Michaele and Tareq Salahi, the country’s most infamous (alleged) party crashers, appeared on the “Today Show” with Matt Lauer this morning to defend their unexpected illustrious appearance at a White House state dinner (Obama’s first, in honor of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh).

Despite the White House’s claims to the contrary, the Salahis claim that they were invited to the dinner and that they are “saddened” by the less-than-flattering publicity they’ve been receiving.  It’s been reported that cameras were following Michaele around for Bravo’s up-and-coming “Real Housewives of D.C.” series, making this the second time in the past few months that wannabe reality TV stars have captured the country’s (negative) attention with a self-promotional stunt (OK, an alleged stunt) that would seem to lack any modicum of common sense or decency.

Why the Salahis didn’t choose to fashion a hand-crafted tinfoil balloon as transport to make a superior entrance to the dinner is up for debate, but in the meantime we’ll go ahead and honor them with a Fantasy T-Wearer Award today.  May they enjoy the “White House Party Crasher” T-shirt, above.

In this week’s installment of “shirts that make you go hmm…”

Hmm.  Well… here’s one scenario:

Wendy is an aspiring writer who’s noticed that Hollywood is going literary – literally.  With the runaway successes of “Harry Potter” and “Twilight,”  Wendy comes up with a plan: write a series of children’s books that will be so darn unique and successful that no studio executive can resist optioning her work.

Feeling that the teenage market is just a bit saturated and noting the crazy success of Pixar films, Wendy decides to go younger.  Problem: magicians, vampires and zombies are done, and kinda scary.  Monsters, well, that’s a broader area, and “Where the Wild Things Are” may be indicative of a new monster craze.  Problem 2: monsters are also scary, and frightening small children most likely won’t lead to a particularly lucrative film deal.

Wendy decides that her Monster will be cute, and taking a cue from “The Lion King” and other animated smash hits about esoteric animals, she decides to make him a wildebeest.  Then, to take the edge off his beastly monster-ness, she makes him plaid and humanizes her protagonist monster by arming him with a spork, rather than fangs or laser beams or a fleet of vicious pirhana.

As it turns out, Plaid Spork-Wielding Wildebeest is a really cute little anti-hero, even when he’s flinging sporks around.  After all, everyone wants to throw a spork now and again, especially at the DMV.  (Stay tuned for “Plaid Spork-Wielding Wildebeest Goes to the DMV,” available as soon as it’s written and illustrated.)

Or, maybe this design is an actual warning sign in Australia, land of groovy poisonous creatures and crocodiles bigger than a shark.

Hmm.

Some of you are no doubt out there taking advantage of Day-After-Thanksgiving sales and such.  (Hopefully you brought your football helmet…)

For those of you who chose to stay inside in pajamas and fuzzy robes, no worries – you can save in your slippers.  Today we’re doing free shipping on $75+ orders (use coupon code TGIF75 at checkout), and we always have great $9 tees to check out.

We’ll keep on trucking with holiday specials throughout the season, so if you missed today’s specials because you were busy elbowing your way through Friday crowds at the mall, no worries.  We’ll still be here to help out with that perfect holiday gift.

Happy (Black) Friday, everyone.  We’ll see you Monday.

…eat turkey.  Well, except for the one with the Presidential pardon.

President Obama may differ from his immediate predecessor on a variety of policy issues, but one they share is the singular pardon of a turkey for Thanksgiving.

Obama pardoned the lucky bird with these words: “There are certain days that remind me of why I ran for this office. And then there are moments like this where I pardon a turkey and send it to Disneyland.”

Indeed.

Whether or not former Alaska Governor, new book author and rumored 2012 Presidential candidate Sarah Palin will again pardon a turkey and/or take the “Going Rogue” book signing to a turkey farm is unknown.

There’s a common consensus among dog owners (or “guardians,” if you wish) that dogs are better people than we are most the time.  This holiday season, though, you can live up to that higher standard by showing mad love for your pet and helping homeless animals, all at the same time.

“Gifts that Give Back” is a program wherein CafePress will donate 10% of all Pet T’s, bowls and select (human) pet-related merchandise to the ASPCA.  The program runs through the end of the year, so if you want to wait until after Christmas to outfit your best friend (human or animal) in a T-shirt, no worries – you have time.

And don’t worry, cats can of course wear T-shirts too.  (If you’re brave enough to wrangle a cat into one, that is…)

Girl meets vampire boy, vampire boy leaves girl, girl meets wolf boy…  It’s kind of complicated but it’s the world of Twilight as Twi-hards know it.  And here at CafePress, the madness has ensued with some of our staff.  We’ve read all the books, discuss whether Team Edward or Team Jacob is better, play Twilight trivia, etc…

Check out the fun photos of CafePress Twihards below.

Twi-oween: The Cullen Vampire Baseball team makes Halloween a home run.

Twilight Game: A lighthearted game of Twilight trivia is the perfect way to spend lunch with fellow Twi-hards.

BK New Moon meal: The Cullen Baseball team shelves the uniforms to grab lunch at Burger King, to celebrate the launch of the BK New Moon meal (CafePress is featured on the Edward & Bella card!)

New Moon Movie release party: Some of us attended the midnight showing of “New Moon” on opening night that included a movie release party hosted by TwilightersAnonymous.

The Twilight Saga: New Moon movie: The CafePress team viewing of New Moon.

Everyone was moved by the story of interspecies star-crossed lovers.

UPDATE: Folks, please note that some of the designs that you’re finding as “still there” are simply thumbnails that haven’t yet churned out of our Marketplace.  If you click on them, you’ll most likely find that the products themselves are no longer available.  The thumbnails themselves will also disappear shortly thereafter.

Please understand that, given our size and the sheer number of people adding content to our site on a daily basis, you may run across a design that has been only recently pended.  If you refresh your browser and take a breather, in short order you’ll find that that design has been yanked by our team.

Thanks!

–

This morning we made the decision to remove all Psalms 109:8 designs from CafePress.

The public debate started with questioning if the design was simply intended to be criticism of the President or something much worse. The discourse was surprisingly civil online, given the heated nature of the topic. Given that, and the positions of groups like the ACLU and the Anti-Defamation League, we decided to let the dialogue play out publicly before making a final decision.

Last night we posted a poll on our blog, read through the emails we’ve received and weighed the nature of the calls we’ve received on the topic. In the process we also learned that many of the original designers of the Psalm 109:8 designs had already decided to remove them on their own.

General consensus has proven that the design does point to a broader interpretation of the Psalm and thus has been deemed inappropriate for sale at CafePress.

We try to create an atmosphere of self-expression. Many of the things we encounter are not black and white, but grey. When the dialogue is civil, we want to let the larger community work things out rather than making an uninformed ruling. The dialogue has played out and common sentiment has reached agreement – this merchandise is not appropriate.

Thank you all for your input.

UPDATE 11/20: Please see the updated Psalm 109:8 post.  Thanks, all, for your civil input on this heated topic.

Over the last 10 years, we at CafePress have become accustomed to the T-shirt being a springboard for people to express their views – including those that are political, religious and various combinations of the two.  The discussions that result from these designs can initiate healthy political dialogue or debate and, sometimes, strong criticism.

The past couple of days have illustrated this point rather clearly, as user-designed merchandise with “Pray for Obama – Psalm 109:8” has come to public attention.

When folks started talking about the Obama Psalm 109:8 merchandise, we weren’t particularly shocked to find that a T-shirt had caused heated political discourse.  What did catch our attention, though, were the folks claiming that Psalm 109:8 was being used to advocate Barack Obama’s assassination.

We take our Content Usage policy seriously here, and no content that advocates the harming of any human being is acceptable.  But is that what Psalm 109:8 is trying to convey in the context of a T-shirt?

Psalm 109:8 states: Let his days be few; Let another take his office.

To date we have treated these designs much in the same way we took the “No W” and “Impeach Bush” merchandise. But does it mean something more?

As the leaders in User Generated Commerce we strive to manage our content in a way that protects self-expression and free speech, while also making sure that we’re not allowing the promotion of violence.

Sometimes, though, iconography and words can take on new meaning over time – and this is often as a result of public discourse.  If we see that the overall public discourse has determined that the meaning of this use of Psalm 109:8 goes beyond it’s literal meaning, and is being construed as threatening to the President, we will revisit our decision to allow the designs.

We’d love for you to weigh in on the Psalm 109:8 designs:

To see how experts – including representatives from the ACLU and the Anti Defamation League – have weighed in on the subject, check out this article.

That’s the statistic for the number of women between 40-49 who are diagnosed with breast cancer.

So why is it on a T-shirt?  And why is the L.A. Times talking about it?

Turns out that the U.S. Preventative Task Force issued a new statement that advises women between the ages of 40-49 that they don’t really need mammograms.  This announcement prompted fierce debate over the issue, at which point “The Today Show” brought on their Chief Medical Editor to discuss it.

And it just so happens that CafePress Shopkeeper Kathleen Moore was watching this segment, and it got her pretty fired up.  Here’s what she said:

I was watching The Today Show this morning, and they were interviewing Dr. Nancy Snyderman about this new study that recommends doing away with routine mammograms for those under 50.  She said, “You may have to screen up to 1900 women in that between-the-ages-of-40-49 group to save one life — so it is pitting the American Cancer Society against some other academic groups.”  I found myself responding out loud to the TV “that 1 in 1900 is my sister!”  My sister was diagnosed with breast cancer thanks to an under-40 routine mammogram.  Then I started thinking about all those “1-in-1900s” — they’re all someone’s sister, or mother, or daughter, or wife.  We know that a mammogram catching something doesn’t necessarily save a patient’s life, but early detection gives you the best chance.

To me that cuts to the heart of the issue: when you start making public health decisions based on statistics instead of medical science, you lose sight of the point — to save and preserve life.  In cost-analysis terms, 1900 procedures for the benefit of one person may seem ludicrous, but to that one woman’s sister it means the world.

Kathleen started the 1 in 1900 shop to inspire her friends and family, and tells us she’s donating proceeds from the sales of the shirt to the American Cancer Society.

To put some perspective on the number: 1 in 1900 is 48 people at a sold-out Los Angeles Coliseum.  It’s 4,368 people in Manhattan.  It gives you 1/6 the lifetime odds of accidentally dying via firearm (that troubling statistic is one in 300 people), but about the same as your odds of dying in a year due to an accidental injury (1 in 1600).

It’s also of 657 of “The Today Show’s” 1.25M weekly viewers.

So: is that one person in 1900 enough of a reason to continue with early-detection mammograms?  While the debate continues around not only the necessity of the test itself but whether or not insurance companies will begin to deny coverage for under-50 mammograms given the new position of the government, we’ll go to the polls:

…but there is such a thing as a free sticker.

Actually, make that 3 stickers.

With “New Moon” hitting theaters on November 20th and all the great fan-created Twilight T-shirts and such we’ve been enjoying, it seemed only fitting to make crazed Team Edward-or-Jacob-ness accessible to everyone.

And so we bring you the New Moon Free Sticker Pack Extravaganza!  Just visit the site and choose how you roll (or in this case, who you run with), and use this code for redemption: CPNEWMOONGIFT2

Feel free to share that code around – tweet it, Facebook it, email it, shout it from the heavens.  Yep, there really is such a thing as a free sticker or three.