The Kardashians are an entire family of national fameballs—Julia Allison can only dream of achieving their ubiquitous inanity. And America may have a new book from them to look forward to, a tipster says!

If you felt a rush of orange light, pretty boys and butterflies last night, it wasn't spring knocking at your door. It was NBC's Kings, which despite its turgid premiere is a show worth saving.

St. Patrick's day is coming up, and you know what that means: time for New York Post media columnist Keith Kelly's annual "Kelly Gang" dinner event! Famous Irish types, attend or else.

You didn't expect Andrew Cuomo to remain on the sidelines after AIG dropped the bomb this weekend that it plans to go ahead with $165 million in bonus payments, did you? Of course not. Cuomo sent a letter to AIG CEO Ed Liddy earlier today demanding more info on the compensation plan. He set a 4pm deadline and said if he doesn't receive the info by then, he'll issue subpoenas and "potentially seek court enforcement." The letter he sent the company is below.

In a Fortune interview, billionaire former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who hopes to be the next Republican governor of California, shows she has more money than sense, an excellent recipe for entering politics.

Ha, our Vice President said a bad word and it's on tape. "Gimme a fucking break," he said, after some Senator called him "Mr. Vice President," which is his hilarious title. Listen to the swears:

The latest profession to experience a boom due to the recession: drug counselors! The Center for Motivation and Change in Midtown has expanded its staff of psychologists to deal with a surge in patients, while at the Realization Center, a rehab outpatient clinic near Union Square, evening group meetings "could be mistaken for Wall Street board meetings," since they're full of laid-off professionals who fear the stress of unemployment will send them back to an old drug or alcohol habit, and bankers who can no longer finance their coke addictions. So if you're a struggling dealer wondering where all your rich customers are hanging out these days, well, now you know.

So rabid nutcase pundit Laura Ingraham called Meghan McCain fat. Wonderful, now we're stuck with her, Laura.

The writer Harlan Ellison is suing CBS for the only reason anybody sues anybody else, only he's being honest about it: "It ain't about the 'principle,' friend, it's about the money! Pay me!"

So say the early reports from a 20-minute screening that played at the SXSW festival in Austin over the weekend. Said a THR reporter: "It's funny deja vu, but it's still deja vu."

Our nation's finest art museums are crumbling to pieces, thanks to the global financial crisis. But more specifically, thanks to cheapskates like you.

• Yet one more newspaper is folding. Hearst's Seattle Post-Intelligencer will shut down its print operations tomorrow, but its website will live on. [Seattle PI]
• The Sci Fi Channel is changing its name. To Syfy. This is not a joke. [NYT]
• CNN says it plans to "devote the bulk of its news effort this week" to covering the global financial meltdown. How timely! [NYT]
• Are CNN anchors Kyra Phillips and John Roberts secretly dating? [NYM]
• Book sales in the U.S. are down slightly, but they're up in Europe. [NYT]
• Andy Samberg will host the 2009 MTV Movie Awards. [THR]
• Barack Obama will appear on The Tonight Show on Thursday. [The Caucus]
• More on last week's management shakeup at Fox. [Variety]
• Sopranos creator David Chase is back at HBO with a new mini-series. [AB]
• Race to Witch Mountain was No. 1 at the box office this weekend. [AP]

NBC Universal's Sci-Fi Channel is changing its name to the "SyFy channel," a name that is apparently easier for children to text to one another and will therefore increase the company's earnings dramatically.

How on earth did so many investors fall victim to Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme? If they'd only bothered to consult a "face reading expert," they would have known instantly he was up to no good! At least that's what Jean Haner, who was asked by the Daily News to read the fraudster's mug, says. The author of the book The Wisdom of Your Face, Haner says that while Bernie's face might suggest "I care about you—and your money," that's just what he used to gain the trust of his victims. If you look more closely, you'll see that his eyes are "deep-set" and "slant down," which are clearly indicative of someone who is pessimistic and prone to do dishonest things: "When the going gets tough, rather than be honest, he'll keep secrets." Now you tell us!

[Mary-Kate Olsen arriving at the Met for their 125th Anniversary Gala yesterday; image via WENN]

A director gets a big new job, and so does MacGyver. SAG stalls, Chevy Chase steps on the gas, the Sci-Fi Channel takes a soft left turn, while nerds everywhere gather and celebrate.

Singapore's wacky totalitarian repression just won't quit! The country's attorney general is charging an editor at the WSJ's editorial page with contempt for "impugning the integrity" of the courts. Also illegal in Singapore: irony. [WSJ]

Want to know how much more work Rupert Murdoch has at News Corp. after his No. 2 Peter Chernin stepped down? Some Fox executives are expecting Murdoch to put together the primetime television schedule himself.

Confused, misdirected populist rage threatens Obama from all sides! And there's really nothing he can do! Well, there's one thing he could do.

If you're the kind of person whose sartorial style exudes even a molecule of panache or individuality, you might want to consider giving yourself a serious makeover before a job interview, assuming you can land one these days. Experts (well, image consultants desperately trying to adapt their superfluous services to the new economy) are warning that "casual or quirky" clothes might imply that, God forbid, you're a free-thinking risk-taker—which in this job market ranks somewhere below Satanist child-molester on the appealing employee scale.