We received a letter from a young Williamsburger in a legal "pickle." (We know a little about that!) "About ten months ago, I got a ticket for riding my bike on the sidewalk outside of the Mckibbin lofts (yes, I used to live there). Later that weekend, i got a ticket for public urination about two blocks away, near the Brooklyn Life Cafe. Sometime that Sunday, I either threw the tickets out or lost them....it was a bleary weekend, to say the least. So now, WTF do I do? Can I just show up to court and say, hey, I plead guilty for whatever you have me marked down there for in that little book? (and chances are, they've thrown out the charges.) Or, do I have a warrant [out for my arrest by now]!?" Read on to learn how to beat a ticket that you ignored. It's easier than you think!This guy just needs to call his local precinct and ask what he owes. There will be money penalties for ignoring/losing the tickets, but not jail time. The tickets that carry jail time for this kind of stuff if you ignore them don't demand money—they demand that you sit in court all day until a judge calls you and tells you to pay $20 for being a fucking idiot. The tickets most people get just get more and more expensive as long as you don't pay them. There's also this possibility, according to City Room:

Fear not, fans of rational portrayals of modern urban career women on television and film. Candace Bushnell's influence is almost gone from our lives. The Sex and the City authoress (or is she??) co-created a TV show last year called Lipstick Jungle that was basically a tired rehash of the SATC series but without all the fun swears and nudity and stuff. Well, that show was blessedly canceled yesterday, so we no longer have to deal with its particular brand of shoes-as-metaphor-for-longing ladybusiness. And now, oh my, Bushnell's satellite radio show has been euthanized as well. She was doing a show for Sirius XM radio called Sex, Success, and Sensibility, which was about how to make love like a perpetually neurotic and self-obsessed shopaholic. But then—in these horrible, ruined economic times!—she refused to take a 50% pay cut, so the station just out and out pulled the plug. So, that's sad for her I guess? But it's kind of a relief for us. Now if we could only stop those Sex and the City: For kids! books from coming out.

♦ Former Country chef Willis Loughhead has signed on as executive chef of Table 8 inside the Cooper Square Hotel. The restaurant is expected to open in January. [The Feedbag, Eater]
♦ The 10 best places to go on a cheap dinner date in NYC. [NYO]
♦ To celebrate ten years in business, Café Boulud is debuting a new $75 five-course menu. [The Feedbag]
♦ A few impressions from Txikito's opening last night. [Strong Buzz]
♦ Gael Green offers up her take on Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz's 20-course dinner at Per Se the other night. [GS]
♦ Village Pourhouse near Columbia is testing out a novel way to lure customers to 109th Street: Take a cab to the bar, save your receipt, and the bartender will "match your cab fare in the form of a bar tab." [The Feed]

Insiders at Clarium Capital, the $5.3 billion hedge fund run by Facebook investor Peter Thiel, are buzzing about their boss's $1 million donation to NumbersUSA, an anti-immigrant group. The donation is an open secret within Clarium, and it has enraged several staff members who joined Clarium because they believed Thiel shared their libertarian ideals. When I asked Thiel if he'd made the donation, an underling passed on a nondenial saying the company didn't comment on "gossip and heresy." A typo — he meant to say "hearsay" — but a suggestive one. Thiel has fallen under the sway of Robertson "Rob" Morrow III, a Christian right-wing thinker who has personally donated to NumbersUSA, and persuaded Thiel to make his own, much larger donation.Morrow is a controversial figure within Clarium, a hedge fund Thiel founded after leaving PayPal, the payments company he cofounded and sold to eBay for $1.5 billion. Morrow was once chief investment officer at the San Francisco-based company, but was pushed out of Thiel's inner circle after he had a nervous breakdown on the trading floor. Morrow slowly worked his way back into Thiel's good graces, and was assigned to run the company's then-small New York office. Recently, his influence over Thiel and Clarium has grown. Earlier this year, Morrow wrote a paper called "The Bull Market in Politics." His thesis was that "government influence — over trade policy, social programs, decisions of war and peace — becomes much more important" to investors. One key policy area: immigration, where Morrow thinks there is a rising consensus for restrictions. A politically driven drop in immigration has broad economic implications, especially on the housing market; with less population growth, housing prices will continue to suffer for much longer than most anticipate. But Morrow is not merely forecasting the market. He has cajoled his influential boss to spend money to make his forecast a reality. A NumbersUSA spokesman called me to deny that Thiel had made a donation. But the money trail out of Clarium is clear, insiders say, and it would be a simple matter for Thiel to have arranged to make his donation through a third party like DonorsTrust, a conservative foundation through which charitable grants can be directed. The reason why Thiel would want his donation to be anonymous is simple: Even while he's betting against immigration with his hedge fund, he's making money off of immigrant-run startups in Silicon Valley. However Thiel is getting the money to NumbersUSA, it has specific goals: upgrading NumbersUSA's computer system; hiring a full-time fundraiser to solicit large donations from the wealthy; and hiring Luntz Maslansky Strategic Research to run focus groups on public attitudes toward immigration. So Thiel, like many wealthy sorts, is getting into politics. What's interesting about this is his shift from outspoken Libertarian. At PayPal, he had ambitions of using his payments startup to undermine illiberal economies and create a new world financial order. Many of his employees, first at PayPal and then at Clarium, were attracted by this powerful (if outlandish) vision. That he's now fallen under the sway of a right-wing Christian conservative is a bit crushing to the true believers Thiel attracted to his cause. Thiel once aimed to overturn the system. Now he just wants to work within it. As much as his anti-immigration views render him noxious to the Northern California mainstream, his turning away from an embrace of freedom make him an enemy to the rebellious thinkers he's hired.

Even in a perfect economy, the media would be having economic problems dealing with the internet's impact on the traditional media business models. That's more than enough to worry about. But of course the economy is far from perfect, so the media has an extra challenge: its advertisers are losing money. And for some, we're not talking about fluctuations; we're talking about huge ad buyers who might be wiped off the map. This is why every media company is really, really hoping that the government rushes to the aid of General Motors and its dying US auto industry friends. The auto industry is one of the biggest advertisers of all. Local newspapers reap a lot of their revenue from local auto dealer ads. (The recent decline of those, along with real estate ads and retail ads, has local papers scrambling to figure out what to do). But that's just one small piece; television auto ads and sponsorships are declining too. GM spent more than $2 billion on advertising last year, and when they make cuts, media companies can see tens or hundreds of millions of dollars evaporate. In August, GM pulled out of its sponsorship of the Academy Awards. In September, the company slashed its digital ad budget and decided not to sponsor the Super Bowl. Even when GM tries to spend money, they're cursed. They signed up for a big product placement deal in the craptastic new NBC Christian Slater show My Own Worst Enemy—but yesterday NBC announced it was going to cancel the show because of low ratings. Boy that sucks. And today we learned that, thanks the auto industry's troubles, Christmas has been ruined at yet another media company! A tipster sent us an internal memo to staffers at Sirius XM Satellite Radio from the CEO Mel Karmazin, the former Viacom exec; he's copying his old company by canceling the holiday party and giving everyone an extra vacation day instead. "The economy is slowing, our OEM and retail partners are hurting, satellite radio sales are not growing as we would like, and our stock price reflects that along with other issues," Karmazin writes. A major reason: all those new cars with built-in satellite radios aren't selling. How bad is it overall?

The BBC on Thursday unveiled quite the scoop in a world-exclusive interview: Angelina Jolie is going to quit acting! Like, soonish. Sort of. Perhaps a few years from now. Or longer. Like decades, if her stream-of-conscious threat to "fade away" is any indication: Maybe a Kung Fu Panda installment here, a Lara Croft sequel there, and gratuitous Oscar bait every five years or so, carefully timed to coincide with the next collection of candid mealtime snapshots issued by Brad Pitt.It's a far more graceful exit strategy than that of her contemporary Joaquin Phoenix, if only for its intelligibility and lack of knuckle-writing, but all the more jarring for her anticipation of her grandmother years. We'd heard Maddox is precocious and everything, but come on. That's genuinely uncool.

Before she picks apart Barack Obama's wardrobe, perhaps Times fashion critic should reevaluate some of her own questionable fashion choices? The new issue of the Daily Mini reports on Horyn's love of the jort, an item she's been wearing with alarming frequency to runway shows as of late. "Of course, Cathy is not the first to be seduced: Jorts have a long and storied history. The Dukes of Hazzard's Catherine Bach turned "Daisy Dukes" into a pop-culture icon. (Jessica Simpson revived the trend in the 2005 remake.) brave starlets like Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Kate Moss have also dared to bare thigh, though they tend to do so with a bit of irony." The cover of the November issue is below.

Feast on the smorgasbord of conferences and tech events this weekend. For starters, try the 2008 Music Business Seminar at Ex'pression College for Digital Arts on Saturday. Panels on production, financing, and online marketing can you help you get the juices flowing on your next app for making money on music. Thinking bigger than widgets? Berkeley's Digital Media Play Conference at Haas is bringing together music tycoons, technology innovators, and a gaggle of up and coming MBA's to discuss issues facing the current media economy. Thinking bigger still? Convergence 08 is hosting a free-flowing unconference on everything from space tourism to open source. Envision the next technological revolution and beyond at the Computer History Museum both Saturday and Sunday. Finally, get a head a start on next week with Adobe MAX 2008 preconference festivities. The Adobe Community Leaders will be at Thirsty Bear for a welcome reception from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

After Barbara Walters spilled the beans yesterday to her fellow Viewesses that Thomas Beatie—aka Coney Island's World Famous Pregnant Man ("$1 Gets A Glimpse At God's Pickle-Craving Mistake!")—was heavy with yet another biologically improbable child, the shit really hit the fan. They've had 24 hours to absorb the news, however, and today were ready to really tackle the nitty-gritty of this procreative mind-twister. In Part One, above, Walters describes the logistics of F2M sex, which she summarized in six reverberating words that could drain much of the hope-capital amassed in recent weeks: "The testosterone made his clitoris lahger." After the jump, the group tries to figure out how Beatie's wife ended up lactating when her husband did all the childbearing heavy-lifting. Of course, none of this is virgin territory for Walters, who memorably profiled grade school transgenders—one she sensitively described as "a girl with a dick"—in her legendary 20/20 special, My Secret Self.

Sarah Palin Poolside? You Betcha! [Bauer-Griffin]

The revolving door at Facebook has been swinging less of late. Two top designers, Katie Geminder and Eston Bond, left in August and September. But the economic crisis seems to have scared the rest of the social network's staff into their seats, wondering when the ax will fall. There have been no layoffs, but we keep hearing tips from inside there's a hiring freeze on. In fact, there's not: Facebook's unofficial second-in-command, COO Sheryl Sandberg, asked CEO Mark Zuckerberg to institute a freeze, and got turned down cold.And yet Facebook will end the year with 750 to 800 employees, Zuckerberg has said — a far cry from the 1,000 employees he projected at the beginning of the year, when Facebook had only 450 employees. Call it what you like, but those are 200 jobs that have gone missing. One would think that Facebook, more than ever, would have the pick of the litter. But its potential employees can do math. Facebook's hiring managers do not have the hot hand they played earlier this year. The turmoil within Facebook has made an impression on potential hires. As have Facebook's financials. Facebook raised $240 million from Microsoft in a deal that valued the entire company at $15 billion. And the company is making real revenues, though they're small by comparison to MySpace; the most solid projection for 2008 is $265 million, down considerably from the $300 million to $350 million Zuckerberg once thought it could make this year. All the while, it is spending heavily on servers; Facebook's pages, which must chart a user's social connections to determine what news from friends to display, are more computationally intensive than, say, a trivially simple Web search engine like Google. That means, in essence, more money spent on servers per user. What that means: Facebook will have to make more money on advertising per user just to stay even with Google's cost structure, let alone exceed it. It's far from that point. Most importantly, it's hard for outsiders to see the upside in Facebook shares. Most assume Facebook will issue them options, and wonder how those will appreciate enough to make them rich. In fact, Facebook has been switching to grants of restricted stock — a maneuver Google and Microsoft, too, has used when a lofty share price made options less attractive. Add skittish candidates and skittish managers, and you get a very tough hiring process; Facebook executives might actually like to hire more people, especially in engineering, but they're having a hard time finding people who meet their requirements and are willing to take the job. Zuckerberg doesn't have to institute a hiring freeze; his lofty opinion of his own company is putting enough of a chill in recruiting to keep costs down.

[Actress Lindsay Lohan with security detail in London; image via INF]

A LAFF Riot: We had just recovered from wiping up our salsa wounds after the tortilla chip Yes on 8 massacre at El Coyote when news broke of a brand new front in the Proposition 8 culture war. According to reports, LA Film Festival director Richard Raddon gave $1500 to the "Yes on 8" cause, a revelation that will surely give pause to the Hollywood demographic David Poland is most worried about: "indie publicists, most of the male species of which are gay." Meanwhile, reps for the Palm Springs Film Festival issued a statement reassuring Hollywood that they're as queer and movie star-ass-kissing friendly as ever. Free appletinis at check-in! [The Advocate]

Our friend Nate Silver is already making canny career moves! The baseball stat superfan-turned political pollster blew everybody's mind by calling the presidential election results down to a tenth of a percent. We advised him to pursue a career in corporate consulting in order to become a wealthy power player who works for the forces of good. Well he didn't start "Silver Consulting" just yet, but he is positioning himself to become the next Malcolm Gladwell-esque overpaid business idea guru. Just as good!: The Observer breaks the news that you will soon be able to buy Nate's book(s)!

"I know a fair number of people who work for the firms that are imploding on Wall Street. When I see them, should I ignore the issue or say something, like: 'I'm sorry things are so bad at your company. It must be stressful for you?'" Philip Galanes has a few suggestions. [NYT]

"The real issue is Intel does not have parts to support the April timeframe." Remember the class-action lawsuit over Vista Capable PCs that lack the graphics power to run Vista's Aero interface? TechFlash has published the 29-page court document with Microsoft's internal emails. Intel CEO Paul Otellini personally intervened to convince Microsoft to lower the standards so that an entire generation of underpowered, non-upgradable PCs would be deemed Vista Capable. I know — I bought one. Microsoft computer science guy Jim Allchin was "apoplectic" over the appallingly bad idea. But Digg users never explode in rage at Intel. Once again Redmond's brightest, hardest-working tech leaders have stabbed themselves in the face.

Finally, some good news after months of Black Fridays for magazine foldings: downtown fashion mag Nylon will survive! Despite the rumors that they were closing, they assure us that they are soldiering on, says Mariana Lee in communications: "The speculation that has been posted on the internet is completely false. NYLON Magazine is not folding, and is actually doing very well." Even though we've teased them relentlessly—and wondered why Nylon Guys even exists—we'd be sad to see them go. (Where would we find the newest luxury denim and silly It Girl Peaches Geldof news?) Here's the rest of the statement:The rumors were sparked by WWD's incredibly grim picture of fashion advertising. But! Says Nylon: "Total print revenue in 2008 is up 10% from last year, and our online revenue is up 469%. Nylon Guys is doing exceptionally well, and is expanding from a quarterly and will be published 6x a year starting 2009." More here.

You all know the tale: MediaBistro started as a series of cocktail networking parties hosted by Laurel Touby, who then realized she could monetize a website by charging (voluntarily, at first) for job postings. Then came the classes, which are totally overpriced—especially when compared with nearly identical, yet much longer, journalism classes at the New School. (I've taken both!) Then came the seminars—would you pay $75 to watch dubious dating columnist Julia Allison and others talk about personal branding? MediaBistro makes money by getting people to pay them to learn how to break into journalism. But let's be honest: they're basically an expensive Learning Annex for people who want to work in the media but have no contacts or connections. So what's MediaBistro gonna do to make money turning the downturn, with MediaJobs disappearing left and right? How about desperate stunts: charging for cheesecake videos that cross the line:This video, "How Do I Got from Model to Model Journalist?" costs $15 FOR A SIXTEEN-MINUTES. Laurel, that's the phone-sex model of making money, not the "freelancer-helping" one.

As we suggested yesterday and was rumored by the trades, ABC's whimsical dark comedy Pushing Daisies—about a saturnine pie maker who can bring dead people back to life with a single touch—may be facing an unresurrectable demise. In fact, it's very likely the subject of this morning's lead blind item, about a show that's secretly been canceled. The show premiered strong enough last year, but then was perhaps mortally wounded by the writers strike last spring. So it's in danger, yes. Which is a shame because it's got a talented cast (especially its balefully sexy lead Lee Pace and the always chipper and reliable Kristin Chenoweth) and inspired (if a tad too cutesy at times) writing. In fact, there are several other shows that should be canceled before Daisies is. We'll list three of them after the jump.

Never mind our concerns about Inglourious Basterds [sic] being the equivalent of a World War II-themed Abercrombie & Fitch shoot; a new video leaked from the set reassures us that Quentin Tarantino is upholding only the most rigorous authenticity standards from the era. For starters, the auteur teaches a pair of actors proper drink-spitting methods of the Third Reich — not to be confused with the straight-spined expectoration perfected by the British, or the far more complex "Kamikaze Spray" that Japanese pilots blew in their own faces during suicide missions over the Pacific. And to their credit, the Nazi pupils pick the technique up quickly and proficiently, reassuring us that Tarantino hasn't lost a step with actors, Kill Bill 2 notwithstanding. This is why he's paid the big bucks. [YouTube]