The Rob Ford Crackstarter—our crowdfunding campaign to raise enough money to purchase and publish a video of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine—has passed $90,000 on its way to our goal of $200,000. And we're adding new perks! (None of them are crack.)

As you may recall, last week we took a trip to the welcoming, livable city of Toronto to view a video of Ford—who has a long and illustrious history of erratic behavior and inscrutably racist statements—smoking crack cocaine. We returned empty-handed, sadly, because the owner of the tape wanted more money than Gawker could offer. So we've thrown open the bidding to the miracle of crowdfunding. Since Friday afternoon, we've raised nearly half the money. (We don't get any of it unless and until we hit the $200,000 goal.)

Ford, for his part, was in hiding over the long holiday weekend in Canada (happy belated Victoria Day!) and emerged this morning to attend a Toronto city council meeting. Despite the fact that his crack habit is basically the only thing Canadians have been talking about for the past four days—and despite the fact that his aides leaked news this morning that he would forcefully deny ever having been taped smoking crack—he was silent on the issue. Who knows what he's thinking. Here's a picture of him, from Twitter, hanging out with a Toronto supporter last night. Looking good.

Chatted it up with Rob Ford @tomayorford last night 😃 twitter.com/Kouklaaaa/stat… — koukla benzito (@Kouklaaaa) May 21, 2013

But it's becoming increasingly clear that Rob Ford is going to try to bear down and get through this whole "Rob Ford Smokes Crack Cocaine" issue, which is why we'd like to encourage everyone again to chip into the Crackstarter to settle it once and for all. (As we've pledged, if for some reason we raise the money but the deal goes south, we will donate it to a Canadian nonprofit that addresses substance abuse issues.)

Also! The good people at House of Anansi Press have reached out to offer everyone who donates $5 a free electronic copy of The Little Book of Rob Ford, by "Unknown Torontonian." It's a handy compendium of all the bizarre, stupid, racist shit that Ford has said over the years. And 100 lucky $25 contributors will receive a hard copy of the book (offer only valid in Canada). You should follow House of Anansi on Twitter at @houseofanansi or on Facebook here.

So go here to contribute to the Crackstarter and get yourself a book of all Rob Ford's stupid shit. Don't do crack.

(And if you think we're awful or this is stupid or don't care, please go here and support the Red Cross in its efforts to help the people of Oklahoma.)

[Image by Jim Cooke]