Yes, that's a real, live raccoon you see in John Varvatos' SoHo shop, on the corner of Spring and Greene. According to the nice lady I talked to when I called, animal control sadly took him away before they had time to name him, after a significant crowd had gathered outside. She had no idea how he got in, and no idea where Animal Control took him to.

I also inquired if they sell fur, and she said they didn't, that some of their items had shearling on it, and I was like, is that fake fur? And she was like, no, but it's like, wool. So I concluded that the animal was not going to be hastily skinned and used for a John Varvatos product.

Varvatos' trademark streak of rock and roll aesthetics in his work goes uninterrupted. After using guys like Iggy Pop in his fashion campaigns, using rock photographer Danny Clinch to shoot them, and most significantly, saving CBGB from becoming a Chase branch by turning it into one of his high-end fashion boutiques to much controversy and outcry by angry people who still thought CBGB meant something besides its status as a relic - which he preserved by keeping much of the original rock club intact - this isn't surprising. He's embracing some punkass animals looking to stir up some shit in his stores! Rock. More of this, please.

[Special thanks to our tipster Cheryl Tan, who has a blog and who is having an awesome day.]

Richelle Olson's scene (which was apparently cut, per the comments) has her hosting a charity bingo game with a mostly elderly audience when "Bruno" starts to call out the numbers with "vulgarities." Olson, her husband, and their lawyer Kyle Madison originally alleged that Baron Cohen and her camera crew assaulted her, which caused her to run off stage crying hysterically, falling unconscious, and hitting her head on a concrete slab, which caused two brain bleeds and now has her "confined to a wheelchair."

Universal then released that it was actually Olson assaulting Baron Cohen, and showed the footage of it to Madison. He's since amended the lawsuit to drop the charges of assault and battery. But they're still pressing on:

"The amendment to the original complaint does not change the cause of the injuries plead in the original complaint," Madison says. "Mrs. Olson's brain injuries were never alleged to have been derived from an assault or battery. She suffered two brain bleeds after the confrontation ensued with Mr. Baron Cohen. According to California case law, any injuries deriving from intentional infliction of emotional distress are recoverable. Mr. Baron Cohen and those associated with the production of 'Bruno,' are accountable for inflicting serious emotional distress and the resulting injuries to Mrs. Olson."

The movie is currently wiping the box office competition all over the place; they're slated for the third-highest comedy opening in Australia, and the film's now projected by the studio to make $35.8M in the weekend wrap, which, according to Nikki Finke, would make it one of the five highest R-rated comedy openings ever.

Again, if Borat's record shows anything, it's that Baron Cohen and his respective studios set up enough legal shields to protect themselves from almost any kind of liability, anywhere. Ambulance chasers and their clients are always more than suspect; they bring to mind a particularly bad episode of The People's Court. That being said, how fair is it of Baron Cohen and his team to descend on otherwise non public-figures and film scenes with them that can potentially change the way they live their lives thereafter? Maybe not at all; many of the people got in front of the camera under somewhat false pretenses. Then again, they're in front of the camera. There's always that.

'Bruno' bingo victim drops assault and battery claims [THR, Esq.]
'BRUNO' IST BIG: $14.2M Friday Opening; Sacha Too Shocking For $40M Weekend [DHD]

First, it should be noted that any New Yorker in their right mind wouldn't be caught in tourist trap CPK; sure, they have decent salads, if you want pear and Gorgonzola on your pizza, they have it, and if you work on Park in the 30s, it's a great place to go, I guess. That being said, the Page Six reports issues with Ruthie's dining experience:

Slinking into the East Side eatery with a young female friend, she ordered a salad and white wine, but quickly got flustered. "The waiter said she was upset because she had coupons and they expired before she could use them," a witness told us, adding that several diners told the waiters they shouldn't serve her. One bit of good news for Ruth, though — she'd just learned her Ponzi-schemer hubby, Bernie Madoff, will be locked away in upstate Otisville, the prison his lawyer had requested. "I'm so glad! It's just what we wanted," she gushed to her dining companion. On her way out, one female diner shouted "Goodnight, Ruth!" The frosty-blond Madoff ignored her, but her dining partner cringed.

Emphasis mine. Really, that's kind of sweet, that she was gushing about her hubby being close to her. Maybe she's eyeing it for an investment! Their stock just went up five percent, though I don't know how much the introduction of a Cheeseburger Pizza will help them. And honestly, CPK isn't the type of company that's above serving Ruth Madoff. Seriously.

That being said, we've done Ruth the favor of highlighting some promotions that she can more than take advantage of over the next few weeks as she adjusts to her new fiscal disposition. Lucky for her, it's Restaurant Week in New York, beginning tomorrow!

Look at all of these awesome Upper East Side eateries Ruth can take advantage of in her quest to shave a little scrilla here and there! Finally, in lieu of correcting that whole Pizza/Salad debacle, she can trek out to Williamsburg, where one of New York Times soon-to-retire food critic Frank Bruni's (and my!) new favorite pizza joints resides: Motorino has a great $10 prix-fixe lunch that comes with a personal pizza AND a salad. Also, Williamsburg hipsters will no doubt enjoy the ironic cache that comes with having Ruth Madoff in your neighborhood. A win-win situation for everyone!

PIZZA PREDICAMENT FOR RUTH MADOFF [Page Six]

Things you should know about getting a free Slurpee on a hot-as-balls summer day: it's gonna be tough, so bear down. We suggest wearing riot gear, or at least making some kind of scene so people will be okay with you cutting in line. Maybe an oversized costume, so people will be charmed - har har, how cute, he's dressed as a giant iPod or whatever - and let you pass through. Maybe buy a single Miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups so you don't have to wait, and you can snap your fingers and be all like, I'M A PAYING CUSTOMER, GODDAMNIT, MOVE. BY THE WAY I HEAR THIS SLURPEE IS FREE. IS THIS TRUE? Or maybe you might just have to wait it out.

Gawker's crack team of culinary experts does not suggest mixing flavors on this day - it's July 11th, 7/11, get it? - and you know some flavors will be more well-tended to than others, more often than not, the Coca Cola one. Go with that.

Today is also a wonderful day for 7/11 to trot out a bunch of cute, press-releasey trivia on the Slurpee. Ready?

• Slurpee drinks are all served at 28 degrees.
  
  
• Slurpee was "invented" when some sodas were put in a freezer to cool them down - and they became all slushy.
  
  
• Winnipeg, Canada is generally thought to be the Slurpee capital of the world, due to their amazing Slurpee fanaticism.
  
  
• When Slurpee first hit the market, it wasn't self-serve. The machine was behind the counter and the clerk served the product to you.
  
  
• At Slurpee, we call it a BrainFreeze. The scientific name for it is Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia. Really.
  
  
• Sugar is the anti-freezing agent in most Slurpee drinks.
  
  
• American Slurpee is injected with air. Canadian Slurpee is not. [Ed. Fuckin' Canadians. HA! Yet again, another way in which we trump you. Our Slurpees have air.]
  
  
• Every day more than 11.6 million Slurpee drinks are consumed around the world.
  
  
• n 2004, 7-Eleven created an edible Slurpee straw. [Ed. Excuse me? Is this edible plastic we're talking about? Genius. I love to chew on plastic. Seriously.]
  
  
• Only one private individual owns a bona fide Slurpee machine. The rest are in 7-Eleven.

Wonderful! Other things you may not have been aware of that you might want to be: Last year's food riots aren't so far in the past, speaking of riots! Last month world hunger "reached the 1 Billion Mark." The globalizing forces of the world are now thinking that maybe people dying everywhere from a lack of free Slurpees might not be so good, so they're staring at teenage asses and then tossing a bunch of money at the problem and we're gonna see what happens, starting with the whole "teach a village of landlocked people how to fish" idiom and moving forward from there. Anyway. Just something to think about when you're sucking down that wonderful cup of icy goodness. In the First World, we get free Slurpees. Everywhere else, you just go hungry. Sigh. Anyway, remember: don't mix flavors! Meanwhile, the ICEE Bear goes in his cave of Cherry Awesome and cries.

Free Slurpee Day Coming To A 7-Eleven Near You [Associated Content]
7-11 Store Locations [7-11]
G8 Summit Tackles Food Supplies [BBC via Modern Ghana]
Google Image Results For "Hunger Riots" [Google Image Search]

Last night, a photograph emerged showing what appeared to be our president ostentatiously enjoying the rump of a young "junior G8 delegate" during a public event in Rome. It naturally made waves on the Internet, starting with Matt Drudge, since it looked a lot like Obama was enjoying the view. But this morning, ABC News aired video of the same event that seemed to exonerate Obama. We concur, with reservations. Here's our analysis:

The Set-Up
Obama is standing next to a woman (Woman A) on a dais with oversized steps. Woman A is to his right. Over the next several seconds, the pair will execute the following maneuver: Obama will step down, right leg first, to the lower stair in front of him. He will then turn to his right, grasp Woman A's left hand in his right, and steady her as she steps down after him.

The Interloper
At 0.8 seconds into the maneuver (the timestamps here are from ABC News video that was played in slow-motion, and don't reflect that actual amount of time elapsed), a woman with an attreactive rear end (Woman B) begins to execute her own maneuver: She will step up to the level Obama and Woman A are stepping down from, in the process rotating her body in such a way that exposes her ass to Obama's field of vision. In this frame, Obama has completed his step down, but his back is to Woman A. So he begins the process of rotating his body toward her so as to offer her his hand. But—and this is crucial—he begins that rotation with his head. Here, he has begun swiveling it to the right. Also crucial: Woman B was not in Obama's field of vision prior to the initiation of his head-turn—in other words, he could not have begun turning his head to get a better look.

The Turn
At 1.3 seconds, Obama begins bringing his left shoulder around to follow the turn he initiated with his head. At this point Woman B's ass comes into his field of vision. But Obama's head is still in mid-turn—he's bringing it around to see Woman A, whom he intends to help down the stair. Woman A begins preparing for this by moving the item she'd been holding in her left hand—a credential? A program?—to her right hand, freeing up her left for Obama's. This indicates that some sort of communication or coordination, verbal or otherwise, had transpired between the two to indicate to Woman A that Obama intended to help her down the step.

The Kill Shot
This still, at 1.6 seconds, is from the precise moment that the photograph was taken. Obama is looking directly at Woman B's ass. But where else would he look? His head is still rotating, in a downward sweep, to his right. Down, and to the right. Down, and to the right. Woman A has initiated her step down. Obama is continuing his body-turn, led by his head, to line up with her so as to grab her hand. The photograph appears to show Obama craning his neck to check out Woman B's ass, when in fact the moment is a chance alignment of ass and visual field that any man knows as a freebie—he has been presented with a visual prize that he actually can't look away from, since to do so would interrupt the maneuver he's engaged in to help Woman A. So yes, Obama was almost certainly checking out Woman B's ass, but only insofar as it presented itself to him.

The Stop
At 2.4 seconds, Obama's head-turn reaches its apogee and he stays fixed on Woman B's feet as she prepares to step down. He has completed his body-turn. Woman A's ass is still in his field of vision, but he is not looking at it anymore. How do we know?

The Step
Because at 2.9 seconds, as Woman A is in mid-step and obscures Woman B's ass, Obama's head and body are in precisely the same orientation as the previous frame. If he had been following Woman B's ass, he would have moved his head or body to maintain contact with it. But he is clearly fixed on Woman A's feet as she steps.

The Landing
At 3.7 seconds, the maneuver is complete. Obama's head and body maintain precisely the same orientation as the previous two frames, but Woman B's ass is behind him to his right. As ABC News pointed out in the video these stills were taken from, Sarkozy is leaning wildly to check it out. That's what it looks like when someone takes a gander of a lady's ass.

Firefly honcho Tom Freston's yoga-loving wife Kathy seems to have forgotten to pack a bra. She seems over it; Tom doesn't.

As AOL's Tim Armstrong learned, IAC chief Barry Diller is entirely comfortable meeting in the bushes.

Rupert Murdoch, after being charmed by Haim Saban and News Corp. underling David DeVoe.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt explains to Microsoft's Nathan Myhrvold and Bill Gates how his new Chrome OS will reduce Windows to a "poorly-debugged set of device drivers."

Harvey Weinstein demands to speak with the insensitive hack who called him a "stress eater."

Walking alone, Twitter's Evan Williams remains aloof.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg listens as Microsoft's Myhrvold critiques his Bill Gates impression.

Eric Schmidt explains how Larry Page conned him into launching another operating system.

Former eBay honcho Meg Whitman brought her trophy husband, all the better to ask for gubernatorial campaign donations with.

Salt Lake County prosecutors filed charges late Thursday against Kari Michelle Ferrell, 22. She is now charged with one count of identity fraud and issuing a bad check, both third-degree felonies. She was also charged with two misdemeanor counts of issuing a bad check.

That's in addition to the $60,000 she was already charged with stealing. The new charges are related to bad checks, and opening a cable account in someone else's name. And hey, you think our commenters are bad? Here's some of the hometown sentiment:

[KSL.com, TribTowns.com]

The story, as of Monday: a Facebook friend of Audra commented, "obama bin lauden is the new terrorist....muslim is on there side .....need to take this country back from all these mad coons.......and illegals." And Audra responded: "You tell em Eric! lol."

Audra unfriended some people who complained about her reaction, but not racist Eric himself. And then the internet heard about it. But Audra is still running to be chairwoman of the Young Republicans. And John Avlon at The Daily Beast has tracked down all the other examples of Audra's Facebook nuttiness.

The weird and sad thing is that everything she writes is utterly crazy and deranged, but it is so within the current bounds of acceptable political discourse that we are like "why is she worse than Jim DeMint, again?" But here you go, here is the crazy:

In October 2008, in the wake of news that an effigy of Sarah Palin was being hung outside an affluent Hollywood home as an offensive Halloween decoration, Shay replied, returning to the "LOL" style that she employed after the "coons" comment: "What no ‘Obama in a noose? Come on now, its just freedome (sic) of speech, no one in Atlanta would take that wrong! Lol."

Posting and endorsing a conspiracy theory video that attempts to prove that Obama believes he can only "ensure his own salvation" and "fate" if he helps African-Americans above whites, complete with Barnum-esque captions ("LISTEN AS HE ATTACKS WHITE PEOPLE").

And so on! And she will still probably win her campaign for chairwoman of the Young Republicans. None of these crazy comments disqualifies her from leading them, because this is already what old Republicans say, openly, on TV and on the radio, all the time. So, good luck, Audra Shay. You certainly do represent the future of the Republican party!

But seriously, is this not one of the best presidential photographs of all-time? Even Sarkozy looks like he's sneaking a peek, though he's French, so we expect him to do it. However, in Obama's defense, that is a great ass!

And naturally, Drudge is having some fun with this.

We can't wait to see Robert Gibbs try to spin this one.

Photo by Jason Reed for Reuters/Landov via TMZ

(UPDATE: The complete Top Ten has been embedded below.)

CBS posted the rather hilarious preview onto YouTube earlier and we'll post the full Top Ten here later after the show has aired and it's available online, but it looks pretty funny.

One last thing re: Bruno/Sacha Baron Cohen. We were chatting with a show business "insider" earlier today who offered an interesting tidbit as to why Cohen appeared on Letterman out of character earlier in the week—Word is that Bruno isn't tracking well in middle America where "viewers might not exactly be in on the joke," or, more likely, stricken with homophobia, so the studio may have been thinking that giving these people a chance to see that the star of the movie isn't actually gay may make them more willing to see the film. We'll see soon enough.

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The problem was with Ayiiiiiiia. How do you solve a problem like Ayiiiia? How do you catch a frown and ask it to leave the house? No one knows.

This episode was one of those ones that's edited to such a weird degree that you can't really tell what's what or when's when. As the vomit-splattered curtain was drawn back on the scene last night, Emily and Ayiiiia and Shabazzle were getting along famously. They were riding pennyfarthing bicycles down by the arcade. They were flying kites and going to kissing booths and eating cotton candy and doing this and doing all of this stuff and it was summertime every minute of every day, just breezes and balms. Everyone was so happy!

Except Johnnay. Johnnay wasn't happy because she was sitting up on the deck, her black hair matted in nest-like snarls atop her little round marble head, staring down at the three frolicking ladies and seething. But she didn't care, she didn't care that they were having the best time of their lives, that they were becoming Sistahs with a capital SISTAHS, because she had the boys. She had tumble-topped Binky with his suspicious accent, creepy-faced Bronne with his bleary creeper features, that gay one, and Melody, the tattooed rocker hunk with chestnutty good looks and a badass attitude. She has all of them! So she doesn't need Ayiiiia or Emily or Mafarffle. And they don't need her.

So the house was divided and everyone was drunk so they couldn't stand. While at the club one night, Ayiiiia decided to up and leave and everyone got worried because this is downtown Mexico where the national pastime is gringo abduction and the official currency is crumpled twenties covered in blood. After 45 minutes of looking and yelling her name for a while ("Ayiiiia! Ayiiiiiiiia!" it sounded like Japanese soldiers dying in comic books from World War II), they finally found her standing on the street. Now if your roommates had been looking for you and had been worried that you were going to wind up mostly dead in the back of a rusted-out El Camino, you'd naturally do what Ayiiiiia did, I think. Which was yell at them. She got mad that they'd been worried and looking for her. Because... that makes complete sense I guess. So we started to see some cracks in the Ayiiiia veneer there.

This didn't stop the three girlyfriends from hanging out though. Mad that Johnnay had gone to lunch with the boys one day, they decided to go out club dancing without her. Just Ayiiiia and Emily and Verdell. So they went and drank fizzy drinks and the lights swirled and Emily saw Ayiiiia there across the way, grinding her hips into the air, her horsey bucks and thrusts hypnotic in their crassness. So when the ladies got home, sprawling down the stairs in their pointy boots and pointier features, Ayiiiiia and Emily left Gargamel twirling in the kitchen and went to bed. They went to bed, not to sleep. If you catch my meaning. If you're picking up what I'm laying down. What I mean to say is... I'm pretty sure that Emily and Ayiiia from The Real World: Cancun had sexual relations with each other after their girls' night out. So.

Sistahs were totally bonded! Everything was peachy keen! Except nothing was peachy keen. See while the three weird sisters were friendies, Johnnay was still hulking off in the perimeter, like Sirius Black in dog form. And as she stewed in her lonely juices, she riled up the dumb boys, who were just off in a corner hooting and throwing their feces around and drinking and annoying Emily. Dark clouds began to form in Em's eyes and the Earth began to tremble ever so slightly. But no one noticed, not yet. But soon they would.

Because they are nice or vain or probably both, the straight boys Binky and Bronne agreed to escort Derek to a gay bar for gay people. The gay bar in Cancun was basically like any other bar in Cancun except it was full of mens and only a scattered handful of women—those that just wanted to dance and not be bothered, those that needed the reassuring touch of a man but couldn't find it in Straightville. Bronne had asked Derek to "gay him up as hard as he could," which I half-chuckled at and thought That could make a could joke but really it's just too flat and boring. Gay me up real hard. Hardee hard hard. Bronne. Bronne was that guy you knew in college who was always just trying a little too hard. Wanted to be the party animal and the ladykiller and brah's brah and all that but was never quite sure how to do it, and you could tell that he was wildly reinventing himself from some nerdy obscurity he toiled in in high school and you sorta felt bad for him so you tolerated him and let him hang around but the more and more he pushed and pushed and pushed the more you got angry at him and eventually you just ditched him forever because oh holy God it was worth being an asshole and losing karma points because now he's gone and won't bother you and ahh blessed relief. Remember that dude? That is Bronne. It's sad.

ANYWAY. Nothing remarkable happened at the gay nightclub for gay people except that on the way back Derek got caught by a groundskeeper for peeing in the bushes and the small fellow tried to take him to apologize to the manager but Derek deftly eluded him by saying "No, I was just vomiting" and then making throw-up noises and motions. Blehhh Blehhhh! he went. And I felt bad for the teeny tiny Mexican man who was just trying to do his job, but really, son? Peeing in the bushes merits an awkward sitdown with the manager? This is Can-motherhumpin'-cun, friendo! The bushes must be practically made of pee at this point. Let it slide, dude. Just let it slide.

So the boys were supes drunks that night and when they woke up at 8 am, for a very important Student City business conference that involved ziplines and seal kissing, they were still drunk. Melody really wanted to be on time so he started bellowing the time to everyone and Bronne just acted cray-zay (it was just so exhausting to watch) and Emily started clawing at the walls and eventually she exploded into a furious ball of boy hating and screaming. The boys were not scared of her rage, just bemused by it, so they kept egging her on and she got madder and madder and when they finally got to the Student City Sitting In a Hammock Leadership Conference, she refused to participate in any of their reindeer games. She was mad at her roommates so she decided to punish herself with no fun zipline rides. I don't get it.

ANYWAY. Emily was also kinda mad at her once beloved Ayiiiia, because when the shit hit the fan with the boys, only brave Mulligatawny was woman enough to stand at her side and fight. Ayiiiia, on the other hand, just disappeared into an occluding smoke and mist of mutters and bleeped swears, carrying on some fight with herself and maybe other people, it was hard to tell. Whatever it was, Emily felt it was a Reason Why Not to like Ayiiiiia anymore. So being a mature individual, she decided to just not talk to her anymore. Like, really, she just blatantly ignored direct questions. She and Bilbao finally made friends with the boys and Johnnay again, and Emily apologized for being a bitchy bitch because it's not nice to be that way when you live with people for a TV show.

Ayiiiia sat alone in a hammock, sticking pins into little Melody-shaped dolls.

Back at the ranch, Ayiiia was stomping around and starting fights with people. She shoved Binky down a flight of stairs for no good reason. Derek came up and tried to give her a hug, so Ayiiiia ran him through with a curtain rod. He slumped over dead. Melody came walking by, singing a song, and she based a priceless Ming vase over his head. Ker-thunk. Johnnay was in another room entirely, doing her knitting, but Ayiiiiia closed her eyes really really tight and focused really really hard and suddenly Johnnay felt a pain in her head and then fell over, perished. Suffices to say, Ayiiiiia was in a bad mood. But then she made a critical error. She started some shit with Schlimazel. Their fight went like this:

AYIIIIA: Let's get in a fight, but don't be attitudey.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude? Who's got attitude?

AYIIIIA: You've got attitude.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude? I've got attitude?

AYIIIIA: Attitude: You've got it.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude?

AYIIIIA: Attitude.

SCHLIMAZEL: Attitude.

That was a verbatim transcription. They just said the word attitude back and forth for ten minutes and then both stormed away. Later Shlomo was bitching to Emily about their newfound Enemy and said Enemy was caught lurking behind curtains, listening. It was like that movie The Lives of Others except in this case instead of a conflicted East German Stasi officer listening in on a playwright, it was a stupid girl named Ayiiiia who won an online contest to be on a reality show standing behind a curtain in Cancun. But they're close relatives!

Finally the two lovers, dim Emily and rabid Ayiiiiiia, got in the spat to end all spats, shrieking and caterwauling while the other roommates milled about the living room like Sims that you don't control, they're part of some other person's game, and finally Ayiiiia said "At least I wasn't fucking adopted!!!" and ... oh dear, Ayiiiiiia. Just oh dear.

So that was basically the end of Ayiiiiia. All the other roommates were happy as clams, and decided to play kings. When they got to 9 Bust a Rhyme, Crickets or Fallujah or Jasmine or Attitudes or whatever her name is said both "cat" and "hat" which is really annoying because she took two words when she only needed one.

ANYWAY. Ayiiiiia went to go drink wine on the porch by herself. Which, all things being equal, is not a bad way to spend an evening. Watching the Mexican waves roll in while sipping wine and not having to go to work or pay bills or do anything unpleasant tomorrow. But when you're roommates are inside doing waterfalls and 2 For Yous and hating you, I guess it's a sad thing to be doing. So I guess Ayiiiia might go home. Pity.

What is it, though, about these contest winners? They never work out! Remember that fool from the Hollywood season a couple years back? Man that guy was a DISASTER. I mean, Ayiiiia sorta worked for a little while—she even did a lady!—but I guess it had to come to this. Yelling for no reason and then lonely porch drinking. Maybe the end came in the beginning, when she started bitching about dishes. It's never a good idea to bitch about dishes on this show. It just never works out well.

ANYWAY.

Here:

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We reported yesterday that Politico's Mike Allen was spotted milling about as a guest at the White House's "backyard bash" by the pool reporter, who was allowed into the event for 40 minutes and kept in a pen before being ushered out. When Allen quoted from the pool report in his Playbook column the next day, he deleted a reference to his own name and didn't bother to tell his readers that he was actually at the party.

Well, he wasn't alone. Gawker has learned that the White House gave tickets to virtually every major news organization that covers the president—the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, CBS News, and so on, about 30 in all. The reporters were invited to attend on the following condition:

"You are being invited to attend this event as a guest. Blogging, Twittering or otherwise reporting on this event is not permitted. If you feel that you cannot agree to abide by these ground rules, please don't claim a ticket."

That's right: Much of the White House press corps spent the Fourth schmoozing with White House staffers, catching performances by the Foo Fighters and Jimmy Fallon, and watching the fireworks from the most exclusive vantage point in the D.C. metro area, all off the record—not to mention off-the-Facebook and off-the-Twitter. These are the same people who just a week ago were whining in the press briefing about Obama's malicious and dastardly attempts to "control the press." (Well, not the self-same people—we're not sure if Chip Reid and Helen Thomas, the primary antagonists in that exchange, were in attendance.)

There is a cosmic irony at work here: The party was "closed press." (Ha!) It was covered, under onerous restrictions, by a pool reporter—the Baltimore Sun's Paul West. West was ushered in by White House staffers for a mere 40 minutes, so he could record the president's remarks. He was kept in a pen so that he wouldn't run amok and interview someone. He shouted questions at Obama as he worked the rope line, which the president ignored. Then he was taken away. West wrote up his blindered account of the party and then e-mailed it to the White House press corps, many of whom were actually at the party, outside of the pen, hanging out with all the other guests. And then, because they had temporarily signed away the right to do their jobs in exchange for facetime with staffers, a few cold Stoudt's American Pale Ales, and some corn on the cob, their news organizations picked up that pool report and used it to tell their readers what happened at the party. This is how the press covers the White House.

The party was designated "closed press" because it was originally going to actually be closed to the press. But on Thursday of last week, a batch of last-minute tickets opened up, and White House staffers decided it would be nice to invite the press corps. They distributed them to the news organizations, who then decided who to give them to. (We are reliably told it was mostly White House correspondents who snapped them up.) But instead of just opening up the event to coverage, which would have meant spoiling a nice backyard bash with network cameras, radio correspondents, international press, and the vast machinery of live electronic media, the White House decided that it would be more fair to the news organizations who weren't invited if they just kept it off the record. That way, the thinking went, no one's getting special access. As absurd as that sounds when you're talking about inviting a select group of reporters to a party with the president, it kind of makes sense if you have to deal with a host of news outlets jockeying for access. If it's all off the record, a small regional paper can't complain that not being invited seriously hurts their coverage.

What doesn't make sense, at all, is why a group of reporters who have recently begun clinging to the notion that they are independent of Washington's clubby morass of back-scratching self-congratulation would agree to attend an off-the-record party at the White House while one of their own is walled off in a pen like some forlorn scapegoat, doing the job they're supposed to be doing.

When Gawker first introduced comments, they were an exclusive club. As we've grown, we've opened up the doors more and more, and our comments have become, to be charitable, more freewheeling. Today, we the editors are taking control back with what we're calling "featured comments" as the place directly under posts to gather the best of the best, as decided by your tireless editors and star commenters.

But before I get into that, a few other changes:

• You have 15 minutes after you leave a comment to edit it. So, please, no more comments pointing out your typos.
• There are new tools to easily upload images and YouTube videos. Use them!
• Comment threads are only viewable by reverse chronology, just like on Facebook and Twitter.

Now about those star powers. The editors are the only ones who can give you a star, and we'll be giving them out to the commenters we trust the most. This means that many people who have stars now will be losing them. But for those who keep their stars, your comments will automatically appear in the featured comments, and you will have the ability to promote non-star comments up to the top level. In fact, just replying to a comment will bump up to the front page. You'll also see all of the unapproved comments left by new users and can approve the ones that you think are up to snuff. But use your powers wisely. We're going to be taking a closer look at who's doing what. Use your star powers to make mischief, and we'll take them away.

So what kind of comments are we looking to feature? We're giving more prominence to the featured comments because we've realized that they go a long way to setting the tone of the site. So, we want them to be an addition to what we post, not just an open-forum place to rant. We want to feature comments that are first and foremost about the post they're left on. They may add information, be a well-reasoned critique, a particularly funny line or, if you're named in the item, a rebuttal. Oh, and proper grammar counts. What we're not looking for: snark for snark's sake, comments about Gawker, IM-like conversations, attacks on your editors, comments pointing out how stupid other comments are (do not engage the trolls) and basically anything else that we don't like.

There are no doubt going to be plenty of glitches and bugs, and please email those to me. As for any other questions, ask away in the comments.

For reference, here's our overlord Nick Denton's rundown on the new changes:

Six months later, we're finally ready to go live with the Ganja power commenting system across the nine sites of Gawker Media. Here's why we've overhauled the comments — and a summary of the key changes you'll notice on the sites later today. There will be some glitches and many complaints — but the new system is elegant, already rich in editorial possibilities with so much more to come. It's an enormous accomplishment by the tech team in Budapest, New York — and Kansas City.

1. THE PROBLEM

As a site gets bigger, the comments tend to get busier — and sometimes more annoying. Our titles are no exception. Deadspin's had to contend with a war between the daytime and nighttime users; Jezebel editors battle for control with a politically-correct mob; perceptions of Gawker are set by a small group of glib and bitchy commenters. All sites that are growing as rapidly as ours have something like this problem — and one that can't be solved simply by banning the offenders or applying more strictly our approval process.

It can't be solved because the most pernicious comments don't come from trolls or spammers. Those can be easily identified and barred. What ruins a good discussion is what we could call the chatty commenter. They may be a devoted reader, someone we don't have the heart to ban. But they only occasionally contribute something to the sum of human knowledge. And the chatty commenters — because there are so many of them — set the tone. Their presence puts off the subjects of items — or other people with something interesting to say.

So we need to introduce another level — the power commenter — to the hierarchy. We used to refer to our comment environment as a club — with a velvet rope to keep the riff-raff out on the street. Well, now the club is too busy. If we're going to maintain credibility, we need a the equivalent of a VIP room. We'll populate the VIP room by giving special privileges to star commenters. They'll get prominence and space — as will their guests. And — we hope — it will be this salon that sets the tone of discussion.

Our comments have stood out amid the illiterate abuse and empty-headed wittering of the rest of the internet; we're going to make sure it stays that way as the audience continues to expand.

2. THE KEY CHANGES

* Privileges for star commenters (see below)
* Image and video embedding in comments
* Comment threads switched (like Facebook and Twitter) to reverse chronological order
* Related stories show to the right of each post (and a few other design changes)
* Comments can now be edited (for 15 minutes after publishing)

3. RIGHTS OF A STAR COMMENTER

* A gold star next to each commenter's name (as now)
* Comments given priority and published immediately after post
* A star commenter can see comments even before a moderator has approved them
* By replying to any comment, a star commenter can give it priority
* Promotion of another's comments to the featured section

4. THE FUTURE

* Many more items such as interviews, live chats, live blogs, contests and photo pools
* Web submission and publishing of tips
* Discussion forums around personalities and topics
* Commenting via Twitter
* Rebuttal rights for the subject of an article
* Commenters able to call on friends or colleagues for support in an online discussion

The Post says Ruth's broker is considering this spacious-ish 481 square-foot 1BR in the Trafalgar House on East 90th St. Only $465K, cheap!

This one bedroom's Southeast exposure brings an abundance of light into the apartment. With its many closets and large kitchen, which includes a dishwasher, all that's needed is a little TLC to transform the apartment into a lovely living space. Building amenities include a large laundry room along with a storage and bike area.

Haha! It is a total dump*, be honest. Check it out:
*Still much nicer than my apartment.
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.
The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Well, actually we don't know the real reason, other than Franco's claims of having to work on a film or something, but this video from The Harvard Lampoon, "James Franco's Rejected UCLA Commencement Speech," which actually stars James Franco, is pretty funny, so we thought we'd share it with you since we chronicled this whole saga last month. Enjoy, brah.

But that's not all! Agyness Deyn wears suspenders and retro band T-shirts and and she, like, DJs and has a band and likes rocker dudes. She might try acting one day but, like, she doesn't know yet and all, but she's, like, "into stuff that really pushes the boundaries, raises the bar ... like, puts you out of your comfort zone," but for now she's, like, just hanging out downtown trying to figure it all out, so the New York Times wrote, like, a big feature on her where they said she is "the visual articulation of our culture's unspoken hopes and latent desires," whatever the hell that means.

"You know, even though I'm in fashion, I don't, like, do fashion," she said. "Fashion isn't me, even though I work in it. It's just materialistic stuff. I just want to do whatever makes me happy."

What makes Ms. Deyn happy?

"Like being totally conscious. Laughing is, like, my favorite thing to do. Being with friends, having fun ... being a bit daft."

It is hard to say if she eschews her supermodel role because she doesn't have the id or will to assert it or because she doesn't fully understand her own potential. But this, again, may be part of the construct of Ms. Deyn's media persona: she projects a cultivated lack of savvy, as if she were acting from a Buddhist compulsion to consciously guard herself from arriving at too intimate an understanding of such worldly filth.

Does she intend to spontaneously skip any Fashion Weeks, as she did last fall?

"I don't know," she said, airily. "I kind of make the decision a week before. I love doing it, but then sometimes I'm doing another project or something."

So yeah, Agyness Deyn isn't some vapid model bitch like so many of the others who are, like, all stupid and lazy and have had everyone kiss their boney asses all their lives because they're pretty. You see, with Agyness Deyn, it's, like, all just an act. She may, like, come across like a insufferably dim bulb, but she's, like, really the reincarnation of Ludwig van Beethoven, Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison all in the same androgynous body. And now you know.

A Supermodel Who Is Of The Moment, and Thinking Ahead [New York Times]

He didn't trust the study because it was done in Finland and Sweden and the Finns and the Swedes stay "pure" by only marrying each other. Whereas in America, everyone marries everyone (so long as they're white and their partner is white. Oh, and straight!) So therefore the study doesn't mean anything.

Suddenly the clouds parted and a thin ray of sunshine shone down on the pesky corn nut that is Gretchen Carlson—descendant of some Nordic "species", for sure—and she ably, if simply, mocked crazy dumb Kilmeade for being crazy and dumb and possibly suffering from dementia.

It was a fine moment of morning television. Incidentally, after discussing this execrable show with my sister over seltzers at a picnic table in Rhode Island this weekend, she called me this morning and said "I tried watching Fox & Friends. I couldn't even get through five minutes. How can you possibly watch this every day?" And then I told her that I don't, that there are lovely video people who watch it for me and I cackled into the phone.

So, in short, thanks guys!

If You Are White:

• Your black roommate makes you uncomfortable.
• You make your black roommate uncomfortable.
• You are far more likely to "break up" with your roommate if they're not white.
• You will not be affected academically by your roommate's race, because you care only about your own kind.

If You Are Black:

• You will do better academically if you have a white roommate, maybe in an effort to overcome your inferiority complex.
• Or maybe because you just don't like them and can get some work done.
• If you have a white roommate, your own "positive emotions" will decline.

If You Are Asian:

• Not only are you more racist than any other group, you also make those around you more racist. Scientific fact!

If You Are of a Race Other Than These:

• You are not as interesting to social scientists.

At left In this picture taken near Grand Central Station is an as-the-good-lord-made-her Bar Refaeli on the cover of Esquire. At right is dirty, dirty pornography. Below is the uncensored GQ cover. You can't even see his penis!The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

Yes it was the winter break episode last night, and all the kids were bundled up and snowy, shivering against a cold world that threatened to consume them. In some cases this was quite literal. Kelli learned the notion of Death in the stony, frozen expanse that some ancient Indians called The Hamptons. Rusty old Rags McTattershanty had to make a frigid, pine needle-strewn Sophie's Choice last night. To save her rep and marry out of the hobo clan, or follow her tin foil heart and get railway hitched to reliable soup seeker Soots McKenzie? Never has a fifteen-year-old been faced with such adversity.

And some of the coldness, some of the arctic mire, was in a more metaphorical sense. There was poor potato-eyed Jessi, awash in a sea of dappled Miami sadness. Eating lonely lunches with her Florida friend, a beanbag chair wearing a wig, all the while missing her one true love. That unresponsive fellow is none other than mop-browed blunderer Peter "PC" Peterson. Yes PC was busy getting lost in the aforementioned Mexico, smothering his furtive, grainy desires—which were rushing up suddenly into his loins and mouth and brains like lava in a burbling Guatemalan volcano. He'd gone to visit an old boarding school chum, the lean and dangerous Charles Ryder JP, a young Mexican baron of sand and sadness, of louche-limbed sexuality that confounds and brutalizes PC's ever-knotting insides.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves! Let's return to that scene, of that crime, a bit further down. First:

The Tough Tale of Rags McTattershanty
It was glitter, she decided. Glitter that she'd begun seeing in the corners of her yellowed eyes. A bright, quick glint or sparkle there in the periphery when she awoke in the morning, covered in the debris of last night's meal. Chicken bones and magazine scraps. Uneaten sardine tails and flecks of tin. Rags was in love. Or some manner of love, some status-crazed version of adoration that had nestled and clotted in her heart like grease. You see, she and Sebastian were a thing. Of course Rags didn't know that Sebastian had taken his carriage for a day's journey to the countryside and visited with Kelli at her parents' Westhampton manor. That the angular and mismatched pair had played billiards and discussed the nature of pets, Kelli's feeble bat wing heart fluttering and whimpering. Rags didn't know of that visit and, really, she didn't need to. Nothing of note had happened, just feelings being glooped across the floor like the maid's wash water. Sebastian had sat there in the sprawling manse and the only thing that came into his mind was not sympathy for Kelli's ailing dog, Lady Stoutbiscuits (a dog that later died and Kelli shook and shuddered and plead with Death to take her instead but it would not work), but rather Rags. Rags with her squat, gymnastic frame. Her heaving bosom toppling cheaply out of a Target chemise. He needed her, he had suddenly realized. And so he dashed out of the mansion, Kelli calling dimly after him, and ordered his driver to spurn the horses harder, and harder still! To the city! To see his beloved!

Rags had been sifting through the small pile of rubbish she called her bureau, that nagging and delightful glimmer playing in the corners of her vision, when she felt a featherweight tap on her shoulder. And there he was. Her golden tendril'd Orpheus, the sallow stink of boxer shorts and potato chip breath like a sweet intoxicant cutting through the bitter cold air. The pair—reunited, soldered together like circuits on the beautiful motherboard of love—took a walk in the snow and discussed the lay of the land. "So what are we doing?" she asked him coyly. And he'd smiled and taken her hand and said, in verse lovelier than Byron, "I dunno." They kissed and parted ways and Sebastian stood there, shaky in his trainers, a new seed suddenly buried in fertile soil. Is this it?, he thought. Are we gonna do it?

As Rags puttered off in her jalopy made of popsicle sticks and stolen leprechaun wishes, she felt that nothing could be finer than a rich boy in her 'giner. But little did she know that something wicked her way was coming (is that a sentence?). That something came at her gymnastics meet. Hobo gymnastics meets consist of three events. There's Upside-down Pie Cooling on a Windowsill Stealing, the Vertical Knife Fight, and something called Chicken Tickling that, for FCC reasons, Bravo was unable to air last night. So this was Rags' first meet ever and she was very nervous. She twisted her kerchief in her fingers and lulled herself with soft vagabond melodies but still something rattled her. And then she realized what it was. There, perched in the bleachers like a scrawny vulture in an overcoat, was Soots. He'd come not just to watch her deft nabbing of a delicious rhubarb pie (which she aced, btw) but also to woo her back. After the meet he took her to a vegan restaurant and, after Rags stuffed all the silverware up her sleeves and filled her pockets with loose sugar, he rat-a-tat-tat gave her a laundry list of reasons why she should come back to him. He was so weird, a little young Woody Allen, all confident and forceful in that neurotic, nebbishy way.

So he wanted her to break up with Sebastian and she looked at him with her pursed, strawberry features and the wood and iron gears of her fraught hobo mind turned and turned. Next week it looks as though her music box romance with Sebastian will crumble. Which isn't surprising. Lord Sebastian had earlier gone to lunch with his terrible red-eyed father—a pierogi slump of a man in sad shiny brown pants, wisps of math-teacher-comb-over hair grimly foretelling Sebastian's inglorious future—who had prodded and probed him repulsively about his luck with the ladies. He wanted Sebastian to buckle down at school but also to party and fuck, to do the things one cannot do once the years have clumped and molded you into some land-wealthy Gollum, some zombie husk stretched over withered muscle that was once taut and defined from tennis games played in the browning 70s. Yes, maybe there was never really any hope for a bottle cap beauty like Rags and this vicarious teen boyangel. But still: Will she actually make the choice? Or will it just be made for her? Only time will tell.

And now for Part II.

A Corona Is a Glow, Coming from Millions of Miles Away
It was glitter, he decided. This strange shimmer sticking to his skin. PC picked at it, the silver speck on his forearm. It was the thick, dull part of morning and he was sprawled out in a bed, in his briefs, something rude and unfriendly taking root in his stomach. What had happened last night? He couldn't remember. But we can.

As mentioned before, PC was in Mexico. He'd gone to meet the dashing JP for a wintertime romp in shitty, slitty, glitzy Cancun. It was a strange place to find PC, the affected snob young hen of Upper East Side TV society, but it worked really well for the show. Because it stripped him of context and clout, reduced him to a sad, scared boy teetering on the brink of some wide chasm. And chasm, thy name is Homosexuality. Yes, last night we got our first substantial particle waves of the inexorably unfolding gay plotline and, I must say, it was done in far more interesting chamber piece fashion than I'd thought Bravo capable of pulling off. While PC and JP and RT and QV and DMX and the gang did their cock-and-ball strut through the booze-filled feeding trough, we saw poor PC just get angrier and sadder, sadder and angrier. That scary fugue of abandon was flickering full behind PC's beady hazel eyes, and a troubled character began to emerge. He just seemed to unhappy and frightened and botched and blocked.

See nothing really happened. And that was sort of the point. PC and his buddies were besieged by flock after flock of wayward vacationing girls, drawn like moths to the magnet glare of camera crew lights. Is there some homing beacon installed in the youngs nowadays that just seeks that shit out, like pigeons or computer-guided missiles? It's sort of uncanny. Anyway, tortured PC wanted nothing, I mean nothing, to do with them. Because, ew gross, they were from Texas or wanted to dance or wear sombreros or do Yaeger bombs. No Peter Chesley Malificent Peterson is wayyy better than that, plus there's JP.

There's JP, a tall "beautiful" Mexican, all sinew and strut, chest puffed out like a sail pointing towards Eden. Oh gorgeous JP who rumpled PC's hair on the beach as they sat, shirtless and free, and made jokes to boring girls about how PC was bisexual and had a gay boyfriend back home and PC just sat there and took it, just sat there and dreamed a thousand What Ifs, bundled them up like flowers or tissue paper, made houses of them, made children of them, made slow beautiful waltzes toward death of them. Here's the truth of it, plain and bald like Sebastian's ghoulish father in five years: PC is in love with JP and is struggling terribly with it and it is sad but, oh, it is also such compelling television. I hope Bravo isn't teasing us, I hope they don't cop out on us. We'll see.

For now, PC just seems upset and agitated all the time, happy and calmed only when JP has wrapped his tawny arms around his shoulders and urged him on into the night. For her part, boulder-faced Jessi sat rotting away in Miami Beach, calling and texting and BBM'ing and all other manner of communicating with PC to no avail. PC was ignoring her. "She isn't my girlfriend," he kept saying. And then he would say it once again inside his head, softer and more meaningful this time, She isn't my girlfriend. And she never will be. No one ever will be. And the finality of it, the fact of it, would just thud on him like coconuts in a 50s beach comedy, like the sproingy thwack of a tennis ball hitting the sweet spot of a Wilson. When he got back from Mexico—when the drinking and yearning had ended (or begun???)—he and Jessi stood in her room, unpacking. PC held up a rainbow-striped teddybear and asked "Is this a gay pride bear?" And she shrugged it off, thought nothing of it, ignored it, swept it away. But it lingered and hooked in PC and now suddenly there was a whole new freighted vocabulary. How the world suddenly handled differently, like a new car.

Jessi looked him, sure that something was different. "Were there skanks in Mexico?" she asked, all fake in her chillaxitude and whatevsness. PC laughed darkly and told her no, not at all, they were all gross. Jessi seemed mildly satisfied but was still confused by the new flint she saw in her old friend. PC sat on the bed and felt himself retreating into darkness, into the cold peculiarity of a life he'd never planned.

Meanwhile elsewhere Camille was there, still cockled and strange, buying chocolates and whispering nasty things into Rags' ears. Hooting in her I-don't-wanna-be-a-nerd-anymore way that Rags should create as much boy drama as possible, so Camille can leech off of it, suck it deep inside herself so it can nourish and preserve that wicked tickle that now clamors more loudly than Grades or College or The Future combined. (Years later, when Camille is bundled up in a weekend rental Vermont ski house, Camille will turn to her partner Ruth and confess to her that that was the day, that winter afternoon in the chocolate shop, when she first felt her life yawing sideways, felt it dip then soar—a swallow fleeting a barn—into a brand new sky.) Rags listened to Camille's advice and mulled it over while playing her hobo harmonica—a contraption fashioned from dust and glass and old fireplace bellows—under her favorite bridge. What mystery awaited her, she thought. And that was just her next meal.

Kelli meanwhile lingered in a graveyard. She missed that skittering, yippy thing. She missed its silly hair, its cute noises and smells. Other than Sebastian, though, she also missed her dog Lady Stoutbiscuits. How hard it is to say goodbye to something! What pain God's given us and called it a life. She stood there, paying mournful tribute, until she got cold and she saw the cameramen getting disinterested and this episode was over for her. "Come on, let's go back. I'll have the maid make us some lunch."

But yes, back. We'll go back. Back to the bright silver blot on PC's arm. This bed, here in Mexico. This new thing in him a worm or an organ. At first he was confused, disoriented, unsure of the walls and drapes and sad sailboat painting framed beside a muted TV. But then there it was. Sense. Sense like sense has never been. Framed in a doorway, bent and beautiful. The smooth bulb of an Adam's apple, the rolled glens and hillocks of shoulder and collar, the crisp taper of stomach and waistband. JP. The legend to a map. A key. A beacon. A lighthouse.

A lighthouse perched on a precarious Yucatan shore, amid rocks and palms and finely-ground shells. The old elements and matter of dangerous Mexico. But it wasn't these things that destroyed PC. It wasn't disease. It wasn't villains on furlough from Juarez. It wasn't the burnished metal of a conquistador—not Cortes, not Pizarro, not eternal Ponce de Leon. No it wasn't any of that which felled proud, mighty PC. It was nothing simpler or purer than love and abandon themselves. Those things that eat from within and without. Here they were. Here we go.

PC scrambled out of bed while JP waited impatiently. He pulled on some shorts and a shirt and grabbed his wallet, his hotel key, his near-empty pack of cigarettes and they headed off for breakfast. Halfway down the hall JP threw his arm over PC's shoulders, pulled in him tight and asked, exuberant, "Ready for another day in paradise?"

And there, for just a second, while still in the warm pocket made by two people, faraway and safe in another country, PC felt ready for anything.

Cordero first made the news when she alleged that Epstein told her he could help her get a "modeling" career and used her for sex when she was 16. Then the Post reported she was born a man! And that she had talked about "masturbatory" fantasies on Myspace! And then they ran off and got a dismissive quote about Cordero from Epstein's flack, Howard Rubensteing—who is also the Post's own flack! A fact which they did not disclose, which is shady as fuck.

So Cordero sued the paper for libel, and now, the judge has ruled. In favor of the Post! Basically the judge said that, yes, they reported that she had sexy fantasies, but not that she actually did the sexy things, and the average person wouldn't think she's a "promiscuous slut" (exact legal language!) just because she had dreams of getting triple-teamed. Hell, the judge himself has animal fantasies that would make you sick, but he's a straitlaced guy in real life. We made that up. But if you want to call somebody a slut in print, just make sure you call them a fantasy slut. Relevant portion of the ruling:

Plaintiff's libel cause of action is predicated on the theory that the October 23 article was libelous per se because the statement that "[o]n one [of the Myspace pages], [plaintiff] gives a graphic depiction of a masturbatory fantasy' she has of being with multiple men and then multiple women" implies that she is "a promiscuous slut." Obviously enough, plaintiff can only recover damages on her libel cause of action if she can establish that the article was in fact defamatory - "tend[ing] to expose [her] to public contempt, ridicule, aversion or disgrace, or induce an evil opinion of [her] in the minds of right-thinking persons, and to deprive [her] of their friendly intercourse in society" (Rinaldi, 42 NY2d at 379). The Post defendants argue that the statement does not have a defamatory meaning because the statement only reported that plaintiff had a sexual fantasy; it did not report that plaintiff actually engaged in sexual conduct with multiple men and multiple women or otherwise acted on the fantasy. For that reason, according to the Post defendants, the statement does not imply that plaintiff is promiscuous and therefore is not actionable. Plaintiff argues that the statement suggests that she is so perverted that she publishes an online diary of masturbatory fantasies of group sex and therefore implies that she is promiscuous. Thus, according to plaintiff, the statement is defamatory...

At bottom, plaintiff's claim of defamation rests on the contention that the average reader reasonably would infer that someone with such a lewd fantasy also is in fact sexually promiscuous. That some readers might draw this inference does not render it reasonable.

[via THR, Esq.]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.The creepy gold casket was wheeled in and the oddness began.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Old pal Stevie Wonder sang a sad, fitting song.

Legendary producer Berry Gordy, who helped work young Michael to the bone when he was hoofing it in the Jackson 5, called Jackson the "greatest entertainer that's ever lived." Hm.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Al Sharpton stirringly, if inaccurately, told Jackson's children that there "wun't nothing strange about your daddy." Sigh.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Jackson's childhood pal Brooke Shields tearfully recounted their shared bond over being children in the spotlight. Though, unfortunately, her constant mentioning of kids and little princes struck an awkward chord.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.A crazy congresslady from Texas wandered up on stage and said that she wished she was a Jackson and that Michael was totally innocent of all those creepy charges.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Magic Johnson came up and told a few stories. But mostly he just plugged Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.R&B singer Urrrsher won the award for Most Classless of the day, by wearing sunglasses and pretending to cry. Usher, you were never a good actor, so why try and finally go for the teary clip reel at a funeral of all places?

Toward the end, a bunch of escaped mental patients were brought on to sing a "Heal the World"/"We Are the World" World Medley that left everyone looking awkward and ashamed, except for a few of Jackson's grasping brothers, who just seemed thrilled to be on stage.

In a chilling final moment, Jackson's rarely-seen daughter Paris tearfully said she loved her father and that he was great. In a haunting evocation of a cycle continuing to grind on, her aunt Janet fixed her hair and dotingly but firmly told her "Speak up, honey. Speak up." It was pretty much devastating.

So, that was that. An odd mess of a thing—part exciting, part sad, but mostly confusing. Fitting, then, for a life lived bizarrely and publicly, a life that needed a new word for famous, a life that, in many ways, really ended and disappeared many years ago. This whole event just felt perfunctory, as if no one could imagine MJ going out without a bang, but weren't really sure how to make the appropriate gesture. So it was just a mash of things, of different tones and styles.

And then it ended, abruptly and strangely, leaving us all to ponder what it was exactly that we'd just seen.

Image via Getty

Lopez might act in a Broadway musical and take off his shirt a lot, but that doesn't make him gay. At least they got Zachary Quinto, who doesn't keep his personal life much of a secret, correct. How about a do-over with just the people who got Spacey right? Or you can just have at it in the comments.

(Chart by Julia Schweizer and Nick Denton.)

On almost no notice, Palin convened a late-night press availability in a remote fishing village in western Alaska for NBC News, CNN, ABC News, and Fox News in order to further obfuscate her already thoroughly inscrutable rationale(s?) for quitting her shitty job as governor of some crap state that's not even connected to the real America.

The interviews were a postmodern clusterfuck of epic proportions—a governor and her family on a desolate beach in the Alaskan wilderness, wearing waders and a lapel mic, surrounded by camera crews and sleep-deprived network news personalities. ABC News' Kate Snow got in Mitchell's shot at one point. Even though the sun was shining, it was really 10 p.m. in Alaska, because time doesn't work there the way it does in the real world. The gambit guaranteed that between the travel and time spent editing and doing live shots for the morning shows, the reporters didn't get any sleep last night.

Palin is shaping up to be something like The Joker of the political-media complex: Turning up at unexpected times with bizarre stunts designed to make everyone extremely uncomfortable, and then cackling a lot and speaking in riddles. It seems clear that last night's interview was just a dry run to see if she could get folks to fall for a trap—next time it's a hostage crisis.

So what did we learn this time around?

• "One term was enough." Too much, Sarah. One term was too much.
• "[Fishing] teaches the kids not to be divas." That one was offered without prompting. She's like an 8-year-old who thinks she can trick her parents into buying her a pony or something.
• People who don't understand why she quit "might not be fully aware of all the conditions" of her job. Like how hard it is.
• "You know why they're confused? I guess they can't take something nowadays at face value." Sarah Palin's "career" thus far represents the triumph of convincing people to take things at face value. It's the only value she has.
• "Most public officials, they get to look into a camera and they say, you know, 'You better leave your hands off my kids!' And I haven't been able to say that." Because David Letterman is still statutory-raping your daughter, Sarah, as we speak.
• "The fish slime and the dirt under the fingernails—the stuff that is me." Well put!

The memorial itself starts at 1 p.m., and, oh, just because we're watching ABC doesn't mean you shouldn't watch other networks. We like the sick joke of ABC being owned by Disney, but there might be other, better, more-over-the-top coverage. Let us know in the comments!

So keep it R-rated and have fun and we'll see you out there.

We played this three times after getting it from our video department and can almost say with almost absolute certainty that yes, Sacha Baron Cohen has struck again! We're sure of it.

Hilton, apparently not content to be the world's leading purveyor of dirty celebrity doodles, is quixotically positioning himself as some sort of gay rights leader. Though, he's going about it all the wrong ways.

In the new profile by Boston-based gaypert Benoit Denizet-Lewis, the vicious and rotund self-ascribed Queen of All Media practically pleads with his interviewer to please accept him as a Righteous Gay. The Advocate story was written and filed before The Incident, but Denizet-Lewis has spoken to Hilton since and added his quotes to the online version of the article. Hilton, never the intellectual high jumper, buried himself even deeper:

But Perez tells me that, in the heat of the moment that night, he almost chose to use a different word. "I thought about calling him the n word," he says over the phone a week after the incident, "but I thought the f word was even worse. I was so filled with hate at that moment because I was hated on so much, and I reacted in the worst way possible. Then I went on to make a bunch of other mistakes. I shouldn't have made the video. I shouldn't have released so many statements. But what's come out of all of this is that I've learned so much about myself, and I'm in a much better place. I'm actually thankful that it happened. As cheesy as it may sound, I had almost a spiritual moment when I just let all of the anger and worry go and am now filled with peace, happiness, and wisdom.

Aw. Isn't that... vaguely horrifying. In seeking the forgiveness of the gay community (or not forgiveness, I don't think Hilton is concerned with forgiveness, but some weird meta thing somewhere between forgiveness and fear), Hilton decides to have us congratulate him for not saying the racist thing he was thinking. Terrific.

The late edition aside, the Advocate article is a mildly interesting, if not deeply-probing, read. Mostly the bitchy/sad blogger comes across as lonely and pretending, scorned by his one-time media friends and coworkers (like Queerty's Japhy Grant and head Jezebel Anna Holmes), intimidated and childish when trying to meet men. Basically he's any young gay guy with identity problems, only he's crafted a big pink dreadnought of a platform to loudly air his insecurities.

Thank God I don't have such a platform. Oh, wait.

Life, and the news, can't be all car chases, legislative gridlock, affairs by prominent Republicans, unrest overseas, war, and Sarah Palin. It seems eminently understandable that the circus surrounding the early death of a terribly famous man would continue to be considered newsworthy. But no! It is all the liberals' fault, or something.

First, Albany Republicans refused the man his moment of silence last week. Then, New York congressman Pete King called him a pervert. Now, T-Paw, the outgoing Minnesota governor who figures a national career awaits him if he just hangs in there and doesn't attack Letterman or go to Argentina, weighs in:

"[It's] time to move on." He opened his portion of the show talking, unprompted, about the Jackson coverage. "You can't get away from it. ... I've had enough of it.

"It's time to pay our respects and move on."

Are we alone in not being bothered, really at all, by the Jackson coverage, which has already tapered off, and which will be much more muted after the funeral, at least until the toxicology report comes back? We are liberal media elites, though, and so our sympathies, as always, lie with perverts.

(This is not even counting the various hundreds of dumb conservative bloggers who took Jackson's death to be some sort of MSM/Obama plot against them, or something. And here we thought it helped Mark Sanford!)

Mickey Kaus offered 14 theories for Palin's resignation, many of which are now kinda redundant and a bit stale. They can be whittled down to six.

Crime! This is the "theory" that Sarah Palin will sue us for mentioning, so we'll just say that there is no evidence at all that she embezzled anything, from anyone. Or, at least, there is no evidence that she is under federal investigation for embezzlement. So maybe not this one! But...

Some other terrible political thing Like maybe some new and more exciting ethics issue is coming down the pipeline? Maybe something is rotten with the Alaska state finances? But why would one more small-potatoes scandal end her heroic governing adventure?

Sex! Maybe Todd let Greta Van Susteren "handle" him, at the WHCD? Maybe Bristol got knocked up by A-Rod? Maybe Sarah slept with Greta Van Susteren? There are, as far as we know, no new rumors along these lines. Just idle fantasies.

Money Now we enter the realm of "likely but boring." Sarah Palin can make a lot more money writing books and giving speeches and maybe even hosting a TV show of some kind (can you imagine?) as a private citizen than she can as the Governor of Alaska. She did mention legal bills in her rambly speech, though the woman raises a million bucks from crazies every time she stutters, so how bad could things be?

She Just Hates Governing Yeah, has she ever demonstrated any aptitude for the actual business of governing? We realize that's a lot to ask of any leading light of the Republican party these days, but still. Alaska's running out of money, the legislature hates her, and none of that shit is as much fun as appearing on TV to complain about how everyone on TV is unfair to you all the time.

She Is Crazy Maybe the incoherent reasons she gave for quitting—to win the game, for the team—represent her actual thought process? Maybe she decided not to run for reelection, in order to position herself for 2012, and then she was like "you know what, if not running for reelection is how I get ready to be President, quitting altogether right now will have to make me even more ready."

Special bonus non-reason:

She Is Quitting Politics to Focus On Being a Private Citizen and Raising Her Children in Peace Yeah this one is the K-Lo fantasy, in which she's not a relentless ambitious career pol who uses her kids as props when that's convenient and decries their exploitation when anyone else mentions them.

Frankly? It is a pretty non-shocking example of the GOP's ability to find humor in the craziest and most racist of places. But here is the magical tale of Audra Shay, Young Republican leader:

Shay posted something dumb about health care, on her Facebook, and one of her friends responded, as anyone would, with an angry string of slurs.

Two minutes later, Piker posted again saying "Obama Bin Lauden [sic] is the new terrorist… Muslim is on there side [sic]… need to take this country back from all of these mad coons… and illegals."

Eight minutes after that, at 2:02, Shay weighed in on Piker's comments: "You tell em Eric! lol."

Yes. You tell em, Eric! Tell em something insane! And, hah, it got better! Shay only de-friended the people who complained.

Cassie Wallender, a national committeewoman from the Washington Young Republican Federation, then wrote: "Someone please help a naïve Seattle girl out, is Eric's comment a racist slur?" She answered her own question one minute later: "Okay, why is this okay? I just looked it up. ‘It comes from a term baracoons (a cage) where they used to place Africans who were waiting to be sent to America to be slaves.' THIS IS NOT OKAY AND IT'S NOT FUNNY."

This was followed soon after by the chairman of the D.C. Young Republicans, Sean L. Conner, who wrote "I'm really saddened that you would support this type of racial language. ..wow! Thanks Cassie for standing up…"

Shay was silent on this exchange, but soon word started spreading throughout the Young Republican circuit, open to GOP members under 40. Significantly, Shay then "de-friended" Wallender and Conner-in the world of Facebook, that means cutting off relations-after calling her out, but kept Piker as a "friend" (subsequently, it appears their profiles are no longer linked).

The election for chairman of the Young Republicans is next Saturday, guys. Let's see how many embarrassing and permanently archived examples of electronic racism the candidates can rack up in the coming days.

Because it looks like it could be funny? Look, we're not fans of Cody's snappy, reference-laden "writing" any more now than we were when Juno came out or United States of Tara (a show that got better only after Cody stopped writing episodes) debuted. But couldn't that jerky dialogue and look-Ma-no-hands kind of sardonic bravado acquit itself nicely in a silly/scary horror comedy? The Girl Gets Revenge trope worked fairly well in Teeth, and we all remember the nerdy Blockbuster clerk's wet dream that was Scream. Smoosh those two things together and you just might get Jennifer's Body. Something so head-poundingly annoying it's oddly entertaining. Y'know?

[via ShockTilYouDrop]

New York Magazine explores this perplexing issue at length in a story this week. Theory #1: People hate her because she's a woman.

Ruth's problem seems to be a particularly female one. "It's the gender politics of the culture," says Gloria Steinem. "It's easier to blame the person with less power." And, she adds, why aren't people blaming her sons? "They would be much more likely to be in cahoots, because they were in the same professional field. And the answer is, they're men, that's why."

Theory #2: She's just a dumb lady.

According to a friend from high school, it would not have been difficult to keep Ruth in the dark. "I don't know if you fully understand the difference between you and us," says the woman in her late sixties. "When we were young, and the man came home for dinner, he was the king of the house and we catered to him … We were the type of people who, if your husband came home and said, ‘Sign this,' you wouldn't ask why. If he asked you to sign it, you would sign it."

Theory #3: Oh maybe it's this .

"He conferred with her on everything. The idea that she didn't know anything is laughable," says the longtime Madoff employee.

Such a complicated issue, the whims of the public opinion! Really, where are these alleged people who have mixed feelings about, or even feel sympathy for, Ruth Madoff? We must smoke out this rare creature. With a poll. Vote below, and the truth will be revealed. [NYM. Pic: AP]

They were building new condos all over the 'Burg when the recession hit. Now construction has ground to a halt, as people slowly come to their senses, emerging from a boom-time daze and muttering to themselves, "Jesus, was I really about to pay $700K for a one bedroom condo one block from the BQE?" Boom, instant urban decay:

Williamsburg is ground zero in the growing scourge of stalled construction that has left the neighborhood littered with 18 vacant lots and rusting steel building frames — more than in all of The Bronx

More than in all of the Bronx. It doesn't get any more hood-like than that! This is a total free cool pass for every 21 year-old who moves to Williamsburg in the next year. "Dude," you'll tell jealous newbies as you sit in a gelato shop with them five years from now, "when I got here this place was a fucking hellhole." They'll think you mean 1992! This sort of street cred is a priceless gift.
[NYP]

The pair supposedly came together after JFK's assassination, first as a means to express their grief, then as a means to express their passion. Camelot insiders, including Bobby's wife Ethel, knew the affair was going on, but everyone knew that it would never go anywhere—because it was the 1960s, because they were Catholic and divorce was what it was, because Bobby couldn't risk a marital scandal if he hoped to take office someday. So the pair continued in secrecy until Bobby's assassination in 1968.

Some factoids from the book, which includes witness accounts from Jack Newfield, Gore Vidal, and Truman Capote:

Six months after JFK's death, during a May 1964 dinner cruise on the presidential yacht the USS Sequoia, Bobby and Jackie "exchanged poignant glances" before disappearing below deck, leaving Ethel upstairs. "When they returned, they looked as chummy and relaxed as a pair of Cheshire cats,"

At the Kennedys' Palm Beach estate during Christmas 1964, socialite Mary Harrington saw Jackie sunbathing topless, with Bobby kneeling at her side. "As they began to kiss, he placed one hand on her breast and the other inside of her bikini bottom," Harrington recalled.

According to Gore Vidal, "The one person Jackie ever loved . . . was Robert Kennedy."

Shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis — RFK's rival for Jackie's attention — once threatened to "bring down" Bobby by going public with details of the affair. "I could bury that sucker," Onassis said, "although I'd lose Jackie in the process."

On June 4, minutes after winning the California primary, Bobby was fatally shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.

Jackie flew to his bedside — and Ethel allowed her time alone with the dying RFK, according to the book.

Bobby was brain-dead, but a distraught Ethel refused to pull the plug, and brother Ted Kennedy was in no shape to make the call, Heymann writes.

At 1:20 a.m. June 6, 1968, Jackie Kennedy ordered the respirator shut down and signed the consent form, the book reveals.

So, yeah, there you have it. The only sad, melancholy thing to ever happen to the moneyed, mossy Kennedy clan.

Image via Getty

Diplomat Sir John Sawers is supposed to be taking over the Secret Intelligent Service (better known as Her Majesty's Secret Service) in October. What kind of information did Lady Shelley Sawers, his wife, let loose on in her Facebook profile?

For starters: their friends! 'Cause it's Facebook, right? Photos show relationships with other diplomats, British actors (don't worry, nobody cool), and family. Family like Lady Sawers' half-brother Hugo Haig-Thomas, a former British diplomat that John Sawers succeeded on his way to the top. Haig-Thomas is "an associate and researcher" of a historian.

Not just any historian, though: Holocaust Denier David Irving. Winner! From Irving's extensive Wikipedia page:

By the mid-1980s, Irving associated himself with the Holocaust-denying Institute for Historical Review, began giving lectures to groups such as the far-right German Deutsche Volksunion, and publicly denied that the Nazis systematically exterminated Jews in gas chambers during World War II.[103] Irving was a frequent speaker for the DVU in the 1980s and the early 1990s, but the relationship ended in 1993 apparently because of concerns by the DVU that Irving's espousal of Holocaust Denial might lead to the DVU being banned.[95] He also alleged that parts of The Diary of Anne Frank might have been forged by her surviving father.

Awesome. Haig-Thomas has noted that he "doesn't necessarily share (Irving's) views," but he sure as hell doesn't condemn them.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.What else is interesting? Well, the family likes Liza Minelli, as there's a picture of his wife and daughter re-enacting Caberet. But that's not nearly as interesting as, say, his codename, which was going to be "C" once he started working for MI-6. Read one awesome wall posting: "Congrats on the new job, already dubbed Sir Uncle "C" by nephews in the know!"

Theater Geeks, you'll appreciate this tidbit on their daughter, of whom there were also several pictures of on Sawers' Facebook profile:

Corinne, 22, a recent Oxford University graduate who is now an aspiring actress...recently began touring with Jenny Seagrove in the play Pack Of Lies, coincidentally about a middle-class household suddenly at the centre of an espionage drama when an MI5 spy turns up at their house.

Finally, location, location, location:

Despite the security implications, Lady Sawers revealed on Facebook the location of the London flat used by the couple and the whereabouts of their three children and of Sir John's parents.

Wow. The problem here, if you didn't notice, was that this guy's supposed to lead up one of the world's two most powerful secret service organizations. And serious secrets - like where the guy lives, who his friends are, who his family is, and what his wife's favorite Liza Minelli musical is - have been exposed (along with his Speedos, which terrorists and enemies of the British State everywhere will, at the very least, get a laugh out of). But politicians on both sides of the aisle in England don't think it's too cute: both liberals and conservatives are calling for his employment with MI-6 to be in question, which is funny, 'cause don't you think they'd just fire him? Eh, the Foreign Secretary doesn't think so:

Foreign Secretary David Miliband today dismissed allegations of recklessness. He told BBC1's Andrew Marr Show: 'It is not a state secret that he wears Speedo swimming trunks.' He added: ‘He was appointed 10 days ago to be the head of MI6; he's an outstanding professional who will do a really good job in an outstanding organisation that does a huge amount for this country'

At least we get to blame the outing of Valarie Plame on dumbasses like Robert Novak, who can't keep a good Beltway secret to themselves when they hear it. This is just piss-poor form. Also, if Chuck Barris can keep it a secret for twenty years and you can't, you've got problems. The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

MI6 chief blows his cover as wife's Facebook account reveals family holidays, showbiz friends and links to David Irving [Daily Mail]