In the wee hours of this morning, Barnum & Bailey's Circus paraded their elephants into Manhattan, in what has become an annual tradition and spectacle. PETA is not too happy about this sort of thing. Is the circus really bad? On one hand, they're cruelly exploiting majestic mammals for the pitiful bemusement of humanity. On the other hand: elephants! Below, a clip of last year's NYC elephant march. Is there an easy answer to this one?

We actually don't understand anything about this story except that somehow Rupert Murdoch fucked over his 99-year-old mother, tax-wise, "to the tune of $273 million." His 99-year-old mother! Rupert Murdoch will live forever and someday kill journalism when he buys the Moon York Times. [Sydney Morning Herald]

A Defamer operative, perhaps a little miffed that the two-day open house that CAA is holding later this week to show off the Wonkaesque inner workings of their intimidating new Century City Evil Factory might not feature valet service, slipped us these meticulously rendered self-parking instructions for its guests. (They're better off without the valets, anyway—they'd just force some junior agents into red coats for the event, who'd just ransack visitors' SUVs in a fruitless search for any concealed, delicious babies, then swipe all the loose change from their ashtrays.) But by making available such a detailed schematic, the agency has inadvertently exposed crucial vulnerabilities in their otherwise impenetrable stronghold; as you can clearly see in the above diagram, conspicuous yellow stars denote weak points in the structure's perimeter defenses, which determined teams of rebel forces from rival agencies may be able to exploit while CAA is distracted with the intake of legitimate invitees, destroying the Creative Artists Death Star from within before its roof-mounted doomsday laser is fully operational.

Sure, we like to knock Ann Coulter around now and again. Who doesn't, really? Like all her fans, though, we've often wondered how much truth there is to the popular chestnut that she says outrageous things not because she particularly believes them, but merely to gain media attention and thus drive her book sales. And more importantly: does it work? A hard-hitting investigative campaign (i.e. dispatching Intern Mary into the depths of Lexis and Bookscan) revealed that a correlation may indeed have existed between evil quotations, press mentions (in the New York Times, New York Post, and New York Daily News for our purposes), and book sales for her earlier tomes. However, Coulter may be working it a little too hard in support of her most recent book (Godless: The Church of Liberalism). Eventually, nothing's shocking, even from Ann. Graph and supporting quotations after the jump.