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 [...]

We don't make fun of children, so we won't, because it's all their parents' doing. (And also, these kids are totally adorable and funny.) But everything else aside in this hot mess… who taught pre-tweens about non-disclosure agreements? That is not right. I thank the universe every day that I'll be dead when you kids are running the world. [via]

Potential American president Rick Santorum isn't even pretending to make sense anymore: "When you marginalize faith in America, when you remove the pillar of God-given rights, then what’s left is the French Revolution. What’s left is the government that gives you right, what’s left are no unalienable rights, what’s left is a government that will tell you who you are, what you’ll do and when you’ll do it. What’s left in France became the guillotine."

"So Ms. Abramson's 20-25 Hz phrase-final amplitude modulation of her 140-145 Hz fundamental frequency is heard as a sort of superimposed infrasound. (Technically "infrasound" should be below 20 Hz, but this is close.) 140 Hz is not unusually low for the bottom of an adult woman's pitch range — but 20-25 Hz is low for humans of any kind…. [T]his is first time that I've ever seen such a large-factor amplitude modulation so stably superimposed on a speaker's sequence of pitch pulses." —So Times executive editor Jill Abramson is apparently a freak of nature.

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Who do I have to bang to get an advance copy of the new @coldplay album? I mean, really.less than a minute ago via WhoSay Favorite Retweet ReplyGwyneth PaltrowGwynethPaltrow

Well, this happened.

I have a new title suggestion for the 1. new Lars von Trier movie that 2. stars Kirsten Dunst that is about 3. OUTER SPACE: let us just call it WTF. (Also, I guess this marks a final break with Dogme 95, ya know?)

"Ever wonder why White people can date the friends of exes and so on? It's because they don't let the past hinder the present." -8 Reasons To Date A White Man. (Also known as "8 Reasons to–WHAT? NO SHE DID NOT.") (via)

My poor friend Dan Kois. Apparently he lost a big bet, and had to write a bizarre and maniacal Slate piece to prove that literally anything could be denounced in a counterintuitive Andy Rooney freakout. And here it is: "Tilting your seat back on an airplane is pure evil." His solution: don't bother replacing the seats, just outlaw people from reclining in them. AM I STILL ASLEEP UP HERE IN MY FULLY FLAT BUSINESS CLASS SEAT, IS THIS A SURREAL DREAM???

The Pavillion Agency's vice president Seth Norman Greenberg "has also known families to prize nannies who can steer a 32-foot boat, help manage an art collection or, in one case, drive a Zamboni to clean a private ice rink." —This "economy of nannies" story is amazing.

Everyone is pretty aghast and/or in stitches over today's weird and kinda embarrassing escapade by the New York Times public editor, Arthur Brisbane: "I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge 'facts' that are asserted by newsmakers they write about." Not just when; whether! A list of people currently making fun of this runs from editors of city papers to New Yorker correspondents to totally random unemployed people to… well, the Times staffers are all sitting on their hands right now. GOSH, HOW THAT MUST BURN.

How does this argument even go, anyway? PRO: Sure! Let the record reflect whatever [...]

"Tuesday’s discovery marks the eighth foot to be found on the B.C. coast since August 2007. Three more have washed up in nearby Washington…. All of the feet discovered so far have been in running shoes." —But who are missing the feet? Yeah, here's the Wikipedia page, Encyclopedia Brown. (via)

Here's the most needlessly dramatic sentence you'll read today: "The curtain is slowly coming down on the lifestyle of the old Western world establishment, and the impact on the art market is spectacular."

NO, NOT THE CURTAIN!!! COMING DOWN! On the old Western world establishment! Aaaaagh!

Anyway, there is something of a mini-debacle in auction-land? All of the old garbage from the Lyons Demesne, in County Kildare, which is itself for sale, built 1785, was sold, but not for very much money! And this sale is rendered in the most vicious phrasing imaginable! "The monumental portrait of Mrs. Thomas Edwards Freeman done around 1778 made a laughable [...]

"In November of 2009 we found 52% of Republicans thought ACORN had stolen the election for Barack Obama in 2008. Now only 25% think the organization will steal the election for him again next year." —What are you even supposed to make of this? Quick, everyone find your long-form birth certificates!

Hello!

Congrats on moving to our town for your job working with Eliot Spitzer. (Good luck and be careful!) I'm sorry that you think that New York City is Communist China, which is something you literally just wrote in the Washington Post! And I'm sorry you see signs of "government management" of our lives everywhere, which, are you talking about those bossy crosswalks and weird fences on the corners where you can't cross? Because those were all Giuliani. And it is true that you can't get a good mass market donut here. So now that you've LIVED IN NEW YORK CITY now "FOR A FEW WEEKS" and [...]

Would you like to read something weird? Here is a Goldman Sachs press release headlined "OP-ED, THE HUFFINGTON POST – ARIANNA HUFFINGTON AND LLOYD C. BLANKFEIN DISCUSS OUR COMMON GOAL: EMPOWERING ENTREPRENEURS AND CREATING JOBS."

I mean, some of it is true! Goldman Sachs does indeed mentor women all over the world in creating small businesses, and their 10,000 Women project is actually one of the most interesting programs in the world. And then there's this: This past summer, The Huffington Post broke new ground in the way the media commonly report economic news. Frustrated by the relentless coverage of disaster, tragedy and scandal in traditional media sources, The [...]

"In this remote corner of Cuba that is better known as a lab for Pentagon justice and interrogation, the U.S. Navy has been quietly engaging in more low-profile offshore experimentation — seeking environmentally friendly alternatives to reduce its whopping $100,000-a-day fossil fuel dependence." —I hope they're making all the unconstitutionally detained prisoners make their own natural soaps!

Criminology was taught by one Buddy Longo, a figure of legend around the halls of SHHS. I have no idea how Buddy was qualified to teach the class, other than the fact that he knew a lot of cops and had a friend who was supposedly some kind of former spy, who came in one day to show us the Zapruder film ("Look how his head comes off! Like the lid of a cookie jar.") Buddy LOVED serial killers, and would enrapture us with stories about Edmund Kemper eating his mother's larynx like he was reading "Make Way for Ducklings" to preschoolers.

—Every high school should have [...]