Punk me once, shame on you. Punk me twice...

I've always been one to admire April Fool's Day from afar.  I was never able to come up with anything clever enough to make a worthy prank, plus usually by the time I actually remember it's April Fool's Day, I'm driving home from work and it's pretty much done.

An old friend of mine pulled a great one last year, however.  He's kind of the adventurous type - I met him when my parents were still living in India and he ended up there as part of a big round-the-world trip he took on a bit of a lark. 

Anyway, last year he planted this story on his law blog that he had been hired as the official White House Law Blogger. I have no idea if that position actually exists, but it would be kind of awesome if it did.  Anyway, he got a bunch of his blogger friends in on the gag -- they chipped in with their comments about how they confirmed it with anonymous sources in various places. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both got taken, but the NYT ran the story without checking. The WSJ got a denial from the White House before posting. The NYT, after pulling down the post, then went on to  include it in an editorial about new media.

So it was kind of a big deal.  And also very funny, and embarrassing for the NYT.

But I guess some people never learn.

Because a year to the day after being totally punked in an April Fool's prank, the NYT has once again fallen victim to their own sloppy practices.

Eric tells it better than I could:  http://www.newyorkpersonalinjuryattorneyblog.com/2011/04/nyt-gets-punked-again.html

Who knew the Gray Lady was run by such a bunch of punks?