Even Matt Drudge gave up on the faux Barack Obama birth-certificate story last fall. But out-there conservative website WorldNetDaily is keeping the fable alive — with a Wikipedia fiction of its own.

Remember those Merrill Lynch junkets to the Ritz-Carlton in Orlando, which the Orlando-Sentinel first revealed last month and which we reported on again last week? Yea, well, it looks like Merrill is now in a bit of trouble. The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program has confirmed that it is now looking into whether or the trips violated the law. [Orlando-Sentinel via BI]

Note that these segments always seem to come at the end of the broadcast, when people could use a reprieve from all the murder and house fires and terrible political machinations of the day. We need the Savior! And look how often we get Him (and sometimes her). Faith works, folks.

It seems bling lives on, no matter what Karl Lagerfeld has to say about it. Or imitation bling, at least. Just $4.90 at H&M! [Racked]

In your meaty Tuesday media column: rumors of coming layoffs (and a die-off?) at OK! magazine, a golf magazine is killed, advertising plummets, media companies may default, and Americans don't know a damn thing:

[Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com] March 10 @ 1:30pm I just saw Gossip Girl's Matthew Settle, carrying 2 little dogs along 7th Avenue. He seemed in a hurry.

James Murdoch is the current odds-on favorite to become the No. 2 at News Corp. and replace daddy Rupert on the throne. The guy who's making that happen: image-maker and "best friend" Matthew Anderson.

The stock market was up big today! Hard to imagine, huh? The Dow closed up more than 375 points, its biggest gain since November, following encouraging comments by Fed chair Ben Bernanke, news that Citigroup had turned a profit during the first two months of '09, and hints that the government planned to reinstate rules governing short sales of stocks. Don't get too excited just yet: "Similar sharp rallies in September, October and November turned out to be fleeting, and the market has still not had two gaining sessions since Feb. 5 and Feb. 6." [Marketwatch, NYT]

The Observer's John Koblin reports that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has purchased The Brooklyn Paper. And you were thinking the newspaper industry was a dying one. [NYO]

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is enduring the most challenging stretch of his career for many reasons: His credibility took a hit before he even took the job thanks to his little tax issue, he's managing the nation's finances during quite possibly the bleakest moment in American economic history, and in recent weeks he's been isolated in a sad, lonely office where he's had to make do with a skeletal staff. One more reason why Geithner may have the worst job in the world (with the possible exception of Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit): When a disgruntled former employee of the IRS decides to sue the agency because it didn't give him a "riser for his computer monitor" or the larger cubicle he requested, and he suffers severe neck and back pain and emotional distress as a result, it's Geithner's name that appears all over the lawsuit. Poor Timmy. The full suit is below.

How does James Franco manage to take classes at both NYU and Columbia while penning a book while keeping his acting career going? Evidently only with lots of naps.

[Penn Badgley, Some Dude, Kelly Rutherford, A Lady, and two others film "Gossip Girl" in Midtown today; image via Splash]

We already know the recession sucks for journalists because—to generalize slightly—they have been laid off. But it sucks for working journalists, too. Guess who else got laid off: all their sources!

Hoan Ton-That, the parodically Left Coast-y San Francisco coder linked to an earlier virus, appears to have resurfaced with a new website, Fastforwarded.com, which aims to coax passwords from users.

Bernie Madoff is expected to plead guilty to 11 criminal charges on Thursday, reports the Journal: "At a hearing Tuesday, Ira Lee Sorkin, Mr. Madoff's lawyer, said his client expects to plead guilty to a criminal information, or charging document that outlines the allegations against him, filed by the government with the court on Tuesday. 'Do you expect Mr. Madoff to plead guilty on Thursday?' asked U.S. District Judge Denny Chin in Manhattan. 'That's a reasonable expectation,' Mr. Sorkin said."

Item: We hear that New York Magazine recently called in its department heads and told them to prepare for more budget cuts. New York Magazine is the Gilded Age's demise, paper version.

Leave it to the inestimable and always fabulous George Wayne of Vanity Fair to think of the one question that Rachel Maddow has never been asked before, despite the fact she's been interviewed 2,237 times over the past six months:

The City is still on the air! Can you believe it? New York City still swirls on, while its idiot denizens wear hats and talk about modeling and bands. And fashion! I just fell down.

Pranky videogame designer Charles Forman has scored another $5 million for his startup, OMGpop. We're beginning to see a pattern here!

• Jon Stewart made fun of Jim Cramer and Cramer responded in kind. Then Stewart took another shot at the Mad Money host. And Cramer responded once again on the Today show this morning. Your turn, Jonny. [HP, MM, BI]
• Okay, so CNBC didn't see the economic collapse coming. But if we're handing out blame, we better not forget about the nation's newspapers! [NPR]
• Ratings for Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice have tumbled. [AdAge]
• More cuts at New York are rumored to be in the works. [Gawker]
• American Express has shuttered Travel + Leisure Golf. [WWD]
• Apple is launching an American Idol iPhone application. Finally! [THR]
• Equally exciting: Universal movies are coming to your Playstation. [THR]