Some people have written in wondering what happened to the post about Ron Burkle non-dating Miley Cyrus aka Hannah Montana. So here’s what happened. I thought it was funny, fair enough, as a joke about Ron Burkle, who, as you may know, has been the subject of some ribbing on this blog in the past and will probably continue to be a target as one of Larry’s rich playboy pals. And the idea of him non-dating Miley Cyrus seemed funny to me. And we didn’t get any serious complaints or anything. In fact most people seemed to get the joke.

However, after I put up the item I saw what a few people were doing to the photo of Miley with the PhotoCrank application (imagine something really sick and inappropriate, then double it) and I saw what people were saying about Miley in the comment strings and I realized that in my attempt to make a joke about rich playboy billionaires with back fat I’d also created an opportunity for people to say some nasty things about a perfectly nice young woman — and the things they were doing, um, frankly made me kind of sick. Yes, Virginia, even FSJ has a conscience sometimes. One policy of the blog is we don’t shoot civilians.

There was no way to stop the stuff without shutting off PhotoCrank and shutting of comments and I’d rather leave things running free. So I took down the item. It’s just not worth it.

Apologies to anyone who saw the gross photos before they came down; and apologies to those who want the item to be put back up, because it ain’t coming back. I should have anticipated this kind of thing and avoided it from the start. But I didn’t. I’m an asshole. I made a mistake. I’m sorry. Peace out. Happy New Year. Don’t be hatin. Stop the war.

(This explanation originally appeared as a comment in the comment string on the “Bill Gates as pope” item but I’m afraid people won’t see it there so I’ve put it here as a full-fledged item.)