In this clip, MSNBC's Contessa Brewer reports new Gallup poll data showing that "just nine percent approve of the GOP" in Congress. She's wrong. It's MSNBC's version of Fox News putting a "(D)" after the name of every pedophile Republican.

Haha no that is just a joke about the last time he quit something, back when we all hoped he'd got to jail. No, former House Majority leader Tom DeLay is quitting the TV dancing show because he hurt his widdle foots.

"I don't think it will be substantially more [Death, Doom, Destruction, and Layoffs]," Conde Nast CEO Chuck Townsend tells John Koblin. "It'll be a trickle." A trickle, you say? What the hey does that mean?

Just because a career in Hollywood starts on the sofa doesn't mean success will get you free ones, like this lady demanded. Also on a tear, a druggie dame angering her sober lover and a woman-hating producer. Take a seat!

Sarah Jessica Parker on the set of Sex and the City 2 in Brooklyn ... Alex Rodriguez walking to lunch in Midtown with his manager, Guy Oseary ... Hilary Duff kissing Penn Badgley on the set of Gossip Girl ... Rick Fox and Eliza Dushku walking in Midtown ... Olivia Palermo leaving the PIX11 studios ... Khloe Kardashian arriving at JFK and later shopping at the Apple store ... Tim Robbins talking to Matt Damon and Emily Blunt on the Adjustment Bureau set downtown ... Kate Gosselin getting out of an SUV in front her of hotel ... and Sienna Miller carrying her dog downtown.

Today Google celebrates the 57th anniversary of the bar code, a handy machine-readable code language designed for inventory management and population control.

The Sexy Middle-Aged Man Interoffice Romance Scandal continues apace! Today in salacious pieces of information relating to David Letterman and the woman he smooched and her crazy boyfriend: A blackmail motive! Lusty letters! And a good guess at who's leaking!

How are banks repaying American taxpayers for providing them with billions of bailout dollars during the financial crisis? By jacking up ATM fees to the highest they've ever been in history. Thanks, guys! [Slate]

Mort Zuckerman's latest attempt to expand his media empire has failed, it seems. Reuters is reporting the real estate developer and owner of the Daily News and US News has decided to drop out of the race to acquire BusinessWeek, possibly because he sensed execs at the mag's parent company, McGraw-Hill, are more interesting in doing a deal with Bloomberg LP instead.

The FBI suspected Anna Nicole Smith of scheming to have E. Pierce Marshall, the son of her oil tycoon husband, killed in order to clear the path to inheriting her husband's fortune, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.

• Theater and movie producer Marty Richards is still trying to unload his River House apartment. It's been 10 years now that the 14-room maisonette has been on and off the market—with prices ranging from $11.5 million (in 2003) to $29 million (in 2006)—but Richards is giving it another go. The Oscar-winning producer has given the listing to broker Kathy Sloane for a third time, and it's currently listed for $13.5 million. [NYO]
• Brian Brille, Bank of America's former head of investment banking who was named president of the bank's Asia-Pacific region three weeks ago, has put his 5,473-square-foot apartment at Trump Park Avenue on the market. The four-bedroom pad, which Brille and his wife Leslie picked up for $8.6 million back in 2007, is listed for $14.75 million with Corcoran's Carrie Chiang and Loy Carlos. [Cityfile, Corcoran]
• Russian real estate investor Janna Bullock sold her townhouse on East 67th Street in January for $24.925 million. Now she's looking to sell her 21-foot-wide manse at 14 East 82nd Street. The home is now on the market for $20 million with Sotheby's SVP Nikki Field. [Real Deal]

Joy Behar, the View fixture and host of her own show on HLN as of last week, is turning 67. Former Merrill Lynch CEO Stan O'Neal turns 58. American Idol judge Simon Cowell is 50. American Idol winner Taylor Hicks is 33. John Mellencamp is turning 58. Toni Braxton turns 41. Rachel McAdams is 33. Nation editor-in-chief Katrina Vanden Heuvel is celebrating her 50th. Famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma is 54. Russia's most powerful man, Vladimir Putin, is 57. Sex columnist Dan Savage is turning 45. Tico Torres of Bon Jov turns 56. Nobel Prize-winning activist and cleric Desmond Tutu is 78. And Oliver "Ollie" North turns 66 today.

• Jeremy Piven, now fully recovered from his bout with mercury poisoning, has been squiring lots of women around town in recent days. He was out with "a super-pretty African American girl" last Friday; a day later, he was at the Rangers season opener with "a gorgeous blond." Let this be another reminder, however, that short, balding guys can date whoever they want as long as they're on a hit TV show. [P6]
• Producers for Tinsley Mortimer's reality show are reportedly having a hard time getting her friends to sign on. Peter Davis, the Tinz's half-brother-in-law, wrote on Facebook that he has "zero interest in playing a warped, twisted version of myself on television." And socialites Zani Gugelmann and Dani Stahl have also passed. So far the only person confirmed is her sister, Dabney Mercer. So does that mean her ex, Topper Mortimer, is out, too? [P6]
• Padma Lakshmi has said she'd like to keep her pregnancy a private matter. And judging by pictures of her at various parties this week, she's barely showing. But none of that stopped her from telling a reporter that she needs to keep her belly "really lubricated" these days: "Every morning, there's a buttering ceremony after I get out of the shower," she said. "It's really like basting a turkey with body butter." [People]

Amazon's a modern day Don Quixote. The company will expand its Kindle service across the globe, but won't look past the device's book-related origins. No touchscreen here. And, thus, no competition for Apple's forthcoming tablet. Silly Jeff Bezos! [Reuters]

Are Jennifer and Brad going to reconcile? Will Nancy Grace eat Jon Gosselin's face? Can Levi Johnston get in shape for Playgirl? And why do women find Jeremy Piven attractive? Welcome, inquisitive reader, to your Wednesday morning gossip roundup!

Once in a great while, ideological opponents find themselves on the same side of a debate. And, though both parties find one another repulsive, that's what's happening, however tenuously, with Andrew Sullivan and those "God Hates Fags" crazies.

Mexican cartels still dominate the pot market, but "mom-and-pop" growers here in the states are harvesting almost half of the recession-resilient buds being smoked domestically, so the war on drugs is really a war on our economy! Trippy. [WaPo]

Sometimes, while strolling around this crazy world, I see children with cellphones, iPods and other 21st century toys. And it upsets me. What happened to kids living in a protective, imagination-powered bubble? Those days are long gone.

We really feel for all those Conde Nast staffers who have been sent out to join the unemployed masses. That said, we just adore the entertaining anger spilling out of their sad, drunken fingers, like this numerically-minded missive...

Tom Delay quit Dancing with the Stars because his feet are broken. And he stinks.