• Rosie O'Donnell, contradicting Barbara Walters' rosy description of relations on The View: "I'm not saying they loathe each other, but the fact of the matter is, there was not a lot of camaraderie off camera." [LAT]

Vogue editor "to accept a 'cultural post of some sort for the Obama White House,' according to at least one person in the magazine industry." [Scoop, second item]

♦ The effort by U.S. automakers to secure a bailout hit a major roadblock after execs from the Big Three were sent home by Congress empty-handed. The behind-the-scenes negotiations continue. [WSJ, Bloomberg]
♦ Shares of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America are at multi-year lows as the Dow hovers at a six-year low of its own. [DB, DB]
♦ GMAC, controlled by Steve Feinberg's Cerberus Capital, says it's applied to become a bank holding company so it will be eligible for bailout cash. [DB]
♦ GE has turned to China and Singapore as it looks to raise cash. [Bloomberg]
♦ Harbinger's Phil Falcone is pulling back on his media investments. He's reduced his exposure to the New York Times and Media General, just months after fighting for board representation. [WSJ]
♦ Deutsche Bank plans to cut 900 more jobs. [NYP]
♦ Weekly jobless claims have reached a 16-year high. [MW]

It sounds like a fun night for Barry Diller: Closeted magazine Details put on a party for Milk, a movie about the first openly gay man elected to office in California, and the InterActive Corp. chairman was in attendance. Designer Marc Jacobs was there with his boyfriend, as was Gossip Girl's Chace Crawford, chatting, for some reason with Taylor Momsen. Topping off the evening quite nicely, fashion executive Diane von Fursternberg "invited Diller... back to her place," according to Page Six, along with designer Valentino Garavani and actress Marisa Berenson. For dinner, of course. Which was awfully generous, considering that von Furstenberg is Diller's wife. Officially, at least. As Diller knows well, mergers take quite some time to integrate, and some components just never mesh at all.

Greta Van Susteren and Matt Lauer were first out of the gate with lengthy Sarah Palin interviews after the election. The chats were slammed as softball jobs by some critics, and you can now add Katie Couric to that group, at least in one regard: She wishes someone had asked the former Republican vice presidential nominee why she didn't answer Couric's simple and ultimately devastating question about what newspapers and magazines Palin reads. Hopefully Lauer, who hosted Today with Couric for nine years, doesn't take the critique personally, particularly since Couric may very well end up back at NBC. Click the video icon to watch Couric explain her thoughts on David Letterman's Late Show.

eHarmony does not hate gay people. It is merely ignorant of them. That is the dating site's excuse for excluding same-sex customers — a practice that led a gay New Jersey man, Eric McKinley, to file a complaint with New Jersey's attorney general which eHarmony has just settled, paying a $50,000 fine to the state and $5,000 to McKinley. eHarmony was founded in 2000 by Neil Clark Warren, an evangelical Christian and a psychologist; he is still the company's chairman.To settle the complaint, eHarmony is also launching Compatible Partners, a gay dating site. But the Compatible site, as proposed is not just separate; it's also unequal. eHarmony executives have long insisted that they didn't want to serve gay daters because their site used an algorithm based on long-term studies of straight couples. Compatible Partners, which must launch by March, will use the same questionnaire as eHarmony — but the company admits it has no idea if it will work to find good matches. Compatible Partners users will see a warning to this effect: "The statement lets customers know that eHarmony, Inc. has not conducted research on same-sex couples so that they have the information they need to decide whether to use our service." If anyone shows up that is; eHarmony will give away 10,000 free accounts, but it's hard to think that a dating service chaired by a conservative Christian will prove much more popular than, say, Manhunt, the gay personals site whose chairman donated to John McCain's campaign. The politics of sex aside, the website's clearly going to suck. This should sound so familiar to people who build websites for a living: A poorly thought-out product, based on insufficient research, rushed out on an artificial deadline. But in this case, it's the government, not inept managers, who are ordering it up. They're from the government, and they're here to help your dating life! If gays can't get married in California, don't they at least deserve the benefit of their own pseudoscientifically valid hookups? (Photo via Magicmud.com)

This would be ironically funny as an Onion article, but in real life it's just awful: Hossein Derakhshan, pictured, is a Toronto-based Iranian blogger who has grown more pro-Iran over the past two years, supporting the country's nuclear program and its three-decade-old Islamic revolution in the press. The dual Iranian-Canadian citizen blogs in both English and Farsi and generally tries to help people understand his home country. PR win for Iran and its blogger-in-chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right? Actually no, because Derakhshan visited Israel last year for a blogging conference, and bogged there to "show the Iranians a more realistic image of this country," so he's been thrown in jail during a visit home, as a spy, reports The Media Line:

They say human happiness depends largely on your position (social, economic) relative to those around you, an axiom that would explain why the bunch of struggling New York writers at the National Book Awards on Wall Street seemed so giddy in press reports about the "determined... party." "Our dinner here is larger than it's been in five years... we have an afterparty (with) 300, 400 people coming," the executive director of the foundation behind the gala told GalleyCat (video after the jump). Call it the awards' year of hope, then, particularly with the hopey president-elect getting a shout-out in several speeches and an African American author taking home the nonfiction prize for the first time since 1991. A short (fun!) video and winners after the jump.

After two years as a reporter at the Portland Oregonian, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger III will return to New York to work at his family's Times, Portland alternative paper Williamette Week is reporting. Sulzberger wouldn't comment for the paper, but his return to New York appears at first glance unrelated to staff cuts at the Oregonian. So what's the 28-year-old son of Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (pictured) up to? In all likelihood, trying to help to stabilize not only a faltering newspaper company but a ruptured family.

We've heard from two sources that the London headquarters of Time Europe laid off just under 20 of the nearly 30 editorial staff, including, one said, Time Europe editor William Green and writer senior editor James Graff. Elsewhere, bureau chiefs Andrew Purvis in Berlin and Tim McGirk in Jerusalem are said to be gone after their contracts expire. This has stoked more speculation that the magazine might mimic Newsweek and consolidate to a single international edition — and that London is merely the first in a rolling series of global Thursday layoffs:

Despite her repeated public pronouncements of devotion, it will come as no huge shock to anyone anywhere that Paris Hilton just broke up with her boyfriend of nine months, musician Benji Madden. Even if you weren't up to speed on the latest developments — she was spotted with her Greek, shipping-heir ex and rumored desperately flirty with British princes — you have to figure, well, it's Paris Hilton, whose thirst for attention requires not only the intimate affection of various men but also constant press coverage of how those affections fluctuate. But her breakup is worth noting because the mainstream media seems to buying into her psychodrama like never before!

Welcome to another Wednesday-night cornucopia of commenting goodness. This is the reality show live blog where (starting at 10 Eastern) everyone can join in — even ignorant folks who think a vinaigrette is an emulsion. But while such people are welcome to participate, I think they are sadly misinformed: A vinaigrette is not an emulsion. I know this because Stefan says so. And who am I to argue with Stefan? Last week I picked him to win this whole thing, and so far he's making me look like a genius. Before we get started, a quick announcement: Remember that live blog rule I mentioned last week about not second-guessing the judges because, unlike them, we can't taste the food? I've decided to retract that, based on an epiphany I experienced after discovering a Bravotv.com feature called "rate the plate." There, site visitors can grade each dish from last week's episode on a scale of 1 to 5. Seeing this made me realize that I'd forgotten a key cultural norm of the new millennium: Judging something no longer requires actual knowledge of how good that thing is. If Maxim can give a two-star rating to a Black Crowes album they never heard, and Bravo can ask website visitors to rate food dishes they've never tasted … well, who am I to judge this new judging norm? So judge away, live bloggers! In fact, I just went to bravotv.com myself and rated all of last week's dishes, awarding my highest score to Eugene's "dry rub lamb with basmati sweet rice, tzatziki with tandoori glaze." I gave it a 4. It would have scored a perfect 5, but it looked like he used a tad too much salt. And while I was on Bravo's site, I also watched a few preview clips of tonight's episode. So here are a few "things to watch for" as we live-blog tonight:

When it moved Project Runway from Bravo to Lifetime, Weinstein Company transformed the latter cable network from overearnest television for spinsters into something more chic and cheeky, or so some people said at the time. Weinstein Company was promptly sued by Bravo parent NBC Universal, which won an unexpected victory in court and impounded the show. Lifetime has been stewing, bitterly, and yelling at its cats, like a spurned mistress, and now Lifetime has decided it's going to sue Harvey Weinstein's company, presumably for being a slimy jerk who said the divorce was final when really he wasn't even separated yet. This makes 2008 the year of total meltdown for Weinstein:

· In fact, he says so in this clip. Oh, and Leary defends his theory that most autistic kids are in actuality "stupid. Or lazy. Or both." Apparently that quote from his book was taken entirely out of context. Correction appended! · Kevin Spacey takes a pretty unequivocal stand on Prop 8. · Do you have Obama Cabinet Fever? We do! And we can get right behind Health and Human Services appointee Sally Jesse Raphael. Wait—what? · Ooh—the claws are really coming out in the ongoing Project Runway fracas. Lifetime is filing a countersuit against Bravo, NBC Universal, and the Weinsteins. Models, this is also a litigious competition for you, as well. · Hey—squirrels dancing to Michael Jackson!

Update time! Last week we introduced you to Jonathan Jaxson, the incompetent publicist/Perez-sexing gossip who went spectacularly public with the worst PR strategy in the history of flackdom: Start a nude-photo scandal with his Disney-star client Adrienne Bailon. It was bad beyond a reasonable doubt then, and it bottomed out this week when Bailon and her Cheetah Girls cohorts were effectively booted from performing at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.Macy's deflected blame to the group itself, with a rep telling Fox that the Girls were confirmed to appear Nov. 27, "but due to scheduling issues they could not make it." No one's sure what those scheduling issues are, though, considering that Bailon and Co. have the day off during their tour's East Coast swing — and Jaxson isn't returning requests for comment. But that's OK! Tune in to Jaxson's next appearance on his local CBS affiliate in Atlanta, where he'll spend his weekly commentary segment once again spinning how this scenario helps his young star, as though losing an audience of roughly 54 million viewers ultimately has her career right where she wants it. Keep up the good work, Jax!

· Miranda Lee Richards at Tangier, Dub Club at the Echoplex, and Josh "Mr. Katherine Heigl" Kelley at the Hotel Cafe. · Go skating! It's time for Ice at Santa Monica. · Touching childhood gender-identity tale—or as Barbara Walters would put it, "A girl with a dick"—Ma vie en rose screens at 7:30 at the Egyptian Theatre.

When she's not dancing through her Malibu mansion belting "Single Ladies (Put a Ring On it)" into her hairbrush, Jennifer Aniston likes to curl up with a good book and a bad singer and watch a little TV (Stars! They're just like us — well, not us us, because we've got a cobwebbed DVR list that still includes episodes of this exciting new show called "Presidential Debates" that we have yet to finish. Don't spoil us!). During her sojourn on the sofa, Aniston has rediscovered all twenty-eight seasons of her hit tee-vee show Friends, an exciting development that her actual friends are quick to poop all over:

One imagines Facebook as a geek utopia, where hackers who dropped out of college play Rock Band all day, then stay up all night coding. The reality: It's as depressingly Dilbertian as any other company — and COO Sheryl "No-Fun" Sandberg is making sure it keeps getting more boring every day. Take the latest tiff we happened to hear about — in the social network's business-development department, the home of glad-handing charmers who negotiate deals. You'd think they'd be experts at sucking up to each other. Tim Kendall (shown left), the company's director of monetization — Valleyspeak for "guy who comes up with ideas to make money" — was left fuming after his boss, VP Dan Rose, instructed him in the art of time management."Every day, you need to create a to-do list," Rose told Kendall. "You put the items you need to do on the list, and you need to review the list with me every day. As you do them, you need to cross them off." Kendall's retort, which he delivered not to Rose but to friends within and without Facebook: "No shit Sherlock, I didn't get to where I am today without knowing how to manage a to-do list!" What's odd about this rumor: Rose doesn't have a reputation as a micromanager, and the two both worked at Amazon.com before joining Facebook. They put on a convincing buddy act for the New York Times recently, too. Anyone care to play Encyclopedia Brown and help piece together this puzzle? My only conclusion: The best algorithms can't predict what will break a friendship. (Photo by Chris Pan)

R.I.P. Irving Brecher died Monday at Cedars-Sinai at the age of 94. Not familiar with that name? You're more than likely familiar with his writing: He wrote Meet Me In St. Louis, Life of Riley, the Marx Brothers's At the Circus and Go West, and did uncredited punch-up on The Wizard of Oz. From Go West: "S. Quentin Quale: Didn't we meet at Monte Carlo the night you blew your brains out?" [USA Today]

We can't help but wonder if each airing will be the last for our colorful, quirky friend Pushing Daisies. Even Rupert Murdoch has caught the PD fever, as the Post is imploring all y'all to at least TiVo tonight's show. But that'll mean you won't be able to record Coolio's Rules on Oxygen and Sandwich Paradise on Travel at the same time. You'll live . WATCH Pushing Daisies [8 PM, ABC] - Enjoy it while you still can. This week, Ned (Lee Pace) agrees to help "The Great Hermann" (Fred Willard), when the magician's animal assistants begin to die mysteriously. Meanwhile, Lily (Swoosie Kurtz) is suspicious of (Stephen Root) Dwight's intentions. We're glad to see our favorite hard-drinking, eye-patched Charles sister, even if it's one of the last times.Stylista [9 PM, CW] - Even though this week's episode rips off a scene from The Devil Wears Prada (assistants have to memorize high-profile guest info so they can instantly provide it to Anne Slowey at a social affair) we still are obsessed with this show. For the social event of the season, each contestant is allowed to borrow an item from Elle's closet. If Kate wins, as we hope, look for her to get a show where she rips off Anne Slowey ripping off Meryl Streep.