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Ladies and gentlemen, your Hipster of the Decade: Carles, from Hipster Runoff.

With 32% of the final vote, he smashed the runner-up, Gavin McInnes, by a full 10%. He beat out many worthy opponents. And now the question remains: Who is this Carles?

Nobody really knows. He is anonymous! Although he does give IM interviews. He told the Village Voice, “I grew up in suburbia and recently graduated from business school,” and said “I think the whole concept of the site is ‘being able to justify your alternative existence’ by monitoring websites that are theoretically on the bleeding edge of culture.”

Okay? Some people thought Carles was in fact the unbearable Tao Lin, but that doesn’t seem likely. Some internet detectives say he’s just some dude who went to Tulane, but who has the will to pursue that to the point of mystique ruination?

Not us. The whole thing is appropriate, in that hipsterdom is understood to be a mysterious absence of soul and meaning, and it is now officially embodied by a mysterious absent figure. So let’s forgo the whole vague 1500-word writearound tribute.

I guess Carles is Hipster Runoff, which you can read at your leisure. The blog is kind of like…Pitchfork mixed with whippets mixed with chat room slang and maybe a certain faux-Rain Man quality? It must be consumed to get a full sense of its essence. If you like internet obscurities in general, maybe you will like Carles’ blog in particular!

He sent us the photo below in honor of this award. HEY CARLES LET’S FUCK BRO.

Here’s to a new decade in which we don’t say “hipster” any more.

Illustration by Steven Dressler

Continued here

They weren’t bad posts, just misunderstood. Nevertheless, we wrote them and you didn’t want to read them. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the least popular Gawker posts of 2009.

Generating massive page views isn’t the only reason something gets posted to Gawker, but Nick Denton (who pays us bonuses if we get a lot of them) certainly encourages us to think that way. Still, Gawker writers are encouraged to write about what interests them and sometimes that bears no correlation to what interests the people who read this site. We’ll be doing a list of our most popular posts of the year for tomorrow because very few of us will be working and people seem to like to click on those things.

But first, here’s a rundown of the ten Gawker posts that got the fewest clicks this past year. I only looked at the 8,000 or so posts that jumped from the front page (so this list doesn’t include photo captions or headline links). In fact, there were only 39 that got fewer than 1,000 page views. And there are a few topics that jump out from the least-clicked list: men over 40, newspapers, New York politics, and foreign affairs. We’ll continue to cover all four in 2010. While we blame you a little for not wanting to read about those things, it’s ultimately our job to make them interesting.

That said, here’s the list of the ten least-clicked posts of the year in New Year’s Eve countdown format:

10. Trades Bid Farewell to One of Their Own — 774 views
Army Archerd, who died in September at age 87, was a legend in Hollywood, writing his gossip column for Daily Variety for over 50 years. But you really didn’t want to read about him when Richard Rushfield put him as the top story of the Trade Roundup.

9. Round Numbers Will Fix All Your Money Problems — 710 views
I thought it was ridiculous that Bloomberg News had a long story all set to publish as soon as the Dow Jones Index hit the 10,000 mark, as if that would be the moment when all the jobs would come back and your bank accounts would be refilled to their 2007 levels. Probably should have just said that.

8. Queens Dems Will Not Endorse Lady-Slasher Next Year — 700 views
The story of Hiram Monserrate, the New York State Assemblyman from Queens who was arrested for slashing his girlfriend’s face with a broken glass, was one of my great story disappointments this year. I thought it had it all: Scientology! Even gay marriage! Sadly, in a year filled with so many villains, the tale of a creepy New York pol never really caught on and by the time Alex Pareene filed this update about his declining political fortunes in October, few were clicking.

7. Poetry in the Machine: ‘Identity Info Sharing’ — 699 views
Sure, a story like “Five Ways to Put Up Drywall” may get more pageviews than Brian Moylan’s brave campaign to destroy the AOL News Borg with poetry. But he will not be deterred. Expect more of this in 2010.

6. Mayors Mike and Rudy Are Friends Again — 666 views
No one cared about New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg’s re-election campaign because everyone thought he was going to win by a Saddam Hussein-like margin. (For example, Pareene’s very good post in May about how Bloomberg was buying up every single political consultant on the Eastern Seaboard was the year’s 45th least popular.) But it turned out no one really liked Bloomberg and he almost lost. Oh, well: King Bloomberg Forever!

5. No, That Is Not Anthrax — 660 views
Hamilton Nolan’s rant about how anthrax scares are always overblown on cable and blogs was good, but managed to combine three things you don’t like to read about: media companies, foreign affairs, and debunking stupid stories. Hamilton, please continue to do all three in the new year.

4. Front Pages: Climate Summit Showdown — 628 views
Ravi Somaiya’s newspaper roundup each morning is one of my favorite Gawker posts, but it’s never gotten a lot of clicky love. Maybe it’s because you don’t care what’s on the front pages of newspapers? I don’t know. I also like that it’s probably the only front-page roundup written by someone whose byline also appears on front pages.

3. Happy Afghanistan Election Day! — 610 views
I asked Pareene to write this because I thought a lot of people might be interested in whether the elections were going to fix anything in Afghanistan. I was wrong. We may as well have used the headline “Quadratic Equations for Fun and Profit!”

2. Tentative Settlement Reached in Times vs. Globe Deathmatch — 521 views
Remember how the New York Times threatened to sell or shut down the Boston Globe unless the paper’s unions agreed to massive cost-cutting? No, you probably don’t. By the time both sides reached a settlement, few wanted to click on this Cajun Boy post.

1. Obama Headed to One of His Many Birthplaces — 75 views
And here it is: the absolute least popular post on Gawker in 2009! Sarcasm rarely works online. But still, I really have no idea how Pareene’s satiric take on the announcement that Obama would be visiting Indonesia (you know, the place where Birthers claim he could have been born) got so few views. Traffic from “Is Obama a Muslim?” searches alone ought to have generated a couple hundred views. This went up while I was on vacation so I asked Pareene if maybe there was some technical malfunction. He said “hah.”

Read more here

There have been many not-very-nice bankers before. There have been many not-very-nice husbands too. But this man, Jason Meyers, is clearly gifted in both departments. His wife is suing him, and the details are gruesome.

The New York Post report that, after he slapped her and pulled her hair in public Meyers admitted that seeing his new wife Miryam upset turned him on. Which fits nicely with this:

The sordid details include a claim by Miryam Meyers, 29, that her 42-year-old hubby “called her a ‘bitch’ and ejaculated on her face” after she refused his order to “tell him that she was his ’slave’ and that he was ‘the most powerful man in the world’ ” while they were getting it on.

It wasn’t just overly-enthusiastic role-playing though. The marriage ended just 15 days after their wedding when Meyers locked Miryam out of his Long Island home, then dragged her through a broken window when she tried to get back in. He then threw her in the shower and turned on the cold water.

The next day, he slapped Miryam with divorce papers that accused her “of being a prostitute.”

[Pic via]

Here is the original

In which we discover the identity of the mysterious fourth person banned from Sarah Palin’s book tour, and that Todd was in charge of enforcing the “no entry” list.

The American heroes at Talking Points Memo procured and posted Palin’s two-page rider, which makes disappointingly few diva-like demands. In the section labeled “MEDIA,” we discover that the real diva is Todd:

In case you can’t read it, the boldface section at the bottom reads,

Coordination with Todd will be required to identify these folks in the event they present themselves NOT as media reps. They are not welcome by the family and this is a private renta of the facility with a public invite and access limited list provided by renders.

Points of interest:

• 1. Jeff Griffin—a.k.a. Gryphen,the blogger who first wrote about the ban after cops escorted him from the event—wasn’t originally on the list, but got added later version. An event coordinator explains, “Todd told me that a couple of individuals said they were going to come out there, and he expected them to protest. He said, ‘Hey, there’s a guy named Griffin who will be with Zaki, and they’re going to try to stir up the pot.’” This suggests that the Palin clan monitors its detractors, seeking and actively responding to perceived threats. Shades of Nixon?
• 2. Banned blogger Shannyn Moore says she had no plans to attend. She also notes that Todd didn’t always hate Dennis Zaki:
  

  It must have killed him to put Dennis Zaki on a banned list. You see, back in the day, the former shadow governor felt free to call Dennis and give him tips on Trooper Wooten’s snowmachine activities and information regarding a possible federal investigation into Republican Senate President Lyda Green’s home-information which was fabricated in a poor attempt to hurt Sarah Palin’s chief nemesis. At the 2008 Governor’s picnic, Todd went on for fifteen minutes explaining his former brother-in-law’s unsavory activities to Zaki.

  The Palins’ vendettas are based solely on perceived threats; personal history and indebtedness don’t hold a candle to their sense of righteous indignation. When Zaki was writing stories that hurt Palin’s enemies, he was in the fold. The second he voiced criticism, he was out.

• 3. The fourth banned person—whose identity we tried to guess last week—is not, as was previously reported, a blogger. Andree McLeod (Todd spelled both of her names wrong) is the most overzealous thorn in Palin’s side; McLeod has filed some half-dozen ethics complaints and lawsuits against Palin. She may have been on the right path with the ethics concerns, but McLeod—a Republican and former Palin friend and ally—is admittedly a bit off her rocker. She entered politics over a banned falafel stand and once lodged a complaint about “the amount and magnitude of cleavage being exhibited by female employees in State of Alaska offices these days.”

[TPM] [Immoral] [Moore] [Gawker]

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Over the past decade (that is our time unit of choice now, right?) a lot of annoying couples have been profiled by the New York Times. But these yurt-dwelling neo-back-to-the-landers might take the self-satisfied cake.

Oh, Jesus, where to begin with Bretwood Higman, 33, and Erin McKittrick, 30? It appears that the single non-annoying thing the couple did together was to take a trip to Mexico as young students at Carleton College. After that, they got married and some weird chemical reaction occurred which made them only able to engage in that special kind of behavior that irritates us then makes us feel sort of guilty for being so irritated. You know the kind! (It is the worst.)

Many New York Times couples irritate us in this way. (Remember No Impact Man?) But Higman and McKittrick’s bucolic life in the wilderness of Alaska is like an obnoxious onion: It has layers. The exasperating details peel back to reveal even more excruciating ones hidden beneath. Here is how it works in Sarah Maslin’s article:

Annoying: After getting married, Higman and McKittrick embarked on an adventure wherein they walked, skied and rafted 4,000 miles .
More Annoying: “Ms. McKittrick’s account of the adventure, ‘A Long Trek Home,’ was published in October.

Annoying: Last year, they decided to move with their 11-month-old son to a rudimentary yurt outside a small town in Alaska.
More Annoying: “They decided they could live without running water, shower, bath or a working toilet, but they had to have broadband Internet access.”

Annoying: They decided against a propane heater because “Each step you take in that direction is a step away from the wilderness.”
More Annoying: Because of this, their kitchen is “so cold that homemade yogurt resting on the plywood floor stays chilled.”

Annoying: They are well educated but do not have full-time jobs because they say they value their time over money. Instead, they make jewelry and raise awareness about the environment.
More Annoying: “Absent the need to work 9 to 5, there is time for snowshoeing in winter and gathering wild nettles to eat in the spring “

And so, on the eve of the brilliant new decade, Bretwood Higman and Erin McKittrick may have become the single most irritating couple to ever appear in the pages of the New York Times. We can only speculate as to what annoying couples the 2010s will bring.

Read the original

Rush Limbaugh was just rushed to a Honolulu hospital. According to KITV, Limbaugh “suffered from chest pains” and was taken to Queen’s Medical Center in serious condition. Rush’s arch-enemies, Obama and Pelosi are also in Hawaii now. Coincidence? [KITV] Update:

All those prayers may have worked: According to Limbaugh’s official site, Rush is

resting comfortably after suffering chest pains. Rush appreciates your prayers and well wishes. He will keep you updated via RushLimbaugh.com and on Thursday’s radio program.

Read more

We’ve unwrapped each of your terrible tales of yuletide terror like a little gifts and we wouldn’t return any of them. Our stocking was suitably full of familial dysfunction, but only one of your tales can be our favorite.

But before we get to the big winner, we want to recognize some of the standout stories from the collection. We made up the titles, but we certainly couldn’t invent drama this epic. Click on the link to see the comment from the original post. Congrats to everyone. You’re all winners and you will have your reward in heaven. You will spend eternity together trying to figure out which one is the most fucked up.

• Seriously Unfunny Father by Eli_Eli
• The Ballad of Bagel Boy by Dr. Kenneth
• Painkiller Christmas by BTrouble
• The Gift of the Mange-eye by CrunkJuice
• “Really, Don’t Get Us Anything” by MsStressa
• Crooked Christmas by Siarna
• Scary Home Movie by TheMediatrix
• Baroness von Munchhausen by Kellas.Campbell
• Living Through It by NDNGirl
• Drunk Mother Mary by D2theMatthews
• Disasterous Dinner at the Smiths by EtherGirl
• Hooker Mixup by Pamela Ballin
• I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus by Spirit Fingers
• You’re All Under Arrest by KT_Scarlett26
• And finally, Gawker’s Award for General Holiday Horror Story Excellence goes to DrunkenExpatWriter for his continued contributions to the art form.

But, ladies and gentlemen, there can only be one winner, and that story had a little bit of everything. There is a great, flamboyant hero, the quest for a perfect holiday, a horrible villian, a secret revealed, and some sweet, dirty redemption. Yes, BettyCrocker, your tale—Betty Crocker and The Chamber of Gay Secrets—is the winner. Here is the full story, for all those who missed it:

A Merry Christmas outing, and we didn’t go anywhere! Yet, I jingled all the way.

Christmas 1984, and your young Crocker was but a young pup of 17. I had a waitering job that paid really well – enough to pay my most of tuition at the fancy Episco-school-ademy I’d been packed off to, and keep me well supplied with Sperry Topsider loafers and skinny ties. I got demerits if I wore the ties to school, but I loved them. My grades were good, though, and my parents had no cause for complaint.

I’d known I was gay since before I was 7. I’d casually looked up from a book I was reading and told Mom I was going to marry a fireman. The lesson gleaned from this was that it was better to look at the firemen quietly. The topic was verboten. It literally sent Mom into a rage. Dad wasn’t much better, despite having a gay pal at work. A parade of normal-looking straight friends and pretty girls kept peace in the kingdom.

And yet… the incessant wails of Morrissey and Robert Smith were not a clue, because my parents liked them too. My transformation of our property into a verdant suburban oasis of roses and perennials was inadmissible evidence. There were a LOT of Clinique For Men potions and tubes of Lancome in my bathroom – yawn.

I’d taken over putting up the Christmas tree, too, and carefully culled out anything tacky. I gaily wrapped presents and helped make dinner, and when Christmas Eve arrived, the result would have given Martha Stewart a well-deserved hop in the ass. The place looked great – candles, flowers, pine and poinsettias.
So! Both sets of grandparents, 2 aunts and uncles, various in-laws and cousins descended on the ancestral family split-level, about 40 people in all.

Ever been in one of those?

They’re designed to separate living areas by function. There’s a high-ceilinged entry foyer, which leads to a main-level formal living room, dining room and kitchen. Ours also had a powder room and a sunporch. Six steps up from the foyer were four bedrooms and three baths. Six steps down from the foyer was a family room, Dad’s home office, and another bathroom. There was a basement under that which is brightly lit but haunted as hell. (That’s another post.)

The architecture was my undoing. That, and the fact that my sister is a bitch. See, the levels are separated… but stand in the right spot and speak loud enough and everyone in the house will know you have Locust Valley Lockjaw.

Everyone loved how I’d rearranged everything so that there was ample seating for everyone. They scarfed my hors d’ouvres like manna from heaven. I could hear “Oh, that Crocker really outdid himself this year!” and one aunt seriously told me she would stake me in a catering business if I wanted her to. I was even allowed some champagne between walking around with trays.

My parents were quietly bragging about me, and it was driving Catherine wild. This is probably why she took it upon herself to guzzle three glasses of wine, march into the acoustic hell of the foyer, and snarl: “Yeah, queers are REAL good at making a dump into fantasyland! To be sure it carried, she repeated it, louder, then laughed like the Sorority Girl From Hell she became.

The only sound was Perry Como.

Every head spun in my direction, and I happened to be straightening an arrangement of holly and roses. In my plaid pants. With my collar popped. And my free hand unfortunately on my hip.

If you ever want to find out what your family really thinks of you, just get outed in front of all of them whilst doing something stereotypically gay. Their faces will tell you all you need to know. You won’t need a camera, because you’ll never forget what they look like.

The parade of people coming up from the family room level was interesting, too. At least one BabyGay cousin had a grin for me, and Aunt Catering Business gave my shoulder a squeeze.

The rest of the evening was awkward, to say the least, and some of my family didn’t even say goodbye to me. In fact, things were never the same after that.

All was not lost, and I suppose I owe my sister a debt of gratitude. Before school started up again, I began a torrid and deliciously wrestle-y faire l’amour with the gorgeous proto-guido lineman I was tutoring in English Lit. He shaved and had a car and I was smitten. It lasted until we went to our respective colleges.

See, by leaving me with so little to lose, bitchy Catherine and that damn pretentious architect gave me Anthony.

Congratulations, BettyCrocker. You’ve earned your $50 bottle of fancy champagne for New Year’s Eve. We hope you can drink the pain away. Email us to redeem your prize.

Original post

Welcome back to Midweek Madness. May we read the tabloids so you don’t have to? This week’s specials: Kourtney breastfeeds with implants, the Jersey Shore kids get makeovers, and Lindsay finds the missing chunk of her thigh.

OK!
Kendra lost 20 pounds in three weeks and you can too! All you have to do is push a human out of your vagina. There’s a picture of Kendra holding her baby with one arm and a two-pound weight with the other, but I refuse to scan it. You can check out Jennifer Aniston’s Christmas card instead (image 7). She donated money to Doctors Without Borders, but only to send a secret message to Brad, obviously. Next: OK! claims Kate Hudson dumped A-Rod because he’s still in love with Madonna. A source reports: “She gave A-Rod three chances to stop contacting Madonna. When she found out that he was still calling and texting her, she hit the roof. How would you feel if your new boyfriend kept calling his ex?” Well, that depends. Is my boyfriend’s ex Madonna? Did you hear that Rihanna is hooking up with Kanye West? SORRY, IT’S NOT TRUE. Lastly, in an exclusive interview Snooki of Jersey Shore reveals, “I really don’t tan because I’m half-Spanish so I’ve got that year-round tan. I was adopted.”
Grade: F (Eating mayonnaise out of the jar.)

Us
2010’s DIETS THAT WORK
This mag features 25 pages of excruciatingly dull celebrity fitness stories. As you already know, everyone in Hollywood stays slim by spending hours at the gym and eating salads with grilled chicken for lunch. The only good thing about about this feature is the ad for Taco Bell’s “Drive-Thru Diet” wedged in the middle, which includes a coupon for a free fresco taco. No salad with grilled chicken for me today! Moving on: Elin actually caught Tiger cheating years ago. “She found out he had at least one affair early in their marriage. It breached her trust, but they were trying to work through it,” reports a “pal.” Next: “Britney Shuns K-Fed at Kids’ Show.” Sean and Jayden performed in a Christmas concert and while both Brit and Kevin were there, they had “zero contact,” according to an attendee. Brit was also spotted crying in a New York hotel restaurant at 6:45 a.m. three days later. “The hostess offered a tissue, but she shook her head no,” says a witness. Finally, it’s obvious that Dr. Drew’s a “passionate, passionate man,” but did you know that he’s also “secretly sexy”? (Image 8)
Grade: F (You’re still making your way through holiday leftovers.)

Life & Style
THE KARDASHIAN BABY
Apparently “Kardashian” means “stone worker” in Armenian, but Kourtney only found out that “Mason” means the same thing after she picked the name for her baby. As for her son’s middle name, “Dash is not for my clothing store, as some people have suggested online,” says Kourtney. “That would be stupid. Dash is short for Kardashian, and it was my father’s nickname.” Fine, but this question was stupid: Life & Style asks, “Have you gotten squirted while changing diapers?” Also, in case you’ve been worried that Kourtney’s breast implants would prevent her from breast-feeding, she shares, “Sometimes people wtih implants can’t breast-feed or their milk doesn’t come in. So my doctor told me, if it doesn’t happen that easily, don’t feel bad about it. I’m lucky that it’s been going really well.” Moving swiftly along: Jude turns his back on his baby. Jude Law talked about spending the holidays with his “three kids” in all of his Sherlock Holmes interviews, but he still hasn’t seen his fourth child, the baby girl he had with Samantha Burke. Next: Angelina and Jen will come face to face again at the Golden Globes. Jen is presenting and Brangie usually attend. Maybe it will be just as uneventful as when they came face-to-face at the Oscars last year! Life & Style provides this handy guide (image 9) to which Golden Globes attendees are on Team Brangie and Team Jen. So does this mean if a fight breaks out Clint Eastwood has to take on Courteney Cox? Finally, Jersey Shore gets an A-list makeover! (Image 10) J-Woww is Megan Fox! Sammi and Ronnie are Brangelina! And “Mike gets into a Jake Gyllenhaal ’situation!’” Couldn’t this year’s Oscars use a little more spray tan and grind dancing?
Grade: F (Partially moldy Jersey tomatoes.)

In Touch
HER LAST INTERVIEW
In Touch claims they scored the last interview with Brittany Murphy, but this wasn’t a Barbara Walters-type affair. In Touch reporter Amy Webber just asked Murphy about her holiday plans at the Tt Collection’s Pop Up Boutique opening in L.A. on December 3. However, according to the mag, “Getting up to say goodbye, Brittany hugged Amy three times, stared intently into her eyes and clung to her for dear life, which some experts on death reportedly say means the person may know on some level their own death is imminent.” Experts on death say hugging a tabloid reporter means you’ll die soon? Noted. In other news, “The Purity Ring Is Off!” Kevin Jonas got married two weeks ago and replaced his “silver-studded purity ring” with a “2.24-carat stainless steel wedding band.” In Touch asks, “So did Kevin finally get lucky?” Um, yes. In fact and insider reports that Kevin and his wife Danielle Deleasa, “are devout Christians — so there’s a good chance they won’t use birth control… It could even be a honeymoon baby… they’re basically putting it in God’s hands.” Next: Angelina had a big fight with Brad’s mom on December 18, Brad’s 46th birthday. Though Angie already shut down Brad’s plans to spend Thanksgiving with his folks in Missouri, he tried to schedule a Christmas visit. Angie refused and when Brad’s mom called to ask why, “Angelina fired back, telling Jane she’s sick of her interfering in her and Brad’s lives.” Later Brad’s dad called to say Angie had “ruined the holidays.” The Jersey Shore cast got glammed up for Life & Style but In Touch gave the ladies makeunders (image 11). In closing, remember this scary picture of Lindsay Lohan in a bathing suit with bruises and scratches all over her body? It made In Touch’s “One Hot Winter” spread (image 12). It seems someone found that missing chunk of skin from her right thigh in Photoshop.
Grade: F (Flat champagne.)

Star
Angelina’s Cheating Bombshell!
Apparently Brad read Angelina’s poorly-translated interview with the German magazine Das Neue and he does think “fidelity is absolutely essential for a relationship.” Angie told Brad that she wants to have an open relationship, but “having his partner sleep with other men and women is not OK,” so he had no choice but to storm off on his motorcycle. (Doesn’t he realize this would clear the way for his reunion with Jennifer Aniston?) Star reports that he “headed to the one place he could unwind, a biker bar in Malibu called Neptune’s Net.” “He had a few beers and ordered some onion rings, which he barely ate,” says a source. “He talked to some bikers, and they discussed their bikes. A few women came up to him, and Brad likes that. He’s a flirt, but that’s it.” An employee from Cafe Metro in New York offered more evidence that Brad and Angie (who Star still insists is pregnant) are drifting apart: While Brad walked up to the counter and ordered four hot chocolates, Angie stayed behind at the table, keeping an eye on their small children. Blind Item: Which starlet has friends worried she could be Hollywood’s next untimely death? Few outside her circle suspect, but she’s abusing pills to dull the pain of missing her ex. Brooke Shields, who plays Miley Cyrus’ mom on Hannah Montana, is pushing her to go to college so she has something to fall back on. Miley is considering it and she’d “love to be an Ivy Leaguer like Brooke,” who went to Princeton. Tiger Woods has been hooking up with Rachel Uchitel in Florida and they’re planning to run off to the Bahamas together. Finally, did Robert Pattinson dump Kristen Stewart for the blonde chick he hooked up with in France? In a word, no. Rob was photographed with Erika Dutra one night in May, but her dad says she’s dating someone else. Though, “I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Robert was interested in dating my daughter. There are a lot of beautiful girls out there, but she has it all — beauty, brains, and wisdom.”
Grade: D- (Free fresco taco from Taco Bell.)

Excerpt from

America’s most hated political figure, former Vice President Dick Cheney, has inserted himself into the news again. He said something about Obama, and terror. That has been a wonderful 2009 trend, reporting on what Cheney mumbles.

Cheney should not be taken seriously by anyone. We should, as sensible adults, all agree on that. He is a known liar. He orchestrated the hiring of the most disastrously incompetent and venal members of the administration. Just about every illegal and simply idiotic thing the Bush administration did, besides perhaps their response to Hurricane Katrina, is directly his fault. He sunk that presidency. He has no credibility. You cannot assert that Iraq has nukes and that Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were gay for each other over and over and over again and then be taken seriously on matters of national security, because those assertions were known to be false at the time.

Actually, correction: you can assert those things and still be taken seriously, because there is a newspaper called Politico, and their job is to report literally everything Dick Cheney says as if it is news. And then they get a link, from Drudge, and people talk about it, as if a serious and respected man, and not a living joke, had serious things to say.

Today, or yesterday, whatever, Cheney got mad that Barack Obama didn’t respond to a failed terrorist attack on an airplane by invading Iran.

[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,” Cheney said in a statement to POLITICO. “Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency - social transformation - the restructuring of American society.”

What the fuck does that mean? Anyone? This “pretending we’re not at war” thing is certainly news to us, and to the tens of thousands of troops on their way to fix Dick Cheney’s mess in Afghanistan!

Instead of sputtering in rage at this latest thing, let us instead compose a listicle of the other terrible things this lizard person has said in this miserable year 2009. Conveniently, his every utterance was reported on by that newspaper we mentioned, The Politico, and for their crimes we will not link to a single fucking one.

• 1/7/09: Cheney reports that he is actually “a warm, lovable sort.” And: “The notion that somehow I was pulling strings or making presidential-level decisions. I was not.”
• 1/22/09: Scooter Libby “was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice, and I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon.”
• 2/4/09: “When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry.” Guantanamo is “first-class” and “necessary.” Releasing anyone from Guantanamo will lead to a catastrophic nuclear or biological weapon attack on the US.
• 3/15/09: Invading Iraq “was absolutely the right thing to do and I think when history reviews this period 10 or 20 years hence, what will be significant was that we did, in fact, accomplish what we set out to do.” Also we won that war, hooray! Obama has made Americans less safe. On the recession: “I don’t think you can blame the Bush administration for the creation of those circumstances. It’s a global financial problem.” It was actually Barney Frank and Chris Dodd’s fault. Scooter Libby was “an innocent man who deserves a pardon.”
• 4/21/09: President Obama’s handshake with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez “was not helpful” and could lead “foes” of the U.S. to “think they’re dealing with a weak president.” Release of torture memos “a little bit disturbing” (I’ll fucking say!) because they did not release the memos that show “the success of the effort.” Cheney attempted to declassify memos that showed “the success” of torturing and killing people who may or may not have even been terrorists, as well as memos showing how successful it was that we tortured terrorists after already obtaining intelligence from them via regular interrogations, but those magical memos did not exist, just some other memos that didn’t really say anything.
• 5/7/09: “Enhanced interrogations” (that means “torture,” which is illegal) were used only in “special circumstances.” “It would be a mistake for [the GOP] to moderate.”
• 5/10/09: On Colin Powell: “I didn’t know he was still a Republican.” Also: “there was nothing devious or deceitful or dishonest or illegal about what was done.”
• 5/12/09: Cheney likes Jeb Bush and would support him for president. “I don’t think we should just roll over when the new administration accuses us of using torture. I don’t believe it was torture.” Also “I don’t pay a lot of attention to what the critics say, obviously.”
• 5/12/09: No one is doing anything to stop Iran from getting nukes, and Europe totally wants them to have nukes, basically, because they hate America, so we should probably bomb Iran. “We fail to recognize the fact that we’re alone out there in terms of trying to achieve the objective of forcing the Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons.”
• 5/21/09: In a speech scheduled against a speech by the actual, elected president, Cheney said torture “prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.” Also Abu Ghraib was the fault of “a few sadistic guards.” All the people in Gitmo and secret CIA prisons are “ruthless enemies of this country” (let us pause for one moment to observe that particularly breathtaking lie). Also a reference to “dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.” What does that mean, hm?
• 6/2/09: Intelligence gathering is “more an art form than a science.” Also, breaking: “On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9/11, there was never any evidence to prove that.”
• 6/3/09: Bush “decided that he did not want to be the one who pulled the plug [on GM] just before he left office.”
• 8/22/09: The Bush administration was working on a secret plan to end the Afghanistan war when Obama took office. Now Obama is “dithering,” which is bad for the troops.
• 8/25/09: Naming a prosecutor to look into violations of the law during Bush-era interrogations casts “doubts about this administration’s ability to be responsible for our nation’s security.” “The people involved deserve our gratitude.”
• 8/30/09: Investigating violations of the law is “an outrageous political act.” “I wasn’t a fan of his when he got elected, and my views haven’t changed any.”
• 12/1/09: Obama’s “agonizing” over what to do in Afghanistan will kill our soldiers and make the Taliban win. “Cheney was asked if he thinks the Bush administration bears any responsibility for the disintegration of Afghanistan because of the attention and resources that were diverted to Iraq. ‘I basically don’t,’ he replied without elaborating.” Obama is “far more radical than I expected.” “Here’s a guy without much experience, who campaigned against much of what we put in place … and who now travels around the world apologizing.” Trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is “great” for al Qaeda.

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Pictures may only be worth a thousand words, but they can certainly sear an image onto your brain for all eternity. Here are the pictures that defined 2009 on Gawker.

There are CEOs, toppled security guards, randy news anchors, generous stars, and more than a few errant body parts. Oh, and Anna Wintour! Thanks for the memories, 2009, but especially thanks for the images.

Anne Hathaway thought she was bringing pizza to the people waiting in line to see her in Twelfth Night in Central Park, but she was really serving up a steaming dish of awesome.

We love Katie Couric a little bit more for these pictures of her celebrating his first night on the air as a network evening news anchor.

Never heard of economist Nouriel Roubini before? That’s OK, because all the hot ladies he parties with have, and that’s all that matters.

He’s no Couric or Roubini, but GOP chairman Michael Steele sure knows how to party down and show an intern a good time. No, not in that dirty Democratic way that leads to stained dresses, in a very chaste, upstanding Republican way.

We have a very special love affair with Anna Wintour, and it started when we tracked her down at a Macy’s in Queens during her fake charity event Fashion’s Night Out. We did not get to meet her, but she struck us with her pheromones.

If it was possible, we loved Anna even more when we found out she waits in line like normal people at the movies. OK, only movies like The September Issue that are about her, but still.

Meet Jake “The Octagon” Tapper, a newsman who is so badass that he must interrupt other reporters and only writes in bold.

Just ew!

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wanted to make all the embarrassing drunk photos of you on Facebook available to the world, so we beat him to the punch and got some silly pictures of him instead.

Also thanks to Zuckerberg we learned that the kids in Yale’s secret society Skull and Bones party just like the rest of us. That and they aren’t evil old white men plotting to take over the universe.

Only in 2009 would it be hip to dress as Harry Potter. Unless that was ironic love of Harry Potter. Oh, we can’t keep this shit straight anymore.

Remember the sexually confused frat boys who guard our Afghan embassy? We sure do. And these pictures screwed them out of $189 million!

We’re still not entirely convinced this isn’t Jennifer Aniston’s vagina.

Because of this painting every time we look at Nick Denton, we smell syrup. Way to ruin Aunt Jemima for us, Dan Lacey.

The ass peek that launched our most important investigation of the year.

This photo of Dane Cook, Jeremy Piven, and Kid Rock hanging out together in Vegas should have won our douche of the decade award.

Here is the original