New York magazine broke news of a new gig for Silda Wall Spitzer, wife of the disgraced, whoring former governor: The former corporate attorney will try and "recruit new investors" (good luck with that) for a hedge fund run by some of her husband's old friends. It's a living, and is already helping her look less victim-y and dependent. Less wisely, Silda's husband is thinking about writing a book. Not one that grapples with the hooker thing and maybe clears the air, allowing him to walk past construction sites without getting snickered at, mind you, but one returning him to the holier-than-thou position that once made him so reviled:

You'll recall that The Box owner Simon Hammerstein was accused of pressuring burlesque performers into three-ways, stashing them in dog-feces-strewn dressing rooms, pushing drugs on them and leaving welts on their assess. He denied most of the charges, and denies them again in this week's New York, backed up this time by some employees. But the magazine also dug up fresh information on the boozing, degenerate performances and sexual favor-trading that allegedly goes on at the nightspot:

"Russian private equity firm Onexim — founded by billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov — is rumored to be buying Forbes." [Silicon Alley Insider]

Security guards shot dead a man swinging samurai swords at the Church of Scientology's Celebrity Center in Hollywood. The fortysomething man with tatooed arms had gone back and forth to his car before getting "close enough to hurt" the security guards. Sure, Tom Cruise's cult has a history of turning viciously on its malcontents, but this particular ex-Scientologist was "very clear[ly]" threatening rather than protesting , Los Angeles police — still investigating — tell the LA Times. Which presents a bit of a PR dilemma to Anonymous, the ad-hoc anti-Scientology group that can't decide whether to stay the hell away from this story or flog the angle that the sect's three guards killed an innocent unnecessarily:

Amid pandemic media bloodletting and global financial meltdown, it's nice to finally find a silver lining: All those silly Barack Obama trinkets are making insane amounts of money for media companies and providing precious little stimulus to the economy. The Times estimated roughly $200 million sold so far, including more than $15 million in commemorative issues and books from People and Time, somewhere around $1.5 million for the online store set up by the New york Times Company and $700,000 for the Los Angeles Times. Commemorative plates and coins, meanwhile have become ubiquitous enough that Lewis Black ranted about them on the Daily Show (clip after the jump). The downside?

Time Inc. CEO Ann Moore shamed all of the United States of America by ceding hegemony over House Of Windsor gossip to filthy British tabloids. People is flying the white flag of surrender over its London bureau and shutting it down, two tipsters inform us, sending its handful of staffers, like writers Courtney Rubin and Pete Norman, packing. Former bureau chief Simon Perry was purportedly told to work from home after a demotion to "correspondent," but there's skepticism he'll comply. Good luck trying to crack the Brits' white-glove treatment of their silly "royal" family now, People! Meanwhile, a reckoning is coming in the U.S.

Reports tonight surfaced that the federal government is offering to buy tens of billions of Citigroup's worst holdings. A bailout is impossible, because Citigroup is just too big, with $3 trillion in inflated "assets" on the "books." Maybe we could nationalize Citigroup, but what about, uh, the nation of Switzerland? Its two largest banks hold about 10 times the nation's total GDP on their balance sheets, which means writedowns could require an Iceland-style bailout by other counties. Once that happens, it may only be a matter of time before the kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland declares bankruptcy.

To really love Alan Ball's HBO show True Blood, you have to get past a few things. Namely, the wacky special effects, the terrible Louisiana accents, and the fact that in a month or so, most of you will groan whenever you hear the word 'vampire.' We already described the mediocre adapation of Twilight that won the weekend's box office, but in comparison, tonight's season finale of True Blood is Shakespeare. Really, Anna Paquin's Sookie Stackhouse is just so much more fun than Twilight's Bella Swan could ever be, and tonight, she'll try to solve the mystery of who's been killing folks in Bon Temps, Louisiana. All that and more, after the jump.Aided by the attention given to its young adult sibling, Charlaine Harris' series of Sookie Stackhouse murder mysteries is miles beyond Twilight and goes on for many more books. I'm halfway through the third, and I can't recommend them highly enough if you want a more sophisticated campy vampire romance. Sookie's relationship with vampire Bill Compton (played by British actor Stephen Moyer) has been a resounding success in its television incarnation, reaching a ratings high last week and improving throughout its first season. That means the something for everybody show will probably be coming back after tonight's end to the 12 episode season. Here's the rest of the bare pickings from the Thanksgiving Week to come. All times Eastern, watcher beware... Tonight: 24: Redemption (8 pm on FOX): Jack Bauer is still fighting terrorism, this time in Africa. And there's a female president...just when Hillary was starting to get OK with accepting the Secretary of State post. Runs two hours. Dexter (9 pm on Showtime): Last episode's ending was absolutely wild, and this show is always at its best when it brings rival killers together. A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All (10 pm on Comedy Central): Richard had the great preview clip earlier this week. Airs again at 12 pm. Entourage (10 pm on HBO): The crew is in New York City, and Gus Van Sant guest stars. That being the case, you can pretty much figure out which cast member will be emerging from the closet. Monday:

Despite my best efforts, I was born in the 1980s. So is the youngest member of Congress, Peoria, Illinois' Aaron Schock, after defeating 50 year old Democrat Colleen Callahan on November 4th. Winning around 59 percent of the vote in his urban district, the young Schock is already a rising star in the Republican party, and his devious grasp of new tactics has launched him next to Bobby Jindal in the annals of Hope and Change Republicans. Know this: my insidious generation will do absolutely anything it can to get your vote. This is just the beginning — there's nothing the media loves more than a fresh face, but promise me that you won't look a millennial politician directly in the eyes:A Republican had never won Schock's inner-city district before this election, and he did so by campaigning as a compassionate, benevolent Republican, reaching out to the African-American population in the area with a series of frightening commercials:

We feel desperately sympathetic towards still-employed members of the media who will have no holiday party to celebrate not being fired at this Christmas. Newsweek moved their party to April, and Hearst, Conde Nast, Viacom and ABC News have canceled their celebrations altogether. But for those richheads who haven't been touched by the grim finger of the recession, it's important to cut back a bit on private parties, writes the Wall Street Journal. This way, the little people know you're feeling the pinch, too:The WSJ offers a litany of tips for throwing a slightly less expensive party. It's just polite:

Layoffs at newspapers tend to hit the less essential sections first. You're not going to see the sports page disappear, but you might no longer have a local science reporter. To fill in the blanks, editors use wire stories, and when it comes to science reporting, they'll apparently print anything they come across. Basing a story off whatever piece of research comes to light is the easiest way to write a science story, with "according to new research" the opening sentence of choice. Over the weekend, we learned that meat causes cancer, exercise stops cancer, sleep stops cancer and stress causes it. Is there any way to prevent newspapers from dumbing themselves into even more layoffs?This AFP story represents everything that is wrong with the state of science reporting. The headline touts, "Exercise, sleep cuts cancer risk." In the body of the piece, actual analysis and understanding of medical issues is nowhere to be found:

[Paris Hilton and Avril Lavigne holding hands at the Villa after party in Los Angeles last night, photo by X17, click for the bigpic.]

It's hard to think of a segment of the economy not affected by the recession, but Santa? The sight of the friendly guy is usually everywhere as December nears, but his pricetag is becoming prohibitive. Apparently you weren't aware of how much a hardworking Bad Santa can take down in a typical Christmas season. Things were really, really good for Lower East Side Santa Dick Shea two years ago, according to the New York Post. He pulled in a jawdropping $30,000, a number he won't approach in 2008 even if it he sells off his reindeer and sleigh. You'll be shocked by what he expects to pull in this Christmas:Shea is a 69 year old veteran of the Santa game, and though he used to make bank, he won't this year:

Jennifer Aniston's face adorns the cover of this week's New York Times Magazine. Despite her current remarks in the interview therein about how annoying it is when people take camera phone pictures of her and sell them to feed their family, Ms. Aniston would like to reassure you that she loves images of herself as much as you do. After all, she's done photo shoots with about 8,000 magazines this month, most of which have already folded. Is she a hypocrite? We'll give her a break, and let the author of The Rules give her some helpful advice about dealing with her anger:Despite posing for Vogue and every other magazine imaginable, Aniston only likes it when the mainstream media profits for her image, as she relates in the NYT interview:

There is one heartening thing that we can take from President-Elect Barack Obama's appointment of controversial ex-Harvard President Larry Summers as head of the National Economic Council. In the face of some opposition from those within his coalition, Obama appointed Summers to the role. It follows that the former Clinton Treasury secretary Summers was so far and away best man for the job that Obama and his advisors completely dismissed whatever negative political fallout would come from Summers' past gaffes. In other words, it doesn't matter what you've done — if you think you can fix the economic situation we're in, welcome on board! And, as it turns out, Summers and Obama Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner have other unique qualifications to save America:Summers has been a part of the Obama campaign all along, and he was a big supporter of the government bailout plan passed by Congress last month. He is of course more famous for his remarks about the capabilities of women in the sciences. The former Treasury Secretary did apologize, but you have to think Obama is hoping that putting Hillary Clinton in the most prominent Cabinet role and naming Arizona pol Janet Napolitano as the new secretary of Homeland Security will distract feminists from attacking the administration's other choices. With the amount of goodwill he has right now, it probably won't even matter. Obama's choice for Treasury Secretary was Timothy Geithner, and although he's new to this level of public scrutiny, his last job was head of the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. Geithner is the kind of guy you'll be seeing a lot of in the Obama administration. Schooled at Henry Kissinger's consulting firm in Washington after his graduate work at Johns Hopkins, Geithner is no bookish econimist, a trait he shares with the fiery Summers. As The Economist notes, Geithner is far from the staid type:

On the heels of reports her megablog Huffington Post has received $15 million in venture capital funding, Arianna Huffington got the SNL treatment last night, and it was...really tame. New performer Michaela Watkins captured the details of the HuffPo founder as well as she did in her audition tape, but it missed out on so much of what's really meaningful about Arianna — you know, callous mistreatment of those under her employ, and a fondness for cults. Click for Ms. Watkins — and Arianna's — Weekend Update debut.Click to view She got the accent and nonsense-making fairly right, but what about Arianna's legendary pettiness? Hopefully next time we see Arianna, she'll be huddled over three BlackBerrys in her bathroom sobbing. All things considered, we preferred the original audition:

The outbreak of heroin-related deaths in Fairfax, Virginia is killing the area's best and brightest young people. So says the front page of the Washington Post this morning, which highlights exactly how upscale and surprising teen deaths from heroin in the area were. Nineteen year old Alicia Lannes, at left, overdosed on the drug the first time she used it, and died the fourth time she did. Her death gives rise to a larger drug trend story: one minute these kids were hitting a bong, and the next they were snorting pure heroin and heading to the hospital. Is it really that simple?The story describes the 18 heroin-related deaths in the county over the last year, and how they have largely affected a class of young person who wouldn't be expected to sample the drug:

Politics took a backseat on last night's Saturday Night Live. After opening with a less than hilarious satire of the congressional hearing with Detroit automakers, the show tried to squeeze jokes out of country singer and host Tim McGraw saying slightly unexpected things for an hour. Even the most promising concept of the week — Andy Samberg as White House chief of staff-to-be Rahm Emanuel — was left on the cutting room floor, although NBC did offer it up as a web-only clip. Is it a laugh riot? Well, it wasn't on the show for a reason, but at least SNL writers have found one Obama administration joke that might be worth returning to. Click for the best bits in a long night.There are those for whom John Belushi and Gilda Radner was the last SNL worth watching. The next generation insisted that the show could never recover from the losses of Chris Farley, Mike Myers and Adam Sandler. Then Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan represented yet another peak that couldn't be reached. Really, it's just sketch comedy, and it's hit or miss no matter who the members of the cast are. And when you're opening your show with a satire of a congressional hearing with Detroit automakers, you know it's going to be a long night. That makes it even more inexplicable that they're not doing more with Andy Samberg's sadistic Rahm Emanuel character. If you can't get a laugh out of a little Jewish man going crazy on a congressman, you have problems. Click to view When even Kristen Wiig is having an off-night, you know the cast just needs sleep. Here's her clear retainer sketch featured after the monologue. Click to view A Bond parody is always death, although this one wasn't too terrible. Still, you kinda felt like you were watching Jeff Foxworthy. Click to view Do we really need another sketch where a white guy gets jokes for acting like a rapper? At least T-Pain half-saves this one. Although frankly, the weird human sculptures in his second song were more entertaining. Click to view Bill Hader's Dateline parody wasn't terrible, but come on. We know they're considering hiring a new Obama, but the show's writers can't think of anything fun to do with Fred Armisen in the meantime? Click to view

Celebrities are a good example for the little people, proving that you don't have to be actually attractive to get laid. Age doesn't matter a bit. Everyone wears scarves or flips their collar up and you have enough money to go on vacation into infinity. It's exactly like real life, but with more vacation. It is our firm belief that celebrity couples are the way a decadent society expresses itself, and in the A-Rod-Madonna era, these five other pairings boggle the mind and tug at the heart:There's a lot of weird pairings going on right now, putting the world in a similar position to when Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914. (Legend has it John Mayer's to blame for that one.) Celebrity couples were the way Nostradamus made predictions, and they are the basis of whatever the heck Simon Baker does every week on The Mentalist. We've already explained the reason for the A-Rod-Madonna connection, and you can add these five signs to the mix:

When the president-elect announced that he'd be making a weekly YouTube addresses, we prepared ourselves for the dulcet tones of Barack's voice soothing us through America's economic crisis. In today's address, Obama channels all the gravitas he can muster as he lectures us on "the survival of the American dream." Talk of "our darkest hour" echoes Winston Churchill, conveniently the only politician who Obama hasn't yet been compared to. In any case, he promises an apocalyptic "new beginning" on January 20th. Click for the clip and promise not to get scared.