It's on an O'Reilly blog, so it must be true: Facebook has lost some users' email settings. The company had to send them an apology, and a request to reset things. Let me explain in sysadmin jargon: That's fucked. Not because Facebook's engineers failed at Backups 101, but because by now the Marketing department has figured out they can reset all our email preferences to "Spam Me Like Crazy" by pretending to lose them again in January. Laugh while it's still funny.

He Speaks! Ever since his Proposition 8 contribution came to light, LA Film Fest director Richard Raddon has maintained radio silence. Now, with his resignation confirmed, he's finally issued a statement about the brouhaha. We've got it for you after the jump:“I feel honored to have worked with such a wonderful group of people at the Los Angeles Film Festival over the last nine years. I am proud of our accomplishments. And I am proud to have worked at Film Independent, an organization whose principles and values of diversity and artistic integrity I cherish. I have always held the belief that all people, no matter race, religion, or sexual orientation, are entitled to equal rights. As many know, I consider myself a devout and faithful Mormon. I prefer to keep the details around my contribution through my church a private matter. But I am profoundly sorry for the negative attention that my actions have drawn to Film Independent and for the hurt and pain that is being experienced in the GLBT community.” [The Advocate]

Some poor flack from money-burning "insurance" company AIG tried to send Wonkette editor Ken Layne—a known terrorist!—several long, dry emails correcting him on some minor point of fact, until a pissed Layne vowed "I am going to post all of these, for hilarity," and now AIG looks thoroughly incompetent in media relations as well as the insurance business. Why must it take a dangerous patriot like Ken Layne to teach AIG about jokes? [Wonkette]

Hugh Jackman picked up his Australia co-star Nicole Kidman's infamous late-night slack Monday on Conan, offering his host an impromptu run through some of the perplexing Aussie phrases littering his Outback epic. The accompanying tutorial includes a few samples for your learning pleasure, but please: the Sexiest Man Alive's choice of "budgie smuggler," "shut the door," and any other homoerotically-tinged vernacular herein are purely coincidental. Expect Jackman's beleaguered wife to mount yet another vehement bathroom-stall defense of his straightness by the end of the business day. [NBC]

We stand corrected! Not everyone is canceling their Christmas parties. Magazine publishing biggie Bauer (InTouch, Life & Style) is having a "Bauer on Broadway" Christmas party in Weehawken, where you can perform your favorite showtune with a live band! The only drawback? It costs a whopping $170 to bring a spouse or significant other (or, you know, drunken friend) to the shinding. Which is funny because, as a tipster puts it, that kind of "encourages infidelity." If it's too expensive to bring a date, then you'll be at a dateless party with a bunch of your sloshy coworkers and, well, workplace awkwardness can happen. Though it is in New Jersey, and getting extramarital nookie across state lines isn't really cheating anyway. See the full invite below.

Hollywood PrivacyWatch: 11/23 — Was at the Grove to have a bite at the Farmer's Market and to see a movie. At the Farmer's Market I saw a woman who looked like DITA VON TEESE all dressed up in a black dress, pale makeup and of course the very red lipstick. She was with 2 other women who were dressed almost exactly like her. If it wasn't her, it was a good carbon copy. Later, I saw JACK STEHLIN from Weeds in Starbucks with what looked like his family. Very unassuming and seemed friendly. On the way to my car I saw MIRA FURLAN (crazy French lady from Lost), rushing across the street. She was dressed in an outfit that could have been actual Lost wardrobe. She's very pretty. [Hollywood PrivacyWatch is written by and for Defamer readers; send your sightings to tips@defamer.com.]

The Inquirer is convinced that Microsoft will launch a Microsoft-branded Zune phone in February. Not some other brand's phone running Windows, but an actually iPhone-wannabe Microsoft Zune phone. The Inq cites a geek detail to make it real: The phone will use Nvidia's Tegra mobile CPU chip, not unlike this Nvidia prototype CNET handled. In theory, that means it can do most of what a desktop PC can do. In practice, that means it'll probably be hated on as just much as Vista.

If ever there was a grim picture of the current financial clusterfuck, it's the once artsy (Björk! sigur rós!), hip, and rich island nation wonderland of Iceland, which fell into cataclysmic economic failure earlier this month. And it happened pretty much overnight. Since the three major banks collapsed under crippling debt and a plummeting currency, job loss has been widespread—the architecture industry, for example, has seen some 75% of its work force laid off in the past few weeks. Now the seemingly peaceful population has devolved into an angry, violent mob, with a gay "troubadour" named Hordur Torfason leading the charge against the government.

♦ Given that one obvious way to fill up stores despite the recession is to sell hyped, cheap designer clothes, it's no surprise that H&M has announced another high-end collaboration: British designer Matthew Williamson (left) will launch a line next spring. [Elle UK]
♦ Sad: Upper East Side retailer Linda Dresner, who introduced the likes Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, Ann Demeulemeester, and Martin Margiela to New York, is closing at the end of the year. [WWD]
♦ Not so sad: Imitation of Christ, the overpriced and gimmicky label founded by Tara Subkoff and sold last year to Sass & Bide's former CEO Josh Sparks, is no more. [Racked]

Monster.com and CareerBuilder, the two biggest job-search websites, are both planning to spend millions on Super Bowl ads! They want to promote their fancy website redesigns and big plans to get everybody jobs now that there are no jobs left. This economic downturn is leaving everyone laid off, which is a great business opportunity! Or so a lot of people seem to think. But is it really? We have detected a flaw in this largest of growth industries: Marketing to the Unemployed. It seems like a great idea at first. All these people without jobs, and full of desperation! We got a press release for a new "networking" event" called "Get Canned":

Celebrities at Large [Wow Report]

Nicole Kidman's cringe-inducing appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman last night is continuing to serve up some aftershocks, and during the star's appearance on Regis and Kelly today, Regis treated Kidman as though she were promoting her late-night trainwreck, not Australia.To be fair, Kidman (made up to look like an insane cross between a pilgrim and the Baroness from The Sound of Music) attempted to be diplomatic about the appearance, but Regis refused to have it, placing the blame for the encounter squarely on Letterman. Careful, Regis — a war with Dave is one that few walk away from as the victor. Just look what happened to John McCain! [Live with Regis and Kelly]

We like to keep up with news regarding Joan Hyler, the nails-tough producer/manager who was nearly killed in Malibu last August when a car struck her on the Pacific Coast Highway. A little more than three months later, we're told in the latest update to her blog, Hyler is doing more than just standing up, "gustily eating chicken," and making a generally miraculous recovery: She's playing Hollywood Catch-Up in the hospital! Help us bring her up to speed after the jump.The most recent post to Hyler's CarePages site lays out perhaps a minor problem in the grand scheme of things, but an inconvenience nonetheless: Three months convalescing in and out of comas, sedation and immobility would knock even the best of us out of the industry loop:

Have we mentioned that Ivanka Trump is converting to Judaism, presumably so she will be a better marriage match for Jared Kushner, the equally young owner of the New York Observer? We have. Ivanka is only 27, but she recently auctioned off an internship with her for Chabad, the Hasidic organization her boyfriend supports. This donation and the visibility that comes with sounds like a good way to get in with Kushner's family, because we hear that they don't like the idea of Jared marrying outside the tribe. But Ivanka just made another move in the chess game to ingratiate herself with the Kushner family. Oh, UPDATE: apparently nobody wanted to bid on the "internship," and the person who finally did won't be sending the kid to the internship anyway.Park Avenue Peerage reported that she auctioned off for the Habad charity fundraiser "a one-month internship with Ivanka in New York, with the highest bidder choosing between working with her in the acquisitions arm of the Trump Organization or at the Ivanka Trump Collection, her diamond jewelry line." Looks like she has learned a few "how to win friends and influence people" business tricks from Dad! The Kushners have long been good friends with Chabad groups. Jared was the head of the Chabad House at Harvard. And dad Charles got a rabbi from Chabad's Living Legacy organization to write a letter on his behalf when he got into all that prostitute-blackmail trouble. Donating to a Chabad effort, a favored charity of the Kushner family, was the kind of smart move she might want to mention in her upcoming "motivational" book. Update:"I have a friend that went last night and from what I hear no one wanted to buy that internship with her. It eventually sold for $9,000 but the person supposedly felt bad BUT won't be sending their kids to intern with her."

♦ Jay Cheshes gives Drew Nieporent's Corton six out of six stars in this week's issue of Time Out: "The best new restaurant I've visited this year." [TONY]
♦ Sweetiepie, the "bizarre restaurant, dessert bar and absinthe den wrapped into one," opens tonight. [GoaG, UrbanDaddy]
♦ A peek at Buttermilk Channel, which opens tonight, too. [Eater]
♦ A roundup of NYC's best absinthe bars. [Metromix]
♦ New York diners are the "toughest in the world," and just like spoiled children, says Alain Ducasse. "A spoiled child is never happy." [TONY]

Ted Koppel, the impressively-haired former ABC newsman, is parting ways with the Discovery network six months before his contract is up. You may or may not have been aware that he's been working with them since 2006. Not the greatest tragedy in history, but it does point to the sad plight of the former big-time news anchor. There's nowhere to go but down from the heights of the network news desk. Where are all those famous former anchors today?

For all the rumblings about a Cinemark boycott at Sundance or an El Coyote fatwa after the anti-gay Proposition 8 passed, one troubling scenario hit a little closer to home for a newly mobilized gay Hollywood. Almost two weeks ago, it came to light that LA Film Festival director Richard Raddon gave $1500 to the "Yes on 8" cause, a revelation that caused Raddon to tender his resignation to Film Independent. At the time, the board did not accept Raddon's offer, though the move didn't quite stem the debate over Raddon's future and whether a potential boycott would devastate the festival when it returns next summer. Now, David Poland breaks word of a new development.According to Poland, Raddon's now resigned for real — and it isn't simply a gesture that Film Independent can reject. The move comes after reporters at the LAT finally seemed to realize, "Oh hey, a big juicy Hollywood story in our backyard. Maybe we should cover it?" Their weekend piece explored not only Raddon's donation but the division that exists within gay Hollywood over how to proceed:

Here is Samuel "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher, the man who won the election for John McCain, doing a bizarre ad of some kind for some sort of outfit that will charge your grandma money to hook up her digital tv converter. Listen, we gave you some easy advice on how to leverage your ever-diminishing fame: get to plumbing! So why this? Because of national security.

Jason Pontin just invited me to participate in a Facebook event called Vestival, which consists simply of everyone wearing a sweater vest on December 5th. Jason, Jason, Jason, first it was the magenta socks, now a sweater vest. I know you're straight, but it's like you're in a closet — specifically, Owen Thomas's closet.

When we posted this photo of Anderson Cooper walking through LAX yesterday, we didn't pay attention to the man trailing behind him. But Jossip.com points out that it's none other than Julio Recio, who was first connected to the CNN anchor back in 2006 and who was living with Cooper at his West 38th Street apartment as of last year as far as we can tell. Are they still together? It looks that way, although don't expect to see Cooper's name pop up here—at least the Anderson we're talking about—in the near future.