Lies! Today, they spread everywhere instantly thanks to the internet, that wondrous web of computers full of lies. That's how a fake rumor about Steve Jobs having a heart attack can momentarily cost Apple billions of dollars in market cap. But don't blame the internet—blame the inherently wicked hearts of mankind. Because people have been running these same types of media scams to manipulate financial markets for at least 144 years:

America has ended before—in these eight visions of the country's collapse collected by io9. (But those times we woke up and it was a dream.)

This isn't the first time that a complete unknown has come so close to the presidency-at least not if one includes Hollywood fantasies. The best of them is Being There, a movie made during the last period of national distress in which a mild-mannered and subnormal gardener played by Peter Sellers stumbles into the political spotlight. His bromides on the seasons are taken as reassuring economic wisdom; his television interviews test off the charts; and in the final scene the party establishment clutches at him as their savior much as the McCain campaign selected Sarah Palin. After the jump, a clip crosscut with moments from this year's campaign; but first, some dialogue.

"4 out of 5 men want Oxfords...in these new Van Heusen styles." And the fifth one is a god damn pipe-smoking blond homosexual who wears Brooks Brothers! Oh racist ad from 1952, you remind us how far we've come in our quest for equal rights for blond dudes. Click to enlarge. [Copyranter at Animal]

The inclusion of a woman on a major party's presidential ticket is unprecedented... for the Republicans. The Democrats did it back in 1984, when Walter Mondale selected Geraldine Ferrarro for his suicide mission against Reagan. Ferraro was considered risky due to her inexperience, but her selection and her brash, confident campaigning bumped Mondale way up in the polls. The VP debate that year pit George H. W. Bush, who'd been in Washington for years in various positions of authority and who was considered something of a foreign policy expert, against Ferraro, who'd only been in the House of Representatives for a couple years. The result? See for yourself in the clip above, in which Ferraro fights back against condescension from Vice President Bush. Think of it as a preview of tonight's Biden/Palin debate, except for the fact that Ferraro is smart and can speak English.

Ha ha what could possibly distract people from how terrible Sarah Palin was on CBS? How about a clip of Sarah Palin looking so... poised in a sexy swimsuit! Someone in Alaska claims this is a legit video of the Alaska governor in her Sarah Heath, Beauty Pageant Contestant days. Grainy old VHS digitized and uploaded to YouTube means this could very well be Dick Cheney in a swimsuit but, you know, it does look a bit like her. GAME CHANGER. Debate this, Old Boys Club! [Via Radar]

This Friday marks the first presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. Debate previews are available pretty much everywhere (this one's fine) but honestly you should probably just watch this clip. It's from the 2004 Illinois Senate race, when Barack Obama was up against Maryland talk show host and certified insane genius Alan Keyes. Keyes is talking about gay adoption, and how it leads inexorably to incest. Nothing on Friday will be this entertaining. Oh, those debate preps they're doing? Obama is practicing against some ancient lawyer dude. This is maybe a mistake because the lawyer dude is probably way more well-spoken and, frankly, Obama-like in his answers than McCain will be, but whatever. McCain is debating Michael Steele, who is entirely unlike Barack Obama in every way except for one important thing: his time spent as a college professor. Ha ha ha, just kidding, it's because he's black. This is to teach John McCain not to seem quite as contemptuous of the black guy as he actually is. (Oh wait, update—McCain says now they won't use Steele! We're sure Alan Keyes is available! Do it!)

There's an episode of Mad Men (I told you I must relentlessly mine this show to catch up with every other ad writer) in which Sterling Cooper has to come up with an ad campaign for a stimulating "weight loss" machine that actually owes its popularity with women to the fact that it's an undercover vibrator. Cue the euphemisms: "Rejuvenator," "youthful glow," etc. Today, of course, euphemism is dead. The agency would sell the product with "Turn it on and cum!" So it makes us wistful to look back on how they sold embarrassing things in the good old days. (With sexism!). After the jump, classic ads that gently persuaded your grandparents to choose the right brand when they were feeling... not so fresh:

"Prior to the reelection of General Grant in 1872, there was a superstition prevalent that no man possessed of a middle name could be elected President a second time. The notion was based upon the fact that every President so endowed, up to that time, had, for one reason or another, failed to be reelected: John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren-if his was a triple name,-William Henry Harrison, and James Knox Polk. Even since Grant, who may be said to have been exempt from all rules, the tradition has held good. Rutherford Birchard Hayes, James Abram Garfield, and Chester Allan Arthur, were not reelected; William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt were; also Grover Cleveland, after the lapse of an intermediate term,-who, it may be suggested, escaped the hoodoo by dropping his first name, Stephen, which his parents incautiously gave him." [The Atlantic via Andrew Sullivan]

We already told you about all the sex Olympians are having during the Games... this year. But we unearthed another variation of this delightful trend piece from the leadup to the 2000 Sydney Games. Published in Women's Sports & Fitness, it detailed the orgies of Olympics past. Not only were they handing out condoms, but from "one former Olympic swimmer who earned the nickname Plunge King, and not for his aquatic performance: 'There are the most beautiful women I've ever seen. I love the synchronized swimmers. Very, very flexible. They point their toes and the whole thing.'"In 1992, the Olympic Village had a special e-mail program where you could e-mail any Olympian who wanted, and it would be translated into their language. We all know what that must have led to. Now-41-year-old swimmer Dara Torres said of the scene back then, "I'd get e-mails from all these guys, and I'd have no idea who they were." Also,

From a 1993 Harper's, reprinting a lengthy missive from legendary author Terry Southern to the Village Voice. Southern, Dr. Strangelove screenwriter and New Journalism inventor, has some very important questions to ask about Joe Biden, then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, now possible Vice President. Click through to see.

Usually you think of cultural standards becoming more relaxed over time. Like, we tolerate media allusions to kinky sex better today than we would 30 years ago. But was there really ever a time when pedophilia was an acceptable advertising technique? Apparently yes, in 1970's cosmetics!:

Click to viewThe mysterious Young Manhattanite writes: For months now I have been looking for a classic clip of Larry King drunk on his radio show that I heard way back in the dawn of the public Internet when my friend downloaded it from a newsgroup. It's NOWHERE online now. My friend finally found the cassette tape he transfered it to back then (yes, a cassette tape!) and redigitized it. After some digging, it appears this recording was made between 1987 and 1994 when his radio and tv shows overlapped. This witching hour call-in segment was called Open Phone America. According to Wikipedia, the phones would open up at 3 a.m. for callers to discuss any topic they pleased with Larry. Give it a good listen. Really picks up halfway through. Update: Transcript below!

Wired magazine's special issue on micro-celebrity includes a cover profile of Julia Allison, the college dating columnist who's garnered such internet fame. (Well, actually, the cover of Wired is about as much attention as she's ever drawn, so the article is self-fulfiling.) Anyway, I didn't remember the reported anecdote of my "meeting" with the then-editor of Gawker to demand coverage of this protostar; a trawl through the archives was called for. Here-in email, blog posts and comments-are those fateful days in late 2006 that gave the web Julia Allison.

Fox bossman Roger Ailes is the best teacher any media attack flack could have. He's been screwing with the media for decades. Ailes is the man who perfected the art of hammering the media with charges of bias in order to deflect negative coverage from oneself. Kerwin Swint's new biography of him, Dark Genius, has plenty of examples from throughout his entire career. And you have to hand it to Ailes: his clients-all the way up to the President-got the best media haranguing tactics money can buy:

Movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has always resented the fact that peers made more money than him with what he deemed to be inferior films. These days, he's obviously overcome this problem by milking reality shows for millions to prop up his more artsy products; but he couldn't always be so sanguine. Here we have a priceless and EXCLUSIVE classic from the archives: a recording of a phone call between Weinstein and Disney exec Joe Roth, taped shortly after Michael Ovitz-a spectacular failure as head of Disney-was paid more than $100 million to leave the company in 1996. Weinstein is galled beyond belief (and perhaps a bit envious). "Let's quit today!" he jokes. Why, he works his ass off and what does he get? A fucking lecture. "Joe, you're a success, so therefore you're a failure in this business," Weinstein complains. Then he insults his fellow moguls: "Between Peter Guber and Mike Ovitz and everybody who fucked up...Everybody got wealthy on failure." Weinstein just cares too much about the films, you see; "We have character flaws that must be overcome," he sighs. Thanks to Project Runway, he's done so. Click to listen to the titan of Hollywood in all his expletive-spitting glory.

Are you aware that Camels are made from finer, more expensive tobaccos than any other brand? And that they stimulate digestion, taste great, and will make you a better swimmer? Failing to teach your kids to smoke Camels is virtually child abuse! All true, according to the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. We've compiled five of the most outrageous claims from classic Camel ads of the 1930s-50s, from the peerless archive at the Gallery of Graphic Design. Read them and be educated. Do it for your "T-Zone!"

Harry Winkler was an old-time boxing photographer who lived in California and spent most of the 1920s and 30s taking iconic photos of boxers. His collection is notable for capturing the humanity of professional fighters, picturing them less in the ring (though there is some of that) than in their everyday lives—on the rowing machine, at the ball game, shooting dice. For his full archive of thousands of photos, see here. We've selected ten of the best examples of his collection, which can be found after the jump.

I once wrote a story about Consumer Reports that involved a field trip to the timeless, servicey magazine's headquarters and labs. They're an amazing sight, and certainly the most fun place to visit in Yonkers. They take their work very seriously. Testing washing machines, for example, involves counting individual strands of frayed string off test items that have been washed hundreds of times. Their audio testing lab is a free-floating, echo-proof room that looks like a Star Trek set. This is my anecdotal way of introducing the fact that Consumer Reports has posted a selection of its classic testing photos, and after the jump you can find the five most amusing—one for each decade from the 1930s to the 1970s. Back to the future!

Newspapers, now suffering a technological inferiority complex, weren't always so apologetic. The New York Public Library has a wonderful collection of confident posters, promoting newspapers such as the Sunday Herald and the New York Times, from the turn of the century. The issue of the Times here featured offers a selection of stories with a definite air of its current Sunday Styles section-except for a fascination with British aristocracy now superseded by Hamptons plutocrats. The pitch for a story about the market for heiresses in Britain-A Matrimonial Slave Mart-is more lascivious than the uptight Times would now allow. After the coverlines comes an awesomely cocky pitch: "Many Other Features Equally Good."