Can still-president George W. Bush continue to wow us with asinine mistakes with a mere two months left in his presidency when he's so clearly checked out already? If his upcoming Hanukkah party is any indication, he's still got it! Attached, his invitation to the White House Hanukkah reception, sent to Jewish leaders across the nation. As you can see, the invite shows a Clydesdale delivering the traditional "Hanukkah Tree" to a White House decorated top to bottom in Hanukkah wreaths. Ha ha ha they just don't care.

If you're leaving town for the long weekend but you haven't made your escape just yet, don't worry about spending two hours going through security at the airport. LaGuardia and JFK are empty! "It's almost eerie," said one traveler. [AP, CBS News]

We're now beginning to get a more complete picture of why Twilight star Kristen Stewart seemed a little glassy-eyed and distracted on a recent Late Show with David Letterman appearance, responding to the increasingly annoyed host's questions about the film with non sequiturs like, "You know what would be so choice right now? S'mores!"Surely there's no harm in combating the pressures of carrying a newly hatched franchise on your shoulders by indulging every now and again in a little medicinal vampirenip (available at a nearby WeHo dispensary in a tightly-packed baggie labeled "Transylvanian Power Skunk"). Our only concern is where all this might eventually lead, as studies have proven time and again that vampires are a notorious gateway-monster. We'd hate to see the talented young actress bent over a glass coffee table a few months from now, chattering on about the wonders of Bumble and Bumble hair conditioner at a 4 a.m. werewolf-blow party.

What little hope I had was crushed by the WSJ this morning. Under the non-alarmist headline, "Tech Shares May Fall Further," the Journal lists every single reason the tech industry is screwed. If you can make it through the first fourteen stomach-churning paragraphs, there's this one ray of semi-hope:

The Fake New York Times that blanketed America last month was an impressive stunt. A vast coalition of liberal groups and assorted artistic types came together, worked for months, and managed to pull off the writing, production, and distribution of a faux newspaper without word leaking out beforehand. The general public was impressed. So how to put the cap on this classic work? With some good old-fashioned public ideological squabbling by those involved. It's just like the 1970s! Is Greater Than has an interview with Anne Elizabeth Moore, who was involved in the paper's production but bailed out prior to distribution day due to ideological differences. It's interesting! It also includes the following complaints:

[Actress Sarah Jessica Parker with fashion designer Valentino at opening night for the New York City Ballet; image via Getty]

Marci Albother has written the Times' Shifting Careers column since 2007. Yesterday, the NYT allowed her to explain that she's become the newspaper's latest job cut. I was going to 100-word her long goodbye, but Peter Kafka's post at AllThingsD is a better take on the situation at the Times. I'm so bummed about everything that I'm not even picking on AllThingsD today.

Welcome back to a special holiday edition of Defamer Attractions, your weekly guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or stillborn at the movies. And this Thanksgiving, we're grateful for a slate of Wednesday releases granting us a reprieve from another day of Twilight chatter. Not that any of them will surmount last week's blockbuster, but we have a quick and dirty forecast for long weekend's hits, sleepers and subplots, including a glimpse at the biggest disappointment and underdog to come. As always, our opinions are our own, but are easy to bake for that last-minute dessert idea. The full recipe is after the jump.WHAT'S NEW: Speaking of recipes, Four Christmases sure has a fresh one! Mix Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. Add two cups of diced ensemble players including Robrt Duvall, Jon Favreau, Kristin Chenoweth and Sissy Spacek. Flavor with ball-kicking, pratfall and baby-vomit jokes. Bake for two hours. Serve lukewarm. It's good for about $40 million over five days. Transporter 2 is a little simpler hors d'oeurve for the guys out there, with Jason Statham liberally seasoned with bullets, quick cuts and decibels, turning out $18 million before the main course on DVD. But if you're allergic to the multiplex, you may be best best suited to skip ahead to this week's new home video releases; the art-house kitchen appears to be closed to deliveries for the holiday weekend. THE BIG LOSER: Australia is almost three hours' worth of the expansive (and expensive, at $130 million) hisorical epic no one makes anymore. And despite Oprah Winfrey's lavish endorsement, there's a reason for that: It's one in a generation that actually finds any traction in the two female quadrants whose repeat viewings push it toward box-office longevity and, almost necessarily, Oscar luster. Fox needs half a Titanic here (thus its Hugh Jackman heartthrob push at non-starter Nicole Kidman's expense) to make this work, and for the sake of the studio and director Baz Luhrmann and all involved, we hope they get it. But the middling, $26 million reality — especially on Twilight's likely second week at No. 1 — is what it is.

♦ The car wash/gas station on West 14th Street (left) has been sold for $60 million to make way for a new retail development. [NYP]
♦ The Cooper Square Hotel opens in two weeks. [Curbed]
♦ An interview with Leigh Candler, NYC's new "co-op queen," best known for flipping aparments for Scott Bommer and listing Brooke Astor's former apartment on Park. [NYO]
♦ Some neighborhoods in Brooklyn are now more expensive than neighborhoods in Manhattan, according to StreetEasy. [NYDN]

We've heard mostly sad news about publishing recently, from Harcourt temporarily freezing manuscript acquisitions to layoffs at Doubleday to Random House freezing pensions to holiday sales predicted to be awful this year.... but in what the Times calls the industry's "split personality," publisher Hatchette is giving out extra bonuses this year. So Christmas isn't cancelled for everyone!

Hey, Barry Obama had his third press conference in three days. This one was about introducing his Economic Recovery Advisement Board, headed by Paul Volcker, founding member of the Trilateral Commission and former Fed Chair under Carter and Reagan. He's very tall which is reassuring in these dark times. Volcker is also not a Clintonite! He is a Carterite. Reassuring, right? "Help is on the way," Obama said during his presser. That was John Kerry's campaign slogan so we're doomed. Obama also said he'd go shopping this Friday, but neglected to urge Americans to continue spending beyond their means on useless consumer goods, which proves he's a terrible leader. [HuffPo, Photo: AP]

Agyness Deyn hailing a cab in Soho ... Reese Witherspoon walking around the city with a friend before appearing outside the Letterman show yesterday evening ... Nicole Kidman speaking at an event for the United Nations ... Jay-Z and Beyoncé sitting courtside at the Knicks game last night, and then Beyoncé performing on the Today show this morning ... and John Mayer leaving his apartment building last night with a FedEx package in hand.

Former MSNBC host Dan Abrams is a popular guy, because it's been rumored that he has jobs to give out. Abrams, you'll recall, is starting a ridiculous, conflict-of-interest-riddled PR firm that will distinguish itself by selling corporate clients (or just moguls) the advice of current journalists, bloggers, and other media types. The Observer spoke to Abrams, and he says he's gotten 650 applications already—"the bulk of whom are freelance journalists, people who are writing books and individuals who have recently been laid off or walked away from jobs in the media industry." Are we missing something here? The whole reason that people got upset about Abrams' business plan in the first place is that he says he's going to offer the consulting services of current, not former, media people. Former journalists work for damn near every PR firm in America. That's nothing new. Here's Abrams' offended quote today:

Ever get to the point at the end of the month where you thought about putting something in hock to shore up extra cash? That's what colleges are doing, especially the multibillion-endowed Ivies who have invested in the types of things that there is "no public market for," explains the New York Times. Now that the economy's tanked, the result is that schools—especially billion-dollar-endowed Ivies—are short on money. They're desperately trying to sell off some of these investments for only half of what they'd get under normal circumstanes. “It is a little like having to go to a pawn shop,” said one university endowment manager who said its policy is not to discuss performance publicly. “People don’t want to admit they have to sell this stuff."

Have trouble getting to work in New York this morning? That's probably because the FBI issued a memo yesterday warning of a "plausible but unsubstantiated" report that Al Qaeda is planning to attack the subway over the holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving! [AP]

Ruh roh! Kristen Stewart, the brooding young starlet currently playing Bella in the chaste, religiousy teen vampire romance movie Twilight, was photographed brazenly smoking the devil's herb on the front steps of her Los Angeles home earlier this week. In the middle of the day! Tsk tsk. I guess we now know why she was so out of it on Letterman the other day. But, I suppose it's just a little pot and it'll be OK and she'll go back to work on the sequels and earn her ridiculous $12 million. As long as there's no boy-related funny business... down there.

America hated the first "bailout," according to pollsters. Until pollsters described it without using the term "bailout," which made Americans much more supportive of it. So Barack Obama's multi-billion dollar economy-saving expenditure plans were soon referred to as "stimulus packages," which connotes happy visions of Bush sending everyone checks for a few hundred bucks. But now that isn't good enough for whiny Americans either! So please enjoy your economic recovery program, everyone! Congressional Democrats are now banned from saying "stimulus," because it's a dumb Washington term no one likes, and because, as we all know, if they don't call it that it isn't that. Perception equals reality! (That was true of our entire financial system for many years, btw.) Rahm Emanuel seems to have sent the memo out, and people are still adjusting. Nancy Pelosi almost said stimulus the other day! But then she caught herself: "We're not using the word 'stimulus,'" Nancy said at a press conference. Of course, Democrats do have a legitimate excuse for giving their economic policies a new label: their economic policies are actually different!

♦ CBS is expected to win November sweeps for the eighth straight year. [AP]
♦ Another victim of the recession: publishing industry lunches. [NYO]
♦ The Super Bowl isn't looking up for NBC. Sales of 30-second ads have slowed and there are rumors some companies are now asking for discounts. [AP]
♦ In an attempt to ride Barack Obama's coattails to relevancy, MTV is planning a "Rock 'N Roll Inaugural Ball" for January 20. [AdAge]
♦ Life & Style is on life support and is laying off staff. [NYP]
♦ Contenders to take over Meet the Press include David Gregory, Gwen Ifill, Andrea Mitchell, and NBC political director Chuck Todd. The news may be announced December 7th. [LAT]

Yesterday we pointed out that our nation's current idiot president, George "W" Bush, had made the unlikely move of commuting the cocaine-smuggling sentence of a rapper—a black man, with unruly hair!—because that rapper, John Forte, went to fancy prep school Exeter, and being a prep school cokehead is something Bush can relate to. Friends, we firmly believe in the accuracy of this macroanalysis. But even more amusing is the micro-analysis, because the chain of events that caused the union-busting Republican Mormon Sen. Orrin Hatch to become a fierce advocate of the (allegedly) coke-slinging producer of The Fugees is just what America is all about: Step One: John Forte goes to Exeter, makes friends with Carly Simon's kid, then makes friends with Carly Simon. Step Two: John Forte goes to jail. Step Three: Carly Simon records one of Orrin Hatch's soulful ballads and then is like "Okay now you owe me, old man."

Former First Lady Barbara Bush, who is 83 and has not looked a day over it since 1980, spent last night in a hospital because of "a little bit of pain." "For years," the Houston Chronicle writes, "Bush has been a sunny presence in American life, the sort of person who would make herself and others comfortable at your kitchen table." Sure, guys, whatever. Save it for when you actually have to come up with kind things to say about her. [Chron]