a leader. It's a humbling admission that he no longer enjoys his employees' trust and confidence. And it's an insult, too — that he thinks his employees aren't smart enough to figure out what he's doing. Of course they are. It's just one more reason for him to resign immediately, before he does more damage to the company he started.

Coale is a prominent Washington power broker and husband to Fox News' Greta Van Susteren. According to the Washington Post, he is running Palin's political action committee behind the scenes and "guiding [her] political image in Washington."

In 1986, he masterminded a plan—which was never executed—for Scientology to get into the "MONEY and VOTES game" in order to "create power" for Scientology and win influence Washington, D.C.

[You can read Coale's complete memo and other documents outlining his scheme here.]

Reached this morning, Coale confirmed that he had launched the plan for what he called the FLAGG PAC. "I thought it was a brilliant idea," Coale said, "but no one else did, so it never went anywhere. I was looking at ways to move a new religion forward. I looked at the history of Mormons, who had a lot of people in office, and I looked at the Jews, who were very successful and influential. But the church didn't want to be part of it. They didn't want to be misconstrued. There was one small meeting with parishioners in DC. Maybe 9 or 10 people showed up."

Coale denies playing any role in Palin's political career aside from that of a friend who e-mails her once a week or so. And he insists that he has never used his political influence—in addition to Palin, his friends include the Clintons and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, among many others in Washington—to advance the aims of Scientology. "I don't think I have ever said, to the Clintons or Nancy Pelosi, or anyone else, a word about Scientology. Not a word."

The idea was to launch a political action committee that would attract donations from Scientologists but could be plausibly distanced from the cult, which claims to be a church and therefore barred from engaging directly in political activities.

The PAC was to be called FLAGG PAC, which stood for "Freedom, Liberty, and Good Government Political Action Committee," but would act as a sort of dog whistle for Scientologists, who would hear an echo of "Flag Land Base," the group's international headquarters in Clearwater, Florida.

Its goal would have been to advance the Scientology creed, which calls for an end to "insanity" (good idea!) and the abolition of psychiatry.

But Scientology also had a more concrete problem that a PAC could address. In the mid-1980s, it was in the midst of a 26-year battle with the Internal Revenue Service, which involved bugging IRS offices, infiltrating the Department of Justice, and breaking into federal buildings, to secure tax-exempt status as a church. According to a document outlining FLAGG PAC's "Production Targets," Coale hoped that the IRS could be brought to heel.

In January 1986, Coale spoke at a Scientology "government awareness seminar" in Washington, D.C., to pitch parishioners on the idea and begin raising money. Attendees were given detailed surveys from the church's Office of Special Affairs—the arm that handles public affairs and conducts covert operations—asking for personal data on any powerful political, media, or financial figures they may know so that the OSA could "better coordinate our activities."

The documents identify Coale as the force behind the PAC idea, and as the point man for people interested in contributing.