Amid all the LOL’s we’re having about Thomas Friedman’s house, let’s not forget he also advocated t*rrorism against Palestinians.

What can I say? LOL.

LOL, “Hot, Flat and Crowded.”

By the way, LOL, does Glenn Greenwald update his columns very much?

UPDATE I: Still LOL’ing about how Greenwald never updates his columns.

UPDATE II: Man, maybe Greenwald should consider adding updates to his columns sometimes.

UPDATE III: LOL, like if a reader chimes in on something Greenwald has written, he could incorporate his response into his column, as an update. Too crazy?

UPDATE IV: Naw, he should try it.

MNFTIU reader SD raises an important — AND UNSETTLING — point about that photo of Thomas Friedman’s house . . .

. . . (L)ess concerning than the size of Freidman’s house is the fact that nothing on his property casts a shadow. LOL, how many house servants does it take to eliminate all shadows on your property?

Hmm . . . any ideas, guys? Are the Friedmans employing an army of shadow-scrubbers? It makes sense to me. After all, Mr. Friedman is famous for his sunny outlook . . . he’s always looking on the bright side of life/invasions . . . it would be embarrassing if someone came to his house and noticed a bunch of shadows lying around . . . unseemly . . .

A long-time MNFTIU reader writes to say he/she once worked a cocktail party at Thomas Friedman’s house.

Take it away:

. . . Upon entering the house, I noticed that the ceilings were very high — maybe 12-14 feet or even more. The interior was immaculate — I guessed that it had been cleaned by a professional team from top to bottom that very day, and the ceilings were so high that you would probably need stepladders to do it so perfectly. The floorboards, the tasteful blue-gray paint job, the fixtures, molding, and every piece of furniture seemed ultra-new, with no wear and tear.

When I washed my hands upon visiting the bathroom, I managed to let a drop of water get out of the sink, at which point I felt guilty because I pretty much ruined the perfectness of the bathroom at that point. The gathering eventually grew to about 30-40 people, all dressed in moderately formal attire. About midway through the evening, someone started clinking their glass and asked Tom to speak, at which point Thomas Friedman stood up and welcomed everyone to his home, at which point I realized that I was totally in Tom Friedman’s house.

I did not hear what he said, because that was the designated time for me and the other helpers to go to the kitchen and eat dinner prepared by his Ukrainian servant. The kitchen was huge, just like every other room in his house. I talked to the Ukrainian woman and Tom Friedman’s wife too, who was super nice and apparently is a schoolteacher. The Ukrainian woman is their full-time help, and I’m pretty sure they had another servant too.

The thing that blew me away was not merely the scale and sheer richness of their home — which was impressive; it was the fact that it was the home of a journalist-writer-pundit. Being an avid consumer of mainstream punditry, I always naively envision people like Tom Friedman living in a comfortable yet modest apartment on West End Avenue, with a couple of comfortable rooms and a big office somewhere with papers and books everywhere.

This was quite the opposite — a total showpiece, with every detail in perfect order. It finally dawned on me that Tom Friedman must sell so many books that he is the equivalent of Madonna in terms of sales, which is how he can afford his humongous crib. That, plus he really really likes to impress his guests with his house.

Have any other readers been in Thomas Friedman’s house? Send me your memories/impressions . . . anonymity guaranteed . . .

Have any MNFTIU readers been inside Thomas Friedman’s moustache? Send your memories/impressions/sensations/celebrations . . . anonymity guaranteed . . .

Check it out!

You can explore the property here.

Good ol’ Matt Taibbi wrote a review of Thomas Friedman’s new book, “Hot, Flat and Crowded.”

I made the accompanying illustration:

A word of explanation:

I’m gonna stop making the GYWO cartoon on Inauguration Day. Rolling Stone has already published my final comic for them. (It’s in the current issue, with Bush weeping on the cover. Pick up a copy: COLLECTOR’S ITEM.)

My weekly newspaper clients (all 1,000 of them, LOL) will print their final GYWO comic late next week. I’ll get those online eventually.

THAT LEAVES THE GYWO VIDEOS. The videos have been on hiatus for a few months. I would be happy to continue making ’em in the new year, but it all depends on whether 236.com (web site who commissioned/produced them) wants more.

Let us all hope they do, because I think it would be fun to make videos about all the exciting events in today’s world!

For instance, did you know Israel is about to defeat Hamas once and for all, thereby ending terror in Gaza? IT WOULD BE SO FUN TO MAKE A VIDEO ABOUT THAT!!!

Wow, the memories are really flowing, huh? LOL.

Here’s a nice article about the big GYWO book that google alerts found for me. (Google alerts is like TIVO for the internet.)

And you know what? Rees was right like, 95% of the time (One thing he got wrong was when one of his characters, shocked that eight weeks of bombing Afghanistan had yet to kill bin Laden, said that U.S. bombing raids must be like the elixir of eternal life, and that Saddam Hussein would therefore live to be 400-years-old). He was certainly more right more often than, say, The New York Times or NBC News or Newsweek or Time or Bob Woodward, and therefore deserves the right to put “definitive account” on his book more than just about anyone else who consistently commented on the war.

YESSS!!! Thanks to J. Caleb Mozzocco for writing such an in-depth review of the book. I trust you will all join me in buying fifty copies???

Once I gave a GYWO lecture in West Virginia … in a huge assembly hall at a college … the hall was approximately 10% full … which made me feel approximately 10 inches tall … oh well, LOL …

LOL, just look at that body language! A man fully comfortable with himself, his career, and his public-speaking abilities …

MEMORIES.

(Photo credit: Zak Richards)

Ladies and gentlemen, SHOP IS CLOSED. The lights are dimmed, the floors are mopped, and the wines are all sleeping in their cute little bottles for the night.

As for me? I’m chillin’! (Like that special refrigerator I was talking about, see below.)

My wife is enjoying a glass of “Zweigelt,” whatever the heck that is. She’s saying something about how it’s some kind of red grape from Austria, and I’m like, “Whatever, does it go with cake?”

Seriously, it was really fun running the wine shop. Thanks to all the customers who came in and bought wine.

And thanks to the owners of the wine shop!!! (Not sure if they want to be publicized as associating with good ol’ mnftiu.cc; I’ll find out and if they’re OK with it, I’ll post the store information and you guys can bum-rush it and buy fifty cases of wine.)

Oh, one more thing? To all the people who prank-called the shop today, saying “MERLOT IS FOR GIRLS,” or “CAN YOU RECOMMEND A CHAB-LISS?” and then hanging up? First of all, I’m a Merlot thug for life, I don’t care what you think because you’re obviously IGNORANT about wine. Second of all, PLAYTIME IS OVER. The shop owners are back tomorrow and if people keep burning up their phone line, trying to get one over on ol’ David Rees, I might get in trouble. So please make fun of me on email, not on the phone.

Many thanks to all, and to all a good wine.

Last loaf of my fresh bread is about to pop out of the oven . . . come and get it if you want it . . . wine store livin’ . . .

True life tales of wine . . . we don’t stop . . .