Time was, prostitutes had a moral code: You don't kiss and tell. But the recent glut of hookers and half-hookers who have bartered their stories of bedding famous men for money and fame — see Ashley Dupré, the sundry mistresses of Tiger Woods, and most recently Jenny Thompson, who claims footballer Wayne Rooney paid her thousands of pounds a night for sex — could have devastating consequences for the oldest profession. Economist Chris Dillow takes this tale to its logical conclusion:

Fearing that prostitutes might sell their stories, men will tend — at the margin to avoid them. This will reduce demand even for good prostitutes, who in turn might withdraw from prostitution into near-substitute professions such as acting, modelling or PR.

And of course, one could argue this has already happened.

Rooney: norms, contracts and lemons [Stumbling and Mumbling via CNBC]

For the past couple of years, online forums for Islamic extremists have been hacked around 9/11. Would you believe that the U.S. and its allies are thought (and in some cases admit) to be involved? The rationale has always been that September 11 marks a prime opportunity for jihadists to propagandize and recruit. But there's been disagreement over whether the intelligence lost (now that everyone knows the U.S. is peeking in) is worth shutting down the recruiting holiday. Jihadism scholar Thomas Hegghammer, who also suspects the Western governments are behind the hacks, says the strategy may weigh in the West's favor. Pervasive paranoia after the annual cyber attacks have weakened online forums as a recruitment platform. So the U.S. can't spy on jihadists, but there are fewer jihadists to spy on. Is no one worried that they are just recruiting offline and leading with the sentence: Did you know those infidels tried to hack our site?

This Sept. 11, Will Terror Sites Get Hacked Again? [Wired]

Pirates. In the spring of 2009, we followed their every exploit on the high seas with obsessive trepidation. Which ship did they capture today? Why are they doing this? And then we got distracted by something else, swine flu probably, and forgot about them entirely. Which is too bad, because the one good thing about the pirates is that it made us feel great when we defeated them, as when that team of snipers saved Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips. And in these Dark Times we live in, some pirate vanquishing would be kind of a nice pick-me-up, wouldn't it? Luckily for us ... it just happened.

Yesterday, Governor Paterson signed the Dignity for All Students Act, which aims to protect students from bullying by requiring public schools to implement various guidelines and training programs. But at the bill's signing, he reminded everyone that, when talking is ineffective, there's another way people can shut up their tormentors. "As one of the first legally blind students that was allowed into public school," he said according to the Post, "I was a victim of that [bullying] many times."

"One day I got so upset, I took a metal lunch box ... walked right into a classroom, right past the teacher who refused to do anything about it and hit this kid in the face," he said.

His admission prompted wild cheers from the anti-bullying advocates and educators that crowded the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in Chelsea to see the bill become law.

That's awesome. "Yeah! yeah! Get him! Smash their faces in! Wait, which side are we on, again?"

The day I bashed a bully: gov [NYP]

Until now, the Beltway-insider publication Politico has steered clear of opinion, and instead heaped all its efforts on Washington micro-scoops and speedy analysis. But that will change now that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and Atlantic columnist Michael Kinsley are set to begin columns on October 1. The Times' Jeremy Peters reports that the columns will begin as weekly features, but in the future may take the form of back-and-forth feedback on important political events like the State of the Union. "Lord knows, there is enough noise and nonsense out there," said Politico head honcho Jim VandeHei. "What these guys bring is intellectual muscle and track records of challenging the conventional wisdom."

Scarborough and Kinsley Will Write for Politico [NYT]

President Obama might not know how to get his new economic package passed or save his party from the midterm massacre. But he does know how to be a good dad. At the prospect that his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, might leave to run for mayor of Chicago, Obama used a nuanced series of parenting tactics to convince him to wait until after the elections. “I think he would be an excellent mayor. He is an excellent chief of staff,” Obama told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “[T]he one thing I've always been impressed with about Rahm is that when he has a job to do, he focuses on the job in front of him. And so my expectation is, he'd make a decision after these midterm elections. He knows that we've got a lot of work to do. I think he’d be a terrific mayor.” See, first, Obama starts with the confidence booster. Your mother and I always knew you could do it, Rahm. You've worked hard, son. You deserve it. Then he follows with some subliminal manipulation.