Kristen Stewart's corruption of Dakota Fanning is complete, Joe Francis is filing for bankruptcy, and Kirstie Alley says Conan "acts like I bit his dick off." Thursday's gossip has castration anxiety.

Everyone's talking about swine flu, which means medical journalists are in high demand. But how do you come up with new angles on something so overplayed and relatively straightforward?

A Houston lawyer says her state made a "massive mistake" in their Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and now everyone in Texas is divorced.

Accused of skipping meals and wasting away, the leader of the free world protested: Am not, I have naturally fine bones, and I'm under a lot of pressure. Hey Barack, quit stealing Nicole Richie's lines.

The new McDonald's in Chelsea is much improved. Not the food, dummy: The ambience. It's the first in America to undergo what the AP calls "a sleek, European-style makeover". Come, let us explore this wonderful place.

Viewers of the Rachel Maddow Show must have spit Chai latte all over their low emission plasma TVs when they spied an ad for Going Rogue nestled betwixt Maddow's liberal rantings tonight. Take a look!

Scientists must be huge drunks and very healthy, since every other week they produce a study that shows alcohol is an all-curing wonder drink. Here is another one, conducted by Spanish researchers in between taking swigs from their wine flasks.

Well, another Wednesday night has rolled around, and I can't wait to get started on tonight's live blog. In fact, the anticipation is making me quiver like the thigh of a 17th century courtesan. How about you?

Peak Palin is the idea that humanity will someday reach a point at which the demand for stories about Sarah Palin will outstrip our ability to produce them. Tonight's Times profile of Sarah Palin's stylist suggests that day is today.

Condé Nast says it is already racing to repackage its magazines for Apple's forthcoming tablet, starting with Wired, even while toeing Apple's line that the device doesn't exist. Publishers are clearly betting Steve Jobs can save their business model.

From the start it has been one of the most annoying criminal cases, and now it's ending as irritatingly as it began. Canadian prosecutors dropped assault charges against Black Eyed Peas manager Liborio Molina after he apologized to Perez Hilton.

[People may claim that Johnny Depp is the Sexiest Man Alive, but Steve McQueen is one of the sexiest man to ever live and he was the definition of cool. Sorry, Johnny. You're not there yet. Image via Life.com.]

Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi famously called Goldman Sachs the "great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money." Turns out Nazi cartoonists came up with that image first.

• The critics: Sam Sifton of the Times surveys the new Oceana and isn't overwhelmed, giving it two stars; the Post's Steve Cuozzo is pretty pleased with A Voce and hands it three stars out of four; Time Out's Jay Cheshes bestows three out of five stars on Travertine; and Gael Greene heads to Jeffrey Chodorow's Tanuki Tavern and is surprised to find she actually kinda likes it.
• The fanciest McDonald's in America is now open in Midtown. [AP, WPIX]
• Marcus Samuelsson will cook at White House later this month. [Eater]
• Openings/closings: Café Gitane's WV outpost has opened; cream puff spot Beard Papa has closed; and fro-yo chain Red Mango seems to be in trouble.
• In addition to his son, JGV is now employing his daughter, too. [NYT]
• David Waltuck has parted ways with Macao Trading Co. [NYT]
• Zach Braff is a restaurateur on the side, apparently. [GS]

expressing disbelief at the studio system that rushes to turn The Blind Side into a schmaltzy Sandra Bullock vehicle but will never, ever make a movie of his seminal Wall St. book Liar's Poker, to New York's Vulture.

Last week, the Daily Show caught Sean Hannity passing off old tea-party footage as representative of the (much smaller) crowd at recent protest against healthcare. Today, it's Think Progress pointing out the sleight-of-video: These shots of what is allegedly "HAPPENING NOW"—"Sarah Palin continuing to draw huge crowds" according to "video just coming into us"—really look like campaign rallies. Especially the people waving McCain-Palin signs and wearing McCain-Palin shirt. Could crazed Palinites have pulled their "Country First" signs and campaign T-shirts out of the closet in an effort to relive the glory days of '08? Yes, they could have. Does Fox deserve the benefit of the doubt on this score? No. It does not.

Governor Haley Barbour hit the Mississippi politician superfecta: he's proposed something that is at once racist, sexist, classist, and bad for education.

A woman wrote Ellen a sappy letter about being buried in debt due to falling on hard times (in this economy!). Ellen decided to pay off her $23,000 debt. The woman proceeded to absolutely freak out.

Supposedly it is voice actors. "Working voice actors," with "busy lives." But we definitely heard a guy with a non-Plains State regional accent. That's no working voice actor!

What are you watching tonight? Let us know in the comments.