The New York Times Travel section has an article this weekend that has the ring of a Brian Williams parody, but does, in some bizarre way, appear to be real. Basically the paper sent free-associative word mangler (and chief food critic) Sam Sifton across the East River to file a "36 Hours In..." column about Brooklyn. You know, Brooklyn? The borough?

Unable to fix their show's many, many flaws on their own, the Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark production team is turning to focus groups of strangers to help point out weaknesses in their troubled Broadway musical. From Entertainment Weekly:

Sarah Palin is too busy cashing checks to attend this year's exciting Conservative Political Action Conference, the Republican Mecca (sorry for the word choice, Republicans) which began yesterday in Washington. What a snub to her fans! Fortunately a Sarah Palin impersonator showed up at the conference today, and that was good enough. Especially since many attendees thought she was the real thing.

Justin Bieber was on Jimmy Kimmel Live last night. One gag involved him "shaving" his head. We were shocked by how shocked we were—it was like a freshly clear cut mountain top. Terrifying. Put it back.

Like the finale of one of Tennessee Williams's lesser plays, the scenes of Jersey Shore, played out like a delirious tragedy rather than the greatest sociological experiment of our time. Naturally it all had to do with Sammi and Ronnie and their continued violent love battle.

The feds are taking Operation Payback seriously: In response to the Anonymous attacks on Paypal, Mastercard, Amazon, and other corporations that severed ties to Wikileaks in the wake of Cablegate, the FBI has served more than 40 search warrants and subpoenas as part of an ongoing grand jury investigation into the attacks based in San Jose, Calif. We spoke to one target of the investigation, a 19-year-old woman who lives on the West Coast, anonymously about the FBI raid on her home, her participation in the movement, and the FBI's fundamental cluelessness about the nature of Anonymous.

The ongoing War on Smoking, having already eroded your inalienable right to smoke in various public locations of your choice, is taking things to a whole nother level: they are going to quite literally blacklist smokers, refusing to hire them and even mandating piss tests for tobacco, to ensure that smokers remain unemployed, depressed, and smoky.

Last night Ryan Seacrest went to his mysterious control room and, though the room shook and the machines groaned and sparked, pushed the drama lever up to 11. Because it was time for the beginning of Hollywood Week! For you Idol neophytes out there (hi Mom), Hollywood Week is the time in a young person's life when a fluffy fun dream turns into cold hard miserable reality — either as failure or as the beginning of terrible stardom. Either they make it through and the fires of their ambition begin to burn a bright, noxious green, or they are snuffed out forever. It's pretty intense! And last night was no exception.

Even as he convalesces at home, nursing whatever mystery ailment he has, Apple CEO Steve Jobs "is staying closely involved in the company's strategic decisions and product development," according to the Wall Street Journal.

I was a print journalist and then a blogger. I dealt in words, few of them read, even fewer moving. And it's taken me this long to realize that we live in a visual culture. The words are so much more potent when they're harnessed to graphics, images and video. That's why we made the new Gawker.

The story in Egypt has taken another hairpin turn—but for the better this time. The protesters have finally kicked out their old man, (ex-)President Hosni Mubarak. He's stepped down and retreated to his estate at Sharm el-Sheik, on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula.

Incessant coupon-offering behemoth Groupon made a jokey Super Bowl ad about Tibet that didn't go over well with... well, anyone. (Yes, even though it was for charity, okay.) After a week of vague public anger about this relatively unimportant topic, the company is finally pulling the ads, reasoning—correctly—that the drama is not accomplishing the ostensible purpose of the ads, which is to help Groupon become a mighty, unavoidable middleman in the buying and selling of goods in America.

The rock star has a woman on staff to deal with his needs. This actor gets lap dances in his trailer during his lunch break. This magazine editor used to get her hair blow dried daily. We all have our indulgences.

Ke$ha's glitter-squirting vagina has crossover porn appeal. LiLo seeks no-jail plea deal. John Travolta gets a male waiter's phone number. Prince snubs Diddy. Britney Spears dreams of "running with lions." TGIFriday gossip.

Sure, Scientology may just be a front for slave-built motorcycles for celebrities, but it's got a positive side! For example, did you know that Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was also a songwriter? Don't take our word for it! Watch actor/bon vivant Frank Stallone, clad in leather slacks, sing two of Hubbard's fantastic songs, live in concert. "Hey," you may find yourself asking, "is that onetime teen idol Leif Garrett?" You bet it is! Sample lyric: "You are not minds/Or chemicals/You don't even have a phone/You're in a trap/Of senseless minds/And baby it's time to be reborn." [via minge]

Should Mississippi honor Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest by giving him a special license plate? Probably not, no. But the Mississippi Division of Sons of Confederate Veterans seems to think it would be a good idea, having proposed a commemorative Forrest License plate for 2014 as part of a series of license plates that "mark the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, which it calls the 'War Between the States.'"

For some insane reason, Justin Bieber his own line of nail polish called "One Less Lonely Girl." Actually, that's wrong—there it is completely rational: Bieber just sold 1 million bottles of the sticky stuff made by Nicole by Opi. Next up: Justin Bieber training bras.

From his bombastic OKCupid profile to his creepy love letters to a 19-year-old girl, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has some strange romantic proclivities. Strangest of all is his apparent obsession with littering the world with offspring. He's fathered at least four children with mistresses, and he boasts about it.

This morning we looked at a couple of humorous suggestions for where single people can spend Valentine's Day, sparking many a gripe about being a lonely singleton on V-Day and how miserable it is. Luckily one commenter swooped in and reminded us that it's going to be bad for everyone.

Here's a trailer for this summer's X-Men prequel (sort of?), X-Men: First Class, about what went down when Professor X and Magneto first got together and built their mutant school and stuff. It looks surprisingly good?