The concept of people typing Dadaist humor on Twitter has existed since Twitter got its first big batch of smart-ass users in 2007, at that year's SxSW. Twitter was suddenly the place to get breaking news on inconsequential online-media events. Also, it was full of banter and inside jokes and drunken jabbering. It became fun, because a lot of bored funny people now had a way to narrowcast every oddball thought to people who might appreciate that kind of nonsense.

Only last year did anyone refer to this as a certain thing, Weird Twitter. My own Twitter feed has always been weird, because I follow a lot of [...]

When last we checked in on the dead maybe-murdered maybe-gay Gareth Williams MI6 spy story—back in September!—we were learning about how he may have locked himself allegedly into his own sports bag? Now, at Christmas-time, no less, we are learning a few things! For one, an investigator believes "that someone else had been involved in putting Williams into the bag." Well good, the laws of physics remain unchallenged! A few other things? Bondage website browser history, for one. "Detectives also found a £15,000 collection of unworn women's designer clothing, including tops, dresses and shoes, in his wardrobe." (Collection includes Louboutin! Also, he was (secretly) a fashion design [...]

Hey, the CIA sure went from "What secret prisons?" to "We're closing the secret prisons!" pretty fast.

Every screenwriter in Hollywood's mind exploded last night, with the news that the CIA recruited a doctor in Pakistan to launch a fake hepatitis vaccination program in order to veryyyy slowly gain access to the bin Laden compound so as to collect DNA. There's a hot role there for, I dunno, Sheetal Sheth or Mindy Kaling or someone, because: A nurse known as Bakhto, whose full name is Mukhtar Bibi, managed to gain entry to the Bin Laden compound to administer the vaccines. According to several sources, the doctor, who waited outside, told her to take in a handbag that was fitted with an electronic device.

Now the [...]

The Daily Mail is doing us the service of not letting up on the strange case of Gareth Williams, the MI6 spy found dead in his apartment. First, they provide this graphic of the sports "hold-all" in which his body was found, with this breaking news: "a woman police officer climbed into the holdall in which codebreaker Gareth Williams' naked body was found, re-enacting the events which it is thought could have led to his death. She managed to zip up the bag and padlock it from the inside." Well, case closed! More shockingly, the word is that the big gay frame-up-his parents claim he's straight-actually doesn't [...]

"It started out with a leggy, bikini-clad avatar. She said she was a missile expert—the '1st Lady of Missiles,' in fact—but sometimes suggested she worked with the CIA. With multiple Twitter and Facebook accounts, she earned a following of social media-crazed security wonks. Then came the accusations of using sex appeal for espionage." —Awl pal Spencer Ackerman writes in Wired about the fascinating story of accused social networking spy Shawna Gorman, a.k.a. "PrimorisEra." That first sentence is very reminiscent of L.L. Cool J's "Going Back to Cali."

The strange case of Gareth Williams, the British spy found dead and padlocked inside a sports bag, with the phone numbers of gay escorts scattered about his apartment, is getting stranger. Let's see: "The cause of his death has still not been established despite two post mortems being carried out. There were no obvious injuries on his body." Also! "His position regularly took him to the US where he liaised with the National Security Agency and the CIA and he is also reported to have made a number of visits to Afghanistan." And of course, there is a friend who claims the spy was plagued [...]