When Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s computer was seized Friday night (as part of the investigation into Apple’s missing/stolen iPhone), after the issuance of a search warrant, Gawker Media’s lawyer/COO Gaby Darbyshire claimed that the warrant was invalid, due to reporter privilege. She may actually be correct! If the police are seeking “unpublished information,” which they clearly are through the seizure, then they would seem to be in violation of California evidence code. Nick Denton’s memo to the staff, issued this afternoon, is his shortest to date: “Sorry to keep you in the dark about this until we were ready to go public. We were trying to resolve this discreetly and couldn’t afford a leak. I hope you can understand that we can’t really discuss this while the investigation proceeds.” The reasons for the seizure of the computer (which involved the police breaking down the editor’s front door) were: “it was used as the means of committing a felony” and “it tends to show that a felony has been committed or that a particular person has committed a felony.” If they are trying to use a reporter’s notes to prove that someone who isn’t the reporter has committed a felony, it seems to me that’s not going to fly for one second in California. Among the items taken by the police? “1 pg. doc Signed by Gaby Darbyshire pertaining to invalid search warrant.” SPECULATION: The reporter shield law, while her interpretation is absolutely correct, might not be germane-if the police are investigating the editor himself as the person who committed the felony. “Do bloggers count as journalists? I guess we’ll find out,” is how Nick Denton put it on his Twitter. In an ideal situation, yeah! But maybe you’re going to find out that journalism and/or blogging is totally incidental to what happened here.

True/Slant’s Michael Humphrey points us to the great Minnesotan author Tim O’Brien’s first-ever video interview, recorded recently for The Big Think. The clip above is about memory, which O’Brien writes a lot about, and includes references to The Things They Carried, which is one of my very most favorite books in the world. He talks just like you’d hope he would.

Now that you know how long you could survive without food or water, perhaps you might be interested in learning how many days you can go without sleep before you die. Science has answers: About three months. Although you would surely have killed yourself with Ambien by then.

Sarah Palin is making a lot of money. Like, SERIOUS MONEY. It is insane, how much money this lady is making. I’m not sure about the exact sum, but it’s probably more than you and I are making. She is making the monies.

Alan Sillitoe, whose Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner helped usher in a new era of frankness and realism in English literature, has died at the age of 82.

In this week’s insanely special episode of Cooking the Books, the cooking tables are turned, and our usual book-cooking host, Emily Gould, has become the interview subject. Guest host (and one-time subject!) Bennett Madison takes the interrogation reins-a perfect choice, as he appears in Emily’s new essay/book/memoir And the Heart Says Whatever, which is out shortly. (You can read more about it in today’s New York mag!) Cooking the Books is directed by the terrific Valerie Temple and shot and edited by the wonderful Andrew Gauthier.

As America’s labor force is more and more made up of Mexican citizens, and as its purchasing force is more and more composed of the lazy, who are unwilling to work because of our vast welfare state, we see the coming end of the kinds of services we take as our American right. For instance, the 24-hour grocery store is, all over America, as this lament explains, becoming the 20-hour grocery store. Is this the America we want to live in, where we cannot even get a revolting bit of factory-grown gristle to stuff in our maws at 4 a.m.? When even the Taco Bells won’t be open 24 hours?

Another year at Talladega, another fiery crash. You know, if they really do make this a tradition, I’ll probably be inclined to watch more auto racing. (I’m allowed to sound jaded about this because nobody died. But also because, come on, what are we supposed to expect?)

I don’t see this one becoming a book, but, hey, stranger things have happened: Marina Abramović Made Me Cry is a Tumblr blog that collects photos of participants in Abramović’s “The Artist Is Present” who have been moved to tears. I am sure there is some sort of fetish that this site fulfills.

Refried Bean Swastika-Painting Aliens with Mops and Shears are Trespassing in Your Lawns and Kitchens

“An employer shall not intentionally employ an unauthorized alien,” nor shall anyone ever let one in his car, or it’s curtains for you in the great state of Arizona. This is GREAT NEWS for job creation, as the hundreds of thousands of jobs performed by “aliens” shall now be performed by AMERICAN CITIZENS. Hooray! This will happen because the non-citizens can’t go anywhere now: it’s trespassing for a non-citizen to be on any “public or private” lands. (Trespassing to paint REFRIED BEAN SWASTIKAS on government offices!) This really puts a lot of fine Fox News-watching people in a tricky place when they want to eat tomatoes or have their children washed or their house cleaned and/or built, but they’ll work it out, and we’re looking forward to how it feels, living in a world where everyone off-white now has to carry identity papers at all times.