The "Black People Tweet Like This" thing does not hold a candle to the "antisemitic British National Party members tweet like that" thing, in terms of windows into confusing and unfamiliar worlds.

It's all here: death, UFOs, swine flue as UN extermination plot, and typos.

‘Antarctica's Icy Lakes Home to Plethora of Viruses' ‘American Exceptionalism' 'Brit Tapes UFOs Beaming Up Water Buffalo'

from the UK today: 'IM NOT BEING RACIST BUT ETHNICS ARE PANDERING TO ETHNICS AND GAYS' 'I think am on another plant with you'

‘UN GLOBALIZED tyranny' ‘Flu Found In Denmark Minks' ‘FROM OUR PIG WITH LIPSTICK IN CHARGE' ‘FBI Boss Taken To School On Marijuana Reality'

'seek medical help & stop ur filthy acts & golden showers' 'Palestinians used by Arabs 2incite vilence Comeon Israel just build the Temple'

'#bestfeeling the joy when you see the look on someones face when they call you a "racist!" & you reply I KNOW!'

'Lucifer is Mechanical – God Miraculous: keep this in mind' Keep that in mind when? When you read the words *deus ex machina*? Actually...

'govt using Sesame Street/"elmo" to indoctrinate kids on H1N1' 'White Pride Emails' 'MightBeALiberal if u think hilary clinton isn't a dyke'

So. Here are some more data points for the "what Twitter does to your brain" scientists.

Transport Minister John Baird named his cat "Thatcher" (ugh). The cat died. Baird texted his friends. And then the Canadian government began preparing a statement on the passing of former British PM Margaret Thatcher. Once they actually called Downing Street, though, they learned that Maggie was alive and healthy (Thatcher just recently received a fresh batch of the coal miner blood that she feasts on, you see).

Whoops! Silly Canadian government, when Margaret Thatcher actually dies, you'll know it from the audible drunken cheers you'll hear from across the Atlantic.

Let's all agree that, sure, it would probably be good from a public health standpoint if alcohol ads were banned. But that would hardly erase alcoholism. Or "binge drinking," which is a catchier way to express the phenomenon in trend stories. Every party with a stake in this issue, though, must take an absolutist, laughable position. Everyone is half right and half lying.

The doctors are obligated to overstate the persuasive effects of alcohol ads in order to convince the government to consider such a drastic, money-evaporating ban. The media outlets are obligated to make tortuous mouth-noises about being concerned about the problem and everything but look we really really need that money, sweet Jesus, please lord, we need those alcohol ads (close to $300 million worth, btw), it's a god damn recession, okay? And the ad agencies—well, as Ad Age reports:

Dave Trott, creative director of London agency Chick Smith Trott, said, "People who blame advertising for binge drinking have misunderstood the whole purpose of advertising — it's about stealing market share, not persuading people to drink."

Hahahahahaha! Alcohol advertising is not about persuading people to drink. You and your crazy notions! The truth is that humans, battered by the grim fortunes of this cold world, will often turn to the soothing but destructive embrace of the bottle. Particularly the Irish.

Ciaran O'Reilly, managing director of Refresh Digital Communications in Dublin, said, "The realities are that it would be the view of a lot of informed people that advertising is not the root cause of the problem. Living in a darker and more-miserable climate seems to have a direct correlation with alcohol levels."

[Pic via]

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Following the same shock-and-awe attitude seen in those texting PSAs, the government's anti-drug center's cocaine campaign get straight to the gruesome point: blow eats your very vocal nose, causes heart attacks, seizures and general death.

The inflamed, blood-encrusted imagery of talking nostrils should be effective, but then there's the addition of the campaign's breakout star, "Pablo the Drug Mule Dog," a taxidermic teetotaler whose affability deflates the whole message. He's like the Geico gecko, only with more fur and a more hardcore message.

Yes, this campaign has the makings of a camp classic, but we're not convinced it will deter people from the marching powder. Actually, it's probably even more amusing while high.

But apparently the British government has more faith. Though it started posting such videos on YouTube last December or so, it just paid about $2.5 million to air them on the boob tube. As if teenagers watch commercials anymore.

Claim from an incredibly biased source (the editor of Paper): "If New York City were a magazine, it would be Paper." No, it would be F.E.D.S.


John Koblin reports that the publisher of Details, Steven DeLuca, is getting canned, and his duties will be taken over by Bill Wackermann, current publisher of Glamour. The fact that the rest of Details didn't get canned in yesterday's Conde purge is actually kind of amazing. So this is low collateral damage.


Here's a needlessly titillating headline: "CTD Developing Nancy Grace Strip." Comic strip? Strip mall? Strip show? No, it's just some dumb Judge Judy-esque TV show. Go to hell then, Nancy Grace.


The UK's Mail on Sunday newspaper has paid "substantial damages" to Madonna after she sued the paper for publishing photos of her wedding to Guy Ritchie. After that happened, everyone knew she was married, so, damages. Or something. British laws suck so bad.

As was just not reported anywhere in the US media really, but was reported quite a bit in the Guardian (and other UK news outlets), the US interfered with the trial of supposed Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi so much that his conviction was in danger of being overturned way before his release to die at home in Libya. And in exchange for his mercy release, Megrahi agreed not to appeal his conviction and embarrass the hell out of everyone.

But Megrahi has released some embarrassing documents anyway, related to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's review of how the US paid off the only witness, who was maybe lying. Maybe!

The commission found police memos suggesting that Tony Gauci, the only witness to link the Libyan to the alleged plot, expressed an interest in being paid to give evidence. He also received payments from the US department of justice after the trial, the new documents claim to show.

The commission said the documents should have been disclosed to Megrahi's defence team, and that the failure to do so made Megrahi's conviction unsafe. The papers allege that Gauci was paid $2m (£1.2m) after Megrahi's conviction, and his brother Paul $1m.

Sometimes we just want justice so much that we are forced to intervene when foreign, soveriegn nations attempt to have fair criminal trials, ok? That is the American way! And it also explains why we all got soooo mad when the Scots sent him back home to die in Libya. Don't you know how much that conviction cost us?

The new allegations had their roots in a 2007 incident in which one of Murdoch's tabloid editors at News of the World, along with a private investigator named Glen Mulcaire, were jailed for illegally hacking into cell phones associated with the royal family. But the phone tapping was much bigger—look who else was a victim:

The BBC has learned that Rebekah Wade, the editor of the Sun, a sister paper of the News of the World, was among 75 people identified by police as having had phone messages monitored by Mulcaire.
Ms Wade - soon to become chief executive of the papers' parent company News International - was informed at the time but declined to press charges, according to BBC business editor Robert Peston.

Yes: one of Murdoch's tabloids was tapping the phone of the editor of another of Murdoch's tabloids, allegedly. It's roughly the equivalent of...well there really is no US equivalent. And you better believe an American editor would be pressing some god damn charges, then perhaps buying some guns. Or at least complaining loudly.

It's truly incredible. And now Rebekah Wade (pictured) is the boss of the entire paper that spied on her! News Corp., ladies and gentlemen. It's not a job—it's a way of life.
[BBC, Previously. Pic: Getty]

Whoa. Read that over again. According to a blockbuster report in The Guardian yesterday:

But one senior source at the Met told the Guardian that during the Goodman inquiry, officers found evidence of News Group staff using private investigators who hacked into "thousands" of mobile phones. Another source with direct knowledge of the police findings put the figure at "two or three thousand" mobiles. They suggest that MPs from all three parties and cabinet ministers, including former deputy prime minister John Prescott and former culture secretary Tessa Jowell, were among the targets.

All of this reportedly surfaced after a News of the World reporter was jailed two years ago for hacking phones. At the time, the company said it was an isolated incident. But if the Guardian's report is true, Murdoch's UK tabloids are—incredibly—even more despicable than we would have thought. The Guardian says that the company has paid one million pounds in out-of-court settlements to keep it all quiet. It also insinuates that top editors including Rebekah Wade could be implicated, though the extent of individual executives' knowledge is not clear.

Rupert Murdoch has already denied the report. But for Americans, the story is already being cast as a direct, veiled assault on Murdoch himself. Not just because he's the lone News Corp. figure familiar to most Americans, but because every US competitor paper would love to see him smeared! Chiefly, the New York Times—who put the story on the front page of their website, and were sure to include the phrase "Murdoch Papers" in the headline. [The "Murdoch Papers" are the papers of News Corp's News International division: the Times of London and the Sunday Times (more respectable), and the News of the World and The Sun (dirty).]

So what we have here is, potentially, a clear case of blatant criminal misconduct at some of the biggest papers owned the world's biggest newspaper mogul—and this case could go all the way to the top. Or it could not! But watch gleefully as the New York Times reports the hell out of it, waging a newspaper war in its own "What newspaper war?" way. (Where are you on this, NY Daily News?). And really, this is beyond the pale, even for what are some of the least scrupulous papers in the world. Hacking phones and hiring private eyes are scumbag tactics. We would even expect better from Rupert Murdoch.

[Guardian, NYT. Pic: Getty]

Wade recently got hitched with Charlie Brooks, a longtime racehorse trainer who started up a little sex toy business back in '02:

Charlie Brooks, who set up a business selling sex toys after quitting racing, posted the catalogues to parents at Cheam Hawtreys School - where Prince Philip is also a former pupil.

The A Little Something for the Weekend brochure offered a range of saucy products including vibrators and boxer shorts featuring phonebox sex cards.

That shows character! Tatler has a story in its newest issue about Brooks' wooing of Wade, which is summarized by the Guardian. They know famous wealthy people! And the powerful! They are quite the toast of the leisure class!

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

"When Charlie Brooks wakes up in the mornings at his barn in Oxfordshire, he likes nothing better than to fly to Venice from Oxford airport with his soon-to-be-wife Rebekah Wade, the dazzling redhead editor of The Sun, for lunch at Harry's Bar.
"Later in the day, after shopping and sightseeing, the couple fly back to London for dinner at Wiltons in Jermyn Street." (...)

"When they're not in Venice, Charlie and Rebekah go on holiday with the Freuds on their boat... the Oppenheim Turners at their house in St Tropez... and with the Daventrys in the country.

Also Wade was once arrested for assaulting her former husband, a British soap opera star! Just goes to show the fundamental class of the Brits. Meanwhile, Rebekah Wade's US counterpart, Col Allan, is just drunk.
[Pic via and via]

Reports TMZ:

Scotland Yard is investigating the disappearance of around $500,000 worth of jewels — earrings and a necklace — that went missing after an Elle magazine shoot ... and guess who was front and center for the shoot? Our freckle-faced friend.

You might recall that Lohan once swiped an $11,000 fur coat (Which she's pictured wearing at left) from a student at Columbia and stole a bunch of stuff from the closet of Shia LaBeouf's ex-girlfriend, but was able to avoid prosecution each time.

Now, we're sure this is just a coincidence, but Winona Ryder is on the cover of the July 2009 edition of Elle UK. Go figure.

Lohan Investigated In Jewel Theft [TMZ]

Britain, a nation located in England, may be about to lose its AAA credit rating. Like, the whole country. Which is not good, because you know who has even worse debt problems than Britain? We do, America! "A sobering financial picture of Uncle Sam's balance came from David Walker, a former US comptroller general, who wrote last week in the Financial Times that the US has a negative net worth of $11 trillion, and off-balance-sheet obligations of $45 trillion. The US has only about $11 trillion in gold stashed in vaults."

Bit of advice, America: when you decide how to invest all that scrilla to make up that extra $11 trillion, do not invest it in building malls. Nobody is going to those places any more. Abandoned 'Ghost Malls' now dot the American countryside like so many Stuckeys'! Where will surly teens go now to stand around in packs and declare that "this mall sucks"?

Perhaps they will turn to useful activities such as art? (Play along, it's a segue). But that may be a bad plan as well! Comic strips, as an industry, are dying off. Newspapers can't afford to pay for them. If Family Circle goes down, it's only a matter of time before the whores take over.
[Pic via]

Sorry, we meant "the Queen." It was more fun than meeting "the Queen." She didn't explicitly say this, of course. Michelle said, of taping a Sesame Street segment: "I think it's probably the best thing I've done so far in the White House. " So Britain's Daily Mail reminds its readers that this woman met Her Majesty!

Dear Britain: your dumb Queen did not raise three generations of American children! Elizabeth had nothing to do with teaching American children the joy of puns, parody, and creaky vaudeville humor! (And the alphabet maybe? There was some alphabet stuff involved.)

Who the hell wouldn't be more excited for Big Bird than Queen Elizabeth? No one we'd want as first lady.

In conclusion:

Photo: (c) 2009 Sesame Workshop. All Rights Reserved. Photo Credit: Richard Termine

The British Home Office released a list of 16 people banned since October so that everyone knew exactly what sort of things the English don't cotton to.

"If people have so clearly overstepped the mark in terms of the way not just that they are talking but the sort of attitudes that they are expressing to the extent that we think that this is likely to cause or have the potential to cause violence or inter-community tension in this country, then actually I think the right thing is not to let them into the country in the first place. Not to open the stable door then try to close it later," Ms Smith said.

Now it may seem a bit odd to place right-wing talk show host Michael Savage on a list with the leaders of a Russian skinhead gang who've killed at least 20 people, but just because in our nation he is considered perfectly acceptable for nationally syndicated radio doesn't mean he's not just as extreme and bigoted as your average workaday Hamas MP. And Savage tends to be just a bit nuttier than the rest of the talk radio pack, though Glenn Beck is really trying his best.

But here in America we give you a pass on this sort of thing if you say "just kidding I am but a mere entertainer" every so often.

General Growth Properties, which operated more than 200 malls covering 44 states, declared bankruptcy today. Think about that for a moment. Malls were the sickly shining symbol of suburban America's rotting commercial heart! And now they're mere shells of themselves, with a few ghostly Orange Julii and whatnot interspersed between vacant former Coconuts locations, while all the shopping public is off at the gun show.

Perhaps even more jarring than that: "As the recession prompts U.K. pub crawlers to drink at home more often, two of the country's biggest pub owners are selling or closing hundreds of locations to pay the tab from a decade-long expansion." Are you hearing this? Pubs going out of business in England, of all places. There is absolutely nothing to do in vast swaths of England except go to pubs, unless the new "US vs. UK Challenge" season of Spike TV's "The Ultimate Fighter" is far more popular than I imagined. Brits are reportedly drinking at home to save money, preferring the sad, lonely existence of beer-guzzling in front of the TV to the sad, lonely existence of beer-guzzling in a dimly lit pub, and then fighting.

If malls and pubs can't turn profits any more, it's quite obvious that there's no hope for Saturn dealers or the entire real estate industry. When your most appealing services don't sell, despite the public's inherent hypnotic attachment to them, you know that bad days are ahead.

And fat people can't fly.

Some group called "Appropriate Media" went and splashed paint all over a classic Banksy piece in Bristol, cause Banksy is way too "middle class" now. No idea when "Middle class" became a slur over there. Also, Banksy is in fact upper class. Anyhow, their manifesto:

In the early hours of this morning, Banksy's 'Mild Mild West' on Stokes Croft in Bristol (UK) was repainted by a member of Appropriate Media, presenting an alternative version of this 'alternative Bristol landmark'.

Through this action, Appropriate Media asks ?What is the value of street art??. How much time and money will be spent to restore this urban 'masterpiss' by urban masterpisser, Banksy.

Come on, you only care about it cos its a Banksy and he sells his lazy polemics to Hollywood movie stars for big bucks.

Come on, you only care about it cos makes you feel edgy and urban to tour round the inner city in your 4x4, taking in the tired coffee table subversion that graffiti has become.

Graffiti artists are the copywriters for the capitalist created phenomenon of urban art.
Graffiti artists are the performing spray-can monkeys for gentrification.
We call for the appropriate and legitimate use of public and private property.

We are taking matters into our own hands

We will not seek permission

We will retaliate

Hmmm. Current odds in favor of this being a stunt by Banksy himself: 3-2.

We're forced to admit that they are. Also, the capitalist pigs on the opposite side of the protesters are putting their meek, chastened American counterparts to shame, by telling the protesters to fuck off:

City workers waved £10 notes at G20 protesters today as thousands descended on London's financial heartland.

Bankers leaning out of office windows taunted demonstrators on the streets below, who responded with jeers and shouts.

Ha ha! See, the two sides of a protest feed off of each other, so this taunting by the rich just makes the anarchohippies more awesome. Already huge crowds have been 'CLASHING' with riot police, shooting paintballs, and hurling fruit, which gives the whole thing a pleasant "Public shaming in the town square, 1745" vibe. Police helicopters are hovering overhead while smoke wafts through the streets, packed with bandanna-clad punks ready to break shit. Or better:

This morning a group [of protesters], caught with police uniforms, drove a riot truck or armored car through the city.

This is the level of commitment that turns street protests from boring retreads of laughable kids playing anarchist and chanting "Si se puede!" into truly entertaining affairs. They have jeering bankers hurling money out windows and tomato-slinging angry unemployed workers stealing armored cars; we have AIG employees scared to wear logo-ed golf shirts, and NYU food court revolutionaries demanding the right to a vegan lunch.

Let's get our act together, America. We can hate each other in a much more professional fashion. Yes we can! [Pic: Getty]

Two things. One, it's obviously Christmastime. Unless, of course, it's Halloween and Reindeer Man's wearing the world's laziest costume. Two, what's his friend doing? Holding his hair? Holding his head down so he doesn't splatter on his shoes? Google Street View should really stop and ask for clarification when they pass by scenes like this. [Google Maps UK via T3]

Update: British people are saying it's after a stag party, not at Christmas time. A thousand pardons, drunkards.

"OK!'s tribute issue is a celebration of Jade's amazing life. Jade's family have spoken to OK! today to reiterate that they understand the tribute issue and view it as being very kind to Jade.

"They would like to also state that they are extremely grateful for the support that OK! has provided during this distressing period," the statement said from publisher Northern and Shell.

Not incredibly surprising that her family would be understanding, since OK! paid Jade like a million bucks for the rights to her story. But it's interesting that the magazine didn't get a public seal of approval from Jade herself, who is, again, not dead. [Guardian UK]