LAS VEGAS — It only took 24 hours for the Stockholm Syndrome to set in. It was after the huge, boomerang-sized crab legs had been cleared away and the Wagyu beef had been consumed and all the after-dinner whiskeys had been drained and they'd ushered us past the hundreds of ordinary suckers and through the VIP entrance of the Caesar's Palace nightclub and set us up with a private table and bottle service so we could recline on a couch and watch all the drunk bachelorette party girls shake their asses at the bar in front of us, and the doorman smiled warmly at us and the attractive waitress smiled warmly at us and the PR people smiled warmly at us and we, the journalists, all smiled warmly at each other and took it all in, and I thought to myself, "Vegas, baby!" Vegas, baby. It likes me. And I like it.

Laughably lame right-wing filmmaker James O'Keefe III is thinking about suing (broke) liberal website Salon "for their false and malicious reporting." I know this because he asked me, an employee at a liberal website he considers his enemy, for advice.

An NBC News crew is currently occupying Gawker's Soho offices for a segment, set to air eventually on Rock Center and Today, about our owner Nick Denton and his grand project. Every time I see a network news crew descend on a scene to do its business—and the unfailingly pleasant and polite group currently with us is by no means alone in this—I am struck by what the collossal waste of money network news is.

Entertainment Weekly printed a teleplay excerpt from Aaron Sorkin's new HBO show, The Newsroom, last week. And holy shit, it's the most Aaron Sorkin thing ever. If you were hoping that Aaron Sorkin would use his Social Network Oscar win to create another bullshit meta-drama where he uses his characters as empty speechifying vessels that tell you HOW AARON SORKIN THINKS THE WORLD SHOULD WORK, you're in luck! Because this excerpt is exactly that.

Andrew Adler, the owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, a weekly newspaper serving Atlanta's Jewish community, devoted his January 13, 2012 column to the thorny problem of the U.S. and Israel's diverging views on the threat posed by Iran. Basically Israel has three options, he wrote: Strike Hezbollah and Hamas, strike Iran, or "order a hit" on Barack Obama. Either way, problem solved!

Cleveland CBS affiliate WOIO's news cameras were shut out of the federal corruption trial of local county commissioner Jimmy Dimora. So they came up with a workaround: The Puppet"s Court. Each day, puppets—make that news-puppets—reenact the proceedings during the newscast, complete with a roving squirrel-reporter explaining the trial and wiretaps of muppet-like mobsters talking about hookers and genital warts. It's news your kids will love.

The nomination deadline for the 2012 Pulitzer Prizes is five days away. Newspaper editors around the county are busy crafting nomination letters, putting together elaborate packages showcasing their best work, and forking over $50 entry fees for a shot at winning journalism's most prestigious prize later this Spring. No one will care.

New York Times opinion-haver David Brooks is not a "journalist," per se; he's more of an "amiable prick." Still, he is employed by a newspaper, and he writes about news. One would think he might be, at least, in favor of, you know, journalism, or at least the spreading of facts, in the public interest. Not so!

Celebrity self-justification platform The Huffington Post is launching a spinoff in France called "Le Huffington Post," French for "Another Fucking Huffington Post." Welcome to Arianna's global cocktail party, French people. You only think you're invited.

How did Silicon Valleys bigwigs react when their favorite trade publication adopted strict new conflicts of interest policies? They banded together to pay someone else to cover them.

Last week, we brought you some firsthand cries of rage, despair, and frustration from inside Bloomberg headquarters. The most paranoid headquarters in all of the New York media world? A strong contender, at least.

NBC's anchordude Brian Williams and blog villain Nick Denton are pals. They have mutual acquaintances, both love technology, pretty things, and email with each other like a couple of gossiping secretaries. Therefore, when Brian Williams offers critiques about Gawker's content, we are obligated to listen. See below.

The entire massive opulent Bloomberg Media mothership is little more than a huddled mass of journalists, yearning to be free. Our post today about the various internal gripes against the company—crowded bathrooms, prison-like layout, mean bosses, everything—brought the following note from another insider. It is worthwhile reading:

Banning jeans in a newspaper's newsroom is dumb and mean.

Frustrated by the city's recent uptick in violent crime, Mayor Michael Nutter has decided that the only way to stop the violence is to give Philadelphia's would-be murderers a small dose of real talk. [PhillyMag] (h/t HughEDillon)

Bloomberg LP is an incredibly successful media company. It is famous for tight security, tyrannical, controlling editors, plush offices which act like a luxurious cage to ensure that employees never leave the building. It's a place built to engender paranoia. That's probably why employees feel the need to write their tips to us on company stationery, and mail them to us.

New York Times public editor Arthur Brisbane has a question for his readers today: "Should the Times Be a Truth Vigilante?" That is: should Times reporters "challenge 'facts' that are asserted by newsmakers they write about"? Our feeling is... no. No, the Times should just make shit up.

Oklahoma state senator Jim Wilson has a bright idea about how to raise $17 million for his state: put a sales tax back on newspapers and periodicals. Because levying taxes on an industry locked in an economic death spiral is always a good way... destroy that industry more quickly. Also a good way to get a newspaper to stop talking bad about a certain politician who may have an important vote on the state's tax policy. Everybody wins!

Have you been cracking wise about our cherished field of Republican presidential candidates? Perhaps calling them "assholes" when they do and say horrible things? Let's grow up already. Because stilted CNN misery bot Wolf Blitzer will surely put us in detention if this goes on much longer.

It's reassuring for me, as a writer, to know that if all else fails and my entire career crumbles to pieces, I can always survive by selling Slate literally any story about anything I have ever done. I can derive an entirely new income stream for a period of time equal to the length of my entire writing career, by writing thousands of new stories recounting each individual day of my career, and the exciting—or unexciting—lessons I learned, or did not learn. It doesn't matter that that would be pointless; "pointlessness" is a concept that does not translate to the internet. We're living in a post-pointless era. Enjoy it.