• Cute little 14-year-old Taylor Momsen — aka Gossip Girl's "Little J" — launches her modeling career with a rather self-important bang. 'A source from the shoot - in Brooklyn - tells us that "Taylor was so nice and so cool. She took the subway from her apartment in Chelsea to the set, with her mom. They said they didn't want to do the usual obvious stuff that a teen TV star would do; they were looking for really high-end things."' [Fashionista]
• Diane Von Furstenberg uses Warhol images. Unlike everybody else who does that, though, she actually knew him. [Fashionista]
• Naomi Watts has a total girl crush on Kate Moss, despite obviously being vastly more awesome. "I want to be hip like her," says Naomi. [VogueUK]
• "Nothing is dead or alive. There are just always great new categories. But who am I to say what’s in or out? I walked in here with my dress on backwards." That's Stefani Greenfield, the owner of the Scoop chain, being interviewed with pal Stuart Weitzman. [Scoop]

• Nike investigates worker abuse allegations. [Wall Street Journal]
• Video of that Vanity Fair new designers photo shoot. [Vanity Fair]
• Meet the "Nat 2 Shoe," which looks kinda like a really ugly Converse and "unzips" into a flip flop that is, presumably, equally ugly. Oh, it's German. [The Sun]
• I didn't want to believe it but we can deny it no longer: the leather dress is huge for fall. [Mail on Sunday]
• Also big, literally: huge bows. [Fabsugar]
• Time's running short for models to get their special, sorta illegal fashion week Visas! [Times of London]
• Liz Claiborne recruits creative type to revamp menswear: "The fashion world is filled with pairings of creative souls and bean counters, the yin and yang of the industry, but this is one of the most pronounced cases of opposites attracting with the mission of reviving a withered American brand." [Washington Post]
• Is Agyness forgetting the little(ish) people? Designer Henry Holland: 'Now Agyness is hugely successful and I'm so pleased for her. I just hope I can get her to fly back for my show.' [Daily Mail]
• Gott in himmel! People are wearing rolled-up jeans. "The puffy, peg-leg '80s profile we never thought would come back is with us again." [Los Angeles Times]
• Yet another self-described "first supermodel", Penelope Tree. [Guardian]
• Lanvin's tres chic new denim: "Miles away from the navel-grazing, hip-hugging, utilitarian image of jeans in America, this is denim like you've never seen it before — sophisticated, feminine and utterly French." [Los Angeles Times]
• Yeah, yeah, we've heard: Man Men inspired fall fashions. [AdAge]
• High-tech fabrics — self-cleaning! — morph from sportswear to runway. [Financial Times]
• Graphic novelist Adrian Tomine designs pretty nifty tote for the Strand bookstore, which is just nerdy and awesome in so many ways. [MediaBistro]
• Betsey Johson turns 30! (You know what I mean; she's obviously 60-something.) Says her business partner, "The first show, I sat everyone, and then I modeled, and the next day I went to the showroom and sold it, and then I paid the bills, and Betsey did the patterns." [Yahoo]
• New chairman for luxury behemoth LVMH. [WWD]
• Japanese shoe-removal conventions lead to sock anxiety. "Many Japanese will sympathize with (expat) Tanahashi - we all know how Bad Socks Days can be. On the other hand, wearing great socks is a good way to boost morale. By great socks the Japanese mean they must be functional, lovingly made, attractive and comfortable." [IHT]
• Also from VF's 'fashion issue: seriously freaky London models spread. [Vanity Fair]
• Another one bites the dust: Boscov's chain files for Chapter 11. [WWD]
• The age-old question: do those creepy dry shampoos work? [ElleUK]

• Lagerfeld on Bruni: "She’s imaginative, clever, educated. She knows how to behave. She speaks many languages. It must be an embarrassment for the wives of other heads of state to see this beautiful creature who can wear anything and speak like that. They are hunters who met—predators. It’s a good thing. He had seduced many women, and she was a kind of seductress. When two like this meet, it can be good.” [NY Observer]
• The Kaiser's mug is on this Urban Outfitters tee, part of a line called "Beautiful Ones Superstar Raglan." [BlackBook]
• So, NBC is totes suing the Weinsteins for how they handled the whole Project Runway decamping to Lifetime thing, but here's the really touching thing that came out on the stand: apparently Tim Gunn, the dearest fashion queen on cable TV, did the first season for free. Awww. [Rush & Molloy]
• Fergie's shoe collection: "I have always loved fashion because it's a great way to express your mood. And I'm definitely a shoe lover. The right pair of shoes can change the feel of an outfit, and even change how a woman feels about herself. A woman can wear confidence on her feet with a high stiletto, or slip into weekend comfort with a soft ballet flat." [FabSugar]
• Shocker: Naomi Campbell, terrible journalist. Her question to the Argentine president? "How did you feel when you saw Madonna playing Evita on the screen?" [The First Post]

• Marc Jacobs' marital status still ambiguous. [The Cut]
• Self-described "dirty fairy" and Gwen Stefani sorta-stepdaughter Diasy Lowe to model for Brit designer Karen Millen. "'She looks incredible in the clothes," gushed one fashionista, "and she's the ideal Karen Millen woman - young, eclectic, unique and an international style icon in the making." ' [Page Six]
• California institution Mervyn's files for bankruptcy. [Los Angeles Times]
• The south of France is seeing a high incidence of clothed breasts this summer. '"It looks like going topless has gone out of fashion," our girl on the Cote d'Azur tells us. "Men are whining everywhere you turn that there are no more bare boobs on the beach." ' [Page Six]
• Tory Burch seeks investor. [WWD]
• Is Kanye gonna buy Jil Sander? [Fashion Week Daily]
• Vanity Fair's 'up and coming designers' foldout cover is already generating controversy. And I mean, Zac Posen? Really? [Fashion Week Daily]
• Macy's categorically denies having used that sweatshop in Queens that got busted last week. [New York Times]
• With Vogue numbers slipping (and, come on, it's a recession) is the Nuclear Wintour's job safe? [Fashionologie]
• Kate Spade expands her (presumably preppy, perky, pricey) clothing line. [FabSugar]
• Feeding into our supposed hunger for inane fashion-driver rom coms, "'Fashionistas' traces the career of a young designer working at a design firm who plots to take down her ruthless boss by inventing a fictitious must-have designer." [Hollywood Reporter]
• The Mirror on Agyness's new do: "It's an unfortunate cross between Mr Spock, Sarah Harding and a suet pudding basin... The awful fringe, weird pointy sideburns, bouffant back and uneven sides are all reminiscent of the haircuts our mums used to give us. When we were three." [The Mirror]
• More on the Karan/Klein jungle jaunt: "Ms. Karan has been telling friends that the trip is part pleasure and part quest for inspiration for her new store and collection Urban Zen, which sells high-end organic clothes, furniture and knickknacks." [The Observer]
• You can't keep a good luxury brand down! LVMH sees profits. [WWD]
• Lots more shops planned for JFK Airport. [New York Times]
• Michelle Obama's harstylist: "The foundation of any hairstyle is the cut. That’s one thing we focus on doing very well here at Fekkai. With that, I am able to switch the hair into like maybe two, three different looks. We try not to give her too many different variations. People want to see her with the same style, especially when it comes to politics; there’s a lot of scrutiny when you’re in that arena." [Bellasugar]

2% socialite, 0% blogger!

One writer, one photographer, one rapper. Three designers. Seven royals (one of whom is Kate Middleton).

The list:

Ivanka Trump
Michelle Obama
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy
Kate Middleton
Sarah Jessica Parker
Diana Taylor
Julia Koch
Tilda Swinton
H.R.H Crown Princess Mathilde of Belgium
Evelyn Lauder
Zac Goldsmith
Daniel Craig
Matt Lauer
David Beckham
Lapo Elkann
H.S.H. Prince Heinrich von und zu Fürstenberg
Count Manfredi Della Gherardesca
Kanye West
Morley Safer
Bryan Lourd
Sisters Alexandra Kotur and Fiona Kotur Marin
Brothers Rafael, Duke of Feria, and Don Luis Medina
Brothers Andrea and Pietro Clemente
Iris Apfel
Karl Lagerfeld
Julian Schnabel
Sydney and Charles Finch
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
Kelly Lynch and Mitch Glazer
Christy Turlington Burns
Carine Roitfeld
Katherine Ross
Stacey Bendet
Fran Lebowitz
H.R.H. Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece
Jonathan Becker

No, Victoria "Posh Spice" Beckham was not named. Nor was Scarlett Johansson or Heidi Klum. Glaring omissions? Please advise.

The International Best-Dressed List [Vanity Fair]

• Matthew Broderick: Cheating on Sarah Jessica Parker? Having "sex in the city" with a gorgeous redhead half his age? More on this in Midweek Madness. [Star]
• Brad Pitt "pulled a Britney" and drove with Shiloh on his lap. But he was in a golf cart. In France. (Yes, there are pix.) [This Is London]
• Christian Bale's family is complicated. Did the so-called "assault" involve pushing? [LA Times]
• Bale's been released. [Telegraph]
• And he denies the assault. [LA Times]
• Christian Bale "went ballistic" on the set of Terminator 4 last week, screaming "I will kick your ass" and other stuff in a situation called "intense." Apparently he was "extremely tired and having a bad day." [TMZ]

• This report says that Christian Bale is "depressed" over Heath Ledger's death. A source says: "He has stresses in his marriage. He can have a terrible temper. Instead of lashing out at his wife, he sometimes lashes out at people around him. Without Ledger around he's found it more and more difficult to communicate with those around him, especially his family." [News.com.au]
• This headline reads: "If Batman's truly gone bad, has Christian Bale doomed his Oscar hopes?" [LA Times]
• Miley Cyrus admits that the Vanity Fair pictures were probably not a good idea. "I think I was just in a stage where I was just trying to get things done, and maybe look for an older audience. I was working with a big magazine just trying to go with what they were saying." [People]
• Maggie Gyllenhaal think Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker deserves an Oscar. "I would vote for him," she says. "To be that incredible in a movie that's this huge, that's about so many things, is really an accomplishment. In a way I feel funny thinking about the Oscars when he isn't alive, but at the same time I'm a member of the Academy and I would vote for him." [People]
• Matthew McConaughey, girlfriend Camila Alves and son Levi landed the cover of OK! magazine. Which is now "the baby magazine." He makes the birth sound like a drum circle: "Contractions started kicking in, and we found a great rhythm. We had a 14-hour session, her and I did. I sat there with her, right between her legs. We got tribal on it. We danced to it. I was DJing this native Brazilian music." [MSNBC]
• Jay McInerney making a cameo on Gossip Girl makes me so so so happy. I read him when I was in high school and his glittery druggy version of New York fits right into the GG aesthetic. Bright lights, big city, indeed. [NY Mag]
• Amy Winehouse on her husband's sentence: "Why Blakey? They said he was coming out." [The Sun]
• This is also Amy: "Blake and I can't wait to have kids. I want at least five kids. I want twins. Blake is gonna be the most amazing dad. When Blake was about we talked about it all the time. To be honest, I think kids have got a lot more going on than adults. They've got their heads screwed on a lot better." [Telegraph]
• Amy probably wasn't at court when Blake was sentenced because she hired a cleaning team to scrub the house, thinking he was coming home. Apparently the house was a mess and the team was armed with mops, dusters and bottles of concentrated bleach, which they used for five hours to get things sparkly. [Mirror]
• Amy's wax figure at Madame Tussauds in London has been unveiled. Her dad says: Father Mitch joked: "We're going to take this one home with us and take the real one back. This one does what she's told and doesn't move." [Mirror]
• Post-breakup Sarah Silverman is "doing great." [UPI]
• The overdose story involving 19-year-old Peaches Geldof may have been "exaggerated," but now comes the news that she's entered a phase of "competitive dieting" with her younger sister Pixie, 17. Get it together, kids. [Daily Mail]
• This report says she collapsed due to dieting. [News.com.au]
• Oh look! Peaches' handwritten drug shopping list. Weed, coke, Diazepam and Viagra. Lovely. [The Sun]
• Cameron Diaz went to Drew Barrymore's psychic, Mrs. Grace. Apparently Cammie will have "marriage and kids" and a "beautiful future" with her boyfriend Paul Sculfor, that model who dated Jen Aniston. [MSNBC]
• Courtney Love's business managers are suing her, because she doesn't have enough problems. Apparently they didn't get their 5% of the sale of a portion of the Nirvana publishing catalog, which would be $975,000. [TMZ]
• Katie Price, the "glamour model" known as Jordan, admits that she does not write her bestselling novels. "I'm not going to lie, I don't sit there with a typewriter and write it, of course I don't," she says. "I don't have time to do that. I say how I want the storyline to be, each chapter is done, I read through it change it and then it goes away to be written. So I'm not going to sit here and say I write it word by word because I'd be lying. I actually say how I want the story and that's how it happens." [Daily Mail]
• Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are "adjusting" to life with a newborn: Starbucks runs and mattress shopping. Yawn. [People]
• The sequel to The Simpsons Movie will be out in like four years. [The Sun]
• Ashanti is now the tourism ambassador for Nassau County on Long Island. Uh, congrats? [AP]
• Freddy Krueger is coming back to the big screen! The Nightmare on Elm Street franchise is being relaunched. Wouldn't it be cool if Johnny Depp would make a cameo appearance? [Reuters]
• Daisy Fuentes, 41, says: "I don't want to compete with the way I was at 21 – I love looking like a woman." She's on the cover of Fitness magazine looking amazing. [People]
• For an MTV special, Kanye West visited with a trio of soldiers who have returned home from Iraq. "There are hundreds of veterans out there who are falling through the cracks," says Kanye. "They make the ultimate sacrifices for us by laying down their lives, but it seems like a lot of them just get forgotten about." [Guardian]
• Heather Locklear is out of the treatment center she was in for anxiety and depression. She's most excited about being home with Ava, her daughter by Richie Sambora. [People]
• Sean Connery says his ex-wife is an "insane woman" who spreads "vicious lies." Connery claims he never told his son he would cut him out of his will. Messy family business. [Daily Mail]
• Richard Simmons has ideas for getting schoolkids more active. Sweatin' with the Youngies? [USA Today]
• "She's a phony. As long as she continues to be a fake and a phony, she won't be successful." — Omarosa on Wendy Williams. [AP]
• Coldplay was "snubbed" by Mercury Prize judges. In the running: Estelle, Adele, Elbow, Radiohead, The Last Shadow Puppets, British Sea Power. Have I mentioned I love Adele's voice? [The Sun]
• A source says Lauren Conrad "seems to have lost a grip on reality and thinks she is A-list material." This comes after she was paid to host a party and showed up 2 hours late. [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which reality TV has-been can't even go to paid appearances anymore? His manager is too worried about how trashed he gets when he's on the payroll." [Rush & Molloy]
• There may be video of the incident in Shreveport, LA involving Josh Brolin and Jeffrey Wright getting tasered and pepper sprayed by cops. Sorta hoping it gets released. [Rush & Molloy]
• Supermodel-turned-designer Kelly Bensimon joins The Real Housewives of New York City next season. "Several of the housewives are nervous," a snitch says. "She's too blond and beautiful and energetic. They don't want to be outdone." [Rush & Molloy]
• Love this: Luke Russert made such a good impression on TV viewers (or producers?) after his father's funeral, NBC is recruiting him for its election coverage team. [Page Six]
• "I mean, what's my illness? I guess I could say I have a terrible case of I-wanna-smoke-weed-all-day." — Seth Rogen, explaining in Elle why he won't get a medical marijuana card. [Page Six]

Related: Hillaryland At War [Vanity Fair]

MOE: oh here you are...

MEGAN: As always, right here, just multitasking and reading crap on the internet

MOE: I just remembered it was my afternoon off which is really fucking good because I am totally out of ADD drugs again and um, I had to get really wasted last night.

MEGAN: Yeah, I'm taking the afternoon off as well, but mostly so that I can drive back to D.C.

MEGAN: So, want to see the shittiest ads of the Presidential race so far?

MOE: Oh Jesus. Oh fucking Jesus. Okay, let's play a game: what's more depressing?You knew we were holding Saudis, Yemenis and Pakistanis without evidence in Gitmo, but did you know about the Chinese???

MOE: There are 16 Uighurs there, picked up mostly in Afghanistan after they got sick of the Chinese oppressing them.

MEGAN: Aw, dude, we have 16 Uighurs? Great. How much you want to bet that the Chinese got their intel on the Uighur terrorist threat against the Olympics that they used to justify further oppression from us?

MEGAN: Oh, wait, that was easy. Here's an article about it from the Voice of America, which is America's radio station abroad.

MOE: Yeah aren't we not allowed to listen to VOA in America because it's propaganda? And yes the Chinese assistance in the war on terror is very invaluable to our struggle against Muslim extremism which is the worst problem a country has ever faced in the history of modern statehood!

MEGAN: "They" will destabilize our government if we let "them," so we must protect the most important parts from destabilization, and the Bill of Rights is only, like, the 3rd most important document, definitely.

MEGAN: It doesn't say anything about the pursuit of happiness or executive privilege.

MOE: I love this headline: Judges Cite Need for Reliable Evidence To Hold Detainees …

MOE: it's like something you'd read in the daily newspaper of some fledgling democracy!

MOE: here

MEGAN: Judges Ask Administration To Stick To Principles On Which Country Founded, Not Dismantle Democracy In The Name Of Security

MEGAN: Well, if we want to stick to depressing news, how about a Biblical justification for attacking Michelle Obama (and, basically, every Jezebel) for defying God himself by not being subservient and thereby attacking Barack for not being godly enough to appropriately control his wife?

MOE: Dude apropos of absolutely nothing while I try to slog through the Gail Sheehy piece on Hillaryland and the Sy Hersh piece on Iran under the influence of absolutely no drugs check.out. this outfit. It looks like something Huma Abedin might recommend!

MEGAN: Dude, don't slog, I can break that shit down for you.

MEGAN: 1: Hillary and Bill hired a bunch of people who didn't get along, thinking that was a great campaign strategy. Like her Senate office and, frankly, the Bush Administration, it was a insular group of people used to defending the hordes.

MEGAN: 2. Mark Penn sucks and blames everyone else for his failing.

MEGAN: 3. Everyone hates Mark Penn, who used to privately call Bill Clinton when he couldn't convince Hillary or the other staff to do what he wanted because he's a tattle-taling bitch.

MOE: Also there was this

He sounded giddy, recalls Congressman Altmire. "'We’re going to win Ohio for sure, and Texas looks good, and we’re coming to Pennsylvania 'he said. ‘Keep your powder dry. Don’t endorse anybody—just wait it out.’?"The flattered first-term congressman said he was concerned that Senator Clinton might not play well on the top of the ticket. "President Bush won my district twice … "

Clinton interrupted him. "How well did I do in your district?"

"You won it twice."

"Well, there you go," Clinton said, gloating."

There was silence for a while, and Clinton assumed he had won his case."

"With all due respect," Altmire finally said, "you’re not on the ballot this year."

MOE: NEITHER IS ROSS PEROT!

MEGAN: 4. Ickes is pissed that Mark Penn made $20 million dollars, sucked, ran roughshod over him and still went out of his way to take politically untouchable clients (i.e., the Colombian government).

MEGAN: 5. The chunky Chicos necklaces and jewel-toned pantsuits were all the fault of Huma Abedin who is herself impeccably dressed, so she's now the world's biggest underminer.

MEGAN: 6. Hillary's make-up artist matched her eyeshadow to her suit jackets.

MEGAN: 7. Mark Penn railed against Hillary every showing emotion because he is at his core a sexist pig who doesn't believe women can be women and still President EVEN THOUGH that's the times when she connected best with voters.

MEGAN: 8. Both Clinton's undertook a concerted effort to pressure Obama into taking her as VP to the horror of most other Democrats who found it unseemly

MEGAN: 9. Patti Solis Doyle was ousted because they were out of money, not that they were out of money, per se, they were just out of primary money because donors can give $2300 to the primaries and $2300 to the general election campaign.

MEGAN: 10. Reporters were all drunk on the plane between Iowa and New Hampshire.

MEGAN: 11. Mark Penn sucks some more and is insufferably arrogant.

MEGAN: The end!

MOE: Okay so far on this. 1. Bush wants "regime change" and he's paid $400 million to fund it so far but that doesn't get you so far.

MOE: 2. There's some group called the Baluchis who are going to help us out because, you know, they're SUNNI.

MEGAN: !. Not in a country with oil it doesn't. In Cuba maybe.

MOE: 3. Some Democrats have gone along with this TREASON

MEGAN: 2. Not that McCain knows the difference between that and Shi'ites

MEGAN: 3. Um, they totally did, like they always do. Bush gives good belly rubs!

MOE: 4. The Joint Chiefs are not fans of this plan.

MOE: 5. Admiral William Fallon: I want to have his babies.

MEGAN: 4. The Joint Chiefs don't want their military legacies to be tons more soldiers dying in a pointless war.

MEGAN: 5. I'll leave that one to you. I wouldn't want to quit drinking for 9 months.

MOE: You don't have to completely quit, and definitely not for the whole nine months! Also you don't keep it down very well in the first few months of pregnancy anyway.

MEGAN: Yeah, I've heard that, though it reportedly depends on the woman. Also, with my personal history of (probably but not definitely developmental) birth defects, I probably would have to be way stricter than average.

MOE: But also I was not actually saying that literally just in response to:

Too many people believe you have to be either for or against the Iranians,” he told me. “Let’s get serious. Eighty million people live there, and everyone’s an individual. The idea that they’re only one way or another is nonsense.”

When it came to the Iraq war, Fallon said, “Did I bitch about some of the things that were being proposed? You bet. Some of them were very stupid.”

MEGAN: Yeah, that is pretty fucking sexy. I'd hit it.

MOE: 6. There are some laws, about how Congress needs to hear about it if the CIA declares war on The Iran, because Congress is where the CIA would get money to do such a thing, but the Bush Administration maybe doesn't know about those laws, because they are still operating from the rule book that they were using when United Fruit chipped in most of the $$ for regime changes andsuch, only instead of United Fruit they are maybe finding another source for the money. (Bernanke?)

MOE:

"The agency says we’re not going to get in the position of helping to kill people without a Finding," the former senior intelligence official told me. He was referring to the legal threat confronting some agency operatives for their involvement in the rendition and alleged torture of suspects in the war on terror. "This drove t"the over-all authorization includes killing, but it’s not as though that’s what they’re setting out to do. It’s about gathering information, enlisting support."

And how are you going to enlist support if you don't kill a few evildoers here and there???

MEGAN: More likely Chevron.

MEGAN: And, obviously, if you didn't mean to kill them, it's, like, totally ok. Casualties of an undeclared war, man.

MOE: 7. There is some group called the Gang of Eight that includes Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and John Rockefeller and it occurred to me that I forgot the members of the Gang of Four besides Jiang Qing. You always remember the girl involved in something like that. BTW God bless YouTube!

MEGAN: I mean, the problem with getting a declaration of war is that no President has really ever bothered. They get an authorization to do whatever the fuck they want to do and then use it, bypassing Congress's constitutional powers in that regard.

MEGAN: His hip thrusting is kind of freaking me out, man.

MOE: Ew yeah I know…if cheap wine is doing that to him…btw Admiral Fallon's nickname is "Fox". Silver fox!

MOE:

"Fox said that there’s a lot of strange stuff going on in Special Ops, and I told him he had to figure out what they were really doing," Fallon’s colleague said. "The Special Ops guys eventually figured out they needed Fox, and so they began to talk to him. Fox would have won his fight with Special Ops but for Cheney."

The Pentagon consultant said, "Fallon went down because, in his own way, he was trying to prevent a war with Iran, and you have to admire him for that."

MEGAN: He really just does get foxier the more you read.

MOE: 8. Were we speaking of cheap wine? Because there was an explosion someplace in The Iran called "Shiraz."

MEGAN: Which the Australians pronounce Shur-azz instead of Shur-ahz

MOE: 9. Oh yeah, remember Mossadegh? Weird how you can't spell that name without "Mossad." Anyway he's briefly mentioned, not by name but I always wondered what happened to him and turns out he stayed under house arrest until 1967. He was TIME's Man of the Year in 1951. Dude old Timestyle was soooo trippy.

MOE:

For all its power, the West in 1951 failed to cope with a weeping, fainting leader of a helpless country; the West had not yet developed the moral muscle to define its own goals and responsibilities in the Middle East. Until the West did develop that moral muscle, it had no chance with the millions represented by Mossadegh.

Hahahah they sure found some growth hormones for that whole "moral muscle" problem!

MEGAN: But, like steroids, it kind of rots your brain and shrinks your testes and makes you pissed off and gives you unsightly acne. Or whatever the foreign policy equivalent of those things are.

MOE: 9. We are overestimating the amount of ethnic tension we can stir up in Iran because the Baluchis really hate the government but actually, the "Baluchis" according to Robert Baer, is just a more Italian family restaurant chain sounding name for Al Qaeda, and they are bad dudes who cut people's heads off and shit, no lie, KLS is a Baluchi, and so is Ramzi Yousef.

MEGAN: Oh, but, like usual, we'll just pay them now and depose them later!

MOE: 10. Then there is some Tufts professor who tells us about a violent Al Qaeda funded resistance movement called the Iranian People's Resistance Movement and wouldn't it just figure with a name like that they are supposedly connected to the "drug culture."

MEGAN: Wait, so there are two al Qaeda's in Iran? Nice.

MOE: 11. Probably more, but then there are some Kurdish groups too, and they all get shitloads of money from the CIA for doing absolutely nothing, and I think I just decided what to do with my life or at least the next year of it. "My Year In The Iranian Resistance." How about it Megan? We'd totes get famous. Angie and I were going to try to get a defense contract a la Efraim Diveroli but her boyfriend said it was probably too late for that. Her boyfriend who works, in the Pentagon, for a defense contractor. I wonder how much money the most highly remunerated person in the Pentagon makes. Anyway. Also I forgot to mention it but

MEGAN: Dude, I'm all up for going on the government cheese, especially if it's someplace cool like Iran and we could get a book deal out of it!

MOE: 12. Al Qaeda has money too and they're sending it to Algeria, maybe because it's the home of Zacarias Moussaoui and he was a hoot.

MEGAN: Well, if you're not talking defense contractors, the most highly remunerated person at the Pentagon is the SecDef.

MEGAN: Well, I guess that means al Qaeda doesn't like Sarko. If they're spending money their they must be recruiting there, and if they're recruiting there, I'm thinking Paris. They haven't had an attack yet, but we have, the UK has and Spain has.

MOE: No I am talking defense contractors. Also Pastor Pfleger I forgot to mention his appearance on GMA but he appeared on GMA.

MEGAN: Oh, well, then it's got to be, like, the CEO of Boeing or something. That's my guess.

MOE: Yeah but the CEO of Boeing ... not Mullally.. shit, I dunno, anyway, it's not important, his OFFICE is not in the Pentagon. See what I'm saying?

MEGAN: Ah, ok, I see what you're saying. I'll be the grunts who have to work in offices there still don't make more than the SecDef. I can't find his pay, but the highest guy below him makes $200,000, so I'm guessing it's about that or a little more.

Images: Mark Seliger exclusively for Vanity Fair.

In Cohen's latest recital, he responds to those surly detractors (i.e., me) who have accused him of cutting out heart-shaped valentines to John McCain and pasting them in his locker. Coyly he begins:

In politics, we're having a Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr kind of year. It was Karr, a French writer, who coined the phrase plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose, which means, as Barack Obama has shown, that the more things change, the more they stay the same. N'est-ce pas?

Oui...
My own French is rusty, so I'm not sure what the proper French equivalent for "fucking embarrassing" is, so forgive me, but really—The Washington Post is not only the most powerful paper in the nation's capital but enjoys an international reputation, and here's one of their premiere columnists blithering away like Mayberry's Howard Sprague with a carnation in his lapel. It's amazing he didn't stick an "ooh la la" in there somewhere.

And if that doesn't rekindle your man crush on Wolcott you can go read the whole post and revel in anticipation of his rebuttal to Tony fucking Blair.

McCain's Core Advantage [Washington Post]
Hick Hack Ho [Vanity Fair]

Related: Dan Ratherisms [About.com]
Earlier: 15-Year Old On Miley Cyrus: "I Don't Want To Be That"
Germaine Greer; Glamour Editor: Miley Cyrus Hubbub Is Hypocritical
Is Tween Titillation More Offensive Than Casual Racism?
Miley Cyrus Is Not The Innocent Victim That Disney Makes Her Out To Be
Miley Cyrus: Fifteen & Topless in Vanity Fair

A couple of days ago I visited some friends, all artistically-inclined, who live in a converted factory in a remote corner of Brooklyn. They have a tree house and no bathroom door and someone plays the lute. It was all very countercultural and very bohemian and Vogue would have adored it. I was reminded of this as I read through this month's Vanity Fair, in which Christopher Hitchens waxes nostalgic about his days as a youngish Trotskyite living la vie boheme in Soho and the Village. The piece is a meditation on the vanishing world of bohemia, and a call to save the Greenwich Village block (Seventh/Greenwich/11th/13th) threatened by a massive and soulless hospital building. "Every successful society needs its Bohemia, a haven for the artists, exiles, and misfits who regenerate the culture," claims the piece.

Now, it's no secret that Hitch phones it in a lot of the time (drink in hand, one assumes.) And it's also absolutely true that the new building will almost surely be a monstrosity that wantonly destroys old, attractive blocks and succeeds in further eroding the character of the city; the Apple could stand to profit by London and San Francisco's more civic-minded example in this regard. But to claim such destruction has one whit to do with the preservation of New York's bohemia - or anything other than nostalgia - is disingenuous in the extreme. Not only is the West Village one of the most expensive hoods in a very pricey burg - no secret there - but New York hasn't played host to a real bohemia for decades.

I dig the idea of the Boho west village as much as anyone: who doesn't like the idea of Edna Saint Vincent Millay and Bob Dylan and Dylan Thomas leaping around in romantic squalor, tripping over each other on cobblestone streets? It's so appealing precisely because it doesn't exist anymore. Even those well-preserved Greenwich Village streets in no danger of demolition are now thronged with Marc Jacobs stores, the former tenements selling for millions, the White Horse Tavern and Cafe Wha? thronged with NYU boys swilling Heineken. I really don't know what Hitch is on about.

More to the point, New York bohemia itself is a lost world. The whole point of bohemians is that they were a true counterculture (and if you like this stuff, I really rec Among The Bohemians by Virginia Nicholson.) Their ethos depended upon butting against a status quo that was entrenched and rigid in a way we can't imagine. It was actually a societal risk in the 19th and early 20th centuries to pursue a career in the arts, to say nothing of a financial one. Anyone living in New York today does not have the luxury of poverty; you have to be somewhere cheaper. If you can manage it on a starving artists's ducats, you're not gonna be anywhere picturesque, that's for sure: most of the artists I know don't fancy themselves as denizens of Staten Island.

Obviously you can still make art here. And you can certainly be poor. But the classic bohemian ethos has been embraced by the mainstream, which kinda ruins everything. Books like The Bohemian Manifesto and Simon Doonan's latest, Eccentric Glamour, break down bohemian lifestyle into an easy-to-replicate formula, describing the various types and subgenres upon whom to model oneself ("The Beat", the "Simone de Beauvoir" etc.) In the current Lucky Jean Godrey-June rhapsodizes about the 60s boho influence on fashion. While Bohemianism always had an aesthetic element to it, and a good deal of silliness, too, it was still about forging paths, backed by (often vague) principles.

My friends' space is neat. I think one of them even has parents somewhere in the Midwest who disapprove of his lifestyle; the others only wish they did. But they are hyper-aware of the lifestyle they are replicating, the bohemians who came before, and the fact that one can't help, today, but have something of a safety net. That building's going to go up, and that makes me sad. But the fact that it feels like there is so little left to be discovered - that we can only reinvent - makes me sadder.

Last Call, Bohemia [Vanity Fair]

Men always form crushes on other men who are like, the exact opposite of them. (If they're sufficiently alike and the feelings are mutual, they immediately enter into that sort of buddy matrimony wherein the "old married couple" quality of the union obscures the newness of the bond, since dudes sort of instinctively hate the idea of making new friends.) (Like have you ever noticed that, even if two dude friends met last year, they will talk about high school and old hardcore shows as if they attended them together?) Anyway, whereas girls — is this egotistical of us? — tend for form crushes on girls whose, you know, outfits and pop cultural touchstones and pastimes mirror our own, dudes only seem to form man crushes on the sorts of men — torture victims, ladykillers, capitalists, foreigners — who represent a mysterious Other Path, so any girls present are subjected to first watching a dude totally question every facet of his identity, then possibly undergo a mini existential crisis under the influence of infatuation, then gradually become disenchanted as breaks free of both states until he finally grasps that this whole thing has publicly sunk him to the depths of indignity because it turns out his Crush is actually, like, George W. Bush. And that any man who crushes on George W. Bush must hate himself. Yeah, so I guess it's sort of like what happens to us. Anyway.

Does The Media Have A Man Crush On John McCain [Vanity Fair]

uxoriousness
One entry found.
uxorious

Main Entry:
ux·o·ri·ous Listen to the pronunciation of uxorious Listen to the pronunciation of uxorious
Pronunciation:
\ˌək-ˈsȯr-ē-əs, ˌəg-ˈzȯr-\
Function:
adjective
Etymology:
Latin uxorius uxorious, uxorial, from uxor wife
Date:
1598

: excessively fond of or submissive to a wife
— ux·o·ri·ous·ly adverb
— ux·o·ri·ous·ness noun

[Merriam-Webster]

Earlier: Is There Really Such A Thing As "Whipped"?

On gossip magazines: "People always slow down for a train wreck. It’s like junk food. If you don’t feel good about yourself, you want to read crap about other people, like gossip in high school. You don’t understand why it’s there, but somehow it makes a lot of people feel better."

More on tabloids:

"In my father’s generation, the product was 80 percent of what you were putting into the world, and your personal life was 20 percent. It now seems that 80 percent of the product I put out is silly, made-up stories and what I’m wearing."

On raising her kids:

"You end up hearing yourself saying all those clichéd parent things: 'I don’t care who started it, but I’m here to finish it.'"

On adoption:

"When I was growing up I wanted to adopt, because I was aware there were kids that didn’t have parents. It’s not a humanitarian thing, because I don’t see it as a sacrifice. It’s a gift. We’re all lucky to have each other."

On having a multi-culti family:

"Brad got me this great thing for Christmas. It’s a bookshelf that has a book on every religion. That’s how we plan to raise our kids. Teach them about all religions. They can pick one or be a student of all of them. We’ll celebrate Kwanzaa* for our girl. We’ll celebrate moon and water festivals for our boys. We’ll take them to temples in certain countries. Also to church."

On why children of movie stars often become movie stars:

"Artists raise their kids differently. We communicate to the point where we probably annoy our children. We have art around the house, we have books, we go to plays, we talk. Our focus is art and painting and dress-up and singing. It’s what we love. So I think you can see how artists in some way raise other artists."

So yeah. According to her logic, her kids may very well be actors. Expect to see Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh & the twins in the remake of the remake of Hackers any day now.

A Woman in Full, Angelina, Uninterrupted, A Jolie Good Show [Vanity Fair]

*Um, hopefully she knows that Kwanzaa was invented in the U.S. in the '60s, and Zahara is from Ethiopia.

1. You could almost blame it all on his enabling assistant Doug Band.
Responsible for introducing Bill to Anne Hathaway's deadbeat boyfriend? Check. Wrote that aggro letter telling that restaurant to take Chelsea's photo off the wall? Check. Married to a handbag designer? Check. Okay, but even this guy, Clinton's "butt boy" turned right hand man, doesn't think Bill should be hanging out with fucking Ron Burkle, which brings us to…

2.But whatever, once a cad, always a fucking cad.
Back in 1992, some AIDS activists gave Bill a bucket of condoms, to which he "instantly" replied, “My staff thinks this is the last thing I need.” Ha ha ha, fast forward to the post-how-that-shit-got-him-impeached part and he is hanging out with Elizabeth Hurley's babydaddy Steve Bing and supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, whose private jet is nicknamed Air Fuck One and who leads what they call a "European lifestyle," perhaps because that is the continent of origin of so many of the models on Air Fuck One, but in any case, as one of Burkle's aides says, “How many older guys wouldn’t want to hang out with younger girls, if they could? Would you rather hang out with a smart, good-looking 20-year-old, or a 45-year-old?” (Hm.) He's stirred up side-fuckery rumors with everyone from Canadian politico Belinda Stronach to Gina Gershon to some lady in Chappaqua to another lady at the Aspen Institute and a "ravishing entourage in a New York elevator" about whom a former Clinton aide said a "business leader" said upon seeing them, "I don’t know what the guy was doing, but it was so clear that it was just no good." Four former Clinton aides tell Vanity Fair that about 18 months ago, one of the president’s former assistants, who still advises him on political matters, tried to stage an "intervention."

3. Monica was kind of cool for a starstruck 25-year-old intern.
According to Andrew Morton’s Monica’s Story, Lewinsky was about to deliver her Christmas gifts to Bill when she learned Eleanor Mondale, Clinton's jogging partner on whom he had a known crush, had been with him at the White House.“Do you think I would be stupid enough to go running with someone I was foolin’ with?,” Clinton later asked Lewinsky, to which she said, “Do you want me to answer that?” Plus:

4. The last night Bill and Monica were together he serenaded her with the song "Try A Little Tenderness."
Was it gratuitous of Purdum to excerpt the "shabby dress" line? Oh, probs, but barf anyway.

5. Ron Burkle isn't the worst of it, oh hell no, because in 2002 Bill Clinton flew to Africa with Jeff Epstein on Jeff's private 727.
Jeffrey. Fucking. Epstein. Jeff Epstein, folks. He knows how to pick em.

6. Abbreviated list of nefarious dictatorships whose business relationships with Clinton would probably conflict with Hillary's interests, if they were not likely also funding her campaign, since their finances are comingled since, oh yeah, I almost forgot, they are still married.
Kazakhstan: a dictatorship. I mean, guys named Nursultan Nazarbayev don't just get elected. Clinton was involved with some shady miner's bid to work on some sort of natural resources project I don't really remember.
Ukraine: this photo of Bill Clinton hanging out with Leonid Kuchma, the former Ukrainian dictator-type who likes to poison enemies, made a poisoned journalist's widow want to "throw up."
Dubai: Has a lot of money, obviously, but also not the world's best human rights record, and Hillary rejected the whole Ports sale, so why he is hanging out with them?
Peaceful Reunification of China — He gave some speech for this crew, which advocates "reunification" of China, which would be a nice idea if it didn't involve a vastly corrupt authoritarian dictatorship engulfing what has arguably become Asia's most vibrant democracy.
The Vatican? — And remember this story?

7. He is, in every tense of the word, a fucking liar.
He lies about how he had the lowest net worth of any president of the 20th century when he got elected — actually Harry Truman holds that distinction — but meanwhile, while Harry Truman went totally broke in post-presidency, only gaining solvency when he sold the family farm to a mall developer. Bill Clinton has made more money than almost anyone who ever came out of the public sector, and more of that money has come from taxpayers than any other living ex-president. Also in his book Giving, Clinton wrote that Ron Burkle's job was the "only private sector offer" he ever took since leaving office, but actually, aside from his ninety gazillion dollars in speakers fees he's made more than $3 million in consulting fees from a shady data-mining company called InfoUSA which was once sued by its shareholders for wasting nearly $1 million in company funds flying the Clintons around the world.

The Comeback Id [Vanity Fair]

• Ellen DeGeneres is so psyched about the California Supreme Court ruling regarding gay marriage that she's gonna get hitched to longtime love Portia de Rossi. Woohoo! It would be kind of awesome if they did it on TV. And then danced! [TMZ]
  
• Pregnant Angelina Jolie will be looking "sexy" on the July cover of Vanity Fair; she was shot by Patrick Demarchelier. Wonder if he'll have her Photoshopped? [Page Six]
  
• Click here if you need info on Angelina's tattoos. [Sydney Morning Herald]
  
• Angelina will probably give birth in France, FYI. [USA Today]
  
• Angelina's dad Jon Voight is all riled up over Israel: "God gave this land to the Jewish people; they shouldn't be giving it away," he says. But, um, Voight is not Jewish. [Mirror]
  
• "If I punched every bitch who called me fat, it would be dead bitches all up and down the highway." — Star Jones. [Page Six]

• Just two weeks after marrying Mariah Carey, Nick Cannon is driving a new car: the $120,000 Maserati Quattroporte. Did Drumline profits pay for it? [TMZ]
• Ali Lohan swears that even though sister Lindsay hangs with Sam Ronson, she is not a lezebel. "They're best friends. They're just friends. It's pathetic what people say," Ali claims. [Perez Hilton]
• Here's a book for your Amazon wish list: Hollywood Babylon: It's Back has full-frontal nudes of stars like Mick Jagger, Daniel Radcliffe, Ewan McGregor, John Malkovich, James Woods and Richard Gere. Plus! Stories about the size of other actors; Johnny Depp was known as "donkey dick" and an art student who sketched Sean Connery years ago swears, "It was the biggest I've ever seen. It made me drop my charcoal pencil." [Rush & Molloy]
• As previously reported, Britney Spears and Mel Gibson are on vacay together in Costa Rica. Also along for the adventure are Brit's dad Jamie and Mel's wife Robin, as well as some "unidentified youngsters." Apocalypto! [E!]
• An L.A. band says there's a Miley Cyrus song that sounds suspiciously like one of theirs. Miley's rep says, "She doesn't write the songs - she sings them. We have referred this to Disney." Ah, well, okay then. [Page Six]
• Hulk Hogan has written letters to the court trying to get his son Nick a softer sentence; Hulk says Nick isn't the wild kid people see on TV because their reality show "is scripted." [TMZ]
• American Idol alum Taylor Hicks will join the cast of Grease on Broadway. [ET]
• Duran Duran are in the news! They rerouted their world tour to perform for Deutsche Bank staffers; then the show got canceled. Now they're hungry like the wolf. Don't say a prayer for them now, save it til the morning after. [Mirror]
• Sheryl Crow has a new boyfriend; he's a restauranteur and pilot from Alabama. He can fly home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. [MSNBC]
• Movie-industry private investigator Anthony Pellicano has been found guilty of conspiracy after wiretapping and harassing a string of celebrities, including Garry Shandling, Kevin Nealon, Sylvester Stallone and Keith Carradine. [Portfolio]
• Rapper DMX has pleaded not guilty to felony drug possession and misdemeanor animal cruelty charges. [Yahoo News]
• Jury selection is complete in the trial of R. Kelly! Maybe the trial will finally begin? [Mirror]
• Ryan Kavanaugh, the executive producer of 21, smitten with Natalie Portman? What will Devendra Banhart say? [Page Six]
• Kanye West performed with four topless dancers wearing space helmets and made $1 million. [Page Six]
• Blind item! "Which TV legend likes to play dirty in the bedroom? The larger-than-life fella ties up his conquests with bathrobes - and takes breaks from "satisfying" the girls only to snort piles of coke." [Rush & Molloy]
• Lil' Kim won $500,000 in a lawsuit against a former fellow Junior M.A.F.I.A. member. That kind of cash will get her some nice fingernails. [Vibe]
• Dennis Rodman has been charged with battery and domestic violence after allegedly hitting his girlfriend last month in an L.A. hotel. Rodman is currently in a rehab facility, but he told TMZ "I've never hit anyone." [TMZ]
• Kelly Osbourne has a new boyfriend named Luke. [Mirror]
• "The handbags alone were heavenly. I'm a handbag girl, so I was just salivating. Every time a new purse came into the wardrobe room I'd get so excited. People would walk in with arms full of bags, just trying to decide which one my character should use that day. Just flipping through them, one more beautiful than the next. I was stunned... Next time I will make sure I put a clause into my contract that I get to keep all my purses." — Jennifer Hudson, on the Sex And The City movie. [Mirror]

Maybe this is what bothers people the most about the Miley Cyrus shoot: That it's less about exploitation, and more about robbery. Why take a girl's youth away from her earlier than is necessary? (And is it ever really "necessary"?) Also, what's the difference between Vanity Fair and the execs at Disney who trot kids like Cyrus around in order to fill their corporate coffers? I can't really find one right now.

The Miley Cyrus Message, in the Eyes of Schoolgirls [NYT]

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Cindi Leive, editor in chief of Glamour, doesn't really understand what the big deal is either. She said at an event held by Mediabistro idiotically titled "Skirts, Slacks and Supper": "I think it's a bit hypocritical how up in arms everybody is about it because clearly girls are sexualized far too early in this culture all the time, so we look at that one, I agree, relatively tame picture and we're suddenly so shocked, shocked! It seems a little disingenuous."

Speaking of disingenuousness, blogger Auntie Fashion posted a picture of then-17-year-old model Behati Prinsloo in a see-through shirt, walking down the runway in Lagerfeld. Auntie was outraged when he realized that the girl was under age, and asks, "Where were this child's parents when she was walking down the runway in a see-through top. Where were her agents? Where was Karl Lagerfeld?"

Maybe ol' Karl was checking out Disney billboards in China, looking for his next runway star. According to Daniel Brook at Slate in Beijing he spotted a billboard showing " a white girl who looked all of 12, reclining in a matching bra-and-panties set adorned with Disney's signature mouse-ear design. In a particularly creepy detail, the pigtailed child was playing with a pair of Minnie Mouse hand puppets. In the upper left-hand corner was the familiar script of the Disney logo." When Brook notified Disney, they were horrified — apparently they license Disney products to a third party, and with thousands of such third parties, they don't have the time to comb through every piece of advertising that gets created. Brook, however, was reassured by Disney execs that the offending billboard would be taken down immediately.

The age of consent in China is 14, a year younger than Miss Miley. Even with the big hullabaloo about Miley's Vanity Fair pics, the media will continue to sexualize teenagers especially as long as the "ideal" body type to many is one possessed mostly by the under 18-set. And it might not ultimately ruin Miley's life anyway. Brooke Shields' Calvin Klein ads from 1980 made her a cultural icon, and she doesn't seem to regret them one bit. "The response] was immediate," Shields told VF in last month's issue. "It was me and the jeans. We were inseparable. I didn't do a television show without that being in my bio. I didn't go on the street without somebody saying, 'Got your Calvins on?' People still come up to me and mention it."

'We Like Our Venuses Young' [Guardian]
To Timberlake, Or Not To Timberlake? The Debate [Portfolio]
Mickey Mouse Operation [Slate]
Double Standards [Auntie Fashion]
Calvin To The Core [Vanity Fair]

Earlier: Is Tween Titillation More Offensive Than Casual Racism?
Miley Cyrus Is Not The Innocent Victim That Disney Makes Her Out To Be

Continues Roberts:

"Teenagers can be seen on TV and in the cinema in the most prurient ways, and then a photograph which is for all intents and purposes innocent is blown out of portion and condemned as some ridiculous apotheosis. It's a joke to me. But it's not a joke because I don't find it funny. I find it offensive. I'm deemed as being party to some kind of subversive picture of this girl, that she was cajoled. That we literally manhandled her into stripping is completely not true."

On yesterday's post about about the Miley Cyrus/Annie Leibovitz photo shoot, a commenter argued: "Didn't Kate Moss pose topless when she was 15? Like - actually topless, not just with her back showing. Comparatively, this isn't all that shocking. It's just kind of pathetic." And yes, 19-year-old Kate Moss did pose topless. In fact, her first shoot for The Face magazine was a topless shoot. But Miley Cyrus is not Kate Moss. She is not a model. In fact, she is a subsidiary of squeaky-clean conglomerate Disney. She had a sold-out 70-date concert tour which grossed $36 million and generated $50 million in album sales and downloads. That doesn't include T-shirts, clothes, rain boots, etc. Money from the parents of her fans, who are children. It's no secret that it's tough to transition from child star to teen star (see Spears, Britney and Lohan, Lindsay; both formerly caught in the Mouse's trap.) Isn't a racy photo shoot on an ingenue's to-do list? But the most interesting thing is while the Miley kerfluffle prompted a response from photographer Annie Leibovitz, the Lebron James cover she shot for Vogue was met with silence from the photographer, even after its inspiration was discovered.

Why does a not-naked fifteen-year-old garner more attention than a black man portrayed as an animal? Is subtle racism just not a big deal? Or is it that America loves Lolitas? Do we enjoy seeing our starlets young, pure, but on the verge of corruption? Hopefully with a lollipops in their mouths?

Annie Leibovitz Defends Hannah Montana Star Miley Cyrus's Vanity Fair Shoot [Telegraph]
Memo Pad [WWD]
The Latest Ingenue To-Do [Washington Post]
Sexualizing Miley: Are Billy Ray and Ti