The Hollywood Reporter passes on word that Huffington has joined forces with How I Met Your Mother executive producer Greg Malins to concoct a new ABC series about three newbie Congressional members trying to make their way in our nation's capital:

The 20th Century Fox TV-produced project centers on the friendship of three freshman members of Congress — two men and a woman — who live together in D.C.

"One is swept up in the movement of change and goes to D.C. to make a difference; one has been in politics for a long time; and one is a master of the media and sound bites," Malins said.

The project will draw inspiration from real-life Washington figures.

Apparently Malins and company think DC is the hottest ticket in Hollywood. You know, because Barack Obama has made the District cool again. But has it really?

A number of DC-based shows tried — and failed — to make it to the small screen this season, yet television big-wigs axed the ideas. And, honestly, we can't blame them. Our nation has become hyper-politicized and the very thought of a fictionalized account of our collective national struggle seems, at best, a lame attempt at zeitgeist-related desperation.

BusinessWeek writer Roben Farzad flaunted his facial hair.


Ars Technica editor Jacqui Cheng bitched about her car rental.

ABC newdude John Berman damned his faint praise.

Wall Street Journal writer Jessica Vascellaro sought pitchers and catchers.

USA Today Detroit bureau chief Sharon Carty planned the next day's coverage.

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Guardian writer Bobbie Johnson sought proof his employer deserved worship.

ABC newslunk Jake Tapper never thought he'd be on a copter.

Chicago Tribune twitter newbie Stacy St. Clair objected to the belittling of fictional furry creatures.

TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld tried to unload Brooklyn real estate.

Forbes writer Brian Caulfield delivered a veiled threat to his gadget collection.

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MSNBC commentator Dan Abrams inveighed against the horrors of the "mainstream media."

ABC's John Berman played Captain Phillips to his apartment's Somali-pirate rodents.

Techmeme editrix Megan McCarthy questioned California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman's competence.

Web 3.0 fanboy Alan Meckler gave Twitter "big ups."

Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley mooched off of ex-employer Google again.

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The Woz and partner Karina Smirnoff were ejected from the televised dancing competition last night, four shows into a season that was already something of a Silicon Valley obsession before the first installment even aired. The charmingly oversharey ubergeek won plaudits from the judges for his enthusiasm and, following a foot fracture, determination.

But as computer-hardware-designer Woz himself knows, brute force is rarely the optimal way to solve a problem; elegance inevitably wins over the long term. Tiring of Woz's clumsy steps — one said Woz's was the worst Samba he'd witnessed — the judges eliminated him last night, along with former Playboy model Holly Madison.

Ever the gracious contestant, Wozniak went of his way after being eliminated to praise the Dancing voting system he had once slammed; as well as Madison and partner Smirnoff. "I want to dance more with you," he told her.

We have a feeling there are at least a few other people who'd like to keep watching.

CNET adorablogger Natali Del Conte forgot her PIN.

Dennis Clark, executive producer of Ryan Seacrest's radio show, had a moment of gay panic.

Broadcasting and Cable's Alex Weprin steeled himself for an encounter with hunkiness.

Vanity Fair online editor Mike Hogan assiduously pursued Internet fame.

Wounded ABC newsman Bob Woodruff sought help from a Twitter veteran.

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Woz's quip:

I was more shocked than any time in my life. Maybe except when I got served with divorce papers.

Turns out I'm not alone in thinking Woz makes a great reality TV star. It's not like we want to watch quality dancing; we just want entertainment. And we're getting it for at least one more week.

The latest on Woz, who performed last week with a fractured foot: He's going on air tonight having pulled a hamstring and accused DWTS producers of rigging the vote.

Last week, he emailed supporters claiming that results were getting manipulated to juice ratings:

The producers play games to get viewers and don't disclose the numbers. If they disclosed the numbers, it would be less of a game, but still suspect. If tomorrow, they claim I'm in the bottom 2 dance teams, including viewer votes, I believe that it's an outright lie....

I'm sure they want me in this dance-off to get higher Tuesday ratings, and they have preplanned it so that I win. If my leg acts up tomorrow, they will either have to announce another pair as being the lowest or send me home, and I don't think they will give me up.

He's since apologized:

I have been around the internet conspiracy theory forums for too long.

We know how easy it is to espouse a lot of ideas and build conspiracy theory. No conspiracy theory can be proven wrong, so there are always plenty of die-hard followers.

Yesterday I wrote my suspicions of the secret Dancing With The Stars audience vote tabulations. I wrote that the producers were liars, simply because I truly believed in that possibility, not because I had a shred of evidence.

I hurt a lot of honest people.

If anyone's manipulating the results, it's surely Woz, who's using his website, email list, and Facebook group to decimate the competition — at least the competition for online attention. Did you know that Lil' Kim was competing in this season? Belinda Carlisle? Lawrence Taylor? If you did, it's probably only because Woz has blogged about them. Will he dance on, despite his injury? Woz recently complained about the press's obsession with the health of his partner in founding Apple, Steve Jobs. Maybe he was just jealous his own health wasn't getting more attention.

(Photo by Janet Wozniak)

And it's true! Tapper admitted on Twitter that he has blocked people because he got tired of reading their critiques — including Talking Points Memo, a political blog.

Tapper-loathing twits are trying to make this a scandal about "transparency." it would be, were Twitter's "block" function not so laughably ineffective. While a block prevents a user from "following" someone on Twitter, and thus get their tweets delivered to one's cell phone or posted on one's Twitter homepage, the blocked user can still see their tweets on their Twitter page. So anyone Tapper blocks can simply type in "twitter.com/jaketapper" and see whatever he has to say.

It does, however prevent Tapper himself from reading replies posted to him on Twitter — so it's the Internet equivalent of sticking one's fingers in one's ears and saying, "La la la, I can't hear you!" Even worse, those blocked by Tapper have now started banding together and labeling his block a "badge of honor." Tapper finally relented and unblocked TPM.

Childishly indecorous? Perhaps, but that sums up the whole Twitter experience, right? Tapper, alas, seems swept up with early-adopter enthusiasm for Twitter. In a statement to Think Progress, he writes:

I'm trying to use twitter as a way to communicate with all sorts of people from all over the political spectrum, as a place for feedback, polite argument, and dialogue. I learned that the AP was taking Coach K's quote out of context from a tweet; it ended up on Good Morning America this morning. I want this way to talk to people. I don't want it to turn into what the comment section of my blog has become. The only people who have been blocked are people who make ad hominem attacks. They're still fully able to read my tweets — I just don't care to read theirs.

"Feedback, polite argument, and dialogue"? One would think Tapper, who has surely learned not to expect such rarities in the beat he covers, would be jaded enough not to look for them on Twitter.

Still, he scored a modest 17 out of 30, and the judges told him he needed to work on things like "dance quality" and "endurance." Oh, please. This is America! No one succeeds on actual talent anymore. You just have to be liked. And who can't like a rotund dude who ends his dance with a Tom Selleck beefcake pose?

Watch for Woz's ex, comedienne Kathy Griffin, in the audience:

TechPresident's Micah Sifry leaked Obama Web guru Katie Stanton's complaint about government bureaucracy.

Boing Boing adventuress continued her travels in Africa.

Jake Tapper, ABC's resident hunk of red hot newsmeat, gave an incomprehensible update about President Obama's quest for culinary knowledge.

VentureBeat blogger Eric Eldon exemplified the South By Southwest work ethic.

As did Air America radio hostess and frequent alcohol seeker Ana Marie Cox.

Woz was photographed leaving dancing practice with a cast on his left leg. His next dance will be "wild and fast and all-over crazy and fun, just like the first one," he told fans in an email that one republished on his Facebook page. Entertaintment Tonight reports that an ABC spokesperson has confirmed Woz's plans to keep competing.

Wild, fast, and crazy, with a fractured leg? That's the kind of braggadocio that led Woz to create Apple's first hit computers, the Apple I and Apple II three decades ago — and led him to enter the dance competition in the first place. But human bodies are not mutable digital objects, like the silicon chips and digital bits he manipulated into personal computers. We can admire his resilience even as we scratch our heads at his quixotic terpsichorean quest. A leg fracture isn't simply something you can debug. But this drama — geek obstinance versus corporeal decomposition — makes for must-see TV.

(Photo via Entertainment Tonight/Adrian Varnedoe/Pacific Coast News)

After Woz, as he's known in the Valley, pranced on stage with a pink feather boa and slung dance partner Karina Smirnoff around like an unruly piece of code, the judges grimaced. One said, "It was like watching a Teletubby going mad at a gay pride parade." But come on: Did the producers expect anything else when they put a portly billionaire on the show? At least Mark Cuban, Woz's rich-tech predecessor on the show, had a modicum of feline grace. All Woz has is a hundred-watt smile.

What was really funny: The jokes about Apple's Safari Web browser crashing, or a hostile judge not getting service at an Apple Store. Don't they know that Woz hasn't had a real role at the company for decades?

Talking Points Memo blogger Matt Cooper admitted to being in the dark.
Unduly sexy ABC newsman Jake Tapper taunted his bosses.
Huffington Post survivor Rachel Sklar admitted to shopping at Diane Von Furstenberg knockoff vendor Forever 21.
CBS geek explainer Natali Del Conte dealt with a Starbucks stalker.
New York Times gadget dude David Pogue confronted a bully on Facebook, several decades too late.

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Inhuman, caffeine-fueled Gizmodo blogging machine Matt Buchanan broke down.

ABC's John Berman resisted the urge to dance.

Sun Myung Moon employee Christina Bellantoni got told by a Congressional aide.

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon producer Gavin Purcell was very, very tired.

Formerly important editorial person Bonnie Fuller failed at Twitter. (140 characters max, Bonnie — but don't worry, even Google's CEO got that wrong.)

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It's a phenomenon the geeks are already calling "Dancing with the Woz" and is potentially the greatest terpsichorean trainwreck in television history. Woz has entered the ABC dance competition to prove that anyone can learn some new steps, and his fans are already gearing up to stack the vote by any means necessary. Wozniak has asked tech-savvy viewers not to hack ABC's voting systems. If that happens, it will be just part of the circus that will make this a must-see.

When did computer-company founders become reality-TV contestants? When they stopped having anything resembling a real job. If hard-driving Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on technology's A list, then Woz, who dropped out of Apple to teach at a public school, and then returned to a life of studied Silicon Valley dilettantery, is surely on its D list.

Indeed, he's so on the D list that he dated My Life on the D List's Kathy Griffin for a while, before a surprise marriage (his fourth) to an Apple colleague last August.

Wags are already calling his pairing with dancer Karina Smirnoff "Beauty and the Beast." But Woz makes up for his schlumpy, bearded appearance with a lot of what American Idol's judges call "likeability." Unlike Jobs, who is obsessive about his privacy to the point of being a snarling jerk, Woz overshares to a degree that the Twitter generation finds charming. He's a bit of a prankster — which means we might have some on-air pratfalls to look forward to. He may not make for a conventional TV star, but he's perfect for the low expectations of today's reality lineup.

Obsessive fanboy Brian Tong of CNET infiltrated Woz's dance studio and interviewed him for the clip above. "If you ever want to focus on one thing and see how far you can go, this is the way to do it," Woz says. Here's the full segment from CNET's "The Apple Byte":

Preternaturally hunky Curbed editor Ben Leventhal, ordered by ex-girlfriend Julia Allison to suggest a dinner spot, told her to Google the keywords "sugar daddy restaurants."


ABC newsman George Stephanopoulos felt compelled to clarify after reporting that his White House lunch with the president included "leeks and pot."

Spy cofounder Kurt Andersen's job was amazing today and yours wasn't.

New Yorker writer Susan Orlean caught the flu.

Funnyman John Hodgman announced his hate of the word "meh," and stirred up a fuss among the obstinantly nonchalant.

Ha! Like anything's ever deleted on the Internet.

If you didn't catch the Wife Swap episode in question, which aired two weeks ago, it helps to understand that Stephens and her husband, British-born venture capitalist Stephen Fowler, went beyond the normal fish-out-of-water misunderstandings highlighted in the show. Instead, they inflicted every imaginable form of San Francisco snobbery, parading their education, environmentalism, and wealth before the dumbfounded Missouri couple, Gayla and Alan Long, with whom they traded families.

A week ago, Stephens published and deleted her first apology online. Two days later, she posted a fuller, more contrite apology, where she unabashedly condemned the relentless insults her husband laid on Gayla Long and the rest of the known universe.

Unabashedly condemning her husband? Why, that's something that Stephens said she would only do in private in her first apology She also posted on a Yahoo Groups message board, whence a tipster obtained it. (Both are posted below.)

In the first apology, Stephens relates how "sorry" her husband is-but never actually apologizes herself, for her statements or her husband's. She promises "behind the scenes information" and blames the episode's reception on how it was "edited" and Fowler's misbehavior on "stress." And, intriguingly, she says that her husband only agreed to do the show to support her. Reading between the lines, that suggests Stephens was hoping to promote her weight-loss business on ABC, and was unhappy with how things turned out.

Could ABC have complained that such disclosures violated the agreement she signed when she agreed to do the show? Impossible to say, but in her second apology, she made no complaints about the show's editing and says she was "utterly appalled" by her husband's "aggressively cruel and insulting" behavior, and doesn't mention his reluctance to participate.

The first apology:

I just wanted to express my deepest heartfelt gratitude to all of you for your support after the show last night. I can hardly express how much it means to me.

I would like to offer some behind the scenes information that might help as well. We had not seen the episode before Friday and had no idea how it would be edited.

First and foremost, my husband very much regrets how he behaved during the swap. He is sorry for how he treated Gayla, he is sorry for insulting middle America, and sorry about the whole thing.

He did not want to do the show but did it only to support me, but the stress of it all got to be too much for him, and he had some extremely bad moments, and all on film. So, it's like having your worst faults, and your worst behavior at your weakest moments put together into a show and all of the redeeming bits excluded from that show. For the record, he is a dedicated, loving, caring father and husband, has a great self-depricating sense of humor. He never laughs so hard as when he is laughing at himself. None of this made it to the the show.

Also, I could say nothing on TV. The last thing on earth I would do was go on film criticizing my husband, life partner, and father of my children in front of millions of people, especially when the ONLY reason he was there was to support me. That's not who I am. If I had something to say, I would say it in private.

Regarding the proud to be an American conversation. That was highly edited. For the record, I am proud of things that I have done, not things over which I had no control. I was extremely fortunate to be born American, but I didn't chose it, it's just how it happened. I do, however, greatly respect and identify with many American values, and love the way of life. I have lived in many countries and I chose to live in the US because I think it's the best place in the world for me to live. I LOVE living here. The opportunities here are amazing. The culture respects finding and pursuing your dreams, which to me is one of the most rewarding things in life. And free speech has it's upside too, most of the time!

My husband feels the same way about wanting to live in the US. That's why he chose to become an American citizen.

Know, as I think you do, that I have deep compassion for those stuggling with their weight. I struggled, and have dedicated my life to ending that struggle. With your support I can continue to do that. I hope that it's possible.

I am not checking email at the moment, but please know how much your support means to me. It is a great treasure that I am surrounding myself with right now.

With Love and Light,

Renee

The second apology:

Dear Clients, Colleagues, Friends and the interested public.

I deeply appreciate the compassionate outpouring of support many of you have shown as I struggle through this most difficult time.

Now that I have had a few days to gather the courage, I would like to share with you where I truly stand. I too am utterly appalled by my husband's behavior during the swap. I had not seen the footage until Friday night, so didn't fully know how incredibly badly he had behaved until I saw it on national TV. I knew he was not proud of his behavior and that he had many misgivings. I did not know he had been aggressively cruel and insulting on so many levels. This has been impossible for me to comprehend.

While I completely condemn his behavior I feel confused because he has been a loving and dedicated husband and father for many years. This in no way can rationalize his inexcusable behavior. It is simply an explanation of why it has taken me this long to make a statement. I have asked Stephen to get professional help.

Finally, I know that I created offense as well. When I made the statement about the parents not having advanced degrees, I was responding to direct and probing questions from the director about what level of education I thought the Long's had. I certainly don't think people need college degrees to live intelligent and valuable lives, and was not passing any kind of judgment with my comment. My edited comment regarding being an American was actually an acknowledgement that being born here isn't enough of a reason to be proud. We each need to make meaningful contributions that we are proud of and acknowledge other's contributions as well. We create community and we try to live honorably and that is what makes us proud but it's not our birthright. I am grateful to be a part of this country.

Again, thank you for your heartfelt comments.

Blessings,

Renee

A week ago, Fowler and Stephens appeared on the ABC reality program, where two families trade wives for two weeks. Stephens went to live with Alan Long, the mayor of a rural Missouri town, who sent his wife, Gayla, to the Victorian manse of the Fowler-Stephens family in Noe Valley, a wealthy San Francisco enclave of earth-loving millionaires.

Normally, this would just be just another fish-out-of-water cultural clash of the sort Wife Swap peddles all the time, with an everyone-learns-and-everyone-hugs happy ending. The rural Midwestern family loves paintball and ATVs! The rich San Francisco clan favors piano lessons, organic breakfast cereal, and energy exchange! Hahaha look at them try to get along!

Except that Fowler, a British expatriate, didn't even try to get along. He was phenomenally cruel to Gayla, giving her the silent treatment for much of her stay. When he did talk to her, he managed to insult, among dozens of groups, fat people-the fat people who pay his wife money to make them not fat. (His wife suggested that she looked down on people who didn't have advanced degrees and was not proud — shades of Michelle Obama! — to be an American. But her behavior was so much better than her husband's that it hardly drew notice.) "Agenda, that's a big word for you," Fowler said as Gayla stumbled through a set of rules she sought to impose on his family. "The most boorish and abusive of husbands ever," concluded a blogger on Reality Roll Call.

The fallout: Internet message-board commenters went even crazier than usual, posting Fowler's home address, which in turn prompted him to threaten to sue the website where it had appeared. Someone launched stephenfowlersucks.com. On Friday, Fowler finally apologized publicly (on his wife's weight-loss blog) and resigned from the boards of two environmental nonprofits on which he served. And his wife apologized, too, stating that he needed "professional help." We want to know who's apologizing to the kids.

A sample of the abuse Fowler dished out on Gayla Long:

Our source was first approached this week by NBC for what a producer called a "feature" on Jobs, but later admitted was an advance obituary. Then a CBS news producer called and also requested an interview on Jobs that when pressed, they admitted too was also an advance obituary for the ailing Jobs.

Newspapers and wire services prepare obituaries far in advance that can sometimes sit on the shelves for years. Sometimes it can lead to embarrassment, such as when Bloomberg News inadvertently released a canned obituary for Jobs. And while TV news operations are quick to prepare packages of archival footage if they so much as hear a famous person is ailing, actually taping interviews for those packages is more difficult. Even if news producers can find people willing to talk about someone as if he were dead on camera, it's expensive to send out camera crews to gather footage that might go stale.

Jobs, who is on a six-month medical leave, has said he expects to return to work after dealing with a medical problem he first characterized as a "hormonal imbalance," but later admitted was more complex. In 2003, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and underwent surgery to treat it in 2004; most observers believe his present problems stem from aftereffects of the surgery, which likely involved a Whipple procedure, a rewiring of the digestive tract akin to a gastric bypass.

Is Jobs dying? No major TV network has reported that. But those same networks' producers must believe it is likely enough to roll their cameras.

(Photo by Gizmodo)