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.

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

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

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

Photo via TMZ

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.

Allen is Politico's White House correspondent. According to the pool report of the event sent out to the White House press corps by the Baltimore Sun's Paul West, who spent about 40 minutes observing the party—confined to a pen so he couldn't mingle—before being escorted out, Allen was there:

Faces spotted at random in the crowd included AG Eric Holder, White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, press secretary Robert Gibbs (gamboling with his son on the big West Wing play set), social secretary Desiree Rogers, Obama chums Martin Nesbitt and Dr. Eric Whitaker, and Mike Allen of Politico.

Allen must have been doing what we usually do at Fourth of July parties—drinking himself into patriotic oblivion. Because he totally forgot he was there! When he mentioned the the bash the next day in his Playbook column, he pasted-and-quoted the pool report, conveniently deleting his own name:

A source in the White House press corps tells us that invites to the event were very hard to come by—reporters who tried to cadge one were told that the guest list was limited to staffers and their families. Allen's claustrophobic, minutiae-obsessed manner of covering the White House—sniveling and attention-seeking one minute, petty and vicious the next—kind of reminds us of our own family sometimes, so it makes sense he'd rate an invite.

West, the pooler, confined to his little pen, tried bravely to ask Obama some questions during the portion of the party he was permitted to be there:

After the Marine musicians marched off, Obama and the First Lady descended the steps and worked a rope line for almost 20 minutes, carefully skipping over your pool and ignoring shouted attempts at questions.

We've e-mailed Allen to ask him if he had a chance to ask Obama any questions as he mingled with the guests. Though we imagine that if he did, he would have written about it by now, no? We've also asked the White House what other elite members of the press corps they deemed worth spending their Fourth of July hanging out with. We'll let you know when we hear back.

Obama gave the commencement address at the New Economic School in Moscow earlier today, as one of the stops on his trip to Russia. Warming up the crowd, he ad-libbed this little gem:

I don't know if anybody else will meet their future wife or husband in class like I did, but I'm sure that you're all going to have wonderful careers.

Not true! Politico, ever-vigilant in catching the lies of politicians, fact-checks:

But the truth is that the couple met not "in class" but at a law firm in Chicago, Sidley Austin, in 1989. Obama was a summer associate (essentially a legal intern) there and Robinson was an attorney completing her first year at the firm.

The Politico piece is by Josh Gerstein, a man. Come on, Josh! If you misspoke about how you met your wife, would you want to get all called-out on it? Cut a brother some slack. Now he's going to have to buy her one of those Russian nesting dolls or something to make it up to her. Hasn't Judd Apatow taught us anything?

Oddly, it's the ladies at Newsweek's Gaggle who are rushing to Obama's defense:

The Obamas officially met in Chicago in 1989, when the future president was a summer associate at the Sidley Austin law firm and Michelle was assigned as his mentor. Was what Obama said wrong? Technically no, considering Obama was still going to school when he met his wife. But for those keeping close watch on Obama trivia-ie, the White House press corps-the statement did seem a wee bit off.

Exactly! Why get bogged down in all these "official" and "technical" details baby? You can't put a date on love. Can you?

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.

Yes, while most Americans spent the 4th of July dressed in red, white and blue, grilling various forms of animal flesh with their friends and neighbors, going to the beach, perhaps watching other Americans compete in a contest to see who could consume the most processed meats in a ten-minute time frame, Sarah Palin was cranking out an insane letter with some ridiculous Alaskan lawyer which basically threatens to sue anyone who dares to speak ill of Saint Sarah.

What provoked the threat was rampant speculation online that Palin's bizarre resignation on Friday was fueled by a possible embezzlement scandal involving the Palins receiving kickbacks on the construction of their home in Wasilla from the construction company that was awarded the contract to build the Wasilla Sports Complex while she mayor of that town. According to the four page letter from Thomas Van Flein, Palin's attorney, mere speculation on the matter by the media could result in a lawsuit.

This is to provide notice to (blogger Shannyn) Moore, and those who republish the defamation, such as Huffington Post, MSNBC, The New York Times and The Washington Post, that the Palins will not allow them to propagate defamatory material without answering to this in a court of law...Just as power abhors a vacuum, modern journalism apparently abhors any type of due diligence and fact checking before scurrilous allegations are repeated as fact.

But that's not all—Earlier in the day Palin whined about the media's treatment of her on her Facebook page.

The response in the main stream media has been most predictable, ironic, and as always, detached from the lives of ordinary Americans who are sick of the "politics of personal destruction". How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it's about country. And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make. But every American understands what it takes to make a decision because it's right for all, including your family.

Of course, as with all things concerning Sarah Palin, none of this would be complete if it weren't laced with delicious irony. To that end, Jezebel dug up a video of Palin talking to Newsweek's Karen Breslau in March of 2008, where she addressed Hillary Clinton's complaints about the media during her campaign against Obama for the Democratic nomination. Palin said that Hillary was doing women a "disservice" by whining incessantly about media criticism.

You gotta plow through that. You have to know what you're getting into...When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate, with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism or you know maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think 'that doesn't do us any good.'

Oh yes. The next few weeks should be a whole lotta fun.

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

Video via Jezebel
Illustration via the amazing Zina Saunders True Believer

Shockingly, Biden didn't say anything to spark a national panic. Rather, he was quite candid about the state of the American economy at present and the administration's miscalculations in tinkering with it up to this point. Contrast this with the previous administration's outright refusal to admit any mistake in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and it's, well, kind of refreshing.

The main takeaway from Biden's full interview with George Stephanopoulos: Despite the fact that some economists are pressuring the White House for a second economic stimulus package, Biden said such a thing was "premature at this point."

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

We are going to wait for someone smarter than us about cybersecurity and the intelligence community to explain it to us, before we try to explain it to you. But here is what the Post says.

Under a classified pilot program approved during the Bush administration, NSA data and hardware would be used to protect the networks of some civilian government agencies. Part of an initiative known as Einstein 3, the pilot called for telecommunications companies to route the Internet traffic of civilian government agencies through a monitoring box that would search for and block malicious computer codes.

AT&T, the world's largest telecommunications firm, was the Bush administration's choice to participate in the test, which has been delayed for months as the Obama administration determines what elements of the Bush plan to preserve, former government officials said. The pilot was to have been launched in February.

And it is basically another "the NSA promises not to break any laws despite having the ability, if not explicitly the authority, to do whatever the fuck they want" thing, we think.

The ceiling for White House salaries is $172,200 per year, which all our favorites—Rahm Emmanuel, David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, Jon Favreau, and Valerie Jarrett, to name a few—pull in. Though we're fairly certain that Emmanuel demands that Obama write him a personal check for $1 on the first of every month so he can say he makes more than Axelrod.

The floor is $36,000, which is what various staff assistants, correspondence analysts, and "vetters" make, which is apparently why no one realized that Tim Geithner never paid any taxes. Obama should pay his vetter more.

If you want to write proclamations all day, you can make a cool 50 grand, like Anand Chhabra, the White House's senior writer for proclamations. If you want to make nothing, zilch, nada, zero, you can be an "adviser" like Patricia McGinnis, or a "senior adviser for economics, division of presidential personnel" like Michael Warren, neither of whom make any money at all.

Favreau's girlfriend Alejandra Campoverdi makes $55,000 as an executive assistant to the deputy chief of staff for policy, which we hope is more than she made as a contestant on NBC's reality-dating show For Love Or Money, or as a pin-up girl in Maxim.

So what glaring injustices have we found in Obama's salary scheme? Well, Corey Ealons, the director of African American media, makes $78,000 per year, while Luis Miranda, the director of Hispanic media, makes just $65,000.
Gibbs, the director of White media, makes $172,200, so it's basically a caste system.

And Obama also hates women, because Catherine Lelyveld, Michelle Obama's press secretary, makes $84,000, less than half of what Gibbs makes. And Michelle doesn't make any money at all!

Barack himself makes $400,000, because he made sure his contract had a clause saying he'd make at least 2.3 times whatever the next highest-paid employee makes.

The median household income in Washington, D.C., is $55,000 per year. Assuming dual-income households, all White House staffers almost certainly make more than that.

What we can't figure out is why Obama isn't paying everyone the same flat salary. He is a Communist, right?

The meeting—with White House advisers but not, mercifully, Obama himself—was ostensibly about "soliciting ideas for selling [Obama's] public service message." But because Silverman is unctuous and gross, it was really about getting press, and the appearance of a White House impramatur, for The Philanthropist, which Silverman bought without seeing a pilot and which the Miami Herald's Glenn Garvin says "may be worst show ever."

Silverman went to the White House with The Philanthropist's producer Tom Fontana and its star James Purefoy. Because he exactly the kind of guy who would call you from the White House to say "Dude, guess where I am right now!", he called Cindy Adams to say, "Dude, guess where I am right now!":

From his cellphone in the White House East Reception Room, Silverman told me:

"We're responding to Obama's request to bring the entertainment industry into White House initiatives."

Which, basically, means what?

"Nixon established an Office of Public Liaison. Such public engagement now will help the president's outreach to Hollywood to spread his message of science, education, math, technology, engineering and public service. We're committed to getting young people engaged, and our new summer drama will encompass these story lines."

Yes, that's right, The Philanthropist is "encompassing" the White House's "story lines."

Ben Silverman is an awful person who makes shitty TV and is about to get fired by Jeff Zucker, an even worse person who also makes shitty TV. Barack Obama's White House was supposed to be all about Camelot Revisited, with poets and philosophers roaming the halls and dancing with one another to jazz and wearing tuxedos. The man who staked his network on trying to hire Rod Blagojevich to hang out with Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt is an obscene intrusion into that noble vision. Now he's probably running around talking about "my friend Barry Obama" and pitching the White House on Michelle Obama doing a "Now You Know" PSA—maybe about organic food? We could partner with Whole Foods!

Mr. President, this man is beneath you. Let him, and all his awful television shows, go away quietly.

As the summer begins, White House watchers have spotted a new look by President Obama: The Evil Eye!

Staffers have joked about the menacing glance, which comes when the president meets with world leaders who are not aligned with his progressive view.

Victims of Obama's voodoo sorcery have included German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and at least one unknown White House reporter. While the heads of state appear to have survived Obama's wicked glance unscathed, the condition of the reporter could not be immediately assessed.

The Evil Eye is not fully understood, but scientists believe that when wielded by a skilled wizard it can impart impure spirits into the victim, with effects described as "worse than poison" or "the points of spears." Its hazards can be avoided by carrying a blue stone with a white circle inscribed in the center, "sweeping a raw chicken egg over the body of a victim to absorb the power of the person with the evil eye," or believing in Jesus Christ.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.It is believed that Obama's facility with the Evil Eye may be traceable to his Mohammedan roots. Mohammed himself claimed that "the Evil Eye is a fact, and if there were anything in the world which would overcome fate, it would be an Evil Eye." However, most Imams generally regard the use of magic as un-Islamic; it's unclear if voodoo priests are exempted from that restriction or if Obama obtained a special Fatwa permitting him to use it for purposes of Communism.

Gawker would like to apologize to our readers for failing to appreciate the full gravity of the situation when we first noted Obama's steely gaze six months ago. We called it his "STFU Face," and clearly failed to investigate or follow up on its association with bedevilment. We pledge to do better next time.

No, seriously, that's Glenn Beck logic in action for you. It really is as simple as this—A) FIdel Castro condemned the coup in Honduras. B) Hugo Chavez condemned the coup in Honduras. C) Barack Obama condemned the coup in Honduras. Therefore, Barack Obama is a communist dictator just like Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro.

And now you know.

And judging by the headline on Drudge right now, this appears to be a new conservative line of attack.

We are guessing it was maybe Antonin Scalia's phone. Unless the duck was yet another Obama plant?

In the New York Times' report on the House's passage of a climate change bill, the fact that Obama delayed a golf game to gather reporters in the Oval Office rated fifth-paragraph placement:

Mr. Obama, hoping to build momentum in the Senate after the narrow victory in the House, delayed the start of a Sunday golf game to speak to a small group of reporters in the Oval Office.

Of course everybody knows that "the president plays golf" is shorthand for "the president is a lazy, distant, out-of-touch plutocrat who's got nothing better to do while our country burns down than indulge in a rush man's pasttime," so when the Times works Obama's golf game into a story that high up, we know that something's afoot.

Indeed, Newsweek's Howard Fineman senses that "things are getting a little testy and are about to get more so" in the White House press corps. Why? "[T]he problem is that they are too cute by half. They assume they can manipulate, manage and guide the media flawlessly."

Fineman happily acknowledges that Obama's press shop hasn't been "stonewalling or lying about anything" (except for Bo's diet). It's just that they are insufficiently cowed by the reporters who cover them, apparently. Fineman doesn't really object to the prearranged stagecraft of the Huffington Posts' Nico Pitney's question at last week's press conference so much as the "cheesy"—read: unapologetically self-confident—way in which it was done. In other words, if they'd been a little more sheepish and respectful about the whole thing, no one would really have minded.

But they weren't, and Obama will probably continue to let bloggers ask him questions, and might even continue to do so in a way that reflects well on him. So there's testiness. And that testiness first manifests itself in little asides about golf.

Or in Politico stories with headlines like, "Obama golfs fourth week straight."

We hope Obama is just killing time until his White House basketball court is finished, because, given the optics, he really shouldn't be out on the links so much. And America loves Barack Obama playing basketball. If he were to ever say, "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now, watch this lay-up," he'd be guaranteed re-election.

In a statement released tonight Chapur, a 41 year-old television reporter, said the following:

I have decided to send to you this release that will be the only one, to thus clarify certain incorrect things that are being spread worldwide so as to give an end to the subject that as you can imagine is of great pain to me, as for my two children, my family and all the great friends that I have known and harvested throughout my life and that had always been there for me.

1. I won't speak about my private life as it just belongs to me. It has already been made too public during these last days, bringing to me even more pain.

2. I categorically deny that the individual who hacked my hotmail account was the one friend with whom I shared days in Brazil in the Rolex Regatta. This friend, as you could all well read in my recently published e-mails, is an excellent, respectable and honorable man incapable of making anything similar to that. Far away from being the author of this evil action he was instead another victim. In December 2008, the stolen e-mails were sent by the hacker to him as well as to the newspaper The State.

3. My hotmail account was hacked around November 24th, through an old e-mail account under my name provided by an Argentine company. I made my denouncement at that time at the Argentine company, where my old account was still opened, as did the denouncement at hotmail. I was finally able to close down that old account and to recover by December 8th, my hacked hotmail account, after answering a long questionnaire sent by Microsoft. All this is registered in Microsoft as well as in the Argentine company. I kept all my requests and the answers given by Microsoft at that time, company that with great speed and effectiveness solved my problem making possible the recovery of my hotmail. Also the Argentine company, via a telephone call, decided to immediately close down that account as an exception, due to the gravity of my denouncement , despite not belonging this account to my home address.

3. Finally, I do have a firm suspicion of whom particularly may have done this great damage directed specially to me, but at the same time destroying the life of so many others. Not counting on the sufficient proves and living according to the rule of law, I am myself forced to maintain the individual's name in anonymity. I am not the one to judge anyone, I leave this in God's hands.

MARIA BELEN CHAPUR

Poor lady. Wasn't her life awful enough for having merely fallen in love with a loser like Mark Freaking Sanford? And now she's being dragged through the American political muck, not to mention being exposed worldwide as a Hotmail user, to top it all off!

And oh yeah, here's Limbaugh explaining on his Friday show how Barack Obama's systematic dismantling of America as we know it drove Sanford to stick his conservative Republican wee-wee into Chapur's ladybox. And here we've been thinking that the time Limbaugh said that "exercise freaks" were to blame for America's healthcare problems was the dumbest thing he's ever said, but this may actually top it.

Argentine Admits Affair With S.C. Governor [MSNBC]
Vid via Media Matters

In a shallow attempt to divert attention away from their Iranian brethren (?), while you were getting out of bed today, Hondurans were having a military coup. Here's the basic rundown:

- Honduran President Jose Manuel Zelaya was arrested outside the presidential palace. He's been transported to Costa Rica, where he's seeking political asylum.

- The military arrested him because he was going to follow through with a referendum that the Supreme Court of Honduras had ruled illegal.

- The referendum in question Hondurans would be asked to vote on today was an extension of term limits. It wasn't a vote to extend the term limits, it was a vote to get the question of term limits put on the ballot in Honduras' upcoming election in November. The vote would put in place a constitutional assembly who could essentially override things like term limits.

- Zeleya's noted that it's "just a poll" that doesn't obligate the government to do anything. He's asserted that the poll isn't to ensure his reelection, as he'll be out of office regardless. On Friday, Zeleya lead a peaceful protest to pick up a bunch of ballots from a military base to show that he was actually going to go through with this thing, today. Zeleya had also instructed the armed forces to provide him and the poll with security.

- The heads of Honduras' military have all resigned to show support for the military's chief, Gen. Romeo Vasquez Velasquez. Zeleya had threatened earlier this week to fire Velasquez if he didn't support Zelya's poll.

- Protesters and supporters of Zeleya who've gathered at the presidential palace - about 600, according to initial reports - have had tear gas fired at them by the military.

- Finally, President Obama is not cool with any of this shit. Put it on ice, Honduras! "I am deeply concerned by reports coming out of Honduras regarding the detention and expulsion of President Mel Zelaya. As the Organization of American States did on Friday, I call on all political and social actors in Honduras to respect democratic norms, the rule of law and the tenets of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. Any existing tensions and disputes must be resolved peacefully through dialogue free from any outside interference," was the statement Obama put out.

Either way, it looks like a crazy leader kinda got a little carried away with this little poll of his. But it seems to be a mostly by-the-numbers kind of Junta - if you can even call it that - no? Either way, in Honduras, they protest and get active over this kind of thing! If Bloomberg had lost the opportunity to run for a third term, and we found out he was going to do it anyway, we'd probably all just sit around at brunch, gnawing on a croissant, figuring out when we could take a nap. Actually, I'm pretty sure that already happened. But no, this isn't quite on the level of Iran, which will still retain the title of Hot Revolution Of The Moment.

Anyway: more to come on the Honduran "coup," I guess!

Honduras president arrested, local media report [CNN]

Troops Detain Honduras President [NY Times]

After the Obama Fried Chicken fiasco (here's another one) in April – and the White House promising to clamp down on use of Obama's image (without dampening enthusiasm for the president, of course) – now we have the Obama Deli.

According to Gingervision (who provided the pic), the store is on Myrtle between Vanderbilt and Clinton in Clinton Hill and it used to be a gift shop. Stop in and order a pastrobami sandwich.

There will be no news on the news tonight, so the magical power of a Friday afternoon newsdump is even more potent. Any weekend coverage will garner even less attention than usual, and by Monday we'll all be mourning the next celebrity tragically murdered by Twitter. So. Let's see.

• Not only is Mark Sanford not resigning, he is comparing himself to the Biblical King David, who fell in love with a married woman after seeing her bathe, and then he killed her husband.
• Democratic Representative Maxine Waters is fighting for her right to earmark money to name things after herself, and various on-the-fence Democrats now support the climate bill (they picked a good time to come down off that fence!).
• And hey, what's this? "The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close Guantanamo, has drafted an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations." This is because dealing with Congress is impossible. Also arrrrrgh wtf.

Honestly, though? That last nugget aside, this is SMALL POTATOES. Step up your game, politicians!

To celebrate the occasion, the team wore special red, white and blue jerseys, invited Amber Lee Ettinger, the Obama Girl, to the throw out the first pitch, distributed Obama bobbleheads to fans, offered "universal health care" to fans in the form of free Band-Aids, gave free admission to anyone named "Barack," admitted any plumbers named Joe in for free—I think you get the picture here—The whole thing was a bit over the top, but most of the fans seemed to enjoy it.

But of course, as with all things, some did not enjoy the evening, and a tipster whose husband has knowledge of the team said in an email that there's been a bit of a backlash from some of their Obama-hating fans.

my husband tells me that, in response to the "gift" at tonight's brooklyn cyclones game, which was some sort of obama bobblehead doll with the moniker "baracklyn cyclones," over 200 angry, anti-obama season ticket holders canceled their subscriptions.

Now, to be fair, it's doubtful that season subscribers at, say, the Metropolitan Opera, would take too kindly to Bush bobbleheads being handed out at a performance of Carmen, so cut 'em some slack.

No word yet on whether or not Jets Kicker Jay Feely was one of the season ticket holders who canceled their seats.

Baracklyn Cyclones [baracklyncyclones.com]

The Huffington Post's Nico Pitney, who's been aggregating news from and about the Iranian unrest since it began more than a week ago, had a seat at the presser. Before he headed to the White House, he opened up the floor to the people of Iran via the Huffington Post:

Later today, President Obama is holding a news conference at the White House and I'll be attending. If I get called, I want to ask a question that comes directly from an Iranian. We've all spent plenty of time discussing and debating how the President has reacted to the crisis there; it seems only fair that the people on the ground, living right now under great stress and uncertainty, be able to have a question of theirs answered.

Barack Obama, who knows an opportunity for a potent symbolic gesture when he sees one, took the gambit head on. He called on Pitney by name, and let it be known that he was calling on him because he wanted to hear a question from the Iranian people. The Huffington Post gets its second question at a presidential press conference, further legitimizing it as a news outlet, Pitney gets (deserved) recognition for his tireless collation of Iran news and video, and Obama gets to be seen as communicating directly with the people of Iran.

In the end, of course, it doesn't matter where the question—under what, if any, conditions Obama would accept an Ahmadinejad victory as legitimate—came from. What matters is whether it was a good question. It was, and Obama didn't answer it.

UPDATE: The whole thing was indeed choreographed, Politico reports, quoting White House flack Bill Burton: "We did reach out to him prior to press conference to tell him that we had been paying attention to what he had been doing on Iran and there was a chance that he'd be called on." CBC News' Mark Knoller got confirmation from Pitney: "Huffington Post's Nico Pitney says the WH called him this morning and invited him to ask his Iran questions at the news conference."

K-Lo's excuse is that she is simple-minded. Former assistant US Attorney Andy McCarthy can say no such thing, as idiotic as the things he writes are.

At least K-Lo's apologia for Ensign succinctly exposes an important difference in how dumb conservatives and dumb liberals interpret the world: dumb liberals justify their mean-spirited glee at seeing a member of the other team brought down in shame by claiming it exposes hypocrisy; dumb conservatives don't understand that it's not a tragic tale of a moral man felled by temptation, it's just a holier-than-thou asshole getting his*.

All McCarthy's doing, though, is absentmindedly flinging shit at the wall in the hopes that something sticks.

So Andy McCarthy's piece is a helpful attempt to explain just why Barack Obama has not yet personally flown into Iran to assassinate Ayatollah Khamenei and grant free-market democracy to the grateful protesters. Some apologists have suggested that it would, in fact, strengthen the ruling regime for the American President to more actively take sides. Others have suggested that Obama might be better able to bargain with whomever eventually runs Iran if he hasn't pissed them off. You can fairly criticize the rationale behind both of those interpretations! Unless you are Andy McCarthy. In that case, this is your explanation.

The fact is that, as a man of the hard Left, Obama is more comfortable with a totalitarian Islamic regime than he would be with a free Iranian society.

Andy McCarthy is well-educated enough to know that a theocratic dictatorship is not compatible in any way with Leftism. He knows, when he writes that the "hard-Left... was more comfortable with the Soviets than the anti-Communists," that many of these anti-Communists were, in fact, fascists, theocratic totalitarians, and dictators. (Like the heroic Afghani freedom fighters who beat back the Russians! Now we call them "the Taliban.") He knows that a ridiculously inequitable oil state that throws occasional sops to its massive underclass is more or less the opposite of the Socialist ideal. And yes, of course he fucking knows that Barack Obama is not even close to being "a man of the hard Left." (Why did President Barack Castro over here appoint Geithner?) Any idiot knows that the President of the United States would obviously rather see a non-insane moderate in charge of Iran, because seriously, how does Obama benefit by having Ahmadinejad still in power, again? He just likes the dude because they both hate America so much? In fact not a single one of the sinister insinuations made in that one simple sentence should even require any sort of rebuttal, because it is all just half-assed trolling.

But it is all especially shameless because neo-conservatives—not the "hard Left"—were the only Americans publicly begging for an Ahmadinjead victory, so that they could—as they are now!—demand that Obama take a harder line against the Iranian regime. One guy said it right there on National Review Online! And look, they won, and they are doing exactly what they said they would!

Anyway. Andy McCarthy: what a prick.

*Seriously, her attempts to frame Ensign's Clinton-era harangues about the sanctity of marriage as a bold truth heroically stated, one that Ensign, tragically, could not live up himself, are mind-boggling, unless you are as dumb and conservative as she is. Like, if she believes that his moralistic pandering was actually an attempt to preach the gospel, then she will forgive him for not living up to those high standards (the high standards he demanded Bill Clinton live up to, but whatever!) himself, because we are sadly all too human, except for abortionists. "I confess that my first instinct was certainly not to praise Senator Ensign upon learning of his infidelity," K-Lo writes, but then she performed the mental jujitsu necessary to align the facts—a man on "her side" does not live up to her standards of morality—with her worldview—she and her friends, the Republicans, are Holy and Right. And so, John Ensign's affair with a married woman is the fault of "the left-wing blogosphere," and all is right with her world. If K-Lo's boyfriend Mitt Romney was caught on video nailing an underaged Thai sex slave she'd probably find a way to make it Keith Olbermann's fault. Ok we promised we wouldn't actually talk about this column so much but come on.

The statement came as numbers from Iran's hospitals were leaking out. From a Twitter report via Andrew Sullivan: "30-40 dead as of 11pm; 200 injured. Police taking names of incoming injured." Meanwhile, Iran's government has noted that they're ready to recount (randomly) up to ten percent of the "ballot boxes." Obama's been previously slagged on by Republican leadership for not moving quickly or harshly enough on Iran. The full written White House release:

The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.

As I said in Cairo, suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. The Iranian people will ultimately judge the actions of their own government. If the Iranian government seeks the respect of the international community, it must respect the dignity of its own people and govern through consent, not coercion.

Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples' belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

Obama urges Iran to 'stop all violent and unjust actions' [AFP]

Hodgman, a sometimes Daily Show correspondent, author, and former literary agent, absolutely killed it last night at the 2009 Radio and TV Correspondents Dinner.

The entire thing is about fourteen minutes, all of which is priceless (and Hodgman, not a professional comedian, makes Wanda Sykes' performance of a few weeks ago look completely bush league). Watch and learn, future Obama funnypeople. This is how it's done.

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

Nice work by Hodgman, who's clearly still in a little bit of shock himself.

According to the official White House portrait/baseball card of Bo, the Portuguese Water Dog's favorite food is "tomatoes – or toys." Something was off. Tomatoes? Really? Isn't there something about dogs and tomatoes?

So we took to the internet, and sure enough—they're poison!

Tomatoes and even raw tomatoes contain a chemical called glycoalkaloid solanine, which is very poisonous to animals. You may find this strange since humans eat tomatoes all the time and they are considered very healthy food. However, they should not be fed to animals because can cause them digestive problems.

Shocked as we were to learn that the mild-mannered Obamas, this portrait of a happy, well-adjusted family, are slowly killing their own pet, we kept our cool. We know better than most that you shouldn't trust what you read on the internet. So we rang up Tony Knight, a professor at Colorado State University's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. And what he told us made our blood run cold.

"Tomatoes belong to the same family as nightshade," he said. "Mother nature didn't design dogs to eat them. One or two tomatoes is not going to do anything to a large-sized dog, but no—they're not a good food. The glycoalkaloids could cause colic and bloating—they stop the activity of the intestinal tract."

There could be no longer be any doubt. Bo's life was in danger. We had to warn him! But how? First, we needed to call the White House. Maybe it was all a mistake. Maybe they just didn't know the toll those tomatoes were taking on the poor beast.

And that's when the bottom fell out.

"Bo does not eat tomatoes," a spokeswoman for the First Lady told us. What? But the baseball card—you said... it clearly states that... how can he not eat tomatoes when you said his favorite food is tomatoes!? What kind of Kafka-esque nightmare were we in? War is Peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Eating Tomatoes is Not Eating Tomatoes.

It was all a joke, they say. When Bo first came to the White House, back in April, Obama ad-libbed a little zinger to the press: "The only concern we have is apparently Portuguese water dogs like tomatoes—Michelle's garden is in danger," he said. So when the White House ginned up its latest propaganda campaign to foist Bo on the American people just like they're doing with Communism, they inserted a little joke in there—"Favorite food: tomatoes—or toys"—for the greater glory of the Anointed One, to remind us all how funny he is.

So Bo does not eat tomatoes. Never has. Never will. And that's the story of how we spent an hour-and-a-half trying to get a goddamn veterinary expert on the phone because of a grand and diabolical lie told by your government. Now we know exactly what it's like to be Iranian.

"Obama's Doctor Knocks ObamaCare..." is the top-left headline on Drudge, which goes to a Forbes' interview with Dr. David Scheiner, Obama's former primary care physician. Schneier says he's worried that Obama and his team are out of touch when it comes to the realities of health care: "I'm not sure he really understands what we face in primary care," he says. "Obama's wonderful, but on this one I'm not sure if he's getting the right input."

Score! Another scale has fallen from the eyes of The Anointed One's followers. Soon Drudge will unmask this socialist charlatan for the radical that he is. His own doctor is shocked at the Stalinist bureaucracy this fraud is trying to impose on the greatest health care system in the world. So what sort of freedom-loving, market-based solution does Dr. Schneier, who obviously knows what he's talking about, want to see?

Scheiner thinks that a good health reform would be "Medicare for all," a single-payer system where the government would cover everyone and pay for it by cutting out waste in the system. "A neurosurgeon gets paid $20,000 for cutting into the neck of my patient. Have him get paid $1 million a year instead of $2 million or $3 million. He won't starve," Scheiner says.

After first quoting approvingly, the National Review's Mark Hemingway actually updated his post on Schneier. He had initially quoted the first three paragraphs and concluded "Ouch." But then he read all the way to the sixth paragraph and discovered Schneier spouting Maoist propaganda. Like we said, whatever. The headline's out there. Take it away, Hannity.

The "birthers" are people who think Barack Obama was secretly born in Kenya or Indonesia or on the moon (the crescent moon), because it is utterly unfathomable to them that we have a black president, and this is how they're dealing with the stress of a colored person in the office of a man they used to worship.

They claim Barack Obama does not have a birth cirtificate, or something, honestly their conspiracy theories about this don't make very much sense to us, because even leaving aside the question of why anyone would've faked Obama's Hawaiian birth in two newspapers 47 years ago (the Illuminati knew he would be their eventual stealth socialist black president?) there is the sad fact that Obama's birth certificate is available on fucking Wikipedia.

But "evidence" and "proof" that contradicts conspiracy theories only strengthens the resolve of the theorists. Thankfully, instead of being a couple easily ignored nuts babbling away on obscure message boards, these birthers are being taken very seriously by a couple members of Congress.

First, Bill Posey, the illegitimate grandson of an alligator and a Republican congressman from Florida, introduced a bill demanding "documentation of eligibility from presidential candidates." And now Coburn is helping out!

"The bill requires any federal candidates' campaign committee filing with the Federal Election Commission to produce a copy of the candidate's birth certificate," he wrote. "If the bill makes it to the Senate, I will likely support it."

Coburn also noted that within the state of Oklahoma, a bill has been proposed that would require "any candidate filing with the Oklahoma State Election Board to provide proof of citizenship by providing a 'state government-issued birth certificate with a raised seal.'"

Coburn eventually claims that he does actually believe the president to be eligible to be president, which means he is just actively admitting, in this letter, that he is just condescending to lunatics and encouraging them to continue their wacky little fight against reality. He is yet another true American hero, in a Congress full of them.

Since the day Obama was sworn in conservatives have been grinding their teeth in anger over the fact that George W. Bush has done the gentlemanly ex-President thing and refrained from being critical of Obama. Now the Times, most recently in the news for running a photo of the Obama girls with a story about murdered children, has a story out tonight in which Bush takes some mildly critical swipes at Obama, a story that's been sitting on their webpage since at least midnight looking like it wasn't edited for proper punctuation before it was published and sent out for linkage. Below is a screen grab.


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


We're guessing that this is how the passage pictured should probably read:

"I know it's going to be the private sector that leads this country out of the current economic times we're in," the former president said to applause from members of a local business group. "You can spend your money better than the government can spend your money."

Repeatedly in his hourlong speech and question-and-answer session, Mr. Bush said he would not directly criticize the new president, who has moved to take over financial institutions and several large corporations. Several times, however, he took direct aim at Obama policies as he defended his own during eight years in office.

"Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States," he said to huge cheers.

Mr. Bush weighed in on some of the most pressing issues of the day: the election in Iran, the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, and his administration's interrogation policies of terrorists held there and elsewhere. The former president has not commented on Mr. Obama's decision to ban enhanced interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, which the current president has called "off course and based on fear."

Seriously, what the hell is going on at the Times these days? Is ignorance of fancy computer programs to blame here, just as it supposedly was when they ran the photo of the Obama girls with the murdered schoolchildren story? Or have they laid off so many people that everything they do is computer generated?

Then again, a reader wrote in to say that the Times was recently advertising on Craigslist to fill a web producer position, which, well, probably solves the riddle.

UPDATE: (4:09AM) It appears as though someone at the Times has finally edited the piece.

Bush Takes Swipes at Obama Policies [Washington Times]

Reports Yahoo:

Clinton was on her way to the White House when she fell and injured her elbow, chief of staff Cheryl Mills said in a statement released late Wednesday.

Clinton was treated at The George Washington University Hospital, just a few blocks from State Department headquarters, before going home. She will undergo surgery to repair her elbow in the coming week, Mills said.

Clinton was scheduled to make an appearance tomorrow with Angelina Jolie, an appearance that now must be canceled. The recent injuries to Sotomayor and Clinton point to one conclusion—Barack Obama hates women.

Hillary Clinton Fractures Elbow in Fall [Yahoo/AP]

Reports the Washington Post:

The plan is an attempt to overhaul an outdated system of financial regulations, according to senior administration officials.

The administration's plan leans heavily on the Fed, expanding its role as the regulator of the nation's largest banks such as J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs to include other giant financial firms, such as the insurance companies American International Group and MetLife. The agency, which has greater independence from the political process than other regulators, would have broad authority to impose special requirements on those companies, such as mandating that they set aside a larger percentage of their assets against possible losses than smaller firms. Such a requirement could limit large companies' appetite for risk, but also their profit and growth.

A second element likely to provoke fierce debate is the establishment of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

The proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency would have broad authority to regulate the relationship between financial companies and consumers of mortgage loans, credit cards, checking accounts and other financial products. It would define standards, police compliance and penalize delinquent firms. Other agencies, particularly the Federal Reserve, would surrender some powers.

The agency would have authority to overhaul a tangled mess of federal regulations that many financial experts regard as outdated, insufficient and inadequately enforced. An oft-cited example is the massive stack of paperwork handed to mortgage borrowers at closing, including several calculations of the true cost of the loan itself.

In the already famous fly-swatting interview from earlier today, Obama explained that these efforts mirror some of the steps taken after the Great Depression to prevent further economic catastrophes, many of which were repealed during the deregulation frenzy in the late nineties and early aughts.

So yes, new rules for Wall Street! Or, as some conservative talking heads will call it—Communism! We have a hunch that the market will be tanking tomorrow.

Financial Regulatory Overhaul is Detailed [Washington Post]

According to the AP, a ceremony announcing the move, which "would give partners of federal employees access to health care and financial benefits such as relocation fees for moves," will take place inside the Oval Office.

Interestingly, the move comes the day after two prominent gay men, activist David Mixner and blogger Andy Towle, announced that they would boycott an upcoming DNC fundraiser out of concern that the Obama White House was supporting policies detrimental to the gay rights cause. Coincidence?

The executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda, a large state-based gay rights group, Alan Van Capelle, executive director of Empire State Pride Agenda, a gay rights group based in New York, expressed a lack of enthusiasm to Politico.

It's just one of the things that should have been done in January. If the president makes the announcement tomorrow, it will still fall short of what LGBT people are expecting from this administration.

Obama To Extend Benefits to Gay Federal Workers [Google/AP]
Image via Manhunt Daily

Update: As for what Obama actually said during the interview, Politico reports that he took a swat at Fox News.

"I've got one television station that is entirely devoted to attacking my administration…That's a pretty big megaphone. You'd be hard pressed if you watched the entire day to find a positive story about me on that front," Obama said.

"We welcome people who are asking us some tough questions. I think I've probably been as accessible as any president in the first six months…..I think that actually the reason people have been generally positive about what we've been trying to do is people feel as if I'm available and willing to answer questions and we haven't been trying to hide the ball."

By law the President has the power to fire inspectors general, high ranking officials whose jobs require them to audit and investigate fraud within the government independent from influence by the executive and legislative branches, but Walpin claims that he was fired without warning, which would be a clear violation of the 2008 Inspectors General Reform Act, a law requiring the president to provide Congress with a written explanation of cause a minimum of 30 days before firing an inspector general. By all accounts currently available, the White House did not do this. Walpin said that he was called by someone in the White House counsel's office and was told he had one hour to resign or be fired. When Walpin refused to resign, Obama sent letters to the House and Senate saying that he was firing Walpin, effective 30 days from the date of the letters, in which he provided this explanation as motivation for the firing:

"It is vital that I have the fullest confidence in the appointees serving as Inspectors General. That is no longer the case with regard to this Inspector General."

Now, whether or not having the "fullest confidence" in someone is a reasonable explanation for firing an inspector general is open to debate, but vague details provided in Obama's letters have led some to believe that the law may have been broken in carrying out Walpin's abrupt dismissal. In a rather cruel twist of irony, Obama was a co-sponsor of the Inspectors General Reform Act, so Walpin and others are essentially alleging that Obama is guilty of breaking a law he helped to write.

All of this of course leads to other questions, not the least of which is what was behind Obama's abrupt firing of Walpin, an elderly man who, by most accounts that we've read, has a long history of esteemed service as a government employee and in the private sector. He is a Republican, but doesn't appear to be an ideologue. He has worked to convict Republicans of wrong-doing over the course of his career, including some in the Nixon administration, and he claims that he'd been actually helping the White House prepare Sonia Sotomayor, a person he said he admires greatly, for her upcoming confirmation hearings.

Naturally, the conservative media is beginning to buzz about this and there are theories being floated by the right as to what Obama's motivations may have been. Byron York, who's been covering this story for the Washington Examiner, floats the cronyism theory.

The bigger question is why the president is doing this and why he is attempting to do it so quickly. Senate sources now believe Obama is firing Walpin over Walpin's investigation of Kevin Johnson, a former NBA star and a prominent supporter of the president.

Johnson, now the mayor of Sacramento, California, started a non-profit organization called St. Hope. The group's mission, according to its website, is "to revitalize inner-city communities through public education, civic leadership, economic development and the arts." As part of its work, St. Hope received a grant of about $850,000 from AmeriCorps.

Last year, Walpin began an investigation of how Johnson's group spent the money. According to the Associated Press, "[Walpin] found that Johnson, a former all-star point guard for the Phoenix Suns, had used AmeriCorps grants to pay volunteers to engage in school-board political activities, run personal errands for Johnson and even wash his car." Walpin asked federal prosecutors to investigate. In April, the U.S. attorney in Sacramento, a Bush holdover, declined to file any criminal charges in the matter and also criticized Walpin's investigation.

That might suggest that St. HOPE was OK, and it was Walpin who was in the wrong. But at the same time prosecutors decided not to file any charges against St. HOPE, the U.S. attorney's office also entered into a settlement with St. HOPE in which the group also agreed to pay back about half of the $850,000 it had received from AmeriCorps.

The bottom line is that the AmeriCorps IG accused a prominent Obama supporter of misusing AmeriCorps grant money. After an investigation, the prominent Obama supporter had to pay back more than $400,000 of that grant money. And Obama fired the AmeriCorps IG.

York's reporting on this matter and his cronyism theory have been gaining steam in the conservative blogosphere and on right-wing talk radio, which in turn has led the Obama-bashing pundits at Fox News to slowly begin to report on this (Glenn Beck interviewed Walpin and Byron York on his show last night.) Naturally, they are also using the MSM's non-reporting of the issue as evidence of yet another "liberal media" conspiracy to appease King Obama.

In Congress, staggeringly illiterate Senator Chuck Grassley has been banging the drums of congressional investigation, demanding the administration answer questions about Walpin's firing, including Michelle Obama's possible role in the whole affair.

Subsequently, the White House admitted to Grassley that the whole Kevin Johnson/St. HOPE investigation was the reason they ultimately decided to fire Walpin, claiming in a letter that they believed him to be guilty of "misconduct." They went on to say that he basically acted like a dick throughout the time he was conducting his investigation, but hasn't really offered up any more information on the matter.

Even if Walpin did carry out his work in a manner that stepped on the toes of others, there does appear to be a possible violation of the law in the way that his firing was carried out. No statements or data supplied by the White House thus far seems to offer an explanation that absolves them over their handling the matter inappropriately.

With that said, expect to be hearing a lot more about Gerald Walpin in the near future. The modern Republican party is floundering desperately in a search for relevance at this point, and you get the sense that they're beginning to smell some blood in the water here, not to mention the fact that there do seem to be some legitimate questions in need of answering by the Obama White House on this matter.

George Obama's book is scheduled to be published in January 2010, and will be written with self-described "author, war reporter, adventurer" Damien Lewis, author of Apache Dawn, Cobra Gold, Operation Certain Death, Bloody Heroes, Slave and Desert Claw.

Ah yes, the austere author of Desert Claw is a perfect fit for the story of a hardscrabble Obama. (And no, in case you were wondering, it's not Damian Lewis, the actor from Band of Brothers. Different dude.)

First Lady Michelle's brother is also getting in on the book action. He's the coach of the 3rd-to-last in their conference Oregon State University men's basketball team, so his book will be called A Game of Character. Oh, and his name is Craig Robinson, but no he's not the stockroom guy from The Office, that's a different Craig Robinson.

Anyway. It all begins to make Dreams from My Father seem a little less, well, audacious, doesn't it?

• Susan Boyle's BACKINYOFACE, mothafuckas! She absolutely killed it on the first stop of the Britain's Got Talent tour, performing her standards from Les Miz and Cats [Ed: Blegh! I hate 'Cats.'] for a bunch of old church volunteers. Sounds like she's doing well, which makes everyone happy. [Daily Star]
  
  
• Britney Spears brought her kids and boyfriend with her to England, and the babysitter looks so pissed and unhappy in these photos. Seriously. [PopSugar]
  
  
• Yesterday was Kate and Jon Gosselin's 10th anniversary. She spent the day inflating a bounce-house, screaming at everyone, and eating a popsicle while her maternity amulet swung from her neck. Meanwhile, as you'll read further down, that bounce house is actually a BOUNCE HOUSE OF DEATH. [DListed]
  
  
• Some British tabloid is putting bad slang for "an erection" in their headlines about Paris Hilton giving soccer star Christiano Ronaldo a boner, noting that she gave him an "Eiffel." Right. Anyway, Paris and Ronaldo are hooking up and she spent the day after walking around in her pajamas with Nicky and he spent the day after showing his homies her dirty texts that're probably puns just as bad as Said British Tabloid's. Maybe something about balls, perhaps? [Obligatory "that's hot" here.] And yes, I said "soccer," goddamnit! You can only call it "football" if you're European. Also, if you're European and watch soccer instead of Quidditch, you're an idiot. [Daily Star]
  
  
• Pete Doherty showed up to court with a gigantic wad of cash after leading cops on some kind of wild car chace. This is the ninth time or something Doherty's been arrested this week, and at this point, the British legal system's just thrown up their hands and been like, "Fuck it!" Best part of the item: "Doherty "whooped" when he was granted bail on the grounds his manager Andrew Boyd would provide a £50,000 bond. He was ordered to obey a 12-hour curfew while not performing." Awesome. [Daily Star]
  
  
• Reese Witherspoon debuted her own perfume line, and P*r*z Hi*t*n made a joke about how much Jake Gyllenhaal would enjoy wearing it. Cute. [P*r*z Hi*t*n]
  
  
• Do you have any idea who Aubrey O'Day is? Neither did I, until I did my obligatory "research" (a single, wistful Googling): she was on Making The Band in that Danity Kane act, and it appears as though Diddy did not make her go get cheesecake. Anyway, she's just some D-List whatever, and she was really, really rude on the set of a shoot for some non-profit cause called the No H8 Campaign. Anyway, this could be real or it could jsut be a reach for PR by No H8, but, you know, non-profits reaching for PR isn't the worst thing, especially if they're trying to give me a decent item to run with. There are far worse things, you know? [P*r*z H*lt*n]
  
  
• Lauren Conrad, wearing a strange wig for a photoshoot. [Just Jared]
  
  
• Kristen Stewart, looking all punk and crazy and awesome with black stringy hair. Related: what happens when Twilight finally makes Goth cool for the popular kids? What happens to the Goths? Do they go shopping at Hollister? DO NOT GET. [Pink Is The New Blog]
  
  
• Birds with arms. Weird! [URLesque]
  
  
• Evan Rachel Wood went from hooking up with Nazi pube shaver Marilyn Manson to the guy from ER who was in A Walk To Remember with Mandy Moore. Nicely done. A Walk To Remember started with this great New Radicals song, and that's the only reason this item is here. Seriously. So I could post that. [Daily Star]
  
  
• Not at all a Gossip Item, but: Six Flags is going bankrupt! Meanwhile, while I was researching something fun to write about this item involving roller coasters, I came across the aptly named tragedy-fetishist website, RideAccidents.com. Yes, every roller coaster and/or amusement park accident chronicled in one place, in what looks to be a fairly well-kept database, yet again proving that if there was something out there you weren't afraid of, the internet will make every attempt to put The Unimpeachable Fear in you about it. Including inflatables. Seriously: inflatables, Kate. Be scared. Be very scared. [NY Daily News]
  
  
• President Barack Obama in a gossip roundup? Yes! Because this isn't deserving of any kind of actual news cycle: he spoke up in favor of nicotine legislation to regulate tobacco sales even as his press man Robert Gibbs dodged questions from the White House Press Corps about the president's smoking habits. It goes like this: cigs are bad, and any president who didn't say that or do something about them being bad is bad. But! He smokes, because he's addicted. And that's bad, too. But he's also in better shape than so many of the other presidents we have. God, life is complicated. [NY Daily News]
  
  
• Not invincible from the recession: Baldwins. Stephen (who still has yet to match the brilliance of this in his career) is having his house foreclosed upon while filming I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. [Dlisted]