I haven’t done Facebook Roundups in a few months, so I’m compiling the best items from the ROTI Facebook Page into a series of posts for this weekend.

In this final entry, I offer you an assortment of superb articles and videos that will expand your mind and fertilize your soul.

There’s only one place to begin: A Liz Taylor tribute, and while we’re at it, a Paul Newman tribute as well. Two insanely talented actors who also happened to be ridiculously good looking. Rest in peace, you two.

The New York Review of Books is easily the best periodical known to man, and not just for its academic bitch-fights in the letters section, or the most erudite personal ads you’ll ever read. The consistently superb writing makes the NYRB well worth the price. A recent issue contained a Janet Malcolm review of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” that is hilarious, incisive, sensitive and thoughtful. It’s one of the best pieces of criticism that I’ve read in a long time.

Check out “Arms So Freezy,” a faux-academic analysis of Rebecca Black’s “Friday” as a radical text from The Awl. This is supremely well-done and hilarious.

She offers the camera a hostage’s smile, forced, false. Her smoky eyes suggest chaos witnessed: tear gas, rock missiles and gasoline flames. They paint her as a refugee of a teen culture whose capacity for real subversion was bludgeoned away somewhere between the atrocities of Kent State and those of the 1968 Democratic Convention, the start of a creeping zombification that would see youthful dissent packaged and sold alongside Pez and Doritos.

ROTI’s good friend The Business Casual turned up this matrix of Alfred Hitchcock death scenes. Shit gets real around the 2 minute mark.

This article, A Declaration of Cyber War, is the most interesting thing I’ve read about the Stuxnet virus — said of be of Israeli origin, and alleged to have derailed Iranian nuclear development.

If you find the Bernie Madoff story as fascinating as I do, you will certainly enjoy this article called The Madoff Tapes. The author managed to communicate with the criminal mastermind behind bars.

Mr. Plinkett’s Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith review completes a trilogy of brilliant efforts, ten times more entertaining than the films that they savage.

Check out this great edition of the always essential This American Life, entitled “DIY“.

“The Great Gatsby” as an 8-bit NES game. Surprisingly fun!

Goodnight Dune — this is ingenious.

Finally, Vladimir Putin will sing us off with his rendition of “Blueberry Hill.”

If you enjoyed this compilation, then join us at our page on Facebook, where good stuff like this is posted daily.

I haven’t done Facebook Roundups in a few months, so I’m compiling the best items from the ROTI Facebook Page into a series of posts for this weekend.

This is the first entry, with the funniest items I’ve come across since December dawned. Hope you have not recently been stitched up in the midsection, I assume no liability for this.

The picture above? It’s the mugshot of a dude who allegedly swallowed an entire bag of cocaine.

ROTI reader Izzie B found this insanely amusing video from The Kelly Family.

Buzzfeed calls these “Unusable” stock photos. Au contraire, they seem very useful to me. Especially when you need to evoke the symbolism of “cakepillow.”

We’ve seen the Olsen Twins host a pizza party, and cringed when they assigned the only black person to wield the chicken drumstick. But it turns out this isn’t the only instance of Mary Kate and Ashley’s adorable racism:

Anyone who loved Making the Band 2 will enjoy this old Chappelle’s Show clip, in which he completely skewers reggae-rapper Dylan. Not that the guy had any talent to begin with, but Chappelle destroyed him for all time. He’s still out there trying to make it in the music business, but every other comment on his videos is “I rip and I rhyme, I rhyme and I rip!”

One of the best karaoke videos ever. I’ve seen versions that try to interpret what this Korean boy is saying, but I prefer to let his performance speak for itself.

Major Beans tipped me off to this compilation of Chris Klein’s best scenes from “Street Fighter.” He warns, “As far as the rest of the movie, you might think that it’d be funny, but it’s not.  It’s 89 minutes of vomit.”

From Thomas De Napoli comes this superb blend of nostalgia and current events, “Regime Change — The Game.” In a similar vein, I also utterly enjoyed this Sierra-inspired video he and Kevin Joyce did for Das Racist.

I’m not totally sure of the context of this, but it seems to have had something to do with SXSW Interactive. At any rate, this is Super Mario Brothers transformed into a dramatic film, “Mario.” The guy who plays Luigi is my favorite.

Urlesque’s Cole Stryker compiled this amazing series of “20 Sad Etsy Boyfriends” forced to pose by their crafty ladies. Of the one below he writes, “This one is my favorite. Seething rage behind those eyes.”

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off — reimagined as a sensitive indie film.

A scene from the 90s made-for-TV biopic, “Madonna: Innocence Lost.” The donut-shop manager totally and completely steals this scene.

You’ve heard of Scumbag Steve. Now learn about the man behind the meme.

Did you know that Ken Jennings was hilarious? He is.

Billy Zane’s performance in Titanic is still one of the most brilliantly over-the-top portrayals of an upper class douche that I have ever experienced:

Israeli comedy ensemble Eretz Nehederet put together this skit depicting a peace negotiation between the Angry Birds and the Pigs. It’s magnificent.

College Humor created Honest Movie Posters for the 2010 Oscar contenders. Brilliant work all around. I especially liked the last one (not pictured here, so click through).

Kids in the Hall fans will remember this classic, “The Cincinnati Kid.”

Misheard Joe Cocker lyrics. (If you enjoy this, there’s an Xtina edition as well.)

Dog Humps Grandma. The title says it all.

Battle Hymn of Sarah Palin. God bless these noble patriots.

Josh Groban sings Kanye’s Tweets. Fur pillows ARE hard to actually sleep on! So true.

Finally, an amazing montage of video dating clips from the 1980s. I hope nobody reading this recognizes their dad in here.

Honorable Mention:
Cats Quote Charlie Sheen.
Michael K on Pete Wentz’ hair and the Wentz/Simpson divorce.
The Beatles 3000.
Disgruntled Harrods employee vents his rage with Christmas lights.
Indian Superman and Bollywood Spiderwoman.
Tom Hanks’ son calls himself Chet Haze and fancies himself a rapper.
The closing credits of “Furry Vengeance,” aka the nadir of Brendan Fraser’s existence.
Kitties rock out in this video from Holy Fuck.
And some unfortunate lady wipes out on live TV.

If you enjoyed this compilation, then join us at our page on Facebook, where good stuff like this is posted daily.

Here’s our regular wrap-up of the goings-on at the ROTI Facebook page. If you haven’t signed up for regular delivery of great links and videos, you should probably do that right now.

Last week, we learned that hundreds of college students actually play the “sport” of quidditch: wearing capes, horseying around on brooms, and tossing various athletic balls through hoops. It’s incredibly embarrassing to watch.

This horrifying sport’s season culminated in the Quidditch World Cup this weekend in New York, but ROTI’s Facebook posse got a preview with this cringeworthy video featuring the Harvard Quidditch Team.

However, Harvard and all the other teams were no match for the Yankees of the Quidditch world, the dominant team from Middlebury that created the embarrassing pastime of “muggle Quidditch.”

Here’s a music video they made to celebrate themselves. The really bad part starts around the 2:10 mark. How these tools justify mocking the lacrosse team when they themselves are 1000 times lamer, I have no idea.

Okay, now let’s forget that ever happened.

Reader CVD sent along this amazing collection of bootleg DVD covers from I Heart Chaos.

It’s tough to pick favorites from this photoset, but I particularly enjoyed the back cover of a pirated “Catch Me If You Can.”

Inspired by the great tracks I listened to while studying and writing the articles for Deep Cuts Week, I posted a ton of great hip hop jams to the Facebook page.

Here they are for your listening pleasure, starting with Die Antwoord, the best South African rap group ever:

An amazing live performance by Damon Albarn’s Gorillaz featuring MF DOOM:

Another Wu banger:

And last but not least, a genius video sent along by Schmentz in which R. Kelly lays down some “Real Talk.”

Pontiac went out of business, and we celebrated the late car brand by highlighting one of the best car commercials ever:

She might have lost her Senate race, but Christine O’Donnell won our hearts forever with her potent blend of witchcraft and tea party crazy.

Here’s the conservative sweetie expounding on the evils of Halloween in a video clip made especially ironic by her subsequent ladybug antics.

Speaking of tea party hotties, Sarah Palin launched her new reality show…

Finally, here’s a dark chapter in Republican party history — in fact, George W. Bush called this the low point of his presidency. Nope, not 9/11 or the bungled intelligence that led us into Iraq, it was that one time when Kanye West was mean!

Mike Myers delivers the funniest work of his career in that video. It’s pure cinema verite.

Let’s conclude this roundup with a palate cleanser — the most hilarious recipe I have ever seen online.

It’s Rachael Ray’s blueprint for Late Night Bacon, presented by the Food Network!

I should note that I have heard very positive things about Ray-Ray from those who have encountered her in person. She’s apparently pretty cool and looks out for her peeps.

This recipe might not be among her most sophisticated, but it brought a lot of happiness to all who experienced it.

Here are some amazing reviews from the Food Network site:

As always, you can ensure prompt delivery of these gems by signing up as a fan of our Facebook page.

And if you’re really awesome, you’ll take it one step further by suggesting the Rumors on the Internets Facebook page to your friends. Just think, now you’ll have something to talk about at your otherwise banal get-togethers!

After Chris, Jonathan Horn, and I learned about the president’s $700-billion-bailout proposal and drafted the remarks announcing it to a stunned nation, Ed said the president wanted to see us in the Oval Office. The president looked relaxed and was sitting behind the Resolute desk. He felt he’d made the major decision that everyone had been asking for. That always seemed to relax him. He liked being decisive. Excuse me, boldly decisive. The president seemed to be thinking of his memoirs. “This might go in as a big decision,” he mused.

“Definitely, Mr. President,” someone else observed. “This is a large decision.”

The president asked his secretary, Karen, to bring him the Rose Garden remarks he’d just delivered that day, September 19, announcing his action plan. He got slightly exasperated when she was delayed in printing them out. When he finally got them, he put his half-glasses on and looked at them. “See, this was fine today,” he said. “But we got to make this understandable for the average cat.” He proposed an outline for another speech that talked about the situation our economy was in, how we’d gotten here, and how the administration’s plan was a solution.

“This is the last bullet we have,” the president said at one point, referring to the bailout. “If this doesn’t work…” He shook his head, and his voice trailed off. That wasn’t good enough for me. If this doesn’t work, then what? We’re done? America is over? I looked around at everyone else. What does that mean?

Just when you thought the flood of GWB Administration tell-alls had slowed to a trickle, one last gem comes rolling down the drainpipe.

It’s the work of Matt Latimer, who came to the White House as an ambitious young movement conservative, only to suffer severe disillusionment as he watched the Bush posse fumble helplessly with an economy sliding into ruin.

He’s written a piece called “Me Talk Presidential Some Day” for GQ, and it is bonafide.

The first inkling that Latimer is about to lower the boom on GWB comes when he describes how his dream job turned into a surreal sideshow:

In 2007 I finally made it to the Bush White House as a presidential speechwriter. But it was not at all what I envisioned. It was less like Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing and more like The Office.

After watching Karl Rove’s bizarre farewell to White House staffers and hearing the president dismiss the conservative movement I believed in (“I know it sounds arrogant to say,” he told me, “but I redefined the Republican Party”), I thought I could muddle through till the end.

Washington might not have been the city I had dreamed of, but I figured things couldn’t get much worse.

The job mostly consisted of penning “legacy speeches,” touting the accomplishments of the administration in its final days. They’d plan to boast about how “the fundamentals of the economy are strong,” but after a while it became patently obvious that it wasn’t the case.

Pretty soon, Latimer found himself in a full-on crisis situation, as the White House tried to lead the country out of a disaster that it had helped precipitate with its happy-go-lucky economic message.

It didn’t help things that the GOP presidential nominee, John McCain, was trying to thread the needle between sticking close to the President to fire up the base and distancing himself from the President to attract moderate voters.

And then there was his brilliant idea to “suspend the campaign” when the economic poo really hit the fan. That did NOT go over well at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave:

Ed and the president decided to give a prime-time address to the nation, and Vice President Cheney was sent to the Hill to argue for our bill (a bill he may or may not have believed in) and was apparently hammered by House Republicans. There were reports that only four Republicans out of nearly 200 supported the plan. From what I was starting to glean about the whole scatterbrained operation, four seemed like too many. Hours before the president was to speak to the country, Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign informed Josh Bolten that McCain was going to phone the president and urge him to call off the address and instead hold an emergency economic summit in Washington. If the president did speak that night, the McCain campaign didn’t want him to outline any specific proposal.

Of course, this threw the proverbial monkey wrench into our plans—and at the eleventh hour. I overheard the president call McCain’s plan “a stunt.” Dana Perino said the negotiations were nearly over, and suddenly he was going to swoop in and muck things up?

The president’s political adviser, Barry Jackson, was blunt, calling McCain a “stupid prick.”

[...]

When the president came into the Family Theater to rehearse the speech in front of a teleprompter, he didn’t like the idea of just talking about principles. It sounded like the administration was backing away from its own plan (which it was).

“We can’t even defend our own proposal?” the president asked. “Why did we propose it, then?” This was not bold decision making. There were about a dozen people gathered in the theater to watch him rehearse, and all of us remained silent as the president looked at us for an answer.

The president walked over to sip some water from one of the bottles on the table near his lectern. “This speech is weak,” he said. He looked at me and Chris. “Frankly, I’m surprised, to be honest with you.”

There was more silence.

“Too late to cancel the speech?” the president asked into the air. He was joking…I think. Finally, Ed (who hadn’t exactly rushed to jump into the line of fire) explained that we had to make this change to the address because the proposal the president liked might not end up being the one he had to agree to.

“Then why the hell did I support it if I didn’t believe it would pass?” he snapped. There was yet another uncomfortable silence.

The most brutal part of the tale comes when Bush realizes that his conception of the bailout plan is totally wrong, and it’s not the sweet deal for America that he’d tried to believe it was.

Try explaining THAT to the average cat.

Finally, the president directed us to try to put elements of his proposal back into the text. He wanted to explain what he was seeking and to defend it. He especially wanted Americans to know that his plan would likely see a return on the taxpayers’ investment. Under his proposal, he said, the federal government would buy troubled mortgages on the cheap and then resell them at a higher price when the market for them stabilized.

“We’re buying low and selling high,” he kept saying.

The problem was that his proposal didn’t work like that. One of the president’s staff members anxiously pulled a few of us aside. “The president is misunderstanding this proposal,” he warned. “He has the wrong idea in his head.” As it turned out, the plan wasn’t to buy low and sell high. In some cases, in fact, Secretary Paulson wanted to pay more than the securities were likely worth in order to put more money into the markets as soon as possible. This was not how the president’s proposal had been advertised to the public or the Congress. It wasn’t that the president didn’t understand what his administration wanted to do. It was that the treasury secretary didn’t seem to know, changed his mind, had misled the president, or some combination of the three.

[...]

After finally getting the speech draft turned around and sent back to the teleprompter technicians, we trudged back to the Family Theater, where the president rehearsed. In the theater, the president was clearly confused about how the government would buy these securities. He repeated his belief that the government was going to “buy low and sell high,” and he still didn’t understand why we hadn’t put that into the speech like he’d asked us to. When it was explained to him that his concept of the bailout proposal wasn’t correct, the president was momentarily speechless. He threw up his hands in frustration.

“Why did I sign on to this proposal if I don’t understand what it does?” he asked.

The president was clearly frustrated with what was going on, but there was little he could do at this late hour. He went up to take a nap, saying he was beat. He looked it. I’d never seen him more exhausted. His hair was out of place and shaggy. His face looked drained and pale. Even more distressing, he was wearing Crocs. As I looked at him I thought to myself, how many more crises can one guy take?

Probably the juiciest delights from Wareham’s account pertain to GWB’s takes on the 2008 presidential candidates. They were universally negative.

After all, GWB felt that he had personally transformed conservatism, and how could any of those chumps fill his shoes?

John McCain, the temperamental media darling, had spent most of the past eight years running against the Republican Party and the president—Republicans on Capitol Hill and at the White House hated him. Choosing John McCain as our standard-bearer would be the height of self-delusion. It would be like putting Camilla Parker Bowles in charge of the Princess Diana Foundation.

As it turned out, I was the one who was deluded. The people I worked with in the White House were the most loyal of the Bush loyalists. Dana Perino was so sensitive to criticism of Bush that she once said she couldn’t watch the Democratic convention because it would be “too mean” to the president. Yet I watched them embrace McCain enthusiastically—backing a guy who’d worked so hard to undermine them. It was a cynical bargain.

The president, like me, didn’t seem to be in love with any of the available options. He always believed Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. “Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk,” he once said (except he didn’t say “keister”).

He didn’t think much of Barack Obama. After one of Obama’s blistering speeches against the administration, the president had a very human reaction: He was ticked off. He came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming. “This is a dangerous world,” he said for no apparent reason, “and this cat isn’t remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you.”

He wound himself up even more. “You think I wasn’t qualified?” he said to no one in particular. “I was qualified.”

[...]

Bush seemed to feel considerable unease with the choice of McCain as well. I think he liked Romney best. (The rumor was that so did Karl Rove.) My guess was the president hadn’t so easily forgotten the endless slights he’d suffered, but there was little he could do. To him, McCain’s defeat would be a repudiation of the Bush administration, so McCain had to win. The president, who had quite a good political mind, was clearly not impressed with the McCain operation.

I was once in the Oval Office when the president was told a campaign event in Phoenix he was to attend with McCain suddenly had to be closed to the press. The president didn’t understand why when the whole purpose of holding the event had been to show Bush and McCain together so the press would stop asking why the two wouldn’t be seen together. If the event was closed to the press, the whole thing didn’t make sense.

“If he doesn’t want me to go, fine,” the president said. “I’ve got better things to do.”

Eventually, someone informed the president that the reason the event was closed was that McCain was having trouble getting a crowd. Bush was incredulous—and to the point. “He can’t get 500 people to show up for an event in his hometown?” he asked. No one said anything, and we went on to another topic. But the president couldn’t let the matter drop. “He couldn’t get 500 people? I could get that many people to turn out in Crawford.” He shook his head. “This is a five-spiral crash, boys.”

We tried to move on to something else. But the president wouldn’t let go. He was stuck on the Phoenix event. At one point, he looked off into space and said to no one in particular, “What is this—a cruel hoax?”

Chris and I were tickled by that comment. For weeks, we would look for ways to use it. “They are out of Diet Pepsis at the mess. What is this, a cruel hoax?” I went to dinner with a friend. “They don’t have cheeseburgers?” I said, looking at the menu. “What is this, a cruel hoax?”

Bush’s take on Palin was equally amusing. We’re so used to thinking of the former POTUS as a dunce, so it’s always great when a moment of pure clarity pokes through.

Even the normally levelheaded Raul Yanes, the president’s staff secretary, was overtaken by Palin mania. He’d been slightly annoyed with me for not jumping on the McCain bandwagon and for saying aloud that I thought McCain would lose. Now, of course, I had to be enthusiastic about the ticket. “You still think we’re going to lose?” he asked me laughingly.

“Yep,” I replied.

Raul looked incredulous. “Well, you obviously don’t believe in facts!”

I was about to be engulfed by a tidal wave of Palin euphoria when someone—someone I didn’t expect—planted my feet back on the ground. After Palin’s selection was announced, the same people who demanded I acknowledge the brilliance of McCain’s choice expected the president to join them in their high-fiving tizzy. It was clear, though, that the president, ever the skilled politician, had concerns about the choice of Palin, which he called “interesting.” That was the equivalent of calling a fireworks display “satisfactory.”

“I’m trying to remember if I’ve met her before. I’m sure I must have.” His eyes twinkled, then he asked, “What is she, the governor of Guam?”

Everyone in the room seemed to look at him in horror, their mouths agape. When Ed told him that conservatives were greeting the choice enthusiastically, he replied, “Look, I’m a team player, I’m on board.” He thought about it for a minute. “She’s interesting,” he said again. “You know, just wait a few days until the bloom is off the rose.”

Then he made a very smart assessment.

“This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for,” he said. “She hasn’t spent one day on the national level. Neither has her family. Let’s wait and see how she looks five days out.”

Thank you, Matt Latimer, for giving us this glimpse of Dubya’s last days, and showing him at his best and his worst. History owes you a debt of gratitude.

To read the full article – including a tasty gem about how a top economic advisor was best known for deploying whoopie cushions around the West Wing – click here.

In a wonderfully alliterative blog post this afternoon, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza writes, “Palin’s Political Problems Persist.“

It seems a troublesome advisor named John Coale, husband of Fox News’ Greta van Susteren, is mucking about in the Alaskan Governor’s political operation and some of her old-time loyalists don’t like it!

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin continues to suffer growing pains as she attempts to build a national political operation in hopes of positioning herself as a viable presidential candidate in 2012.

The latest bump in the road comes in the form of a Politico article — headlined “Staff Infection: Allies Rip Palin Team” — that features any number of juicy quotes that all point to one fundamental problem: there appears to be a significant disconnect between Palin’s official governor’s staff and the group of advisers that have grown up around her new leadership PAC.

At the heart of the problem, according to Politico, is John Coale, who, as the Fix first reported, is serving as an informal adviser to Palin. Coale, an affluent trial attorney who has given significant sums to Democrats in the past, also happens to be the husband of Fox News Channel’s Greta Van Susteren.

Coale: Stoking trouble in the Palin posse.

The Politico article gets right in the middle of the fray and starts mixing it up.

According to DC peeps, the Alaskan staff is a bunch of idiots who are mismanaging Palin into oblivion.

According to the Alaskan loyalists, Coale et al are a bunch of opportunistic d-bags that want to selfishly hitch their wagons to the Last Frontier’s rising star…

Coale told POLITICO he first met Palin during his wife’s taping of a September interview with the Alaska governor and explained that he was “extremely pissed off at the way Hillary was treated” and believed Palin was being subjected to the same “sexist” treatment. Coale ultimately endorsed McCain in the 2008 campaign.

“I’m just a friend of hers. I’m not on her staff and I’m not paid,” Coale insisted.

He said he and Palin “email back and forth about once a week.”

A former Palin aide said Coale “was positioning himself for this gig from the first interview,” always there with his wife when she would sit for what were invariably friendly sessions with the governor.

Another former Palin ally still in touch with the governor was blunt when asked to explain Palin’s missteps since the election: “Taking advice from Greta and her husband,” said this source.

[...]

Several aides and allies from inside and outside last year’s presidential campaign complain of being frozen out by the Alaska governor’s staff and even those who are still in touch with the governor suggest her string of unforced errors are the direct result of having nobody around her to offer sound political advice.

Jason Recher, who traveled with Palin throughout the campaign and remains in touch with her, chalked up some mishaps as a result of the governor’s overabundance of caution concerning the ethics of mixing political and official activities.

But Recher, a veteran of both terms in the Bush White House, indicated he shared the concerns of other Palin allies.

“Nobody from the campaign who I am in touch with knows who is at the PAC, who is really staffing it or what exactly it does,” he said.

Like the others, Recher said he was speaking out for somebody he grew close to last fall.

“I may not be in the loop on the strategy going on right now but I totally buy into the notion of Sarah Palin,” he said.

Palin has endured numerous bruising trips through recent news cycles.

There was the infamous YouTube turkey video in November where, unbeknownst to Palin, live turkeys were slaughtered just behind her within the camera frame.

Then came a flap over remarks she made to a filmmaker in January. In February, conservatives were confused by her last-minute no-show at a key movement event. Most recently, Capitol Hill Republicans were left scratching their heads over a bizarre miscommunication between her office and the two national party committees.

In that case, Palin, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee all were left with egg on their faces.

The NRSC and the NRCC, it seems, were under the distinct impression that Palin would headline the annual Republican House-Senate fundraising dinner in June. The committees went so far as to issue a joint press release trumpeting her appearance and national news outlets quickly noted her prime speaking engagement.

All of it was news to Palin, though. When the Anchorage Daily News called for comment, Palin spokesman Bill McAllister said the governor didn’t know anything about the event. The national committees, meanwhile, explained that Palin’s appearance had been confirmed by SarahPAC, Palin’s Virginia-based political action committee.

“It has been painful to watch the staff handling of her since the election,” said one former aide and loyalist. “There is small margin of error at this point.”

“She is great, but she is ill-served by a staff that is clearly in over their heads,” added a national Republican operative who has worked with Palin.

This political infighting is amusing, but it is NOTHING compared to the dark truth about John Coale.

He’s not just a Fox News spouse.

He’s a devotee of the craziest belief system since Joseph Smith went digging on the Hill Cumorah.

Gawker has been all over this from the jump-off. It’s amazing.

Let’s just say John Coale knows a few things about Xenu…

John Coale, currently advising Sarah Palin on running for president in 2012, is a Scientologist.

And according to a memo obtained by Gawker, Coale once plotted to use friendly politicians to advance the power-hungry cult’s agenda.

Coale is a prominent Washington power broker and husband to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. According to the Washington Post, he is running Palin’s political action committee behind the scenes and “guiding [her] political image in Washington.”

In 1986, he masterminded a plan—which was never executed—for Scientology to get into the “MONEY and VOTES game” in order to “create power” for Scientology and win influence Washington, D.C.

Reached this morning, Coale confirmed that he had launched the plan for what he called the FLAGG PAC. “I thought it was a brilliant idea,” Coale said, “but no one else did, so it never went anywhere. I was looking at ways to move a new religion forward. I looked at the history of Mormons, who had a lot of people in office, and I looked at the Jews, who were very successful and influential…”

Gawker has a lengthy memo by Coale here – spelling out his devotion to L. Ron Hubbard’s insane cult and urging Scientologists to “take a role in this game.”

Not just to advance and protect the Church, of course! Their REAL goal was to help America!

For as Tom Cruise tells us, sometimes Scientologists are the only ones who can really save the day.

And that’s all John Coale wants to do.

Help Sarah Palin become “clear” enough to rebuild America.

Assuming she could square the whole Scientologist-advisors thing with her fundie fanclub, of course.

Hey there, can I interest you in a free personality test?

Don’t dismiss this out of hand. Just imagine the possibilities for the Palin clan…

Bristol and Willow could be married off to fey male celebrities with a passion for dance, boosting the clan’s Q-rating! Just think of what People magazine would shell out for the exclusive pictures of their dual wedding to Zac Efron and Lucas Grabeel!

Finally rid of those pesky body thetans, eldest son Track could kick his painkiller addiction! Thanks Narconon!

And little Piper Palin, who seemed to enjoy a taste of the finer things during the campaign, could hit it big when Scientologist Paul Haggis casts her in his next Oscar-winning film!

Piper: Starring role in “Crash 2″ means there’s a lot more Louis Vuitton where that came from.

Sure, becoming a Scientologist would probably waylay the Governor’s ambitions for national office.

But realistically, is this woman really going to be elected to anything outside of the crazy state she calls home?

We say Scientology looks like a big winner for the whole Palin clan.

Don’t be so selfish, Sarah. Listen to Mr. Coale!

Hey dudes, would you like to get with a young lady with the finest Alaskan genes, spawn of an Iron Dog champ and wilderness woman?

Then we have good news for you, because Bristol Palin is single!

Yeah, there’s the whole baby situation – she popped one out after the Vice Presidential bid of her mom, Sarah, went down in flames, then gave it the idiotic name “Tripp.”

And ya know, you might have to deal with her white trash baby daddy, his mom the drug dealer, and whatever else crazy Wasilla mess is going down…

But listen up gents. The most eligible bachelorette in The Last Frontier is available! Don’t miss out on this priceless opportunity to marry into the Palin political dynasty!

We just heard about this breaking news from trusted ally SecretM…

A screaming report from STAR magazine tells all:

The teen love affair that rocked last year’s presidential race is over.

Sarah Palin’s daughter, Bristol, has ditched her baby daddy, Levi Johnston!

Now’s Levi’s sister, Mercede is telling all exclusively to Star and the picture she paints of life in Wasilla, Alaska is not a pretty one. Bristol, 18, has virtually cut Levi out of the life of their two-month-old son Tripp.

“Levi tries to visit Tripp every single day, but Bristol makes it nearly impossible. She tells him he can’t take the baby to our house because she doesn’t want him around ‘white trash’!” Bristol won’t even allow him to watch the baby for a few hours — unless he’s babysitting!

The worst part, Mercede continues, is that the former vice presidential candidate supports Bristol’s treatment of Levi, 19. “I used to love Sarah,” Mercede says sadly. “But I’ve lost lots of respect for her.

Can’t imagine what it was about Levi that turned Bristol off.
Could it be the last-name arm tat?

RADAR mag has more from the Star story:

Sarah Palin’s 18-year-old daughter Bristol has reportedly broken off her engagement with Levi Johnston, the father of her 2-month-old son Tripp. It’s surprising because in an interview just last month with FOX’s Gretta Van Susteren, Bristol said the 19-year-old Levi is a hands-on dad and that they planned on marrying after finishing their education.

But in a new interview with Star Magazine, Levi’s sister Mercede Johnston says Bristol actually broke up with Levi more than a month ago, is not attending school and rarely lets her baby daddy see their young son. Mercede also says Bristol even told him that she hates him and, when she learned she was pregnant, wished the baby wasn’t his.

Mercede told Star: “Bristol’s just crazy. That’s the nicest way I can put it. She and Levi actually broke up a while ago!”

Apparently, Levi is also far from being a hands-on dad. Said Mercede: “Levi tries to visit Tripp every single day, but Bristol makes it nearly impossible for him. She tells him he can’t take the baby to our house because she doesn’t want him around ‘white trash.’ She treats him so badly!”

Wonkette quips, “Hey Levi, call your pretend grandpa John McCain and ask why he’s against tattoo-removal programs for American losers.” [pic via]

OF COURSE she is kicking this self-proclaimed redneck to the curb.

Bristol’s prospects are a lot better now that her mother is the hero of America’s hicks and hockey moms.

Although that whiny Meghan McCain claims that her dating life stinks ever since her dad ran for President, we think maybe she’s just too picky or something.

But when your previous beau is an unemployed Wasilla dumbass with a drug dealer mom, there’s nowhere to go but up!

So attention dudes! Simply print this picture out, glue a picture of your face over Sarah Palin’s, and bask in the fantasy of being Bristol’s new man!

UPDATE via GAWKER:

The Star story that got the ball rolling yesterday morning was a “world exclusive” interview with Johnston’s trouble-making sister Mercede, who told the magazine—in exchange, perhaps, for some Oxycontin pills or whatever other painkillers are commonly used as chattel in Alaska?—that Bristol had cut Johnston out of their son Tripp’s life. “She tells him he can’t take the baby to our house because she doesn’t want him around ‘white trash’!” Mercede told the magazine. (“Yeah, we could name her ‘Mercedes,’ but I think ‘Mercede’ just sounds a little classier,” one of Mercede’s parents once said.) Mercede was the first to warn America of the brewing tension between the Palins and the Johnstons in January, when she posted on her MySpace page that Palin considers Johston to be “white trash” and he newest grandson half-white-trash. She likes to say “white trash.”

In a nugget reserved for the print edition of Star, Mercede claims that Palin sent Johnston a text message reading thusly: “I hate you, and when I found out I was pregnant I wished the baby wasn’t yours.”

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if it weren’t?

Indeed.

Guess how many counties John McCain won in all of New England?

One. One freaking county.

So where did Johnny Mac pull it off?

Surely in his beloved state of New Hampshire, where he flew on the last weekend of the election. Oh…no? Not New Hampshire. Lost every county in New Hampshire? Well, he narrowly lost three counties, that’s like a moral victory. Sigh.

OK, one of those wealthy New York City suburbs in Connecticut. They gotta be pretty conservative there. Ohhh they all voted for Obama too?

No!! No we got it – that one congressional district in Maine worth one electoral vote that they put money into after their campaign in Michigan collapsed! God love ya, McCain, so effing mavericky!!

No, he lost that too.

The only county in ALL of New England captured by John McCain was in central Maine: Piscataquis County. This county had 17,235 people at the time of the last census. 98% white, median salary $28 grand. McCain won this county by 4,785 to 4,430.

Okay, now we feel bad for kicking a guy when he’s down. But honestly, this is unreal. The fact that Obama took virtually every county in New England is shocking.

McCain won most of the counties in states that he lost, like Pennsylvania and Virginia. Obama won more than a dozen counties in Texas, cut a swath of counties through the South, and even took four counties in McCain’s home state of Arizona. Conversely, McCain took quite a few counties in Illinois.

But in New England? Obama tossed a one-hitter through six.

And the hit was a broken bat bloop that looked like a poop.

What happened here? The Republican Party was a force in the Northeast as recently as twenty years ago.

The incompetent campaign “masterminded” by Steve Schmidt and Rick Davis takes a lot of the blame. Obama’s massive fundraising from Massachusetts and Connecticut didn’t hurt his chances in the rest of the states. Southern New Hampshire, for example, was utterly blanketed in ads through the Boston media market. The economic crisis and long Republican reign spelled defeat for the GOP on a statewide basis in a generally liberal region.

But they had McCain! His credentials going into this race had to endear him to a variety of regions throughout New England…probably not whole states, but a handful of counties at least. Didn’t happen.

The real reason for the region-wide wipeout is the social agenda of the (less populous) states that voted all their counties the other way. All two of ‘em.

Culture wars used to be a winning gameplan for the Republicans, but when you get blasted this badly in a region worth 34 electoral votes, it’s time to start rethinking the Palin in 2012 strategy.

Up yours, Alaska and Oklahoma.

Signed, New England

In yet another example of “going rogue,” Sarah Palin decided to disregard our advice. And she got booed.

God bless the citizens of Erie, PA for this swift justice!

The LA TIMES reports on “A swing and a miss in Erie.”

It was a throwaway line meant to be a crowd-pleaser. But it fell flat.

On Thursday at a rally in Erie, Pa., Sarah Palin touted the victors in the World Series to thousands of supporters. “I am thrilled to be here in the home state of the world-champion Philadelphia Phillies,” Palin said.

The crowd booed.

Philadelphia is a seven-hour drive from Erie, which is in the state’s far west. Erie’s baseball devotions are split between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cleveland Indians. (Pittsburgh and Cleveland are about two hours away.)

Palin has been booed by Pennsylvania sports fans before. Earlier this month, the Republican vice presidential candidate was loudly heckled at a Philadelphia Flyers game.

What were you thinking, Palin? Would you give props to the Anchorage Bucs while stumping in Fairbanks, home of the Alaska Goldpanners?? Of course not!

Then why go out of your way to piss off (already wicked ornery) western Pennsylvanians by rubbing in their face that the liberal side of the state just took home a title, while the sorry Pirates traded their best players this season and got poop sandwiches in return?

Politicians, stay away from baseball. It’s in everyone’s best interest.

(FYI, that financial “classic” is 40 years old and has gone out of print, but I don’t think it’s any news flash to suggest that some people can profit from the present situation. Hell, you can profit from war and genocide. Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.)

Is anyone with a college degree actually proud to be in the company of these fools?

Whose side are you on, non-idiotic people of America? These jackasses? Or Team Buffett-Powell-ROTI??

There are plenty of valid reasons to vote for McCain, despite the many missteps and blunders of his campaign that we’ve faithfully documented on this site. But there is simply no logical reason to publicly support the candidacy of an anti-intellectual, culturally backward, power abusing, fundamentally uncurious, science-denying, unabashedly slandering, $150,000-a-month outfitted BIMBO from the Arctic circle for the #2 role in our government. There just isn’t.

These two will never top the monumental idiocy and lameness that was their Easter photo sesh, but this comes close.

Take the gun and kill yourselves. Doooooo Itttttttttt!!!

Sarah Palin’s lied about a lot of stuff: saying “thanks but no thanks” to the Bridge to Nowhere, claiming that she loves to read the Economist a few days after completely drawing a blank when Couric asked her what she reads, saying Obama “pals around with terrorists” – Bill Ayers is only one person…

But her latest stunt really crosses the line. Now she’s talking out of both sides of her mouth when it comes to BASEBALL!!

Sarah Palin in New Hampshire last night:

Ms. Palin visited Salem, N.H. Wednesday night and said she looked forward to watching Senator John McCain debate Senator Barack Obama “right here, in the heart of Red Sox Nation.” Ms. Palin said that “Red Sox fans know how to turn an underdog into a victor,” a timely applause line given that the Sox trail the Tampa Bay Rays three-games-to-one in the best-of-seven American League Championship Series.

Sarah Palin in Florida last week:

“How about those Tampa Bay Rays?” Ms. Palin said after the Rays defeated the Chicago White Sox.

“You know what that tells me? It tells me that the people in this area know a little something about turning an underdog into a victor.”

FOR SHAME Palin!! We haven’t seen such a blatant display of self-serving baseball talk since Hillary Clinton magically became a Yankees fan right before she ran for Senate. Or possibly John Kerry’s shoutout to “Manny Ortez.”

Politicians, stay away from baseball! Unless you’re Barack Obama and you feel like putting Cubs fans on blast again, that was hilarious. Silly Cubs fans.

[NYTIMES CAUCUS blog]