“This is not just unloading AOL for us,” a source close to Time Warner told Kara Swisher. “It is also an important strategic move for our future to get this right.” I love the way anonymous sources lie so convincingly. The truth, Swisher blogs, is both simpler and more boring: Yahoo and AOL don't really like each other. Neither company holds much attraction for the other. Important strategic move means an arranged marriage, forced on both sides by dwindling market value. Which reminds me: We should plot the number of Google engineers whose pending marriages have been "temporarily rescheduled for 2009."

REMEMBER ME? is the New York Times bestseller from the author of Confessions of a Shopaholic. Lexi Smart woke up with the perfect life, but no memory of how she got there. “A delicious page-turner, filled with both hearty chuckles and heartache.”—USA Today. CHECK OUT AN EXCERPT AND ENTER TO WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK. Send a note to contests@gawker.com with "Remember Me" in the title and enter to win a copy of the book. The usual rules apply.Chapter 1 of "Remember Me?"

In its story today on the rise of mall-based tattoo parlors like Tattoo Nation, the WSJ said that Tattoo Nation "has bought Inked magazine to be a larger part of the tattoo culture." Inked's Jason Buhrmester emails us to clarify: "We are actually published by Don Hellinger, the owner of Nylon and Nylon Guys. We want nothing to do with Tattoo Nation and begrudge it for wasting valuable space that could be filled with a tasty Orange Julius." The more you know.

Everybody knows what happened to the third iteration of "pop and politics and pop culture and scandal and pop" Radar last Friday: they fired everyone, locked them out of their offices, folded the magazine, and sold off the website to AMI (home of Star and other quality publications.) The website is now a reanimated carcass of its old self, picked clean by corporate carrion. The new ed is David Perel of the National Enquirer, and he already let it be known that the website is "hiring now." So what are these anonymous blogbots churning out for Zombie Radar?For now, some of the new items are bylined as the mysterious "FI staff." Posts since the takeover include heroin king Frank Lucas's lawsuit, the alleged non-promotion of new Sean Penn movie about Harvey Milk, the delay in the Harry Potter movie, something about a James Bond movie, the gossip about married rock star Bono hanging out with a girl, and the death of the hairdresser for seminal porn movie Deep Throat. We're noticing a theme: is it movies, along with the run-of-the-mill celeb gossip that can be found anywhere else on the web? Writing style: one-sentence paras with lots of exclamation points! Kind of like Perez Hilton! Or Page Six, if it was written by monkeys! Maybe we're wrong though. Maybe Zombie Radar is actually meant to be a parody of a gossip site. Or a comment on the state of gossip-blogging today. If so, it's the most sophisticated take we've seen. Best headline yet: "Somebody's Lion about Siegfried and Roy!" Anyway, we're sure they're very busy! As AMI chairman David Pecker said, "If it's on your radar, it's on Radar Online, and if it's not on your radar, we'll put it there." We're not so sure we want him to put it there. It's like watching an old friend get mauled to death by vampirezombies, and all you can do is watch.

From Us Weekly.

Surely, Hollywood has entered a brand-new golden age of male objectification, whether it's the display of Jason Segel's flaccid member in Forgetting Sarah Marshall or Billy Crudup's irradiated super-schlong in Watchmen. Now, in an interview with USA Today about the Da Vinci Code sequel, Angels & Demons, producer Brian Grazer announces that the 52-year-old Tom Hanks will be the next male actor to bare (almost) all. While the scantily-clad Hanks won't be going full frontal (gotta keep that PG-13 rating!), Grazer promises the next best thing:

I understand it's still Tough Times, Tough Decisions month. But a layoff at TechCrunch would have been better than a post by TechCrunch's leader criticizing the site's commenters. It's a slow news morning here, too, so I'll reblog the best entry, No. 3:

Hos Before Pubes. Whore-pampering hip-hop phenomenon T.I. appeared on The Tyra Banks Show today, where he was pressed by the fierce-eyed Amazonian couch dweller about his arrest last year for attempting to purchase machine guns and silencers in an Atlanta parking lot—a crime for which he's looking at a sentence of up to one year in prison. He also, for some inexplicable reason, answered honestly about when he lost his virginity. Said T.I.: “I’m embarrassed, 11, I’m sorry...If it makes it any better we had two kids together later on.” While the fact that he'll be a great-grandfather at age 38 does cut some of the sting, we still wish he had waited until he had grown out of his Mighty Morphin Power Ranger Underoos to give away that special part of himself. [Tyra]

Months ago, Michelle Obama was considered a scary liability. She was an aggrieved angry Black Woman, and America, oddly, is terrified of black women. The original code was "sarcastic." It meant castrating. Threatening! (Well, actually it just meant "sarcastic," but the people who parse these sorts of things read into it all their own weird baggage.) And here she is, a couple months later, our probable next First Lady, on Jay Leno, talking about her all-J. Crew outfit in a subtle (but not sarcastic!) dig at Ms. Genuine Real American herself, Sarah Palin. How did she manage the image reversal? Just kinda by being a slightly nicer version of herself! We all remember in February, when Michelle Obama accidentally revealed that she wasn't very proud of America. This led Mickey Kaus to lead the Charge of the Idiotic Racially Charged Language Brigade, declaring that Michelle's "default position is set to 'Aggrieved'" and further claiming, once again, that she belittled and castrated her weak husband by occasionally joking about him snoring. (Seriously, these people are insane.) But the "proud" remark cemented an early reputation for being a liability to the campaign, and led to Michelle facing some of the weirdest and most damning whisper campaigns of the election. She is on tape ranting about "whitey." She called up an imaginary African news agency to deliver an utterly insane rant about her many racist enemies. And, you know, she eats Iranian caviar. But gradually, the media discovered that voters liked Michelle Obama. Well-meant concerns about how threatening and scary she was were unfounded—she was comfortable on The View, on Ellen, even on The Daily Show. And while she's being careful with her words on these shows, barely talking politics at all, and acting, for lack of a better word, safe, there's not really any evidence that she's ever been a dangerous aggressive fire-breathing radical. (Angela Davis and Sistah Souljah are apparently the only Black Women most pundits know.) And so, like the "Obama is a Socialist Radical 1960s Terrorist" smear fails because it just doesn't square with the reality of his demeanor, words, and actions, the "Michelle Obama is an Angry Black Woman" story doesn't really line up with her good-natured demeanor, obvious loving relationship with her husband, and devotion to her amazingly adorable kids. Now, Michelle Obama is safe enough to pal around with Leno, the blandest man on TV, and safe enough to address swing states. Progress! New to Campaigning, but No Longer a Novice [NYT] Related Reading: Who Are Black People, And Why Are They So Angry? Terror At Michelle Obama Doing "God Knows What" In the White House

"A space-age structure that could be the greenest office building of all time." "A living building that has no carbon footprint." That's the spin. So is this: Google spokespeople are telling reporters that plans are on hold. Charleston East, site of Google's planned superplex, used to be a parking lot for Mountain View's Shoreline Amphitheater, just up the road from Google's main campus Now the lot is idle, pending a bunch of paperwork by the city. But here's the truth: The building was planned when Google was growing by more than 100 employees per week worldwide. Last quarter, it added 500 Googlers to its ranks — about 40 a week. That's why Google has shuttered a café. There's green, and then there's green. Eric Schmidt, America's CTO, is not thinking about the tree-hugging kind right now.

James Kurisunkal is the boy wonder behind Park Avenue Peerage, the blog that breathlessly catalogs life in the 10021 social bubble. If you keep up with the Upper East Side hierarchy and you've ever wondered how Kurisunkal (pictured here with the Tinz) interacts with the young ladies he showers with attention, a look at the lengthy email correspondence between James and embattled novelist/socialite Tatiana Boncompagni may enlighten you. The email was forwarded to us as evidence that Tatiana has been passing herself off as the daughter of an Italian princess. More interesting, though, is how Kurisunkal asks Tatiana to change a reference in her novel from "Park Avenue Peerage" to "Fashion Week Daily" (the passage in question is describing a website that gets fed items by publicists), how the PAP founder says he holds his "website to a higher standard [than] Vogue [and] W," and just how much leverage you can get from sending James big boxes of cookies on a regular basis. Also? He's no fan of Anisha Lakhani and Kristian Laliberte, in case you're keeping track at home. The full email below.

Good. Lord. How embarrassing. Backstory: This is the 60th anniversary of Ogilvy, one of the world's largest ad agencies. Their offices were given a budget to create a tribute to beloved founder David Ogilvy. This is what the Athens office created. Problems: It's a ballad. It's extremely earnest. In English, "David" does not in fact rhyme with "Avid." We could go on. And on. This, uh, music video has been floating around for a few days, but it is very important that you watch it—if only to reaffirm your belief in the supremacy of American songwriting over the loathsome Greek balladeers:

On The Hills, Lauren Conrad can usually end an awkward situation by staring into the middle distance as the Black-Eyed Peas take us to commercial, but on last night's Late Show, she had to simply sit there and take it as David Letterman suggested an alternate take on all the friend drama Conrad's been through. "Maybe you're the problem," he said.Letterman then launched into a story about his own realization that he was a destructive "idiot," a story that prompted the well-compensated reality novelist opposite him to complain, "Does that make me an idiot, though?" Watch it, Dave — Lo may be back in the green room sucking on her dinner Jolly Rancher, but she's not afraid to defend Mama Bear. Fight!

Credit Suisse is laying off another 500 people, adding to the 1,565 people who were canned earlier this year. [Bloomberg]

Former hedge fund manager Sam Israel sure has a talent for putting off the inevitable. The former financier faked his own death to avoid jail time back in June, then got a judge to postpone his sentencing twice so he could get treatment for his addiction to methadone in August and September. Now a judge has delayed his sentencing yet again so he can undergo a 90-day medical evaluation in North Carolina. His next court date isn't scheduled until February 2009. [Bloomberg via Dealbreaker]

With the hearts of tens of millions teenage girls wrapped around their fingers like a 24-karat white gold ring inscribed "Bros before harlots - John 8:17," recording industry phenomenon the Jonas Brothers are now looking to conquer other facets of the entertainment realm. Their last movie, a Disney Channel original called Camp Rock, was a ratings bonanza for the network. Now, their leap to the big screen has finally arrived, in the form of a searing drama exploring the emotionally destructive toll canine flatulence can take on a family. Variety reports:

♦ The battle over Project Runway rages on: Harvey Weinstein is now claiming that Bravo intentionally undermined the success of Season 5 by changing the show's airtime, running "mundane and unappealing" ads, and "revealing spoilers about future episodes." [THR]
♦ Barack Obama will appear on The Daily Show tomorrow night. [AP]
♦ The New York Times is not running out of money, say execs at the paper. [NYO]
♦ MSNBC moved into second place in the primetime cable news race, beating CNN for the month of October. [THR]

The neverending battle between Bravo and the Weinstein Company continues. We crowed about this particular bit a few months ago, and now Harvey Weinstein, whose company produces the series, is jumping on the bandwagon: didn't it seem like Bravo totally tried to sabotage the latest season of Project Runway? The claim is that, having sour grapes over Weinstein's decision to air the show on Lifetime for the sixth season, Bravo decided to bury the fifth season of the fashion design competition show with poor promotion. Weinstein has filed a counterclaim to Bravo's lawsuit to get the show off of Lifetime, stating that the network ran nothing but "mundane and unappealing" ads for the the season, and that they provided news outlets with little compelling information in the lead up to the premiere. All of which seems sort of true. Except, maybe it didn't matter anyway. The show had its highest ratings ever this season! The show averaged close to 4 million viewers per episode, which is a lot for a conspicuously gay fashion show on basic cable. We agree, Harve, that the promos were lacking, but so was the season. Maybe the Bravo marketing people just couldn't find a damn thing worth touting. There really weren't any interesting contestants, challenges, or designs. It was just a rehash muddle of seasons past. Or maybe they did consciously sabotage, but if so, it certainly didn't work. Given that the show actually did perform well, we (and NBC Universal, which own Bravo) just don't think that there's a case here. But if for some reason Weinstein does win his 'unspecified damages,' we think we should get a cut of it. Because we said this months ago! Months! Though, ruh roh, it looks like Harvey could really use the money. We'll just a take a small amount, we promise.

Dolphin-like Olympic champ Michael Phelps is like that dude in the poem who has come to two roads that diverge in the woods. Except Michael Phelps has far more money at stake than that guy. Now that Phelps has won the races and gripped the strippers, his full-time job is endorsing products in return for sweet cash, the nectar of life. Even his mom is in on it! But Phelps is already screwing up. Now is when you determine whether you're the next Tiger Woods or the next [obscure swimmer], Mike. We're here to help, for a small cut. Micheal Phelps' current endorsements include Speedo, Visa, Kellogg's, AT&T, Rosetta Stone, PureSport Beverages. The first would be better if it was Nike or Adidas. The last two are crap niche products that will bring down Phelps' brand value. The middle three are okay (although Wheaties would have been preferable to Corn Pops). What Phelps has to realize is that there are only two paths for athlete endorsers to take: the Nerd path, personified by Tiger Woods, or the Badass path, personified by Ray Lewis. It's simple, really. Can a middle-aged white businessman imagine hanging out with you for a day, and maybe making friends? Then you're a Nerd. Tiger is the uber-nerd, and he's made it work to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Do you think Tiger motherfucking Woods drives a Buick? No, old people drive Buicks. But Tiger is nonthreatening enough that old people can imagine him plausibly driving one to their cocktail party, and then hitting a few putts in the putting green in their den. Pals. Ray Lewis is a superstar linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens. He was on the cover of Madden 2005. He's also been indicted on murder charges. He will end you. Do you think Ray Lewis is going to come over to your apartment and sit on your couch and play Madden with you and offer you a high five and drink your Capri Sun in a spirit of friendly sportsmanship? No. You fear Ray Lewis, and that is why he's an effective endorser. This is a spectrum, but everyone falls on one side or the other. Michael Jordan is at the friendly end of Badass. Donovan McNabb is at the cooler end of Nerd. Michael Phelps has placed himself squarely on the nerd track. The question is, is that the way to go. Look, Phelps: you're young. You're going to be a tabloid star. You don't want to be Tiger Woods, a cold-blooded machine with an icy, beautiful wife, a billion bucks in the bank, and a Buick in the driveway. You want to be the Jordan of swimming: towering and inapproachable in the pool, and a relaxed, smiling cigar-smoker out of it, surrounded by women as you play craps with money that Cuba Gooding Jr. gave you for the privilege of wearing your underwear. So lose the Speedo and the Rosetta Stone. Take up with Adidas and some Italian airline that will buy you your own villa. Keep up the aggressive grip. Grow rich and prosper. Send us 2%. [I know you're actually a nerd, Mike. It's irrelevant.]

With its star's $42 million worth of opening-weekend muscle and the all-important Kevin Bacon blessing behind it, Zac Efron and his Footloose remake are leaping to the front of the development queue at Paramount. The updating of the studio's 1984 high-school dance melodrama, which has been idle at the studio for years without that singular, Bacon-esque talent to guide it to market, now has a rewrite on the way, new songs in the works and one heartthrob to rule them all — for a price, notes Variety.Efron could pull in mid-seven figures for Footloose — by far his biggest payday to date — in addition to script approval for the story of Ren McCormack, a surly city kid whose relocation to a Midwest hellhole where dancing is banned ignites a particularly well-choreographed civil-disobedience streak. Dirty Dancing's Kenny Ortega is attached to direct while Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist director Peter Sollett is polishing the screenplay. All of which are secondary details, we know, to the burning questions of what will survive from Bacon's star-making original. The soundtrack will reportedly retain hits including "Let's Hear it for the Boy" and "Holding Out For a Hero," but more importantly, what arrhythmic schlub will replace the late Chris Penn in the first song's requisite dance-instruction montage? And does Efron have the brooding edge to own the latter tune's cutthroat, tractor-centric game of chicken? The End of Ideas jury is still out on this one, but if Efron vetoes the bleacher make-out session to "Almost Paradise," expect trouble. The guy has to get to second base eventually.