Bill Cosby is back in the news! And as cranky as ever. The Atlantic has a loooooong think piece about Cosby by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who incidentally is one of the only tolerable writers about hip hop ever to work outside of the music press. Coates runs down Cosby's whole history, and his transformation from the friendly black face popular with black and white Americans alike to a latter-day Booker T. Washington whose gruff dismissal of things like, you know, racism, rubs a lot of people the wrong way. But the key lesson of the story: whatever you do, don't ask Bill Cosby about Obama!

Oprah is scary. There's no denying it. She essentially runs the foremost happy cult in America, surpassing even Martha Stewart at her pre-prison height of popularity. So it's not odd, we guess, that her devotees want to buy all types of tchotchkes with her menacing "O" logo stamped on them like a gang sign for suburban women. But is it really necessary to orgasmically revel in the sweat-stained experience of wearing her old clothes?

"Troubled Hollywood starlet Lindsay Lohan is planning to appear naked in an low-budget film in an effort to revive her flailing career, it has been claimed." That's called a sex tape, right? Whoa, hi-yo! So anyways. [Daily Mail]

The newsmaking Christie's auction featuring the nude photo of French first lady Carla Bruni is coming up tomorrow. But she's not the only draw! The extensive photo collection has lots of other iconic pop culture shots, including the original photo of that famous Janet Jackson Rolling Stone cover (pictured). It also includes artistic nudes of stars like Kate Moss, Lauren Hutton, and Naomi Campbell, spanning four decades. You can see the whole collection here [via UD]. After the jump, one sample: a 1999 Irving Penn portrait of supermodel and Tom Brady girlfriend Gisele Bundchen [NSFW], which can be yours for as little as $30,000:

Isn't it crazy that the BIGGEST MYSTERY OF OUR TIME—whether or not hip hop/ R&B royalty Jay-Z and Beyonce actually got married last week—hasn't been officially solved yet? On Friday you guys were sending us all those tips about the crowd around Jay-Z's building for a rumored wedding, but we still don't have confirmation! The onstage yammerings of Mary J. Blige about the "wedding" are just not as good as a publicist's statement. And today the Daily News shows Jay-Z with no wedding ring on! What are all those so-called journalists doing these days? Elsewhere, gossip types say Beyonce is pregnant already. That would mean they had sex! We demand the national media drop everything and confirm this story, even if it means drawing every last reporter out of Iraq and stationing them throughout the Marcy Projects. Priorities, people.

Moby, the beep-boop musician who unfortunately can't stop talking about himself, speaks to Salon today in that very particularly grating way that only Moby can. His formula, I'm figuring out, is to vigorously agree with every insult you throw his way, then go off on tangents about how, hey, he's not like all the other yuppies who act exactly how he acts, because of his revolutionary sympathies against our white male-dominated society. Then, speak much too openly about his own sexuality and personal problems. He follows this pattern today, reminiscing that "When I was DJing in the late '80s, more often than not I'd be the only white person in the club, and I found that strangely comforting." You'll surely have that gay minority child one day, Moby! So, please tell us more than we want to know about your sex life now!

Hey, so yes, you, you, and you, and also you, have noticed that there's a bunch of paparazzi and police and all that down on Hudson and Canal. That means Jay-Z and Beyonce are getting married right now! Or at least that's the rumor. Maybe he's just giving some sort of charity concert, did anybody even think of that? Well if you're down there, go sneak in for us and send a full report. [NY Mag, pic from Joe the tipster]

An interesting intellectual exercise: in the absence of new content, how can you keep churning out thousands of words on "Sex And The City" in order to exploit every last bit of misguided interest in the HBO series about four fabulous friends in New York before the movie comes out, giving you another free faux-news hook to exploit for months more? The New York Daily News knows how: by re-imagining the series today. Still a bunch of rich 30-something women or whatever, with one key difference. Now, they would live in the outer boroughs. Revolution!

George Clooney has jokes. His latest celebrity-based antics: a swarm of paparazzi descended upon his house in Italy after a (false) rumor spread that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were going to be getting married there. Clooney, who was away working, heard about this, and ordered 15 large wedding tables to be set up on the house's lawn. The paps went crazy [Hollyscoop]! Clooney laughed. He's a funny guy. But there's more to this than just a friendly joke. Because George Clooney, one of the biggest celebrities in the world, doesn't just want to make himself chuckle; he wants to undermine the entire celebrity economy that gives him his lofty position in the first place.

The MGM Grand is rushing to fill in what Las Vegas has been lacking: a massive poolside nightclub that is a thinly veiled destination for celebrities to do coke and have semi-public sex. More specifically, it's "WET REPUBLIC," and it's Vegas' first "ULTRA POOL," and "water is the leitmotif." "Swanky"! Enjoy its "sultry lounge" and "sensuous South Beach ambiance" and "delicious atmosphere" and "massages by skilled therapists" and "seductively modern vibe" and "illusion of a never-ending flow of water." And while you're doing that, the VIPs will be upstairs getting naked in their cabanas with six groupies and a big pile of blow, without having to physically swivel their chairs.

Hey, everybody: Reluctantly heterosexual digital sampler Moby will be appearing LIVE at the Virgin Megastore in Union Square tomorrow to sign copies of his new CD! The flier instructs you to "purchase a copy of Last Night to receive a wristband to meet MOBY." Or, just hang around on the street outside with a cup of tea, talking loudly about how your gay children are going to be starring in a car commercial that could really use a good ambient soundtrack, and watch him come to you.

John Mayer: some of us believe the crappy emo singer and blogger should take his guitar and go play in traffic; others believe he is hot, and therefore not that bad. But one thing we can all agree on is that he should not be a sports announcer. The evidence? This minute-long clip of him, for some reason, announcing a preseason baseball game in Tokyo. Which makes about as much sense as him supporting Ron Paul. Below, the video of Mayer's analysis of all sports occurrences: "Aaaaand, that happened!"

In the UK, entertainment reporters have a reputation for being tough and heartless when it comes to reporting on celebrities. But you have to give them this: They're also horny sleazebags. At least one is. His name is Rob Grainge, and he works for the London Paper. Now that French first lady Carla Bruni is getting so much press for her tour of England and other endeavors, the London Paper is trying to get some renewed interest in Grainge's interview with Bruni last year, when she was still a simple model and celebrity. And it is interesting, as a case study in a reporter being unable to control his metaphorical boner while interviewing a pretty woman.

Respectable publication Maxim has a list of the ten sexiest vegetarians, with predictable picks like Joss Stone, Pamela Anderson, and Natalie Portman. Missing from the list: famous vegetarian George Bernard Shaw. Who could be sexier than George Bernard Shaw? [Maxim]

Semi-sane octogenarian gossip Liz Smith is really feeling her oat bran now that she's cranking out columns for the aged women's site WowOWow.com. In her latest effort, she tackles the issue of our time: the rumors of Nicole Kidman's breast augmentation. And she speaks without fear or favor:

Moby, the bald purveyor of computer music who is Amy Winehouse's anti-drug, will not stop speaking out on or against any and all things. Now, he is reassuring the gay community that, although he didn't have the luck to be born gay, he does hope that his kids will be [Advocate]. What does the hairless downtown master of background tunes like so much about the gays? "They have nice homes, bars, and restaurants." Ok then!

Good god, ScarJo is not the only one. Zooey Deschanel, the HIP young "Almost Famous" actress (ha), has just released an album with M. Ward under the name "She & Him." Distressingly, it has already been called "one of the flat-out best pop records of the year" [VSL]. What shall we expect next, a Juliette Lewis duet with Joshua Redman for "best jazz combo of the year?" Chloe Sevigny teaming up with Smuckers to create the "best jam of the year?" It's all very disconcerting. Of course, no pop album will ever surpass Zooey's most famous musical work: her duets with Will Ferrell in "Elf." Stay in your lane, Hollywood! Highlight clips of her elfish singing, which we can only hope will thwart her musical ambitions, below.

Uncut magazine in the UK got an advance listen to the new and unnecessary Scarlett Johansson album of Tom Waits cover songs, "Anywhere I Lay My Head." According to the scattered preview, ScarJo sounds at various times like Marianne Faithfull, Liz Frazer, Marilyn Monroe, and Joy Division [Uncut]. So there's that. They do point out the asinine spectacle of 24-year-old ScarJo crooning "I Don't Want To Grow Up." You're not, yet, so stop singing about it! The question about this album remains: why must it exist? Certainly not because the blonde it-girl actress is poised to improve on the music of Waits, America's coolest living man. Could it be...the promo photos? It must be the promo photos. After the jump, the plump-lipped ScarJo's recently released contemplative pictures for the album—she enjoys sitting and gazing into the distance, you'll see—along with some of Tom Waits, for comparison's sake.

Moby, the purposely bald and nerdy musician frequently seen wandering the Lower East Side in search of commercials to score, is warning his brethren in the music industry about the dangers of drugs. "I look at Pete Doherty and Amy Winehouse, I wonder what they're going to be capable of when they're 30, in terms of cognitive and emotional abilities. Drugs burn you out," says the diminutive drum programmer, who knows too much about teabags. "You feel bulletproof if you're selling records and making money and everyone wants to sleep with you, but then things start to go wrong." In other news, somebody once wanted to sleep with Moby. [ohnotheydidnt]

"Taking care of twins is tiresome. Jennifer Lopez is reportedly reviving her beauty with fish eggs." "Oprah Winfrey and Barbara Walters are reversing the effects of aging with the help of baby boys - and their foreskin." "The uterine lining that's normally discarded postdelivery is in demand by Eva Longoria Parker." [NYDN]