[via Kottke]

The popular Wall Street blog Zero Hedge, whose motto is a quote from Fight Club and whose editorial output is entertainingly prone to populist conspiracy theorizing, is unique among financial news outlets in that its contributors publish under a single alias, “Tyler Durden,” the name of one of Fight Club’s main characters. The real world identities behind the blog have inspired speculation for years, but today Bloomberg News seems to have finally nailed them down:

Andrew Sullivan, the political blogger who quit blogging over a year ago, has finally reappeared: According to this press release, he’ll be joining New York magazine as a “contributing editor covering politics and the larger culture.” Die-hard Sullivan fans may remember his epic relocation to, serial complaints about, and eventual departure from New York City—the glittering metropolis whose various industries and cultures serve as New York’s main editorial focus. We’re assuming the trauma of having the wrong couch delivered to his Chelsea apartment has subsided at least a little if Sullivan is knowingly associating with the city again.

Former Laguna Beach star Kristin Cavallari will soon be a published author, but today, she officially became a blogger. Momtastic.com—a blog about fantastic moms—published a listicle by Kristin titled, “8 Lessons I Want My Kids to Learn Before They’re Teens.”

Earlier today, a princess was granted a wish, and that wish was to blog. As it turns out, sometimes, if you truly believe in yourself, dreams really can come true.

R.I.P. blogs, we hardly knew ye.

Ever since ur-blogger Andrew Sullivan retired from blogging in February, his fans and admirers (“SullyHeads,” as they’re not known) have wondered, “what’s Andrew Sullivan up to, right now?” and “what does Andrew Sullivan think about what is happening in the news lately?” Proving his doubters wrong, Sullivan has remained quiet since his last post in February. But earlier today there was a sign of life at his longtime blog, The Dish: A single post — a gif of a tumbleweed rolling along a dirt path — went live.

Here is one of the most ill-conceived blog posts you will ever come across.

Style blogging prodigy Tavi Gevinson, the world's busiest 18-year-old, is starring in a play with Kieran Culkin and Michael Cera. But she still can't leave the blog life behind: We hear she's dating David Shapiro, the Tumblr blogger behind "Pitchfork Reviews Reviews."

This week's New Yorker contains an essay, currently available in the print edition only, by Roger Angell, about what his life is like at the age of 93. It is full of well-wrought observations about loss and mortality and sex and the abundance of existence but it also keeps an eye on the contemporary, as in this passage:

An entire decade ago, Gawker Media launched a D.C. spinoff called Wonkette. There were no iPhones or tablets or black presidents then, just crude weapons such as "blogs" and "the Blingee." Now-old editors including Alex Pareene, Jason Linkins, Josh Fruhlinger, Kirsten Boyd Johnson and "Ken Layne" are today sharing their mostly heartbreaking tales of madness, booze, blood and Santorum on this blessed anniversary. (Original editor Ana Marie Cox skipped the reunion.) Wonkette itself was spun off (to me!) in 2008, and continues as a filthy website about the vile comedy of politics, led by Wonkette-in-Chief Rebecca Schoenkopf.

In 2011, I was approached by a shady online marketing firm that offered to pay me to quietly insert links to their clients' websites in Gawker posts. We imagined that exposing the practice might end it. Not at all! It's happened again.

For years now, the right-wing media have claimed left-wing journalists are colluding with each other on a secret email listserv. And they were half-right! As it turns out, a secretive, strategy-plotting online cabal of political journalists and party activists does exist. It's just that it's made up of conservatives.

Buying an afro wig for a Studio 54 theme party thrown by your work is a totally reasonable thing to do. Less reasonable is buying an afro wig, wearing it to your theme party, and then continuing to wear it around New York City on a journey of self-discovery, during which you frequently take pictures with black people. Alas, that's exactly what Michelle Lapidos has done. Welcome to "Before and Afro."

As of today, we are less than three weeks away from that night when the wretched souls of the dead stalk the living, rattling their miserable chains and demanding restitution in the form of blood or miniaturized versions of popular candy bars. Time to start rolling out Halloween costumes.

Why has The New York Times launched a new blog aimed at Baby Boomers, when the paper itself is already a testament to the sick, sad reign of the Jerks that Ruined Everything? "Our generation, the biggest in the country's history, has always given ourselves and everyone else lots to talk about," writes Michael Winerip in the opening post. "Booming [This is the name of the blog, LOL — Ed.] offers a wide-open space for these conversations."

Me-centric angst dump Thought Catalog: has its repertoire expanded at all in the past seven days?

Get those cameras off of her — the oldest Kardashian daughter says she's "feeling claustrophobic," according to her blog post, "Feeling Claustrophobic."

Let's come together and welcome the legendary Beyoncé Knowles to Tumblr, where she joins her sister Solange in the land of 500 Days of Summer GIFs soft-focus black-and-white porn with a series of what look like vacation shots. Watch Beyoncé play Connect 4! See her boring home videos with Jay-Z! Marvel at Jigga's terrible fashion choices! [I AM]

For a minute there, it looked like Trayvon Martin might avoid the kind of horseshit thunderstorm that tends to accompany the shooting deaths of unarmed African-Americans. It seemed like everyone agreed that the police had fucked up. Fox News had only one segment on the killing in the weeks following. Not even white racists wanted to defend Martin's killer, George Zimmerman: when I wrote about the case last week, the worst response I got was from one particularly dedicated nutcase, who set up a Twitter account to harass me for not properly specifying that Zimmerman is Hispanic.