Hanna Rosin is a journalist who started out at the New Republic and has written for heavies such as the Atlantic and the Washington Post—and is coincidentally married to Slate's managing editor. She published a book last year called God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America—about students at a new evangelical college—and often writes about the intersection of religion and politics.

Emily Bazelon is a senior Slate editor. She has a law background (Yale, actually) and often covers jurisprudence. Fun fact: she's The Feminine Mystique author Betty Friedan's cousin. She's also written for The New Republic and Washington Post, as well as the New York Times.

Meghan O'Rourke is also a Slate editor (culture), but a poet as well—she published a poetry book that garnered a full page New York Times Book Review and edits the poetry section of the Paris Review. She's married to New Yorker staffer James Surowiecki. O'Rourke is also a former New Yorker staffer, a job she got at 24, which is what partly led to our 2007 "Field Guide" called Why People Hate Meghan O'Rourke.

Rosenbaum just took him down in Slate, partly for his new book about Google that happens to be just made up of things Jeff Jarvis thinks about Google. Here is the important part of the rant:

But what makes him wined, dined, and comped by Dubai to fly to self-proclaimed summits all over the world? It's not just that corporations are dumb enough to waste what's left of stockholders' money to pay for someone to tell them to "listen to the market." No, it's Jarvis' pretensions to guru-hood, his gnomic "laws" and pronouncements. Firing people on the writing side because of the incompetence of the business side is a long tradition in the media business, and Jarvis gives management a New Age fig leaf with which to shift the blame from their own incompetence.

He offers chestnuts like, "The link changes everything," "Stuff sucks" ("Nobody wants to be in the business of stuff anymore. … Google's economy is more appealing"), "Atoms are a drag," and—yes, his contribution to the "X is the new Y" genre—"Small is the new big."

Yeah, down with stuff! Let them eat fake. Sleep in buildings not made with atoms. Everyone should be a new-media consultant, and then we won't need any media at all.

Hah. Rosenbaum is frankly far too kind to Jarvis, but Jarvis responded with a snippy post about how Rosenbaum is stupid and he always confuses Salon with Slate, a joke that is about 10 years past making any sense, because Slate is now a Washington Post-owned established web magazine and Salon is just pure crazytown. Jarvis takes it all so personally! Is it his fault people keep calling him to discuss the future of media? No! It's the fault of the people who call Jeff Jarvis looking for insight into anything. LOOK AT HOW MUCH GOOD WORK HE DOES:

Just this morning I attended - busted! - another conference where I talked over coffee and croissant with chief executives of four newspaper companies as they brainstormed new models for news. I ran a conference at CUNY last week in new business models for news. I am starting an organization at CUNY to find, explore, and share best practices in new business models for news. I teach a course in entrepreneurial journalism in hopes supporting small sparks of innovation. Full disclosure: I also advise or invest in a number of related startups including Daylife, Publish2, 33Across, Black20, Brightcove, Outside.in (and haven’t made a penny on any et). I hope the profession - or someone - finds ways to save journalism.

We're sure one of those terribly named startups will save journalism forever!

Anyway Jarvis is pretty sure the way to "save journalism" is to turn it over to "the market," which is always right, and in practical terms obviously that means a world where positioning your content to make the front page of Digg is more or less the goal, so listicles and tits are seeming like probably the model we're going to be dealing with, in this wonderful future.

Of course there is no right answer to this question, and cranky old Ron Rosmbaum doesn't have a better idea, he just feels bad for people who write ten-part newspaper serieses on police torture and then their newspapers fold. We're sure there's room for your ten-part series on police torture at The Huffington Post, friend! Or, at least, they might have an intern link to it. Which is just as good.

In closing, we hate the internet.

Excerpted from this announcement:

In the spirit of post-election adventure, Slate is starting to work on a new Web magazine: Double X. A magazine by women but not just for women, Double X will spin off from our "XX Factor" blog, where we've started a conversation among women—about politics, sex, and culture—that both men and women enjoy listening in on. The new site will do all this and more. It will take the Slate and XX Factor sensibility and apply it to sexual politics, fashion, parenting, health, science, sex, friendship, work-life balance, and anything else you might talk about with your friends over coffee. We'll tackle subjects high and low with an approach that's unabashedly intellectual but not dry or condescending.

We believe this is the right moment to launch a women's magazine that doesn't resemble any other in existence. The new site will tap into a crossroads moment in feminism, when the 1970s are firmly behind us but no one knows what's next. (Generational cross-fighting, post-feminist indifference, proof of biological sex differences?) We invite you to help us work out the new dispensation and to have fun doing it. At the moment, we're looking for ideas and writers and also for a managing editor. If you're interested, please send us a note at doublex.slate@gmail.com. And if you'd like to sign up to get e-mails about our launch this spring, please send a note to the same address.

Any anonymous, behind-the-scenes stories about your interviews or the like? Send to tips@gawker.com.

It'll be interesting to see how Double X performs—and how they pay—especially with the downturn predicted in online advertising for the next year. Sometimes, it seems a little sad that "women's topics" becomes just another web-verticle. "Things you and your friends talk about over coffee" often ends up being a View-like journalism ghetto. (But not as much as mediasnark!)

“We could know Virginia at 7,” he said. “We could know Indiana before 8. We could know Florida at 8. We could know Pennsylvania at 8. We could know the whole story of the election with those results. We can’t be in this position of hiding our heads in the sand when the story is obvious.”

Eight o'clock on the East coast is, of course, before most voters in California even get off work.

CBS News is not the only one that's cocky. Slate is refusing to "engage in a weird Kabuki drama that pretends McCain could win California," editor David Plotz told the Times. NBC News said it's an "unfortunate circumstance" that it may be calling the election before polls close elsewhere, but OH WELL.

It's actually true, as we said ourselves, that the presidential race could be wrapped up around 8 p.m. There's really no way California is going for McCain or Texas for Obama. But an early call for the Democratic nominee could hold down lefty turnout in California, thus helping anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8 as well as Proposition 4, which imposes certain restrictions on abortion rights.

Not that the nets will or should care about those unintended side effects. Where they should probably be careful is in calling the swing states. With interest in this election so intense, and cable and online competition at new highs, the pressure to extrapolate from early precinct returns in states like Ohio, Indiana and Florida will be high. Exit polls, set for initial release at 5 p.m., will add only add to the pressure.

And the "swing" states only start to matter if the election ends up way closer than is now expected. As things stand at present, it looks like the only real dilemma will be determining when Obama supporters should put their elitist French champagne on ice.

Shafer in 2000:

Jack Shafer, Deputy Editor: Browne.

Many of my friends find themselves bound in game theory knots over whether or not to cast their ballots for Ralph Nader. Nader can't possibly win the election, they are told, and therefore their "wasted vote" will have as much of an effect as a mass demo in front of the White House. Plus, it may end up electing Bush and help destroy abortion rights, the environment, and liberoprogressivism.

To the would-be Nader voters, I offer this advice: Be like me and go ahead and vote your mind, even if the cause is lost. I've wasted every one of my presidential ballots on Libertarian candidates since I first became eligible to vote in 1972. In 1972, I wrote in John Hospers. (He got 3,907 votes.) In 1976, I picked Roger McBride. In 1980, Ed Clark. In 1984, David Bergland. In 1988, Ron Paul. In 1992, Andre Marou. In 1996, Harry Browne. Losers—I don't have to add—all.

With Browne running again this year, I'm geared up to waste my vote an eighth time. Why do I persist? For one thing, I agree with the Libertarian Party platform: much smaller government, much lower taxes, an end to income redistribution, repeal of the drug laws, fewer gun laws, a dismantled welfare state, an end to corporate subsidies, First Amendment absolutism, a scaled-back warfare state. (You get the idea.) For another, by voting for the Libertarian, I leave the voting precinct feeling clean. How many Gore and Bush voters will be able to say the same on Nov. 7?

Lastly, even if voting the way I think and the way I write hasn't resulted in the election of a Libertarian president, I indulge myself in the delusion that my perseverance has had some impact on our politics. Don't give me personal credit for stopping the draft; deregulating the airlines, trucking, communications, and financial markets; legalizing gold ownership; advancing free trade; or expanding the penumbra of the First Amendment. But don't deny me my delusions, either. I know the effort hasn't been a waste.

So, Harry Browne in 2000! And in 2004 and 2008 and 2012, if that's what it takes.

Shafer in 2004!

Jack Shafer, Editor at Large: Michael Badnarik

Every since I became eligible to vote in 1972, I've cast my ballot for the Libertarian Party's presidential candidate. In 1972, the candidate was philosophy professor John Hospers, who I wrote in because he wasn't on the Michigan ballot.

A parade of numbskulls and geniuses have run for president on the Libertarian ticket since then: an oil company lawyer, the heir to Laura Ingalls Wilder's estate, a party gadfly, a member of Congress, a member of the Alaska House of Representatives, and a professional gold bug (twice). This year the nomination went to Michael Badnarik, another party activist, who won on the third ballot. I've already cast my absentee ballot in his favor.

And Shafer this year, facing perhaps the most ridiculous joke of a "Libertarian candidate" ever:

Jack Shafer, Editor at Large: Bob Barr

I've cast a ballot for the Libertarian Party candidate for president in every election since I cast my first, which would be my write-in ballot for John Hospers in 1972. A long line of chowderheads have headed the Libertarian ticket since Hospers (don't ask about the veep candidates), but I've continued to punch Libertarian on my ballot because no other candidate or political party comes close to reflecting my political views of limited government, free markets, civil liberties, and noninterventionist foreign policy.

This year the party put up as its candidate a former Republican House member from Georgia, Bob Barr. As Libertarian candidates go, he's a chowderhead's chowderhead.

Raffi Khatchadourian's profile of Barr in this week's New Yorker depicts him—accurately, I think—as no more Libertarian than your standard Newt Gingrich clone. Barr, Khatchadourian reports, is against the legalization of such illicit drugs as crack and heroin. Khatchadourian continues:

[Barr] wrote the Defense of Marriage Act, voted for a constitutional amendment outlawing flag desecration, and even tried to legislate against Wiccan soldiers who wanted to practice their faith while in the service. A churchgoing Methodist, Barr rarely invoked religion when discussing policy with his aides, but he told constituents that "God's hand" was guiding his votes.

Some libertarian.

There's more bad Barr news. A Cato Institute blog item, reviewing Barr's House votes from 1995 to 2003, tags him an enemy of free trade. In 2003, Reason magazine called Barr "one of the most conservative members of Congress." In his defense, Barr told Newsweek that was then and this is now. He's grown! Since being voted out of Congress, he's laundered his hard-right résumé with a consultancy at the American Civil Liberties Union. He has stated his regrets for having voting for the Patriot Act.

Who is the real Bob Barr? When he was an unrepentant hard-right Republican, he did have notes of libertarianism to him. But in his libertarian rebranding, he can't quite mask his old, musky self. He's a fraud.

This much I know about Barr's opponents: Barack Obama proved in his acceptance speech at the Denver convention that he's a classic Democrat, a proponent of big government and economic intervention—just like George W. Bush, and we know what sort of misery eight years of those policies have brought. I love the way Obama sings but I hate the lyrics.

I'd like to say I have an equivalent sense of what John McCain stands for, but how can I, seeing as he has no clear idea of what he believes beyond what he shed in his last brain spasm? My friends in Arizona have always laughed about how easily the East Coast press fell for his straight-talk bullshit. You'll see, you'll see, they said. And they were right.

Which brings me back to Barr and the absentee ballot I cast for him this morning (Oct. 23). He gets my vote not because he'd be a good president. He wouldn't. He gets my vote not because he has a chance of becoming a president. He doesn't. And I didn't vote for him because he represents my views. He doesn't. I voted for Barr because he happens to stand adjacent to a set of values I cherish and that I've gotten into the habit of resubscribing to every four years—peace, prosperity, and liberty.

You got a problem with that?

So combative! So provocative! Libertarianism is a pretty "fuck-you" philosophy, but still. Jack, you are our favorite press critic, even though we are not friends. And it seems like both the "serious Libertarians" and the "fun-loving Libertarians" have given up on the Libertarian party this year. We suspect you're just doing this now to be difficult, Jack. Just to bug Jacob Weisberg maybe? Voting for Bob Barr is just not something to admit, in public.

Today though, The Hitch decided to praise Obama's foreign policy. Is O polling so bad that to say nice things about him qualifies as sufficiently pathologically contrarian for Mr. Sarah Palin could be a secret genius? Or maybe Hitch counterintuitively decided to watch Obama on O'Reilly the other day and liked the fancy BBC presenter way Obama pronounces "Pakistan." Actually come to think of it that is probably what happened.

Among the other competitors cited by Mr. Ledbetter were CNNMoney.com, Forbes and Fortune. Mr. Ledbetter draws distinctions between sites like TheStreet.com, which pitch stock tips, and what he intends The Big Money to be.

Rather than promising to “read us and we’ll make you rich,” Mr. Ledbetter is offering to “read us and we’ll make you smart.”

So basically, the New Yorker finance page writ large.

There is one pretty cool idea: The site has a Twitter account devoted to heckling the Wall Street Journal. Sadly, the editorial page appears not to be included in this.

[Times]

NEWS PEG? It is the "Geezers Issue" at Slate! Old people may be the only group whose failing eyeballs are actually less coveted by advertisers than politically engaged public sector-employed poors, but John McCain is old! And he is about to be elected president, holy fuck.

OH GOOD FOR THEM! SO WILL I LEARN STUFF LIKE HOW THE DEMENTIA THAT GENERALLY SETS IN DURING ONE'S MID-SEVENTIES COULD EFFECT JOHN MCCAIN'S ABILITY TO GRASP COMPLEX ISSUES SUCH AS SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION? Hm, don't think so! But they had this Brooklyn 27-year-old get drunk and feign incontinence in six brands of disposable "undergarments" and that is the point of this post.

EW! WHAT HAPPENED? Nothing, duh. You know how dudes piss in the streets when they are drunk? Maybe they even got cited for it once, and everyone found it highly amusing that the one day Mr. Highbrow Literary Elite shows up to the office in a suit it is because he urinated on the wall of a police station, sort of like how it's kind of amusing that this guy's literary journal is called Polite. Not LOL-funny, obvs, but "all the female assistants at Slate who are busy researching the mortgage meltdown or whatever get to roll their eyes" funny.

SO HOW DID THIS GET INTO SLATE? Glad you asked! For starters, young Peters came to the task armed with a cultural-economic theory:

Like chocolate, beer, and jewel thieves, the best adult diapers come from Europe. This is not coincidental. European manufacturers don't have to cater to institutional purchasers' demands, so they're more likely to sell on quality rather than cost.

That makes no sense at all, considering that we are the ones who are supposed to be coveting their nationalized health care system not least for its ability to cut costs by purchasing "institutionally!" But nevermind.

Then you throw in a little pathos:

The diaper swelled until it could swell no more, at which point streams of urine began running down the sides of my legs. Even though I had locked myself in a bathroom to perform the test, I still feel unaccountably ashamed, as if God were laughing at me—a feeling made worse by my inability to exit the diaper.

And a few quippy little "hit grafs" such as:

The word Attends sounds a lot like the word Depend, and, indeed, the two brands are similar—similar in their mediocrity, that is.

OK almost done! All we need now is the elusive killer wonk-cred-displaying simile.

They were about as absorbent as a drainpipe, sagging under the weight of the water and leaking like Daniel Ellsberg.

See what he did there, kids? A less-Slate-appropriate Slate contributor might have written "Scooter Libby."

I probably would have Googled the name of some sort of infamous hydroelectric power plant built by Bechtel in the seventies as part of a CIA strategy to prop up some murderous but Soviet-hating dictator. And that = why it has taken an hour and a half to write this damn thing.

[Slate]

Yes! Which is why, as readers, we are happy these guys from Boston have founded the Politico of international news. (It is already poaching people from Politico.) And those newsroom cutbacks may enable Global News Enterprises LLC.* to put together a pretty strong team. From an announcement in March:

The Boston Globe foreign correspondent Charles M. Sennott leaves April 4 to become executive editor and VP for Global News Enterprises LLC, a new Boston-based website that launches next year to cover international news. Other contributors to the new site will include The New York Times Magazine contributing writer Scott Anderson, Times of London bureau chief Sam Kiley, Newsweek reporter Joshua Hammer and Newsday foreign reporter Matthew McAllester. The site will be led by New England Cable News founder Philip S. Balboni.

Since then we have heard they've added Meline Toumani, formerly of the Times Magazine** as a full-time staffer.

So what does it all mean? A gaping black money hole is what Denton predicts! International news, see, is the only sort of content less attractive to advertisers than politics***. And as we have pointed out before, Politico, despite all its trumpeted success, is still something of a mystery, business model-wise.

That said, the lead investor in Global News Enterprises LLC is a guy named Amos Hostetter who made a couple billion selling his cable company to Comcast. He isn't afraid to be service-y and may just feel like, since he made all that cash in the business that brought America The Hills he might as well throw a bone to the people still struggling to engage the four brain cells we have left.

To sum up, we don't know what will happen in North Korea or what will happen to the people who will try to explain it to us.

*Yeah, it is a worse name than Federal National Mortgage Association, for sure, but maybe they will think of a cute nickname when they go live?
**And also of being very beautiful, but that's totally irrelevant except inasmuch as this is Gawker we are talking about.
***'The Economist', of course, does great, mostly because it is so fucking expensive to subscribe to. Though I sometimes worry what would happen if someone founded the Craigslist of all those "Disaster Risk Reduction Advisor" and "Organisation & Governance International Secretariat Office" Help Wanted ads they run. Ha ha ha, they could call it "Formal Encounters."

Earlier: What Is 'Politico' Up To?

Slate, this is the kind of idea we get at like 4:30 p.m. on a Friday and we think better of before we even finish the email pitch to Blakeley. This is apparently the kind of idea you decide to publish as an actual book so our advice is probably falling on deaf ears.

Ladyman on Rosen: "He truly acts like the rock-and-roll or the music critic. And if you don't talk to him right away and for as long as he wants to, he feels slighted."

From copying writer in question, Mark Williams, who claims he found all the material he plagiarized in press releases:

"Mr. Rosen: I suppose it is time that we made contact, since I seem to be your favorite new obsession. For such a heralded and busy journalist, it is obvious that you have an abundance of free time in your daily schedule. You have done an exemplary job of exposing the seedy underbelly of duplicitous small town weekly newspapers and the evil doers that run them. You have indeed brought us to our knees."

"I sincerely apologize for my crimes against you and any perceived damage done to your person or your career accomplishments. It was never my intention to cause you harm. The article in question was included in other press materials I had received via e-mail. I used parts of the article as background and did so thinking it was cleared for such use; but, as you have so subtly pointed out, I was mistaken."

"...It must have taken years of seasoned investigative know-how to push me off my lofty perch. It takes a dogged, intrepid journalist to expose the alleged wrongdoings of a 44-year-old college dropout who drifted from one lousy media job to another for 20 years; it takes courage to debase someone with a mouthful of cut-rate dentures who, up until 2007, lived in his parents' home for seven years due to near-fatal bouts of clinical depression; it takes a journalist of a certain caliber to torpedo a pathetic hack who has barely squeezed out a living for nearly a decade at seven cents a word."

The story is still sneaking in through the cracks. McClatchy ran a "why isn't Edwards answering our questions" piece that will set the tone for future MSM stories on this terrible subject. Leno and Conan have mentioned the story too, which definitely suggests that the era when no one would've known about this unless the Times picked it up is finally over.

But now it is the internet's time to shine! Slate's done great by the story, with cranky Mickey Kaus justifying his insane anti-MSM crusade and Jack Shafer being his usual cantankerous and inarguably correct self. And hey, it's been good for Gawker too—nothing helps beat the August doldrums like a sex scandal that also allows for excoriation of Olde Media.

Of course, not everyone on the internet has performed so honorably. It's bannable to mention the story at liberal blog powerhouse DailyKos, the HuffPo is still mostly quiet on it, and the Wikipedia edit war is staggering into its second contentious week.

But now we have photos! Once there are pictures, the story is ready for television. If the Edwards love child was the Montauk Monster, CNN would've been all over it last week! And once the story is on television, the newspapers can finally go back and write about it, even if it's just a meta-media "oh dear what happened to the press on this one" kind of story.

John himself has played this stupidly, running from reporters and hoping they'll maintain their vow of silence as long as he keeps his mouth shut. They will, John, because they love your wife, but they can only justify this to themselves for so long.

Because, as you can see above, the photo is damning and ready-made for distribution on the internet or cable television.

Today's Picture will always be a shot of footsteps on the beach. Laura Ingraham will obsess about the MSM's bias toward McCain. Explainer columns will be titled, "Does masturbation really cause blindness?" What other LibertyWire headlines should we expect?

[The Plank]

The animosity between the Islamists and the metal heads is partly a result of a generational divide and partly a matter of their differing political and cultural agendas. (The metal heads are hardly interested in building an Islamic state.) But the truth is that these two dissident groups who seem to occupy opposite ends of the political spectrum have more in common than one would think: Both have similar aspirations to build a freer, more democratic society, and both have had their political views shaped by the same sense of despair and lack of opportunity that exists throughout the region.

Let's not even call quixotic the idea that the Muslim Brotherhood will start underwriting some Levantine Ozzfest. Aslan is an apologist for his faith, but is he really serious in thinking that its most radical exponents are stumping for a "freer, more democratic society"? (His allusions to Iran are pointless to his thesis because the Islamists are of course the ones already in power.)

The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend, and there is no reason to think that once Hezbollah controls Lebanon, even if through fair and open elections, it will become "big tent" enough to encompass a movement that sees piety as just another bankrupt form of authority.

Aslan cites Tom Stoppard's Rock n' Roll as evidence that intellectuals and music fans can come together and start a revolution. I'd pay real money to know if he thought Hassan Nasrallah was the moral or intellectual equivalent of Vaclav Havel. But it's worth pointing out that Charter 77, the Czech document that really inaugurated the Velvet Revolution, began when the psychedelic band the Plastic People of the Universe, their Warholian manager Ivan Jirous, and scores of fans were tossed in jail.

At first, the intellectuals — those who Stoppard's character Jan derides as "tossers," the "official opposition" — couldn't understand what the regime wanted with a bunch of hippies and burn-outs, why it saw them as the gravest threat to the totalitarian order. Then it occurred: If these kids didn't care enough to even cut their hair, how was it possible to get them to collude in any part of the Big Lie? They'd never mouth the cant phrases or enact the empty pantomimes of "socialism," much less believe in it as actually existing or otherwise. The music rebels didn't want to change their society; they wanted to exist entirely apart from it. But there was nothing really stopping the intellectuals from linking up with them. (Havel anatomized all this brilliantly in his essay "The Power of the Powerless.")

So it raises an analogous question: If Middle Eastern governments start locking up heavy metal bands and their legions of followers, will the Islamists speak out on their behalf? And if they do, how sincere will their activism seem when it's all the blasphemers and unveiled women in lipstick and ripped jeans who are the ones being rounded up?

[Slate]

Fox News executive vice president John Moody totally feels bad about how the jokers at Fox and Friends did that thing they did.

“It was regrettable,” Moody said.

Later Moody added that he “wished” Fox & Friends “hadn’t done it. They didn’t ask me first.” But he said the incident will not result in any official standards adjustments at the show.

Moody called Fox & Friends a mix of news and entertainment but conceded that some of the “humor” on the show may not appeal to some viewers.

“Some of the humor gets edgy,” he added, “and some people don’t think it’s funny.”

See? The executive who wasn't consulted on it and plans no official response and also says it was just a dumb joke regrets it. So everything's fine.

The Slate-y marriage of David Plotz and Hanna Rosin is doing fine, despite this and Emily Yoffe's marriage has been great for 14 years. To sum up, some well-off white ladies hate their husbands and some never even fight with their husbands ever. Doesn't it seem like dudes never write about their wives anymore? That's probably for the best, because back when they did Norman Mailer was stabbing them.

The A.V. Club story of the Nutraloaf stunt is more entertaining, because it has more unappetizing photos and even a little video! They only got 9 diggs out of it though. They all agreed that it was gross, so this Slate version could've been much more Slate-y if they'd decided it was actually delicious.

Look for Christopher Hitchens to eat some Nutriloaf in a forthcoming Vanity Fair piece, probably. It's fun to pretend!

By my reckoning, there are five valid, logical criteria for choosing one beer over another. 1) Flavor. 2) Calorie count. 3) Packaging (because who doesn't love the functional advantages of wide-mouths, minikegs, tallboys, and forties?). 4) Alcohol content (because some beers get you drunk much faster than others). 5) The good or bad corporate citizenship of the brewer. Everything else is just meaningless imagery.

Ha, yes. Yes it is.

[Read Stevenson's entire uncharacteristically earnest beer ad rant here.]

Bilderberg is a yearly secret meeting of "120 or so billionaires, bankers, politicians, industrialists, scholars, government officials, influentials from labor and education, and journalists," which basically makes it a conspiracy theory magnet. Kissinger and Tony Blair and Dean Rusk all playing Boggle and plotting the New World Order! Everything is off the record and future presidents and prime ministers often attend but reportage of the event is always limited because it's off the record and no one can get in!

Cranky media critic Jack Shafer makes the point that if this secretive group was really controlling the world and building One World Government than they probably wouldn't put out press releases and stuff, but maybe that's just what they want you to think!

Would a shadow government, should it exist, really convene annually at a hotel to hash out the world's fate? Would it really issue a press release about its latest meeting? Would it routinely assume the security risks of inviting new blood in? (Couldn't the notorious Bilderberger Conrad Black negotiate his way out of prison by exposing the group? Or is Bilderberg so powerful that it controls the federal prison system, too?)

Maybe Conrad Black's just a distraction! Maybe they sent him to prison to throw us off the scent! Wheels within wheels, people!

Anyway we look forward to many more emails on the subject!

Hey, here are photos of Ben Bernanke and others arriving at this year's Bilderberg Conference. Enjoy! It's spooooooky!

The Bilderberg "Blackout" [Slate]

[Slate]

The essay repeats the sad claim that Gawker (via Joshua Stein) attacked a 4-year-old when we professed our annoyance with his father, who turned his real-life son into essentially a shitty character in his alterna-dad narrative. This is what blogging does to your loved ones! They become mere extensions of your online Brand, your crafted persona, as much Fair Game for mockery and abuse as you yourself, because you are using them.

Bazelon worries that in writing (or blogging) about children, mommybloggers and their ilk are creating a nation of oversharers. She even says their children might end up like—horror of horrors—Emily Gould! But this is the problem: we are pretty sure Emily's parents aren't the over-sharing ones? And, in fact, it is the mommybloggers—in the guise of, say, Dooce—who ushered in this terrifying new era of no filters or propriety. Dooce, who became famous for relentllessly writing about herself, her family, and her job. And who even more famously lost that job because of it. She doesn't write about her kids anymore, though, so she's ok!

Still. These parents NEED TO STOP. It was not, for example, 16-year-old Teresa herself who explained to the New York Times that the other kids called her "Uno Brow."

So be warned, bloggers with kids! We will continue hating your kids, because you leave us no choice.

He made direct, pointed criticisms of Bush's handling of the war that closely mirrored criticisms lobbed by liberals like Weisberg! What a maverick! Of course whether or not McCain genuinely believes this is immaterial because conveniently he only comes off so rebellious and principled and independent when he's sitting down for private chats with liberal journalists.

Remember how he told Arianna Huffington that he didn't vote for George W. Bush when he was hanging out with her at a fancy elitist Hollywood dinner party? And then, later, he wouldn't admit that anymore? Funny, that. Back to cozying up with the Christian Right and announcing that we'll win in Iraq no matter what the cost!

McCain at Rock Bottom [Slate]

Red Sox ace pitcher Josh Beckett recently turned down Jordan's request for an interview for New York Times Magazine story. But even big stars in the 70s wouldn't dream of such a thing. Here's how he got a story on (now Hall of Famer) Catfish Hunter of the Oakland A's:

I checked into the A's hotel and went right down to the pool. I watched as Reggie Jackson, Sal Bando, Rollie Fingers, and Rick Monday eyeballed the chicks laying by the water. I asked one of the players which one was Catfish Hunter. He pointed to a shy, North Carolina country boy barely into his 20s with a chew of tobacco puffing out his cheek. I introduced myself to Catfish and said, "I'm here to write a story about you for Sports Illustrated." He nodded. I said, "Can I drive you to the park?" He nodded again.

Another current Hall of Fame pitcher, Tom Seaver, wasn't any harder to get:

I called the Mets, told them I was an SI writer, and asked for Seaver's home number. They gave it to me, gratefully. I called Tom, told him what I was doing, and he invited me to his home in Greenwich for lunch. We ate in the afternoon on the porch of Tom's farmhouse. He barbecued a huge T-bone steak, cutting out the filet for me and the sirloin for himself. Then I drove him to Shea Stadium in a rainstorm in my old Corvette with the T-top that leaked. Water dripped on Tom's forehead. He looked up and said, "Why don't you buy a Porsche?" I said, "Because I'm not Tom Seaver." Water dripped on his head. He laughed. "That's a fucking fact."

But today, even jerks like steroid fan Jose Canseco screw with him!:

Jose was, well, Jose, reneging on our arrangement only after I'd flown to L.A. at his request. Why should he have wanted to talk to me? He had by then written his second magnum opus and was scheduled to appear on David Letterman and Howard Stern.

So he wrote a story about what a jerk Canseco was, and Will Leitch ran it on Deadspin. Blogs win!

[Slate]

• Walnuts!
• God DAMN America
• 45 seconds of Mike Gravel not saying anything.
• "Heidi Montag is a very talented actress."
• "Hill-Rod"
• "Can I ask you about your, uh... why you're so angry?"

We'd link to downloadable mp3s of those classic moments, but we really don't want anyone to actually have "political ringtones." Except "God DAMN America," that one's awesome.

[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.

However, we are still obliged to ask ourselves whether the senior senator from Arizona is a brick short of a load or, as heartless people in England sometimes say, a sandwich or two short of a picnic. Because "anger," make no mistake about it, is the innuendo for instability or inadequacy. What if McCain doesn't really have both oars in the water or is either too tightly wrapped or not tightly wrapped enough?
[...]
Again, one hopes that the nominee has been doing this for emphasis rather than as a sign that he is out of his pram, has lost his rag, has gone ballistic, has reported into the post office that he's feeling terminally disgruntled today. (Or, as P.G. Wodehouse immortally put it, if not quite disgruntled, not exactly gruntled, either.)

One Angry Man [Slate]

In EW, Lisa Schwarzbaum writes,"As embodiments go, the Segel physique, a long, pale, uncooked dinner roll of a shape, is an apt one for the attractions of this very funny, very chewy, partially undercooked comedy."

Dana Stevens also can't get enough of Segel's ironically hot-bod: "Like its hero, 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' is a little soft around the middle, but all the more lovable for that."

Plagiarism? Probably not. But what kind of message are these reviews sending to film students? In the real world, a doughy body won't solve plot problems.