Back in 2000, Google's New York outpost consisted of one salesperson working out of a Starbucks on 86th Street. Today, the company announced that it closed the deal to buy an eighteen-story office building at 111 Eighth Avenue, otherwise known as Googleplex East, for $1.9 billion, paid in cash. Taxes on the sale will net $7 million for the state and $46,462,500 for New York City, as well as over a billion dollars in profit for the sellers, Jamestown, New York State Common Retirement Fund and Taconic Partners. Bonus backlash, the real estate edition? The 2,000 Google employees (Facebook prefers to think of them as future hires) working in the 550,000-square-foot space the company currently occupies work in both sales and engineering. What justifies this kind of deal in a down economy? Google has plenty of cash to burn, but the appeal probably lies in the fiber-optic cables transmitting high-speed data that lie under the former Port Authority building, primarily the "fiber highway" along Eighth Avenue/Hudson Street and Ninth Avenue that's considered one of the most vital connection points to the world's telecommunications networks. It's the same reason that high-tech companies like Verizon, Sprint, and Level 3 Communications, the company that streams Netflix to your laptop, also have offices in the building — and can probably expect a rent hike from their new landlord.

Google's Christmas Gift to NYC Real Estate: $1.9 Billion in Cash [Curbed]
Investing In New York [Official Google Blog]

Jon Stewart was revisiting some ancient history, his 2004 spat with CNN’s Tucker Carlson, who had accused Stewart of evading responsibility by hiding behind a pose that he was “just a comedian” — something Stewart had never said. Six years later, the larger point still bugged him. “What’s been misconstrued there is the idea that I’m saying I’m just a comedian,” he told me. “I’m not saying I’m just a comedian. I’m a —" That’s when our food arrived. And in a display of attention deficit or plain old bad reporting, I never went back and made Stewart specify just what he thinks he is these days.

Name: Marcus Samuelsson
Age: 40
Neighborhood: Harlem
Occupation: Chef, Restaurant Owner, Cookbook Author

Who's your favorite New Yorker, living or dead, real or fictional?
Somebody who inspires me a lot and I've gotten to know over the course of opening Red Rooster is filmmaker Albert Maysles. He's been in the creative field all his life, he tells amazing, multifaceted stories about people, and he is open to sharing his knowledge for Harlem.

What's the best meal you've eaten in New York?
Back when I didn't own my own suit, I borrowed a jacket and tie from one of the front waiters at Aquavit and ate at Gray Kunz's Lespinasse. I had no reference point for Southeast Asian flavors in such an elegant setting before then.

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day in your job?
With Red Rooster Harlem now open, it's all about cooking and daily growth — whether it's working with Andrea on how to improve the previous night's dinner service, or coaching our cooks and waitstaff.

That Chinese professor video was right. The United States is doomed to be a footnote in history. A Chinese footnote! Manufactured in China! Their iPad factories employ more people than the entire population of Detroit. Their children's probably fake test scores demolish our children's definitely fake test scores. And now it appears they're also saddling us with a Pig Gap to go along with our trade deficit. Intel was first alerted to this by Business Insider's Henry Blodget, who tweeted, "There are 446 million pigs in China ... [That's 7X the US, which has the next-most-pigs]." Ugh, who wants to be the country with the next-most-pigs? World historical losers, that's who. Blodget's tweet led us to this slideshow listing seventeen superlatives about our communist rival, another standout from the blog's "Facts That Will Blow Your Mind" series. There we learned that "China has more pigs than the next 43 pork producing countries combined." Truly. Devastating. Pigs are the best! Here we are, in New York City's Golden Age of Pork, and China's supply puts ours to shame. Actually, how good does a roast pork dumpling sound right now? Dammit, China! Must you always win?

17 Facts About China That Will Blow Your Mind [Business Insider]
Related: Everything But the Oink [NYM]

Under intense pressure from the media, 9/11 first responders, and fellow Republican politicians, Senator Tom Coburn has apparently backed off pretty much the least popular political stand imaginable — blocking the passage of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act over concerns about its funding and the process by which it was ushered through the Senate. After negotiations with senators Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Harry Reid today, Coburn has agreed not to stall the bill in exchange for various tweaks. Instead of $6.2 billion over ten years, the bill was cut to $4.2 billion and, according to Coburn, now "doesn't allow double-dipping" or "exorbitant lawyer fees." The legislation is now expected to pass both the House and Senate by the end of the day. What's going to be interesting is seeing how many Republican senators suddenly decide that they support the bill after all, after filibustering it two weeks ago.

EXCLUSIVE: Senate Strikes Deal on 9/11 First Responders Bill [ABC News]

Update: Never mind about that last point — the Senate just passed the bill on a voice vote, meaning no actual vote tally was taken.

Nearly two months ago, President Obama told a blogger that his position on gay marriage — he publicly supports only civil unions — was something that he was "wrestling" with. He even strongly hinted that he would reverse his stance in the future. Of course, since Obama was actually for gay marriage all the way back in 1996, until he ostensibly wasn't, and since he opposed Prop. 8 and is for gay equality in every other aspect, it's fairly obvious that his position right now is that he supports gay marriage. But, from the looks of a new interview with the Advocate, Obama is going to just keep pretending he has yet to be converted, even as he teases an impending announcement of such a conversion.

Bank of America might be on edge about what would happen if BrianMoynihanSucks.com gets into the wrong hands, but they're not afraid to look like the bad guy. According to a federal lawsuit, Bank of America not only wrongfully foreclosed on Mimi Ash's ski home, but they also broke in, changed the locks, and threw out all her possessions, including a wooden box inscribed with the words Together Forever that held the ashes of her late husband, Robert. Alan Jaffa, chief executive of a company that inspects foreclosed properties, admits that mistakes can happen, telling the Times, “There is a stigma that we go in, kick the door in and throw grandma out head first and board up the windows." Turns out, it's just grandma's ashes. It's not just Bank of America; Chase Bank has also been named in similar lawsuits. The paper has plenty of examples of the fundamentally flawed foreclosure process, where banks locked homeowners out illegally without proper notification, in some cases where they were up-to-date on their mortgage. Take Alan Schroit’s second home in Galveston, Texas, for example. Court papers allege that even though his mortgage was paid off, Bank of America changed the locks and shut off the power, which caused the 75 pounds of salmon and halibut in his freezer to spoil, spreading "reeking melt water" through the property.

Just as the story about their trainer intentionally tripping an opposing player during a game was dying down, the Jets now have another distraction to deal with as they head toward the playoffs. Deadspin has come across some foot-fetish videos that were originally posted on YouTube from the user "ihaveprettyfeet" and may feature coach Rex Ryan's wife, Michelle. The evidence?

• The woman looks exactly like Michelle.
• An off-screen voice in one of the videos — "You mind if I touch them? ... Can I smell 'em?" — sounds like Rex Ryan.

And a lot of other stuff!

Bank of America isn't waiting around for the media to confirm whether or not it's the target of WikiLeaks's next leak. The company has been trying to hoover up negative domain names about its CEO, Brian Moynihan, registering BrianMoynihanBlows.com, BrianMoynihanSucks.com, BrianTMoynihanBlows.com, and BrianTMoynihanSucks.com — in some case, the .net and .org versions as well, all in the last month. Oh, Bank of America, you vastly underestimate the Internet's creativity. In addition to giving the hacktivists a handy "To Hack" list, you've also shown your hand. What exactly does Bank of America think is in these documents, which WikiLeaks said will expose “flagrant violations” and “unethical practices," that would make the public want to launch websites about their leader sucking and blowing? Maybe the CIA's WikiLeaks Task Force (known around headquarters by its initials) has some idea.