The Feuding Facebook Mansions of Palo Alto

Ryan Tate · 05/09/11 02:55PM

They're both new to the neighborhood, and they hate each other. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former deputy Owen Van Natta are apparently moving into the same opulent corner of Palo Alto, California. But Van Natta scored the posher pad.

Breaking: Twitter Is Crap

Hamilton Nolan · 05/09/11 02:21PM

In your wheezing Monday media column: Matt Drudge lives, the WaPo union gets cheeky, Robert Lipsyte snipes, CBS cans its Early Show producer, Phillippe Dauman is overpaid, and Ann Curry is happy.

Now's Your Chance to Buy Thousands of Unwanted Federal Properties

Jim Newell · 05/09/11 02:16PM

The Obama administration has gone through all of the properties the federal government owns and come up with "roughly 14,000 buildings and structures currently designated as excess and thousands of others that are underutilized." It plans to sell "or get rid of" as many of these as possible over the next three years, which will supposedly save $15 billion.

Jersey Shore Gets the Academic Conference Treatment

Brian Moylan · 05/09/11 01:51PM

I have always called Jersey Shore the most important sociological experiment of our time, and it seems one intrepid University of Chicago student agrees with me because he's not only stolen my tag line, but is trying to organize an academic conference around the reality show. This is a brilliant idea.

The Best Ad of the Entire North Bergen, New Jersey Mayoral Race

Jim Newell · 05/09/11 01:21PM

The big mayoral race in North Bergen, New Jersey is coming to a close tomorrow. Are you a North Bergen resident who doesn't care who wins and will vote for whichever politician has the best TV commercial? Then longtime mayor Nick Sacco would be honored to have your vote! Watch youthful voters and old hippie ladies alike sing, "I don't know where you be from, but I be from North Bergen, son," while expressing their approval for Mayor Sacco. [via Tom Scocca]

Pastor's Fake Navy SEAL Career Based on Under Siege

Hamilton Nolan · 05/09/11 01:09PM

Everyone thought that Jim Moats, a pastor in Newville, Pennsylvania, was a retired Navy SEAL and a Vietnam war hero. He had a plaque to that effect hanging in his office, and he wore the trident medal symbolizing SEAL membership. For a profile in yesterday's local paper, Moats told of being "waterboarded" by SEAL instructors, and of being busted down to a kitchen worker after getting in a fight. "I had almost no discipline. I was as wild as they came. That was my nemesis," Moats said. "They weren't looking for a guy who brags to everyone he is a SEAL. They wanted somebody who was ready but had an inner confidence and didn't have a braggadocio attitude."

Real Housewives of Orange County: Where There's Smoke There's Dire

Richard Lawson · 05/09/11 12:57PM

Everything is unraveling! Marriages and friendships and dress companies. It's all coming undone for our California bliss-monsters, their threads pulling and fraying like so many, well, cheap dresses. At least there was wine to comfort them, as there always is.

Trump: I'm Not Racist — One Of My 'Apprentice' Winners Is Black

Jim Newell · 05/09/11 11:30AM

Donald Trump wants to clarify that he's "the least racist person there is." In fact, he says, he's so not-racist that Randal Pinkett, who is black, "won on The Apprentice a little while ago, a couple years ago, and Randal's been outstanding in every way."

Christina Aguilera's Weave Takes a Turn for the 'Britney'

Maureen O'Connor · 05/09/11 10:50AM

A shocked nation recoils as Christina Aguilera dares show her face with anything less than professional hair and makeup. Victoria Beckham gets a "quinny buzz." Benjamin Millepied throws a tantrum. Monday gossip has fascist beauty standards.

College Professors Are Not in Shape!

Hamilton Nolan · 05/09/11 10:49AM

Is teach pale, a beached whale? A new study out of the normally conscientious nation of Canada indicates that assistant professors in that peaceful nation's institutes of higher learning are woefully deficient in the "Fourth R": exercise.

Superheroes Are the New Shakespeare

Richard Lawson · 05/09/11 10:28AM

Screw Hamlet and Henry and regular Hero. Who Kenneth Branagh should have been focusing on all this time are superheroes. Superheroes like Thor, who has brought him by far the biggest of his directing career.