The Baffler

Towards the end of every year, magazines and newspapers fill up their copy quotas—and woo their most lucrative advertisers—with the help of bright and shiny holiday gift guides. They are almost always at least a little absurd. This year, a thirty-second video ad that ...

• Today in Billionaires: a 2011 Escalade drove through the New Jersey home of billionaire Peter Kellogg on Monday, through the center hall, into the living room, and out into the back yard, according to NJ.com. An unnamed 26-year-old driver and 56-year-old passenger only ...

• “Forget Spotify, Etsy, or Contenty,” says Fortune, “the latest trend in startup names is regular old human names,” like Oscar, Alfred, and Lulu. “Jacob Brody, founder of Benny, says he chose the name because he wants his company to be seen as a ...

• In a so-called “Instagram Rapture,” millions of fake accounts that have previously been marked as “spammy” were suddenly deleted. Fans can mean money, of course, in lucrative endorsement deals. “The singer Justin Bieber lost 3.5 million fans, ...

• In the San Francisco Business Times, a man who starts a company in Silicon Valley to make a vegan sandwich spread and receives funding from Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin is referred to as a “Mayo disruptor.” • A woman in Illinois is trying to trademark ...

• Current events, summarized. (Via Jody Avirgan.) • We hear about plagiarism in journalism a lot, but what about plagiarism in grant applications for education funds? One Nevada organization copied and pasted its “research” from a Brookings Institution report, ...

• Happy Hannukah, everyone. For your pleasure: “Texas Gov. Rick Perry may not be dancing with rabbis this Hanukkah season, but the Lone Star State’s outgoing chief is still looking to find common ground with the Chosen,” reports CNN. “Perry released a ...

• Our fair city is in the running to host the Olympics in 2024, and not everyone is excited about it. “The average pricetag for hosting a Summer Olympics is $15 billion,” according to the No Boston Olympics group. “That’s more than what the Commonwealth of ...