"The man was probably a serial pedophile, may have well died of a drug overdose... [he] has multiple sealed settlements with the families of young boys. What exactly is it that we're exalting?" said Councilman Lew Fidler.

Politico is reporting that Norm Coleman has conceded the Minnesota Senate race to Al Franken.

Oh, right: In the rest of that interview with the AP, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford mentioned that he had "dalliances" with six other women, but "didn't cross the sex line," which in politics means handjobs and the occasional non-swallowing oral.

Earlier today, Senate Democrats in New York state capital Crazytown proclaimed that they had achieved a quorum in the chamber because Republican Sen. Frank Padavan-UNRELATED, but while you're here, isn't "Senator Padavan" some kind of character from Star Wars?-wandered through the chamber and "made eye contact" with the Senate clerk. The video of Gov. David Paterson above, in which he explains that, to be fair to all parties, he will not sign any legislation passed by the Democrats during the disputed eyeballing session, is pretty much all you need to know about exactly how ludicrous this entire situation is.

Uh oh! Another author goes postal in the quick-publish Internet age! It is famed sports-blog shouter Will Leitch, who shares his outraged private letter with the world to bring maximum shame: "My first book was reviewed by rangersfan4324. So who are you, tomtom24? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU? Your Twitter page says you are from 'Tehran.' SO WHY AREN'T YOU SPEAKING IN FARSI?" Oh Will Leitch, are you a victim of the performance-enhancing drugs as well as the Age of Venti Venting?

"[W]e affirm the decision of the trial court that Al Franken received the highest number of votes legally cast and is entitled under Minn. 32 Stat. § 204C.40 (2008) to receive the certificate of election as United States Senator from the State of Minnesota," a unanimous Minnesota Supreme Court just ruled. The decision, coming approximately 9000 years after the Senate election, gives loser Norm Coleman only one more whack at the result-an appeal in federal court. No word yet from the Coleman camp on whether he will seek federal relief, but we expect to hear something once his Republican puppetmasters decide how much longer they're willing to forestall the inevitable in an attempt to prevent a Democratic supermajority in the Senate. READ MORE

To quote the inimitable and dulcet Nikki Finke: TOLDJA! The battle between New York City and birds is not going well. Duh. Even while we gas them on the fronts of LaGuardia, they are attacking at JFK. Why is our Boston-bred government denying that we are losing the war on bird terror?

An item today on Silicon Alley Insider suggesting that this very website is a possible purchase platform for AOL's growing portfolio of blogs has resulted in a flurry of speculation and what can only be characterized as a number of desperate counter-offers* from companies both large and small who have suddenly realized that our demographics and scalability offer an extremely cost-efficient revenue-positive traffic enhancer in an increasingly fragmented marketspace. READ MORE

"Every Sunday in Washington, D.C., a group of gay men in their thirties meet to play the wildly popular fantasy role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons."

Normally I would say that the best part of this "Early Show" interview with Transformers star Megan Fox is her tongue-in-cheek assessment of the film. "I'm in the movie, and I read the script, and I watched the movie, and I still didn't know what was happening," Fox tells Harry Smith. "So I think that if you haven't read the script, and you go and see it and you understand it, you may be a genius.... This is a movie for geniuses." But no! The best part of this "Early Show" interview with Transformers star Megan Fox is the way Harry Smith uses his stack of notes to hide what is no doubt a MASSIVE ERECTION. Dude's got it BAD.

There's an article about Sarah Palin in the new Vanity Fair, and the thing's damn near 10,000 words. But is it worth plowing through writer Todd S. Purdum's overheated prose ("It was in this environment that her ambition first found an outlet in public office, and where she first tasted the 151-proof Everclear that is power.") to get the whole story? I spent the last hour reading it, and I have determined that there are several types of people who definitely qualify! READ MORE

"Personal income-tax collections, which account for about 36% of state revenues, dropped 26% in this year's January-April period." Hence in part why some of the ten states that must finish their budgets tonight may not. Ha, well, I didn't pay mine!

Also Vibe just died. Here we have another example of how furloughing workers and making less of a publication is usually not an effective technique to save a magazine or newspaper.

Actually, yes! To use his phrase, Wired editor and ideas-author Chris Anderson is actually a proponent of "digital sharecropping." Especially since he can't find a way to put the "genie" back "in" the "bottle." (Also which fallacy is it where you describe something as a "charge" that somehow makes it not an argument?) Whatever, I'm going to go look at some ad-supported, user-generated cat pictures now!

Pretend to be surprised: "South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is admitting more encounters with his Argentine mistress than he previously has disclosed."