The “hacktivist” group Anonymous appeared to have struck again when a video released this morning claimed they are planning to take down Facebook in November. Coming off of a busy summer than included hacks on Sony’s Playstation network and the Syrian Ministry of Defense, it seemed that Anonymous had set their sites on a new, larger network. However, this was not quite the case.

The Today show can usually be counted on for at least one amusing, internet ready clip and this morning the show did not disappoint. During a segment on water animals, a scarlet ibis (an type of red, exotic bird for those of you not acquainted with Ornithology) took flight and found a perch on Matt Lauer’s head.

If any of you follow the Huffington Post on Twitter, you might have noticed their tendency towards unique, attention grabbing headlines. You may have also noticed that sometimes it’s hard to find anything besides HuffPo on your Twitter feed. HuffPo is referred to as the great aggregator for a reason. They certainly have a knack for finding some fascinating human interest pieces.

Lately, I’ve really been feeling like we’ve been lacking in light, controversial fare to discuss on programs like the Today show and The View. Like, I know there’s all this drama going on in Somalia and something has been happening with debt and ceilings but it’s all just so… depressing. I can’t even think about it. You know what has really getting to me? This Huffington Post article I read about Sugar Babies.

If any of you follow the Huffington Post on Twitter, you might have noticed their tendency towards unique, attention grabbing headlines. You may have also noticed that sometimes it’s hard to find anything besides HuffPo on your Twitter feed. HuffPo is referred to as the great aggregator for a reason. But they certainly have a knack for finding some fascinating human interest pieces. Some may call it link bait.

The punches just keep rolling in with this debt ceiling crisis… A recent segment on CNN’s The Situation Room revealed that some of the Republican hardliners in the debt discussions have personal finance problems that rival those afflicting the country. CNN’s Brian Todd revealed that Senator Mike Lee of Utah, Congressman Joe Walsh of Illinois, Congressman Tim Griffin of Arkansas and Congressman Kevin Yoder of Kansas are all in financial situations that distinctly do not reflect their policies.

Oh yes they did. Twitter user @wiggsd (Energy tech enthusiast and mediocre golfer!) tweeted at the White House that “this WH correspondence briefing isn’t nearly as entertaining as yesterday’s”. The White House apparently agreed with him enough to respond with the tweet seen to the left, in which whoever is controlling the official White House twitter agreed that fiscal policy can be dull before sharing the 1987 musical triumph that is Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”.

With this iconic image comes quite a tale. As the news anchors in the local California Fox News 40 studio said, “it looked like a joke, but really there is a lot more to this story.” Brianna Mooney was just hanging out and minding her own business when she heard Jared Medeiros screaming. She looked out her window and witnessed first hand the image of a man’s flailing legs sticking out from a manhole. “I was like… What?” she told Fox news anchor Tihanna McCleese.

The Washington Post recently ran a story on the latest in Obama’s healthcare reform. Soon almost all health insurance plans might be required to offer patients free coverage of prescription birth control, breast pump rentals, counseling for domestic violence and annual wellness exams and HIV tests.

Have you ever heard of sulfur hexafluoride? I hadn’t until I watched the clip below, but I’d now really like to get my hands on some. The clip features a science segment on local 9News in Denver, Colorado. Steve Spangler, science guru, uses his originally titled Steve Spangler Science show to demonstrate to the Denver anchors all the very fun things they should be doing with sulfur hexafluoride, a very heavy gas.

On Friday at midnight, Mediaite will be adopting the Disqus commenting system that the other Abrams Media sites use.

Despite what many may think about the political leanings of those that work in the media, accepted journalistic standards are to try to adopt a neutral stance in sharing the news and keep political leanings ambiguous. So, when lists of campaign donors are published and it is revealed that media figures have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for politicians, things get a little complicated.

The New York Times’ Business Section reported that as the President of WNET, Neal Shapiro recently started a new venture called “Metro Focus”. WNET is a New York based public broadcasting company and Metro Focus will be their latest local news venture.

Today in insanity… A woman the Huffington Post refers to as the “Tacoma mall shooter bride” told ABC Tacoma’s Tracy Vedder that after she saw her now husband, Dominick Maldonado on TV for shooting seven people, she “felt madly in love with him”.

Women’s Wear Daily recently ran a feature on the launch of the Gilt Groupe’s latest venture: an “online e-commerce slash-editorial venture for foodies”. It’s called Gilt Taste and they just hired Ruth Reichl as their editor in chief. This begs the question; are these bold faced names predicting the future? Is e-commerce going to be the next publishing success?

Although it may seem like Bristol Palin has been talking about losing her virginity to Levi Johnston doing publicity for her new book forever, she isn’t quite done yet. However, after this interview with Barbara Walters and the ladies of the View, Palin might be considering heading back to Alaska because things are really starting to get awkward.

Guess we’re going to have to update the Power Grid, because Elizabeth Smart is going to be joining ABC’s Good Morning America as a contributor for missing-persons cases.

Zut alors! It seems like the French media is buzzing with new information on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn trial today. Strauss-Kahn (or DSK) is being accused of attempted rape and sexual assault by a maid who worked at the Sofitel Hotel in midtown Manhattan, but has just been released from house arrest following questions about his accuser’s credibility.

This appears to be the end of the mirror shot. Myspace has just been sold to Specific Media, an advertising network for $35 million. $35 million doesn’t sound too bad until you remember that News Corp. purchased the company for $580 million in 2005. Ouch.

In honor of Princess Diana’s would-be 50th birthday (if not for, you know, her death) Tina Brown wrote an article called, “Diana at 50: Chilling with the Middletons. Tweeting from Davos. And still the people’s princess. If not for that tragic night, what her life might look like now.” And yeah, that about sums it up.

Yesterday while I was writing up a sensationalistic story about a cow’s bold break for freedom, it struck me that while most of you associate things like lemonade, barbecues and watermelon with summer, journalists associate a very specific type of story with the summer time.

Ah, sweet summer… A time for lazy days, hammocks, lemonade and slow news. Speaking of that last one, The Daily Mail just ran a story about a Devon, U.K. bullock that fell 15 feet onto a beach, survived and paddled out into the ocean to join a group of surfers: holy cow!

Think that you’re doing everything in your power to stop Michele Bachmann from becoming president? Well, by just reading this, you’re kind of helping her out. The Washington Post reports on and coins the phrase “money-blurt” to explain the phenomena surrounding political candidates in our present media world.

I spent a lot of time reading through Sarah Palin‘s pretty much completely uninteresting emails last week. Yes, there were some amusing moments, but overall, they proved that she was running a functional government, the emails of which don’t make for particularly spicy reading. One thing that stood out to me was the email she wrote before the birth of her son Trig.

Sarah Palin’s emails haven’t revealed much, but have produced some fascinating gems of information.