• Why, yes, of course there's a shawarma lunch cart in Midtown named after Barack Obama. [ML]
• The good news/bad news about Minetta Tavern. [Eater]
• A roundup of restaurants slated to open next week. [TONY]
• The Four Seasons Hotel is opening a "caviar lounge" on March 23. Genius. That's totally what NYC needs. [GS]
• Padma Laskshmi supposedly flipped out when she and elderly boyf Teddy Forstmann were forced to wait for a table at Schiller's last night. [Gawker]
• Most BYOB restaurants are breaking the law, it turns out. Also? Stretch limos that serve booze are in violation, too. Please take note, Mineola. [Crains]

Political strategist Joe Trippi has enraged the diabetic community, by saying that many of them would like to see some more stem cell research in order to maybe cure diabetes. NO WAY, they say!

This week has been dominated by finance and media critique, so why not flip the switch in your brain this weekend and go see a play or something. Or just read about some.

Good lord. New York Post columnist Braden Keil died Tuesday night. His funeral was held at 11:30 this morning. How long, do you think, before the first PR pitch pegged to his death came in?

Yep, Brownie's back in New Orleans. And your day editor is Facebook friends with him. [Politico]

Walter Noel and the Fairfield Greenwich Group have been sued yet again. The full complaint is after the jump.

Dear Facebook employee: If you're going to do something obvious and cliché like wearing cowboy boots to SXSW's geek spring break, please have the decency not to tell Twitter about it. Other Twitter idiocies today:

So much for Friday the 13th, at least as far as the market's concerned: Stocks were up for a fourth consecutive day, making it the best week for the three major indexes since November. [MW]

Gawker operative Stephen Kosloff went off to the National Book Critics Circle awards last night armed with a banana and a thirst for too much wine. This is what he saw.

College hires 50 laid-off journalists to "teach 'news literacy' to non-journalism majors." Good!

Did you know that Bill Clinton has been in Haiti this week on a humanitarian mission with Wyclef Jean? Neither did we. But it sounds like a like change of pace from traveling with shady billionaire Ron Burkle. When the two aren't feeding the poor, the two can always chat about Wyclef's rather expansive video collection. The press release is below.

The most cathartic part of our week is here. We have to read all the awful unapproved comments all week. You don't. Well, you didn't. Now you have to read six of the worst:

In your sunny Friday media column: Dan Peres has balls, high school reporters have dreams, Arthur Sulzberger has an honest moment, and the media at large has nothing to look forward to:

Vanity Fair and USA Network celebrated the launch of "The Character Project" photo exhibit at Stephen Weiss Studio last night. Editor Graydon Carter, the mag's publisher Edward Menicheschi, and NBC Cable Entertainment president Bonnie Hammer were on hand to welcome Mena Suvari, Christian Siriano (left), Lucy Liu, Donna Karan and daughter Gabby De Felice, Katie Lee Joel, Rachel Roy, Rosie Perez, Jeff Goldblum, Peggy Siegal, Rose McGowan, Sylvia Plachy, Michael Musto, Gigi Stone, Lisa Anastos, Caryn and Jeff Zucker, Paz de la Huerta, Sky Nellor, Jeremy Kost, Josh Bernstein, Yigal Azrouël, Elise Overland, Bettina Prentice, Sarah Sophie Flicker, Kipton Cronkite, Liam McMullan, Izzy Gold, and Gossip Girl's Amanda Setton and Dreama Walker. [PMc, Wireimage, Getty, VF, NYO]

Twitter actually less popular than Fanta and 99 other things, says an unscientific survey. Ooops!

Dear important scientist Tim Berners-Lee: Thank you for inventing the World Wide Web 20 years ago. It's really great and stuff! But were you aware of the crimes committed in your name?

Jim Cramer is a buffoon and dispenses terrible advice; by all accounts, he was a mediocre hedge fund manager before he even became a media celebrity. But he has a long track record for legally questionable behavior, too, as numerous people have pointed out over the years. Gawker has a good roundup of the charges that have been lobbed Cramer's way over the years. [Gawker]

[Former celebrity Langley Lindmenhan leaving Bar Deluxe last night; image via WENN]

Jim Cramer knows how easy CNBC is to fool. He used to play the network himself. Here are five episodes from the stock speculator's past that could use some dusting off.

Good news! It looks like Russian mogul Valery Kogan and his wife Olga are finally on their way to building the 21,127-square-foot mansion of their dreams! After more than a year of battles with neighbors and the Greenwich planning commission over plans to tear down the existing 19,000-square-foot mansion to build an even bigger manse in its place—one with 15 bathrooms, Finnish and Turkish baths, and an electric guitar-shaped outdoor patio surrounded by "guitar god" statues, no less—the board has finally relented and given the Kogans the go-ahead. The board concluded it couldn't "make decisions on aesthetics," even though the home would probably be a "sore thumb for the neighbors." Naturally, the prospect of increased property taxes for the cash-strapped town had no influence in the decision whatsoever.