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.
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• Afghanistan: Signs of victory in eight months.—Even Cindy admits that this is crazy talk.
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• 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.
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• 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!
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• Triple Crown winner is a small, unknown bay horse.—I can't even begin to care about this.
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• 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.
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• Brad and Angelina? Bad news.—But what's the bad news? That he's keeping that ugly beard?
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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!
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• Michael Douglas exits starring roles for director/producer status.—Didn't this happen in like 1975 with One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest?
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• 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.
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• 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.
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• 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.

Look at the stock chart above illustrating the past ten years. Look at it! Paul Krugman today points out the obvious: The whole decade was a waste.

Last and least for most Americans - but a big deal for retirement accounts, not to mention the talking heads on financial TV - it was a decade of zero gains for stocks, even without taking inflation into account. Remember the excitement when the Dow first topped 10,000, and best-selling books like "Dow 36,000" predicted that the good times would just keep rolling? Well, that was back in 1999. Last week the market closed at 10,520.

And it gets worse! As he hinted, the whole decade was a wash without taking inflation into account. And what if we do take it into account? Fortunately for, ah, suicidal investors, the WSJ illustrated just how bleak the real picture is today:

In 1999 dollars, the Dow is only at about 8200 [today] and would have to rise another 28% or so to return to 1999 levels. Using today's dollars and starting at 10520.10, the Dow would have to surpass 13460 to get back to its 1999 level in real, inflation-adjusted terms.

So you, the investor, can take heart in the fact that your plain vanilla Dow Jones index portfolio didn't just tread water the entire past decade; instead, it lost more than a quarter of its real value. You should have listened when your gut told you to invest it all in GI Joe action figures.

As we all know, especially if we listen to jackass House Republicans, holding terrorists or would-be terrorists or non-terrorists accused of terrorism in prisons inside US borders is basically like giving them a free ticket to Disneyland and telling them to go nuts. It is basically a death sentence for your children.

Liz Cheney tried to warn us! Pete Hoekstra tried to warn us! According to Pete, once Gitmo prisoners to go Michigan, they will get something called "rights," and those "rights" include the right to blow up your house and cancel Christmas retroactively.

But no one is bitching about this Abdulmutallab guy being held in Michigan! Liz Cheney hasn't even said anything! That is so weird!

Just when we thought that Gosselin would be one of those horrible memories of 2009 that would fade as soon as the big ball drops in Times Square on Friday, he comes back with this retarded and completely manufactured story. If only we had something else to write about between holidays, but no, we're stuck worrying about whether Jon Gosselin wrecked his Manhattan pussy den or whether his girlfriend did it for him.

Gosselin's apartment was definitely ransacked on Saturday by someone. A note calling him all sorts of mean names (like that hasn't happened before) was left on the dresser and stabbed with a knife. It was signed 'Hailey Glassman,' Jon's ex.

In today's NY Post, Glassman cops to leaving the note, but says she didn't trash the place or put a knife through it. Anand Ahuja, Glassman's lawyer, told the Post, "To me it appears to be a huge, huge publicity stunt. There was nothing taken she wasn't entitled to. Gosselin told her, 'I am going to be evicted, so take with you whatever you want to take.'"

Gosselin's lawyer is out with a statement of his own. "Hailey Glassman is going to jail. It's a simple as that," his attorney Mark Heller told RadarOnline.com. He also says that there is security footage that proves Glassman did the trashing.

Well, get us the fucking tape already! If it exists that is the only thing that can clear Gosselin's name. Because, Jon, America hates you. It thinks that you and your midlife crisis and Ed Hardy T-shirts and Vegas pool parties and inappropriate girlfriends and Michael Lohan bro-dates are a disgusting mess and it's going to believe Hailey Glassman over you! That is seriously sad. We really want to believe that you ruined your own house, smashed a Ming vase, and cut up your "favorite Louis Vuitton shoes" for attention because that is the kind of character we think you have.

According to the old internet adage, pictures or it didn't happen. Give us the tape or shut the hell up, Jon. Either way we want to forget about this whole thing—and you—as soon as possible.

[Image via Bauer-Griffin]

Page Six reports that Epstein's lawyers were "admonished" by a judge after she found that they used a deposition with one of the women as an opportunity to "had badgered the woman by repeatedly quizzing her about having three abortions" and "the type of sex she engages in." For eight hours. Classy! Also Epstein's private team of oppo researchers are busy digging dirt on all the dirty, bad women who he paid for sex, reportedly.

However! The opposing lawyer could theoretically subpoena all the famous people who rode on Epstein's sexxxy plane, like Bill Clinton and Lawrence Summers. And Epstein has already settled with four women, according to P6. So we smell settlements, settlements, and more settlements to come! When will the system let Jeffrey Epstein's penis be free?

1. "Which male model is regretting he got carried away with a certain starlet? He succumbed to her aggressive seduction, didn't use protection and now worries he may have contracted an STD?" [P6]

2. "This actress – who has been known to balance more than one job at a time – has always presented a squeaky-clean image on TV. So it came as a surprise to hear that she and her actor husband regularly take a walk on the wild side. No, they are not cheating on each other. Rather, the couple likes to direct each other in the making of live videos of their enthusiastic bedroom sessions. When they have adult guests over, they wait until all the children are tucked away for the evening, then show edited versions of the films to the guest. If the guest/s react with shock or horror, the husband and wife laugh it all off as a big over-acted joke. If the guest/s react with interest, however, they are invited to join the couple for a romp." [Blind Gossip]

3. "This male television star has been fighting off rumors about his sexuality for some time now. He hasn't confirmed or denied and seems to put down any credibility to speculation. We have a source that says the star is not really interested in revealing his sexuality, because he doesn't really care about it himself. He has no drive, no real sexual preference and no interest in a sexual relationship. His asexuality is pretty well known among family and friends, but he has no desire to advertise it to the world. Not Zachary Quinto." [BuzzFoto

4. "Trouble is brewing between these two Celebrity families who used to be very close friends and the trouble started with their children. One child from one of the families is being accused of bullying a younger child from the other family. Apparently, when the two clans get together this older ‘bully' pushes, hits, threatens and intimidates. To make matters worse, when the accusations were brought up, the parents of the child denied it and claimed that their child was close to perfect, further causing tension. Needless to say, the two families aren't hanging out anymore….No one from this [is part of Sarah Jessica Parker's] family." [BuzzFoto]

5. "Which memoir by a 92-year old, yoga-practicing East Side socialite was actually written by the lover of her walker?" [P6]

6. "Which novice restaurant co-owner table-hops, orders food and drink for the table, partakes with gusto, then moves on before the check comes? Old friends are horrified to end up paying for the owner's dinner."[P6]

This is happening! Did you know that a church does not contribute a god damn thing economically, and, to the contrary, pays no taxes at all while still consuming city services such as firefighter responses when heathens burst into flames? It is true. Churches contribute less to the public coffers than more civic-minded businesses like strip clubs and sex shops and Satanic apparel outlet stores. The WSJ reports that America's entire tumbleweed-strewn business district is hamstrung by a preponderance of freeloading houses of worship, popping up faster than toadstools on the cow shit of the recession.

The City of San Diego fought for two years to prevent a church from settling in an industrial park, which the city said was meant for job-creating businesses, not worship.

Something useful—not church. When will Jesus start paying his fair share?
[Pic via]

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!

• The Natonal Enquirer's "Britney Abortion Nightmare: 'I Killed My Baby!'" is interesting because Britney has eyeglasses on, and have we seen these spectacles before? The story itself, though appealing, ultimately doesn't pass muster, unless they mean she actually killed Jayden James or something, because (1.) with Papa Spears as her guardian, Britney's personal life has been pretty secure (2.) I have this feeling the Spears clan are pro-lifers, given 17-year-old Jamie Lynn's recent birth. Not that being pro-life prevents abortion, just that we are straying from this story's real issue: Britney's relative level of cuteness in the above photo, because (a.) I think she looks nice and normal, in a "bedhead at the airport" sort of way, and (b.) the phrase "Britney fights depression every Christmas season" is just so relatable next to this foggy-eyed airport photo, with the awkward scarf and messy hair, and (c.) are big eyeglasses over now? [NatlEnq]
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• Michael Lohan: Factchecker. Papa Lohan wrote to Page Six to inform them that he is not that big of a deadbeat, just a little bit of a deadbeat: "Court papers indicate Dina claims it is $15,000 not $40,000" in child support. [P6]
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• Luckily, during this trying time of Haus of Lohan agony, "Lindsay is finding comfort in new beau Adam Senn," a Gucci model who is weirdly unphotogenic in the picture Gatecrasher provides [fig.1], but further research reveals a baby-faced beefcake [fig.2], so I see Lindsay's point. Apparently she brought him to Ali's sixteenth birthday party. [Gatecrasher]
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• Yesterday, after Jon Gosselin's apartment was trashed and slashed with a knife stabbed through a handwritten note that read HAILEY GLASSMAN DID THIS, police questioned (wait for it) Gosselin ex-lover Hailey Glassman about the crime, though they did not charge her. Now Glassman is striking back saying it was a "huge, huge publicity stunt" (for Jon, or for her?) and a frame job. My question: How come Jon is complaining about damage to a "100-year-old Ming vase"? Isn't the point of Ming vases that they come from the Ming dynasty, which ended in 1644? And if that's not the way it works, someone should change it. Ming vases should come from Ming, just as Chihuahua cheese should be the dairy product harvested from roving herds of chihuahuas at Central Park. [TMZ] [NYDN]
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• The Broderick-Parker clan sold pictures of themselves on a beautiful floral sofa with their beautiful old-lady-named twin babies Marion Loretta Elwell and Tabitha Hodge. Like all things she does, Sarah Jessica takes even her babies' names a step too trendy. But, they're a lovely family, wish them well, &c. [Gatecrasher]
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• Rihanna wore a pink bikini to the beach on Boxing Day. [Sun]
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• Another National Enquirer gossip de force: Martha Stewart collapses! Lesbian dates, prison attack horror, violent temper tantums. All from turncoat Mariana Pasternak's new memoir The Best of Friends: Martha and Me. Pasternak testified against Martha during the insider trading trial. Did she also have lesbian sex with her? I'm going with "sure, why not." [NatlEnq]
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• So, what did Ivana Trump do to get kicked off a West Palm Beach flight to New York Saturday? She was "miserable that she was put in coach and not first class," "complaining the nearby children were acting like monsters," called them "barbarians" and "little [bleep]ers," told their parent to "shut them up." What a jerk. On the other hand, you know one or two fellow passengers were secretly cheering her on. All in all: Worst holiday travel season ever. [P6]
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• Page Six has declared war on blogs! "This is why they're called 'blogs,' not journalism," the Richard Johnson Consortium sneers as it recounts a chilling tale of a Bronx eatery unfairly ridiculed by vile bloggers. As the folks at P6 are surely aware, nobody cares about the actual content of this item, it is the anti-blog meta-message here that matters, and while Page Six vs. Blogosphere could pretty easily fall into a tit-for-tat battle of factchecks, let us instead speculate who, specifically, in new media Richard Johnson is trying to incite. One wrongful blog from today's item is a .net, and another is a .blogspot.com, so they're definitely going after the third blog, New York's Grub Street. Who do they hate there? [P6]
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  Figure 1.
  

  Figure 2.
  

• I believe them. TMZ says it consulted all kinds of experts, and they wouldn't lie about that. Say what you will about the propriety of their sources, TMZ's big breaks generally stand the test of time. This qualifies as a big break, and they know it.
• The back story is based in fact. That it is insanely juicy, oh-so-scandalous fact only sweetens the deal:

  There are numerous articles and books on President John F. Kennedy which mention a 2-week, Mediterranean boating trip that JFK—then a Senator—took in August, 1956, with his brother Ted Kennedy and Senator George Smathers. The trio reportedly entertained a number of women on the yacht. Jackie Kennedy was pregnant at the time and was rushed to the hospital while JFK was on the boat. Doctors performed an emergency C-section, but the infant was stillborn.

  Lest you be confused by how this meshes with the last season of Mad Men, the baby described here is Jackie's first, Arabella, whose stillbirth occurred in 1956. In 1963, when the Draper household was falling apart, Jackie's youngest, Patrick Bouvier, died at the age of two days of a respiratory disease.

• But here is a question: Who took the picture? The angle suggests they are either (a.) docked, and the cameraman is on land (b.) beside a second boat, and the cameraman is on that (c.) alone, and the cameraman is treading water and angling his camera lens up, which doesn't seem likely, because cameras did not come waterproofed back then. Was there some 1950s paparazzo lurking about, and if so, does he have a whole role of sordid naked yacht pics? Or was Teddy aboard a second, even wilder pleasure yacht?
• And: Who are these randos who keep popping up with intimate imagery of JFK cavorting with naked girls and Marilyn Monroe smoking "weed", anyway? How would such a picture come to exchange hands in the first place, and why did the old guy fold and unfold it so many times? He knew it was the president, and valuable, so unless he carrying it around in his back pocket as a talisman, there can't be much reason for the crappy shape the photo's in.

[TMZ]

Yes, ethnic profiling was perhaps at play when armed authorities dragged the leaky-boweled gentleman off the tarmac in cuffs. But you have to admit: in the skittish aftermath of the jockstrap jihadi's attempt to blow up NWA Flight 253 during its last hour with explosive stored in his underoos, a second Nigerian needing an hour of locked-door privacy at the end of yet another NWA Flight 253 was quite the unlucky coincidence. One of the unluckiest lavatory uses of all time, maybe.

And thus, we induct Nigeria's Bad Luck Bowel Mover to the Ill-Timed Bathroom Break Hall of Fame. Come, let us marvel at its honorees! Their tragic and hilarious stories are poignant reminders of human frailty. For cultures may clash, and discontents may roil, but deep down we are all mere slaves to the bowel. Even President Bush and Tyra Banks!

(Yes, this entire post will be an extended poop joke.)

Nigeria's Bad Luck Bowel Mover
The only point of hope in Sunday's detained NWA Flight 253 passenger's story: We do not know his name. If he's lucky, the world will never find out, and he can spend the rest of his life pretending this incident never happened. The man, a Nigerian national, spent "the last hour of flight" in the bathroom, defying crew orders to exit the rest room and take his seat so the plane—which originated in Amsterdam—could land in Detroit. The Detroit Free Press reports:

The traveler in question had "spent a lengthy time in the restroom," FBI spokeswoman Sandra Berchtold said.

"This raised concerns so an alert was raised. ... The investigation shows that this was a non-serious incident and all is clear at this point," she said.

After the flight successfully landed (it is unclear whether the man was still in the restroom, or if he had finished by then) armed officers stormed the craft and took him into custody, while bomb-sniffing dogs flooded the area and scared the remaining shit out of everyone who had just spent their winter break in Amsterdam getting stoned.

George W. Bush Begs Condi to Halt U.N. So He Can Pee
At left is a note that President George W. Bush wrote to Condoleezza Rice on September 14, 2005 during a United Nations Security Council meeting. In case you can't make out his pee-pee dance chicken scratch, here's what it says:

I think I
MAY NEED
A BATHroom
break?
Is this possible
W

Veteran Reuters photographer Rick Wilking scored the over-the-shoulder shot, and both Snopes and an initially skeptical NewsBusters confirm that the picture is, indeed, real. Here's what happened when the New York Post asked Condi about it:

The usually unflappable Rice was wide-eyed when she was shown a copy of the photo yesterday during a meeting with The Post editorial board.

"Oh, my goodness... there are no secrets," she said, laughing.

Rice explained that when Bush handed her the note, she told him all he had to do was get up and go, and that she'd take his seat while he answered nature's call.

All the Pretty Actresses Who Missed Their Awards to Piddle
In 1998 Chicago Hope's Christine Lahti missed receiving her Golden Globe because she was in the bathroom. Then, at the 2001 awards, Barry Diller—who was still a Hollywood titan back then, before he became a new media one—told Renee Zellweger it was OK for her to go to the bathroom even though her award was about to be called. "I thought, 'Well, she probably won't win.' And about a second later she did," said Barry. So he ran and got Renee while presenter Hugh Grant batted his pretty eyelashes to stall for time, and everyone had a good chuckle when she returned, and Barry the Billionaire laughed and laughed while the sad skinny starlets clung to his strong shoulders, begging for the chance to pee most anywhere to earn his approval.

Tycho Brahe and the Case of the Exploding Bladder
Eccentric Danish astronomer-nobleman Tycho Brahe was once known for paying a clairvoyant dwarf named Jepp to live under his dinner table and for wearing prosthetic noses made of precious metals after losing his real one in a duel. To the extent that he is known now, however, Tycho is known for dying of dire need to pee after a 1601 banquet in Prague with the Bohemian elites of his time. Tycho biography The Lord of Uraniborg explains:

Holding his urine longer than he was accustomed to doing, Brahe remained seated. Although he drank a bit overgenerously and felt pressure on his bladder [he told Kepler], he had less concern for the state of his health than for [the breach of] etiquette [involved in excusing himself from the table]. By the time Brahe returned home, he could no longer urinate.

After "excrutiating pain," "uninterrupted insomnia," "intestinal fever," and delirium, Brahe met his end. Some say Tycho's bladder exploded into his guts that night at the banquet and slowly killed him; others say it was a kidney stone, uremia, or mercury poisoning. The world may never know exactly how Tycho Brahe died, but exploding bladder is definitely the coolest, so in lieu of certainty, let's go with that.

The Time Fergie Wet Herself Onstage
"I had a few drinks before going on stage, but I didn't think to go to the bathroom. We were jumping around and my bladder just started, you know..." This is either (a.) heartening and suggestive of a powerful work ethic and sense of "show must go on," or (b.) disgusting and suggestive of an extraordinarily low sense of personal hygiene.

Elvis Presley's Pot Squat Overdose
The king met a humiliating end on what everyone is now obligated to call "his throne." Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley describes how fiancee Ginger Alden discovered Elvis in a scene littered with empty syringes:

She washed and put on her makeup in her own bathroom, then knocked on Elvis' bathroom door. When there was no answer, she pushed on it and discovered him lying on the floor, his gold pajama bottoms down around his ankles, his face buried in a pool of vomit on the thick shag carpet.

Similar ends have been rumored for Lenny Bruce's heroin overdose and Evelyn Waugh's sleeping pill one. I'm not sure whether ODing makes you feel like you have to go to the bathroom, or people just coincidentally keep needing to use the toilet right after taking a lethal quantity of various drugs, but any way you look at it, inopportune in the extreme.

Canadian Prime Minister Misses G20 Group Photo
And apparently Obama laughed at him for it. Canadian PM Stephen Harper ruined last April's G20 group picture because he "chose an inopportune moment for a bathroom break." By the time he got back from relieving himself, Berlusconi and the Indonesian president had already wandered away, so they never got all twenty G's in a single frame. And, yeah, there are more than 20 people in the picture at left, but not one of them is Stephen Harper, and it was very embarrassing, OK?

The Time Tyra 'Messed Herself' at Fashion Week
Inopportune both because it was Fashion Week—the time during which aspirational entertaining industry lasses want nothing more than to seem cool and desirable—and because it was in front of blogger Fabian Basabe, who was hanging out in a hotel suite when...

a group of madmen and madwomen storm in and take possession of the suite because... ready?... Tyra Banks messed herself and needed to change.  [...] Now I would like to bring to your attention that Tyra's people carried a change of clothes for her at NYC fashion week. Hmmmh... could it be that Tyra messed herself before? or just that her entourage is so organized that in case tyra would ever, maybe, possibly mess herself that one time, they have a change of clothes? I don't know... but all these thoughts were twirling in my mind when in horror I was watching such an abomination, feeling so alone in the world

.

Troy Muslin, Jailed for Turd Terrorism
An unemployed 18-year-old construction worker in Erie, Pennsylvania craps his pants. He gets new clothes and, in a fit of embarrassed rage flings the bag containing his poopy clothes over a barbed wire fence and onto the grounds of the Sigsbee Reservoir, which provides the region its drinking water. Troy then realizes he left his keys in the pocket of his poopy pants, so he returns to the scene to retrieve them—and discovers that a bomb squad, a hazardous waste unit, and the FBI are already on the scene, investigating an attempted a bio-terror attack on Erie's water supply. But then, the story becomes tragic: Musil is fined $5000, which he does not have. Despite the best attempt of benevolent readers of PoopReport.com to raise funds to save him, Musil ends up in jail. (While investigating the bioterror turd, authorities apparently caught Troy on a robbery, too.) As for what he's doing now, no clue, but if this Mixed Martial Arts social profile is to be believed, he has has since reclaimed his raging manhood.

Snakes on a Plane: A Most Unfortunate Bite
It always comes back to the airplane toilets, probably because they combine various innate human fears like (a.) claustrophobia (b.) fear of flying (c.) fear of getting sucked into an airplane toilet's death spiral vacuum flush. That can happen, right? Anyway, Snakes on a Plane wisely took all those fears and added fangs, snake, and castration anxiety. At least there wasn't a terrorist precedent to put this character into Nigerian Bad Luck Bowel Mover territory?

Domestic theatrical receipts from Friday-Sunday totaled $278 million, which the LA Times credits both to the slate of strong contenders and the year-long trend of everyone seeing lots of movies even though they have no money. Out of the films which debuted this weekend—"Sherlock Holmes," "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel," "It's Complicated," and "Nine,"—only "Nine" flopped. Avatar held onto number one, and it appeared that heavy East Coast snow did indeed depress opening box offices, as its second weekend decline was a modest 3% to $75 million. The weekend caps a spectacular year which saw Box Office receipts pass the $10 billion mark for the first time ever. Good job, everyone. [LAT]

•Fox is about to order more "American Idol" even if Simon Cowell isn't on board. According to THR, "Idol" has been "rocked by rumors that Cowell will depart the show after the upcoming season" to prepare for an American version of "X-Factor." Honestly, I've seen better rocking than that at the local marina. That was awful, just... terrible. No, I'm sorry. Goodbye [THR]

•Everyone's favorite cartoon based on a cult comic strip on Adult Swim is back! Boondoocks: Season three. Coming at you in 2010. [TheWrap]

•And, due to some problems with our Variety subscription—which appears to be the only trade rag that didn't shut down completely this weekend—that is our abbreviated trade round up.

You of course know about, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed Northwest Airlines pantsbomber, who claims to have connections to Al Qaeda in Yemen. Plus, there was the Fort Hood Shooter's connection to radical Yemeni cleric Anwar Aulaqi. Both these incidents have focused attention on the impoverished middle-eastern country in a disturbingly familiar way.

Seriously, though, let's just not talk about preemptive action against Yemen, Sen. Joe Lieberman. Which, according to The Hill, you did just that today:

Lieberman, who helms the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said on "Fox News Sunday" that the U.S. will have to take an active approach in Yemen after multiple recent terrorist attacks on the U.S. were linked back to the Middle Eastern nation.

The Connecticut senator said that an administration official told him that "Iraq was yesterday's war, Afghanistan is today's war. If we don't act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow's war."

It just makes a guy kind of nervous!

We agree that all of the "DANGER: YEMEN" articles coming out make Yemen seem like a pretty scary place. (The Guardian wins for best headline: "Yemen: the international jihadi's destination of choice.") To wit:

"Administration officials and American lawmakers said Yemen could become Al Qaeda's next operational and training hub, rivaling the lawless tribal areas of Pakistan where the organization's top leaders operate." -NYT

"U.S. officials say al Qaeda's activities in Yemen are now second only to operations in their safe haven in Pakistan." -WSJ

"In short, Yemen has become the international jihadi's destination of choice from which to prepare, plot and launch future terror attacks. "Only Pakistan's tribal regions rival Yemen as a terrorist Shangri-La", the Wall Street Journal said this year, citing American estimates that up to 1,500 al-Qaida-linked fighters are based there. -Guardian

But it's just—and, granted, this is coming from someone probably less informed about Yemeni affairs than even Lieberman is—it's just, here were are at the dawn of a new decade which is ours to fuck up, and Lieberman's leading with this warmongering bullshit that was hacky even back in 2003? As Firedoglake points out, we have already been preemptively bombing the shit out of Al Qaeda via cruise missile strikes, and even killing some of them. Plus, the US is spending more than $70 million to train and equip Yemeni military. So what are you even talking about, Lieberman? Especially given that we do not yet know what level of training/material support Abdulmutallab actually got from "Yemen"?

Even if it turns out Yemeni Al Qaeda had strapped the bomb to Abdulmutallab's crotch themselves then bought his plane ticket on Travelocity, it doesn't change the fact that Lieberman is talking out of his ass. And, sure, there is probably a near-zero chance at this point of some Iraq-style invasion. But it's disheartening to see Lieberman follow that same, sad Global War on Terror program we hoped had been deleted along with Bush, but which had apparently just been minimized, ready to pop up at a moment's notice like an idiotic Microsoft Word paperclip whose little speech bubble is full of words we know way too well.

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)

Why would anyone get married this weekend? No, I'm serious. Someone please explain to me me why I am having to write this right now. I want answers and I want them this instant.

A lot of people got married on Sunday, which is today. Think about what you're doing at this moment and then think about how incredibly annoying it would be to be at some poorly ventilated "event space" eating sauce-covered chicken and watching, like, your random coworker and her dumpy groom swaying to "At Last".

Then there is this couple who got married on Wednesday night. That sounds like it was convenient for everyone involved! They're not even Jewish.

Guess what else is not convenient? Snowstorms. This is me pretending to care.

And THIS is Robin Lane and Arie Schinnar, the featured couple in the Vows column who actually got married last weekend and are thus spared my Christmas ire. The two met when Lane's apartment — oh, sorry, "Fifth Avenue co-op" — flooded and she hired Schinner, an "architectural consultant who create[s] digital animations for reconstruction" who is also an "environmental scientist and former Israeli combat officer."

Schinnar is some other things too, having worked as a political cartoonist in Israel. And: "While I am a 62-year-old grandfather," he wrote in a wooing email to Lane, "I am in many ways a 26-year-old hybrid of Peter Pan and Don Quixote."

I've been trying to come up with a joke about that for the last five minutes and I can't, largely because up until about three years ago I always thought people were talking about a magical donkey.

Anyway, as for Lane: she is a woman who finds out that her daughter is engaged and then buys a wedding dress online. Granted, she got a sick deal (Arie must be proud!) finding a $7,200 dress that via the magic of the Internet she was able to locate in England for $250. I kind of want to call bullshit on that one, but more so I have to say that the phrase "a few more clicks of the mouse" reminds me of this:

Of course her daughter was all "mo-oommmm-ah!" and found her own dress for her own self, so when Schinnar proposed to Lane, what do you know! She had a dress to wear. And as if her daughter hasn't suffered enough, we get this line:

And so — you knew this was coming — on Dec. 18, there was Ms. Lane, a size 0, in the altered size 8 Antibes gown in her apartment overlooking Central Park, holding yellow roses and standing under a wedding canopy next to Dr. Schinnar, who was wearing a tuxedo and burgundy bow tie.

Sorry that you don't have your mother's Madonna arms, daughter!

Then they took dance lessons and in the video on the Times website you can watch them tango a lot and it's kind of awkward.

Not much else going on this week.

A senior editor at Golf Magazine got married in Hong Kong, and so perhaps he would enjoy this series.

In a plot straight out of a chick flick, an American girl in Italy met a local leather goods dealer who took her on a ride on his motorcycle.

Their picture is lovely in print but then I looked at it online and he appears to be wearing an unfortunate necklace that looks to be either a) a shark tooth or b) his name written on a piece of rice and put in a tiny jar. I hope it's B.

This week's face-off pits two Harvard pairs against one another in a long race to the middle.

Rachel Lu and Jimmy Gao

The couple "met at Harvard, from which they received law degrees": +9
They are a power-lawyer pair in Hong Kong: +2
Their wedding was at an estate in Hawaii and officiated by "a Church of Eternal Light" minister: +1
The bride graduated from Yale: +1

TOTAL: 13

Elizabeth Kaplow and David Hammer

"The bride and the bridegroom graduated cum laude from Harvard, where they met": +9
The bride is at Mount Sinai med school: +1
The groom works for Google, which will one day own us all: +1
The groom's mother is named Phyllis: +∞

TOTAL: ∞.

Anyway, the REAL winners are the couple in this wedding story. May you all meet your future spouses while tossing plush cows from rafters!

If you get married over Christmas though, I will end you.

At what point do we start dismissing bad art with smirks instead of a belligerent scoff? Maybe when Las Vegas-based sign companies try to get all "contemporary" and "high-brow" on 500 New York City taxi cabs. Like one's doing now.

The adorable initiative by uber flashy Show Media yielded a piece in this weekends NYT Arts section, and even the usually brief reporter Carol Vogel's drinking the ad/art Kool-Aid.

The mix of artists sounds like a bad walk-into-a-bar joke: a Jewish portraitist, Middle Eastern female video artist, and the dame [Ed. Read: "villain."] who broke up the Beatles?

Nice try. However: we've got some better ideas.

Putting aside the fact that a private business is drumming up major national press for a dog-and-pony show displayed on approximately 4% of New York City's 13,000 electric yellow stagecoaches, the selections for this thing aren't entirely bad.

Alex Katz! The guy's been painting pop-y portraits for a billion years and did some really touching ones of his wife once.

Shirin Neshat! She's politically provocative and hugely prolific and makes gorgeous but repetitive videos about the role of gender in Iran!

And, uh, Yoko Ono! She totally broke up one of the best bands of the 20th century and has made a career dissecting [Ed. Not being able to STFU about..] the fact that she broke up one of the best bands of the 20th century! Also: peace and love and acid trips and shit!

And yet. Do these mock-ups look more engaging than the advertisements currently beamed across rush-hour traffic? Or more soul-searching than the Schopenhauer philosophy blithely excerpted in the headspace of the F train? As Kierkegaard might say, Nej. Though Show Media's president-slash-"contemporary art fan" John Amato begs to disagree, telling the Times:

"January's a slow month. I could have cut my rates but instead I decided to hit the mute button and give something back to the city."

Well, danke schoen, John, but 'round here we don't give a shit about your Vegas Vanilla taxicab cones. We like our art loud and proud and like us: at least insane enough to make the average tourist feel a little uneasy. Henceforth, our suggestions for public taxi art that doesn't bore New York to tears.*

What? Standards: we've got 'em.

Diana Al-Hadid:

Al-Hadid's young, represented by a hot gallery, and giant sculptural work—like Spun the Limits of My Lonely Waltz from 2006—turns social theory on its literal head (in that case, a smoking, upside-down cathedral). It also references themes of theology and civilization. Do you prey to God your cab driver knows his way around the West Village when you're too drunk to find Horatio St. at 3AM? Exactly. Topical!

Richard Serra:

If only because his Tilted Arc was forcefully removed from Federal Plaza for taking up too much space in the Wall Street heyday of the 80s. Bring 'er back! Serra's rusted iron partitions would slice through traffic like the dorsal fin of a pissed off two-ton shark. It might also cause traffic jams due to poor sightlines, but semantics! Imagine the aerial view.

Candice Breitz:

Video art's sorely under-represented in the public art sphere, save for the Doug Aitken MoMA installation without sound and the occasional Public Art Fund project. That clock that doesn't help you tell time in Union Square does NOT count. Breitz subverts the "god-like presence" of famous people, much like a typically aloof New Yorker, but with a cavalcade of faces paying homage with karaoke.

Elizabeth Peyton:

Because we're vain, and smooshy, dreamy portraits of famous New Yorkers are cool, and because aren't her painted sketches basically band advertisements already?

Penelope Umbrico:

The Brooklyn-based artist weaves together images culled from the internet to make a point about the wormhole effect of public-use imagery (the more we see, the more it looks the same). Catalogs, television screens, sun flares: much like a large urban city, the collective effect is stronger than any individual properties (see: unions, graffiti, Times Square).

Jeff Koons:

Who doesn't like New York mag art critic Jerry Saltz? [You? STFU, you're in the minority.] Props and/or a fistjab must be given to his assessment of Jeff Koons's Puppy as public artwork of the decade.

[Koons's] work embodies our time and our America: It's big, bright, shiny, colorful, crowd-pleasing, heat-seeking, impeccably produced, polished, popular, expensive, and extroverted-while also being abrasive, creepily sexualized, fussy, twisted, and, let's face it, ditzy.

Playing off the notion of Duchamp's readymades and the Dada manifesto that embraces chaos in artistic pursuit, Koons could make of a hell of a statement if unleashed on the roofs of the city's yellow cabs. His blow-up balloon animals are all of the above descriptors (so is Michael Jackson with his monkey).

Amato apparently worked with society fixtures Yvonne Force Villareal and Doreen Remen of the local non-profit Art Production Fund to select artists "known for work that can read both conceptually and physically in a confined space," seeing as how the ads measure just 14 by 48 inches. Fair enough. I still prefer to think of New York taxicabs as pawns in a giant board game, burdened to the point of toppling with oversized sculpture. Besides, ever since they put those goddamn TVs in them, we're even less inextricable from the uber-commercialization of our city. If we're gonna pretend not to be, and if we're gonna have someone pretend for us, they can at least pretend well.

Besides, are there really worse things than an army of vacuum cleaners and strangely sexy bunnies floating around the sightline of gridlocked New Yorkers? At the very least, it'd be pretty goddamn skippy, and if anything, not entirely out of the norm, especially for those who've spent too much time in Greenpoint/East Williamsburg, Thanksgiving in the City, or a particularly fucked up night in the Meatpacking District.

Kelsey "Yoko No You Di'unt" Keith is the deputy editor of Flavorwire, a blogger, and the art director of her own apartment.

[Ed: Originally, the kicker on this piece was "We deserve better than Yoko Ono." That was my edit. Ms. Keith doesn't harbor the same emotions for Yoko Ono as I do, which are clearly Freudian in nature and likely misdirected. Editors: they happen. Regardless—UGH—Yoko Oko. She broke up the fucking Beatles.]

But Peaden went to the school's director of investigations. "I related the story as I knew it. And he said, 'No!' "Peaden said that, over the following year, he heard no further word about the matter. NYU never thanked him. He learned of the outcome only by reading The Post.

So, here's how you get past this class, winning the approval of your chosen pricey institution of higher education:

1. Find liquor store receipts from one guy that have been turned into the school's bursar for five years, adding up to somewhere in the area of $409K in pocketed expense reimbursements.

2. Figure out exactly how this works, down to the paperwork filed and everything.

3. Then figure out how you figured all of this out. If it involves somebody tipping you off, make sure you have all potential tipsters killed, silenced, or at least paid off.

4. Find another department that doesn't have a manager smart enough to do this.

5. Get that person fired. Don't forget to buy the required reading. Or steal it.

6. Apply formula learned in steps one and two to extort enough money to buy you a small Jamaican rum plantation.

7. Open up some offshore accounts. Put all your money in there as well as the money you're making cheating NYU out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

8. Get a good friend to remind you every nine days that they're a private institution who doesn't give a shit about you, so you don't have to feel too bad.

9. Hang tight. This is the tough part. Save up enough money for five years while not leaving the same trail behind you that you did.

10. Cash in when you have exactly enough—and no more—to buy said Jamaican rum plantation. Stop the scheme, drop out of school, and move to Jamaica. Let me know when you're through, and we'll write the story and send it to NYU for final approval.

And once it appears here, that means you've passed! Learn from history: you save your school hundreds of thousands of dollars after spending tens of thousands of dollars on education, they're only going to stonewall you for helping them out until you learn about your valiant efforts and integrity through, of all places, the New York Post. Obviously, Michael Peaden failed. Learn from his mistakes. Besides, you didn't pay all that money from NYU to learn nothing about the value of whistleblowers, right? Right.

Showing up to class is only part of an education; when you get down to it, it's the passing grades that count.

[Previously: NYU Will Pay You $400,000 for Booze Receipts Found in the Trash]

Honestly?

The passenger spent about an hour in the bathroom and got upset when he was questioned by the crew of the flight from Amsterdam, Netherlands, according to government sources. Law enforcement agents were questioning the man Sunday.

It sounds like he was taking a really long shit. I'd be —uh, pissed?—as well! You know what it's like when you're in the bathroom at a party and someone keeps knocking on the door and you're like, Ugh, it's bad enough I'm going to the bathroom at this party, this person knows I'm in here. Why are they knocking? Unless you're doing blow, in which case, you have no excuse. But I don't think he was doing blow because who would do blow on an airplane in Detroit? Talk about an instant comedown on five different levels. Unless he was doing blow and the blow was cut with some laxative, which would maybe merit being on the can for a while. But to evacuate the entire plane?

Also, maybe he's just another Nigerian Testicle Terrorist in Detroit. There's that, too.

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?

Stretching obviously poses a violently dangerous threat when we take up more than one seat....in empty trains. Or so the faithfully public-serving transit organization known as the MTA would have it.

Thanks to them, some of the most tired and weary of our fair city's workers—busboys, line cooks, janitors, bodega attendants, street sweepers, and many like them—will no longer hold hostage our empty subway cars with their hyper-extended limbs. We're taking care of those deviants, now. By ticketing them.

A Fashion Institute of Technology student and a waiter at a Brooklyn diner were each recently nailed by graveyard-shift transit cops, who hit them with $50 fines for taking up more than one seat on virtually empty trains at around 2:30 a.m. Josh Stevens, of Harlem, a recent transplant from Cincinnati, was stunned when he was slapped with back-to-back summonses at the 96th Street station on Nov. 19 and 20, in what police told him was a quota-driven sting.

Josh Stevens of Harlem, you dirty rat motherfucker, that'll show you, and the rest of the criminals ruining this town. Think you can slip an asscheek over between two seats past New York's finest? Well, guess where they're gonna stick that insubordination: up said asscheek.

And of course the NYPD's not doing this to fill some kind of end-of-year quota, despite what the embarrassed cops busting you said in order to try to humanize the experience of ticketing and/or being ticketed $50 on back-to-back nights for stretching on an empty subway car.

Here, look at their numbers:

An NYPD spokesman denied that cops were cracking down on subway riders taking up more than one seat. Year-to-date figures show that there were 760 such summonses issued in 2008 and 784 issued as of early this month.

Exactly. Numbers. They prove points. And us New Yorkers, we're vigilant. We're not gonna stop with the stretchers. Other people who will soon feel the wrath of the law:

• Guy whose iPod headphones I can hear playing "Juicy" from across the empty car? That's a night in The Tombs. If you don't know, now you know.
  
  
• Kid going into diabetic shock using an EpiPen? Hands with sharp objects end up in tight handcuffs. Punkass.
  
  
• Crowded 9AM car full of people overheard groaning when their local train decides to go express? We'll wait until you all have summons. Every one of you.
  
  
• Lady asking hostile MTA station agent why her card scanned as "already used" on the first swipe and being upset when she's told NOPE UH-UH SORRY WAIT 15 MINUTES OR BUY A NEW ONE? You will take that attitude from her. And you'll like it. Talk back, see what happens. You'll get your face smashed in. Complain about that.
  
  
• Cute baby who keeps inexplicably staring at me even though I've done nothing to provoke it, eat shit and die. Also, that'll be $75 bones.
  
  
• Oh, what, you wanna commit a "really bad" crime? Try smoking weed sometime. Yeah, just try it. Four of our cops will just rape you in the ass until you end up in the hospital. True story.
  
  
• Finally, if you're seen riding the J/M/Z, you're obviously a criminal, and you're going to rot in jail like the scumbag you are.

This city will one day be clean. And on that day, the few thugs and punks and gangbangers and people who are left among us, who think of stretching and drinking bottled water and maybe even laughing out loud on empty trains, when they see a certain sign in the night, they'll think again. They'll be shaken to the core. Fear will drain their faces of blood, like the villains of comic books who see the BatSignal in the night sky. Except it won't be in the sky, and it won't be at night. It'll be everywhere, at all times, whenever they try to traverse this great urban kingdom. And it looks like this:

Previously: "Also, destroy the MTA."

• I've been trying to think of a way to rhyme the word "Karma" with "Jon Gosselin" but I can't but how 'bout we go with the great karma anthem of our time (that isn't "Karma Police," obviously), a little ditty that goes something like this: Jon Gosselin, What goes around goes around goes around gonna find it's way back arouuuuuund, yeah.. 'Dude got his apartment JACKED UP. No, seriously, like, shit wasn't stolen, somebody just came in a beat the shit out of all of his material possessions, and left a note STABBED to the wall. Can't make this up. Watch:

  Somebody wielding a butcher knife tore through the entire apartment and "speared" a note - signed by "Hailey Glassman," his gal pal - to Gosselin's dresser with the blade, according to TMZ. The assailant sliced through Gosselin's shoes, shirts, curtains and other furnishings with the knife, sources said. A television, CD player and a Nintendo Wii game were also found smashed to pieces inside the flat of the former "Jon & Kate Plus 8" star, sources said. A Ming vase, possibly "over 100 years old," was also destroyed, Gosselin's lawyer told TMZ.

  DAMN, son. Hell hath no fury like a universe scorned. You were kind of an asshole to the universe and it came in and smashed all the nice things you bought with the money you got from putting your eight kids on television and letting that dead possum'd hairlady ex-wife of yours run wild with it! Also, a Ming Vase? I do kinda feel bad about the Ming Vase for you. What'd you do to Ms. Glassman, exactly, that pissed her off, so? HM? She doesn't strike me as the most likely candidate for the Agent of Karma in your life, but then again, they never are. [NYDN]
  
  

• You guys, the New York Daily News' Boris and Natasha-esque gossip columnists Rush & Molloy didn't file this week. I'm not happy. In fact, kind of worried. If you see these two anywhere around town this week, please just let me know they're okay. I miss them. George Rush's last NYDN filing was on Thursday about Mary J. Blige trying to cool the drama over her husband getting into a fight at her record release party. Sigh. No More Drama my ass. [NYDN]
  
  
• File Under: Gossip Items waaaaaay too complicated for most people to understand at this hour of the day. Page Six leads off with Sigourney Weaver being named as a defendant in a $5M lawsuit between two makeup mavens. Can't these people do what all other New Yorkers do and just go to Sephora and take whatever samples you need for the next four days and leave? Also, Keihls is good for this. Those guys will load you up on samples like woah. [Page Six]
  
  
• Amy Drunkhouse is getting married! Or something. She's having a mock wedding to the guy who is basically the reason she's such a hot mess, that Blake fellow, who's in and out of prison more times in a year than most people piss in a week. She's Jewish, no? But I can't seem them doing the whole bottle-breaking thing, because, you know, that'd be putting a good bottle that you could drink/cut someone with/smoke out of/put into something a smoke to waste. Seriously, Amy Winehouse would smoke her own chuppah if they let her. [The Sun]
  
  
• Katt Williams pulled out a gun—a gun, a big, sparkly, shiny gun—last night after some riffraff went down in LA. I miss the heyday of funnypeople doing crazy shit as much as the next guy—Michael Richards, Martin Lawrence, whoever—but Katt, that is a piece you're packing. You really think House of Pain was gonna do anything? Guns: no fun. Chill on that shit. Also, Katt Williams, what the fuck are you doing with a hand cannon in your car? Maybe LA's edgy again? So many questions, here. [TMZ]
  
  
• Michael Lohan! Still a dirtbag, even on Christmas. Dina was in court with him over something before the holiday, some more child support bullshit or whatever. But here's the thing I don't understand: Dina Lohan, who's a succubus of money off her daughters' respective careers, who's also managed to edge herself into the cameras and become a C-Grade celebrity herself, that Dina Lohan is still hitting up the Broke Phi Broke Michael Lohan? Right. Inevitable conclusion reached every time anybody ever uses brain cells to fuel thought about this: they all suck. [Page Six]
  
  
• Willie Nelson's going to save the wild horses of America (he's not talking about me, just to be sure) and then he's going to probably get reeeeeally fucking high after. What'd you do today? [Page Six]
  
  
• Ivana Trump is such a boogieladymonster, she scared a bunch of kids and they kicked her off a plane leaving Palm Beach. Seriously, to be so fucked up and mouthy and crazy on pills and look so plastic that they kick you off a plane in Palm Beach? Girl. GIRL. [TMZ]
  
  
• After yesterday's Classic Charlie Sheen Christmas Special in which he was arrested for choking his wife while she was drunk (or whatever), they have no plans on getting divorced. Yay! I'm all about people working their shit out, even if it is two crazypeople like Charlie Sheen and whoever he's married to right now. [NYDN]
  
  
• TMZ wants to know if you'd rather do Leo DiCaprio or Tobey Maguire while they sit courtside at a Lakers game. I just want their seats. TMZ can take their penises, for all I care. [TMZ]
  
  
• Bruce Springsteen went to see The Nutcracker at the New York City Ballet, and seemed to enjoy himself. Which is funny, because nobody in The Nutcracker is on a one-way track out of a dusty American town full of hard-working people who come home and try to smile but eventually try to get on on a horse or in a car named Sally, and are trying to race towards salvation away from and/or further into America. Actually, The Nutcracker totally fucking sucks. It's about a bunch of rats and a child molester who whisks a girl away with the help of the rats, which is basically everyone's worst nightmare about the E train, except far less frightening. He takes her to another kingdom after setting up an elaborate scheme to make it appear as if a prince helped her get there and when she does, all she does is just, like, watch people from different nationalities dance. That's the entire second act. Shit makes no sense. I saw that it, I know this for a fact. It's bizarre and lame and a fairly uncomfortable experience. [Page Six]
  
  
• People wants you to know that Nic Cage isn't being sued for fraud, just, like, everything else. [People]
  
  
• Here's something about crazy-ass King of New York director Abel Ferrara, who's apparently making a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde feature starring Fitty Cent and Forrest Whittaker. Related: I just had one of those "seriously, I just work here" moments. Abel Ferrara's next project: A Tale of Two Cities remake, starring Kathleen Turner and Ghostface Killah. I'd actually pay good money to see this. [Page Six]
  
  
• Wow. People are still watching Survivor? And some hot chick won it this year? How do we not know about these things? [People]
  
  
• The Winklevoss Twins—who, long story short: two tall, rich WASPy kids who row crew and made money off of UConnect that one of them put into my favorite social nightlife Star Destroyer (or rather: AT-AT?) Guest of a Guest and recently settled for decent moneys after bitching about Mark Zuckerburg stealing their idea for Facebook—were quoted in a fairly fluffy Page Six item about being ha-ha over the Facebook movie Aaron Sorkin wrote. Sigh. I understand all of this nonsense why, exactly? [Page Six]

Good morning everyone! Or, uh, afternoon, as one might have it. Apologies for the late-edition! We've got Altarcations coming at you soon and maybe some fun exclusive stuff. Gotta get moving! Meantime, here's a jam. Let's kick this year and this decade's ass the fuh out of our lives and on to a new, wonderful, clean slate. Hopefully we won't destroy the shit out of it! For the record, this is the dance I do all day while I'm working:

[Photo via Bauer-Griffin, who gave it an awesome caption: "Former 'Jon and Kate Plus 8' reality star Jon Gosselin takes a smoke break from his exhausting life of running errands." Heh.]

I like it when T.J. Holmes calls him a "major failure." Well put!

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]

• Hell yeah: Sienna Miller and Jude Law are back like woah. Sienna invited Jude to spend time in Barbados to celebrate their birthdays; not you, not me, just Jude. I'm for this. I can't explain why yet, but if Sienna Miller and Jude "I follow my dick and not the other way around" Law can work their shit out, who can't? Also, isn't Barbados kinda whimsical? I hear it is. I'm not sure. [Page Six]
  
  
• Demi Moore's pissed off about her W cover in which they erased part of her hip. I mean, better than her face, right? [Page Six]
  
  
• Our Lady of the Immaculate Penis, Lady Gaga, will be performing at Miami's hotel-as-nightclub Kingdom of Spend, The Fontainebleau, for New Year's Eve. Well! Page Six is using this for their lead item: the show is becoming the most expensive ticket in the country for NYE. Gaga's only getting $300,000 for the show, meanwhile, ticket sales are above $1M. There're "a few $25,000 tables" left, and a GA ticket would run you $425. Meanwhile, in New York, you can freeze your ass off, go to Lucky Chang's, and tell your High Priestess of the Bar to go on stage, wear a funny hat, and sing "Poker Face" until it's 2010 or until everyone blacks out, and it'll only run you about $30. That's assuming they kick you out after taking your wallet. New York: where everything's simply better. [Page Six]
  
  
• Page Six thinks they kind of have some kind of exclusive on Mary J. Blige taking "no more drama" from her husband by hitting him in the kisser at her album release party. It looks to me like she's wiping some ketchup off his face, but, you know, we all see life through different lenses, or something. Maybe she's hitting him in the face because her release party was at M2/Mansion, which suuuucks. [Page Six]
  
  
• Jamie Pressley got married to this dude four months after she met him. FOUR MONTHS. [People]
  
  
• So, the new Yankees DH we got on a one-year contract instead of trying to keep Matsui went to Southern Hospitality—the restaurant Justin Timberlake once had some kind of stake in—and bought all of his friends dinner? And then Joey Fatone showed up? This item is too weird and I can't tell where the PR spin is coming from and I think I'm gonna be sick. NEXT. [Page Six]
  
  
• Gene Simmons is still totally rock and roll and still totally kicking people's asses. Rock. [NYDN]
  
  
• Angelina Jolie's basically like, "I'm crazy and want to fuck other dudes and when Brad Pitt and I argue about this things get heated." Lady, no shit. She said Brad gets "defiant." I hope this doesn't explain the beard. Then again, when I get "defiant," I normally just knock things over. Like trash cans. Mailboxes. Small people who aren't children but are not considered
  "by law" vertically challenged. Things that make satisfying noises when they break. You ever throw a really, reallyfuckingbig rock into a lake? It make this GA-GLOOP sound as it crashes. It's incredibly satisfying. [Page Six]
  
  
• Nic Cage being sued for all of his money makes me sad. Biggie was right: Mo Money, Mo Problems, no matter who you are. Even if you are Nic Cage, this is absolutely the case! [Page Six]
  
  
• Rihanna played Tug of War in the lobby at the Bryant Park Hotel with her friends. Over luggage. You know who lost? Rihanna's friends. Because they were staying at the Bryant Park Hotel. Who comes to town and stays on 42nd Street besides Fashion Week people and your parents? ON THE REALS. [Page Six]
  
  
• Nick Cannon and his old lady Mariah Carey got some underprivileged kids presents. BAWWWWZ. Also, "old lady," funny because it's true. [NYDN]
  
  
• Well, this is stupid. Page Six is trying to convince you that Fergie and Josh "I Cheated on Fergie and Had Sex With a Stripper" Duhamel are trying to have a baby together, because they were at a baby store, looking at things. Not at all because they may have been buying something for somebody else. Like me. [Page Six]
  
  
• Kanye West went to go see Avatard with Amber Rose, and he's now going to make his new album dressed entirely in blue. [People]
  
  
• H8U, Page Six, when you get into political reporting. There's some assemblyman named Richard Brodsky who runs some kind of public advocacy platform and also, apparently, apartments out of his barn, which he needs to clear up the violations on after his tenants ratted on him. One of them was like, "Not enough peanut butter, PLZ K THX." [Page Six]
  
  
• The NYDN runs down the Hollywood flameouts of the aughts, but they trenchantly observe that the careers of everyone who was in Scooby Doo basically got totally fucked. BAROO? indeed. [NYDN]
  
  
• People who aren't Jewish supposedly think the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man is too "inside Matzo Ball," or too Jewish. I mean, they're probably right. [Page Six]
  
  
• TMZ wants to know if you'd rather have sex with Goldie Hawn or Kate Hudson. I kind of think this is an all-or-nothing proposition. [TMZ]
  
  
• William Hurt was eating at some Turkish restaurant alone. [Page Six]
  
  
• It's Jared Leto's birthday! [D-Listed]

Okay, holidays are over, finally. Now we can get to your next reason to shamelessly get drunk and reminisce: New Year's! Also, did anybody get engaged yesterday? I hear Christmas is a big day for that kind of thing. Happy Boxing Day! That's today, right? Ugh. Yes. Too much Egg Nog. Time to dance it off.

The source, said to be a "senior US counter-terror official", said the man intended to blow Delta Flight 253 up, but the bomb failed. There was panic on the Airbus 330 which had 278 passengers on board. One person, possibly the suspect, was sent to the University of Michigan Medical Center at Ann Arbor, according to a hospital spokesperson.

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".) They also add that he was flying to the United States for a religious ceremony. He was in government databases, they say, but not on a no-fly list.

As for the Al-Qaeda link, again via ABC:

Authorities have no corroboration of that information, and the credibility of the suspect's statements are being questioned, officials said.

The White House response, via Fox News (who can report straight sometimes):

President Barack Obama was notified of the incident by a military aide while vacationing with his family in Hawaii and convened a secure conference call with Homeland Security and Counter-terrorism Adviser John Brennan and NSS Chief of Staff Denis McDonough to discuss it, White House spokesman Bill Burton said.

"He asked to arrange a subsequent secure call and in that call instructed that all appropriate measures be taken to increase security for air travel. The President is actively monitoring the situation and receiving regular updates," Burton said in a statement.

More as it comes in.

Update:CNN says the Department of Homeland Security will not be raising the airline terror alert from "high" but some additional security measures will be taken at airports, which could include "extra screening" and more canine teams. Good news: Potential terrorist plot failed. Bad news: Going home from the holidays just got a little more annoying.

CNN is also reporting a weird coincidence: Another guy was arrested today on the same route, same airline, (different flight) for shouting "pro-Afghanistan, anti-American" statements and generally being rowdy. Law enforcement say the two incidents aren't related—the guy was just drunk: