Sure, Barack Obama is saving the in-the-tank liberal media by lending his image to various tchotchkes, but did you know the president-elect is also going to reinvigorate the conservative media? Fox News expects to goose its ratings capitalizing on right-wing outrage, and conservative journal National Review is one step ahead: It's already running ads saying that if you sign up for a subscription now, you can stop the godless Democratic pinkos from raising your taxes next year. Staff are deserting the magazine right and left, but apparently it is still confident it can single-handedly foil the Democratic Congress! Watch the hilarious ad, seen on Fox News, after the jump.

· If a dog isn't coming on the Today Show to chew on Al Roker's junk, then it's there to kick his ass at golf. Time to book some cats, Al. · Wow! Liz Smith's new ghostwriter sure knows a heck of a lot about Madonna and Guy Ritchie · Sorry, folks, but celebrity bloggers aren't putting up with your shit anymore. · Pete Wentz fired back at critics of his newborn son's name: "You're like, you know what: I don't think anyone really has the real story." Translation: "Between Disney and BMW alone, do you know how much we made in naming rights last week?" · Hey, RoboCop on a unicorn!

Mariah Carey wants an Oscar, and we're thrilled to announce that she actually has a shot: Her Straight-to-Flopz™ indie Tennessee will launch its required theatrical qualifying run next month in L.A. and New York, clearing the way for the telecast-challenged Academy to welcome Carey to perform her potential Best Original Song nominee "Right to Dream." And Mariah. Can't. Wait.Nor can we, despite the low odds for Carey to pull a Grobanesque showstopper that the Oscarcast most certainly needs. Her reasoning is much purer, however, not so unlike the dulcet tones of her awards-hopeful and the heart-squeezing, Willie Nelson-aided sincerity at its core:

· David Lynch is signing copies of David Lynch: The Lime Green Set at Amoeba. Don't forget: he's always open to the idea of some new wives! · The Hold Steady and Drive-By Truckers play the Wiltern, Deerhunter performs at the El Rey, and Danger Bees buzz into the Silver Lake Lounge. · Comedy Death Ray (featuring Sarah Silverman) is holding down the fort at UCB.

It's an all Bravo night! Watch The Real Housewives of Atlanta reunion and then compare it to the equally petty, yet inferior The Real Housewives of Orange County. In anticipation of Rosie Live tomorrow night, here are Rosie's thoughts on meeting Nene (as well as Rosie's Strawberry Cake recipe). WATCH The Real Housewives of Atlanta Reunion: Watch What Happens [9 PM, Bravo] - On tonight's succintly-titled reunion special, NeNe confronts Kim about Kim's lying, name-calling ("low-budget bitch) ways, resulting in some major finger-pointing and NeNe's threat to beat Kim's ass outside. Lisa also confronts Kim, and then Kim cries about the cancer that robbed her of her "trademark beautiful hair." We can't wait for season two.The Real Housewives of Orange County [10 PM, Bravo] - Season four of TRHoOC premieres with a new threat and housewife, Gretchen. Gretchen fun facts: She freely admits she is not physically attracted to her rich husband 23 years her senior, her husband proposed to her from his hospital bed, and she has real breasts. TiVo

Just when we thought nothing much had changed in the narcoleptic parallel universe of SAG contract negotiations, we're hearing now that the union's saber-rattlers are finally bringing the heavy weaponry to bear on their studio nemeses: A recent dinner hosting Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Warren Beatty and other influential legends reportedly gave the blessing for a crippling actor's strike. (UPDATE: Not at this meeting, anyway — Sharon Waxman has retracted her original story. More after the jump.)A more formal strike authorization will be sought from SAG's 120,000 members in the weeks ahead, but as Sharon Waxman hinted late Monday, when Hollywood royalty gathers secretly to help drop-kick the industry into another winter of chaos, what's really left to vote on?

Too Many Irons In the Fire: Though Robert Downey Jr. is signed on for an Iron Man sequel and an Avengers film that will group together Marvel heroes including Thor, the Hulk, and Captain America, the actor is starting to sounds a little concerned about the latter property. "If we don't get it right, it's really going to suck," he told MTV. "Nothing that happened in Iron Man is really outside the realm of possibility. Once you start talking about Valhalla and supersized super soldiers and jolly green giants, it warrants much further discussion." [MTV]

"Yahoo striking a Microsoft search deal first makes more sense" than closing a merger with AOL, writes overproductive BoomTown blogger Kara Swisher. Tracking the complicated, self-conflicting relationships between Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft and Google is like trying to read Prince Valiant without a cheat sheet. Swisher's latest megapost fills in more details, but doesn't lead to anything more definite than "both Yahoo and AOL have to get to the core of what they are and are going to be." Ah, more layoffs.

Updated! So last weekend some rich kids went down in Cancun for something called the Summit Series (formerly known by the more assholeish moniker "the Young World Leaders Summit"). These entrepreneurs and executives networked or something, but clubbing and drinking aside they were obviously concerned about the dire state of the world. Specifically, they were concerned that clubbing and drinking in Cancun despite the dire state of the world might look bad! So they banned photographs during the "partying" bits of the event. A prankster told everyone he leaked a poolside photo to this very website and everyone got scared! But that turned out to be a joke. A happy ending! And so they all went cave-diving. The end. (Confidential to Caroline McCarthy and CNET editors: Gladwell's new self-help treatise is called Outliers. The Outsiders is an awesome S.E. Hinton book.) [CNET] Update: Hah, someone didn't like our use of that revealing boring photo! We grabbed that picture of a Summit Series participant engaging in tug-o-war while the world burned from the personal blog of Summit Series organizer Elliot Bisnow. It is so explosive and revealing that we promptly received a takedown notice from the photographer, James "L." Duggan. Sorry, James!

Everyone knows that New Yorker writer and Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell is an expert self-promoter. He's rolled out quite the campaign for his latest book, Outliers: webcasts, doing TV appearances on the CBS Evening News, CNN and the Colbert Report, speaking everywhere, etc. But we just saw a television ad for his book on MSNBC, which is unusual for nonficton—the only other TV ads for books we can think of are for potboiler novels, not books by "counterintuitive pop business theorists." Remember, most authors are lucky to get the promotion budget for a five-city book tour at most—and forget about a fun release party. Click to watch one more reason to start creating "You the Brand"!

Details unveiled Tom Cruise this morning as the cover boy of its annual Power Issue. Sadly, Cruise only makes No. 7 — a position shared last year by Kevin Federline and Larry Birkhead. But perhaps it's the thought that counts: Previous Power Issues have ranked the "most influential men under 45," but the magazine has expanded its age range in 2008 to include "the most influential men under 47," thus barely qualifying the 46 year-old star in time for his Valkyrie promo tour. Excerpts of his acceptance speech follow the jump.Cruise doesn't spill much new information in his brief interview, though he does unveil a few of the careful calculations behind choosing both his pro-dance Tropic Thunder cameo and the role of an eyepatch-clad Nazi:

Brad Stone blogged the bad news: "During the first 23 days of November, according to a report to be released later on Tuesday by the research firm comScore, consumers spent $8.19 billion online, a 4 percent drop from the same period last year. That marks the first annual decline since e-commerce took off." You can read the rest of the tragic stats in ComScore's press release.

Just in case the plunging stock market, mass layoffs, falling real estate prices, and wave of bankruptcies wasn't sufficient proof that the sky is falling, here's a bit more evidence: Peru's official news agency reports that teetotaler-in-chief George Bush downed a Pisco Sour during his trip to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit last weekend. [Andina.com via HuffPo]

Rolling Stone just alternates Barack Obama and Britney Spears covers anyway, so its a testament to Jann Wenner's genius that he's discovered he no longer has to even change the coverline. Yes She Can! Save a shrinking music/lifestyle mag and expose her toned midriff without embarrassment! (What's next, the Obamas on the cover of Us Weekly? Hah, that'll be the day!) [Idoltaor]

Though Ricky Gervais's version of The Office folded up shop after two six-episode runs, that wouldn't amount to even half of a current season of the Steve Carell-toplined Office, which is continually pressed into service for hourlong episodes, spinoffs, and expanded seasons by NBC. Though the moves have pumped up ratings for the sitcom, the results are not always well-regarded by critics — or by a burnt-out cast, says Rainn Wilson:

The backlash against Somali pirates is already backlashing upon itself—proving that you just cannot fuck with pirates successfully! The Indian Navy thought it was being hardcore when it sunk an alleged pirate "mother ship" off the African coast last week. They must have forgotten that worldwide favor being heaped upon the Somali pirate lifestyle renders them invincible! Just click and watch the video clip above—the pirates are giving sympathetic interviews to CNN already. Casting themselves as freedom fighters, of a sort! More than you can say for the anti-pirate forces. Because the Indian Navy's big attack may not have gotten any pirates at all:

The odd mini-profile on Prince that ran in the most recent New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" section made a big splash, mostly because of Prince's religious pronouncements of going door-to-door as a Jehovah's witness and remarks concluding that being gay was wrong. However, his flack went to Perez Hilton and said that Prince had been "grossly misquoted" and accused the writer of the piece, Claire Hoffman, of not using a tape recorder. ("How unprofessional!" Perez squealed.) The New Yorker stood by their story in a confirmation to Wired. But turns out there was a very good reason the interview wasn't recorded: Hoffman explains in an interview that Prince "wouldn’t let me use a tape recorder or my notepad."The quote that got Prince in trouble was, in response to a question about gay marriage and abortion, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out." So, how did Hoffman get that? She explains, "I walked out and sat in my car and wrote for an hour. I don’t have long chunks of dialogue, but I was able to remember stuff." Forbidding a writer of making any record of an interview is a pretty canny move for a celebrity—he can claim to be "misquoted" on anything he didn't like. It's her recollection against his. And given that the Prince version (via Perez) — "What His Purpleness actually did was gesture to the Bible and said he follows what it teaches, referring mainly to the parts about loving everyone and refraining from judgment." — sounds like P.R. puffery, we're going with Hoffman here and Prince is, as usual, DOING IT RONG. [Via Emdashes]

"Sure the economy is kicking the crap out of us," says the website for this years Crunchies awards for Web 2.0 startups, overseen by TechCrunch founder Mike Arrington. But don't let that stop you from spending $25,000 to be an official Co-Host for the event, a posh dress-up bash to be held at San Francisco's Herbst Theater in January. Or, for $15,000, you can sponsor one of the 15 award categories. I crashed the afterparty last year and, really, it was fun. But $25K? I'm dying to find out what this year's sponsors actually end up paying. Here's the official price list:

Washington Post readers expecting an audience with Alec Baldwin last hour were disappointed when the star backed out of his live chat appearance at what appears to be the last minute. "Alec is running a few minutes behind schedule," the editors noted shortly after 1 p.m. "We should be starting soon." And then, not long afterward, the final indignity: "Alec Baldwin had to cancel. We will try to reschedule for either later in the day or a future date." Probably just something about an overlooked sushi date with his daughter; that's the life of a working Dad for you.

Liberals are waging war on America's Second-Favorite Holiday: Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is an annual feast celebrating the victory of Good God-Fearing Puritans over Cranberries and various Fowls. You can obviously understand why the PC Police hates Thanksgiving, the holiday celebrating kind European settlers in a New World and the noble savages who aided them in conquering this vast, empty continent. Just look how widespread, pervasive, and not-at-all-imagined this War on Thanksgiving has become! In Claremont, California, a liberal professor who specializes in "Native American literature" wrote a letter to her daughter's elementary school claiming the tradition of dressing children as "Pilgrims and Indians" was demeaning and racist. Now the school is going to cancel Thanksgiving, or at least the part where children dress in amusing stereotypes of traditional aboriginal American garb. Parents are furious!!!!