Internal drama at baby picture factory OK! magazine? You don't say! Richard Desmond, the crappy celebrity mag's billionaire owner, brought in former Wenner Media exec Kent Brownridge to be GM of the American version of OK! just a couple of months ago. But apparently Brownridge hasn't been able to make any money yet, and it's making the Brit Desmond mad enough to get on a plane to the distasteful nation of America!: A tipster tells us:

Last week Tina Brown's new blog fest The Daily Beast ran a post featuring sketches by past Project Runway contestants as ideas for First Lady Elect Michelle Obama's inauguration gown. Then, oops!, The Smoking Gun figured out that the supposed entry by season one winner Jay McCarroll was actually a "hoax," perpetrated by a Canadian musician named Jay McCarrol (one L!) The author of the piece—who worked on it while at the now-shuttered Radar—had contacted him instead of the real designer by mistake and he just decided to run with it. So he sent the author the sketch, and the whole article ended up getting published on the Beast. Tina and Co. took the sketch down after the Smoking Gun reveal, and now the real McCarroll has weighed in on the whole kerfuffle: He tells the New York Observer:

At last, after having nothing but a meager pile of magazine clippings and hearsay to rely upon throughout this entire ordeal, we have Jennifer Aniston in the flesh to set us straight on what Angelina Jolie's adoptive people have already dubbed L'affair uncool. On trusted confidante (who doesn't mind spilling your private business on America's TVs for her own ratings gain) Oprah Winfrey's show today, the host hoisted a Post-It-littered Vogue bearing the five words heard round the world. It was a coverline so powerful, it managed to push Obama off the front page of the NY Times, who instead ran a 30-pt headline that read, "Amid a Climate of Hope, Tensions Between Warring Starlets Flare." In her trademark stammer, the former Friends star it admits she indeed said, "What Angelina did was very uncool," but it was just one of many responses she answered "as honestly as I could. I don't go there. I mean, it's 100 years old, for Christ's sake." If ever we wanted a girl to go, it was Aniston, at that moment. [Oprah]

For those wondering what you can expect in the lame duck months before Fox News Channel has an Obama presidency to complain about, wonder no longer. While some are dealing with the loss by going rogue, in this sterling clip from last night's The O'Reilly Factor, Dennis Miller and his friend 'Billy' have a good laugh over liberal women still jealous of Sarah Palin's "non-neurotic" Alaskan sex life. It harkens us back to the glory days of conservative talk radio, when Rush Limbaugh spent most of every day saying incredibly offensive things about Hillary. Click for the video.

If you're planning to be in the vicinity of Rockefeller Center tomorrow, keep in mind that a 115-foot long trailer will be depositing an eight-ton tree in the middle of the Midtown during the early morning hours. Did your company cancel its annual holiday party and/or festive office decorations? Consider this your substitute! [NYDN]

"I always laugh when people talk about how 'self-promotional' I am," blogs vaguely-connected-to-BusinessWeek writer Sarah Lacy in a 902-word post, "given that for ten years of my career you never knew a thing about me other than my byline." Lacy says that Valleywag was more interesting when editor-owner Nick Denton wrote it. We think she's onto an interesting pattern: Sarah Lacy was more interesting when Nick Denton wrote about her, too.

John McCain was right. So was Bonnie Fuller, and so were we! President Elect Barack Obama has totally become not just the great mixed-race hope for the nation, but he and his family have also evolved into tabloid-worthy celebrities. He and his wife Michelle are, in fact, "the new Brangelina." Well, that's according to Albert Lee, an editor for the bright Queen of all Glossies, Us Weekly. He recently explained to CNN that the Obamas are just what sells right now. The latest issue featuring the happy and now victorious couple smiling on the cover moved over one million copies. Because, he surmises, "everything else seems totally irrelevant right now." Which is true! But, what does this mean for American politics and, more importantly, American celebrity? We never quite got the thrust of those McCain ads that compared the senator from Illinois to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. People actually seem to be kind of into that idea. There's something almost Main Streety about not just knowing the business of an administration's policies, but also knowing where they ate, what they wore, and what those adorable little girls are up to. Plus, the old, gross vanguard of hedonistic celebrities is dead anyway. And here, as the glorious new replacements, are some nice do-gooders to focus on. It's like the Kennedys all over again! Except, you know, hopefully with a different ending. Hear Mr. Lee elaborate in his own words below.

Entertainment Weekly took its turn in the Time Inc. layoff machine today with 15 editorial layoffs, according the the Observer [UPDATE: Another source tells us the number is 22, including the research chief, two librarians, and "a bunch of AEs"]. And they didn't even offer anyone a chance to volunteer for buyouts—they just got fired. We also hear that Essence may be having its layoffs today, too. If you have more details, email us.

Steve Carell brought along his family photo album during a visit to Ellen earlier today, treating the studio audience to robust hints of the domestic heaven that is the Carell household. Among the fun: Bathtime with young son John, with whom the comic enjoys a bit of bonding over toy sharks. At least we thought they were toys until Ellen and her filthy-minded crowd went and sullied our soft-focus image, like a Hallmark card torched by a cadre of arsonists. Next thing you know, they'll be snickering at Carell's Beaver. Forshame! [Ellen]

♦ Did you attempt to get your hands on some Comme des Garçons for H&M today? You're braver than us. [Racked]
♦ Cathy Horyn provides a clear-eyed assessment of Barack Obama's sartorial style, pointing out that "his jeans are the loose, jingle-the-change-in-your-pocket type. He belts them at the waist, and when he wears them with white sneakers and a windbreaker, one could almost say he had stolen the look from Jerry Seinfeld's character on the television series." [NYT]
♦ At Diane von Furstenberg's party for Financial Times editor Vanessa Friedman, André Leon Talley broadcast his delight over Obama's victory in the most appropriate way: The back of his coat was emblazoned with "The New American Dream" in crystals. [WWD]
♦ Also gushing about the Obamas? Donna Karan, who says: "I'm hoping to get to work with them—it would be my dream. They are so committed to ideals that are much in alignment with mine." [WWD]

United States President George W. Bush gave a speech today about the perilous financial crisis that threatens to plunge our nation into a prolonged recession from hell. As you'll see when you click to watch this skillful video compilation, Mr. Bush has a genetic inability to deliver a single god damn sentence containing Very Serious News without adding his stupid smirk at the end. In and of itself it's sort of a tragicomic statement on the nature of the last eight years. But it's much scarier when you consider the reality of our situation: we don't really even have a president right now. Obama's people have been repeating the mantra "One president at a time" over and over, like some sort of magic political talisman. Barack has no desire to get too involved at the moment, because politically that would mean taking on lot of responsibility without technically having any power. And Bush is just sleepwalking through his last few months. He's not just a lame duck, he's a lame duck who everyone despises. He couldn't get anything accomplished even if he wanted to. Which he doesn't. He wants to play with Barney and keep quiet enough to maybe land that Commissioner of Baseball gig a few years down the line. Neither of those things would be all that bad if we weren't mired in a financial crisis of epic proportions. Because when a crisis happens somebody has to be in charge. And if Bush isn't, and Barack isn't, you know who is? Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson! John Crudele has already taken to referring to him as "de facto president of the US." Which is not too far off the mark! And hey, maybe it's not such a bad thing to have a guy like Paulson in charge of all the most important decisions, considering they're in his field of expertise? Psht! This is the same guy whose original idea for solving this mess was to give all power to the Treasury to do whatever it wanted, with no challenges permitted. Paulson changed the focus of the bailout package for the third time yesterday. Third time! It doesn't inspire confidence, nor should it. In conclusion, our fake-elected bad president has no desire or incentive to do anything. Our actual president-elect: the same, until January. Our de facto president is incentivized and predisposed to focus solely on helping Wall Street. And everyone's money is disappearing in the meantime. Also, Iran. Hope nothing bad happens for the next three months!

Is Martin Eisenstadt, the neo-conservative think-tanker who claimed to have spread a rumor that Sarah Palin didn't know Africa was a continent, real? Perhaps not, but then again, how do we know if the New York Times, the august journal which exposed him, is real, either? Eisenstadt, a Times article reports, is actually Eitan Gorlin, an actor playing the part of a neoconservative think-tanker. Gorlin's response on the Eisenstadt Group website he created as part of the hoax: How do we know this is the real New York Times? Times writer Richard Perez-Peña pokes at the incident's surrealism, quizzing his sources on how they, too, can prove they're not part of the hoax. But our tenuous grasp of reality is far worse than his gibes suggest.In an age of Photoshop, Iran can have as many missiles as it wants; headlines can be faked; and bodies altered beyond any relationship to the real human form. But the problem of identity goes far deeper. Stephen Glass, as a writer for The New Republic, created a website for a fake company, Jukt Micronics, for a story; Forbes exposed this lie, and countless others. But today, Glass might well have gotten away with it. Convincingly complete websites are easy to assemble. They don't even require human hands: Automated software cobbles together topical websites from republished copy scoured from the Web to trick Google into giving them free advertising revenue. And someone looking to hide their identity can now use proxy services to register domain names anonymously. For that matter, the Internet's domain-name system — the root of all online identity — is dangerously vulnerable. Earlier this year, security researcher Dan Kaminsky found a nearly fatal flaw that would allow hackers to hijacks visits to website and redirect viewers to alternate ones. That flaw has mostly been fixed, but who knows what other ones await discovery? By tricking the systems which route a request for a domain name — nytimes.com, for example — to the right server, a troublemaker might not just fake up a headline, but an entire alternate version of the Times online. Trust for media, old and new, continues to decline. Readers demand speed, punishing sluggish outlets by withholding their attention. Celerity replaces seriousness as a measure of authority. Who said what? Can you believe it? And does it matter, as long as you were the first to know?

There's a lot of great television tonight, and with three weeks until Thanksgiving, you should probably start slowly working mood stabilizers into your diet in preparation for family members asking you to explain why you haven't succeeded yet. WATCH Wu: The Story of the Wu Tang Clan [8 PM, BET] - This doc by Gerald K. Barclay purports to have rarely seen footage from the golden age of the Wu - 1993-1997. What were you doing in 1994? We were driving around in our green Ford Taurus bumping "C.R.E.A.M." Sadly, we are still driving that Taurus. Happily, we are still representing the Wu.

It was another roller coaster of a day on Wall Street. After falling more than 400 points this morning, the Dow rebounded in the last three hours of trading, closing up 552 points, making it the third best single-session point gain in history. (Both the S&P and Nasdaq were up more than 6 percent.) Don't let the momentary boost get your hopes up: The outlook is still pretty bleak, as the hedge fund kings who turned up on Capitol Hill today made clear. And there's always the stream of layoffs to remind us. Dow Jones said today it plans to lay off an unspecified number of employees, the law firm of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe let 40 lawyers go, National Geographic cut staff, Entertainment Weekly dismissed 25 staffers, and one in ten employees at Morgan Stanley were given notice today. Any good news? Not really. But Dick Fuld didn't seem too depressed when he was spotted buying some yogurt and granola for breakfast this morning, if that's any consolation.

License to Kill? Yet another delicious dish to add to the all-you-can-eat James Bond Minutiae Buffet: 5 Bond Girls Who Died After Wearing A Bikini. "[O]ut of 11 Bond girls who had 'bikini moments,'" we've learned, "five died before the end of the film. That’s 45 percent, making the wearing of a two-piece bathing suit in the company of James Bond just about the most dangerous activity a woman could engage in anywhere on the planet at any time in history." Not so fast! They could always work with Alan Ball. [Spout Blog]

As we hear they're having lay offs right now, we're a little reluctant to kick Entertainment Weekly when it's down. But, meh, what the hell. Why is the magazine so ridiculously gung-ho about Twilight? You know Twilight, it's that book series and soon-to-be movie about a cloudy young woman named Bella and the irritatingly chaste relationship she has with a chiseled demigod of a vampire named Edward. Sure it's set a good deal of teen girl and sad lady shut-in poonani afire, but srsly EW? They've had some 50 mentions of the books or the movie in the past six months, including two, count 'em two!, splashy sexy covers.

Intel changed its Q4 forecast from 3 percent growth to a 12 percent slump, with profitability likewise down. Forrester CEO George Colony personally blogged three reasons not to worry:

More bad news today for the law firm of Kirkland & Ellis. After suffering the embarassment of having senior partner Fred Tanne's STD test results laid bare for all to see earlier this week, employees were informed today that Tropicana orange juice, cereal, and yogurt has been cut from the firm's free breakfast menu. We'll assume the change has more to do with budget cuts and less to do with an aversion to sharing orange juice containers with a guy who has herpes, but we'll leave that up to you to decide. [Above the Law]

· Showtime and Stan Lee are indeed developing a drama about the life of a gay superhero, as Hero author Perry Moore hinted back in May. And he just happens to be gay, OK? He's not, like, Poppers Boy or Wonder Trannie. [Variety] · Michael Moore is shifting the scope of his next movie from foreign affairs to the U.S. economy, allowing him to return to the struggling backroads of Roger & Me's Flint, where he's shocked to find the "Rabbits: Pets or Meat" lady has expanded her roadside stand into HARECO—the world's largest bunny-distributing conglomerate. [THR] · Meryl Streep will star in a movie based on Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World. Finally! A cat movie from grownups! [Variety] After the jump: Which new dad is going to wish they never even heard the name David O. Russell in a matter of months?· ABC won the night with the Three Hours of Country Music Industry Auto-Fellation You'll Never Get Back Again Awards. [Variety] · Matthew McConaughey's life is about to be made a living hell by director David O. Russell in The Grackle, about a "barroom fighter in New Orleans who hires himself out for $250 to settle disputes." He then dispatches a couple of walleyed Malibu surfers to beat the shit out of the warring parties. [Variety]

Months of sex with pop crooner John Mayer is enough to kill anyone's sense of humor, but Jennifer Aniston appears to have survived it tolerably if her 30 Rock guest spot is any indication. In tonight's episode Aniston plays an old friend of Liz Lemon who becomes an extremely clingy accessory to Alec Baldwin's Jack Donaghy. Of course, we can't help but connect the cameo with the real life Vogue cover story where Aniston lashed out at Angelina's poor manners. Since there's been some extremely unsourced talk about Aniston joining the series as a regular, so now is the time to figure out from these three hot preview clips if Desperate Jen is funnier as a character than she is in real life.This W photoset showed us what life is probably like in the Pitt-Jolie household, but we never got to be a fly on the wall in the early days. This month's Vogue cover story featuring Aniston takes us as far back as the beginnings of Brad's affair: "I felt those details were a little inappropriate to discuss. That stuff about how she couldn’t wait to get to work every day? That was really uncool." Amazingly in the same interview she relates her feelings about whining and complaining, with Vogue providing the emphasis: