There are sketchy reports that Maj. Nidal Hasan tried to contact "people associated with Al Qaeda," and some are calling Ft. Hood "the largest single terror act in America since 9/11" — something both terrorists and wingnuts wish were true.

Sure, about 450 Time Warner magazine workers will soon be jobless, but times are also tough for company executives: They just can't sell their company-sponsored private jets, and must continue to possess the posh mini-airliners. Such a bummer.

This morning, we published e-mails between New York Times reporters and Eliot Spitzer's flacks. Some commenters have suggested the post demonstrates a lack of familiarity with "journalism." Actually, we contacted the Times reporters for response, and a funny thing happened.

Blogger Michael Yon—one of the few people to break the New York Times' news blackout over the kidnapping of reporter David Rohde in Afghanistan—reports via Twitter that former CIA operatives paid a ransom to secure Rohde's release.

Peter Braunstein is a convicted rapist and certified psycho with serious mental problems. But he's so tabloid-y! What's his latest crazy celebrity obsession, for the public to point and laugh about? Inside Edition knows!

Newsday is going to start charging for its awful website. One columnist there quit over it. The New York Times says it will make a decision on charging for its (good) website "within weeks." Then what happens?

The hard part about covering a baseball event called the "World Series," which is 106 years old? Finding new angles. Hey, here's one from the WSJ: Find a town halfway between Philly and NYC—who do they root for?!? Sounds...familiar.

For proof that Silicon Valley is home to an especially clubby concentration of wealth, just take a short walk down a stretch of Palo Alto road. The one where Facebook's young paper billionaire lives next to a young YouTube millionaire.

Glenn Beck's public image as a grandiose paranoid ex-drunk is so unshakable that now he's hoping his publicist Matthew Hiltzik's good reputation will rub off on him: He's got such a nice flack, he can't really be a monster, right?

John Koblin got his hands on the New York Times' employee buyout offers—which handily include a breakdown of the numbers of employees in every one of the paper's departments. Behold something massive beyond reason!

Nearly a month after Roman Polanski was jailed in Switzerland, the U.S. has filed a formal demand for extradition so he can face sentencing for charges of unlawful sex with a minor. Litigation over the request could take six months.

When the Bernie Madoff scandal broke, New York Mets fans were momentarily terrified because the team's owners had huge accounts with Madoff's firm. Turns out that was the Mets' best investment. Hey-o!

So, that horrifying sweat lodge where Oprah-endorsed guru James Arthur Ray may or may not have inadvertently killed three people? NYT has some new eye witness reports, and they're as scary, icky, and infuriatingly New-Agey as you thought.

Carol Bartz has "come down with something," Yahoo's chief financial officer tells Wall Street, so the CEO was absent from a third-quarter earnings call. Whoops: Profits tripled this quarter, but Bartz's illness is a ready-made metaphor for Yahoo's falling revenue.

Maziar Bahari, the Canadian-Iranian Newsweek reporter who has been detained in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison since his arrest while covering the nation's post-election uprising in June, has arrived safely in London in time for the birth of his first child.

Billionaire businessman Raj Rajaratnam is out on bail, so he stopped by Galleon Group, the hedge fund he founded in 1997, to give a pep talk to the staff. Things aren't going so well over there!

We hear Wired had its own round of editorial layoffs today. What's going on at Conde Nast? A very bad Monday. In a very bad month. Let's review:

The Way We Live Now: In a new way. Which is not to imply it's a worse way. It's just new, and different. Corporate America hasn't been doing so well. They need...a "new deal," if you will.

In Part Two of New York Times reporter David Rohde's account of his captivity by the Taliban, we learn two things: 1) The Taliban lies, and 2) it seems like the New York Times' public relations professionals lie, too.

Bernie Madoff is the financial criminal of the past. Billionaire hedge fund chief Raj Rajaratnam is the financial criminal of the moment! Slick back your hair, watch Wall Street, and forget Ponzi schemes—insider trading is back, big time!