Albrecht is the new CEO of premium cable channel Starz! Well, looks like we finally have an answer for how long it takes Hollywood to forgive you for beating up your girlfriend in public. It's about two-and-a-half years.

Some people are upset that the Republicans are forcing poor Sen. Robert Byrd (Invalid-W.V.) to actually show up and vote on the healthcare bill. We hope they drag him bodily to every roll call vote until he kicks or retires.

Little Chocolatiers, as we've already covered, is the newest little people exploitation project on TLC. Well it premiered last night, and the verdict is in—this show should not be on television.

We know in-laws suck, but that's no reason to debase their memories by swatting their urns with coniferous evergreens! Sure is funny, though.

Band-Aid heir, filmmaker, and Vanity Fair contributor Jamie Johnson has some pretty eccentric family members. (Perhaps you've heard of Casey Johnson, Jamie's first cousin, who's been in the news recently? That's her on the far right, with her "fiancée" Tila Tequila.) Well, it seems Jamie's friends are pretty strange, too.

With, let's say, 140% of the vote reporting, we are deeply ashamed to announce that Girls Gone Wild impresario Joe Francis is Gawker's Douche of the Decade.

Computer hackers can be so cruel. Not only did a "Russian cyber gang" decide to mount an attack on one of America's banks, they picked the nation's most feeble financial institution, too. According to the Journal, hackers likely used a $40 software program to gain access to Citibank accounts and make off with "tens of millions of dollars," although in typical Citi fashion, for now the bank is pretending the computer attack never happened. [WSJ]

Commenters are leaving great tales of airport woe and torturous car trips. If you want to try to win a $50 MetroCard, go leave your worst Christmas commute story in the comments of the original post. Happy trails! [Image via]

This promotional video for Pit Boss makes the show sound so completely ridiculous that I had to google it to believe it. This show actually exists in our current "golden age" of television? Obviously.

The FBI has released 333 pages of files on Michael Jackson. We're reading them now and will do a post later this afternoon. But if you want to take a look as well, please let us know what you find.

That's the conclusion that Rob Shuter comes to in the Huffington Post when he says that the tabloid covers that carried his famous face didn't move at the newsstand. Well, let's see how Brittany Murphy fares this week.

Animal Fair magazine hosted its annual "Toys for Dogs" holiday party last night, an event that featured a bunch of poor canines dressed up in embarrassing Christmas costumes. Today health officials in Westchester announced they've confirmed the first case of a dog catching swine flu from his human owner. Coincidence? [Jezebel, NYDN]

Dov Charney, Carles, and Kari Farrell are locked in essentially a three-way tie for Gawker's Coveted Old-Tymey Mustache Trophy (awarded, for pretend, to the Hipster of the Decade.) And that is lame!

It's tough out there for science writers following in Malcolm Gladwell's footsteps. Not because he's so good, but because he's so wrong. Here's a rant by author Jeff Wise, republished from Psychology Today, on undoing Gladwell's damage to the facts.

Betty White, a regular on The Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson, came on last night dressed as Santa Claus. What came out of her mouth, however, was not so PG-rated. Ganja-talk, parties, and euphemisms to male anatomy? Oh my!

Russia has added so much to world culture, from the films of Alexander Sokurov to the comedy stylings of Yakov Smirnoff. Russia's most recent contribution? A circus populated by cats. Russians eat it up—and now, so do we.

So he's prank-calling local news-talk radio shows as "Barry From D.C." Is it five yet? Anyone up for lunch?

Gabriel Stulman opened the very well-regarded West Village restaurant Joseph Leonard in late July. But before he ventured out on his own, he ran the front of the house (and co-owned) the exceedingly popular Little Owl and its sister restaurant Market Table, along with Joey Campanaro and Mike Price. It's been a year and half since Stulman parted ways with Campanaro and Price. But it's quite clear the partnership didn't end on a positive note. Last month Stulman filed a lawsuit against his former partners, claiming Campanaro and Price stiffed him out of his 20 percent stake in the partnership and never paid him any of the profits he was entitled to, an amount he says now totals $437,000. Stulman's suit is below.