Marissa Mayer is giving everyone at Yahoo an iPhone 5, reports Nicholas Carlson:

New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer just sent an email to all of Yahoo's full time and part time employees in the US, promising them a new Apple, Samsung, Nokia, or HTC smartphone.

"People are happy," says a source at the company.

But here's a buried lede:

Yahoo is also going to discontinue IT support for Blackberry phones.

The first momentary, blurting sucking noise from the drain around which RIM circles.

At election time in Massachusetts every voter gets a copy of the state produced 'Information Guide.' Inside this guide, with the usual pros and cons, are URLs for the folks leading the support or opposition. An interested voter clicked on the VoteNoOnQuestion3.org website, the listed opposition to a current medical marijuana initiative, only to discover THEY FORGOT TO REGISTER IT.

Now a parody site with a ton of fake "facts" about marijuana lives in its place. Did you know that "No marijuana smoker has ever been successful?"

It’s a well known fact that smoking marijuana can lead to a dependency on Twinkies. If medical marijuana were legalized in Massachusetts, the increase in Twinkie consumption could possibly lead to shortages of Twinkies across the Bay State...

Here's a rather magnificent flyover of this year's Burning Man's Black Rock City. Look closely and you'll see our glorious Liminal Labs camp, just off 6 O'Clock and Rod's Road.

BURNING MAN FPV - Black Rock City Aerial Tour 2012 (Thanks, Nicola!)

Mark Pilkington, who is documenting for Boing Boing his strange trip through the mythic landscape of the American Southwest, picked up this useful manual at an army surplus store in Albuquerque, New Mexico. You too can master the "butt stroke." See more pages over at Mark's blog: "Civil Disturbances (1975)"

The American Library Association has decried Hachette's decision to increase the cost of library ebooks by 220 percent. Hachette is the same publisher that has demanded that authors it publishes lean on Tor books to reinstate DRM on their books. Way to handle the 21st century, folks.

"After these tentative steps forward, we were stunned to learn that Hachette plans to more than double triple its prices starting October 1. Now we must ask, “With friends like these …’

"We are weary of faltering half steps and even more so of publishers that refuse to sell ebook titles to libraries at all. Today I have asked the ALA’s Digital Content and Libraries Working Group to develop more aggressive strategies and approaches for the nation’s library community to meet these challenges.

"Libraries must have the ability to purchase a wide range of digital content at a fair price so that all readers have full access to our world’s creative and cultural resources, especially the many millions who depend on libraries as their only source of reading material.”

This Just In: ALA Decries Hachette’s 220% Library Ebook Price Increase (Thanks, Aaron!)

Origin unknown: a brochure attributing the extinction of dinosaurs to their rampant homosexuality. Quite possibly a parody.

(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excellent titles. I hope you enjoy them! (Read all the Great Graphic Novel essays here.) -- Mark

The Collected Sam and Max: Surfin' the Highway by Steve Purcell

The Collected Sam and Max is a touching Holocaust narrative in which Purcell depicts the Jews as Sam the dog, and the Germans as a rabbit-esque creature named Max. Just kidding. It’s about a vigilante animal duo who excel at violence and friendship.

This pair of anthropomorphic “freelance police” have been running amok in our culture for twenty-five years now, hijacking a slew of different media formats for the enjoyment of mankind. Many fans were first introduced to the twosome by way of LucasArts’ 1993 point-and-click PC game, Sam and Max Hit the Road, which is widely considered one of the greatest things to come out of the golden age of interactive adventure. Four years later they earned an even bigger following by starring in their own Saturday morning cartoon. But anyone wishing to experience the essence of Sam and Max must look to their comic book roots because their early appearances are pure Purcell -- Steve that is, and thanks to the magic of independent publishing he had total creative freedom.

Readers of this edition will find that the events are a bit less cohesive than say, the Watchmen series. This collection of stories not only comes from different issues, it also spans five different publishers, not counting a dozen strips that were created for the LucasArts newsletter.

At the ADL blog, a rundown of Anti-Muslim Christian Activists linked to the “Innocence of Muslims” film. One of them, anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller associate Joseph Nas­ralla, stars in the YouTube video above.

It's all too murky for me, still, to accept the story at face value. Laura Rozen has been a good source of analysis on Twitter; a blog post from her analyzing the loose threads is here.

Also: Nakoula Basseley Nakoula aka "Sam Bacile" aka was taken into custody today by federal authorities. The issue at hand may be whether the ex-con violated terms of parole by using a computer in the production of the YouTube video. In searing Los Angeles heat, Nakoula exited his home voluntarily, wearing a hat, sunglasses, a towel around his face, and a heavy winter coat. The LA Times reports that he and others associated with "Innocence" are receiving death threats.

The "Courageous Christians United" website today displays a statement distancing itself from Steve Klein, who has been identified as having been involved in the video's production.

Meanwhile, the protests have spread to... Australia.

Here's Boing Boing's archive of posts related to this wacky, still-evolving story.

[Video Link, via shironekoshiro].

Sean from Melbourne sez, "This, believe it or not, is a citrus fruit that I have dubbed Cthulhu lemon. Ok, we did the eyes. But the tentacles at the bottom are natural."

Cthulhu lemon

Update: Xeni has also been touched by his lemony, noodly, horrible, horrible appendage. She points out that nonbelievers call this Buddha's Hand Citron.