According to new Readers Digest poll, Noam Chomsky is the 20th most trusted person in America.

Michelle Obama ranks 19th. Tom Hanks tops the list, while Judge Judy ranks above all the justices of the Supreme Court. Chomsky ranks ahead of Madeline Albright and Anderson Cooper.

I know little about statistics so I can't judge the accuracy of the poll, which surveyed a supposedly representative sample of 1,009 Americans in January.

If it's true, then Americans have a great degree of trust in America's most prominent anarchist. In a new interview, Chomsky describes what anarchism is and why he believes in it:

Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics. Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy. It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified. It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them. Their authority is not self-justifying... it’s not at all the general image that you described — people running around the streets, you know, breaking store windows — but [anarcho-syndicalism] is a conception of a very organized society, but organized from below by direct participation at every level.

At 84, he's probably one one of the oldest guys on the Readers Digest list. But he's still chugging along. Chomsky recently lobbied Stephen Hawking to boycott an Israeli conference over its occupation of the Palestinian territories, and signed on to a public letter calling on the New York Times to rectify its biased coverage of Central America.

Barack Obama languishes in 65th place in the poll—one place behind Adam Sandler.

Years of talk-show appearances followed by a death threat, 15 years of "hiding" among Republican Party Animals, and now, an outing.

Pastor Ken knew that playing nice was no way to defeat Ref. 74, and now he gets to rub wussy evangelicals faces in it. From OneNewsNow:

[B]efore the 2012 presidential election, Hutcherson allowed new teammates...to take the lead in the charge to oppose Referendum 74.....the co-founder of Antioch Bible Church soon found out that they weren't operating out of the same playbook.

"Their intention was to be moderate, non-controversial," Hutcherson told OneNewsNow in an exclusive interview, pointing out that the National Organization for Marriage, Focus on the Family and Family Policy Institute's unbiblical strategy was a severe departure from the state's churches' aggressive campaign to stop same-sex marriage using the weight of family values and Scripture. He notes that the groups essentially told him and other local Christian leaders' that their message on marriage and social issues was too offensive.

"They did not want me involved basically in the top leadership, so I took a back seat and let them run with it," Hutcherson shared.

Hutch's final verdict:

"Until national pro-family organizations start acting more biblical and God-fearing...we will not win any more elections."

In lieu of supplying my own joke, I'll defer to the superior preexisting crack from OneNewsNow commenter Emelye Waldherr:

Indeed! The right wing evangelicals and other social conservatives should raise the volume and stridency of their attacks against the minorities they disapprove of. Look to the Family Research Council, Traditional Values Coalition, American Family Association (particularly Bryan Fischer) and other groups like them for a model you can follow to victory.

Keep fighting, Hutch!

If you have 10 minutes to spare and haven't seen this yet, I suggest you go read this profile. It outs a prolific Reddit troll, yes, but more importantly it explores the vague delineation between our online and IRL personalities—and why some people think posting candid photos sexualizing 14-year-old girls online is perfectly fine (because the internet is a magical place without rules or consequences!) but who fly into a holy rage when their compatriot's online anonymity is threatened.

Last Wednesday afternoon I called Michael Brutsch. He was at the office of the Texas financial services company where he works as a programmer and he was having a bad day. I had just told him, on Gchat, that I had uncovered his identity as the notorious internet troll Violentacrez (pronounced Violent-Acres).

"It's amazing how much you can sweat in a 60 degree office," he said with a nervous laugh.

Judging from his internet footprint, Brutsch, 49, has a lot to sweat over. If you are capable of being offended, Brutsch has almost certainly done something that would offend you, then did his best to rub your face in it. His speciality is distributing images of scantily-clad underage girls, but as Violentacrez he also issued an unending fountain of racism, porn, gore, misogyny, incest, and exotic abominations yet unnamed, all on the sprawling online community Reddit. At the time I called Brutsch, his latest project was moderating a new section of Reddit where users posted covert photos they had taken of women in public, usually close-ups of their asses or breasts, for a voyeuristic sexual thrill. It was called "Creepshots." Now Brutsch was the one feeling exposed and it didn't suit him very well.

Slog tipper Gale writes, "I hope this is funny to you..."

May the lazy-eyed Lord have mercy, Gale, for I thought that was hilarious.

The Stranger's most recent Loose Lips column featured this gossipy tidbit:

Another week, another white person trying and failing to make comedy out of the N-word. The latest offender/lesson-learner: Sharon Needles, winner of this year's RuPaul's Drag Race and Pride weekend headliner at Neumos's "Hey Tranny It's Tranny" show. While defending the comedic use of the semicontroversial "tranny," Needles pointed to many other much more offensive words, dropping some N-bombs that stunk up the joint like a nuclear-grade broccoli fart. Needles reportedly apologized.

As various internet explosions over the weekend made clear, this is not an isolated incident.

A young woman in Australia (and self-proclaimed "judgemental vegan bitch") takes to YouTube to rant about veganism and obesity. If only she'd included a pit bull, this would be the holy grail of Slog bait.

Thank you, Gawker.

Based solely on their photo!

Both celebrate birthdays this week. Which one is more important to you, and why?

Spoken to me while a piece was being edited: "I hate editors."

That's a nice story about racist redemption and all, Charles, but instead of expensive laser treatments—or threatening to douse his face with acid—maybe the reformed Nazi sympathizer simply should've invested in a bottle of Dermablend Pro?

Via the NYTimes:

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — An Islamist insurgent-run radio station in Somalia says it is awarding guns, bombs and books to three children in a Quran recital contest.

Andulus radio station is run by the al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militia.

The station announced Monday that the first prize winner in the contest received a rifle and $700, the second prize winner got a rifle and $500, and the third prize winner received two bombs.

All three children also received religious books.

Another group of religious radicals arming kids with weapons, *yawn.* But children's books, holy fuck! The possibilities!

Curtsies to Mother.

Posted by news intern Peter Johnson.

Plenty of people feel awkward about their dad's profession. You probably wouldn't brag about your dad's most recent trip to repossess someone's house, for example. Still, that's not as bad as being Muammar al-Qadaffi's son, Saif al-Islam (who was recently captured by Libyan rebels... and escaped. Oops.) One of Saif's former classmates at the London School of Economics penned a brief remembrance about hanging out with the dictator's spawn:

At the end of the school year Saif decided to host a party for the entire class. I was contemplating whether or not to go: would socializing with a dictator’s son someday come back to haunt me? My professor was going so I decided to attend. As we were dining on lobster, our drunken professor gave a toast. He started to mention how this course was great because of Saif. Saif looked visibly touched and waiting to hear more. But the professor paused and suddenly had nothing more to say, because, in truth, there was nothing more to add. Saif never spoke in class and there was nothing about him being in the course that made it any more special, except perhaps for the lobsters.

Well, the ill-begotten oil money ain't so bad, I guess. I bet all of his friends in elementary school were totally his friends for realsies.

There's a photo of someone's shoes followed by three getting-to-know you questions. The three questions are inappropriate for summer. Based on the shoes and the answers to the questions you are supposed to guess who the person is. GOOD LUCK!

The singer ("She scratched my boob really hard—there was a wolverine wound on my boob"):

• Timothy Rysdyke

The bass player and the woman in the crowd:

• TIMOthy Rysdyke

The rapper and the self-described bon vivant:

• timothy Rysdyke

The painter and the songstress of dog-related renown:

• timothy Rysdyke

The Canadian:

• TimOthy Rysdyke

* A NOTE ABOUT THE GAME: You won't actually need good luck, because all you have to do to cheat is scroll down because you know how when you permalink to individual posts the jump goes away? Yeah. The honest among you—and you know who you are—will halt your scrolling and guess and then proceed scrolling.