[New York, December 7. Image via Getty]

NEW YORK - DECEMBER 07: Clarke Simmons (R) and Aaron Chabin (L), both of New York and both veterans of Pearl Harbor, stand with tourist Olivia Bennett, 7, of York, Pennsylvania after they laid a wreath in the harbor during a ceremony December 7, 2009 on the USS Intrepid in New York City. Olivia's father is a war-history buff and brings his daughter to various military sites around the country, including the USS Intrepid, which is now a museum docked on Manhattan's West Side. Veterans groups around the country hold ceremonies every year in December on the day that President Franklin Roosevelt predicted would 'live in infamy' and prompted America's entry into World War II. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

Guess who was the inspiration for the shoot? President Obama. Because they were in Hawai'i, Tyra wanted to do a shoot inspired by "the world's most famous hapa."


This isn't the first time that ANTM has done blackface—or had a confusing, high-concept approach to cultural awareness. For a photoshoot back in Cycle 4, the girls were each assigned a race different from their own that they were supposed to embody for a Got Milk? ad, while also holding a child. Brittany was made to be African-American.


Tatiana was "biracial."


Noelle, who is biracial in real life, was made to be "African".


Naima, who is a mix of several different ethnicities, was made to be Swedish.


And back in Cycle 2, for a shoot in which the girls had to each portray a different famous person, Xiomara was given dark makeup in order to pose as Grace Jones. I remember that she was wearing a thong, and when she got off the wall she was leaning on, she had left two distinct butt marks from her makeup. I'm sad that I can't find a picture of that anywhere.


And just when we're starting to believe all of Tyra's hype that all shapes, sizes and colors are beautiful—and eligible to compete for a useless title on this show—we learn that being short still sucks.

[Maui, May 6. Image via Flynet]

• Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy took time out from fixing the nation's health care system and recovering from brain cancer to throw out the first pitch of the season at Fenway Park yesterday. [Politico]

• Former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens' conviction was officially thrown out yesterday, too. The prosecutors are under investigation for misconduct. [Washington Post]
• Arlen Specter threw it out there that he likes Rush Limbaugh, has never, ever smoked pot and would really like to stay on as the Republican Senator from Pennsylvania. [ThinkProgress]
• The Congressional Oversight Panel thinks we should throw out the bailout plan, fire the bank managers and liquidate the banks that are failing despite all our financial assistance (AIG, they're looking at you!). [Bloomberg]
• GM is taking their advice in advance and planning a bankruptcy filing. [Reuters]
• The state of Hawai'i would like Obama to let bailed out execs travel to Hawai'i on the company government dime because tourism is down. Talk to the airlines, Hawai'i, it's not the hotel expenses I can't afford. [LA Times]
• Congress members Barbara Lee, Laura Richardson and Bobby Rush — himself last seen accusing everyone of "lynching" now-Senator Roland Burris by suspecting some shady goings-on with his appointment — met with Fidel Castro and his wife this week. New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez is gonna be pissed. [NY Times]
• Al Franken is still totally the winner of the Minnesota Senate race and Norm Coleman is still a fucking poor loser. [Wall Street Journal]
• The fundies' new talking point is that the only reason states are legalizing same sex marriage is because gay people are all really rich. First, off, fuck them and their class warfare. Second off: if this is true, I hereby firmly commit myself to lesbianism and would like my monocle now, thanks. [ThinkProgress]

• Brad Pitt's mom was supposed to move into the Long Island estate where the posse is staying while Angelina Jolie films Salt, but Angelina has reportedly nixed the idea.

She thinks Brad should be able to handle the kids on his own, like she did when he was filming in Germany, according to a source. No word on what is up with the nanny, but that was a Star story and this is from a different source. [National Enquirer]

• Jen Aniston and John Mayer have indeed broken up. [Gatecrasher]
• It's official: Dancing With The Stars is a goddamn health hazard. Now Steve-O has pinched nerves. [ET]
• Injured Jewel will sing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" on DWTS on Tuesday. [UPI]
• Bong boy Michael Phelps's interview with Matt Lauer will air on the Today show this morning and again Sunday on Dateline. [ET]
• Here's what you're gonna hear Michael Phelps say during the interview: "mistake," "bad judgment," "stupid mistake." Wait, do you regret it? [People]
• Last week, four of the celeb weeklies put Rihanna on the cover, and none of them saw an increase in sales. Life & Style had a picture of Jennifer Aniston on the cover, and sold more than sister mag In Touch. [NY Post]
• Chris Brown's image still appears on Sony Music's website. [NY Daily News]
• Details on Mandy Moore's wedding to Ryan Adams: The bride wore a "cream-colored, lacy tea-length dress and flat sandals" and the groom wore "tight skinny jeans, a T-shirt with sport coat and sneakers." The pastor "didn't know who they were." The ceremony took eight minutes. [People]
• The woman is dead but Anna Nicole Smith's legal issues live on: Now Howard K. Stern has turned himself in for providing ANS with prescription drugs. He was arrested and booked yesterday and the charge is a felony. [TMZ, People, Fox 411]
• This report begins, "Let's stop encouraging Joaquin Phoenix's miscreant behavior - the only thing real about this rap act is the beard." [MSNBC Scoop]
• Joaquin's "brawl": "It was a fake fight," says a witness. "Nobody threw a punch. They were just holding onto each other." [Page Six]
• Here's what Hayden Panettiere has to say about that "outburst" she had on the red carpet: "I have tremendous respect for the media and reporters – particularly the press who treat the people they are interviewing with dignity. While in Hawaii, one reporter grabbed me suddenly from behind and frightened me. It happens. Typically, the press has treated me with great respect." [Ok!]
  
• Will Slumdog's Freida Pinto be the new Bond girl? Signs point to yes. [The Sun]
• Kelly Killoren Bensimon may have "beaten up" her boyfriend to make sure she stays on Real Housewives. People are saying the attack was fake. [Gatecrasher]
• Someone is leaving House. Who, who? Also, Judy Greer is in an episode next week. She says: "[My character] works at a nursing home and there's a cat, and whoever's bed the cat sleeps on dies in the next couple of days. And then one day the cat snuggled up to my character and she totally freaks out and goes to see House..." [E!]
• Miley Cyrus wanted to meet Radiohead after the Grammys. She was told they "don't do that." She says: "I left 'cause I was so upset. I wasn't going to watch them. Stinkin' Radiohead! I'm going to ruin them. I'm going to tell everyone." Radiohead responds: "When Miley grows up, she'll learn not to have such a sense of entitlement." [Mirror]
• Feel like doing a *headdesk*? Peaches Geldof will be in a reality show about her "career" at Nylon magazine. [The Sun]
• No one wants you to forget that auction documents show that Michael Jackson's house was filled with sculptures of boys. [TMZ]
• Mischa Barton has a job! She's been cast in a CW show produced by Ashton Kutcher. "Ashton developed it about his life growing up as a model from Iowa, so it's about the whole fashion world that he was in, and obviously I have a lot of friends in the fashion world, so I'm used to being around a lot of people in that," Barton says. "[I play] a bitchy model-type character, like it's a totally different character for me." [People]
• Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson did an SNL skit about Hawaii's tourist industry and now the Governor of that state is pissed. [CBS News]
• Congrats to Cesar Milan, the dog whisperer, who is now a U.S. citizen. [People]
• Hugh Hefner is selling his house. Not the Playboy Mansion — the one next door, where his wife was living. [WSJ]
• OutKast's André Benjamin says it's tough being a fashion designer because people think "hip-hop stars will just throw their names on anything." And: "I'm not a gay man." [Page Six]
• Set your DVR: Tracy Pollan (Mrs. Michael J. Fox) is playing Natalee Holloway's mom in a Lifetime movie. [USA Today]
• Nicollette Sheridan could return to Desperate Housewives after she leaves this season. The show's creator says: "I wouldn't be surprised if that's just a nasty rumour and Nicollette has more Desperate Housewives episodes in her future." [Mirror]
• Vin Diesel says his life has changed in "an incredible way" since the birth of his daughter last year. [Mirror]
• Chris Cornell not only has a new Timbaland-produced album coming out, he has a second career as a restauranteur. In Paris. [Guardian]
• A screenwriter is suing the makers of the Jane Fonda/Jennifer Lopez flick Monster-In-Law, accusing them of stealing her plot. Sorta late, no? [E!]
• Researchers with too much time on their hands have "discovered" that if you listen to U2, you're smart, and if you listen to Lil Wayne, you're not. [The Sun]
• Whatever happened to Mary Stuart Masterson? She's in a new indie called The Cake Eaters. [LA Times]
• Least blind blind item ever? "Which rapper threatened a pal after the buddy mistreated his girlfriend? The icon got in his face, then froze him out on the group's private jet." [Gatecrasher]
• "I certainly try my best not to be a terrible interview subject. But I am tortured. If you've been acting all your life, you can just talk about yourself without ever thinking about what's going on inside the head of the person that's interviewing you. But for me it's different, because I'm constantly seeing it from both sides. I don't think there's any connection between my journalism career and my film career." — Greg Kinnear. [Independent]
• "I think that the best way to judge movies is, like, 10 years after they're released. I think they should actually do the awards that way. I think they should have done the Academy Awards this year for movies from 1998. I think it's better to look at a movie and then step back and look at it again. I don't think that the awards necessarily get it right. I think they get it wrong more often than they get it right." — Matt Damon, to Parade. [MSNBC]
• "For me this thing happened so long ago and I just really wish people could move on from it. I don't live in the past. When I read headlines about me saying 'When she was 15 her mother shot her father' it's very sensational for me.It happened 18 years ago. Since then I've had a complete, full life and, my God, if I've been living the past 18 years in the past because of one event that happened in my life someone should put a gun to my head and put me out of my misery because that's a waste of my life. I am 33 and I have had a much bigger life than that one event." — Charlize Theron. [Daily Mail]
• "I'm probably a lot more boring than I used to be and more tired at night. You can't fake it. It's like when it's bedtime, it's bedtime. I go to bed earlier and I get up earlier. I think being a parent changes everything about you in really little ways and in ways that you don't really understand unless you have kids. It's kind of like describing a guitar chord - it's not really a simple thing to do." — Matt Damon, to Parade. [Mirror]
• "Before we were married, my wife and I used to play a game called Let's Go Get Lost. We'd be driving, and she would just tell me to turn. 'Turn here, turn here, turn here.' I'd say, 'Baby, I know this town too well. I can't get lost.' And she'd say, "Turn, turn, turn." Until we were out in Indian country, and they were shooting at us." — Tom Waits. [GQ]
• "I'm kind of frightened of the red carpet. I really am. And, you know, it gets worse. At one time, you could just come down the line, meet the fans, see the film and hopefully a good night is had by all. It's changed. You have people checking out your dress from the minute you step onto the carpet and then, you know, it's a hit or miss. That can be more frightening than the premiere." — Julia Roberts. [CBS News]
• "I'm currently in the writing process. I'm learning how to play music and write song, but they're comedy songs. Because I can't write music or play very well - actually, I have quite a bit of musical aptitude when it comes to the guitar, but I don't know how to write music - I'm collaborating with different artists who are giving me the music while I provide the lyrics. Two of the people I'm collaborating with will be performing with me at SXSW - Patty Griffin and Amanda Palmer [of the Dresden Dolls]. [The songs] are all pretty dirty. The titles are things like, 'I'm In Love With Someone Else So Fuck You' and 'Eat Shit and Die.'" — Margaret Cho, who is performing at SXSW… as a musician. [Time]

• A woman in central Sweden was convicted of drunk driving on Thursday after she drove with one eyed close to counteract intoxicated double vision. • A woman born through artificial insemination is challenging a Canadian law that protects the identities of anonymous sperm and egg donors so she can determine the identity of her biological father. • The life expectancy gap between men and women in the UK has narrowed over the past 20 years. • Today, the Vatican suggested that candidates for the Catholic priesthood should undergo psychological tests to weed out possible gays and heterosexuals who would not be able to resist their sexual urges. • Some Egyptians were shocked when a middle-aged Egyptian couple were arrested for organizing a secret swingers club on the internet. • Doctors are now offering eyebrow transplants to the overplucked. • An 82-year-old man in Kentucky was arrested last week for trading OxyContin to two young women in exchange for sexual favors and trafficking a controlled substance. • Zero, the polar bear who has been trapped in a moat in the Milwaukee County Zoo since October 13, has finally been rescued. • A controversial anti-pornography bill has been passed by Indonesia's parliament. • A miffed pelican on an exotic bird farm in Germany tried to eat a dog that stole its meal. • An Etsy seller is selling two original paintings of Harold and Maude from the film Harold and Maude for $370. • A Texas Samaritan decided to buy a woman's house for her at a foreclosure auction on Saturday. •

SPENCER: My God... As of now, ladies, I am in control here, in Crappy Hour, pending the return of Moe Tkacik. If something came up, I would check with Megan, of course.

MEGAN: It would help if I weren't sitting right here, and if you had access to the publishing system...

SPENCER: Curses... and so ends the coup.

MEGAN: Foiled again! If it wasn't for you nosy kids...

SPENCER: So hi from the back seat of my friends Michael and Dafna's Volkswagen Rabbit, careening south on 95, nearing the Susquehanna.

MEGAN: Yes, enough Scooby Doo references, this is totally a place for adults to talk about adult things. Like Paris Hilton.

SPENCER: John McCain is, at this point, the mother of all ironies: Kathy Hilton complaining about "a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs." Kathy, your family could hire them all; you could house all the Katrina victims who still need housing.

MEGAN: On the other hand, you think someone in McCain's ad department could've called over to the fundraising department and said, hey, um, are these prominent Hollywood Republican friends of his donors? Or gone to Open Secrets.

SPENCER: Notice how the woman in the Times' photo is named Laura Hilton
yeah, really — Rick Davis needs that $4,600 pretty badly! Also, how could you not think about the consequences of pointing out that your candidate is funded by Paris Hilton's family?

MEGAN: They were probably too busy trying to fit as many Antichrist references in thirty seconds as possible without tipping off the non-Rapture contingent.

SPENCER: OK, please explain this to your Jewboy interlocutor
it seems pretty disgusting — every quote is out of context, for instance — but I am surely missing a ton of scriptural dogwhistles.

MEGAN: Okay, so, there's this thing called The Rapture. You're excluded. Apparently, all the "good" Christian evangelicals of the world (so, I'm excluded, too) will be brought directly to God as soon as the Antichrist takes over the world. Someone, somewhere decided Obama is the Antichrist, aka, the harbinger of the Rapture.

SPENCER: Ahhhhh see, and in the Left Behind series, the Antichrist is a Romanian. How diabolical of Obama! We always knew the Devil would have a smooth tongue.

MEGAN: So, technically my understanding is that evangelicals should actually, like, exalt his candidacy and vote for him because the Rapture is a good thing, but I'm sure I'm missing something like their actual belief that they themselves will be Raptured because God knows what they're doing behind closed doors (but, in one case at least, it involved two wetsuits, a butt dildo and auto-erotic asphyxia). But, yes, "The One" is actually "The Antichrist" and not the Messiah. Or the Highlander, for that matter. I wonder whatever happened to that guy.

Oh, nothing, never mind.

SPENCER: Now, if McCain wanted to say that Obama is the Devil he wouldn't just use the booming-voice narrator and the churchy (to my ignorant ears) guitar music in the background, he'd hire the guy who narrate the last track on Integrity's Humanity Is The Devil album.

MEGAN: But, see, the Antichrist isn't the devil exactly. It's different somehow. This is where the fundies lose me too.

SPENCER: Another tin ear for McCain! White dudes will vote for the Highlander.

MEGAN: Yes, totally, Obama needs to start going to cons.

SPENCER: The Antichrist is the Devil's handmaiden or something? Whoa, Baltimore tunnel.

MEGAN: Obama is sucking the devils dick!

SPENCER: I may lose connectivity.

MEGAN: That's cool, I'll wait the whole 3 minutes.

SPENCER: So the Devil is Larry Sinclair, then you know, speaking of things white people like: Barack Obama.

MEGAN: I believe the deal is that the whole thing is pre-ordained anyway, so it's not like Good and Evil, but it's all God's plan or some shit. He is pretty! He's going on vacation to Hawai'i soon, so there will be new topless pictures for us!

SPENCER: My ex-boss has this great catch in today's WaPo story:

Obama's advantage is attributable largely to overwhelming support from two traditional Democratic constituencies: African Americans and Hispanics. But even among white workers — a group of voters that has been targeted by both parties as a key to victory in November — Obama leads McCain by 10 percentage points, 47 percent to 37 percent, and has the advantage as the more empathetic candidate.

So my Q to you: is there any demographic group that can decide the election that McCain leads among?

MEGAN: What I like is that those people don't think either candidate will make a bit of difference in their day-to-day lives! And people say they're not smart. I think he does better among rich old white people. That's, like, Florida.

SPENCER: But this is a GOP goldmine demographic that knows everything about McCain and nearly nothing about Obama, and they're going for Obama hard. That should be a nice campaign palliative now that I'm reading that Obama's lead is gone in the Gallup poll.

MEGAN: And McCain is now vetting Eric Cantor for the Jewish vote and to keep Virginia red. Obama's up in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, though.

SPENCER: That right there is a testimonial to the antipathy of the Tribespeople to the GOP. I think Eric Cantor was the nasally kid who ratted me out to the teacher for feeling up a classmate of mine at East Midwood Jewish Center.

MEGAN: By the way, when we were at dinner with Erica at Zengo that time and I was like, dammit, who is that guy? That guy was Eric Cantor.

SPENCER: Was Joe Lieberman not charismatic enough? Oh right, I forgot: We don't like that asshole, either.

Shit, really? That was why our dinner took for-fucking-ever? I'm going to get J Street to destroy him.

MEGAN: Yes, yes it was. Another reason not to like him. Amusingly, McCain operatives, I mistook him for someone that works for Blunt because I've never seen him do anything but toady up to Blunt. And because he looks 15.

SPENCER: Speaking of blunt, as in unsubtle, and FUCKING IDIOTIC, an Obama ad more annoying than the Encyclopedia Britannica ad with that longhair douche. You know what a campaign getting attacked for elitism needs? More Gwyneth Paltrow.

MEGAN: Also, she's the worst actor in the whole fucking commercial. It's like she thinks she's talking to learning disabled children.

SPENCER: Right, I keep expecting her to tell me that my 50-cent donation will make all the difference to Aspergers' sufferers.

MEGAN: I mean, these are Americans who actually bothered learning to speak another language. Except for her, I mean, she's just in London.

SPENCER: And who approved the two assholes who are like "I'll be voting from Paris!" "Me too!"?

MEGAN: Someone in London, probably.

SPENCER: "...and I'll be eating arugula out of my gay husband's butt on a bed of shredded Bibles! We're just in the next Arrondisement!"

MEGAN: Speaking of arugula, Honest Tea is the new arugula, and that's just unfair because Honest Tea rocks. Just because McCain is from Arizona doesn't mean the rest of us should be forced to drink that swill.

SPENCER: We part company: Arizona ice tea got me through junior high, along with Snapples and Quarterwater.

MEGAN: And now that you're not 12, which would you rather drink?

SPENCER: What kind of elitist would rather drink ice tea that doesn't come from a powder?

MEGAN: Or lettuce that isn't iceberg?

SPENCER: Women of loose morals like yourself, clearly.

[Hawaii, May 29. Image via Splash.]