♦ Now that she doesn't have Guy Ritchie to boss around, Madonna is finding more time to control everyone else: She's supposedly been "begging" Gwyneth Paltrow to leave her London home so they can spend more time together in New York. She's also busy orchestrating a reunion between Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears: All three will be performing together at Madge's concert in LA tonight. [The Sun, E!]
♦ Padma Lakshmi is apparently on a "man-search" for a filthy rich boyfriend now that her flings with Ted Forstmann and Russell Simmons are over. [P6]
♦ Now that the election is over, Tina Fey says she will be officially retiring her Sarah Palin impression. [Extra]

♦ The Bank of England slashed its key interest rate to 3 percent. And it may go even lower. [Marketwatch]
♦ The short list for Treasury Secretary: Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, Paul Volcker, and Bob Rubin. [WSJ]
♦ Steve Schwarzman's Blackstone Group reported a $502.5 million loss for the third quarter. [DB]
♦ More chatter about falling bonuses: One study says the drop could be 20 and 35 percent on average with a 70 percent fall-off for some top execs. [NYT]

After calling Fox News Channel to task for its Barack Obama coverage, the Daily Show's Jon Stewart asked Fox host Chris Wallace if the network might need to change its stripes under the incoming Democratic administration. Actually no, Wallace said, because Obama, like all presidents, will inevitably screw up, and skeptical coverage will be rewarded. "Let me just say," Wallace added, "I worry about you. That William Ayers joke bombed. This crowd is not ready." He had a point.

"Good red wine, ice cold vodka and ibuprofen for my aching joints." [WowOWow]

People tend to write off the Times Thursday Style section as frivolous and surreal. But today it exposed an unjust annoyance inflicted mercilessly on the entitled rich: fashion magazines showing clothing with prices available "upon request," when in fact that very clothing cannot be purchased at all, because it doesn't exist as a product! Vogue, for example, strongly implied one could buy a Roberto Cavalli goat-fur coat with a bit of shopping, but that was terrible lie. The Times' investigative journalism:

Sarah Palin famously claimed she had "absolutely no diva in me," but former McCain aides did their best to demolish that assertion in a super-juicy Thursday Times story. Among their embittered, anonymous and still entirely plausible claims: They budgeted the Republican vice presidential nominee around $25,000 for clothes and were shocked at her $150,000 shopping spree; Palin wrote a concession speech that she desperately wanted to deliver Tuesday night; and she never told McCain about a call she thought she had scheduled with the president of France (really a DJ prank). Now they're talking about sending lawyers to audit her family's closets and just generally trying to destroy her chances of running for anything anywhere, ever. Here's what they told the Times about Palin's clothes shopping:

Were you aware that Fox News Channel sometimes fails "to question... anonymous, and quite absurd, claims?" Or that the right-leaning cable news network sometimes inflates implausible narratives by deciding on a "thematic link" in advance and searching for footage to fit that storyline? Yes, for several years now? Well then you're several steps ahead of conservative blogs like the A-List Ace of Spades or Michelle Malkin's startup Hot Air, which all of a sudden are none too happy with Fox News for claiming Sarah Palin doesn't know that Africa is a continent. Welcome to the last gasps of what Hillary Clinton called the "vast right-wing conspiracy!"

Failure may be an orphan, but McCain campaign veterans seem to be doing their best to pin blame for defeat on their MAVERICK VP choice Sarah Palin. Fox News Channel political correspondent Carl Cameron today disclosed the first of what he predicts will be an "avalanche" of unflattering stories about the Republican vice presidential nominee: Off-the-record tips from McCain aides that Palin did not know Africa was a continent or the constituent countries in the NAFTA treaty. He later told Bill O'Reilly Palin didn't know the constituent nations of North America, either. More damning, from a campaign perspective?

· We think it was Sterling Cooper's resident alpha-lioness Joan Holloway who once said, "Sometimes when people get what they want they realize how limited their goals were." Good thing Christina Hendricks saw beyond Everclear videos. [Thanks, Videogum!] · You know what? We're really starting to open our minds to the many useful applications of that CNN hologram machine thingy. · Paul Rudd admits his manhood is a rhombus. So's ours! · Universal Soldier 3 is a go, and Jean-Claude Van Damme has committed. He's just not sure if its a theatrical, home video, or Straight to Flopz™ release. · Cursebird is a "realtime feed of people swearing on Twitter." So fucking check it out, fuck!

Having already dodged one crotch-burning close call this week, Robert Downey Jr. wasn't about to set himself up for another one for the sadists at MTV. In an interview this afternoon, the Iron Man star hewed close to the Marvel party line when asked about the expulsion of co-star Terrence Howard from geek Eden in favor of an allegedly less-difficult Don Cheadle:

I feel sorry for Courtney Holt. Partly because the MTV executive is rumored to be taking a terrible job running MySpace Music, a feature of the social network masquerading as a separate company. But mostly because of his name. In a previous article, I was enough of a bonehead to refer to Holt as "she." Trying to do my part to promote the role of women in the tech industry, okay?

A source within Clarium Capital, Facebook investor Peter Thiel's multibillion-dollar hedge fund, claims that Thiel has just donated $1 million to NumbersUSA, the largest anti-immigration group in the U.S. Another source denies that Thiel made the donation — but Rob Morrow, a principal at Clarium and close Thiel associate, has backed the group with a small donation of $1,000 or less. NumbersUSA likes to position itself as an "immigration reduction" organization; it seeks to roll back legal immigration limits to pre-1965 levels. Morrow's support of the cause is inevitably embarrassing for Thiel.That's because Thiel, who practically makes a fetish of finding the best talent wherever he can, has benefitted from immigration personally. He was born in Germany, and his tech fortunes are due in large part to the genius of Ukrainian-born programmer Max Levchin, his cofounder at PayPal who is now CEO of Slide. But Morrow is unlikely to suffer any consequences from his support of the cause. A right-wing intellectual and financial analyst, Morrow, too, has made a lot of money for Thiel. Much of Clarium's breathtaking performance over the years stems from his prescient thinking on the decline of the dollar and the mortgage bubble.

Here's a warning to anyone who voted to strip gay Californians of their rights to wed, and 18,000 already-married same-sex couples of their licenses: You don't want to see a ticked-off Mr. Defamer. His eyebrow arches even higher than usual, and he's been known to accidentally fumble that intern-monitored mug of 140 degree chai latte into a nearby face. We, meanwhile, are busily polishing our pitchforks and stocking up on 99 Cents Only-brand torches for tonight's Prop 8 protest rally (7 p.m. on San Vicente Blvd between West Hollywood Park and the Pacific Design Center). After the jump: Could an earlier Milk release have made the difference?L.A. county has already suspended the issuance of marriage licenses and civil marriage ceremonies for gay couples, saying in a statement "based on the Secretary of State's Semi-Official canvass results from Election Night and the California State Constitutional provision that states '(a) proposed amendment or revision shall be submitted to the electors and if approved by a majority of votes thereon takes effect the day after the election.'" The war, however, has already begun. Multiple legal challenges have been filed to subvert the measure—including one from high-volume feminist firebrand Gloria Allred on behalf of Couple Zero, Robin Tyler and Diane Olsen—arguing that this vote amounts to nothing more than an illegal constitutional revision. In Contention, meanwhile, asks a very good—if difficult to hear—question regarding Milk. The movie itself is about the legendary SF board supervisor's crusade against 1978's Prop 6, which would have banned gays from teaching positions. The parallels are impossible to ignore. Couldn't an earlier release of Gus Van Sant's film have pushed public opinion in this incredibly narrow vote onto the No side?

Sarah Palin is the gift that keeps on giving. This evening Fox News shared a few more incriminating details about the Alaska governor, little anecdotes from inside the McCain camp that Fox says it couldn't release up until now because they were off-the-record. So how bad is it? It's bad. Check out the video for the full rundown. The best bit: Palin wasn't aware that Africa was a continent, not a country.

Tired of endless campaigns for higher office? Sorry! California's 2010 race for governor is right around the corner. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman hasn't formally entered the race, but she's already busy making gaffes and working on her Web presence. Her reps are pursuing trademark claims against Thomas Hall, a domain-name squatter who registered whitmanforgovernor.com, meg2010.com, and others. Hall told the Sacramento Bee he felt strong-armed when contacted by Whitman's lawyers, and refused to sell. The Whitman camp is now spending $30,000 or more to recover the domain names through an arbitration process set up by the World Intellectual Property Organization. Any doubts she's running for governor?

Sure, Seth Rogen used to be heavier and hairier, but you shouldn't take that to mean he had no luck with women. While divulging his diet secrets to his Zack and Miri director Kevin Smith for Myspace's "Artist on Artist" series, Rogen rebutted the oft-heard critique that he's far too schlubby to pull Heigls and Bankses in real life. "I dated girls who were way hotter and outside of my range, always!" he protests, decrying the skinny minnies who would take their sexual frustrations out on his on-screen persona. Duly noted, Seth — let's just hope that extra girth you're losing doesn't hide Samson-esque powers. [Myspace]

Funny because it's vile: TheronNaso observed, after learning that MySpace celebrity Tila Tequila was dating Mac spokeshipster Justin Long, that "the Mac's long history of avoiding mainstream viruses has come to an end."

Celebrity chef Thomas Keller will not deign to acknowledge the existence of Yelp. But the New York Times has. While individual writeups on the user-written restaurant-reviews site may be goofy, biased, or contrafactual, on the whole they give potential diners a good idea of what to expect. And they are vastly more prolific than the pros: Megan Cress, a Yelper, has written 300 restaurant reviews in three years. Times critics take twice as long. We wonder: Did the editors think the beancounters who are eyeing the Times's dwindling cash balance wouldn't read this article? (Illustration by John Hersey/New York Times)

We've had an early glimpse at the joys to come later this week on The Tyra Banks Show, where the host will spend Friday with birthday girl Miley Cyrus and family at yet another Miley fête hosted by Disney. Beyond the nuggets of insight into Miley's poo-scrubbing child-labor days ("I worked at this place called Sparkles Cleaning Service and I cleaned houses, I was like 11. ... I can clean toilet bowls”), however, the true revelations begin when Tyra corners Billy Ray Cyrus into a discussion of "Miley Day" — a tradition of parental indulgence during which, says Cyrus, "whatever she said she wanted to do that day we was gonna do it, no matter what it was…" We'll let Billy Ray take it from there in the accompanying video; let it suffice to say they'll never again be allowed to sit beside each other in church. [Tyra Banks Show]

CNN's cheesy hologram stunt for election night got star power from hip-hop artist Will.i.am, whose 3D image was beamed into CNN's studios for an interview with anchor Anderson Cooper. Will.i.am. compared it to Star Wars; Cooper corrected him, saying it was more like Star Trek. But anyone who remembers Princess Leia's holographic plea for help in star Wars knows Will.i.am had his sci-fi references straight. Can you think of a better caption? Leave it in the comments. The best one will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: theodp, for suggesting Google CEO Eric Schmidt was thinking, "With my $1 salary, I'll be getting a tax cut!"