Mackey wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed on health care reform, because his company successfully switched all their employees to cheap, high-deductible plans, and he was pretty sure this solved the health care reform mess, no government help needed.

High-deductible health plans are great at making health care consumers more cost-conscious. They are also a pretty great way to make sure low-income people continue to accrue medical debt and choose not to receive basic medical care because it is too expensive!

So, whatever, business owner thinks he knows better than liberal government. Breaking: a CEO has conservative beliefs!

But this apparently really upset the rich hippies who shop at his grocery store for rich hippies. And upsetting rich hippies is totally bad-ass and cool, which is why hipster libertarian magazine Reason stuck Mackey on the cover of their January 2010 issue. Their interview, conducted by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch (and we should just disclose now that we personally love Nick and Matt and just about everyone we've ever met from Reason which publishes some really great stuff), is about how this rebel capitalist is playing by his own rules and ruffling a few feathers. Here is a line from the third graf: "It was as if a bomb had gone off in the arugula line." Matt, Nick, you are worldly men: are their lines for specific produce items at the grocery stores you frequent?

Anyway! He comes off as, basically, a guy who got into health food in the '70s and then parlayed that into a lucrative business selling "real food" to college educated well-off people. He has some talk about "conscious capitalism," which doesn't sound like "compassionate conservatism" so much as "regular capitalism with better PR." And he used to be a liberal but then he started making money and he read Atlas Shrugged and suddenly it all made sense! And he is a political independent! Except, obviously, that means he is a libertarian, which is, still, a wing of the Republican party, even if they pretend it isn't, because it's still primarily about not ever paying taxes for anything while feeling very high-minded about it.

And now we have the big New Yorker profile. By Nick Paumgarten, no less!

And Mackey is the older, hippier Dov Charney: creator of hipster/yuppie fetish objects who says his corporation can be a tool for good while busting unions and promising that the enlightened self-interest of one daddy-figure CEO is way more valuable for the worker than silly old "collective bargaining."

Mackey pays himself a dollar and pays his employees well. Charney compensates his garment workers really well. And their own success and beneficence has convinced them that the robber barons must not have been so bad, and the government is the true source of our misery.

But at least Charney advocates for immigration reform and gay rights when not touching employees semi-consensually. Mackey? He thinks he's a worldly liberal guy because he sold tofu and beer in the same Austin organic grocery store in 1980, because he enjoys hiking, because his wife is a fucking Sufi Mystic or some such complete horseshit.

But he is a global warming-denying (well he was just reading some book, see, and all he'll say, see, is that the scientific consensus is unclear) right-wing old businessman like any other, only worse, because his adolescent love affair with the Ayn Rand books that convince teenage boys that they're secretly the masters of the universe happened after he made his first million. Now he's qualified to say Keynes was "proven" wrong about everything, as the financial sector collapses under the weight of decades of Milton Friedman.

And he's out there op-edding against health care reform, and getting a shit-ton of press for doing so, because as long as everyone in America is his employee, they will get pretty ok coverage. Not great, mind you, but pretty ok.

The Era of the Cool Capitalist cannot end soon enough.

For full descriptions see here. We are shutting this voting down on Wednesday so be sure to click and click some more, immediately!

For those of you who don't know, Nine is based on a (barely remembered) Broadway musical of the same name which was in turn based on Fellini's classic 8 1/2. Daniel Day-Lewis stars as a director who doesn't know what his next film is about and the nine women in his life each get a big splashy number to talk about him and his movie. Maybe they should sing less about this movie and more about what makes a good movie, maybe then it could learn from its own mistakes.

1. Pay Attention to Accents: This is always a big problem in a movie where English-speaking actors play non-English-speakers but are using their mother tongue. Nine is set in Italy, so everyone is presumably speaking Italian, but they're really speaking English because Americans are too lazy to shell out $12.50 to read little yellow words across the bottom of the screen (which is the same reason that all the Na'vi seem to have learned English quite quickly in Avatar). Day-Lewis uses a passable but annoying Italian accent to convey that he is speaking Italian. Penelope Cruz Spanish-inflected English sounds enough like an Italian accent that it doesn't really change much, and Sophia Loren has the benefit of being an actual Italian. Nicole Kidman is speaking like a chipmunk who got too much Botox around the lips, and Marion Cotillard's character explains she is half-French and half-Italian, but she ends up sounding like a French woman trying to speak American English without an accent and failing which, well, she is.

The worst though is Judi Dench who does what any English actor playing a foreigner does in Hollywood movies and just speaks with her natural English accent. Movie producers think that American audiences are so dumb that they just need to hear any accent and if they hear a bunch of people using British accents, they'll just think all the characters are somehow vaguely foreign, which is good enough. Just wait for this to happen in earnest during The Last Station where all the characters are Russian but sound like an affected college student who is clinging to his British accent after a semester at Oxford.

Yes, movie people, we do care about the accents, especially when they're bad. Actually, what we really care about is consistency. Get everyone to sound Italian or British or American or whatever, just get them on the same page. This babbling brook of pronunciations ends up looking as jumbled as the menu at the International House of Pancakes when we're drunk at 3am.

2. Kate Hudson Has Been Needlessly Thrust upon Us: Really, what has Kate Hudson done for us lately? Aside from Almost Famous and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, she has never made a good movies, and at least one of those good ones is still a turkey. She does a surprisingly good job singing here, but other than that, she is completely miscast for the role of an American Vogue reporter trying to seduce Day Lewis' Guido. She doesn't even look the part of a sexed-up '60s girl in Rome (January Jones did it way better this season on Mad Men). Why not give the role to some great starlet with killer pipes and really give an unknown a big break? Instead Hudson's famous lineage and paparazzi appeal got her yet another role, and we are all the worse for it. Now that she and A-Rod are no longer, it's time for Kate Hudson to go away and not come back until she proves that she can pick a role in a quality production.

3. There Is Such a Thing As Too Much Meta: People who make movies always want to make movies about people who make movies more than people who watch movies want to watch movies about people who make movies. That is especially the case here, when the tale of a director with no plot for his film leads to a film with no plot. I would place a moratorium on all movies about people who make movies, but there are some good ones—like Almodóvar's recent Broken Embraces and Altman's classic The Player—but they usually end up being a big old bore. The audience is shelling out big money for the completed fantasy. Showing us how they get made is like a drag queen whose wig is made entirely out of bobby pins and whose dick is hanging out below her skirt. Tease that hair and tuck that candy, Hollywood. We want a spectacle, not the truth.

4. We Have No Clue What Fergie Looks Like: Seriously. I could walk out of my front door and step on her toe and still have no clue that I damaged Fergie's pinky. I know what her man looks like and I know that she likes to spell and I can probably sing the entire chorus of "Fergalicious" but I couldn't pick her out of a lineup if I had to. The same thing happened in the movie. I knew she was in it and kept waiting to see which character she was, and it was only by elimination that I figured out she was the hooker singing "Be Italian." She does a great job though. Now I might even remember her face for next time.

5. The Lyrics Are Just As Important As the Tune: There are some passable melodies in Nine, but all the songs have some seriously janky lyrics. "Be Italian," the big number being used to sell the movie, barely makes any sense at all. There's even a song all about the Folies Bergère—which not even the the two seasoned theater queens sitting next to me in Midtown had heard of before. Really, a song that repeats Folies Bergère over and over is almost as bad as J. Lo's "Louboutins," perhaps the silliest and most pointless pop song in recent memory.

Cotillard's character—the director's wife—gets to sing this doozy, "My husband makes movies/ To make them he lives a kind of dream/ In which his actions aren't always/ What they seem." If I were bulimic I could give my fingers a rest and just paste the lyrics from her creatively-titled song "My Husband Makes Movies" on my toilet seat cover. They're that bad. No matter how good the signing or how catchy the chorus, we're not going to want to listen to them again if we're groaning at the lyrics.

6. Rob Marshall Can No Longer Choreograph Musical Numbers in Some Performance Netherworld: When bitching about musicals, people always say, "I hate musicals, because the people are in the supermarket and they break out in song. I can't believe that." Marshall brilliantly overcame that criticism in his Oscar-winning Chicago but setting all the performances in some great cabaret in the sky that was either the actor's imagination or a black box theater that existed somewhere between the audience's mind and the narrative on screen. That trick only works once.

Here, he sets all the musical numbers in director Guido's mind and they take place on the movie set where he is supposed to film his movie with no script. But here it doesn't work well because A) we've seen Marshall do this better already, and B) it means the songs are completely removed from the action altogether. Other than the saucy Penelope Cruz number (more on that in just a second) almost all the other songs have little direct connection to the action onscreen and are just well-choreographed distractions from the main thrust of the story, and there is about as much thrust as a whore who just had a double hip replacement.

There are only two solutions for musical movies in the future, either the songs need to be part of the narrative because they are about music—like we saw in Dreamgirls or we get week after week on Glee—or the movie needs to tell those "they don't sing in the supermarket" people to shut the fuck up. It's a musical. Busting out into song is as integral a part of the genre as meeting cute is to romantic comedies. And the "supermarket" haters aren't going to pay to see your movie anyway, so why try to please them?

7. Penelope Cruz Needs More Roles: I used to look at Penelope Cruz as a very attractive distraction who couldn't speak English very well and wasn't very talented. Time and again she has proven me wrong. Just as she did a few months ago in Broken Embraces, she manages to steal the entire movie. As Guido's mistress, she gets the best number—a sexy little romp called "A Call from the Vatican"—she looks the best, and she gives the best performance. In any other movie that would be no small feat, but here she's up against Cotillard, Dench, Nicole Kidman, Day Lewis, and Sofia Motherfucking Loren. A few years ago, we never would have thought Penelope Cruz is the one that everyone is going to notice. Her Carla goes from silly and obtuse to injured and desperate with such a believable ease it doesn't even look like she's acting. Now that we've seen this, we want her to star in every movie. No more attractive distraction, this lady is a full-blown star.

8. We're Only Watching the Credits If You Make Them Snazzy: Back in the olden days, they would show the entire credits before the first scene while everyone was held captive. Now we don't even get the title of the movie until the last frame and everyone gets up and heads for the exit before seeing who the director's second assitant is. That is unless we get some sort of bonus footage, out takes, or a nice montage to make the credits all fancy. Nine gave us a reprise of Hudson's song "Cinema Italiano" set to a collection of rehearsal footage from the musical numbers. We watched the entire thing. In the age of the DVD extra, people aren't going to sit around for just an original song and a black screen. If you want us in our seat, you're going to have to seduce us.

9. You Get Bonus Points for Being Pretty: Nine has a shitty story, some bad acting, horrible accents, and crappy songs, but I still can't shake some of its images out of my head. There's a long sequence where Guido and his muse, played by Kidman, have a tête-à-tête in a Roman palazzo at night that is just breath-taking. And the production numbers, while set in nether-netherland, are gorgeous, especially Fergie's "Be Italian," which vacillates between a sandy cabaret and a black-and-white beach. Also of note is the final sequence which brings each of the nine ladies out for a final curtain call before putting a wonderful bow on an otherwise insipid package. If your movie is so bad that we're going to have to shut our brains off in order to survive, at least make our eyeballs happy. Somehow that makes the whole endeavor seem a little bit less repulsive.

TechCrunch and a few other people noticed this list of 370 passwords that Twitter bans its members from using when they sign up for new accounts. They range from the obvious — "password," "twitter," etc. — to the obscene and bizarre.

Why ban them? They're very easy for humans and brute-force hacking scripts to figure out, making it easier for people to get access to your account. On Twitter, this can be embarrassing. On other sites, this can be very costly.

A good, strong password is long, has multiple numbers and letters, mixes upper and lower case, and includes special characters like ! or &. Different sites use different security techniques, and might not allow some characters. But in general, the harder to remember, the better! (Which doesn't help when you forget your password, of course.)

Here's the full list of banned Twitter passwords, via TechCrunch:

1. 111111
2. 11111111
3. 112233
4. 121212
5. 123123
6. 123456
7. 1234567
8. 12345678
9. 131313
10. 232323
11. 654321
12. 666666
13. 696969
14. 777777
15. 7777777
16. 8675309
17. 987654
18. aaaaaa
19. abc123
20. abc123
21. abcdef
22. abgrtyu
23. access
24. access14
25. action
26. albert
27. alexis
28. amanda
29. amateur
30. andrea
31. andrew
32. angela
33. angels
34. animal
35. anthony
36. apollo
37. apples
38. arsenal
39. arthur
40. asdfgh
41. asdfgh
42. ashley
43. august
44. austin
45. badboy
46. bailey
47. banana
48. barney
49. baseball
50. batman
51. beaver
52. beavis
53. bigdaddy
54. bigdog
55. birdie
56. bitches
57. biteme
58. blazer
59. blonde
60. blondes
61. bond007
62. bonnie
63. booboo
64. booger
65. boomer
66. boston
67. brandon
68. brandy
69. braves
70. brazil
71. bronco
72. broncos
73. bulldog
74. buster
75. butter
76. butthead
77. calvin
78. camaro
79. cameron
80. canada
81. captain
82. carlos
83. carter
84. casper
85. charles
86. charlie
87. cheese
88. chelsea
89. chester
90. chicago
91. chicken
92. cocacola
93. coffee
94. college
95. compaq
96. computer
97. cookie
98. cooper
99. corvette
100. cowboy
101. cowboys
102. crystal
103. dakota
104. dallas
105. daniel
106. danielle
107. debbie
108. dennis
109. diablo
110. diamond
111. doctor
112. doggie
113. dolphin
114. dolphins
115. donald
116. dragon
117. dreams
118. driver
119. eagle1
120. eagles
121. edward
122. einstein
123. erotic
124. extreme
125. falcon
126. fender
127. ferrari
128. firebird
129. fishing
130. florida
131. flower
132. flyers
133. football
134. forever
135. freddy
136. freedom
137. gandalf
138. gateway
139. gators
140. gemini
141. george
142. giants
143. ginger
144. golden
145. golfer
146. gordon
147. gregory
148. guitar
149. gunner
150. hammer
151. hannah
152. hardcore
153. harley
154. heather
155. helpme
156. hockey
157. hooters
158. horney
159. hotdog
160. hunter
161. hunting
162. iceman
163. iloveyou
164. internet
165. iwantu
166. jackie
167. jackson
168. jaguar
169. jasmine
170. jasper
171. jennifer
172. jeremy
173. jessica
174. johnny
175. johnson
176. jordan
177. joseph
178. joshua
179. junior
180. justin
181. killer
182. knight
183. ladies
184. lakers
185. lauren
186. leather
187. legend
188. letmein
189. little
190. london
191. lovers
192. maddog
193. madison
194. maggie
195. magnum
196. marine
197. marlboro
198. martin
199. marvin
200. master
201. matrix
202. matthew
203. maverick
204. maxwell
205. melissa
206. member
207. mercedes
208. merlin
209. michael
210. michelle
211. mickey
212. midnight
213. miller
214. mistress
215. monica
216. monkey
217. monkey
218. monster
219. morgan
220. mother
221. mountain
222. muffin
223. murphy
224. mustang
225. naked
226. nascar
227. nathan
228. naughty
229. ncc1701
230. newyork
231. nicholas
232. nicole
233. nipple
234. nipples
235. oliver
236. orange
237. packers
238. panther
239. panties
240. parker
241. password
242. password
243. password1
244. password12
245. password123
246. patrick
247. peaches
248. peanut
249. pepper
250. phantom
251. phoenix
252. player
253. please
254. pookie
255. porsche
256. prince
257. princess
258. private
259. purple
260. pussies
261. qazwsx
262. qwerty
263. qwertyui
264. rabbit
265. rachel
266. racing
267. raiders
268. rainbow
269. ranger
270. rangers
271. rebecca
272. redskins
273. redsox
274. redwings
275. richard
276. robert
277. rocket
278. rosebud
279. runner
280. rush2112
281. russia
282. samantha
283. sammy
284. samson
285. sandra
286. saturn
287. scooby
288. scooter
289. scorpio
290. scorpion
291. secret
292. sexsex
293. shadow
294. shannon
295. shaved
296. sierra
297. silver
298. skippy
299. slayer
300. smokey
301. snoopy
302. soccer
303. sophie
304. spanky
305. sparky
306. spider
307. squirt
308. srinivas
309. startrek
310. starwars
311. steelers
312. steven
313. sticky
314. stupid
315. success
316. summer
317. sunshine
318. superman
319. surfer
320. swimming
321. sydney
322. taylor
323. tennis
324. teresa
325. tester
326. testing
327. theman
328. thomas
329. thunder
330. thx1138
331. tiffany
332. tigers
333. tigger
334. tomcat
335. topgun
336. toyota
337. travis
338. trouble
339. trustno1
340. tucker
341. turtle
342. twitter
343. united
344. vagina
345. victor
346. victoria
347. viking
348. voodoo
349. voyager
350. walter
351. warrior
352. welcome
353. whatever
354. william
355. willie
356. wilson
357. winner
358. winston
359. winter
360. wizard
361. xavier
362. xxxxxx
363. xxxxxxxx
364. yamaha
365. yankee
366. yankees
367. yellow
368. zxcvbn
369. zxcvbnm
370. zzzzzz

Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish covered the events in real time, and today's New York Times has a very good piece on what went down on Sunday.

First: moderate cleric Hussein-Ali Montazeri, a leader of the 1979 revolution and then a critic of the Supreme Leader and an advocate for democracy and equal rights, died on the 19th. The state news agency derisively referred to the beloved ayatollah as "clerical figure of the rioters." His funeral on the 21st became a protest of the regime. Ahmadinejad opponent Mir-Hossein Mousavi was attacked twice by Ahmadinejad supporters.

The next day, Ahmadinejad removed Mousavi as head of the Arts and Culture Academy. On the 23rd, more mourners were arrested.

Protests began happening in Iran's more conservative areas.

Then came the Shia holiday of mourning, Ashura, which commemorates the death of the prophet Muhammad's grandson Imam Hussein, a spiritual forefather of Shia Islam.

Ashura demonstrations helped bring down the Shah, so the Khamenei regime was extremely nervous going into the weekend. The Basij, Iran's volunteer militia of hardliners aligned with the Revolutionary Guard and the Supreme Leader, began clashing with protesters almost immediately. Three protesters were reported killed in Tehran early on the first day of Ashura protests. But protesters were fighting back more than in previous demonstrations, lighting police cars on fire and beating cops who attempted to charge the crowds. Some police refused orders to fire on crowds, and at least one police officer was reportedly spotted wearing opposition green.

Protests spread to almost a dozen other cities.

Killing for any reason is forbidden on Ashura. So in addition to ten dead protesters, it is absolutely insane that Khamenei then assassinated Moussavi's nephew. Ali Moussavi was run over by a car and then shot in the street. Government officials confiscated his body to prevent a funeral.

Hundreds of people have been arrested, and at the end of this, dozens could be confirmed killed. Killing Moussavi's nephew on Ashura was probably one of the dumbest decisions the regime could've possibly made. Protesters have largely switched from chants against Ahmadinejad to chants against Khamenei himself. There is, of yet, no "revolutionary alternative" to the Supreme Leader, and he controls the military and the security forces, but basically he is fucked in the long term, and a lot of Iranian dissidents are about to be locked up and killed.

Like any good storefront psychic that litters the streets of Manhattan, the answers from her three experts—Paula Roberts, Frank Andrews, and Wendy the Psychic—include somethings that will never come to pass, some that are so general they can't help but occur, and some that are "no duh" obvious. Let's look into our very own Magic 8 Ball and see if these predictions pass muster:

• Iraq: Moves toward peaceful land split by ethnic grouping— Please, European map-makers will never let this happen.
• 
  
• Afghanistan: Signs of victory in eight months.—Even Cindy admits that this is crazy talk.
• 
  
• California: Worst drought in decades.—That's a little bit like predicting that there will be wildfires this summer and celebrities' houses will be threatened. Too easy.
• 
  
• Chicago: February blizzards isolate city for days.—In other news, it will be warm in Florida and it will rain in Seattle. Look, we're psychic!
• 
  
• Triple Crown winner is a small, unknown bay horse.—I can't even begin to care about this.
• 
  
• Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes separate. It's the stress of his popularity decline.—No way, her contract has them together until at least 2014.
• 
  
• Brad and Angelina? Bad news.—But what's the bad news? That he's keeping that ugly beard?
• 
  
• Obama can do little to bolster the economy. And health care makes only a small dent in helping the needy.—Yeah, no shit. Thanks for being a downer.
• 
  
• Taylor Swift sings more suggestive lyrics, does a striptease number, writes and produces a screenplay, fights with then returns to Taylor Lautner.—The striptease number has already be choreographed for the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. As far as writing the screenplay, unless it's a remake of Britney Spears' Crossroads, we don't see it happening.
• 
  
• Beyoncé gets pregnant. Maybe twins. Also writes a children's book about grandparents.—The Beyoncé children's book was as inevitable as her clothing line, and will be just as much of an abomination.
• 
  
• Renée Zellweger marries Bradley Cooper in a secret island ceremony. Has his baby.—Wait, does that mean that Zellweger is dating a straight guy? We doubt that. Our prediction is that they break up in six months and Renée is "linked" to Zachary Quinto once she is named as the new villain in the next Star Trek movie.
• 
  
• Dustin Hoffman produces a DVD on acting and does meaningful commercials for a cause.—This prediction is just like a Cindy Adams gossip item. It's stupid, meaningless and about someone who we don't really care about at all.
• 
  
• Shia LaBeouf gets Oscar buzz, maybe even a nomination. A fistfight gives him bad p.r.—This is so true that we thought it happened already.
• 
  
• Britney Spears, whose checkbook is enlarging, steals boy-toy Jesus from Madonna. —No way. We all know that Madonna is the one into hung Latinos and Britney is into trashy white guys. Get it straight, psychic!
• 
  
• Michael Douglas exits starring roles for director/producer status.—Didn't this happen in like 1975 with One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest?
• 
  
• Kirstie Alley and Chaz (nee Chastity) Bono an item???????—Please, Great Gossip Diety, if you make this happen, we promise to stop torturing small woodland creatures and saying mean things about your oracle Cindy Adams. OK, maybe just the first one.
• 
  
• Oprah's move a failure, but she does a movie with success.—Oprah called God personally and told him that if he lets her fail that she will bring the world to an end, so we don't think this is very likely.
• 
  
• Doris Day brought to good health after visitations in dreams from late son Terry Melcher.—We hope this comes true because the only people who care about this are also the only people who actually read Cindy Adams' column.

Last night, Francis emailed a nastygram (with a prize inside!) to our vacationing overlord Nick Denton, myself, three attorneys (Cyrus J. Nownejad, Brad Brian, David P. Schack), and for good measure two media contacts: Mike Waters, the news manager at TMZ, and Richard Johnson, the editor of the New York Post's Page Six. Francis is threatening to file lawsuit today over his Douche of the Decade award, claiming that he's lost a $10 million contract because we used the word "rapist" in the bio accompanying the prize. (Last week, when Francis' company lawyer Terry Yeom wrote his own letter, this mysterious lost bit of business only amounted to $4 million.) Here's the missive in full:

It falls to Gawker Media's legal honcho Gaby Darbyshire to handle complaints like these. In her reply to Yeom, she pointed out that there are about 140,000 Google search results for "joe francis rapist," including his Wikipedia page. And the old Defamer post we linked to last week is based on a 2006 Los Angeles Times profile of Francis by Claire Hoffman in which an 18-year-old girl gives an on the record account of Francis having sex with her on the Girls Gone Wild bus despite her repeatedly saying no. The whole thing is really worth a read. As Gaby wrote, "frankly, let's face it — given his chosen career and his actions to date, it would be hard to say that your client really has any reputation of social probity and standing to damage at this point, now does he?"

We're sorry that Gaby had to take time during her Christmas break to deal with this. But we are relieved that Francis hasn't let success temper what got him to the top of the douche heap. Shine on, you big beautiful oozing boil of a human being!

Update: Okay, fine. After some consideration, we're sorry for calling you a "rapist" since you are more accurately "an alleged rapist." After all, we've never seen you doing the raping, only read about it.

Look! I put a pretty picture on it and gave it a transcript for People Who Don't Hear So Great.

Jakob was flying in from San Juan, and this is constant with what's been previously reported, which was that the new regulations would be in place for international flights arriving into America. Jetblue's site notes:

Operations Update Last Updated: 12/27/2009 [10:00 pm EST] Customers on flights originating outside of the United States are asked to allow at least one additional hour for check in due to U.S. government mandated security procedures. Please note: JetBlue's LiveTV programming will be inoperable on these flights as a result of these new procedures. Customers are asked to plan accordingly.

Jakob also—surprisingly, for this blogger!—makes both a salient, populist point and a trenchant observation when he notes the following. Astute kvetching, here:

I was also pissed that we couldn't watch TV on our flight. And if I were JetBlue, I'd be pissed that one of my company's distinguishing features was now indefinitely banned.

Truth. That said, if I were

1. Working in print,
2. Working in the business of drugs that will knock you the fuh out, or
3. A kinetophobic,

I could see this as the kind of thing that would make my day. Until then, most people will simply buy an extra magazine and stock up on Xanax. And this is where I'd lament these regulations not actually being of any foreseeable security value except for terrorists who wait to file their taxes at the last minute and terrorize during the last hour of the plane ride, and uh, the paralyzing threat that is JetBlue's XM Radio, but that's fairly obvious as it is. What more's there to say, here? This is patently ridiculous, and also, sucks.

Monday update: JetBlue P.R. Morgan Johnston emails to say that the ban on live TV has been rescinded: "I wanted to advise you and your readers, that as of this morning JetBlue will be resuming regular LiveTV service for all US bound international flights."

In today's column, Tripsas waxes ecstatic about about the 3M Company's "innovation center," which helps their customers provide input in the design process. Cool! Except NYTPicker has learned that Tripsas and other "innovation researchers" were flown to the center last month—airfare and accommodations gratis. Imagine the infamous Thrillist junket with less booze and more whiteboards.

This is not kosher with Times freelancer rules, which state:

In connection with their work for us, freelancers will not accept free transportation, free lodging, gifts, junkets, commissions or assignments from current or potential news sources.

Clearly, 3M was a "potential news source" at the time they flew Tripsas out to their Innovation Chocolate Factory, since they became a current news source in today's column. But Tripsas, who is a professor at the Harvard Business School, is trying to work the "In connection with their work for us" clause into a loophole, according to NYTPicker:

"I am a professor who does research on innovation and, in fact 3M was not aware of my recent NYT affiliation when they invited me," Prof. Tripsas told The NYTPicker via email. "As a professor, I am sometimes invited to speak to companies about innovation, and it is not unusual for the company to reimburse travel expenses, so 3M did pay for my hotel and airfare. I did not inform the New York Times of that since I viewed the visit as a speaking engagement that was part of my broader academic research. "

See, it had nothing to do with the Times!

Even giving Tripsas the benefit of the doubt in assuming that 3M—a company at the forefront of corporate innovation—didn't know she wrote a column in the Times about corporate innovation, it's hard to believe that her 3M piece was in no way inspired by her tour of 3M. Unless 3M is so innovative as to have devised a memory-erasing machine which allowed Tripsas to forget everything she witnessed that day. (Which, they ought to roll that out right now for all the people who made the mistake of seeing "Sherlock Holmes.")

As Times' public editor Clark Hoyt helpfully put it in his latest column:

In the end, there is a bright line here. Journalists cannot use the power of The Times, or any newspaper, for what can be construed as personal purposes. It is simply wrong to look as if you are getting even with a company, or writing a plug for family or friends.

It's pretty easy to see the tit-for-tat that "could be construed" from Tripsas columnar 3M lovefest coming right after her 3M junket.

Granted, the Times freelancer rules are so complicated even Times editors misunderstood them. But after finally figuring out which rules he broke, the Times came down hard on Mike Albo, the impoverished travel writer who just wanted to hang out in Jamaica and have a personal butler and free booze all paid for by JetBlue.

If the Times doesn't axe Tripsas' column we are blaming two things:

1) Tripsas' fancy job at Harvard.
2) Times editors being a bunch of hypocritical hypocrites.

REMEMBER MIKE ALBO:

(Mike Albo Memorial T-Shirt™ Courtesy of Foster E. Kamer)

Yesterday Mediaite and TV Newser reported on Schurnga's two wares he's got for sale: the first, a blurry picture of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. The second is himself, for interviews. CNN got to him first. They also got an interview.

This is the interview Jasper did. You can watch the entire thing, but it only gets good around 6:45, when Schuringa appears to be looking off-camera, trying to end the interview, and in doing so, preserving his product for further sale.

Mediaite's Steve Krakauer deftly explains how things like this go down:

The practice of paying a "licensing fee" rather than a direct exchange is a way networks who claim to never pay for interviews can get around the issue. By paying for images and video, they are free to say no money was exchanged hands for the actual interview – which is still viewed as unseemly for news outlets not named the National Enquirer or TMZ. But paying for something to secure an interview happens quite a bit.

Steve was dead-on. This is what happened:

All the media organizations found Schuringa's company website, which had his cell phone number on it. By the time he finally got to Miami, his final destination, CNN and The New York Post had gotten to him.

Once the Post and CNN got through to Jasper, he handed over all negotiations to his friend who lives in Miami who he came to the U.S. to visit. His name is Shai Ben-Ami. He's an Israeli guy who's in the restaurant business, as a Google search would turn up. He owns some kind of Pick Up Stix imitator. Though their Orange Chicken sounds good about now.

Schurnga sold the "TV Rights" of the first of his two photos to CNN for $10K.

The "print rights" went to the Post for $5K.

Later, Schuringa was paid upwards of $3K by ABC News for a second photo, which Schuringa tried to sell to other local news outlets for $5K, unsuccessfully.

Jasper Schuringa made at least $18,000 from two shitty, blurry photos.

Why?

Because the only way to get interviews with this guy was to pay him, so CNN and The New York Post ponied up. Fox News used the Post's interview, because they're part of Murdoch-stan. NBC apparently didn't pay, because they don't have their own interview. Neither does the New York Daily News or the New York Times. But the New York Daily News did take CNN's photo (albeit watermarked) and interview quotes for their story in this morning's paper for the low price of free-ninety-nine. Thrifty!

One reporter reached Shai just before Jasper went on CNN, and was told that after they were done with CNN and worked out a contract with ABC, they'd talk to the reporter about the print rights to the second photo, and Jasper would talk to reporters if—and only if—the reporter decided to buy it.

"He was quite upfront about it," we're told. "He made it clear that Jasper was only talking to news organizations that paid."

And he made it clear over emails. Which look like this. Emphasis mine:

The post and times still talking about photo 2 what can you offer forit!? I feel bad dropping with you after you have been cool with us ...
Sent from my BlackBerry® on the MetroPCS Network

You might have to run it only for monday cuz abc wants to use it aswell for tv news and they stressed if we could hold off till monday with paper ? Would that work ...
Sent from my BlackBerry® on the MetroPCS Network

Others numbers are extremly higher
Sent from my BlackBerry® on the MetroPCS Network

They have exclusive rights for photo 1, that is a final, for photo 2
they are offering 3k, we are going with them soon if I don't hear back
from you on equal contract ... Thanks for all ...
Sent from my BlackBerry® on the MetroPCS Network

Welcome to the wonderful world of Checkbook Journalism. Have you seen the photo? It looks like this.

It's nothing.

Neither is the other photo, which is just more of the same. Again, these major news networks aren't really paying for the photo, they're paying for the thing that comes with the photo: an interview.

Here's the "funny" thing: CNN admitted to Mediaite and TV Newser that they paid for the photo, but wouldn't comment on the interview. When pressed, will they cop to it?

CNN tells Mediaite they paid a "licensing fee" for the exclusive cell phone image, which they have been using throughout the day...CNN clarifies the network did not pay for the actual interview during CNN Newsroom.

Of course not. Because they're a news organization, not tabloid scum.

So:

Technically, did they pay for the interview? Probably not.
Categorically, did they pay for the interview? Absolutely.

When CNN wanted to talk about Balloon Boy a few weeks back? They wanted the goods—the exclusive—but they didn't want to pay, be seen as paying, or refer to the story as anything but allegedly true. So they got the next best thing: my boss, talking about the story!

Looks like they learned their lesson.

Checkbook journalism is back, and here to stay. Media critics who lambast some news organizations for paying for sources are going to have to deal with the cold, hard fact that getting a scoop has gotten a lot more competitive these days.

Not only that, but the mainstream outlets who hold themselves in higher regards than those (like ours) who openly admit to ponying up for a story are doing the same thing themselves, the sole difference being: We don't feel the need to lie about it. Why do they?

Introducing John Mayer: The Blogger.

So, this happened:

And then TMZ followed it up with a post cutely titled "True Lies" (like the AWESOME James Cameron movie starring Tom Arnold and Tia Carrere) where, in some Avatar press interview footage, James Cameron notes that "he'd sign as many autographs as people will line up for."

Nice! James Cameron doesn't really seem like the kinda guy TMZ would go for, right? But Avatar posts are getting awesome traffic right now, so they're just astutely following the news cycle. And it just so happens that James Cameron called this guy a "fucking asshole" and they were there to get footage of it!

So why'd James Cameron, the fan-friendly director, freak out? Maybe it was because it was Christmas Eve, and he's normally signing things when his wife isn't with him. Or maybe it was because he had a turbulent flight! How the hell do you feel when you get off of airplanes? Or maybe it was something that happened between the relatively suspicious cuts on the TMZ game tape.

But most people know better. John Mayer, who probably deals with this kind of shit often, is one of them. And in an articulate posting to his Tumblr—John Mayer has a Tumblr! And it's not John Mayer Will Change Your Life! How 'bout that?—Mayer breaks down how this works, from his perspective.

First, he calls out the system: everyone's for sale, everywhere.

American Airlines has long been known to have at least one person in their organization selling flight manifests to the paparazzi. I'd imagine it's not hard to find a gate agent or a skycap willing to trade a well-known name or two for a couple hundred dollars..

Which, as this website knows, is totally correct. Money buys things, like scoops!

...The fact that passenger lists are not available to the general public means that anyone waiting at the airport with any more than the CD from the passenger seat of their car has gotten word of which celebrities will be traveling through the terminal in the same way the paparazzi do. In some cases, these "fans" are working in concert with them. After all, it's a great way to get a celebrity to interact with you on video if you can ask them impolite questions while they're stopping to sign a few items for someone. If they decline, it's time to switch to plan B: paint them as shallow Hollywood types that only care about the "little people" when it best serves them. This logic doesn't really hold water since everyone now knows that being videotaped at LAX is regarded as one of the most high profile appearances one can make, especially during the release of a film.

Also true! Most celebrities have to fly like normal people do: through airports. And if you've ever been to LAX, you know the hell that may or may not await them (and you!) as you shuffle through paps to find your friend giving you a ride home. And celebrities know to look good when they go through LAX, because, again, they'll be photographed. And often, asked to become part of the celebrity autograph moneymaking machine! Celebrities are wont to preserve autographing things for fans and charities and things like that; they don't like to sign the shoddy things scheme-people try to get them to.

Even some of TMZ's commenters know this, one of whom pointed out that this eBay seller is most likely the guy in the video, who screamed after Cameron "I'm an asshole because I ask someone I admire for their autograph that makes me an asshole? I make $15-an-hour at work to go see your film and I'm an asshole?"

That'd make sense, as the guy in the video's wearing the same hat he also got Jackie Earle Hayley to sign. Which I guess he keeps a good stock of. Or: was just smart enough to take it off his head and get it signed by Hayley at the time.

See! Scheme-people are quick-witted! And when they don't get what they want, which is money, sleazy scheme-people get angry. Then they try to get people like James Cameron to call them "fucking assholes." And John Mayer sees that part going something like this:

While I can't speak to what happened before the segment of video on TMZ, I can tell you that the man in the tiny hat with the Avatar poster had probably engaged with Cameron from at least 50 paces before the automatic doors. That's how it goes down; they walk alongside you. They bark requests at you, trying to get your pulse to quicken. If you give in and sign, the guy with the poster gets to sell it and make a few bucks. If you don't give in, as it gets harder to acquiesce with each successive yelp, then the stench of cash really starts to waft in as Video Camera Guy gets the goods while you explain in no uncertain terms to Obnoxious E-bay Poster Guy that he's not going to get what he's asking for tonight.

Pretty good, right? Mayer goes on to observe that Cameron isn't used to dealing with this kind of bullshit. Think about the last time James Cameron was doing serious press rounds. TMZ wasn't around then.

Mayer's entire blog post is here, and if you'll read through it, you'll note that it's not just "good for a rock star," but "good for a blog post." Not bad! Though the most interesting part is actually when he notes, of Cameron's media dealings:

He doesn't understand the media shuffle, and I'm glad he hasn't given any thought to it. It's actually a waste of brain matter, and a slippery slope of compromise.

Well, Mayer does speak from experience, and that experience clearly involves very little compromise, but also, clearly, an impressive regard for self-awareness (just as suspected). John, anytime you feel like taking to the blog, holler. We're a growing company, and I, for one, am impressed.

So! When you open this week's New York Times Sunday Styles, what kind of original wonderful 00's retrospective will they have for you?

"Bloggers Crash Fashion's Front Row," New York Times - 12/27/2009*

Hm. That sounds/looks familiar.

"Young Bloggers Have Ear of Fashion Heavyweights," New York Times, 09/13/2009

Yeah, but that's gotta be some...kind of...coincidence. Right?

[Click to enlarge, please.]

"Style bloggers take centre stage," Financial Times - 11/13/2009*

"Fashion Bloggers, Where They Belong: In The Front Row," Mediaite - September 29th, 2009

"Milan Fashion Week: Bloggers Go Front Row" - Scallywag & Vagabond, September 28, 2009

"Front Row Fashion Bloggers at Dolce & Gabbana," Cortorture - September 28, 2009

"Tavi Gevinson, 13-Year-Old Fashion Blogger Scores Front-Row Seats at New York Fashion Week" - Zimbio, September 21, 2009

"Bloggers Take Over the Front Row," InStyle - September 10, 2009

"Style blogger Susie Lau is headed for fashion's front row," The Observer - February 8, 2009

So, how long have people been using this stupid fucking tired dead horse linguistic chicken bone? Let's put it like this: Greg Lindsay, writing for MediaBistro, beat all of them to it.

"Bloggers In Tents: Fashion Warms to New Media," MediaBistro - February 6, 2007

Here's the takeaway:

1. The New York Times is laying off the wrong people. I already miss Allen Salkin far more than I ever thought I would.

2. Fashion bloggers are running fashion. Market editors should all fear for their lives.

3. Old age and treachery are of no use in the world of fashion writing. The most influential of these bloggers is a thirteen year-old girl who is feared and respected by the most powerful people in that business.

4. Neither are intelligence, creativity, or writing ability. Fashion writers and the people writing about fashion all fall behind a 13 year-old girl.

5. Fashion has now reached new levels of awareness-lacking self-parody.

Fashion people, I shouldn't have to do this for you. But when somebody shows up to a party wearing the same thing as someone else, it's, like, a crime punishable by summary execution, right? Well, guess what: you're all wearing the same trend piece. Let me fix this:

It's time to take those fashon bloggers, and the writers writing about the fashion bloggers, and kick them the fuck out of the front row, the second-to-front row, the tents, and then, make fashion and fashion writing interesting and readable and a total plutocracy or dictatorship or what have you. This kind of writing makes fat-hating Cintra Wilson look like a potential MacArthur Genius Grant recipient. Sometimes, when you give power to the people, it turns out that the people—as is the case here—suck. So you gotta take it back. Anna Wintour, just hire the 13 year-old kid and get rid of the rest. Kelly Cutrone, you should carry around brass knuckles and every time you see a laptop at a fashion week tent, you should not hesitate to smash them into said laptops.* Do you understand what I'm saying, here? Unless everyone writing about fashion actually sucks that bad—and that can't be possible, can it?—this has to be a conspiracy. Maybe's it's Mugatu and his return behind this.

IT'S THE SAME HEADLINE.

IT'S THE SAME BAD WRITING.

I FEEL LIKE I'M TAKING CRAZY PILLS.

[*The reason this will never, ever happen is because a majority of fashion writing is predicated on selling the products they're writing about, supported by advertisers selling the same products. Bloggers help get the word out about these products, thereby, more publicity for advertisers, with less hassle, because they're not dealing with major publication divas. So really, fashion bloggers are here to stay, whether anybody likes it or not. The trend pieces about them, however, might be getting a tad bit stale. At the very least, fashion's sense of wonder with them as new toys will likely get that way, too.]

A long time ago, back when Radar wasn't a Zombie Radar, Charlie Sheen got married and it was carefully observed that, at his third wedding, Sheen noted:

"The first one was a show, the second one was a con, and this one is the real deal."

If by show, you mean, "I shot her in the arm." Oh, no, wait, that was fiancee Kelly Preston. But if by "con," he meant, "that time I was married to Denise Richards and she accused me of child molestation so in retaliation I accused her of beating the shit out of me," he'd be correct, I guess. So when he talks about the "real deal" he must've meant "the one time in my life I'll be in a relationship without a domestic abuse spat that involves police being called," well, he was wrong. Because he's now being accused of choking wife Brooke Mueller out.

He was charged with second-degree assault, menacing and criminal mischief and was housed in the Pitkin County jail, cops said. He later posted $8,500 bond after speaking with a county judge, according to police spokeswoman Stephanie Dasaro in Aspen.

No, but really Charlie Sheen, what's wrong with you?

Conspiracy Theorist? Check.
Racist? Check.
Druggie? Check.
Wifebeater? Check.

Also, Charlie Sheen, what's wrong with the people you marry or try to marry?

Kelly Preston ended up with John Travolta, and they both ended up scary Scientologists.

Denise Richards went totally fucking bonkers and had a show on E! where all bonkers people get shows.

This one was drunk and also isn't talking to cops which will just make this worse.

Better question: What's wrong with us? How is Charlie Sheen the highest paid actor on TV? Do you know anybody who actually watches Two and a Half Men? The real conspiracy theory is how Charlie Sheen still has a career. The guy is a bona. fide. fuckup. He is also invincible.

This incident, like every other Charlie Sheen incident, will matter not to anybody.

Charlie Sheen could burn down the Chateau Marmont with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in it after getting too crazy with his homemade meth lab, and Hollywood wouldn't hesitate to give him the leading role in a six-picture feature adaptation of Redwall as the lead mouse. And he'd win an Oscar for it.

Whatever. When this civilization is dead and the Avatard aliens or whoever are trying to understand our history and they get to the part about Charlie Sheen's career and the human compassion it somehow fueled itself on to keep going and going and never fail to die, all they'll need to do is watch this scene, which is basically the answer, and also, might serve as an essential part of the complex algorithm that is our ability as a species to conjure up forgiveness, or indulge ourselves in masochism, or something.

I think we like his smile. That has to be it.

LOSER: Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab—or whatever his name is—tried to light a mixture of powder he'd taped to his leg, trying to kill everyone on board. Asshole. Well, he was foiled. And again, as Ravi pointed out yesterday, news organizations didn't even get his name right:

ABC news are naming that suspect as Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, who they say is an engineering student at University College, London. (Wall Street Journal: "Abdul Mudallad"; MSNBC: "Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab".)

Heh. He doesn't deserve to have his name correct! Paging Alessandra Stanley! I'd call him "Fuckface FireBalls Magoo" but I think that'd also denote a #SorryGabe tag, and I'm far past my quota for the month. Scary moment of foretelling, however: his Dad had called the U.S. embassy in Nigeria six months ago to warn them of his son's radicalization. Eegh.

BRIEF HISTORY OF LOSERS LIKE HIM: You'd think terrorists would know that it's probably a bad idea to fuck around on an airplane, because people on airplanes who are near them will undoubtedly kick the shit out of them on the regular, and ask questions later. Terrorists, don't you get it? Airline passengers all around the world—and especially Americans—will not hesitate to give you a down home ass stomping if you wild out. Richard Reid tried to do it in 2001, they kicked the shit out of him. Some guy shouted "I've got a bomb" in January and they kicked the shit out of him. This guy had an argument with an off-duty pilot, and they kicked the shit out of him and duct-taped him to his seat. Etc, etc, etc. Basically, if you even remotely appear to look like you're going to bring some ruckus on an airplane, your fellow passengers will kick the shit out of you. As was the case here. Good on those passengers. Or good on this one passenger!

WINNERS: Us! Because he failed. Also, this good looking fellow named Jasper Schuringa, who was identified as the guy who stopped Paula Abdul Farouk Whatever.

"I pulled the object from him and tried to extinguish the fire with my hands and threw it away," Schuringa told CNN. Schuringa said his hands were "pretty burned" after incident, but said the injuries were minor. "I am fine. I am shaken up. I am happy to be here."

You will also be happy to belatedly be the recipient of an abundance of ass in your stocking for Christmas. Dude's already got a Facebook fan page, which includes a marriage proposal. NICE.

LOSERS: People traveling into the US on international flights. If you're flying into America, and you look even remotely upset about your honey-roasted peanuts, you're going to be read the riot act and sent to a dark room with a lightbulb as soon as you land. The increased security measures this thing has prompted go something like this:

• Passengers on international flights coming into America only get one carry-on.
  
  
• During the final hour of your flight coming into America, you won't be able to get out of your seat.
  
  
• Or access your carry-on baggage.
  
  
• Or have "personal belongings or other items on their laps."
  
  
• And possibly, no electronics at all during international flights going into America. This is unconfirmed as wide policy, but if true, will make sitting next to me very awful, as Radiohead's oeuvre is typically my flight music of choice, and I will be forced to hum Kid A for upwards of six hours the next time I take an international flight back to America (next week). Or if I'm feeling really sadistic, Pablo Honey.

Remember when you used to be able to go to the gate and meet people at the gate? That was at the beginning of this decade! And here we are, at the end of this decade! Where some people can't even take a piss for the entire hour final hour of their flight. The times, they are changing.

Biggest Assholes: Al-Qaeda. Everyone who was pretty sure he wasn't an Al-Qaeda operative and just an asshole with thankfully bad engineering skills is wrong: he's an associated asshole.

Best Schadenfreude: The kid probably burned his balls really badly. The Red Hat Ladies of Terrorism—What? They're everywhere and nowhere at once. It makes sense.—sewed "80 grams of PETN, a compound related to nitro-glycerin used by the military" into his underwear by their top bomb maker in Yemen. If this guy's their top bomb maker, well, he's probably getting a demotion today. Awful upshot, however? Everyone's balls will be examined more thoroughly whenever they travel here on out:

The device intended to blow up the Northwest flight was made at the location in Yemen, according to Abdulmutallab, and consisted of a six-inch packet of powder and a syringe with a liquid. Both were sewn into the student's underwear so they would be near his testicles and unlikely to be detected, he told agents.

Basically, terrorists mess up everything for everyone. Trenchant Geopolitical Observation: Everyone should just blow out their cherry bombs and chill the fuck out.

[Top Photo via Getty Images]

To use the Gawker Internet Yule Log™:
1)On Christmas morning, press "Play".
2)Bask in its glory.

Merry Christmas, you ungrateful wretches.

Looking at a whole bunch of old Cover Lies is a great way to remind yourself that ladymags just recycle the same old weight-loss, man-snagging, and faux-self-improvement tropes again and again and again. In February Cosmo, for instance, we saw the Simple Way To Revolutionize Your Life. Yes, ladies, it's breathing. Millions of women have died because they ignored this basic tip.

Am I normal? Is he? You might not give a shit, but one important goal of ladymags is to make sure you and your genitals are conforming enough. So get out the measuring tape and appraise various aspects of your "down-there."

Of course, the Weight Loss Tip is also an essential part of the woman's magazine anatomy. These tips fall into two categories: Totally Insane, and So Basic That If It Worked Everyone Would Be Skinny. May Glamour offers the latter.

Like the Weight Loss Tip, the Sex Tip changes little from month to month. May Cosmo (May was an especially lie-alicious month) offered pull-out cards with tame sex fantasies — like going to a wedding in nice clothes — for those who can't even think up lame, cliched scenarios on their own.

Another tried-and-true ladymag trick is to promise scandal and deliver saccharine. May Vogue was full of models talking about how nice other models are — just like how every celebrity in Hollywood loves every other celebrity, every famous marriage is perfect, and every star stays thin by chasing after her kids.

It might seem like it's easy just to churn out monthly variations on tired themes, but the staff at magazines actually have it rough: they have to take all the free shit advertisers send to them and somehow shoehorn it into what passes for an editorial feature. A frequent solution is the "20, 30, 40" method — age categories that are, as June Marie Claire makes clear, pretty much random.

Dividing women into age categories isn't just a way to sell cosmetics — it's a way to promote clothes too. August Vogue did this by putting the ancient, decrepit Christy Turlington on its cover, then filling its interior with teenage and twentysomething models supposedly showing off looks for older women. Also a Vogue standby: the terrifying cosmetic procedure. Here it's "Inner Eyelid Laser Incineration."

Elle is often especially good at featuring clothes that look good on no one. As a bonus, the September issue also offered some eyeshadow "tips from hos."

Related to the Completely Unflattering Outfit is the Completely Absurd Photo Shoot — and Vogue really excels in this department. In October, highlights included several combinations of things that shouldn't be combined: tennis and breakfast in bed, boxing and evening gowns, horses and hats.

Of course, the secret weapon of all ladymags is that they're completely depressing. Whether they're telling you that your man will leave you because you're too successful, or doling out confusing, contradictory sartorial advice, if you read enough of them you will not want to eat, have sex, go to work, or even get dressed. All you will be able to do is lie in bed and read magazines. Which is exactly their plan.

In this clip from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982), Dolly and the other working girls sing "Hard Candy Christmas."


From their 1984 special Kenny & Dolly: A Christmas to Remember, Dolly teams up with Kenny Rogers—and a bunch of creepy mannequins—to sing the title song she penned "A Christmas to Remember."


In the 1990 TV special A Down Home Country Christmas, Dolly relays the story of her first (and only?) doll she owned as a child, Little Tiny Tassel Top, which was made out of a corn cob, and was the inspiration for the first song she ever wrote.


In the made-for-TV movie Smoky Mountain Christmas (1986), Dolly plays a country music star who runs into a mountaineer (Lee Majors), seven orphans, and a witch in the backwoods of Tennessee. In this clip, she sings the title song.


In another song from her 1984 special with Kenny Rogers, Dolly sings "White Christmas."


From her vlog, Dolly wishes everyone a Merry Christmas for 2009.

Mr. Incredible's trip down memory lane.

Verdict: Worth it. The art on the Incredible magazine covers is absolutely frame worthy.

2012 had crazy Woody and his pull-down chart of conspiracy. Planning to write about climate change? Whoops, you're now dead — see, he put a line through each scientist's name.

Verdict: Worthless, the wall of clippings and the crazy person blog was overkill. But then again this is 2012, so at least it's staying in its wheelhouse.

Mulder's office is papered with clippings and UFO sightings in the last X-Files film, thus hitting us over the head one last time with the fact that he's a BELIEVER.

Verdict: Worthless. Anyone going to this movie already knew all about Mulder's beliefs. They didn't need the "crazy obsession" wall, but they can keep the wrinkled poster from the original X-Files show.

In The Children of Men you get a quickie recap, not only of the Jasper character and his comatose wife but of the present day situation as well.

Verdict: Worthless. If Jasper's wife was indeed tortured by the oppressive new government regime, would they really keep the giant reminder posted on their wall of that horrible experience? Go on down the line, lovely pictures of friends, interesting and telling news clips of something they probably worked on, awards explaining their characters — and then a giant full-page story detailing the brutal torture your wife, thus making her completely unresponsive. Ah, memories.

Here's another newspaper moment in Children of Men that wasn't really used to portray obsession or honor, but it was nice that the production crew made sure all the headlines were relevant to the story.

Verdict: Worth it, even if it was just an aesthetic.

Halloween! Michael will never die, and neither will his victim's memory of him.

Verdict: Worth it. It's a horror movie, it's expected.

The Hills Have Eyes remake had a quickie wall of foreshadowing, and filled us in that the Hills were definitely full of mutant kid eyes.

Verdict: Worth it, it was great build up to the horrible nuclear family reveal. That little girl haunted me for days, and I needed a little build-up to the character, cliché though it may be.

Whip Lash's lair in Iron Man 2 is all about obsession.

Verdict: Worthless, for now. Until we see more. We didn't need the clippings to prove that Whiplash wants to kill Tony, because all he literally does, from the looks of things, is try to kill Tony. But maybe it will flesh out some backstory , although it's highly unlikely as all those clippings are pretty modern.

Mr. Glass' wall of destruction in Unbreakable.

Verdict: Worthless and Worth It. Samuel L. Jackson was scary enough in this as is, but it did help catch you up if you hadn't already called him as the bad guy hours earlier. Also, I believe there may be some flaws in these clips.

Original Nite Owl's den was a museum to Watchmen.

Verdict: Worth It. This is the kind of thing director Zack Snyder excels at. And when it's good it's very, very good. Everything on this wall has a back story. Even with its other shortcomings, Watchmen did have a very well thought-out set. Even if it was ripped from the novel, it looked good.

Willy Wonka's pops reveals to the audience that he didn't hate his son at all, because he framed all his newspaper articles. This was actually more creepy than exciting, but then again it is the remake of Willy Wonka, where Depp gives pale death face smiles for half the film, so it least it fits the tone.

Verdict: Worth it, since it fits in with the crazy theme of the film.

In the last ten years, researchers have discovered thousands of species, both living and extinct. We got dino-eating crocodiles and killer kangaroos; a fish with a transparent head and a demon duck of doom; a bright pink millipede and giant spiders. And previously named species, such as the tongue-eating isopod and the alien-limbed Magnapinna, made headlines.

A few of these species were observed before 2000, but were only named or recognized as species in the last ten years. And each has some wonderfully monstrous quality, be it their incredible size, arsenal of offensive or defensive weapons, or knack for survival.

A Big Cat With Bite: The Bornean Clouded Leopard, which was found to be a new species in 2007 (though it had been observed long before), may not look like much at first. It may weigh in at a mere 55 pounds, putting it on the small side for a big cat, but it has the largest teeth of any known cat alive. It has even been described as the modern answer to the Sabertooth Tiger.
The Largest Snake to Slither the Earth: If South America's giant Anacondas make you quiver, be grateful that Titanoboa cerrejonensis has been dead for two million years. This prehistoric constrictor grew up to 50 feet in length and weighed in at a whopping 2500, the largest snake ever found. And its favorite food? Crocodiles. I can only imagine the digestive system on that thing.

Incidentally, this decade also saw the discovery of the smallest known snake, the Barbados Threadsnake.

Fanged Frogs: 2009 was a big year for frogs with teeth. Fanged frogs turned up in the Mount Bosavi crater in Papua New Guinea, where strange and wondrous new species are being discovered all the time. But even more monstrous are the Limnonectes megastomias, recently discovered in Thailand. This amphibian has been known to use its fangs in deadly combat, dismembering its froggy opponents. On top of that, when a bird swoops near, L. megastomias will snap and turn it into a tasty feast.

Sea Monsters of the Ancient Deep: Paleontologists digging in the Arctic Svalbard islands uncovered what they believe to be a new species of pliosaur, one with a skull twice as large as a Tyrannosaurus rex's. Its teeth were 12 inches long (with a bite four times as strong as T. Rex's), and is 15-meter-long body weighed an estimated 45 tons. That would make this Jurassic beast considerably larger than any pliosaur previously discovered.

Beware the Box: Giant jellyfish are a sight to behold, but it's the diminutive Malo kingi that you'll really want to avoid. The jelly gets its name, tragically, from its first known victim, Robert King, an American tourist swimming off the Queensland coast in 2002. Some researchers believe kingi venom is among the most toxic in the world.

A Rat as Big as a Cow: They just don't make rodents like they used to. Josephoartigasia monesi weighed around a ton — dwarfing the modern capybara — and had enormous incisors that rival a beaver's wood shredding teeth. Those incisors came in hand when fending off predatory birds and Sabertooth Tigers, though this largest of the rodents snacked on fruits and vegetables.

Mammal-Eating Plants: Pitcher plants are nothing new, but these large, rat-eating veggies added a few species in the last ten years. Naturalist David Attenborough was immortalized in Nepenthes attenboroughii, a new species found in the Philippines. Rodents are attracted to the liquid in the pitchers, then drown when they tumble inside.

A Bug Bigger Than You: In 2007, diggers found giant spiked claw belonging to Jaekelopterus rhenaniae in Prum, Germany. This sea scorpion, which lived 390 million years ago, was an estimated 8.2 meters long and ate anything it could get its claws on — including other scorpions.

Extreme Living, in Your Hairspray: Extremophiles can exist in environments that would kill lesser species — in extreme heat or cold, inside nuclear reactors, or in the void of space. Microbacterium hatanonis, discovered in 2008, chooses an odd environment as its home: in hairspray. It's not clear how the bacterium affects humans, but the discovery adds more information on where and how they can survive.

Bomber Worms: This year, a researcher at Scripps Institute of Oceanography discovered seven new species of sea worms that secrete small globs of fluid that act as biological flash bombs. These bombs glow, distracting predators while the worm slips away. It's only a shame that their defensive bombs can't be weaponized for bonus monster action.

A source tells us Sarandon, 63, is now in a relationship with the 31 year-old Bricklin. Which, first of all: Holy shit. Second of all: This suggests Sarandon's investment in Bricklin's Ping Pong social club, Spin, was not only motivated by her professed love of the game. Bricklin is a filmmaker whose latest (first?) film is a documentary about his father, the founder of Subaru of America. He's also one of three principals in Spin, which opened this September in the Flatiron and offers unlimited ping pong playing and hobnobbery for a modest $100/month membership fee. (Filmmakers Franck Raharinsoy and Bill Mack are the other two founders.)

If the rumor is true, the unlikely couple's relationship was probably sparked by their mutual appreciation for thwacking a little plastic ball across a net. According to the Observer, Sarandon and Bricklin first met in 2007 at one of the celebrity-studded "Naked Ping Pong" parties Bricklin and his two filmmaking buddies hosted in their Tribeca loft. (Alas, no actual nudity was involved.) Sarandon then hired the trio to make a video for Robbins' 50th birthday. (Whoops!) According to our source, "The rest is history."

A quick trip down Google lane finds Bricklin to be a cuddly hipster Ping Pong nerd, haplessly forehanding his way into the pages of Vogue, the Times and New York Social Diary. In 2008, he tried out for the Beijing Olympics in what must have been a joke. His level of play was described by USA Today as "marginally better than some pickup pingpong match in a college dorm rec room." (He lost in the first round, 4 sets to nil.)

We'll see if Sarandon and Bricklin are spotted playing any heated doubles matches in the near future.

Update: ABC News reports that Sarandon's publicist, Teal Cannady, denies that Sarandon has been volleying with Ping Pong boy:

"The rumors are absolutely untrue," Cannaday told ABCNews.com. "Susan's relationship with Jonathan Bricklin is strictly a business one."

Here's Bricklin playing Ping Pong in 2007 while waiting in line for the release of the iPhone. Yes, really.

[Pic Getty]