• Rupert Murdoch may soon have a new neighbor: The 13th floor two-bedroom co-op located directly below his penthouse at 834 Fifth Avenue is expected to hit the market shortly with a price tag of around $30 million. [NYO]
• Diandra De Morrell Douglas, the ex-wife of Michael Douglas, has closed on the sale of her townhouse on East 71st Street for $9.38 million, two months after it was first reported that she'd gone into contract on the property. [Cityfile]
• William Taft V, the great-great-grandson of President Taft, and his wife Begum, have paid $2.6 million for a 14th-floor apartment at 255 East 74th Street. [Cityfile]

Hardball host (and potential political candidate) Chris Matthews is turning 63 today. Model/designer Milla Jovovich is turning 33. Peter Briger, the beleaguered president of Fortress Investment Group, is 45. Actor Eugene Levy turns 62. Giovanni Ribisi is 34. R.E.M. bassist Mike Mills is 50. And Penthouse founder Bob Guccione is turning 78.

• Rudy Giuliani is reportedly in negotiations to take over Bill O'Reilly's syndicated radio show when he steps down early next year. Whether Rudy could handle sitting still for three hours a day and what effect this would have on his rumored plans to run for office, remain unclear. [P6]
• Jennifer Aniston is "bizarrely obsessed" with Angelina Jolie, says OK! The proof: She wore a dress that was "almost an exact copy" of something Angie once wore, and she can't stop talking about the couple to friends. [OK!]
• Madonna now says the financial details her publicist Liz Rosenberg released last week concerning her divorce settlement with Guy Ritchie were "misleading and inaccurate." [People, Mirror]
• Anderson Cooper was supposedly spotted shopping for sweaters with a "young Frenchman" at Barneys Co-Op. Wait, what happened to Julio? [P6]

Did you know that superstar chef Daniel Boulud is tangentially connected to Bernie Madoff? Not really, but according to Bloomberg, Boulud did contribute a recipe to the 1996 cookbook that Ruth Madoff co-edited, The Great Chefs of America Cook Kosher. (One of Wolfgang Puck's recipes is included as well.) You can pick up a used copy of the cookbook on Amazon.com for $14.95 if you want to sample some of the Madoff family's favorite dishes in your own home. Or you can buy a new copy for $40, with sales of the book going to "benefit the Jewish National Fund." Ha!

• The SEC admitted last night that it failed to follow up on repeated warnings over the years to investigate Bernie Madoff's firm and says it plans to conduct an internal investigation; it also is looking into the relationship between Eric Swanson, a former lawyer at the agency, and Shana Madoff, a niece of Bernie, who later got married. [WSJ, NYT, ABC]
• A look at Walter M. Noel, the founder of the Fairfax Greenwich Group and the middle-man who handed over $7.5 billion to Madoff's firm. [NYT]
• More on Bernie's lifestyle, including his fondness for manicures, steak dinners at the Palm, and trips aboard his boat named Bull. [Bloomberg]
• Morgan Stanley reported a fourth quarter loss of $2.29 billion. [WSJ, CNN]
• To cut costs, Citigroup has announced that it plans to combine its corporate and investment banking businesses. [DB, Dealbreaker]

You didn't think Eliot Spitzer's year could get much worse, did you? Well, it just did. The former governor has admitted that his family also had money invested with Bernie Madoff. [NPR]

• Anna Wintour has earned a spot on Time's "Top 10 Fashion Faux Pas" list. Congrats! [Time]
• Zac Posen is shelving his plan to launch a secondary line "in light of current economic conditions." [WWD]
• Add Betsey Johnson to the list of designers skipping Fashion Week in February. [WSJ]
• Vera Wang isn't cancelling her show; she's moving it from the tents to her Mercer Street store to "convey a more intimate mood." [WWD]
• Miu Miu has "quietly" shuttered its uptown boutique at 831 Madison Avenue. [FWD]
• A list of the top 10 clothing-related crises in history. [VF]
• More Americans say they're planning to make their own Christmas presents this year as opposed to purchase them. Bad news for retailers, good news for those of you hoping for a knitted cell-phone cover. [Reuters]

Poor Elisabeth Hasselbeck. After stepping up to the podium at the Republican National Convention and then hitting the campaign trail to stump for John McCain and Sarah Palin, how does the White House repay her for her valuable service? By denying her an invite to the annual White House Christmas party! Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she's never bothered to register as a Republican? [NYP]

Early reports about the performance of the Manhattan real estate market during the fourth quarter aren't very encouraging. According to a new report, "evidence is mounting that not only have Manhattan housing prices slipped, they have done so by around 20 percent, which is a much more precipitous plunge than expected." [Real Deal]

• Ryan Sutton offers up his list of the year's best meals and deals. [Bloomberg]
• Archipelago, which shut down last week, is now planning a relaunch. [Eater]
• The EV pizza place Artichoke Basille is looking to open 5 new locations. [NYP]
• Billy's Bakery in Chelsea has a satellite store in the works. [GS]
• NYC's spiciest cocktails, if you're into that sort of thing. [Metromix]
• A long list of Christmas Day dining options around town. [Zagat]

What do Bernie Madoff and Tony Soprano have in common (besides their fondness for lives of crime)? It turns out that Bernie's son, Andrew Madoff, sold his previous apartment on East 66th Street to none other than Sopranos creator David Chase in 2005. Ominous foreshadowing? Complete coincidence? We have no idea, but this does suggest who the front-runner is when the time comes to turn the tawdry Madoff family tale into a film or movie of the week. (And if Tony Sirico can shed the Italian accent and trade in the polyester outfit for a suit from Syms, he may have the looks to play Bernie.) The official record of the sale is below.

You thought Governor Paterson's proposed tax on non-diet drinks was silly? It gets better. As part of his new $121 billion budget, Paterson is also proposing an "iPod tax," which would assess state and local sales taxes on "digitally delivered entertainment services." [NYDN]

Just the news you were waiting for: The Aura, Motorola's brand new $2,000 cell phone, went on sale today. Three tungsten-carbon-carbide-coated main gears! A scratch-resistant, 62-carat, grade 1 sapphire crystal display! Say no more! [NYT]

For the past few days we've been hearing about the long list of charities that lost millions in Bernie Madoff's elaborate Ponzi scheme. But what about Madoff's own charitable contributions? Although he's been widely described as a prominent donor to various Jewish causes, Madoff hasn't been giving away bundles of cash for some time now. In 2007, the Madoff Family Foundation, which listed $19 million in assets at the end of the year, reported handing out $95,000 over the course of the year, down more than 90 percent from the year before when the foundation gave away $1.2 million. Perhaps he had an inkling the end was near and decided to hold on to as much cash as possible?

• The bloodletting at CBS is underway. [THR]
• Macmillan Publishing and FSG are both trimming staff. [AP, NYO]
• Ad spending for the first nine months of this year fell 1.7 percent. [WWD]
• Katie Couric, Campbell Brown, and Rachel Maddow will appear in the next issue of Vogue. [TVN]
• Sean Hannity's Alan Colmes-less show begins January 12th. [NYT]
• The Disney Channel is taking its act to Russia next year. [NYT]
• The most amusing corrections published this year. [Regret the Error]

Now you can own a souvenir from the biggest financial fraud in history: A Bernard Madoff Investment Securities fleece is up for sale on Ebay for $255. Not recommended attire for services at your local synagogue, obviously. [Ebay via Dealbreaker]

We hope you're satisfied, Nora Ephron: Because of romantic comedies, people have unrealistic and unhealthy expectations of their own love lives, according to a new study. Films like Sleepless in Seattle and Serendipity promote the idea of a perfect love that's fated to happen, in contrast to real life, where apparently the universe doesn't conspire to bring two wholesome and lovelorn individuals together after a variety of amusing mishaps culminating in a run through the rain/car chase to the airport. "If you think that's how things are," says Dr. Bjarne Holmes, who led the study, "you are setting yourself up to be disappointed." Although not quite as disappointed, perhaps, as the teenage Twilight fans destined never to find a boyfriend who can fly and live forever.

It's not just Wall Street bankers, newspaper reporters and auto workers feeling the effects of the financial crisis. Take the Bin Laden family, for example. "The super-rich Saudi Arabian family of the world's most famous terrorist is feeling the pinch of the staggering economy, and has seen their fortune shrink by $1.3 billion over the past year." [Luxist]

According to a new study, 48 percent of women and 30 percent of men said they prefer the Internet to sex. (The 2,000 people questioned were asked which one they'd rather give up for a two week period.) You might want to take the findings with a grain of salt: The research was commissioned by Intel. [NYDN]

During these hard times, when everything is in flux and no one seems to know what's next, it's nice to know we can rely on the media to take a measured, responsible approach to reporting on the economic crisis. Oh, haven't you heard? Our diminished spending capacity is causing society to dissolve into a maelstrom of crime, violence, drug use and mental illness, so if you're not panicking yet, well, now might be the time to start.