Via Twitter

Are you guys ready to read tweets from  Rep. Steve "The most conservative Congressman in Texas! 100% lifetime NRA, GOA, NAGR, Right to Life rating. Offended? Yell at @DonnyFerguson" Stockman?

Are you??! Because fair warning, he's got himself a new bumper sticker idea, and it definitely includes some nonsensical sloganeering about abortion, babies and guns.

So...you ready for it?

What does this even mean? Or, what does this statement mean to you? Because the best reading we've come up with is: "If fetuses had guns, no mother would have a chance to even try to carry it to the first trimester--let alone abort it--before it accidentally knocked off the safety and blasted itself out of utero."

Which would be...a...bad thing? No? So this is definitely a pro-fetal guns message? Really? Is that what this is?

Incredible. Happy Friday, everyone. Pick these up on your way out of the DMV and don't forget to buckle up, T.G.I.F.

A re-creation of what didn't happen to Justin Bieber. (Getty)

During a recent gig at Madison Square Garden, Justin Bieber was not, we repeat, was NOT, strangled to death with a paisley tie and then castrated in a plan hatched by a convicted child rapist and murderer serving time in a New Mexico prison. Once again: this did not happen.

But it almost did.

The strange story begins with Dana Martin, a 45-year-old with a Justin Bieber tattoo on his calf, who is serving out a life sentence in Las Cruces for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old Vermont girl in 2000. Mr. Martin met parolee-to-be Mark Staake in prison, and hatched a plan to have Mr. Staake and his nephew Tanner Ruane prune Mr. Bieber of his plums during his November 28 concert at Madison Square Garden. Each testis was worth $2,500, according to The New York Post, which, most tween fans well tell you, is quite a low-ball number (woof) for such pricey family jewels.

The other element of this totally fail-proof plan was Mr. Staake and Mr. Ruane strangling Mr. Bieber to death with a paisley tie. Yes, it had to be paisley. No, the color didn't matter. It just had to be paisley.

Luckily, when the bumbling duo were picked up separately by the authorities, their plan was easily traced back to Mr. Martin, as he had strangled his last victim with a paisley tie.

For now, Mr. Bieber's balls remain safe. And probably insured for much more than $2,500, though lord knows some people *cough*ScooterBraun*cough* would probably be happy to have Mr. Bieber remain a prepubescent castrato for the rest of his life.

The idea that a site can wildly succeed as a meme factory, a listicle aggregator, and as of recently, a serious news operation rubs some folks the wrong way.  The most recent source of attack was the web presence of McSweeney's, the San Francisco-based publishing house (and internet humor destination widely known for—but of course—their lists).

McSweeney's recently published a list by one Jory John entitled "Suggested Buzzfeed Articles." Among the titles were "15 Ways to Obliterate a Tree" and "3 Opera Singers Covered in Day-Old Newspapers," both of which made this braindead, heat-stroked writer chuckle (as a McSweeney's list will sometimes do), the joke being: Here is the extreme version lampooning the extent to which Buzzfeed will go to make a list for their website, for which sometimes they can be found reaching.

So Buzzfeed answered them, by actually creating the articles Mr. Jory jokingly suggested, explaining:

McSweeneys was kind enough to suggest some articles for us and here, we make those suggestions a reality! If you've got a suggestion for an article we should do, send it to suggestedarticles@buzzfeed.com, and we'll do our best to make it happen!

The "suggestions" they chose were:

• 11 Political Lessons We Learned From "Gilmore Girls"
• 29 Reasons to Hate Your Life
• Elvis Presley's 42 Sweatiest Moments
• 3 Raccoons That Will Kill You And Your Family
• 50 Photos of Bill Clinton's Forehead
• 18 Things To Scream At A Cow
• 10 Peaches That Resemble Pat Sajak
• 4 Inspiring Lance Bass Quotations
• The World's 13 Laziest Salmon
• 25 Numbers Bigger Than 2
• 16 Beautiful Photos From Underneath A Bed
• 8 Surprising Uses For An Orange
• 10 Grizzly Bears Doffing Newsboy Caps

Yes. They actually made all of those.

For the lists that seem unlikely to be even remotely possible—like the Pat Sajak one, for example—they simply photoshopped the meme into reality. Others, like the 50 Pictures of Bill Clinton's forehead, they aggregated into reality. It is as funny, canny, and absolutely as frightening a response they could muster. For all the wiseass moxie employed in making this a reality—which they appeared to start working on yesterday—there is an utterly odd and somewhat disconcerting boast at the heart of this: That anything can be turned into a meme or a list, no matter how absurd, uninteresting, or fictitious. Challenge this, and you're daring them to excavate heretofore unmolested depths of Internet Ephemera, and bring them to the surface of the collective consciousness in response. Let this be a lesson to us all.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek 

Mr. Knnucan's experiences set a handy, simple, two-step example for those seeking to tread the same path he's taken:

1. Engage in insider trading. While Mr. Kinnucan has yet to be convicted for the crime he is accused of, this is obviously of great importance if you want to get arrested for insider trading.

2. Dare the government to arrest you. Both figuratively:

"How the f--k can you live?" Kinnucan said to the cooperating witness in a voice mail on Feb. 11, according to the government. "Do you have a family, do you have children, do you have a wife? How can you even walk down the street, why don't you just f--king kill yourself?"

And/or literally:

Federal agents first approached Mr. Kinnucan at his Portland, Ore., home in late 2010...Mr. Kinnucan...fired off an e-mail to warn his clients. "Today two fresh faced eager beavers from the FBI showed up unannounced (obviously) on my doorstep thoroughly convinced that my clients have been trading on copious inside information," the e-mail said. "We obviously beg to differ, so have therefore declined the young gentleman's gracious offer to wear a wire and therefore ensnare you in their devious web."

In the months after the e-mail surfaced, Mr. Kinnucan granted dozens of interviews to the media, lambasting the government’s efforts while defending himself. Later, as the case dragged on, his communications grew stranger. He fired off rants against the federal prosecutors investigating the case – notes that included expletives and racial epithets. He dared the government to arrest him.

It's practically foolproof. Questions?

Government Snares a Vocal Critic in Latest Insider Trading Charges [Dealbook]
Kinnucan's Phone Threats Should Bar His Release, U.S. Says [Bloomberg]
SEC charges tech analyst with insider trading [CNN Money]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Marc Maron

Recently, Los Angeles-based comedian Todd Glass decided to appear on the podcast hosted by fellow comic Marc Maron—and hilarity did not ensue.

When Mr. Glass first appeared on Mr. Maron’s show, WTF, in 2009, the program, in which Mr. Maron, the alt-comedy fixture and former Air America host known for his sometimes lacerating, self-exposing rants, was in its early days, and Mr. Glass did a little riff on “technophobia”—a fairly typical, if amusingly delivered, comedic bit.

By January 2012, however, Mr. Glass had a weightier issue to get off his chest—and the podcast was ready to accommodate him. Slowly, over the course of the episode,  he came out of the closet. As fans heard the interview on iTunes or apps like Stitcher Smart Radio, the episode caught fire within the comedy community, not least because it came in the form of an extensive Socratic dialogue as opposed to a press release to Out or a quick-hit on late-night talk.

Longtime listeners of WTF are accustomed to hearing revealing conversations with figures they recognize from TV or local comedy clubs (or not at all), but for the uninitiated, Mr. Glass’s description of his vacillation over whether to reveal his sexuality, his anger at antigay rhetoric and the fear and anxiety he experienced throughout his life was exhilarating. “I didn’t get one piece of negative feedback—not even a Bible verse,” said Mr. Glass of the torrent of warm vibes listeners sent his way. For both its intimacy and its inside-baseball focus, his coming-out was a conversation that could have happened only on a podcast.

Asked why he’d chosen the forum for his big reveal, Mr. Glass noted that a bigger venue—David Letterman’s show, for instance—wouldn’t have had the kind of time to really explore the issue, whereas on WTF, “I knew we’d have an hour and a half. And I wanted it to be this person who could lead me down the path comfortably.” Mr. Glass and Mr. Maron had been casual friends for decades. “Some people have jokingly or seriously said he’s our version of Oprah today,” Mr. Glass noted. “You get into the atmosphere there and you’re comfortable.”

Mr. Glass isn’t joking. Anyone who believes a comedian as successful as, say, Louis C.K. is imperviously sardonic hasn’t heard him crying over his daughter’s birth on WTF. Mr. Maron, through his twice-weekly interview series, may have drawn more tears than any interviewer since Barbara Walters. “It’s like going on Dick Cavett,” said the comedian and podcast host John Hodgman. “It’s a sign of being taken seriously.”

The show is also, at least in part, responsible for kicking off a movement. Akin to the comedy-club boom of the 1980s, in which every city got its Chuckle Hut, comedy has suddenly become vastly more accessible—or at least, comedians have. Podcasts have given standups a powerful new platform that few seem able to resist. Even Mr. Glass recently started his own show.

Unlike Mr. Maron’s show, Mr. Glass’s is oriented toward humorous chat—basically. “Onstage, you have to be funnier than you are preachy,” he said. “That’s the overall rule in standup. People take a journey with you when you podcast.” (It’s not a short journey, either—Mr. Glass’s weekly show can run to two and a half hours.)

“I can be silly, we can go off on a tangent and be quite serious,” he explained. “The format for podcasts is: do whatever you fucking want.”

Mr. Maron felt little of the joy of experimentation when he first began podcasting. “I sort of came to it through desperation,” he said. “I was in a difficult place, career-wise and financially. I was running out of ideas and options. Jimmy Pardo was doing one and Kevin Smith was doing one. But I didn’t really know much about the medium.”

Episode one of WTF aired in September 2009. After Air America Radio shut down a few months later (“They’d run out of money for the fourth or fifth time, or whatever”), Mr. Maron kept his office security card and snuck into the studio to tape his own show. “We were taking guests up the freight elevator,” he said. These days, having long since ponied up for broadcast mics and an analog mixer, he records using the program GarageBand—in his garage.

“It’s the Wild West, it’s a tabula rasa,” Mr. Maron said.

“Marc only makes legendary episodes,” said Mr. Hodgman. “Marc is an exemplar of the form in the sense that this low-barrier-to-entry broadcast format gives voice not just to a lot of people in the comedy field but to the different kinds of voices and skills comedians can use.”

Mr. Hodgman, for his part, has been hosting the podcast Judge John Hodgman since 2010, a version of which has since begun running, in miniature, in The New York Times Magazine. “I have a natural affinity for telling people why they are wrong,” he said.

The boom in available comedy material online—so many niches available for fans of judgmental comics and sketch comics and former stars of The Man Show!—and the conversion of so many “comedy fans” into “comedy geeks” has built an audience for what might be called meta-comedy. Mr. Maron’s show, for instance, is about funny people—and their desperate attempts to meet their recommended daily allowances of attention and validation—but is rarely funny itself. Indeed, the host’s ongoing battle with addiction is one of the show’s leitmotifs. “I’m not sure you could call it a comedy podcast,” said Mr. Hodgman. “It’s not hilarious when you’re weeping.”

While Mr. Maron produces WTF independently, not everyone is lucky enough to have the sponsorship of Adamandeve.com and Stamps.com. One alternative is the Earwolf podcast network. Founded by Scott Aukerman, whose own show is the sketch-comedy oriented Comedy Bang Bang, it currently is home to shows as diverse as Ronna and Beverly, featuring two fictional Jewish relationship experts; the comic “noir serial” Mike Detective; and the comedy-and-sports-oriented Sklarbro Country.

“There’s a trick with two different kind of shows,” Mr. Aukerman said, “some where you’re giving people what you know they want and some where you’re giving people what you think they should want.” The ads sold on the most popular shows (as well as a recent partnership with the moneyed website Funny or Die) help buoy the more experimental programming, from “superlong shows, two hours, to two-minute daily shows” to something truly off-beat: shows hosted by non-white-males, still a rarity and something Mr. Aukerman is eager to encourage. (Mr. Maron’s WTF features ads, and paid users get full access to the archives; Jimmy Pardo’s Never Not Funny is for paying subscribers only.)

Interestingly, Mr. Aukerman’s improv-based show faces resistance from listeners who have come to prefer their comedy podcasts to take a more serious approach. “I get a lot of random criticism from wonderful people on the Internet,” he admitted. “They say stuff like, Why would you have Patton Oswalt on your show and not interview him? Because Patton Oswalt is not interested in that! He loves coming on my show and doing comedy.

“I have to overcome that with new listeners. They’re unaccustomed to hearing something other than a comedian baring his soul.”

That said, with endless “airtime,” there’s room for everyone. “It seems like there’s too much content,” admitted Pete Holmes, the host of You Made It Weird, “but you can put out such a specific product that the podcast web can meet a listener’s needs more specifically than a TV network ever could.” (Despite this, Mr. Holmes calls his show “a really big ripoff of Marc Maron’s show.”)

“It’s like any relationship—like a friendship or a romantic relationship,” said Mr. Holmes. “You can become somebody that shows up in their lives every week. That fosters a kind of intimacy with your fans.”

Whatever happened to “killing”?

Perhaps it’s a two-way street—comedians want to address their fans, and fans are willing to listen to favorite comics experiment with the form. “If a show didn’t go as good as I thought it did, I’m happy—that’s the learning process,” said Mr. Glass. “And the people who listen, they’re O.K. to take the journey. They say, ‘We love him, we’ll stay together.’” Subscribers are different from ticket-buyers at a random tour stop—to maintain loyalty, comedians are practically friending their fans.

Recently, the podcast host Julie Klausner, of How Was Your Week, held a live taping of her show in Gowanus, Brooklyn. The room was at capacity; the NPR host Ira Glass and the comedian Sandra Bernhard appeared as guests. The audience was intimately familiar with Ms. Klausner’s material—one woman had submitted a slam-poetry piece based on the show to win a free ticket. Her bonus prize was sitting next to Ira Glass. After the NPR host talked about his favorite snacks, the musician Ted Leo duetted with Ms. Klausner on Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated.” Representatives from the two snack brands sponsoring the evening faced off over whether Pretzel Crisps or Peanut Chews were better.

“I’m always flattered when people listen to my show and I never assume that they do,” Ms. Klausner said later. “There’s people who know me from Twitter, or who know my other work, but when they listen to the podcast, I’m like, oh. You know me.”

Illo: Oliver Munday

DEAR ADDERALL,

I’ve been thinking...we need to talk. This has actually been brewing for awhile, but it came to a head the other day. An editor and I were having a little post-mortem outside of the office about the piece I’d published the night before. You know the one. Remember? A few weeks back, you kept me company during a particularly nasty stretch, when I only got four hours of sleep over, what was it, three days? Almost three days. I know, I know: Far from the first time you’ve saved my ass, especially as far as deadlines go. But this time, it was different.

“The first four paragraphs were really good,” the editor told me. “But then you gave me the rest the next day, and it was totally incoherent. I think the Adderall is affecting your writing. Your voice is completely different when you’re on it. I mean, it’s basically just speed, you know?”

I know. I was stunned, too. He knew all about us! It was a little personal, to be honest. But as far as the note on the story, well, let’s face it, he was right. It was the way he talked about you, though, that hurt the most. He dissed you. Said you were good for a laugh now and then but had become a bad influence on me. That’s no way to treat a legally prescribed pharmaceutical, right? You’re not crack! You can’t even be smoked, unless there’s something you haven’t told me.

Of course, I came to your defense immediately. They assigned that piece at the last minute, on the night before a holiday weekend. And of course, he’d been the one to hook us up, at least on that occasion, handing over a spare 20mg extended-release capsule (“I only take it when I’m going out,” he explained), which I gladly, fiendishly gobbled up in the passionate tradition of Dr. Gregory House: no water needed.

Even after all of that, he told me to ditch you, suggested I was whipped.

“It’s just amphetamine,” he went on. “How can you take it every day and not expect to  be addicted to it?”

Ever since that conversation, everything has just felt different. Lately, I find myself asking questions, uncomfortable questions. I’ve been with you for almost three years now (tell me you didn’t forget our anniversary), and never recreationally. In fact, our relationship has been validated by totally reputable, board-certified physicians. We’re together for all the “right” reasons.

But listen, please? You need to focus, Adderall: I’m really starting to ask myself how much I actually need you. Or if I really need you at all.

Look, I know I’m not special—I’m not the first writer-type you’ve been with. The fact is, you’ve been around, okay? I mean, start with most of the journalists I’ve worked alongside over the last few years at various magazines or websites. They’ve all fallen under your spell. But promiscuity is in your blood. Back in 2005, when you and Joshua Foer had that weeklong fling (him? really?), he listed all the famous writers who’d fallen for amphetamines just like you: W.H. Auden, James Agee, Graham Greene, and Philip K. Dick, Jack Kerouac, and Jean-Paul Sartre, to name a few.

Honestly, just thinking about you and them together makes me insecure. I can’t compete with guys like that!

It’s not that I’m not extremely fond of you. You’ve been a really important part of my life. I mean, I love you, Adderall. When you’re around, I feel like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove, riding a bomb of electric energy, waving a ten-gallon hat in the air as we demolish every empty Google Document in sight. Together, we’ve obliterated entire societies of blank word processing documents, not to mention civilizations of emails, Tweets, IMs, and Tumblr posts. At the same time!

I still remember the day we met. There you were, freshman year, hanging out with the guys in the dorm next door. Between a pyrex bong, a rack of Natty Light, and a stack of xeroxed library research, you lay on the table in little tangerine lines, right before you went straight up Brian’s nose. It seemed like practically everyone was already friends with you. I wanted to know you too.

I went to the university health center and said all the right words. Told the doctor I was “having trouble concentrating.” I was “tired, all the time.” Other members of my family “had been diagnosed with ADD and/or ADHD” and had “taken medicine for it” and “reluctant as I am to try a behavioral pharmaceutical” I was “desperate” for a “solution.” None of which were really lies, per se. They just weren’t urgent truths. Still, just as I was told would happen, they tried to put others between us: Ritalin, Concerta, Focalin (and let’s forget all about my brief, unfulfilling affair with Vyvance years later). None of them really did it for me. But I found you eventually.

The initial infatuation was intense. That first liftoff turned a Monday morning lecture-hall sized government class into an intimate, engaging colloquium on global policy, giving life to personal ambitions never considered, like becoming an ambassador to Turkey. Or The Maldives. You gave me a sugar rush of intellectual ambition. When we’re together, the faucet of Amazing Ideas Thought Up By Me opens up like a fire hydrant on a hot summer day. Inevitably, this sensation eventually fades into The Deep Focus. Cleaning the dorm would become a red wire-blue wire situation: Where should I hang this jacket? Here! This is it!

We were a to-do-list-crossing-off dream team—the Jordan and Pippen of crossing-off. Writing letters, returning calls, running errands. Reading, my god, all the reading. And the work? All-nighters weren’t torturous, but riveting. And whenever you got to be too much, a little pot always managed to come into the picture. You two went together like rocket fuel and molasses. It was wonderful.

But in the end, you took me further in Mario Kart than you ever did in school. And to say my sleep schedule was unorthodox would be unfair to Batman. When I left college, I left you behind. We went our separate ways.

And after a five-year separation, we reunited.

I was working nonstop—a culture magazine during the week, a gossip blog all weekend. At first, the ambition and pressure drove me to perform. But every thrill has its shelf-life. As the rush subsided, the schedule became grueling.

According to friends, I started to look slightly “peaked,” perhaps even “jaundiced.” And then you came back. An Upper East Side doctor handed over a scrip without argument. For a drug that’s completely banned in countries like Japan, he signed you over to me with a surprising lack of hesitation. Every thirty days.

Unsurprisingly, you made life better; you were a pool noodle in the wave pool of posting quotas.

I liked socializing when you were around. You brought me out of my shell, turning me from a reclusive, exhausted misanthrope into a patient and caring interlocutor. You made me a better listener.

Okay, there were some inconveniences. The odd bouts of staring at people on the subway. The dry mouth, the return of tongue-chewing, the abnormally sweaty underarm problem that’s ruined more than a few nice shirts. The oddly short but strong and emotional bouts of depression.

The worst part was that the relationship just wasn’t balanced. I needed you too much. When I couldn’t be with you I’d become miserably tired. Irritable. And lately, you haven’t always been there for me. You’ve become elusive. I’m not the only one who thinks so. Plenty of people been having problems finding you—or is it “scoring,” now?—due to that well-documented nationwide shortage.

A popular conspiracy theory suggests that your suppliers, losing their patents on you, are shorting the supply with the intent of hooking me on something exclusive, like Vyvance. I’ve heard all the excuses. But this is about us. Your inconsistency has put a wrench in our routine. It’s messed with our chemistry.

On the plus side, it’s given me a chance to think.

And what I realized is that the creative part of my brain has been pulverized by amphetamines. It’s a Strawberry Frappuccino. I mean, are you reading this shit?

Do you help me get the job done with machine-like efficiency? At times, sure. You know what else gets the job done with machine-like efficiency? Machines. Truth be told, Addy, you’re a pretty shitty writer. Prolific, but shitty. And sometimes I can’t tell where I end and you begin. Who wrote all those words the last few years? I typed them, sure, but with you whispering in my ear. Reading the stories over, I wonder if I’m reading me on Adderall, or Adderall on me.

It occurs to me now that like so many other humans on this planet maybe I’m just inherently lazy, distracted, unfocused, impatient, and restless.

Relying on you to help with this problem has been, in all honesty, a great deal of fun. But it hasn’t been a very substantial answer to the basic human problem of not being able to—or wanting to—pay attention, buckle down, and get work done.

So I’ve come to a decision. We’re through.

Wait, don’t—don’t do that. Look at me. It’s going to be okay. This week, I’m going to have a chat with the doctor about weaning myself off of you, gently. But listen, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.

That said, my room’s kinda dirty. How about if you and I check off a few last to-do’s from the list. For old time’s sake.

Then you’ll go on the list and get crossed out too.

Affectionately,

Foster

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

You get another lawyer to sue them, is how. After what Regal Real Estate is calling a "breach of its contractual duties and ethics," they're suing international law firm Crowell & Moring for damages amounting to no less than $6M, after Crowell & Moring failed to return the $3,074,734.25 they were holding in an escrow account for Regal Real Estate (which is, Regal contends, part of a total sum of around $5.5M Crowell's supposed to be holding onto for them that's missing).

As noted earlier, this is after one of their lawyers pulled off one of the lamest anti-heists in the history of embezzlement. Question is, Crowell & Moring—power firm that they are—employed an unquestionable screwup. Will they now take responsibility for him and return the funds, or defer and fight Regal on it? Operative words: power firm. Take a wild guess.

Through a representative, Crowell & Moring did declined to comment to the Observer on the suit, filed today. Earlier, they declined comment on Regal's threat of a suit to the Observer.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Looks like the legal profession just doesn't pay like it used to.

Yesterday, the story of Douglas R. Arntsen of big-ticket international law firm Crowell & Mooring broke wide.

It is, in a word, amazing:

• There's a big escrow account Crowell & Mooring uses to close transactions filled with money by the firm's client, Regal Real Estate.
• It's learned that Arntsen, a lawyer for Crowell & Mooring, is leaving for a new job.
• Money starts to disappear from the account.
• Regal Real Estate's money starts disappearing from their escrow account.
• Regal managing partner—the aptly-named William Punch—wants to know where the hell it's going.
• Punch calls Arntsen and asks him where it is.
• Arnsten breaks down and admits he stole it.

Now, this is where it gets really fun:

• On September 13, Punch and Arnsten meet at a CitiBank where Ansten hands Punch $1.8M of the money he stole.
• Then they go to a Wachovia bank, and Arnsten hands Punch another $43,000.
• The next day, a sting is set up on a street corner to grab Arnsten.
• Arnsten doesn't shop up.
• Because Arnsten went to Hong Kong.
• And now Arnsten is arrested and awaiting extradition.

Meanwhile, Regal Real Estate still wants to know where the hell their money is. Bill Punch writes in to tell the Observerthat they found another $3M missing from their account.

We have filed complaints with the Bar Association.  Manhattan ADA Gary Galperin of the Rackets Bureau is investigating.  Our main concern is Crowell Mooring hasn't accepted responsibility yet.  They have not responded to questioning if they turned it over to their insurance carrier or if they'll be stand up and reimburse [Regal Real Estate owner] Maurice Laboz.

He also noted: "I understand a certain amount of due diligence has to be done before the firm signs off on a check that size," but, he explained, nobody from Crowell & Mooring has even called landlord and Regal Real Estate owner Maurice Laboz to tell them they're investigating, "let alone say they're sorry." Not exactly the best customer service. Mr. Punch had a meeting scheduled with Crowell-Mooring this morning that they've since canceled, and have yet to serve Regal Real Estate with their insurance certificate. "Manhattan ADA Gary Galperin, of the Rackets Bureau, is only person helping us out," Punch explained. "We just want to be made whole again."

Representatives for Crowell & Mooring declined comment to the Observer.

In the event you were wondering, this is the same law firm that represented defense contracting firm Blackwater after they were involved in a shootout that resulted in a bunch of dead Iraqi civilians. They represent a few other defense contractors, too. They're awesome corporate raiders, and do a decent share of white collar crime defense.

In other words, they're exactly the kind of lawyer it sounds like Doug Arntsen needs right now.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Which they now clearly have access to.

It's hard to tell why Guest of a Guest publishers and Facebook would-be inventors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss appeared to agree in an advertisement for Wonderful Pistachios, but apparently, they did. Via Ad Freak, whoever is paying them is not, as it goes, "playing":

Paramount Farms intends to drop $30 million to run these latest "Get Crackin'" spots over the next four months on high-profile shows like the Dancing With the Starspremiere, the Emmys and The X Factor.

Given the quality bankability of the other participants—Khloe Kardashian and her L.A. Laker husband Lamar Odom, the titular Angry Birds of the popular video game, former Saturday Night Live star Mr. Bill, and a monkey named Crystal whose repertoire we're not intimately familiar with—the theory that they are hard-up for money doesn't quite hold water.

Neither does the idea that they need something to occupy their time (we know for a fact that they're already training on a full schedule for next year's Summer Olympics in London).

Maybe this is part of an effort to win back the good faith of the world at-large with regard to the perception of them as Those Guys Who Claimed To Invent Facebook But Didn't, or to boost their image as patriots going to win glory for their country on a global stage using large rowboats.

Or maybe it's simply an intensely meta performance piece on the way social status collides against nature versus nurture debates and crass commercialism when one prostrates themselves at the altar of public atonement.

Or maybe they just want to be on television.

Whatever it is, it's here:

Cameron Winklevoss did not return The Observer's immediate request for comment on what is going on here and how much he got paid to do it.

Previously: 10 Things The Media Either Gets Wrong Or Doesn't Know About The Winklevoss Twins.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

Related: Bob Turner Brings Ground Zero Mosque Debate to Queens in First Ad >>

Just three days before tenth Anniversary of September 11th seems an inopportune time to use an image of a private jet buzzing right by the Manhattan skyline to illustrate Bob Turner's lax stance on corporate tax reform. Right?

Any other week, it'd be a huge stretch. Yet there's something about seeing replays of the attacks ad nauseum on broadcast news, and commemorative/memorial ceremonies taking place city-wide that makes it much, much worse. It's not a rhetorical question: Is there truly no better way to illustrate Turner's commitment to corporate interests twelve seconds into an attack ad?

UPDATE: Azi Paybarah at Capital New York noted that they've removed the old ad (which is why the video above no longer works) and doctored the spot to remove the skyline from it, an hour and a half after we posted it. All told, pretty quick work on the DCCC's part. One more time, now you see it:

Now you don't:

The full, new, working version of the ad is here:

UPDATE 2: One day later, and the ad is still playing on FOX5 in its 9/11-y iteration:

More on POLITICKER NY.

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