Perhaps hoping to get out front early in case there’s a scandal involving someone close to the next governor, the Times profiles Joseph Percoco, special counsel to the attorney general. He comes off pretty much like the “old” Andrew Cuomo, which means you get to see words like “pugnacious” and “aggressive.” It’s good to know that even though Andy spends most of his time these days trying to keep his temper in check, he’s got someone around to vent and cajole for him.

Inconsistent Pleadings: What is the Internet If Not a Clearinghouse for All Manner of Off-Topic, Anal-Related Comments?

by Ian Retford

As in great works of literature, the narrative arc of judicial opinions is often apparent in the first line. Consider this opener from a recent California appeals court case: “A 15-year old high school student was pursuing a career in entertainment and maintained a Web site for that purpose.” If I tell you that said website was comment-enabled, I probably don’t need to add that this kid’s electronic ode to himself became a repository of homophobic juvenalia within hours of its discovery by his classmates.

Everyone can appreciate adolescent comments about anal lube. But sandwiched between references to the extreme gayness of the proprietor were more alarming nuggets, like this: “I want to rip out your fucking heart and feed it to you.” The California case concerns the point at which permissible teenage taunts become actionable threats, when Internet goofs by schoolkids became places for judicial intervention. (Spoiler alert: around the time you threaten to feed someone his organs.)

The website in question belonged to “D.C.,” a Harvard-Westlake student and hopeful tween heartthrob who goes by the stage name/rejected porn handle “Danny Alexander.” Relevant facts about Danny, in increasing order of embarrassingness: (1) he starred in the film “Steal Me,” which was shown at the Brooklyn Film Festival; (2) he toured with the Disney radio network; and (3) he was planning on releasing an album containing the expected smash single, “Freakyside,” which someone needs to download for me, immediately.

So far, so gay. The trouble began where trouble often does: PSAT class, where a student, who we’ll call R.R., first encountered Danny the Human Punchline. Shortly after class, R.R. discovered Danny’s website, finding highly amusing pictures of Danny accompanied by comically sensual physical descriptions (e.g., Danny unironically donning a T-shirt reading, “SUCCESSFUL,” references to Danny’s “golden brown eyes” and “midnight brown” locks).

Someone in Danny’s entourage — someone with no working knowledge of the Internet, obviously — decided it was a good idea to allow visitors to comment on Danny’s site. A sampling of what R.R. found in the comments section (and it goes without saying, SIC):

“you are a total fag, how does that cock feel in your butt.”

“You are so fucking orgasmic. I’m wet . . . oops I peed my pants. You look exactly like Britney! EXACTLY! Your career is bound to go NOWHERE . . . but up a BUTT!”

“you take it in the ass just about every minute of every day.”

“I think you should change your name from danny alexander to meat-pole tarzan”

“my beard is longer than your dick. asian guys be walkin around like ‘DAMN HE HAS A SMALL PENIS.”

“You are a rump-ranger, uphill gardener, ring-raider, anal pressure washer, cum dumpster.”

“We here at Ky Jelly [] wanted to know if you would be the spokesperson for our new anal lube. You obviously get fucked in the ass more than anyone else on earth.”

And finally, my two favorites:

“I LOVE YOU I REALLY HOPE YOU ARENT REALLY GAY I DON’T THINK YOU ARE BUT I THINK YOU’RE THE BEST”

“you damn democrat”

I know what you’re thinking: (1) haha; (2) So what?; and (3) This is different from the comments section of any other website exactly how? After all, what is the Internet if not a clearinghouse for all manner of off-topic, anal-related comments?

On Danny’s site, though, some decidedly more menacing sentiments were interspersed among the comments about Danny’s butt: “faggot im gonna kill you,” “you are officially wanted dead or alive,” and “[You need] a quick and painless death.” To this bit of “Internet graffiti,” as he called it, R.R. added the following: “I want to rip out your fucking heart and feed it to you . . . I’ve . . . wanted to kill you . . . If I ever see you I’m going to pound your head in with an ice pick. Fuck you, you dick-riding penis lover. I hope you burn in hell.”

To our great loss, Danny shut down his website after seeing the comments. He also dropped out of Harvard-Westlake and moved to Northern California. And then he sued the anonymous commenter-students, claiming that they violated California’s hate crime laws and defamed him by falsely calling him gay.

Not surprisingly, R.R. was one of the commenters sued. He moved to dismiss the case, arguing essentially that his comments were valid exercises of free speech and thus were not actionable as a matter of law. (R.R.’s legal hook was California’s “anti-SLAPP” statute, which aims to foster public debate by barring lawsuits based on statements concerning issues of public interest.)

The primary question for the California courts was whether R.R.’s comments were “true threats,” falling outside the ambit of the First Amendment, or instead were harmless bits of immature jocularity, protected as free speech.

R.R. offered an interesting two-point defense. First, he made it clear that he has nothing against gay people. He has a friend in Harvard-Westlake’s Gay-Straight Alliance. In addition, “one of [his] favorite relatives is openly homosexual.” He also once brushed up against some gay people during an AIDS walk. (Really!) So his “dick-riding penis lover” comment was definitely not motivated by homophobia, OK?

Second, he informed the courts that at the time of his comments, he’d been reading up on the Four Noble Truths, which sometimes engender fits of uncontrollable rage. Let R.R. explain: “I had spent time studying Buddhism, and in light of the Buddhist tradition of quiet understatement, the website’s distinctly narcissistic tone was disturbing.”

If you can believe it, neither the trial court nor the appeals court [PDF] was persuaded by R.R’s arguments. Both courts found that R.R.’s comments were threatening on their face, and that R.R.’s subjective intent in posting was irrelevant in light of the comments’ facially sinister nature. Because the comment was not protected by the First Amendment, the courts held, Danny’s lawsuit could proceed.

That’s probably the right call. For one thing, a threatening homophobic comment really isn’t any less threatening because it appears amongst inane homophobic comments. And though no one wants a censored Internet, surely we can live with a rule that allows us to deploy the full range of vulgarisms short of calling for someone’s violent death. Homophobes can be First Amendment champions; the guardians of free speech are often odious. But the online equivalent of tossing a burning cross on someone’s lawn is not exactly the type of speech that implicates core First Amendment values.

Of course, Danny’s victory means only that he’s cleared an initial legal hurdle. He still has to prove that he was defamed by false accusations of gayness, a mission about which you’re forgiven for feeling somewhat ambivalent. No one feels bad about putting the legal squeeze on some rich, twerpish homophobes, but is the way to do it a cause of action centered on the claim that being called gay is defamatory? Even if Danny is right (and he might be, at least as far as an acting career is concerned), he’ll likely never be able to show that his classmates’ puerile comments aborted his entertainment career. In which case, Danny’s recovery will likely be limited to the cost of moving to Northern California, with a few extra dollars for pain and suffering. This is hardly a fair exchange for the sad pile of broken dreams that Danny lugged with him to San Francisco, but it’s a lot more than people typically get for the same load.

Ian Retford is the pseudonym of a lawyer in New York City.

If you miss TV’s “Best Week Ever,” don’t worry, it’s coming back!

People are all upset with Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell because he signed a proclamation celebrating Confederate History Month. The crux of their concern seems to be that the language in the proclamation makes no mention of slavery, but let’s be fair: The Confederacy wasn’t about slavery. It was about raising up arms against the government of the nation because certain states were upset by the results of a legitimate election. The whole point of the thing was the treason. The slave-owning was more of a side benefit.

A plane fueled only by solar power conducted a successful test run today in Switzerland, gliding at about 4000 feet for an hour and a half. The pilot was mostly pleased with the results, but did complain about having to pay to use the solar-powered toilet.

by Jeff Johnson

Dear Jonah Goldberg,

Did we really go to the same dragon movie? And you watched it twice with your proto-meta-pseudo-post-Hollyweird-what-spineless-moral-would-liberal-wusses-bury-in-it glasses? Because I just watched it with some giant gray IMAX goggles. And I didn’t see some “in life, there are no villains,” subtext. I just saw a bunch of fatheaded Vikings who were stubbornly torching a lot of their own resources, energy and lives stuck fighting an enemy primarily because they were morons who lived on a tiny island where all of their Viking stuff-like sheep, for example, were easy pickins’ for predators. (Incidentally, I thought Vikings, you know, explored more, got the hell out of geographic locations that didn’t work and also didn’t have Scottish accents. I hate cartoon characters with Scottish accents.)

Anyway, in the film were the Vikings ever really scolded or chastised for not investigating any alternatives or attempting any acts of diplomacy or trying to understand the dragons? Not really. Were they “wrong” to want to kill them? No. Because how would they know anything different?

Things only changed for the Vikings because they were enlightened by one of their own-that little annoying Hiccup sucker-a kid who was on their side, and desperately wanted to prove it, but whom the Vikings judged just as harshly as they judged the dragons. And Hiccup was enlightened only because he took down a dragon and went looking for its corpse. Had he been some non-violent objector, none of this would have happened.

When he found the injured dragon, the whole Viking way of life began to change. Sure, he and the dragon became quasi-buddies, but more importantly Hiccup was an innovator, in a way that should make a patriotic, “we are never wrong” American audience very happy. Because Hiccup’s innovations weren’t based on better ways at being a mealy mouthed pussy who thinks the Western mindset is poisonous, wrong and that everyone should have free health insurance.

No, instead of fighting with the dragons, Hiccup smartly learned to fly atop one of them. In that sense, one might argue that he was doing a lot more for the Vikings than his dad was, unless you see the Viking vs. Dragon, Itchy vs. Scratchy existence as somehow beneficial to Vikings staying alive and advancing. Anyway, by the end of the film, sure, the dragons were allies with the Vikings, but they were clearly the beast in the relationship. Man still dominated. Hence the title “How to Train YOUR Dragon.” It’s not “How to acquiesce in the face of any challenge.”

Answer this question Jonah Goldberg: Did the Vikings have flight before Hiccup saved that dragon and teamed up with him?

A: No.

Answer this question, too: Did the Vikings ultimately need flight to defeat the real enemy, the huge, nearly planet-sized dragon whom they awakened from the bowels of some furnace-like cave?

A: Yes.

Does this giant dragon, in your eyes, NOT count as a REAL villain in this movie? Or do you think all the little kids left the theater wanting to cuddle with that fucker? Did the Vikings not benefit by adapting to a changing world, instead of merely shooting first and asking questions later? Was there or was there not still some high-octane bloodlust and violence when they fought and ultimately defeated it? Was the scene where the one Viking with the missing arm and missing leg fishing around in his empty beer mug for his silver tooth, finding it, then hammering it back into place in his mouth with his empty mug NOT the coolest thing in a movie in, like, the last decade?

Now take all of these questions, these answers, your answers, and your original column and stuff ‘em.

Is the world NOT more complex than monsters vs. no monsters? Do you not give your daughter any credit for appreciating a film with a bit more nuance than just “Kill bad guys”? Was your column kind of a little wink, designed to show off that you’re an easy-going dad, while still ultimately pushing your political agenda through your fraudulent interpretation of the film?

And this one, too: Don’t you think if every heterosexual American male just reached out and found one Middle Eastern Muslim man to give a non-sexual hot oil massage for no longer than 60 minutes that all of our problems except our debt to China, would magically evaporate?

I’m just kidding on that one, Goldberg! Still reading?

The problem with your critique of the film is the same as that of the age-old argument your ilk uses anytime a situation like this happens. When anyone dares to say, “Well, this is a stupid war,” you somehow equate that with a desire to understand the enemy, do some group therapy with them and therefore not support the troops. In the case of this film, however, Hiccup was supporting the troops-and his own civilization- by TRAINING THE MOTHERFUCKING DRAGON, and sure he said some stuff about how the dragons were misunderstood by Vikings, but the film culminated in a giant rumble, amigo, in which the Vikings and dragons fought side by side to defeat a bigger enemy. Sometimes life is not just about not fighting, it’s about fighting smarter and choosing your battles wisely-not because you want to understand your enemy and wave a white flag, but because you want to live to fight another day. And win.

Gawker graybeard/Awl contributor Alex Pareene is leaving that site and heading for the relative calm and efficiency of Salon.

If your taste in comedy tends toward the more cerebral it might have something to do with the fact that you think you’re better than other people, says Science.

Professor Sam Friedman from Edinburgh University questioned 1,000 people at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival followed by more in-depth interviews. The sociologist noted their employment, education and what their parents did for a living.

He found that middle-class interviewees had developed an interest in ‘abstract and intellectual forms of art’ thanks to the influences of their parents and university friends.

He said this preference was actually a form of ‘veiled snobbery.’

See? This whole time you were thinking you didn’t like Jeff Dunham or Larry the Cable Guy because of the racism or homophobia or general lack of amusing material, but it turns out you’re actually too spoiled to allow yourself to enjoy the racism and homophobia and general lack of amusing material in Jeff Dunham and Larry the Cable Guy’s acts. Snob!

You couldn’t call it unexpected, but here we are: “Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi will again evade prosecution over corruption charges after Italy’s parliament passed a new law allowing him to claim that he is too busy to attend court.”

by Dan Kois

It’s April 7, National Pluto Day! All over America, schoolchildren are fleeing the classroom, workers are ditching the office early, hobos are tossing aside their bottles of grain alcohol, and housewives are ignoring the laundry. Instead, they’re all lining up at their local comics store, B&N, or otaku emporium to buy the finale, Volume 8, of Naoki Urasawa’s unbelievably enjoyable manga series Pluto. Soon the gorgeous spring weather will help pack our parks and playgrounds with happy readers feverishly turning the pages of Volume 8. Happy Pluto Day!

Sadly, Pluto Day is only happening in an alternate version of America, one where great storytelling is prized and miracles can truly happen. In this alternate America, prepubescent Gordon Hayward’s half-court bomb went in Monday night, making Butler the NCAA champion, and the nation is celebrating by curling up with the finale of one of the funnest serial adventures ever published. Needless to say, I want to live in that America.

In Pluto, Urasawa — who also wrote the terrific series Monster and 20th Century Boys — rewrites, revamps, and reinvents a classic story from one of Japan’s most beloved manga, Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy. Now Astro Boy has sort of a bad rep in the United States, thanks in part to last year’s truly crappy film reboot, but in Japan, Astro Boy is royalty. Everyone knows his stories, because everyone grew up with them, so they’re just part of the fabric of the culture. I get the impression that asking a Japanese person in, say, his middle 30s about the Astro Boy story “The Greatest Robot in the World” is like asking an American 35-year-old about Star Wars. So Tezuka, in his modernization of “The Greatest Robot in the World,” is messing with an iconic tale.

I have to imagine that for fans of Astro Boy, reading Pluto is a transcendent experience, like a teenage American comics fan reading Watchmen for the first time, and seeing the familiar tropes of her beloved funnybooks turned inside-out, made weirder and more real. Luckily, even for those of us who don’t know jack about Astro Boy, Pluto is a ripping yarn — a thoughtful, exciting sci-fi epic with haunting themes of sacrifice, war and heroism.

Pluto takes place in a world where humans and robots coexist, a world just coming off a nightmarish war in Persia in which robot soldiers destroyed each other by the thousand. Now an unknown assailant is targeting the eight most powerful robots in the world for destruction — a crime that edges closer to murder as it becomes clear how advanced those robots’ artificial intelligence has become. One of the eight, a Europol detective named Gesicht, investigates the crimes, and over the last seven volumes we’ve seen Gesicht and his fellow robots — including Atom, this series’ version of Astro Boy — get closer and closer to the secrets at the heart of these murders. But one by one, they’re being picked off.

Urasawa’s art is expressive and action-packed, more deft and more realistic than the manga art you may be used to. And his writing (the series is cowritten with Takashi Nagasaki, and overseen by Osamu Tezuka’s son Macoto) is dense, allusive, and openly emotional. His advanced robots are sad supermen, their consciousness dawning even as they try to understand a human world that views them with equal measures of awe and resentment.

Volume 8, the series finale, comes out this week, and if you’re worried about getting wrapped up in some huge mythology that completely shits the bed with a terrible ending — you know, like The Matrix, or the NCAA Tournament — don’t worry! It’s totally awesome.

Look, it may be that you’ll never read manga. It’s too foreign, too weird, too nerdy. You have no interest in learning to read right-to-left like some friggin’ Torah scholar. You can barely bring yourself to read whatever graphic novel it is that the TBR is telling you is important this year. Or maybe you’re having enough trouble keeping up with the Marvel multiverse and don’t need some cheesy Japanese robot story slowing you down, no matter what Junot Diaz says. (For the record, he says: “Urasawa is a national treasure in Japan, and if you ain’t afraid of picture books, you’ll see why.”)

All I can say is: For those who are fans of science fiction now, or who were fans of science fiction once — those who secretly (or not-so-secretly) love Avatar or devoured Isaac Asimov in high school — Pluto is addictively great. It doesn’t reinvent the medium; it’s not Philip K. Dick; it won’t blow your mind. It will just make you happy the whole time you’re reading it, possessed by the old familiar urge to keep turning the pages to find out what happens next. So: Happy Pluto Day! I’m going to the backyard to sit in the sun and celebrate.

Dan Kois writes about movies and plays and non-comic books, too. Also, he has a new book out, about that Hawaiian guy with the ukulele.