If your name was accidentally added to a no-fly list at one point or another (and you had to spends months working through red tape to have it removed), or you're one of the six people alive who takes TSA security precautions seriously, you may not find this video very amusing. But it seems Conan O'Brien had the nerve to mock the lovely city of Newark on his show last week and now Mayor Cory Booker has retaliated by adding Conan to Newark Airport's no-fly list. Let's hope Conan doesn't try to board a flight there regardless, get into a pushing match with security personnel, and fall down and bump his head or anything. [YouTube]

• It's all over for Dan Rather and his long-running legal campaign against CBS. A state appeals court dismissed the ex-anchor's lawsuit today. [Reuters, NYP]
• At least four parties are still in the bidding for BusinessWeek. But Bloomberg LP remains the most likely acquirer of the struggling magazine. [BW, Reuters]
• An "unbelievably conscientious" Sarah Palin has finishing her memoir in less than four months. You can not buy the book beginning on November 17. [WP]
• Michelle Obama will appear as guest on Sesame Street's season debut. [NYT]
• TLC announced today it's dropping Jon Gosselin from Jon & Kate Plus 8. This news calls out for name change, obvs, so it'll be Kate Plus 8 from now on. [THR]

Bill Kristol thinks Barack Obama will swing by Afghanistan for a surprise visit on his way back from Copenhagen. Sounds reasonable. But Bill: Why all the detail?

Yesterday we brought you the ridic story of the purported "Rape Tunnel," where Rape Artist "Richard Whitehurst" would rape anyone daring to crawl through. Alas, it was just another art hoax. Our field trip is canceled.

Below, find the full U.S. Patent granted to Apple for its "iGlasses" head-mounted laser display.

Apple today received a patent on a head-mounted laser video display. Now that the three-year old application has finally been approved, Steve Jobs can put these babies through his grueling design process and hopefully pretty them up a bit.

September 29th is a day that will go down in ginfamy (that is gay infamy) as the day that Mariah Carey, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, and Britney Spears battled for supremacy in gay hearts and minds. Who will stand victorious?

Oh look, the black cartoonist Keith Knight dared to draw a black guy in a noose in this recent K Chronicles strip, and now "Students at a western Pennsylvanian school are outraged." Shut up, Slippery Rock University.

Not everyone is convinced that the recession is over. Judging by his big announcement today, Steve Ross seems to think the worst is behind us. The real estate giant that Ross runs, The Related Companies, now says it plans to resume construction of a giant 1.2-million square foot complex on West 42nd Street that was put on hold when the economy took a tumble last year. Coming soon (or in a few years, at least): a 59-story tower with hotel rooms and rental apartments, massive shopping complex, and collection of Frank Gehry-designed theaters. [Crain's]

In your trailblazing Tuesday media column: Byron Pitts overcomes hardships, chuckle as a newspaper editor talks trash, Ebony's bound to sell, and The Daily Beast is publishing books, fast!

Johnny Depp made a big deal about making known his dissatisfaction after his friend Dick Cook was ousted from Disney last week. Apparently he's already forgotten about that.

When asked how he keeps up "with the latest tech news when there are so many blogs," Times editor David Gallagher immediately cited TechMeme, a direct competitor of Blogrunner, as "one of my favorite sites." Although the Times serves Blogrunner results from the front of Gallagher's own section, the editor didn't plug the site in his three-paragraph answer. It wasn't the first time the Times forgot about its 2005 acquisition; reporter Saul Hansell says he considered pushing the newspaper to develop something similar before discovering "we actually owned a company that did that" (see video).

Jon Gosselin's and his mid-life crisis are dropped from TV show, renamed Kate Plus 8.

It sounds like Saturday evening was an eventful one in Greenwich. Apparently a group of residents called the police after they spotted what they thought was a UFO in the sky:

Last week, Barack Obama stood before the world with the prime ministers of Britain and France and accused Iran of secretly pursuing a nuclear weapon. Today, nameless spooks are telling the New York Times not so much. What's going on?

First there was the nude guy at the taco truck. Now there's another nude guy running the Williamsburg streets in broad daylight, for laffs. We thought you should know.

As my momma used to say, secrets don't make friends, but they make for great enemies and terrific currency. Last night the Upper East Side was full of loose lips, sinking ships, and the most ghetto Southeby's auction ever.

Remember last week when the mayor asked New Yorkers to paint their rooftops white to save on energy, but didn't bother to glance at his own roof before dishing out the advice to everyone else? He's at it again. A few weeks after Mayor Bloomberg and the Department of Health announced plans to wage war on sugary beverages comes word that the agency's main lobby features—yes, you guessed it—a big vending machine stocked with soft drinks. Now someone just needs to snap a photo of the mayor sneaking a cigarette behind City Hall and our week will be complete. [NYP]

It may be weeks before Roman Polanski's extradition request is heard in Swiss courts. Meanwhile, the world is gripped with confusion and outrage, a heady combination in what is shaping up as one of the great kerfuffles of our times.

Cristina Warthen, who worked her way through Stanford Law as an escort and later pled guilty to tax evasion, has been sentenced to one year home detention and ordered to pay $243,000 in back taxes and fines.