♦ André Leon Talley has joined the chorus of disapproval over Sarah Palin's wardrobe budget: "Wal-Mart hockey moms would never spend $150,000 on clothing." Then again, he's not so unhappy with what he's seen so far: "I thought that she was totally pro-Jackie in that knit suit." [The Cut]
♦ Meanwhile, that Louis Vuitton bag that Palin's daughter, Piper, was spotted with? It was quite likely a fake. [Fashionista]
♦ In tribute to Richard Blackwell, the UK Sun does its own worst-dressed list, honoring Rachel Zoe, Britney Spears, and Sharon Stone. [The Sun]
♦ The "luxury mall" in the basement of the Plaza has opened. [NYO]

Whoa. In 1968, someone wrote an article wondering "What Will Life Be Life in the Year 2008?" for Mechanix Illustrated. Now, its homage-blog has dug up the journalistic time capsule. There are many insane predictions, such as "modemixers," which contain a "launching pad from which 200-passenger rockets blast off for other continents." However, if by "self-maintaining homes" with "robots" to do the chores he meant "underpaying a recent immigrant in cash to clean your apartment"—then damn it, he was right.As 1968 imagined 2008, "the average work day is about four hours." Not yet, but Timothy Ferris did publish The Four-Hour Workweek, in which general phone-etiquette douchiness and outsourcing your work to others can result in the four-hour workload. WWTFD? (What Would Thomas Friedman Do?) But:

Why hasn't Google finished its acquisition of Begun, a Russian online-advertising startup? The country's antitrust authority has asked Google to provide lists of people who control the company. Or work there. Something may have been Jewish, and liberal, is no friend of the authoritarian state.

It's a stark reality of American politics that (gulp) most of the grainy election spoof videos that you find online are really terrible. Tired old jokes done unoriginally without any thought toward editing and seeing if your joke has been made five thousand times before. So it is a rare treat when you stumble upon a little gag clip skewering the presidential candidates (but, um, usually mostly John McCain—what's that thing about funny Conservatives, again?). Again, there aren't many, but there are a proud few. We've put five of our favorites (plus a little bonus!) after the jump. Feel free to add your own in the comments. Portrayal Of Obama As Snob Hailed As Step Forward For Blacks Trenchant and sad, like all the best 'Onion' pieces.

At long last, Fox Business is tackling the issue that's really been keeping us all up late these past few weeks: How is Popeye's Chicken holding up during these tough economic times? Good news! Al Copeland Jr., the man who controls Popeye's, says that the chain is doing just fine, not because a $3.99 bucket of greasy chicken is the only thing some people can afford right now, but because of its "chef-crafted food, made from scratch." Who knew?

When Elisabeth Hasselbeck wore a John McCain-boosting T-shirt on Tuesday's installment of The View, little did she know it would set off a 24-hour, Defamer-consuming chain reaction that would lead to booing, a now-notorious backstage conflict, and a through-the-looking-glass emergence of this humble blogspot as one of the show's Hot Topics (also, it introduced us to Sheetzucacapoopoo — thanks, Elisabeth!). Now, as Hasselbeck prepares to introduce vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin at two Florida rallies this weekend, one of our agents at The View informs us that the problematic T-shirt was the subject of a contentious ABC conference call today:

David Churbuck, the founder of Forbes.com (and sweaty prep-school wrestling partner of Fake Steve Jobs blogger turned boring Newsweek columnist Dan Lyons), has weighed in on the chaos enveloping his former employer, the investor-friendly, snarkier-than-thou business magazine. Churbuck, like many Forbes alumni, seems to know more of what's going on than its current employees. The publication, now backed by Silicon Valley investment house Elevation Partners, is colliding together its Web and print editorial teams, and the result could be nuclear, as editors and writers scramble for position in the new order. Churbuck observes that the split between print and online had its roots in a plan to spin off Forbes.com in an IPO during the go-go late '90s; even after plans for an IPO were scrapped, the division persisted. Now, Elevation is pushing to consolidate the staffs, Churbuck says. Separately, a tipster reports several personnel moves happening at Forbes. Are they coincidence, or a sign of people positioning their own careers for the coming upheaval? Hard to say.

Today we offer a new pair of videos as an addendum to our recent, authoritative list of Dos and Donts for Making the Perfect Celebrity PSA. First up: Absolutely DO coax Ron Howard and Henry Winkler into whatever outlandish pro-Obama Happy Days reprise they can stand, such as the one after the jump that premiered today at Funny or Die. And if Andy Griffith agrees to join Howard for a bewigged ride all the way back to Mayberry, all the better. However: DO NOT, under any circumstances, enlist Rhea Perlman, Valerie Harper and/or Garry Freaking Marshall as your elder voice of reason. Especially Marshall! This election is just too close — and Georgia Rule far too recent — to risk some new, William Ayers-like smear campaign this late in the game.Click to view

Oh professional media beef-starter Michael Wolff, is there any power to which you will not speak the truth, or at least some tough-sounding simulacrum thereof? No, there is not. News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch preemptively slammed Vanity Fair writer Wolff's upcoming biography of him, in a tone of indeterminate sincerity. Now Wolff has responded, telling the Observer that Rupert's just "a little embarrassed" about what he let slip, and what he calls are errors are really just "an internal political thing." That's much nicer than what he had to say about former New Yorker editor Tina Brown's new Daily Beast:

This is a chair. It's by Neptunes producer and N.E.R.D. Pharrell. It's on exhibit in a Paris gallery. Because the chair refers to... you know... sex, that makes it art. The seat is all velvety. [Oh No They Didn't]

Talk about adding insult to injury. As Jason Calacanis was sucking his thumb about the coming startup depression, Microsoft quietly launched a competitor to his intern-edited search engine, which has just gone through the layoffs Calacanis predicted for everyone else. Redmond's experimental entry into the market is called U Rank, an experiment in collaborative editing of search results. The sites aren't that similar in their approach to helping users find websites — but they are eerily similar in their flowery logos and pastel color schemes.

· Taylor Hackford is shopping around Love Ranch—a brothel drama starring wife Helen Mirren (oooh!) and Joe Pesci (ewww!)—to studios in search of a distribution partner. [Variety] · Javier Barden has signed on for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's new movie, Biutiful, a Spanish-language film about "a man embroiled in shady dealings who is confronted by a childhood friend." We smell cattle bolt fumes! [Variety] · Netflix, who we dumped since they decided to start charging more to rent Blu-ray (you hear us, Netflix? That's the reason. It wasn't us, it was you. Now stop e-mailing, because we found a new rental boyfriend) has hooked up with Samsung, whose new Blu-ray player is equipped to stream their movies. [Variety] After the jump: What director does DreamWorks have on tap to fill Chicago 7 with cameos by his friends?· DreamWorks's The Trial of the Chicago 7 is courting director suitors, having met most recently with Ben Stiller, who assured Steven Spielberg he'd only go quarter-retard in his portrayal of Abbie Hoffman. [THR] · Juan Carlos Gonzalez—who'd certainly adorn any Wheaties box celebrating the Neutral Olympics—looks to be the mediator brought in to oversee SAG-AMPTP talks. We're all but certain this will enliven the proceedings, as anyone who knows Gonzalez knows he can bring even the most bitter of enemies together through the power of mime. [THR]

From Hollywood-residing Drudge-buddy Andrew Breitbart's new HuffPo for Conservatives to this sad Hollywood Reporter story on how conservatives in Tinseltown are an oppressed minority, everyone's talking about Showbiz Republicans! They are terribly mistreated, you know, by evil monster liberals who run that town. Sometimes they are called names at dinner parties! And also they are apparently fired all the time for being Republicans! Then they all get together in secret organizations to drink and talk about how bad they have it. It's just like being gay in rural Wyoming, right? Ha ha, just kidding. It's more like being the one Yankee fan in a Boston bar, and you also felt the need to wear your Jeter jersey. Dude, you went to Boston and put on your Jeter jersey, of course you got shit for it! Here's prominent famous successful Hollywood Republican Kelsey Grammer talking about how dangerous and hard it is being a Hollywood Republican:

♦ Cain is re-opening tonight with a new look and a new name, Cain Luxe. [P6]
♦ The Chelsea club Citrine is opening tonight, too. [Eater]
♦ Le Cirque's chef, Christophe Bellanca, has parted ways with the Maccioni family. [Feedbag]
♦ A guide to the best ethnic bakeries in Manhattan. [NYT]
♦ Williamsburg's Kellogg's Diner reopens today. [GS]
♦ An early look at Supper Club, Bon Appetit's pop-up lunch spot that will be open through October 31st. [Eater]
♦ Katie Lee Joel defends her much-maligned, Burger Bash winning, patty melt. [YumSugar]

Imitation is the sincerest form of getting rich. MySpace got bought early, on the cheap; Facebook has yet to cash out. Michael and Xochi Birch's sale of Bebo, a social network more popular overseas than in the U.S., to AOL for $850 million has been the best social-network cashout to date. And how did they manage it? Shamelessly copying other sites, Xochi Birch admits to the BBC.Ringo, their first social site, was an unabashed copy of Friendster. The husband-and-wife team sold that off to Monster, the job-listings site, for a pittance — but a pittance that provided the seed funding for Bebo, which Xochi openly says was inspired by MySpace. Copy early, copy often, sell out. (Photo by Auren Hoffman)

If, like us, you have been furiously mainlining Sabor de Soledad thanks to the unconscionably long wait until 30 Rock's third season premiere, you're in luck: NBC has put the episode online in advance of its broadcast airing next week. For those of you who are still trapped at work and unable to spare a half-hour, we've excerpted one of the episode's funniest, earliest scenes: a confrontation between the deposed Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and closeted usurper Devin Banks (Will Arnett). We can promise you a lot of homoeroticism, but sadly, no anal sex. [NBC]

Michael Bloomberg has prevailed in his quest to run for the third term. By a vote of 29 to 22, the New York City Council voted to extend term limits a little while ago, overturning two voter referendums that had imposed a limit of two four-year terms. The vote wasn't without some excitement: After Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum announced the tally at 4:35 p.m., the balcony "erupted in shouts of 'The city's for sale!' and 'Shame on you!'" [NYT, NYDN, NYP]

[Performers in the new Cirque Du Soleil show 'Wintuk' during a sneak preview today at Madison Square Garden; image via Getty] Colonel Mustard's new line beats the original, American Racial Profiling Problem Deftly Explored By French Canadian Circus Performers.

Serial entrepreneur Bill Nguyen just relaunched Lala's music service in the middle of layoff mania. The new version — high audio quality, no DRM — is pretty good. But I have to ask: Why bother, Bill? This is Lala's fourth or fifth attempt at a business model. Nguyen could get funding for another boring enterprise wireless startup like Onebox or Seven tomorrow. Those things make money.I think I've outed Bill Nguyen's secret: In a Valley full of people who want to be Steve Jobs, he wants to be David Geffen — the maverick behind the scenes in the music business. Stoking the starmaker machinery behind the popular song! Too bad the truth is more like that other Joni Mitchell line: "I deal in dreamers, and telephone screamers." UPDATE: Bill replied after I hit Publish too soon. I'll just paste it in:

Greg Gutfeld, host of Red Eye, the 3 a.m. Fox News show you have never seen, wore out his faux-meathead wingnut schtick around the same time he stopped regularly doing crunches. He purposely poses as a wiseass ignorant bastard (which is fine!), so we're not upset that his latest column explores how Obama is like "a really hot chick." We just chalk it up to homoeroticism. But we have to object to his opening line, "So yesterday, during an ideas meeting..."; Greg, you know don't have "ideas" meetings.