Hello, commenters! Ready for some live-blogging action? I sure am. In fact, like Kevin, I want to "bond on a fat kid level" with every one of you. So let's all summon our chubby inner child, shall we?

When caught in a sex scandal, the first political instinct is to wait for the furor to blow over. Larry Craig fought tooth and nail to maintain power. Mark Sanford won't budge. That's why we praise Mike Duvall.

Panicked reports are emanating from 4 Times Square about an announcement everyone's expecting in the morning. Perhaps the long-dreaded cost-cutting recommendations from the McKinsey consultants who've been scrutinizing the expense accounts and budgets? Please email if you know more.

The White House released excerpts from President Obama's evening address to a joint session of congress. They are... pretty much what you would expect.

Joel Madden's new son hogged all the Twitter juice for himself; Sarah Lacy stood up a source; and Susan Orlean is not coming to your party. The Twitterati got dissed.

[Today NASA released images taken by the refurbished Hubble telescope, including this picture of 100,000 stars in the Omega Centauri cluster. Image via NASA]

Take a post someone else wrote about how awesome O'Reilly's "premium membership" site is, write some words around it, and publish it. That's what Mediaite did, and he actually spelled out Mediaite's unpronounceable name for his mouth-breathing viewers last night.

Nicole Richie just had a baby boy. His name is Sparrow James Midnight Madden. We love that celebrities don't give their spawn normal people names.

• The Shake Shack expansion cannot be stopped. Late last week, word dropped that Danny Meyer's burger chain was planning to open seven locations in the Middle East and three new outposts in Manhattan; today comes word that the first of these three will be at the corner of Mulberry and Prince Streets.
• A Voce will soft open this evening in the Time Warner Center. Here's a peek inside. And here's an interview with chef Missy Robbins. [Eater, Zagat]
• This week's reviews: New York's Adam Platt gives one star apiece to DBGB and L'Entrecôte; Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton is very pleased with what he finds at the Standard Grill; TONY's Jay Cheshes visits Brooklyn's Prime Meats; the New Yorker's Shauna Lyon checks in on to Locanda Verde; and the Village Voice's Robert Sietsema finds the food at Joseph Leonard "often spectacular."
• The John Dory closed on August 29. Now the eatery's landlord has filed suit against Mario Batali and Joe Bastianich for $75,000 in unpaid rent. [NYDN]
• Josh Picard (Chinatown Brasserie, Lure, Locanda Verde) is taking over the old Cub Room space; meanwhile, Jason and Joe Denton of 'inoteca will be taking over the space formerly occupied by Frederick's Downtown. [Eater]

Some online provocateurs launched an internet meme claiming Glenn Beck killed a young girl in 1990 to parody his maddening fact-free rhetorical style. Now Glenn Beck's trying to shut down their web site, ensuring that people will write about it.

Hmm! Former McCain blogger and current Weekly Standard blogger Michael Goldfarb says his boss says two sources say Hillary Clinton is going to resign as Secretary of State to run for... Governor of New York!(?)

responding to a New York Times reporter asking about the hooker-loving former governor's first class at the City College of New York, overheard by a New York Daily News reporter also trying to gather quotes.

The New York Times asked New York Times readers—a wildly unrepresentative group of subway riders, btw—what they're reading on the subway. It's the same stuff you read, duh.

The Advocate loves Andy Cohen. They don't know anything about his personal life, but they can't get enough of him, even though he says his network isn't gay and that he doesn't want the spotlight. Say what?!

When the beloved geek comic xkcd finally signed a book deal, it involved no profits and no bookstores. Now its author is taking a similarly unconventional approach to philanthropy. Sorry, poor children of Laos!

Lo! Like a slow, squawking bird sent down from heaven to a desultory duck hunting expedition, Microtrend-inventing flack Mark Penn is back with another WSJ column. His first since we learned how dirty he is!

As any Master of the Universe can tell you, the key to success is an ability to multi-task. And to always be talking into a phone so you look busy and important, especially when hot girls are around.

Just for the record, and so you can point this out yourself when someone starts shouting about it, there are hardly any "Czars," and what "Czars" there are are mostly powerless and uncontroversial.

[Kim Cattrall takes us back to the punk rock '80s on the set of the Sex and the City sequel. Image via Bauer-Griffin]

After reading her Anna Wintour's review of London nightclubs, we wanted to know more about her Gossip Girl younger years as a club-hopping high school hipster. Thanks to Jerry Oppenheimer's book Front Row we compiled this index