Here's how The Twitter World Works, according to Kaus: Twitter needs celebrities on its service to attract millions of new users every month or quarter or whatever. Celebrities, in turn need adoring fans, but (key point) have very fragile egos. So Kaus suspects Twitter of keeping a secret team of interns in a back room somewhere, poring over the massive stream of tweets directed at celebrities, and deleting the mean nasty tweets from search.twitter.com. The offending tweets still appear on Twitter, but won't show up in search results.

Kaus knows this because he tweeted something mean about CNN president Jon Klein, and it never showed up in Twitter search. Plus, in Kaus' experience, searches on celebrity names "almost invariably turn up... pleasant comments." Pretty ironclad. Ahem.

But you know what? The conspiracy might just be real. (Cue sinister music.) Here's a chummy little conversation between Twitter CEO/co-founder Ev Williams (pictured above, left, with celebrity tweeter Michael Stipe) and known celebrity Alyssa Milano talking about Kaus' conspiracy theory. She called it "interesting," followed by Ev's slick — too slick! — non-denial denial of Kaus' allegations.

Williams could have knocked down Kaus' conspiracy allegations by simply saying "that's absurd" or somesuch. But he didn't. Now we're actually kind of intrigued, at Kaus' seemingly crackpot ideas. Tell us it ain't so, Twitter people. Or better yet confirm, preferably with a picture of your secret cabal of celebrity gladhanders.

(Top pic: via Ev Williams)

Also he is very proud that he totally knew that John Edwards slept with that lady and he is mildly embarrassed at totally being positive that Gary Condit killed Chandra Levy, and he would like an apology from anyone whose recollection of the latter might've colored their response to his insistence on the former.

And he is kind of sorry that he totally thought Bush would be a wonderful bipartisan president back in 2000, but he points out that Gore would've probably not been very good either so whatever, get off his back.

(Of course if it hadn't been for Bush's terrible unwillingness to send all the Mexicans back to Mexico and then build a wall, Mickey would never have realized how terrible Bush was, years after everyone else did!)

Because the "competitive advantage" gained by driving a "hard bargain" with the UAW would've definitely helped with those 300,000 unsold cars that "depressed" Mickey so much, a few days before, and slashing benefits and wages would not have just prolonged the "drawn-out, flailing, tortuous demise" of "the Detroit dinosaurs."

Fucking over workers is always the magical key to economic success, people.

(Mickey Kaus is the noted liberal Democrat blogger who hates unions and immigrants.)

Then he seems to insinuate that a union drive at HuffPo's headquarters would involve intimidation tactics by SEIU, and the terrible, nightmarish end result he predicts: Sam Stein and the wonderful Jason Linkins get rich, on Arianna's dime. Which would be terrible! For everyone! Can you imagine? The HuffPo management not being allowed to fire anyone they like based on Arianna's mercurial whims! Content-producers getting paid to produce content!

Unless he's arguing simply that rich liberals are hypocrites, which, welcome to the working week, Mickey. But, hah, the fact that a rich person wouldn't want their company unionized and that such a unionization would basically be impossible to accomplish at the moment and the fact that the end result of such a unionization would be that good workers like Linkins would be better-compensated is basically the argument for the terrible scary Card Check legislation, so good for you, Mickey, you are doing the lord's work.

[Monday]"Obama by double digits" in N.C.: Predicted by a blogger using a sophisticated model that ignores ... what's been happening in the campaign. Like Rev. Wright. I predict this person is wrong! ... Update: He was right. ... [via Insta] 9:27 P.M.

[Tuesday]Why not predict? Clinton by 8 in Indiana. Obama by 3 or less in N.C. ... Update: Hmm. ... 5/7 Update: kf calls both results correctly! ... Other than that I completely missed it. ... 3:05 A.M. link

The rehabilitation of John Zogby would be a heavy price to pay for transcending America's historic racial divide: Kf remains skeptical of early exit polls showing a double-digit Obama win in North Carolina. Remember that some very early exits had him actually winning in Pennsylvania. ... P.S.: Mark Blumenthal is liveblogging the shifting exit polls. ... 4:55 P.M.

Before a crowd in Milwaukee yesterday, Ms. Obama said: "What we have learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback. And let me tell you something — for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country." Which, obviously, everyone took to mean that she hates this nation and is a big commie whiner. Look, here's Mickey Kaus! We can always count on him to not write like the single biggest asshole you've ever met:

If Michelle Obama's default position is set to "Aggrieved," it also suggests something personal, no? Maybe, like many strong wives, she wonders why her husband is the one on the top of the family ticket—which might also explain her strange occasional habit of belittling him in public ("snore-y and stinky" ). Beats me. For whatever reason, she sure seems to have a non-trivial chip on her shoulder and it's not a winning quality.

Yes! White men across the nation demand an answer: why the hell is this black woman anything less than constantly pants-wettingly thrilled with the greatest goddamn nation in the history of the universe?

Kausfiles [Slate]
Michelle Obama's Deep American Shame [Wonkette]
Earlier: How Many Ways Can Journalists Call Michelle Obama 'Sarcastic'?

John Edwards' Secret Affair with MSM [Radar]

Report from the field [Slate]
Related: Nature Calls [Village Voice]

• New Time cover accurately predicts general reaction to magazine's redesign, contents. [Drudge]
  
• Canada's second-most famous lawyer (after Rachel Sklar) is already fucking up Conrad Black's defense. [Guardian]
  
• Even though his postings are less and less frequent, Dylan Stableford is still an idiot. On the other hand, ludicrous cut-and-paste jobs like the one linked here have a deeper arc than his actual prose. [MediaBistro]
  
• Sam Zell's bid for Tribune - much like our interest in anything having to do with this fucking story - appears to be "losing momentum." [Chicago Tribune]
  
• Adorable Adam Reilly piece assumes people know/give a shit about who broke a story first. [Boston Phoenix]
  
• "What Arcade Fire is to rock and Dana Vachon to yuppie lit, [Jonathan] Cohn is to health care journalism—i.e., he can't possibly live up to expectations." Hahaha! You know, for an old person, Mickey Kaus is almost sort of hip, in a neoliberal Jon Friedman kind of way. [Slate]
  

Mr. Clinton had long paid homage to Mr. Geffen, and was a frequent guest at his home in Los Angeles. But after his 1996 re-election, Mr. Clinton began staying more frequently with Ron Burkle, a longtime Clinton supporter and onetime rival of Mr. Geffen for ownership of The Los Angeles Times. Mr. Burkle, a supermarket tycoon, lives in a 40-room Beverly Hills home that once belonged to the silent-movie star Harold Lloyd.

By late 1999, the president felt so divided between his two billionaire friends that he once wound up leaving Mr. Burkle's home late one evening to turn in for the night at Mr. Geffen's nearby Beverly Hills home, all to avoid offending Mr. Geffen, one member of the president's entourage said, even though Mr. Geffen was out of town.

Geffen's real beef with Clinton [Slate, second item]
Et Tu, David? A Lucrative Friendship Sours [NYT]

• Cash for Kaus! [ETP]
  
• Bill Keller is getting on top of his crippling blog addiction. [Marketwatch]
  
• Will Bauer's Cocktail Weekly work? Given how even the smartest women we know think nothing of buying dumbass lady magazines that make them feel like there's something wrong with them, we're guessing yes. [AdAge]
  
• Human embodiment of evil likes Internet. [Forbes]
  
• Someone at Time Inc. leaves the building without a security escort. [WWD]
  
• Sumner Redstone on Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen: "We do not treat them as employees, we treat them as co-workers." Guess that means they better buy something like MySpace soon. [LAT]
  

• Evil, Inc.'s Rupert Murdoch and Liberty Media's John C. Malone kiss and make up. [NYT]
  
• NYT's Sulzberger tells investors to lick his left one. [NYP]
  
• Ugly rumble at Jane editor Brandon Holley's fortieth birthday party. Happy Birthday, Brandon! [WWD]
  
• Mickey Kaus takes time out from mocking Andrew Sullivan and Markos "Kos" Moulitsas to resume his long-running attack on CNN's Jonathan Klein. [Kausfiles, second item]
  
• Newspapers tell readers what they want to hear. Which, in the Times case, is that women have small dogs. [NYT]

• Subpar oral-sex provider Dave Zinczenko's advice book for the ladies isn't exactly licking sales charts up and down until they achieve climax. (Sorry.) [Radar]
  
• Very touching tribute to CNET's James Kim. [CNET]
  
• Andy Rooney's not a racist. A doddering old crank, sure, but not a racist. [CBSNews]
  
• How much does it cost a celebrity to keep a picture of nose-pickage out of the papers? About $10.5 grand, if you're in Italy. [Guardian]
  
• An idea so tacky we're shocked we didn't think of it first: Who's the hottest media wife? [MWD]
  

Well. We went to the NAF's website, and, quite frankly, we know what we're going to do the next time we're having trouble sleeping. Should you be made of sturdier stuff, we invite you to explore and send us your suggestions. One name, however, did pop up before the silky fingers of Morpheus danced about our eyes: James Fallows, Atlantic Monthly National Correspondent and tech-savvy mofo. (We understand that he's currently in Shanghai.) We're actually pretty sure this is your man, but suggestions to the contrary can be sent to the usual address.

Mickey: It Wasn't Me [BloggingHeads]
New America Foundation
At Home In Shanghai [Slate]

Earlier: JoeJournalist.com: Could One Of These Men Be JoeJournalist? Yeah, Maybe.

The first person I knew who had a Web site of his own was a fellow Washington journalist. This was when many journalists were still just getting into e-mail, but the URL for this Web site quickly circulated around town and around the world. Why? Well, we were all impressed by the technological savvy. But we were absolutely astounded by the solipsism. What on earth had gotten into Joe (not his real name)? This was a modest, soft-spoken, and self-effacing fellow, yet his Web site portrayed him as an egotistical monster. Or so it seemed at the time. All of the elements that struck us as obnoxious maybe eight years ago no longer seem that way. In fact, they are now virtually required for any writer's Web site. The Web address, of course, was his name: JoeJournalist.com. It's hard to recapture why that even seemed pretentious. But it did. Then there was his deadpan list of books he'd written and awards he'd won. And quotes from other journalists about how wonderful he is.

Speculation, naturally, has centered around Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus. (Kaus denies that it's either of him, although his disavowal of Sullivan is more a case of getting a dig in at Andrew, which is pretty much Mickey's raison d' tre these days.) In any event, a well-connected tipster raises another possibility: "Kinsley's talking about Gladwell, I believe. When www.malcolmgladwell.com first appeared — 97? 98? — it caused much twitter in such circles. Gladwell was modest and self-effacing at the time, and may well still be — I never see him." (Note to tipster: You can't miss him; it's the hair. Ba dump bump.) Sounds good to us, except that Kinsley mentions the "deadpan list of books he'd written"; did Gladwell write anything before Blink? Could Kinsley be changing a few of the details around? Is this maybe the least interesting blind item guessing game ever? Answers or further candidates here.

Like I Care [Slate]
Michael Kinsley Holds Our Interest For Record One Paragraph [Wonkette]

• We think it's kind of tacky to mock a Parkinson's patient for writing a doddering, fogeyish column about the Internet. So we'll let Wonkette do it. Anyway, our guess as to the mystery journalist is Kaus. [Slate]
  
• Boo hoo hoo, Washington Post reporters now have to go through the same appraisal system everyone else in the white collar world goes through annually. [NYO]
  
• Allison Benedikt officially named Voice film editor. [The Reeler]
  
• Military fantasist/departing Cond Nast Steve Florio to open a restaurant. Damn it, Graydon, see what you started? [NYP]
  
• Tribune wants to delay its buyout, presumably because no one was dumb enough to pay the premium on what they're selling. [LAT]
  
• "Tomato-haired beauty" Maureen Dowd "has the greatest job in America." Also, she is not Tony Dungy. There's a reason some stuff is only published on the Web. [The Nation]
  
• Jon Friedman is the meat in a Julia Allison/Melissa Lafsky sandwich. Yes, there's a reason we didn't throw the picture up here. [ETP]
  
• We're just gonna quote Romenesko on this one: "Dobbs overdose." [Mother Jones]
  
• What we need more of is Tory Burch profiles. Thanks for making that dream come true, Vanity Fair. [WWD]
  
• Portfolio should just buy the Wall Street Journal and be done with it. [NYP]
  
• "Fuck IvyGate." [NYO]
  
• Correction of the Day: "An article and headline on Saturday about the Staten Island Museum, which is celebrating it's 125th anniversary, referred incorrectly to one item in the museum's collection of curiosities. It is a four-legged - not four-headed - chicken." [NYT]
  
• Bonus Correction: "An article last Wednesday about Jim Leff, a founder of the Internet discussion group www.chowhound.com, misstated the number of continents on which the food writer Mimi Sheraton has searched for bialys. It is five, not two." [NYT]