The most popular story on WSJ.com today has been their semi-exclusive about Joe Lieberman saying he's never going to vote for a health care bill with the public option. If you heard about Lieberman making news on health care today and went to Google "lieberman public option," you'd get these results. The shaded red boxes are the News Corp. properties: WSJ.com and Foxnews.com. Those would disappear, but there would be no shortage of results showing you what Lieberman told the WSJ in the top results.

But let's say you were really motivated to find the specific Wall Street Journal story about Joe Lieberman derailing health care and you searched "lieberman public option" and "wall street journal." That would currently bring up the story in question, as well as the Fox News result and an old WSJ blog post. But it would also bring up plenty of other sites that can tell you what was in the WSJ story. Those all likely will also provide a link to the WSJ story, but if they put up the pay wall Murdoch has promised, why would you bother to click through?

Lastly, here's a search for "lieberman public option" and "wall street journal," but with results from WSJ.com and FoxNews.com filtered out—in other words, what Google would return if they weren't allowed to index News Corp. pages.

All but the top two results — irrelevant HuffPo stories — show you exactly what Lieberman said in the Wall Street Journal. And would conceivably show you a link to the WSJ. So, no big loss.

[BID ON THE BOOK HERE. SERIOUSLY. IT'S FOR CHARITY.]

Realize: this is the best copy of this book in existence. Period. Bar none. And at a ceremony when the books and authors being honored have the sales of their books disproportionately inverted by their quality, it only seemed appropriate to get everybody in on The Big Joke of the evening: that more people would read Sarah Palin's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Bullshit than any of the nominees' and winners' books, combined.

We offered the book up to some of our favorite literature and media luminaries that were in the house that evening. Dave Eggers—that asshole!—was very nice about refusing to sign our book, probably because it wasn't for his 826 charity. But he was kind. How's that for an endorsement?

Not good enough? What about super awesome sleepy Columbia MFA graduate and Freaks and Geeks actor James Franco signing our book?

Yes, this man signed our book. Okay, Jim. Maybe you made our photographer cry. But you did this one for the children. You're okay, today. Also, the nerds at Slate think you're The Sexiest Man With A Pulse, for what it's worth (read: the most ostentatious pillow talk ever). Congrats. But what if an awesome hunky dreamy movie star with an MFA from Columbia isn't enough reason to spend lots of money on a book people drew on?

Maybe 2009 National Book Award winner Colum McCann signing this bad boy is! YES THAT IS COLUM MCCANN SIGNING THE PALIN BOOK. This took a lot—a lot—of convincing. Charity, huh? But it's Sarah Palin's book! Sarah Palin! I can't put my name on anything of hers! Are you sure this is for charity? What charity?!

Funny you should ask, Mr. McCann. I've picked a charity so great, you can't even say their name out loud without feeling awful for never having done something for them until now: Save The Children. Yeah, you're gonna stiff these guys?

They've done great work bringing literacy programs to kids in need across the country, among other great things they've done for kids that otherwise don't get things done for them that should be. If I were running these programs, I would have them all reading Gawker Weekends and Calvin and Hobbes, because that's what I grew up on, but I'm not, and these people are, and we're all better off. You don't have to buy the book to give a buck. Oh, and if you complain about the charity I picked, I'll come to your house and personally beat you with an unsigned copy of Ms. Palin's 2010 NBA Fiction Winner. But yes, people actually signed this thing.

You want proof?

2009 NBA Fiction Prize winner Collum McCann (fourth page, center) really, actually did take this much convincing. He wrote: "'For we must love this poor earth, for we have not seen another...' Go Obama!" Awesome.

Ricky Van Veen and Neel Shah marvel at how incredibly awesome this book is, while Jessica Coen is laughing to herself imagining Sarah Palin read her fabulous, fierce nugget of wisdom.

Here's the guy who I thought was Toph Eggers, right. I got everyone's name wrong that night. At one point I think I remember identifying Keith Waldrop as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Jeff Bercovici signed the book as Dave Eggers, since Dave Eggers doesn't care about Saving The Children so much as making them read George Saunders or whatever.

Here're the first two pages:

And here're the second two:

And here's the full list of who we know we got:

2009 NBA Fiction Winner, Let The Great World Spin author Colum McCann.

Spider Man 2 actor and recent Columbia MFA graduate James Franco wrote (third page, top-right): "FUCK YEAH!" with a strange vampire-smiley face.

2008 NBA Fiction Finalist Salvatore Scibona (second page, middle-right) gave her "hugs."

2008 NBA Fiction Finalist Rachel Kushner (second page, bottom-left) offers her insight on context clues regarding snowmobiles.

I Was Told There Would Be Cake author by night and Random House book publicist by day Sloane Crosley drew hieroglyphics.

The Seymore Hersh of the Sunday Styles, New York Times writer Allen Salkin took up the entire bottom-third of the fourth page ensuring that I wasn't conning him. He also drew a fairly accurate drawing of himself.

Dave Eggers! As performed/signed by former Portfolio and current Daily Finance media columnist Jeff Bercovici (fourth page, top-right).

Columnist Katie Bakes tried to start a #hashtag, while the New York Observer's publishing beat gangsta Leon Neyfakh wrote...something.

Vice and New York Press writer Jamie Peck (second-page, bottom-right, I think) talked to her about wolves or some shit.

College Humor founder Ricky Van Veen gave Sarah a big CHILL, BABY, CHILL while Former Radar, Gawker, and Page Six writer Neel Shah got tactful.

The Awl writer Alex Balk.

Flavorwire's Kelsey Keith had more sage advice for Palin's future career aspirations.

Cartoonist Laurie Sandell drew a woman holding a smoking gun on the third page. Get it?

Gawker Past and Present: Media Overlord Nick Denton and current Gawker Editor-in-Chief Gabriel Snyder both thanked her for pageviews—heh—while founding Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers wished her luck, and Gawker J²-era/New York Magazine editor Jessica Coen gave her hair tips.

Oh, and me, lending to this the extent of my own profound, political insight.

We also got Gawker's Altarcations writer Phyllis Nefler. and some guy who looks like Dave Eggers brother, who turned out not to be Dave Eggers' brother after I thought he was Dave Eggers' brother. His name is Alec Friedman.

[Alas, because we were drunk, there may be signatures in here we missed. Seriously! If you see your John Hancock—heh: cock—please email me with it. It's for charity. You don't want children growing up to one day actually think that was funny, do you? Right. Neither do I.]

The book's sanctity has been preserved by only having been signed on the night of the 2009 National Book Awards, by attendees of the ceremony. That said, if you win it and want to have anybody else in the Gawker Media offices sign it, sure, fuckit, I'll get them to sign. Hell, we know people who are experts on books that are imaginary that are supposed to be real, and I bet we could get them to sign if that's what you wanted. Or I could eat the book, or I could drop-kick it, or I could detonate it with whatever fireworks you send us, or I could read it, but who's that awful? Not you, potential charity-giver. Anyway. You could do any of those things, or none of them, and just keep it as one of the most awesome literary collectibles ever. You know? You know.

Because one day, you can show this to your children's children, and tell them: I bought this so you could see how happy the people were before it was like this. Now that James Franco is the new Daniel Mendelsohn, and every book published is full of shit, and they all come from blogs, and they're the only things that sell, and they are read on calculators, there was this. There was this night. There were these drunk people signing Frau Palin's book.

And then you can blame it on this guy:

But seriously, it's for charity. Buy the goddamn book. Now. Please. Our auction is here.

[Photographs via Gawker Party Crash photog Mo Pitz.]

Last week there was much moralizing when it was revealed that the son of Equatorial Guinea's dictator was rolling around the US spending his country's oil wealth. But he may not even be the worst case of a dictator's offspring turning America into their personal playground.

People with knowledge of their movements say Saif and Hannibal have been in the U.S. this year. The State Department would not confirm or deny the reports and the Libyan Embassy did not return repeated calls for comment.

They're every bit as ridiculous as Teodoro Nguema Obiang, the heir to power in Equatorial Guinea, and have — if anything — greater freedom to spend their ill-gotten gains in the US. Let's start with Hannibal, pictured on a placard here in a protest against his imprisonment by Swiss authorities (more below):

He enjoys beating women (allegedly) and driving his Porsche the wrong way down the Champs-Elysees in Paris at 90mph. He has pulled a 9mm gun on police in that city and attacked Italian cops with a fire extinguisher. He wriggled out of charges in each instance using diplomatic immunity. Again, the State Department would not confirm or deny that, if Hannibal was here, he was travelling on a diplomatic passport. But it seems unlikely he'd leave it at home after he sparked an international incident in Switzerland in 2008.

His brother Saif, in the main picture, is known as the sophisticated one. He impressed the Council on Foreign Relations on a recent trip to New York, and hangs out with the Rotshchilds, according to this Daily Beast report on his efforts to free the Lockerbie bomber. He's also well-known for keeping two pet tigers. His charm offensive is not winning fans everywhere though - one journalist, who met him when he was promoting his own paintings in Canada, described him as "clearly a little shit" beneath his calm exterior.

Western relations with Libya have warmed in recent years. But it seems that tolerance is as blatant an oil-grab as the collective ignoring of Obiang's Bugatti Veyrons and Rodeo Drive spending sprees. Like Equatorial Guinean dictator Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mbasogo, Gaddafi is strongly rumoured to take a cut of each barrel of oil he sells to the West. Like Equatorial Guinea, Libya is rated as not a free country, and receives the lowest possible scores for Political Rights and Civil Liberties from watchdog Freedom House.

And as with Equatorial Guinea any efforts to enforce a presidential order and act of congress that bar corrupt foreign officials will probably be met with an awkward silence.

Let's just hope that Saadi, another of Gaddafi's eight children, doesn't decide to visit the US. He's a failed soccer player who took steroids, once had a crowd shot at for booing him and tried to make movies with his dad's money.

We're sorry that this country is so full of homophobic prudes that kissing a guy on stage and simulating oral sex will elicit more than 1,500 complaints and get you kicked off of GMA.

Lambert was scheduled to appear on the show tomorrow—a critical gig, since his album, For Your Entertainment, just came out—but that has been canceled. "Given his controversial American Music Awards performance, we were concerned about airing a similar concert so early in the morning," a spokesperson for the show told the NY Times Arts Beat blog.

This is all the gays fault. We did what we always do and we overestimate just how much we are accepted by society. It may seem like apples and oranges (or butches and femmes) but Adam Lambert is just like what happened in California with Prop 8. We thought there was no way that the good people of California could hate gays so much they would vote down gay marriage. Well, we were very wrong.

The same thing happened here. All of the gays were telling Adam, "Keep it real. Get all faggy. You owe it to us, and they'll love you for it." He responded with a performance that was so gay that he shot rainbows out of his eyes and turned Whitney Houston in a unicorn that he rode across the stage and threw Ryan Seacrest on the back of it and they made out for 17 minutes straight. Oops, too gay. Now we've ruined it for Adam and he's going to end up playing piano in a gay bar and dying bitter and alone just like Jobriath.

The worst part about this whole thing is that we have now negated all the progress Lambert made by being an openly gay pop star in the first place. Now when the next very talented flamboyant rocker comes along all his managers and agents (most of them gay) will say, "Oh, you have to stay in the closet. Look what happened when Adam Lambert sashayed on stage at the AMAs. America will hate you."

That said, this isn't the worst thing that could happen to Lambert. He's getting plenty of attention just as his album is coming out—negative or not. The people who were offended by his dry humping were never going to buy the album anyway, and this flap might just give him enough street cred to get some people clicking the download button iTunes. We hate to make the same mistake twice, but maybe getting all nelly was the right move.

Apparently Lambert has been offered a replacement gig on CBS' The Early Show (caution, Perez Hilton link ahoy). Adam if that doesn't work out, you are welcome to perform here at Gawker HQ, and we'll let you get as queer as you wanna be. You can even put pink pancakes on Nick Denton's head. The only thing gayer than that is—well, your performance at the AMAs.

[Images via Getty]

Contact him now. Before he becomes a star. [Pic via]

We know Sarah Palin isn't the biggest fan of Vogue, but we think she'd do really well guest-editing her own issue. So we've worked up a sample cover in the style of our Cover Lies feature (in which we expose how little relationship ladymags, like Sarah Palin, have to reality). While the real Vogue bows to the recession with its $300 "Steal" of the Month, Palin could show us how to get a $150,000 wardrobe for free — and how to pick a $700/night hotel, complete with robe and slippers. In lieu of book reviews, she could offer up a bunch of snide remarks about Katie Couric — "the perky one" probably can't read anyway. And for balance, Palin could add some media elite contributors, like Trig-birther Andrew Sullivan and Rebecca Johnson. (Johnson works for the fake America but the real Vogue, and says all Palin wanted to talk about in her much-maligned interview was "drilling for oil" — but what else is there, anyway?) In fact, right after a Jeffrey Steingarten piece on moose-meat, Going Vogue should include a free sample of premium Alaska crude. We hear it gets rid of both wrinkles and endangered wildlife.

Fact Check: Palin's Book Goes Rogue On Some Facts [AP, via Yahoo News]
Palin's Katie Couric Myths [Daily Beast]
Palin's Ego Trip [Daily Beast]

Today the La Times reported on Oscar-winning "Pulp Fiction" screenwriter Roger Avary, who is apparently tweeting his way through a year's incarceration for vehicular manslaughter. The main proof that Avary is behind the account: a tweet from sci-fi author Neil Gaiman which reads "My friend @AVARY is tweeting from the inside. It's riveting, horrible strange..." Avary's tweets are indeed all three of these things:

On prison food:

On past-times:

On other kinds of past-times:

Of course you are all familiar with Kari Farrell AKA "The Hipster Grifter", who here tweets about her efforts at becoming the next Eldridge Cleaver:

Kari's not the only tweeting inmate with a literary bent. There's also Prodigy, one half of the 90s hip hop duo Mobb Deep (Prodigy is currently serving 3 1/2 years for firearms offenses):

But don't think all locked up tweeters are common criminals. Some of them are trying to, like, save the trees, man. Like this Rainforest Action Network tweeter who updated after being arrested for illegally hanging a protest banner on a Niagra Falls bridge:

But watch out: Police know how to use Twitter, too!

Some of these hardened twiminals (?) are in prison not for violating state or federal laws, but because they are journalists doing a story, like NPR's Laura Sullivan. Journalists love prisons almost as much as they love Twitter:

And other twitmates (!?) are obviously fake. ("Phil Spector" was the most recent twimposter tweeting from the Twig Twouse.) But we can pretend!

Rapper Daddy Bawsten was positively tickled by his tweet-inducing arrest:

Finally,here is a twitcarcerated (!!!) man named Inv8r who you know really is in jail, since he includes a picture with his tweet:

Trending Topics: #freeinv8r

So, like, you might assume that interviewer Hank Plante would ask about this mysterious absense from all his official events, and his unannounced, Mark Sanford-style trip to Hawaii. But Newsom just wants to grin and laugh the soulless laugh of a cornered Scientologist, and talk about the budget deficit. It is a terrible, terrible interview, with the rictus smile and the mirthless laughter. And it ends with Newsom removing his mic and bitching, off the record, about how mean it is of journalists to ask what the hell is up with him.

And then the Wall Street Journal reported that Newsom was going to quit politics and go back to his winery. Newsom called the reporter to deny it, but there's no way in hell this guy's remaining in office until 2012.

More than turkey, pumpkin pie, and football games, Thanksgiving is about horrible family interactions, cooking catastrophes, and cringe-inducing nightmare scenarios that involve your siblings misbehaving and thrown-up cranberry sauce. We know that yours are going to be way better than this mildly awkward prayer from Home for the Holidays, and we just can't wait to hear them.

Whoever shares the worst story wins a either a check for $50 or a bottle of Wild Turkey (we're talking one of their top-shelf brands) (U.S. residents and over 21 only for the booze, Standard Contest Rules apply). After all the drama around the turkey, you're going to need it.

To enter, put your stories in the comments section (if you're not already a commenter, find out how here). We'll be compiling and sharing the best of them throughout the week. The winner will be decided on Friday, so that you can let us rub some salt in the fresh wounds from another year sitting at the kid's table. Good luck, and save us a slice of the white meat.

[Image is from Life.com's photo gallery of designer Barbara Orr Ehrhart's 1947 turkey-inspired wedding.]

According to Guest of a Guest Tinsley hosted the tea party for Serena and 15 of her littlest pals at the Samantha Thavasa store on Madison Avenue. There wasn't any pin the tail on the donkey at this party. Instead there was some makeovers by a Christian Dior makeup artist, and styling consultations with the Tinz herself. These littlest girls know how to shop!

Just how did Serena Bancroft land such a stellar host for her little bash? Well, she is the daughter of socialite Debbie Bancroft and her banker husband Billy, so that probably helped. As GoaG points out, La Tinz probably wants to get in good with these little rich things now, so that in 10 years she'll still be getting invites to the hot parties. Ms. Mortimer is the face of Japanese handbag maker Samantha Thavasa (and designs several bags for the fashion house each year) so she definitely has a financial interest in bringing attention to the brand, especially among the junior Junior League set.

Since 13-year-old girls (and gays) are CWs target demographic, maybe this is her way of cozying up to an audience she is going to need to be a ratings blockbuster come January. Throw in an appearance guest bartending with Anderson Cooper's boyfriend at gay bar Eastern Bloc and she'll have her base shored up just in time for the premiere.

This might be a make good to Debbie Bancroft, who used to be the muse of polite society's favorite designer Douglas Hannant, until they had beef in 2005, when Hannant chose Tinsley to be his new public face. Burn. Before her reality show airs, Tinsley has to make all the allies she can or else she won't be able to show her face in Southampton ever again. Serving up cupcakes to a bunch of fashion-conscious teens isn't such a bad price to pay.

[Image via Guest of a Guest]

On her show today, Martha Stewart apologized for remarks she made against her fellow daytime cooking queen during a recent Nightline segment.

I just want to take this opportunity just to address some comments that are circulating on the Internet regarding me and Rachael Ray. And just for the record there are no bad feeling between us nor have there ever been. I truly believe that Rachael has done a terrific job bringing people, many people who would of never of even stepped into the kitchen or made a dish to cook. I applaud Rachel for her enthusiastic approach to cooking and I really had a great time being a guest on her show and it was a lot of fun to have her on this show making pie with me to. Come on back Rachael, anytime you want and I hope you have a Yum-o Thanksgiving."

God, Martha. Where is the vitriol? Where is the cattiness? We don't want to see you being sweet and contrite—we want to see the fangs!

Anyway, this whole thing started when Martha said that Rachael Ray rewrites recipes from her old books and magazines for her new books, and said this isn't "good enough for me." She continued, "[Ray is] more of an entertainer, with her bubbly personality, than she is a teacher like me."

Ray pretty much agreed with her, making the whole spat a non-started. She told Cynthia McFadden in the same segment that Martha's claims are "true" and that she would "rather eat Martha's [meal] than mine." Way to make us like you by being honest, Rachael. We hate that.

Maybe the reason Martha wanted to sweep this whole thing under the carpet with an apology is because she engages in the same re-editing technique that she accused Ray of. A former editor in the Martha Stewart empire told us that a number of recipes from Stewart's recent books are reedited versions of things that appeared in her magazines, often only with new names and photographs. People in glass houses, no matter how finely appointed, shouldn't be throwing stones. Good thing for Martha that Rachael is way too much of a lady to go toe-to-toe with her in the jail yard.

George W. Bush's last Thanksgiving proclamation actually mentioned Pilgrims! But—no Indians.

In that proclamation, it was, indeed, the Author of Life (Almighty God) who was personally responsible for "granting" the Pilgrims "safe passage to this abundant land and protecting them through a bitter winter." Thanks, God, though our first Muslim Atheist Kenyan president remembers it a bit differently:

We also recognize the contributions of Native Americans, who helped the early colonists survive their first harsh winter and continue to strengthen our Nation.

There were no Indians, or Native Americans, or Indigenous People, in any of Bush's proclamations. There was some 9/11 in the 2001 proclamation, obviously.

Last year President Bush encouraged "all Americans to gather together in their homes and places of worship with family, friends, and loved ones...." President Obama encourages "all the people of the United States to come together, whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place where family, friends and neighbors may gather...." (Emphasis added—by ACORN!)

But! Obama was not the first to rep for being thankful in places other than home and church! Clinton also encouraged Americans to gather at home, at places of worship, or at community centers. And so did Bush! In 2001, 2002, and 2003. It was not until 2004 that Americans were no longer encouraged to gather in these community centers. This is presumably because of John Kerry. (Clinton also referenced those Natives who disappeared from Bush's proclamations.)

Clinton never made reference to Lincoln, and Washington only showed up once. Bush Sr. made one Lincoln reference. Reagan, plenty. On the whole, Bush I's proclamations were a little more ambitious, and a little less rote. They included primary sources and historical arcana!

Truthfully, this is an uninspiring first effort from our most literary president in a generation. Barely an improvement over Bush Jr. Let's hope he spends a little more time on it next year.

[Photo: AFP]

1. Andrea Peyser confronts the mom of a 16 year-old shooting suspect about why she is such a bad mom that her kid would shoot somebody. Answer: Because she is selfish and she lets her son hang out with his relatives thugs. Black people! Why can't they raise kids the right way? "There do exist real fathers. Take Federico Grullon. He won't allow his three kids to leave the house."
Black kids should be shackled at all times.

2. Did you know there is a soup kitchen now for orothodox Jews? And other Jews are facing foreclosure? But Jews are the ones with all the money!

So — shhh! — The United Jewish Appeal has started Connect to Care, which already has given more than 8,000 needy Jews financial services, job help and mental-health counseling to get through unfamiliar territory.
Just don't expect anyone to admit it.

3. "If Johnny Depp is the Sexiest Man Alive, I'm swearing off men." That one wasn't totally unexpected.

Lambert performed new single For Your Entertainment at last night's American Music Awards. He begins with a Starlight Express-ish croon-a-thon, then grabs a woman by the foot and kicks her in the crotch at 0:43, which is officially the closest Adam Lambert has ever gotten to a vagina. Then he whips a leather daddy who walks on a leash on all fours, and pulls another one into a face fuck at 1:00, which is pretty gay, but I once heard that in some countries the tops aren't even considered gay, really, just opportunists. Lambert's act reminds me of Justin Timberlake ripping off Janet Jackson's bra, a crude and generally thoughtless depiction of male sexual energy.

It's hard to tell whether the audience screams during the face fuck portion are with giddy joy or terror—and isn't that dichotomy just so Glambert?

On a different note: The song (minus the vocal aerobics) and staging are very Britney Spears. I have a sneaking suspicion that the goal for that one tragic VMA performance was something a little like this.

The question presents itself: What the shit do you think you're talking about, lady?

Her two big examples are the John Varvatos store at CBGBs, and the Whole Foods on the Bowery (which is the articles kicker). Great. She mentioned two places within three blocks from one another. Yeah, it sucks that CBGBs is dead, but that place sucked when it was dying and hey, at least Varvatos kept some of the original walls. It could be another Chase Bank, but, whatever.

Here's her thesis:

The problem for those who would like to see a return in New York to its edgy past is that Manhattan, as more than one New York-based blogger has claimed, is still "a gated community for the rich". The cultural critic Julian Brash has complained that under Bloomberg the citizens of New York have been turned into consumers - it is a place where everything is about what can be bought and what can be sold.

Okay, fine. Manhattan's really expensive, blah blah blah. Bankers run everything, blah blah blah. Everything in New York can be bought. And? This city was built by hyper-capitalists, it's why there's so much goddamn money here. Old hat. Certain things about New York absolutely suck and will always keep sucking worse and worse. And let's get one thing straight: people have been saying things about New York sucking for as long as New York's been around. If you read Monocle magazine, which this essay is basically ripped out of, this is like, every issue. This has long been the party line of travel press types—especially ones from abroad—for at least three years. I mean, if you really want to go back, I believe Rolling Stone called New York the Hot Dead Zone in their inaugural Hot List issue. In 1998. Saying New York is no longer edgy hasn't been edgy in forever.

The sequel to this piece is when she inevitably says that Berlin is starting to get really, really hip these days too. Pretty much anybody who went through Ellis Island and didn't stay probably had some sentiment along the lines of "this place sucks." According to the Daily News, one of our presidents basically told us to stick this city up our collective asses (look where he is, now: dead).

But—and I'm sure others have their reasons—I live here because, quite frankly (A) there's still nowhere else in America like it, and like many other people here, I have some sick/awesome compulsion that makes this grind of living here that much more attractive to me than anywhere else and (B) it's still got better stuff than everywhere else in America. Yeah, fuckin' stuff. Awesome stuff.

Now.

Can we quickly go over the reasons London—a nice city, sure—sucks compared to New York? Great:

• Your food sucks. It all tastes like ass until American chefs take two months to do better what you've spent hundreds of years sucking at.
  
  
• The service in your restaurants sucks, because you have to instruct people how to tip by putting a mandatory charge on their tab, like many other countries that do this. Which is the wrong way of doing this, which is why every server you will every have in London will probably be an asshole.
  
  
• Your theater sucks. War Horse—no, really, War Horse—is the best thing you have up right now. Anything good you have on the West End came from us. And don't bring up fucking Billy Elliot.
  
  
• Your nightlife is just stupid. Pubs close at 11, our bars don't close until four. Who goes to bed at 11? Are you serious? So you guys open up clubs that close at 2AM that have two kinds of people in them: the kind who get unceremoniously drunk and piss on everything, or the places Prince Harry goes. And who wants to go there? Also, you only play American music. You think Kings of Leon are the Second Coming of Christ. The Kings of Leon play our bar mitzvahs, goddamnit. By the way: most of those rappers you guys play on repeat (and not even the good ones...50 Cent?!) still live in New York. Our clubs and nightlife might have their issues, but they blow yours out of the water. You guys wouldn't know what to do with The Beatrice Inn if it crawled up your nose in a $100 bill.
  
  
• Nobody knows where anything is in London. Seriously. It's like the worst parts of the West Village for an entire city. Everything is higgly-piggly or whatever dumb word you have for it. We live on a grid. A grid. You guys have the dumbest civic planning this side of kids eating Legos.
  
  
• OH. Don't get me wrong. Our subways suck, for sure. But at least they're supposed to work after midnight, and don't cost half our income to ride. Also, an Oystercard? That just sounds stupid. Who's running your design schemes, Lewis Carroll? Stupid. Oh, and, you wanna talk about EDGY? How about our D-Trains getting stabby again, edgy? Exactly.
  
  
• You guys have never had a nice day of weather in the history of the universe. Seriously. The only person Madonna has to compete with for causing a scene is the fucking sun. It's yellow, it's in the sky, sometimes, it...nevermind. Have you even been here in September? It's like Central Park is trying to get in your pants and get you off, the weather's so goddamned nice.
  
  
• Oh, and the pound is stupid-expensive. Like everything else in your city.
  
  
• Your tabloid newspapers make the New York Post look like The Paris Review.
  
  
• And Whole Foods on the Bowery, sure, Whole Foods sucks. But it's in a pretty great location, and, fuck that, you know what sucks worse? Sainsbury's. Sainsbury's suuuuuuuucks. Which goes back to your food sucking.
  
  
• Do you have Brooklyn? Do you even know what a Brooklyn is? No, not David Beckham's son. You're stupid, shut up. [Quiet Moment: The article didn't mention Brooklyn once, but didn't refer to Manhattan exclusively. Go figure.]
  
  
• London's celebrities are all on Big Brother and fucking suck. They're mouthbreathing idiots. They make Tinsley Mortimer look like Jackie Kennedy.
  
  
• You guys have soccer—yeah, I called it soccer, goddamnit—teams. Multiple ones. Great. We have two baseball teams (including the 2009 World Series Champions), football teams (Including the 2008 Super Bowl Champions), hockey teams (I'm sure they Won Something Great recently), and a basketball team. All of them except for the Knicks could smash every London soccer player. Nothing else, just "smash" them.
  
  
• There is one—and only one—good song about Foggy London Town. There are as many songs about New York as there are New Yorkers, and most of them are awesome.

Anything else? Oh, yeah, did Samuel Motherfucking Jackson just buy an apartment next to your boss? No? Exactly.

Shut up. New York is awesome.

It was a clear black night, a big first date

Walter G was in the sheets, tryna consummate

His skirt for the eve, but she left in a huff

Rollin on his side, chillin all alone.

He hit the East Side, up to old Club D's

on a Mission tryna find Mrs. Walter G

Seen a group full of girls, pals from Trinity

All those skirts knew what up with IBD.

Oh, sorry about that! You caught me right in the middle of working on a toast for an old pal from tennis camp who is getting married soon. I thought in lieu of a graceful anecdote about the fun we shared at Windridge back in the late 80's I'd call him out via "verse" about the night he first roofied his fiance.

Because did you know that there is "a growing collection" of wedding toasts that are "sung, or even rapped"? It's true: an editor at Brides.com used to hear about this five times a year, and now it's three to five times a month! It's all the fault of YouTube, or the fact that we were "raised on" Family Guy, even though Family Guy first aired in 1999 and so anyone who was "raised" on it is currently like 14 years old.

But I digress. I'm more worried about the woman whose friend decided to base her toast on "'Eleanor Rigby' by the Beatles because that is her favorite song." Yeah, she changed the words, but do you really want people on your wedding day reminded of something whose original lyrics include phrases like "all the lonely people", "buried along with her name", and "no one was saved"?

Anyway, I'm just amped because I don't have to change the …getting' high like every day lyric for my friend's toast! This is going to be great. I can't wait to be a YouTube sensation.

***

One thing is for sure: the wedding of Bess Rattray and Paul Gartside should be soundtracked by a choral arrangement of Cape Breton Lullaby (anyone else have to sing that song in seventh grade chorus?) This wedding announcement is interesting beause it somehow miraculously manages to combine East Hampton, sailing, and Vogue magazine in a not-annoying way.

Rattray, a "freelance magazine editor in Shelburne, Nova Scotia" and the scionne of the East Hampton Star publishing family that is "one of the oldest in East Hampton and includes several generations of whalers" was taking a sailing class in Maine while there to write an article for Vogue. Everything about that last sentence makes you jealous, admit it! Looking to find someone to chaperone her on a sailboat, she found "laconic Welshman" Paul Gartside, a naval architect who was teaching a class on boat design.

Several days later, after Gartside invited Rattray to join him in a regatta, they parted ways and he returned to Vancouver Island. But seriously, fuck you youngs and your sexting: you're not going to seal the deal unless you actually seal an envelope:

Neither believed their interaction was more than a brief flirtation, but after returning home they each received a note from the other expressing great pleasure in their meeting.

The notes crossed paths in the mail, and three months later it was Mr. Gartside who crossed the continent as he embarked on a different kind of voyage.

How baller is that? They got married in Nevis. They really don't make freelance writers the way they used to. And last year they adopted an Ethiopian baby. Someone needs to acquire the film rights to these people. I'm seeing Meryl, or maybe Emma Thompson, I'm seeing John Slattery in a fisherman's sweater …

Mia Feldbaum and Mark McGoldrick also met over water sports, only in this case it was a canoe trip in the Yukon territory and one of them was paralyzed from the waist down.

The "combustible fuel of alcohol, drugs, and trouble" of McGoldrick's adolescence left him paralyzed (there's a copy editing error in the lede of the Times piece, see if you can spot it) but also inspired him to travel the world and graduate cum laude from Harvard Law. The pair met when Mia was leading the 800-mile canoe trip — "Mark and Mia met tough," remarked Mia's father. "They had grizzlies, floods, mud, big snags in the river."

The couple survived all those things, and also survived this small bit of creepinees:

When the canoe trip ended, the group boarded a van headed to Edmonton, Alberta, where Mr. McGoldrick would depart.

"She's driving through the night and everyone else behind us is sleeping," he recalled. "I was reciting poetry to her, very softly."

Unclear on whether it was the poetry of a wedding toast RAP.

Moving on, guess how old this woman is!

Freaking SIXTY. I mean, not bad, right!? I want what she's having, even if what she's having is minimally invasive.

That's Susan Mendik, who is really short and loves golf and one time she got stuck in Palm Beach, where she winters, on Valentine's Day in a snowstorm and she ended up meeting up with Moe Tarkinow, whom she had been fixed up with previously, and the proposal story kind of confuses me because I guess he had custom chopsticks printed up with with the name Suzy Tarkinow on them and gave them to her during her 60th birthday dinner and "the whole place erupted" but then she mentions that the next morning after she thought about it "I knew it was the right time and the right man" but does that mean she actually said "Let me think about it" at the time in front of the erupting room? Because if so, imagine how the servers must have felt!

Elsewhere this weekend, a bride named Rainbow would have a nondenominational wedding; the "founder of PhemPhat Productions, an entertainment company in Toronto that promotes women in hip-hop and produces the annual Honey Jam concert" must really have gotten all the good wedding toasts; I know it's traditional but I still think it's awkward for just the bride to pose for a picture; this man, as far as I can tell, loitered at college bars looking for younger women … and it worked!; this mother of the bride is named Phyllis Meller and she is a wedding planner - email me, Phyllis, so I can interview you!; and this bride is an aggregate composite sketch of what every dietician I have ever met looks like.

Oh, and I'm not going to watch the video this week, although I do admit that the teaser in the print section of the paper telling me that "Mr. Buxton later proposed over a rigged game of Boggle."

This week's matchup:

Emily Theriault and Luca Laino

• The couple were married at The Racquet and Tennis Club in New York, a fancy club where old men swim and then pad down the hallways totally in the nude: +2
• The couple met at Dartmouth where they both received MBAs: +7
• Both are investment bankers: +2
• The bride is a VP and the groom is an associate: -1
• The groom's father is an opthalmology professor at Cornell medical school: +1
• The groom went to Camp Trin Trin: +1

TOTAL: 12

Helen Bailey and Farhad Manjoo

The bride graduated magna cum laude from Yale and received a medical degree at UC-Davis: +7
The groom graduated from Cornell: +3
The groom writes about Facebook and Kindles and Y2K for Slate (his advice on blogging: "Don't expect instant fame" and "Don't worry if your posts suck a little". Duly noted!): +2
I am a Slate fangirl: +1
The bride's father is a senior Lockheed Martin engineer: +2
They both wear power-nerd glasses: +2

TOTAL: 17. I just want to know what password Manjoo uses for his registry.

It's fine for someone to be quirky, and John Mayer certainly seems to be better than your average pop star, and/or prettyboy singer-songwriter. There's no reason for him to be giving rapey interview quotes.

You know that scene in Bull Durham, where Kevin Costner is coaching Tim Robbins on what to say to the press? This is it:

Exactly.

Stick to the press lines, John Mayer. Or at least don't come off as rapey. And the thing is, it's not like he even has to come off as rapey.

Fact: He is smart! Blues guitarists are notoriously sharp people. He can play mean blues guitar. Which takes brains and talent. When he isn't making his rapey guitarface.

Fact: He has done funny things that aren't rapey before. Like walking around in a bear suit before his shows screwing with his fans. Or riffing with Dave Chappelle.

Now, remember when he told New York Magazine that he'd basically rape Jada Yuan (or Mark Graham)?

....the next record will have that concept.

What concept?
More political things, worldly things.

Such as?
Nothing rhymed with public option.

You don't always have to rhyme, though.
I'm going to forcefully sodomize your editor.

Ha ha, so funny, except there's truth in every joke, John Mayer. We'll excuse it because if you have a good sense of humor and forget that there's truth in every joke, John Mayer, it can be pretty goddamn funny.

Now, a few weeks later, and John gets profiled by New York Times pop music writer Jon Caramanica, who is the man and writes great stuff. So you should know not to be a pervy-sounding maybe-anal-rapist when Jon Caramanica is interviewing you, John Mayer, and get on your game, and try to be taken relatively seriously, because you could get a very, very great piece of press in a big publication by a talented pop music writer, right?

Caramanica's lede, in a piece called, John Mayer Just Has to Please the Girls:

"I should be having sex with more girls." This is what John Mayer concluded, using slightly more colorful language, last Sunday night at his anonymously modern apartment in SoHo.

Okay, so,
lives in a sparse modernist apartment,
makes jokes about anal rape (or "forcible sodomy"),
thinks he should be having sex with more women,
is a famous rock star.

Oh, and this:

"It's crazy to me that in my head, that being 32 and dating women is going to get me in trouble," he said, talking faster as he went along. "I can't even explain to you how terrible that feels, that I equate dating a woman with punishment, shame, guilt, disappointment, reproach, reprimand, persecution. It's a nightmare."

Who has these issues? John Mayer has shame about dating women and getting in trouble? No. Fucking no! Telling young, female New York reporters you're going to anally rape their editors will get you in *trouble! From where does your "shame" come from John Mayer? HM?! Are you hiding something?!

Hopefully, John Mayer is not Patrick Bateman.

That said, Caramanica's piece ends like so. You be the judge:

At the encore, though, he let the public invade the private. "They say I'm a womanizer," he complained. "I say I haven't met enough women." The crowd cheered. Shrieked, really. Maybe things weren't so bad after all. "Cute girl," Mr. Mayer said, pointing into the sea of eager faces. "Cute girl. Cute girl. Kuh-yoot girl."

*John Mayer is welcome to tell me he will forcibly rape my editors, since all seven of them are all older men, and I see the humor in that. All seven of them.
**There is maybe truth in every joke, John Mayer.

Not exaggerating. Martha Stewart got asked by CNN why Sarah Palin's polarizing. Martha calls her "boring," "confused," "a dangerous person," and a "real problem." The best is when Martha throws down on a patronizing "good for her" when told about her book sales and then, after, "I wouldn't watch her if you pay me." SHOTS FIRED!

And then there's this wonderful clip. Palin dipped out of a signing early, and got booed by her fans, who were pissed that they didn't get their books signed. It goes without saying that Palin's fans sound just as patently insane hating her as they do loving her, but hey, you can't put lipstick on an neglectful idol, or whatever. Or you can, but, she's still gonna stiff you for a book signature.

This sounds like the worst book tour ever.

...As opposed to former New York Times $25 and Under food writer Peter Meehan and Momofuku Cookbook chef David Chang's book tour. Which goes something like this:

WHY was somebody calling me? Didn't they know I was still DRUNK from the night before? It was 5:00 a.m. Tosi explained to me what was going on. I had to get to Ssam Bar to pick up her and Gabe, a cook who'd be coming down to help us, and head to LGA. I was fucked up. Tosi wanted to kill me. I was literally falling over in a drunken stupor like Dudley Moore in Arthur. My life had two-day hangover written all over it. Arrive at airport at 5:50 for a 6:30 am flight and magically got on. For some reason, the flight got delayed for four hours... but it was all news to me: I pilled myself out, so I came to on the runway in Memphis.

See, Sarah Palin! If you're gonna do the book tour of a dangerous person who doesn't give a shit about pissing people off, there's a right way, and a wrong way. As far as signing books goes, if you ever need help, don't be afraid to ask. We might know a thing or two about it to help you on your way.

[Photo by Shealah Craighead, via the Going Rogue Facebook Group.]

So: we got teased yesterday and this morning with two great pieces on Glenn Beck talking in his strange, voodoo-esque language on whatever way he plans to molest and exploit the minds of whoever will lend him an open ear to aim his ideological piss into. The first was the aforementioned Politico note, which quoted Beck teasing his big ideas on his show. But this was fun! Remember that scary 9/12 Project that was presumed to have gone away because only crazy people listened to crazy people and hey, there can't be that many crazy people who are that organized. We call those cults, and there are lots of them, sure. But they don't represent any kind of frightening majority. Because crazy people need crazy leaders with power and a platform and there aren't really any of those out there as completely insane as the 9/12ers are, right?

Christine Drawdy, a Florida event promoter involved in the tea party and 9/12 movements who is listed as the travel coordinator for the 2010 march, said the permit for the march is in the name of The 9.12 Project's administrator, Yvonne Donnelly. Though Drawdy stressed that Beck "is not the leader of" the 912 movement, she added "all he has to do is say something, and they'll jump."

And by 'jump,' she means, kill people.

Brian Stetler at the New York Times also talked to Beck before today. Stetler's a sizable dude, not someone I imagine can be easily intimidated, nice as he is. Really, he could probably bounce a guy Glenn Beck's size easily.

That said, I imagine he'll be sleeping in the fetal position tonight:

"We'll be looking for ways to get people involved in politics," [Beck] said. "I hear people saying, ‘O.K., now what?' They're calling their representative, but it's time to get more proactive."

Right. So. What was Beck's big plan? He unveiled it today, starting with his website, which is the image you see at the top of this post. One more thing before we get there, though. This video, taken at a Borders yesterday, of Beck teasing out The Plan.

"We're gonna be asking of you some big things." Funny, I've been told the same thing by my bosses, but the first thought that went through my head never involved any kind of civil war and/or revolution.

But hey, Beck: he's just passionate! No way could this entire rollout involve the guy cashing in.

No way could all of this buzz, this entire thing, all of this talk about "community organizing"—taking The Dirty Word of President Barack Obama's past and platform, and putting it to their own new, awesome, terrible uses—no way could Beck be leading his flock into spending some cash.

Funny, then, that they found out that The Plan was for them to spend more money on Glenn Beck, The Brand. Observe his two key points from the manifesto written on his website:

- I have begun meeting with some of the best minds in the country that believe in limited government, maximum freedom and the values of our Founders. I am developing a 100 year plan. I know that the bipartisan corruption in Washington that has brought us to this brink and it will not be defeated easily. It will require unconventional thinking and a radical plan to restore our nation to the maximum freedoms we were supposed to have been protecting, using only the battlefield of ideas.

- All of the above will culminate in The Plan, a book that will provide specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps that each of us can take to play a role in this Refounding.

Kinda sounds like a cross between Avon and the Left Behind series, right? Except with scarier salespeople who have drier hands.

Yeah, Glenn Beck's got a plan: for the next 100 years, he's gonna keep writing books and making TV shows, and his fans are going to keep buying into both of them. It's kind of genius. His entire multimedia empire is predicated on one, long, 100-year plot arc: that the main character will make viewers'/listeners'/readers' lives better so long as they're with him every step of the way. The man will make references to revolution, to change, to bringing everything back to a fundamental state. The beautiful irony he has to see and embrace—in order for this to have worked as long as it has—is that the only real movement he'll be making is into better cars and larger houses. The kinds that are far away from the rabid zombies who salivate at every vague allusion to blood and violence Mama Bird spits out like discarded pieces of chewing gum for them to suck every last grain of sweet flavor out of. The kind, if provoked, and unleashed, are as much as a threat to anybody as they are to him. A "random act of violence" is never really that random, is it? Especially when the word "radical" gets thrown around over, and over, and over.

More than anything, this guy is a threat to the proliferation of rational thought. Beck knows that there're people in the world who listen to this kind of nonsense without processing it any way but through their emotions, because they're tired, hungry, scared, or angry, and maybe, sometimes, rightfully so. Then again, so are most of us! But when you have an asshole like Beck running the con, one thing leads to another, and shit like this happens. Believe me, nothing would bring me more joy than to watch Glenn Beck get the Downfall-meme treatment after his empire of exploitative bullshit comes crumbling down under the weight of the inevitable rise of the truth: that this man is a crook, a fraud, a shyster, and a very skilled, sophisticated con artist. But who wants it to get that far?

Glenn Beck does have one up on Hitler in terms of likability: a decent Kermit impersonation. I'm pretty sure nobody with such an affection for Muppets can possibly be capable of anything too terrible.

Then again, evil, as we're all aware, is a scary, subversive force, and comes in all forms, at all times, with little to no discretion. Beware.

[Top image via Glenn Beck's website. Bottom image via Bert Is Evil.]