In 1996, Leslie Owen Collier pleaded guilty to killing three bald eagles. Naturally, President Bush has just pardoned him. Back in 1995, Collier, some sort of rabble-rousing anarchist farmer, crushed pesticides into delicious hamburger meat and left it outside to kill any adorable little animals that might cross his path. Naturally, after killing a red-tailed hawk, a great horned owl, an opossum, and a raccoon, three majestic Bald Eagles partook in some left-over poison hamburger, and promptly died. The Bald Eagle is our nation's bold fresh mascot, like the Pillsbury Doughboy of not getting tread upon. Naturally, the eagle was nearly extinct within 200 years of the founding of our nation, and it's been a crime to "kill" them since the 1940s. Why would Bush pardon this cold-blooded freedom-killer? Well! According to an anti-American "natural history" site hosted on Canadian servers, the Bald Eagle is not so much of a majestic predator, swooping down and pecking to death our nation's many enemies, but really more of a lazy scavenger, subsisting mainly on "what it finds cast onto the shore." So the Bald Eagle is the Original Lazy Welfare Queen of the Skies, which is why Bush pardoned this brave hero.

We're not sure if this is a sign that the bailout is doomed, or just a signal that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson really is contemplating endorsement deals to revive the economy, but this morning Bloomberg News squeezed a brand name in the headline of a story about the frantic, behind-the-scenes work involved in rescuing Citigroup this past weekend: "Citigroup's $306 Billion Rescue Fueled by Pizza From Domino's."

Yesterday you guys were pretty torn about the TV cohosts who, in the delicate words of my colleague Sheila, are doing it. Mike and Juliet? Regis and Kelly? Hannity and Colmes? Probably all of them! Ah well, moving on. Today we have a celebrity with a hooker situation, an actress brazenly fooling around on her husband, and a TV star who's about to get the axe. 1) "Which celeb is terrified his thing for exotic hookers is about to come to light, to the horror of his wife and children?" [Mirror] 2) "Apparently though his B+ list actress wife with A list name recognition does not have the same fear of her husband. While shooting her new film, our actress has got extremely hot and heavy with one of the producers on the film. The producer is going through a divorce, and now one has to wonder if our actress would be willing to do the same. Wow. This would be a tabloid feeding frenzy of epic proportions." [CDaN] 3) "Which character on an popular TV drama is going to be killed off? While the character is one of the key members of the cast, the actor or actress’ bad behavior has caused friction within the cast and has exhausted the patience of the show’s head honcho." [BlindGossip]

Who said George W. Bush is not a friend to the hip hop community? The president has gone and pardoned John Forte, a rapper (who got briefly famous doing tracks with the Fugees) who's been in prison since 2000 for a cocaine smuggling conviction. $1.4 million in liquid coke through the Newark airport, to be precise. I forgive Bush for the wars and everything now! Forte has always maintained his innocence, but so does everyone else in jail, and you don't see Republican Christian fundamentalist zealot politicians pardoning them. So why did W. set Forte free? It's those private school connections paying off:

Money troubles appear to be piling up for Annie Leibovitz. Back in August, court records indicated that the famed photographer had racked up $715,000 in debt related to renovations on her townhouse in the West Village and unpaid taxes. Now she has another hefty bill to worry about: A stylist she worked with on a series of photo shoots is suing her for failing to pay her firm more than $400,000. [NYP]

Here's a solution to the nation's housing crisis. In a bizarre case of life imitating art imitating life, a Japanese man has been living at the Mexico City airport for three months now, and he's expected to remain there until his tourist visa expires next March. (As you may recall, a similar story served as the basis of 2004's The Terminal, which was itself based on the life of an Iranian man who spent years living at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.) But if your home goes into foreclosure, you may want to consider a foreign airport as a place to stay in lieu of a homeless shelter or moving back in with your parents. Of course, you'll have to be cool with the idea of eating at McDonalds for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

For 24 young women, this weekend marks a milestone in their lives: They will make their formal debut into society, just as if they were a bunch of sheltered virgins rather than the jaded and worldly daughters of the rich and powerful. The annual Crillon Ball, tirelessly organized by Parisian Ophélie Renouard, is taking place on Saturday, and WWD talks to a few of the lucky attendees about their dresses, and "escorts."

Barbara and Jenna Bush are celebrating their last birthdays as First Daughters: The twins turn 27 today. Christina Applegate is 37. Actor John Larroquette is 61. Pop/gospel singer Amy Grant is 48. Fantasy Island's Ricardo Montalban is 88. Actor/pundit Ben Stein is 64. New York Times columnist Gail Collins is turning 63. Famed choreographer Tricia Brown is 72. And hot dog eating champ Joey Chestnut is 25 today.

♦ Alex Rodriguez won't be eating turkey with his tots. His estranged wife Cynthia says her "6-foot-3, 220-pound soul-less, soon-to-be ex-husband is abandoning his kids on Thanksgiving to be with Madonna." [P6]
♦ Amy Winehouse is back in the hospital after yet another "reaction to a medication." [NYDN]
♦ Ann Coulter broke her jaw. And now her mouth has been wired shut! [P6]
♦ Kate Moss was spotted leaving a party with "some mysterious scratches on her cheek." [Daily Mail]
♦ Fashion designer Stacey Bendet and her husband, the son of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, had a baby. [P6]

♦ News of the government's rescue package for Citigroup provided the market with boost yesterday, but Citi CEO Vikram Pandit (who still has his job for the time being) has many long days and nights ahead if he's going to turn the bank around. "This is a reprieve, but it's not a complete pardon." [WSJ]
♦ On CNBC, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the bank's biggest shareholders, expressed confidence in "Mr. Vikram" while "stroking a strand of beads and wearing red-tinted glasses." Then he blamed the bank's problems on Chuck Prince. [NYP]
♦ Tim Geithner may be the man of the hour, but shouldn't he be shouldering some of the blame for the government's missteps thus far? [NYT]
♦ Banks are concerned they may have a credibility problem on their hands. You think? [Reuters]

• Ann Coulter's mouth was literally wired shut. Though the "leggy reactionary" can't talk, it's safe to assume she'd blame liberals. [P6]

"Officials for non-profits like the pantry begin to panic even before the Thanksgiving holiday." [WCBS]

Maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that Liz Smith lit after Madonna's ex so brutally in the Post today; she seems to just love Madonna. The singer's ex-husband Guy Ritchie, not so much: Smith writes that all three times the director worked with Madonna, Madonna played some kind of abused character, and so everyone should wonder if this "reflect[ed] home life — a meek and conciliatory Madonna." After implying Ritchie is a wife beater, Smith moved on to painting him as a gold digger; though the Times of London said Ritchie's divorce settlement would include "not a penny" of Madonna's fortune, Smith said he got much more:

If Sumner Redstone had just sold his CBS stock back when it looked like he was in trouble, he might have gotten $10, even $15 per share. Instead he sold only what he was forced to, then wasted a lot of time huffing and puffing in the press about how he would never ever sell another CBS or Viacom share, even though $800 million was due in December. In the meantime CBS shares plummeted to less than $5, and only now is Redstone admitting the obvious: He may have to sell some of that stock. Reports the Times:

"At Obama’s Chicago headquarters RIGHT NOW." [Julia Allison, Video]

Gina Duclayan's Facebook album of behind-the-scenes Spy magazine staff photos shows the soft, human side of the carefully-calibrated snark book of the late 1980s and early 1990s. As such it's both a supplement and antidote to "Spy: The Funny Years," 2006's "lush, coffee-table format book" launched at an insidery party that reminded everyone how important (and establishment) the magazine's staff had since become. Somehow seeing the power clique in dorky 1980s duds and chairless apartments is much more comforting. At left, Kurt Andersen, a very young Daniel Radosh and Duclayan (clockwise from left). One more shot after the jump.

It was an awkward moment, topping even Barack Obama's meeting with the president he spent two years running against: Economist and Times columnist Paul Krugman, receiving congratulations for his Nobel Prize from the man he said built the "Party of Stupid," who "got rid of accountability," and who "was lying" about his "patently, shamelessly dishonest" budget, among many, many other brutal criticisms Krugman has leveled against the president over the past seven years. The photo, by Chip Somodevilla, says plenty, but hopefully Krugman will write something (for his blog?) on the words that actually came out of the president's mouth at the Oval Office meeting.

Back in 1996, cable news was still innocent, and even an evil Republican genius like Roger Ailes had to make a pretense of political objectivity. So Fox News Channel was careful to seek a token "Liberal To Be Determined" to balance Sean Hannity when the conservative pundit helped anchor the network's debut. These days CNN, MSNBC and Fox all carry unabashedly slanted shows on their lineups, so Fox apparently feels no compunction about giving Hannity formal title to the show he's always had his way with: The host will go it alone following co-host Alan Colmes' previously-announced departure, two sources told the Times.

· Damn, we would have had a spare if the stuffing didn't fall out halfway down the lane. · After eight performances, a Broadway revival of American Buffalo starring John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer and Haley Joel Osment has closed. The three commiserated with a night of lap dances at downmarket strip club The Spread, where a hammered Cedric sobbed "all I ever wanted to do was entertain" between sloppy titty-grabs. · We always love to trot out our favorite Thanksgiving greeting card this time of year. Be nice, fuck! · The LAT can find no evidence Ben Silverman is about to get shitcanned: "NBC would like to keep Silverman, according to people close to him. His bosses think he's been a good steward." The Good Steward. Hmm. We're seeing Matt Damon biopic potential. · A Norwegian escort (maybe he found him on a Norwegian cruise line?) testified in the Boy George HustlerNapping Trial of the Century that the singer "manacled him to a bedroom wall and beat him with a metal chain after accusing him of hacking into his computer." They said "manacled!"

In an era of TiVo and dying print media, advertisers are desperate for honest-to-God focused attention. Sometimes this results in creepy Minority Report-style ads or cell-phone spying, but now it's produced an essential miracle of modern science: A guy flying across a thousand-foot-deep gorge in a jet pack. (Video after the jump.)