For celebrity chef Mario Batali, taste is a concept only applied to food. (Via Bauer-Griffin)

This profile of Anwar al-Awlaki, the extremist cleric whose influence was cited in the Times Square, Fort Hood and Christmas day attacks, has many revelations to recommend it. Among them — the fact he got probation for soliciting prostitutes. [NYT]

A guy has used the Internet to show you how, exactly Facebook's privacy rollbacks affect your information. It looks sort of like a flower. If a flower could inadvertently reveal to the world your love of Miley Cyrus. [Matt McKeon]

The Venezuelan leader, or @chavezcandanga, signed up to Twitter two weeks ago, calling the service "a weapon that also needs to be used by the revolution." He already has more than 240,000 followers. And now he has Tweetstaff.

Lisa Maria Falcone is the totally wacky wife of hedge fund billionaire Philip Falcone. She was sued for grabbing her gay servant's penis and housing him with her pet pig. She still really loves her pig.

Crap. So that dome that was supposed to end the oil spill got plugged up with crystals of something called "gas hydrates." Now they've had to move the dome off the leak, and are looking for a new fix. [NYT]

The first-ever public python hunting season wrapped up in Florida last month: Dozens of Floridians tooled around the state in their pick-ups, looking for oversized pet snakes which have escaped into the Everglades. Python hunting is our new national pastime.

The Broadbeach Cats Australian Rules football team "were cheered on by two skimpily-dressed staff," in a recent game. Their sponsorship deal pitted upset feminists against one plucky Hooters branch owner with a flawless argument.

Two transcendental travelers wander the desert, encountering magic and mirages (frog people, alcoholic oases, organ thieves, etc.) along the way. Faithfully filmed on Super 8, writer/director Calvin Reeder's surreal short homages countercultural legacies of hobo-hippies' radical realities and strange trips.

And just like that, Bethenney Frankel's baby is born.

In the wake of hearings about the youngest Guantanamo detainee, four of the most experienced journalists have been banned from entering the facility on very spurious grounds. Is the government merely trying to avoid further scrutiny?

In 1993, someone thought people "would enjoy having a desirable flavor imparted to them when they chew or suck upon the ends of the temple arms of their eyeglasses." He patented the flavored eyeglasses boot!

It is not clear what exactly Travis Parmelee, 36, was yelling at Tiger on the 11th hole of the Players Championship in Florida—though we imagine it wasn't a critique of his swing. But his ass got tased.

Thursday night, "Lucien" told blogger Joe My God that "Well, I do have to get up early for an interview. You know that guy, the gay reporter on TV?" Yesterday Lucien was on Anderson "That gay reporter" Cooper's show.

An agitated man on Long Island told his boss he'd 'pull a Faisal' if he was fired. We, and the New York Post, presume he was referring to the would-be Times Square bomber. And a phrase is born. [NYP]

Now that everyone who still uses telephone books is slowly succumbing to old age or exotic cancers caused by telephone book ink, Verizon wants to stop sending out residential telephone directories. But how will street urchins warm themselves? [NYT]

The same Staten Island ferry that crashed in 2003 has crashed again. 60 people injured.

According to Politics Daily a protester who claims he was abused by a Catholic priest has been treated to regular tirades of abuse and denigration by Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican's ambassador to the United States.

Gaga lost a British lingerie company's "prototype" underwear; Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart are a sexual dyad; Bombshell says she banged tiger; Gabourey Sidibe was mean. Saturday's Gossip Roundup is a containment dome lowered over a pipe leaking gossip.

New York seems to be smurfing smurf-fever thanks to the smurf that The Smurfs is smurfing all around the city. If you haven't smurfed The Smurfs in a smurf, why not smurf this episode smurfing with the origins of Smurfette.