When NBC Universal poached executive producers from TV fashion competition Project Runway in May, we wrote the move would "enable [NBC's] Bravo to create something very similar to Runway," which producer Harvey Weinstein was in the midst of moving to Lifetime. That seems to be precisely what has happened, per a Bravo casting call on Craigslist for "talented designers where the winner will win a large cash prize." The likes of Weinstein are none too happy that NBC is moving ahead with a copycat show while the Weinstein Company is enjoined by court order from doing anything with Runway. Poor Harvey is going to get clobbered! Says Page Six:

♦ Lydia Hearst, seen here attending a party last week, doesn't think her family's publishing company should be hosting parties these days. "It's time to work through this crisis, not party through it," she says. [P6]
♦ How are Madonna and Guy Ritchie coping with their split? Madonna has supposedly enrolled in anger management classes at the Kabbalah Center, while Guy has been out with Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law. [The Sun, People]
♦ Elisabeth Hasselbeck is introducing Sarah Palin at a rally in Florida this weekend. [ET]
♦ A month after vacationing together in St. Tropez, Jennifer Lopez has asked Benny Medina to come back on as her manager. [Fox411]

Barack Obama speaks in Spanish in a new campaign commercial. And he has a pretty good accent, too. The video after the jump.

After Moody's threatened to downgrade the New York Times Company's debt to junk status Thursday, Standard & Poors went ahead and actually made such a move, bringing to reality a development foretold fully two months ago by Bloomberg. The Times Company is only now considering reducing its outsized dividend to shareholders, including most prominently to the Sulzberger family that controls the company. Having failed one test, involving credit, the Sulzbergers now face another, involving their hold on arguably the most important journalism franchise in the country.

♦ This could get messy: Asian and European markets were mauled on Friday, pointing to another monumental beating for the U.S. market today. [MW]
♦ A recap of Alan Greenspan's humiliating day in front of members of a congressional panel yesterday. [NYT, NYP]
♦ One of the very few people who is having an exceptional year: John Paulson, whose three funds are up between 15 and 25 percent. [WSJ]

Shocker. No, wait, the other thing. [Times]

Returning alumni Will Ferrell (as George W. Bush) and Tina Fey turned last night's Thursday edition of Saturday Night Live into a veritable class reunion, but one other notable name returned behind the scenes: Ferrell's frequent collaborator Adam McKay. Little over a month ago, McKay (Step Brothers, Anchorman) lit up the left with a sky-is-falling Huffington Post blog entitled "We're Gonna Frickin' Lose This Thing," but to judge from the opening sketch he co-wrote, he now finds the Republican ticket about as threatening as a Jackie Mason PSA. The clip, after the jump:Click to view

Face it, Sarah Palin is now a fixture among the East Coast elite whether she wins or loses Nov. 4. The Republican vice presidential nominee has lodged herself like some kind of tumor in the media psyche. Saturday Night Live is quite lucratively obsessed with her, as are newspapers, magazines, websites, the list goes on basically forever. And now, says the Hollywood Reporter, "producers and agents across the entertainment world" want her to star in a daytime talk show, news program or reality TV series, at least in between her attempts to rule the free world.

[Update: The attack was made-up!] The Smoking Gun found the Twitter stream of the John McCain campaign volunteer who reported being attacked by a Barack Obama supporter earlier tonight. The volunteer, Ashley Todd, was blogging just before and after the incident, and her Twitter posts were available to the public up until a few hours ago, when she set them to private. That's probably prudent: a presidential campaign trying to peel working-class voters away from the Democrats probably doesn't want people getting the wrong idea about what it means when one of its volunteers calls Little Italy "the wrong side of Pittsburgh."

The White House press secretary hinted he would do it in May, and now Scott McClellan has finally pulled the trigger, telling CNN's D.L. Hughley "I will be voting for Barack Obama... I am going to support the candidate that has the best chance for changing the way Washington works and getting things done." This scenario looks familiar, and may presage more last-minute Obama endorsements to come.

· Sarah Palin ran for vice-president, and all the GOP got was a lousy $150,000 wardrobe bill. But judging by the evidence of what came before it, the investment might have been worth every penny. [via Radar] · Katy Perry's breasts are hard, white and going on the block for charity. · Danny Boyle's relatively tame Oscar-season favorite Slumdog Millionaire received a surprise R-rating from the MPAA. And the critics! Are! Outraged!!! · Speaking of critics, Time Magazine is trying the child-labor route with its High School Musical 3 review. · First Scott Rudin, now Mr. Blackwell: Was the late, list-keeping fashion tyrant's partner of 60 years pinkwashed out of his obit by the Associated Press?

Perhaps the recent rumors about editor-from-hell Bonnie Fuller helming celebrity weekly OK! were a clever way of ensuring a warm staff welcome for the real editor-in-chief and publisher, both set for announcement tomorrow. They are former Quick & Simple EIC Susan Toepfer and Niche Media senior VP Lori Burgess, respectively, the Post's Keith Kelly is reporting. Recently-installed general manager Kent Brownridge insisted his choice for editor "had never been Bonnie," but his passing on the pricey and profligate former Us Weekly chief is as good a sign as any that the economic meltdown will slam celebrity entertainment media as it has banking and real estate.

Shield your eyes, chubby-chasers, feeder-scenesters, and general bear aficionados. Everyone else: Behold, the new, lean n' mean Seth Rogen! The word "schlub" will barely enter your mind as you gaze upon the Zack & Miri Make a Porno star, who's whittled his trademark softserve physique—the one Katherine Heigl once lowered her standards enough to copulate with!—down to the shredded, peak physical specimen you see above. Sure, he tells us it's just for a superhero movie, and he hates every minute of his grueling training regimen. We're not buying it, however, as the satisfied smirks above suggest the kind of guy who keeps lifting his Nike Dri-FIT tanktop to admire some newly birthed abs in the reflection of an Athlete's Foot window. [Photo credit: WireImage at the Porno premiere, and Scream Awards (center)]

It was only a matter of time before the alleged psychotic gay bridezilla that is George Takei fired back at his one-time TV captain William Shatner, whose claims that Takei invited every living Star Trek alumnus but him to his wedding met stiff, Suluian resistance in an interview airing this evening on Entertainment Tonight. After the jump, hear all the honors, weddings, funerals and other events Shatner has shined on in apparently forsaking his chums from the Final Frontier. "We keep reaching out and reaching out," Takei says, "but he takes that and twists it and crumples it and turns it into something that's rather... ugly." Damn it, Jim! So can the relationship ever be mended? Yes, nods Takei, laying down terms we hope find the actors setting aside their differences at last — for the gays' sake, if not Shatner's own. (Be warned, their video is set to autoplay. It's psychotic, too!)Click to view

Click to viewBoomp3.com At the London Film Festival, W. star Josh Brolin was so excited to be in London that he wanted to shout it from the rooftops. However, Brolin opted to shout next to his co-stars Elizabeth Banks and Thandie Netwon. A raspy Brolin said, “Whooooaaaa! I love London and I love this movie!” [Photo Credit: Getty Images] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

· Thursday Night Musixplosion! Dar Williams plays the El Rey, Stereolab play the Henry Fonda Theater, Chiodis are at the Wiltern. · TASCHEN launches their ten-volume Art & Architecture series, collecting every issue of the seminal modernist magazine to come out between 1945 and 1954. The party is at their store on Beverly from 6 to 8 p.m. [via Flavorpill] · Sit 'n' Spin, the ongoing L.A. writers' series hosted by Jill Soloway, Maggie Rowe, and Jaclyn Lafer is at the Comedy Central Stage. Tonight's readers include: Spencer Green, Melinda Hill, Anthony D'Alessandro, Steve Soto, and David Bottrell.

Did you copy an existing popular website and sell it off to a big corporation too dumb to realize what's going on? Twice? Xochi Birch did, first with Ringo and then Bebo. Today's featured commenter, Antilles_Prime, explains the kudos she's earned:

Handbags and Gladrags: If the presidential election doesn't work out for Sarah Palin, Ricky Gervais thinks she has a future in television comedy. Comparing her to the role he played in the UK version of The Office, he says, "Sarah Palin is David Brent. She is! There's so much comedy value in watching her talk." Certainly, we can't think of an Office moment as awkward as that Katie Couric interview — but does that make John McCain her Gareth? In other news, Gervais is playing hard-to-get when it comes to the Oscars, which he has been tipped to host. "I don't think I'd get the freedom I needed," he told the BBC. Executive producer Bill Condon, if we even hear you so much as mention the words, "Howie Mandel"... [Yahoo]

We're not sure we buy Inc. magazine's cover math, any more than we believed BusinessWeek when that magazine told us Digg founder Kevin Rose was worth $60 million. But the cover is impressive. (As are Rose's biceps. Photoshop?) Your suggestions for captions are welcome in the comments; the best will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: DrewFinch, for "All your data are belong to us." (Photo by aprilini)

We can all but guarantee that 30 Rock will be highlighted here next week, but in the meantime, feast on messed up celebs of all shapes and sizes. WATCH The Office [9 PM, NBC] - Michael holds an auction to raise money to buy office supplies after the office is robbed. Meanwhile, Pam searches for a part-time job to help her pay for art school. We watched a bunch of episodes of the British version last night and despite our initial stubbornness, we have to concede that the U.S. version has moments where it is funnier than the original.