President-elect Obama—allegedly a 'man of the people'—is allegedly buying a fancy $30,000 ring for his fancy wife, allegedly! It was in the trusty Daily Mail, and now it's the top story on Drudge, meaning it is the single most important news story in all the world. Elitist Obama drops 30K on bling for his wife during a recession—and this bling will be made out of rhodium, the world's most expensive metal! This story is almost certainly bullshit, and we will tell you exactly why. [Updates below—we were right]:

We'll admit that when Joaquin Phoenix first announced (in an incoherent mumble) that he would be quitting acting, we weren't quite sure whether it was all just an elaborate stunt. Then, we remembered the tale of Greenbo, Phoenix's brain-eating frog, and thought it was simply par for the course with the erratic actor. Still, since the announcement, Phoenix's weird behavior has felt increasingly staged for the cameras — and, in fact, he has his own cameras following him around, "recording his transition from film to music." The final straw came when we found an incriminating set of pictures from Phoenix's first performance, along with this explanation:

It used to be that you could pull a really good hoax on people and it would take a long time to be figured out (if it was figured out at all!) And then everyone would have a good story and maybe be a little embarrassed, but not for too long. You know, like those great old stories about people like Clifford Irving faking a Howard Hughes book and Alan Conway who passed himself off as Stanley Kubrick for a while. I guess people were less cynical back then, and weren't always terrified of getting duped. "Trusting," I guess is the word. Well, not anymore. Everything gets figured out so quickly! Is it the quality of the hoaxes, or the cynicism of the hoaxed? Well, probably both. Take a look at some recent examples:

David Shuster, we tried to warn you. "Martin Eisenstadt" is no adviser to John McCain, our own Alex Pareene reported Nov. 4, but rather a talented comedian. Mother Jones did likewise. And yet! On Monday, nearly six days after that warning, you had to go and identify Eisenstadt on MSNBC as a "McCain policy adviser" who spread word that McCain running mate Sarah Palin didn't know Africa was a continent. The Times did a big expose, revealing that Eisenstadt is really Eitan Gorlin, who perpetuated the hoax with fellow filmmaker Dan Mirvish. MSNBC retracted the story, and we're left to examine your track record:

Back in September of 2007, a series of amusing "Rudy Giliani ads" were released to YouTube by a mysterious user named "abrad2345." One of them is attached. A year later, we were pointed to a blog and video series called "The Last Republican" by a "McCain advisor" named Martin Eisenstadt. Martin Eisenstadt is a gifted, funny satirist. Sorry for messing up your game, Martin, 'cause we like you, but the election's done, you've had your fun. And hey everyone else on the internet—the story of Joe the Plumber attending the SNL afterparty and hooking up with Kristen Wiig? It is bullshit. Or "a joke." You're welcome. Now go watch his videos, they're pretty funny.

Digging around our Otherwordly TV Programming inbox this afternoon, we found just the bit of ephemera we'd been praying for: a spot teasing ABC's Unleached, featuring our experimental dance/comedy idol Cloris Leachman's finest outtakes from her abortive journey on Dancing With the Stars. It's all here — the sassy interviews, the heroic training regimens, her heaving bosom, and pretty much everything else preceding her pyrrhic-victory lap on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Alas, when contacted for additional information, an ABC could confirm only that we'd been duped by creative gag-reel editors from the inside. Cruel, and cruelly unfair at that; we'd watch three seasons of Unleached before watching another hour of CBS's entire fall line-up. Are we wrong? [YouTube]

Ashley Todd is the moronic young college Republican who thought it would be a fantastic idea to, while volunteering for the McCain campaign in Pittsburgh, stage her mugging and facial mutilation by a large black Obama supporter. She drew a B on her face, backwards, because she did it in the mirror, and the rest is history. She is an American Hero. Paraded before the press in handcuffs, a faint B still visible on her face, we all knew no jail could hold Ol' B-Face. And we were right! Todd has been released from jail and will be "required to undergo mental health treatment." Then her record will be expunged, so she can still act as campaign manager for Bristol Palin's historic 2036 presidential campaign.

Dear Flash Fans: We heard Warner Bros. and DC Comics are preparing your favorite comic book for a live-action adaptation to be released in 2010. Congratulations! Until then, why not leave the filmmaking to the professionals and quit trying to set off the Web with dorm-room exercises masquerading as official teasers? Your mastery of Windows MovieMaker is impressive, but seriously, enough. This goes for you and you in particular, but maybe not so much you, with your adorable "HEROE" [sic] typo and TV outtakes. Thanks! xo, Defamer (PS: On the off chance that Warners/DC actually does have anything to do with this, viral marketing only works when the movie looks good. Demand helps as well. Toodles!)

Pittsburgh's KDKA is confirming that Ashley Todd wholly invented the "mugging" and attack by a black guy who carved a "B" on her face because she supports John McCain story. Christ. The college republicans continue their hot streak! "The investigation is continuing as officials determine what charges will be filed." Poor dumb idiot racist kid. [KDKA]

[Update: The hoax has been confirmed.] So poor Ashley Todd, right? She's the woman who says she was mugged in Pittsburgh Wednesday night (the wrong part of the Pittsburgh, with the Italians) by a black man. And the black man became incensed when he saw her McCain bumper sticker, on her car, and he carved a "B" into her cheek. What a terrible story! Oh but the police have re-interviewed Ms. Todd, and now the story is a little bit different, in that the car and bumper sticker part is out. After the jump, the new story of this terrible hate crime, and also, because we are assholes, selections from Ms. Todd's MySpace page! You will not like her very much, we're guessing.

Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, had some amazing stories to tell Fox News' Greta Van Susteren Tuesday. He might have even impressed viewers with the one about how his late wife, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, called President George H.W. Bush in 1988 to complain about the destabilizing influence of Osama bin Laden, with whom Bush was supposedly unfamiliar. But Zardari then shot his credibility to hell by following up with a story about how Lt. Col. Ollie North, ringleader of the Iran-Contra scandal, also warned about bin Laden in the late 1980s, in testimony to the U.S. senate. Very not true!

It's been fun while it's lasted, but the monstrous creature that washed up in Montauk, Long Island may have been nothing more than a prop from an independent movie about carnies, and a viral marketing scheme just as everyone initially suspected. There are enough untied loose ends in the hoax storyline to leave open the possibility that the hoax is itself a hoax, meaning the story has now entered a confusing phase where one must carefully sift the professed deceptions from the real deceptions and hard facts from intentional distortions. But one can try. Here's how a hoax would have gone down, according to a theory propagated on a few websites (linked below) over the past few days:

It appears that the two ads we posted yesterday of cute cartoons showing babies being cooked are not in fact real ads for Bayer's new burn cream. The global account director from Bayer's ad agency, JWT, emailed us to say: "We don't know yet who posted them and why but one thing we know for sure is that they were never presented or approved by anyone in Bayer or JWT worldwide... at the very moment its nothing more but artwork with branding. Bayer group received several phone calls today both in US and Europe in regards to those publications and we need to make sure that this will not spread even more." He called the spots a "very bad and nasty joke." We're adding a disclaimer to the original post.

A tipster tells us that Mark Bulliet, an editor at NYC's throwaway free morning paper Metro, has been fired. The reason: Bulliet was the editor who oversaw Metro's embarrassing front-page story last Thursday about a girl who was supposedly attacked by four black girls because she was wearing a t-shirt reading "OBAMA IS MY SLAVE." As we told you last week, that story's only source was the crappy designer who had sold the t-shirt, and it's likely the whole thing was a tasteless, racist publicity stunt that Metro fell for. A source tells us that Bulliet had an intern do the story despite its incredibly poor sourcing. We've emailed Metro for a response. If you know more about the fallout, email us. [Previously]

The tumult surrounding Project Runway continues, now with illicit spoilers. The fashion design competition show has been involved in all sorts of hullabaloo ever since the news dropped that the series would be moving from Bravo to Lifetime after the 5th season, which premiered last week. NBC Universal was pissed and threatened to sue. Then came more bad news about Nina Garcia-related woes and a much groaned-about move to Los Angeles. As this new season approached, Bravo seemed to barely acknowledge it-almost as if they were bitterly trying to sabotage the show. And now these spoilers. Some sneaky someone went onto the show's Wikipedia page and added results for the next four challenges, including who gets eliminated. Is it real, is it a hoax? Take a look after the jump at a screenshot of the "Designer Elimination Chart" and judge (heh) for yourself. Update: Most of the chart has been removed from the Wiki page, but we still have the screenshot!

Metro, the free paper best known for causing track fires on the NYC subways, ran a cover story yesterday that is totally indefensible, even by the lowly journalism standards of free morning papers. Radar spotted it: a front page splash about an innocent grad student girl who was supposedly attacked by four wild young black females because she was wearing a t-shirt with the slogan, "OBAMA IS MY SLAVE." The paper's one and only source? The untalented media whore designer who sold the mystery girl the shirt. (We would feel dirty giving him more PR than necessary, but it was this prick). But guess what, Metro: we got that press release too. And if this whole story isn't a hoax, I will personally buy one of those shitty shirts.

Chuck Philips, the LA Times reporter who wrote a huge front page story in March tying Puff Daddy to the shooting of Tupac Shakur-only to find out that this main source was a serial con man and the story was wrong-has been laid off from the paper, along with 150 colleagues. On one hand, Philips once won a Pulitzer; on the other hand, he tended to write things that turned out not to be true. Perhaps journalism's just not his field. Pinkberry franchisee maybe? He'll find something. [MTV News]

Iran has tested missiles! Not just one or two or even three missiles, but four missiles! Our crack intelligence agencies know this, because the Iranian military's propaganda arm helpfully provided the media with a photo showing-count 'em-four whole missiles blasting off into the sky. You'll regret the decision to build only three missile shelters, Israel! The scary, quadri-missiled photo of terror was splashed across front pages nationwide. Too bad it's a big phony!

Look, it's easy to make fun of Maureen Dowd. We do it all the time! Talk about nothing of substance, psychoanalyze pols, imply that male Democrats are effete and female politicians of all stripes are raging harridans, bash the Clintons, toss in some increasingly out of date pop cultural references, and stir with occasional tired Bush-mocking. What you shouldn't do is pretend Maureen wrote a column exposing the secret fact that all of Obama's donors are Muslims and Communists, or something. Which is what one enterprising Obama critic has done!

Prankster, actor, and all-around brave guy Sacha Baron Cohen has once again angered gullible Southerners. This time it was while filming his new movie Brüno: Delicious Journeys Through America for the Purpose of Making Heterosexual Males Visibly Uncomfortable in the Presence of a Gay Foreigner in a Mesh T-Shirt (title is tentative) which features Cohen's gay fashionista character prancing about the United States. The Borat star held several evenings of "Blue Collar Brawlin'" in two "cities" in Arkansas, advertising with posters like the one above. There was cage wrasslin' and $1 beer, yes, but the night ended with two male combatants kissing each other for all to see. Audience members became furious when confronted with this hideous sight, throwing beer and chairs onto the stage. Click after the jump to see the Craigslist ad that Cohen and his cohorts posted for the events.