What do you get when you combine the all-too-apathetic and under-informed citizenry of California with the all-too-narcissistic user base of Twitter? Truly terrible questions, for the state's governor.

Microsoft has restored a black businessman to its Polish website and offered "sincere apologies" for replacing him with a grinning white guy, using Photoshop MS Paint.

It is hard to respond intelligently to the death of someone as complicated and accomplished as Ted Kennedy. Unless you're a regular on cable news. Then you just talk about yourself.

Last night I went and watched the upcoming Tucker Max movie, in full. Here is what I saw, before I erase it from my mind entirely.

It's so bad, in fact, that if it didn't star her pubescent model boyfried, Jesus Luz, we'd think it was a fake. Madge, what is going on in your Kabballah-riddled brain?

Either because they wanted conservatives blamed or because of the natural antipathy radical young leftists have for establishment liberals, two anarchists reportedly smashed up the Colorado Democratic party headquarters.

In your tanned Wednesday media column: Maer Roshan is up to something in LA, Portfolio('s picture) gets a new life, the NYT mag has a new, pretentious slogan, and booty skills translate between magazines.

• Ted Kennedy's death late last night sent the media into a predictable scramble. Some newspapers stopped the presses in the wee hours to change out the front page; every news network has been busy mobilizing its troops and planning various TV specials; Time announced plans to publish a commemorative edition; and the publication date of Kennedy's forthcoming memoir has been moved up to September 14 from early October.
• Some people watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's shows because they think it makes them look cool, according to a new research report. [NYT]
• The premiere of True Blood on Sunday night reeled in more than 5.3 million viewers and generated HBO its biggest audience in years. [MCN]
• Because The View is determined to provide a home to the most insufferable women on earth, Kate Gosselin has signed on to guest host the show next month, joining the likes of Meghan McCain and LaToya Jackson. [E!]

Dominick Dunne—best-selling author, special correspondent for Vanity Fair, television commentator, former film producer, and chronicler of Hollywood's dark side—died today of cancer at his home in Manhattan. He was 83. A tribute by Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is here. [VF]

Turn you and your friends into Svedka Party_Bots. Svedka, voted the #1 vodka of 2033.

Blogger John Gruber responded to our post on erroneous press coverage of Apple's relationship with Google. It turns out Steve Jobs keeps many of his minions as ill-informed as the media. Sounds about right! It's all in the update.

When any beloved public figure dies, everyone comes out to share their grief. Some come to make some money, others just to show their crazy. Get ready, Teddy, it's now your turn.

Admit it: You wrote off swine flu months ago, chalking it up to a passing fad that served as the perfect story for cable news outlets to obsess about day after day. And who could blame you? It started with such promise this spring, but then summer came and the epidemic—which clearly lost a little of its brand luster when it changed its name to a confusing mix of letters and numbers—couldn't get media attention if its life (or the lives of others, rather!) depended on it. All that is about to change, though. Just like Fashion Week, swine flu will be making its triumphant return to NYC this fall. And it's going to be bigger than ever.

Mark Penn, the strategist who dashed Hillary Clinton's presidential hopes, is the Wall Street Journal's "Microtrend"-spotting columnist. He's also CEO of PR giant Burson-Marsteller. Only a scumbag would abuse the former to drum up business for the latter.

Joe Gregory, the cash-starved former president of Lehman Brothers, hasn't had much luck selling his oceanfront house in Bridgehampton. (He cut the price from $32 million to $27.9 million a few months back, although that hasn't helped any, apparently.) Time to move on to Plan B, it seems. Gregory is now asking a bankruptcy judge to pay him the $232,999.548.71 he says he's owed in deferred compensation "in the form of performance- and restricted-stock grants." Now that's rich, isn't it? He helped run the bank into the ground and now he'd like to get paid for his "performance"? We're not quite sure how Gregory came up with this $233 million figure, but we're inclined to think the judge should cut him a check for $19.99. That way Gregory can go to Staples and buy himself a Brother P-Touch 80 so when he makes outrageous financial demands in the future, he'll at least be able to affix a profession-looking label to the envelope. Just because you had a hand in the biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history and your reputation is now ruined doesn't mean you can get sloppy! Gregory's handwritten submission to the court below.

According to a poll by Quinnipiac University, 78 percent of registered voters report having seen one of the gazillion or so TV ads for Michael Bloomberg that have flooded the airwaves in recent weeks. And they're really like him to stop: "Of those who've seen the spots this year, 47 percent say they're annoying; 41 percent say they're informative." [NYP]

So what was redacted in the publicly released version of the CIA Inspector General's report on torture? Oh, mostly death and stuff. Also there were the times the CIA accidentally misplaced detainees.

Young people are indifferent to Twitter, a hot topic the New York Times is mulling today. But no one's really figured out why. Our theory: Young people have lives, and Twitter is for creaking shut-ins.

Oh, good. Times op-ed mean girl Maureen Dowd wrote a column about people writing mean things on the internet. And she quotes Leon Wieseltier!

Looks like the languid, late summer days are not exactly relaxing the insiders over at Business Insider and Silicon Alley Insider. Editors Nicholas Carlson and Dan Frommer have a veritable slapfight going. Check out the warring headlines: