• Agyness Deyn might try hypnotism to quit smoking. She "obviously" wants to stop so she can "settle down and have babies," says a friend of her boyfriend's. Obviously that's any woman's only consideration. [Daily Mail]

• Zac Posen will see your economic negativity and raise you an ounce of creativity. "I started my business in another trying time, right after 9/11. Everyone was saying ‘don't go into business, there's no place, there's no retail world out there.' Nobody wanted to hear about a new brand. But you create your own excitement, and you create the industry, and you create the customer, and that's what is going to get this country out of this difficult time." Yes we can wear beautiful dresses! [The Cut]
• Meanwhile a rag-tag group of former i-bankers has a crazy dream to make ugly shoes from recycled trash. Which is a kind of creativity that, environment aside, I'm not sure we need. [The Street]
• Lynn Yaeger goes to fashion week on the subway. Just. Like. I. Do. [The Cut]
• "Vivica Fox came out in this full sequined gown and she had the longest hair weave of her life. It was a shock, it was inspiring to women." If you've ever wanted to enter the mind of Christian Siriano, one good way of doing so would be to read an entire column by him. Fashion week is literally amazing, guys! [Time]
• Coco Rocha, in between attending fashion shows and walking in them, is also hosting an hour-long documentary about the lives of models during the week of weeks for E! Busy girl. [Elle]
• Kelly Cutrone had a hand in getting Ashley Alexandra Dupré to Yigal Azrouël on Friday. Yigal fired her. [NYDN]
• But Cutrone still wins for sheer audacity of media tricksterhood: she introduced Dupré to an editor at an avant-garde fashion magazine who wants to shoot the ex-callgirl, like, yesterday already. So this is how you get into Dazed and Confused. [The Cut]
• Are runways this season more diverse than last? It's looking like yes. The New York Times talks to some models from Harlem and the Bronx who are glad to see the "No ethnic models" signs retired. (The story also reminded me of how I know three models who all went to the same high school somewhere in deepest Queens. Once I told one of them I was thinking of moving to Queens and she gave me this withering look and said, "By 'Queens', you probably mean, like, Astoria, or Long Island City, don't you?" I did. But at least I know where Queens is, unlike a nameless designer in Eric Wilson's piece.) [NY Times]
• Model Sessilee Lopez eats egg McMuffins and asks to take home clothes from fashion shows. [NYDN]
• Peter Som has a fall collection, even if he didn't have a show. [Fashionista]
• An angel investor in Patrick Cox's struggling handmade shoe house was caught trying to license the Patrick Cox name and trademark for profit. [Telegraph]
• Somewhere, someone built an algorithm to analyze all the acres of type churned out in fashion week coverage, and that someone is here to tell us that this season's buzz words are "chiconomics" and "Michelle Obama." And "recessionista." [UPI]
• Anna Wintour is still talking about that sequined mini-dress The Recession made her not put in Vogue. Only now, in her mind it only cost $25,000, not $50,000. Times are hard. Anybody got any idea whose dress this might be? [WSJ]
• The May cover of Wintour's magazine might actually feature some models on it, in honor of the costume institute gala at the Met, which is model-themed this year. Online speculation points to Raquel Zimmerman, Natasha Poly, Liya Kebede, Isabeli Fontana, and Natalia Vodianova as among the final choices. [Fashionologie]
• British retailers are going to change their sizing for children's clothes because of the obesity epidemic. [Telegraph]
• Which will play right into noted obesity educator Karl "No Fat Chicks" Lagerfeld's talking points. The Kaiser also has reservations about online shopping, although this one time his assistant showed him how to order books and music on Amazon.com and it wasn't so bad, he supposes. [Portfolio]
• Nastia Liukin's line of denim isn't faring well. But her leotards, sold to other gymnasts, should keep her from the poor house. [The Cut]
• Wal-Mart isn't concerned about the souring fortunes of celeb-backed labels; it's launching a new Russell Simmons line. [WWD]
• Zooey Deschanel is also getting in on the action, with a limited-edition pair of $415 Oliver Peoples sunglasses she personally designed. My snark for this project is lessened in direct proportion to the share of the profits that will go towards victims of domestic violence. [LA Times]
• Posh's dress line has slightly lowered its prices from last season. But she's not sure if it's inspired by Mad Max or Mad Men. Either way there's a gray one with a butt ruffle. [Daily Mail]
• H&M's same-store sales beat analysts' expectations by only declining 1% on last January. This is good news. [WSJ]
• Whoa. A man in Osaka threatened 11 Uniqlo employees with a knife, tied them up with packing tape, and stole 2.5 million Yen. He was arrested as he tried to escape. [Breitbart]

1. tribal
2. Celtic
3. Confederate flags, etc.
4. Irredeemably awful band logos.

Here are some tattoos, meanwhile, that we have tolerated fucking:
1. Giant Black Flag logo
2. Giant Black Flag logo in the shape of Pennsylvania with an orange star marking Philadelphia.
3. crudely drawn Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany's
4. very-crudely drawn "Broken" written on chest [Exhibits 2-4 on same person]
5. Spider (symbolizing Spiderman)
6. "If found, call 215-[Phone number]

And actually we don't remember the rest. There are too many.

Also my brother has a tattoo on his calf that he designed himself that is apparently Tolkien-inspired.

It's Latin To Them [New York Daily News]
Is Love Skin Deep? [Marie Claire]

Perhaps those posts will lead Ms. Kirchner's mother to a deeper understanding of the oldest profession and her daughter's reasons for choosing it. But, says Morgan Winter on the Utne Reader's website, "There seems to be two basic motivations for writing about one's tenure as a hooker, neither educational. The prostitute either wants to glorify or vilify the industry and its consumers. Either of these seems simplistic and disingenuous. After all, not only are we talking about the oldest profession, we're also trying to understand arguably the most complicated physiological aspect of nature—sex—through books about themes that, if authored by anybody other than former prostitutes, would fall under the 'teen' section in the local library." Even with a more nuanced view of prostitution, I can't imagine any mother would be particularly thrilled to discover that her daughter was a hooker. I got an awkwardly scolding phone call from my mother when I wrote about foreskins. I can't even imagine what she'd say if I told her I touched them for a living!

Insanely Sane Conversation With My Mom [Bound, Not Gagged]
The True Stories Of O[Utne]

Related: Young Beauty Sells Her Body, Breaks Our Hearts
a href="http://gawker.com/5006394/diane-sawyer-rats-out-hooker-to-her-parents">Diane Sawyer Rats Out Hooker To Her Parents

All the local Florida papers and Web sites are clogged with ads telling people to visit Meetjoefrancis.com, where they are directed to write a letter to Florida governor Charlie Crist, who has been so bombarded that he called Francis's lawyer and said he'd look into the case.

Dear Florida Governor Charlie Crist, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum & the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE):

As a citizen who cares deeply about due process and justice in our country, I am very concerned about the set of circumstances surrounding Joe Francis' criminal charges and incarceration without bail. At the very least there is the appearance of wide spread [sic] misconduct by public officials, including possible illegal acts enacted by officials such as State Attorney Steve Meadows in an effort to put Mr. Francis in jail and deprive him of his rights.

My concern in this matter is neither an approval nor disapproval of Girls Gone Wild as a lifestyle brand, but rather a concern that Florida public officials are using their own personal beliefs in order to selectively prosecute someone whom they disagree with.

For this reason I urge you to call upon the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct an impartial investigation of the events surrounding the charges that have been brought against Joe Francis - both criminal and civil, beginning in 2003 and continuing into the present - and the forced civil settlement so that the public officials in Bay County will either be exonerated from any taint of impropriety, or be held accountable for any misdeeds.

Francis says jail is totally different from what he'd expected from movies. He's seen only one fight and hasn't heard of any sexual assaults. "Nothing will ever happen to me in jail. I'm a god. I'm the cool Girls Gone Wild guy. I'm revered. I'm a rock star," he says. Still, he avoids the other inmates, often going a week without talking to one. "The one thing I fear is one of these fucking people showing up at my house. I'm a different class. They're dumb. They're the people you see on Cops. Those are the people you see in jail."

The Prisoner In Cell Block DD [GQ]

MEGAN: So, apparently, fidelity is just a big fat lie for everyone now.

MOE: It's biology!
Don't you love political sex scandal-pegged science stories?

MEGAN: Best pun by a scientist ever: "Infants have their infancy; adults, adultery."
But can we have a moment of silence for the end of my nascent crush on brand new NY Governor David Paterson?

MOE: Did you like the detail about how he took the mistress to Day's Inn, but he's also taken his wife to the same Day's Inn? Here she is. Isn't she a beauty? Though to be fair, I've stayed in places about four diamond ratings beneath that place in this town. And I have, like, 20/30 vision.

MEGAN: Like, ok, this I need to understand. Why if he and his wife live in Harlem, did he take her to the Days Inn to fuck her? Like, that's about 30 blocks from the Harlem line, right? So it's not even very far.

Like, I can totally see taking your mistress there, but your wife?

MOE: Yeah I lived in Harlem. That's like a two and a half mile walk and I lived up at 149th.
I bet the fuckin marriage counselor recommended it.

MEGAN: Oh, God, you're so totally right. Men are creatures of habit. He was probably like, I had a ton of great sex in that hotel, I'll just go back there! Rather than, like, shelling out for the W or something.
David, I have seen your wife. She deserved some high thread count sheets and strawberries and champagne from room service, I'm just sayin'.

MOE: I bet you can get "room service" from that hotel. It just comes from the local diner and they will totally mess up your order but as a plus they'll charge you $7.95, no matter what you got. I wonder if the Day's Inn is one of those hotels where there is a microwave in every room and free microwave popcorn with an advertisement for a Grey Line Bus tour on the packaging.

Soooooo...should we talk about Pastor KKKRazy?

MEGAN: Ah, The Reverend Not-Wright

MOE: The Reverend Wright wing conspiracy!
According to Fox News, he's sorta like Hitler.
Hitler did some great things1

MEGAN: Well, he does have a 'stache, I guess that seals it. I mean, except for the whole part where he's black and stuff.

MOE: He fixed the economy!

MEGAN: By starting a war!

MOE: Yeah well! Nicer guys have tried that and failed!

MEGAN: Well, several years into Hitler's war the economy in Germany tanked, too. Apparently, it's not that great for the economy unless you win and stuff.

MOE: So anyway, Obama is supposed to address the problem of the pastor who changed his life being some sort of Stalinist Che Guevara Islamofascist black supremacist firebrand and it's happening this morning at the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, which is only about two blocks away from my old apartment (sigh!) and I hope they air it on Fox News because, for one, the sound isn't working on any of my other news channels and two, I love Fox News. They just interviewed Mr. Feeley from Mr. Roger's Neighborhood. Can you IMAGINE naming a character on a kid's show "Mr. Feeley" now? No! It's unthinkable! Anyway, let's really get into the Pastor Wright thing. I feel like no one in the media has a real opinion about this guy because everyone has had at least one boyfriend who has made more ridiculous utterances and, you know, it's not like Obama touched dicks with this dude. On the other hand, he's supposed to be some sort of spiritual adviser. But, like, "spiritual adviser" — what do any of us know about that? So we're all circling around one another, trying to figure out whether anyone cares, whether this is going to totally sink his campaign or just fly over their heads and... and...I still don't know what I think.

In other news, Obama has a black Chinese math nerd brother by another mother. Maybe if the Dalai Lama steps down the Chinese government can make him the official reincarnated Dalai Lama.

MEGAN: Well, CNN keeps running the clip where he says that Hillary Clinton doesn't know what it's like to be a black man in a country run by rich white people and I'm sort of failing to see that as being controversial. Are we arguing that the country isn't run by rich white people? The median income in this country is less than $45,000 a year and Congressmembers make more than $150,000 and the President makes more than $200,000.
Well, but the Dalai Lama would still be the Dalai Lama, only he just wouldn't be the political-leader-in-exile anymore.
MOE: No but he's apparently going to step down from his exiled title if the violence doesn't stop.
I'm not sure what the succession plan is but I would really love it if it involved an Obama.

MEGAN: That would be too much for me to handle in the morning.
MOE: I do love how Roger Cohen paints the picture of this guy as a "potential problem" for Obama. Because the Clinton clan is full of such upstanding citizens.

MEGAN: Lovely people, even.

MOE: Anyway, so...what is the worst thing this guy Wright has said anyway? "God Damn America" or that the government created AIDS? Did you ever date one of those guys who told you crack cocaine was invented in a CIA lab? Because I have. And this was before Wikipedia, so I finally had to Nexis the fucking story and all the ensuing retractions to shut him the hell up. Not that I really felt like defending the CIA! But the thing is, it took a lot of time for me to get it up to want to refute any of the retarded things he said, even though I loved him, and I sort of feel like that must be Obama's thing, like...blah blah blah. Anyway, as it turns out it doesn't seem like Obama spent that much time in church anyway.

MEGAN: Oh, but he used to say he went every week! I can't say that I dated a guy who thought crack cocaine was a CIA plot against white people (although, hello? FBI would've made more sense conspiracy theorists) but I've definitely heard it and it totally still holds sway among many people in this country. And, hell, fucking South African President Thabo Mbeki thinks we hatched AIDS to keep Africans from breeding and shit, so, you know, apparently it's pretty widely believed that we're coordinated and shit.

MOE: Oh man I just rewound my Fox and they were interviewing that black republican ex Lt Governor of Maryland and he was talking about how a "spiritual adviser" is a really important force in your life, he knows because he used to be in a monastery. Um, was Barack Obama in a monastery? Because I don't remember that part. It's like his Chinese African brother! (Oh my god, Chinese African! Do you think he is involved in Sudanese blood oil??) Anyway, whatevs! I'm about to change the subject. Can you handle this?
I actually read almost the entire account of the Week That Shook Wall Street and I have a takeaway.
MEGAN: Wow, no wonder we got started late. That's longer than Crappy Hour itself!

MOE:

Chief Executive Officer Alan Schwartz was out of pocket. Although Bear Stearns had been struggling with mortgage-related losses and problems in its wealth-management unit, Mr. Schwartz was hosting a Bear Stearns media conference in Palm Beach, Fla. On Wednesday morning, he left the conference briefly to do an interview with CNBC in an effort to deflect rumors about liquidity issues at the firm.

Steve Black, co-head of J.P. Morgan's investment bank, returned early from vacation in the Caribbean, spearheading the bank's efforts with his J.P. Morgan counterpart in London, Bill Winters. Mr. Black's role was pivotal. He was a longtime associate of J.P. Morgan Chief Executive James Dimon. And Mr. Black had a long relationship with Bear's CEO, Mr. Schwartz, dating back to the 1970s, when the two were fraternity brothers at Duke University.

At 5 a.m. Friday, Mr. Geithner, Mr. Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, calling in from home, joined a conference call to debate whether Bear should be allowed to fail or whether the Fed should lend it enough money to get through the weekend. At 7 a.m. they settled on the lifeline option.

• We discovered that ( now-former ) New York Governor Eliot Spitzer goes to whores.
  
• We also discussed Ashley Alexandra Dupre, aka "Kristen", the woman who was allegedly the whore in question. Her new single is off the chain!
  
• We commisserated with Spitzer's poor wife, Silda.
  
• Bet disgraced Glamour blogger Mike Cherico is happy about the Spitzer scandal! It is one of the few things that makes him look like less of an asshole.
  
• Speaking of assholes, did ya hear? Pooping is the new hot shit!

• Salt n' Pepa said opinions are like assholes and everybody's got one. Well 1,400 of you and counting had opinions about this post.
  
• But who cares what other people think! You're living alone and loving it.
  
• And probably airing the ol' girl out 'cause no one is ever around.
  
• But you guys, Anna Wintour put a big black guy on the cover of Vogue, so we know the apocalypse is neigh.
  
• Whatevs to all that. It's spring break y'all! Pour some out for the homies and have a good weekend.

Then they got addicted to the money and the lifestyle. And then one day, usually between the ages of 25 and 28, once they'd developed that knowing, experienced look that clients instinctively disliked, they found that themselves in a classic bind: they were addicted to high living but could no longer pay for it; they had no marketable skills; and years of late nights and lazy days had left them with no self-discipline.

Now, "marketable skills" is one way to put it. "Identity" might be another. The first, of course, is merely a phenomenon of one's worth to the economy, but what, if not one's worth to the economy, drives our senses of self in this country? Okay, maybe it doesn't drive mine or yours. It probably also doesn't define the identity of anyone driven to prostitution out of desperation — maybe drug addiction defines those women, or some larger struggle to support a family, or pay off student loans. But Ashley's? When did anyone challenge her to form a personality beyond "hot girl who wants to be famous"? Sure, she might have challenged herself. But, you know, you've already seen more than you wanted of her mom's tits. Ashley probably learned who she was by watching Cribs.

So maybe the bigger casualties — or maybe more precisely, the more criminally overlooked casualties — of prostitution may actually be the Ashley Alexandra Dupres of the world. Like the women of wealthy OPEC nations, their material wealth enslaves them...And then, it vanishes.

Maybe that's the silver lining to watching the whole Britney Spears flameout. Because for all its exposure, it tells, without the usual absurdist Celebreality house trappings, the story of all the college basketball phenoms who flamed out after burning through the last of their sneaker money, one-hit wonders, Hooters waitresses and pageant queens, old whores and anyone else who stands to lose it all when they lose their youth and the youthful greed that made them think that Louis Vuitton was a good investment in the first place.

I've Seen My Share Of Spitzers [Pajamas Media]

MOE: Okay, you know what? I thought we weren't going to be talking about Ashley Alexandra Dupre again but I think that's just what I'm about to advocate we do.
MEGAN: But briefly! Pretty please with sugar on top?
MOE: Okay, so first, the details. Ashley's former pimp Jason Itzler — is it weird that sort of rhymes with Spitzer? I guess not — has spoken and he's got nothing but love for the hottest girl he had. He met her at Hotel Gansevoort when she was 19 and working in the nightlife promotion cocktail waitress circuit. "She says, 'Hey, Jason ... I want to work for you.' When I caught my breath, I said, 'Do you know what I do?'" he claimed. "She's like, 'Yeah.' I said, 'Get over here.' " See, even then, he knew she'd be a star! Also, it sounds like those charges of abuse she leveled on her MySpace page might have been trumped-up; a neighbor says what really happened is that she crashed her stepdad's Porsche and wanted a new one, and when she couldn't get it she ran away. She grew up near the Jersey Shore, an area redolent of cultural capital, which explains how she was so "classy." She fucked Spitzer numerous times — she allegedly worked a six-day week! I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T! — but only figured out he was the governor somewhere near the Mayflower Hotel. I am currently writing a fictionalized account of how that went down.
MEGAN: Well, I mean, rich, skinny, nerdy white dudes that can't get laid are kind of a dime a dozen in D.C. I guess, and sometimes it is hard to tell politicians apart.
MOE: Apparently Silda is most upset over how young she was. Meanwhile, Ashley has a lot of opportunities to get rich now in even classier ways such as posing for Penthouse, just as I predicted yesterday.
MEGAN: But not Playboy, for some reason. Is that collusion? Antitrust! Antitrust!
MEGAN: Also, poor Silda. Really? The age is the bad part? Way to focus on what might actually be the least heinous part of the whole thing. News at 11: Men who cheat on their wives often fuck younger women.
MOE: No, Playboy apparently wants her too but I think Penthouse may be offering more money? Anyway my question is: at this point, would you rather be Ashley or Silda? And I'm saying, you know, I realize that is a stupid sounding question at this point. Ashley is pretty, whole life ahead of her, marriage not irreparably damaged etc. etc. But.
MEGAN: I wouldn't want to be a whore, much less a particularly famous one. Talk about someone who will probably never have a normal intimate relationship after this... I guess I know from experience that I can survive being cheated on, I can survive getting an HIV test and having a legitimate cause for concern about the results thanks to someone I was intimate with fucking a whore and neglecting to mention it, and I can survive at least some level of public humiliation due to someone else's actions.
MOE: Right, I mean, it's clear right now that Silda is a terribly smart woman, who has experienced a lot of things, and she's had her kids, and she has her law degree, and she has her weird Baptist NASCAR-loving roots and she has the sympathy of America and she definitely has an amazing body herself. It is also clear that, you know, by biology or circumstance, Ashley is not, you know, smart. And I know, like: what does that count for? But seriously, long term revenue generation prospects as a result of this fame look weighted to Silda right now.
MOE: Should we discuss Dina Matos McGreevey?
MEGAN: Silda's beautiful, smart, educated, has 3 daughters who likely love her and, God willing, is about to be wealthy and single. I'd rather be Silda.
MEGAN: Oh, Dina. The example of how not to handle it.
MOE: Cool. So because we'd still rather be Silda, it is not that terrible to still be obsessing over Ashley.
MEGAN: Well, I could stop obsessing over Ashley. We could obsess over Obama's super-cool mama instead.
MOE: Jessica's doing something on that for the 9:30. We had a discussion over how it's funny how normal and nuclear his own family is compared to how he grew up etc. etc.
MOE: Maybe we should finally talk about Michigan and Florida?
MOE: Pastor Jeremiah Wright?
MEGAN: Florida looks to be a ginormous fuck up again.
MOE: Earmarks?
MEGAN: Everyone does love them the earmarks.
MOE: New polls that place both Obama AND Hillary ahead of McCain?
MEGAN: Hooray for the Democrats winning no matter what only probably not because I'm a pessimist like that!
MOE: How, five years after we invaded them on this very basis there it is still looking like a giant fuckup that we ever linked Saddam Hussein to Al Qaeda?
9:10 AM
MEGAN: Well, a fuck up would mean we thought it and it wasn't true. It seems like the evidence is that is likely wasn't true but they said it anyway, right?
MOE: Oh sure. Be a cynic! So seriously, is there anything else to talk about? Do you think Rev. Jeremiah Wright's knack for speaking the truth etc. etc. will hurt Obama when it is inevitably linked to his no-flag-pin/no hand on heart during Pledge thingy?
9:15 AM
MEGAN: I mean, CNN and MSNBC have been practically showing that guy's speeches on a loop all morning. The dude's practically spitting crazy angry like something out of a super right wing evangelical church. The same people that were freaked out by the evangelical church stuff in Borat would, one would think, be freaked out by this.
MOE: Really? On my CNN they've just shown the inspiring story of that 300-pound woman turned triathlete.
MEGAN: Maybe it was just in the 8:00 hour? I switched because they stopped talking about anything new.
MOE: So...Peggy Noonan is going after McCain for not being enough of an ideologue — er, a philosopher to be president.
MOE:

Where Mr. McCain's friend says, "be disciplined," I'd say, "Get serious." What is the meaning of things? What is the guiding philosophy? Who has he read besides Hemingway? (And he's read him—he loves him to an almost scary degree.) Is there a little Burke in there? The Federalist papers? John Kenneth Galbraith?

• "After the first play, a lot of the reaction was negative. But after the second play, it became, `Play that song again,' and `Hey, that song's not bad." That's the program director of New York's Z100 discussing lovely Ashley Alexandra "Kristen" Dupre's song "What We Want." (Some mashups here.) You might recall the same phenomenon surrounding "Hollaback Girl." I'm making this my first item pretty much solely because it's probably my last chance to run this picture of Ashley and her mom. [Houston Chronicle]
  
• Obama's crazy pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright hates America and he thinks all black people should, too, and Obama's excuse is that he missed church the day Wright blamed the U.S. for September 11. [ABC News]
  
• The good news: 13% of registered voters still think Obama is Muslim. [National Review]
  
• The Clinton campaign sent out a nasty letter about how Obama is a total loser. Then the Obama campaign annotated it to make Clinton look like the loser. It sounds like a loser move, but I think they succeeded anyway. [NPR]

• Recession: was there any uncertainty left as to whether it had arrived? Really? Okay, well, if the flurry of bank meltdowns, the credit crunch, the rocketing food and oil prices, violent job cuts, continued slide of the dollar and mad Fed scramble to inject money into the economy didn't convince you, we now have conclusive proof that American consumers have somehow managed to stop buying so much. [WSJ]
• Karl Rove credits George W. Bush with teaching him a lot about "trust and honesty and straightforwardness." [Think Progress]
• "The magic is gone" for the U.S., says French foregin minister Bernard Kouchner, that guy who was just on the cover of the New York Times Magazine.
• Yesterday I gave you pickle juice popsicles; today bacon lollipops! [Lollyphile]
• Christopher Ward, the former treasurer of the National Republican Congressional Committee, embezzled about a million dollars, transferring funds from the committee to various organizations to his own bank accounts to...whores? We can only hope. [Wash Post]

• I know what I want, you know what I want, I know what you need, can you handle me? Thus begins the mellifluous "What We Want," the latest track posted on the MySpace page of Ashley Alexandra Dupre, the musician, abuse victim, former drug abuser and self-professed "non moron" who had sex with Eliot Spitzer under the name "Kristen" the night before Valentine's Day. Perhaps some blog will pay her $4,300 to perform it at their annual party in May? [NYT]
  
• The Emperor's Club also offered graphic design and consulting services but I'm thinking they weren't that popular because I could probably design their website myself. [Slate]
  
• Eliot Spitzer is a Gemini. Libras are famously attracted to Geminis so I guess I should consider it a bullet dodged. [Huffington Post]
  
• Dina McGreevey is still pretty pissed. You would be, too, if your husband had told you he was gay by asking you to read a draft of a speech he was about to give. [NYT]
  
• Geraldine Ferrarro abdicated her position on the Clinton campaign so she can continue speaking her mind about how easy black guys have it compared to white women. [Reuters]

• Syphilis rates are up for a seventh year in a row. Is Bubonic Plague next? [Reuters]
• Two men, one 17 and one 21, were charged in the murder of that pretty UNC student. The motive appears to be robbery. Awesome. [NYT]
• Just because the country's economic fundamentals are nowhere near as weak as they were back in the seventies doesn't mean the recession won't be as weak as the seventies because no one really remembers the seventies so the inflation and job prospects and such seem shitty enough to consumers and investors and all those bad vibes are enough to set off a ripple of liquidity problems that will send the whole thing spiraling wildly out of control because maybe the economic fundamentals were never that great to begin with and it was all a collective exercise in delusional fantasy. [Slate]
• Bad news for Boeing, not that they need it. And for anyone trying to get anywhere in an airplane, not that they need it either. [WSJ]
• The problem with America is not that our standards of living are so high technology companies don't want to hire us. (I mean, let's face it guys, the standards of living of most Americans are pretty fucking low, considering the aggregate size of this economy.) No, the problem with America is that everyone is stupid. Bill Gates, paraphrased. [Breitbart]
• Maybe it will help that people don't have as much money to waste at the mall. [IHT]
• Rush Limbaugh's evil plot to win Texas and Ohio for HIllary was actually an illegal evil plot, not that there's really a huge difference. [Wired]
• Once you get past the whole "the anorexics are going to love this shit" aspect of them pickle juice popsicles actually sound like a good idea. [Wash Post]