L. Ron Hubbard's army of elves (some of you might know them by their proper name, Scientologists) had to work their tiny hands to the bone, but their seasonal tribute to their leader is up again on Hollywood Boulevard. The reader who sent us these camera-phone shots raised an interesting question while pondering the Scientology Santa in the center of this cheery tableau, who was patiently waiting for photo-ops with passing tykes: "What kid is going to be out on Hollywood Blvd. at 10 p.m. in the pouring rain?" The kind that loves Christmas, silly!

· Dick Clark suffers a stroke, imperiling America's ability to remain at the top of the New Years Rockin' industry. OR, Somewhere, a portrait in Dick Clark's attic suddenly got 30 years younger.
· Angelina Jolie and Colin Farrell used to play the cutest game on the set of Alexander. And by cute we mean "involving his penis nearly being yanked off by Jolie." But not a sexual kind of yanking, mind you.
· How could anyone want to sue the man who put the words "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age" into his mouth?
· Hollywood's cults should all chip in for a gigantic fruit basket thanking Mischa Barton for not being a joiner.
· To paraphrase a reader, "Soon to be starring Tim Allen."

As if the Olsen Twins don't already scare the living shit out of you, we've heard a rumor that Mary-Kate and Ashley are in talks to get an adult movie career going by starring in the American remake of the Korean horror flick A Tale of Two Sisters. We think a documentary of their lives at NYU (Oh my God, they're going to THE DINING HALL ON CHILI NIGHT! and Hey, isn't that guy Ash is sucking face with, like, 40 years old?!? etc etc) would've more than filled the public quota for Olsen-related terror, but we'd never try and tell the little chipmunks how to use their summer vacation.

· Excuse us if we get momentarily giddy, but Jackie Treehorn is reading from his his memoir at Book Soup. Logjammin'!
· We have it on very good authority that even the relatively demented website for Rachel Arieff’s Discotown at the Ramada Inn does not do the show justice. Also, there's no cover charge tonight, and our soft spot for free entertainment is well-documented.
· Shows That May or May Not be of Interest to You, Based on Your Taste in Music: KCRW Gimme Shelter Acoustic Benefit at the Roxy, featuring Jason Mraz, The Like, Rooney, The Speechwriters, et al; The Dears with Robbers on High Street at the Troubadour; Muse at the Wiltern.

Last night, we cut the rusty chains that bind us to this computer to attend the Celebrity Dodgeball Tournament at the Palladium, a benefit for the Elizabeth Glazer Pediatric AIDS Foundation (and sponsored by Fox to celebrate yesterday's DVD release of their promotionally-convenient film concerning red balls and the triumph of the underdog).

Just in case anyone is still arguing about the authenticity of the "scans" of Lindsay Lohan's "lost" driver's license and black AmEx card that were circulating yesterday, an update: One anonymous reader ran the driver's license number and found that it's about as real as Lohan's...let's just say it didn't check out and be done with this nastiness, shall we? Another concerned citizen informed us that one of the black AmEx's most endearing features is that the cardholder's name isn't printed on it.* Obviously, we wouldn't know anything about that; we've always found the plain, green model to be perfectly adequate for being cut up at drinking establishments all over town. We now return you to your everyday, non-Lohan-related activities.

A funny thing happened while we were checking on director Bryan Singer's supposed profile on the Australian gay personals site Gaydar: It disappeared! Luckily, we were able to stitch it back together from some screen-captures (click the picture to see it). We may never know if it's a prank profile or if Singer was conducting due diligence on his social possibilities while he shoots Superman in Sydney, but we've heard he's already Down Under doing some preproduction work.

Puppet-porn pimping sister site Fleshbot alerts us to the appearance of Team America's much ballyhooed, deleted sex scene, the Holy Grail of marionette-fucking that we've been desperate to see ever since the MPAA made Trey Parker and Matt Stone cut it to earn an R rating. Unfortunately, the rumored "puppet golden shower" continues to be lost to history, but there's plenty of anatomically incorrect, salad-tossing action to keep you occupied until the DVD release. Enjoy, and no worries: No one's going to judge you if you tie some strings around your limbs and take some alone time. (Different strokes for different folks, and all that.)

· Adorably creepy child-actor-of-the-moment Dakota Fanning will star in a Paramount/Nickelodeon Pictures adaptation of Charlotte's Web. We once again applaud her handlers' savvy in keeping her busy before she boards the train to Osmentville. [THR]
· Tom Hanks's Playtone Productions sets up reality show/mockumentary We're With The Band at Comedy Central, a show so confoundingly genre-busting that it seems designed solely to circumvent the rules of every professional guild in town. Also, it stars Alanis Morrissette, probably just to piss off the INS. [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Vol. XXI: 20th Century Fox Television forces us to remember Maury Povich's salad days by resurrecting "seminal" news magazine show A Current Affair. [THR]
· Stunt casting alert! Zach Braff talks pal Colin Farrell into doing a turn on Scrubs, where he'll play against type as an "unruly Irishman" who "shows up drunk to the set every day" and "shows his penis to everyone in a ten-foot radius" before "vomiting on a gurney." [Variety]
· News That Ten People Care About: The WGA West will re-edit a controversial roundtable discussion about the Guild's problems with an eye on publishing it in Written By, their in-house magazine. Also, Dan Petrie, Jr. is fighting a ticket he got for double-parking on Fairfax. [THR]

In an industry obsessed with constant dick-measuring, we're not sure that Kinsey's attempt to make awards voters confront the truth about themselves is the best way to gain votes. If they really wanted to improve their chances, the ruler would start at nine inches.

Desperate for the kind of star-power that would inject new life into The Hollywood Trial of the Century and cloud the minds of the media, lawyers called Oscar-winning actor Sidney Poitier, a Disney director at the time of Michael Ovitz's hiring, to deliver a soliloquy about his life (and, time permitting, to defend the company's brief employment of the former superagent).

At the risk of turning this space into a Brunch with the Brainwashed, we note that the Kabbalah Centre is ponying up for a set of $2 million houses in Beverly Hills for the Berg family, the organization's Chief Bringers of the Light. We've expended a lot of words on skepticism about the Centre and its apparent profiteering, but in this case we'd like to express our admiration for their restraint. These are pretty modest digs for cult leaders. With all of the money they're bringing in, the Bergs could've gone for a David Geffen-style pleasuredome, with fifteen gold hot tubs, an Olympic-sized pool filled with magic, healing Kabbalah water, and a dinner bell that summons Madonna for an impromptu medley of her greatest hits. Join us in applauding their Beverly Hills asceticism.

There's no clearer indication that your cult's influence is on the wane than when its merchandise winds up in the bargain bin at your local mall's potpourri-and-sweater-set emporium. We've seen this before, when we came across a basket full of "I Brake for L.Ron" trucker hats at Urban Outfitters two Christmases ago.

· Tea Leoni beats the crap out of Adam Sandler during a sex scene in Spanglish. Just like the famous Heath and Jake lovebrawl, but without the chaps and spurs!
· The sage and magical Julia Roberts cures the bloated John Travolta of a troubling night-urination problem. [via goldenfiddle]
· Oh, those crazy Brits and their celebrity worship! [via Towleroad]
· For a company that's always laying people off, Miramax sure does a lot of hiring.
· Yesterday, we noted an amusing discussion of Colin Farrell's penis. Today, creepily knothole-obsessed sister site Fleshbot minds the stepchildren.

· Watch your favorite (or semi-favorite) celebrities taking some balls to the face...for charity! The Celebrity Dodgeball Tournament at the Palladium tonight raises money for the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
· Iron and Wine keeps it mellow with music perfect for today’s cloudy day at the Avalon, while every hipster in your life is sure to flock to see the super-hyped The Arcade Fire at Spaceland.
· The Bourne Supremacy screens at the ArcLight, and producer Frank Marshall will stick around to answer all of your questions about how he managed to turn Matt Damon into an action star.

The Hollywood Reporter has released its annual "Women in Entertainment Power 100" list, an event that momentarily sates the industry's appetite for numerical rankings of influence while subtly reinforcing Hollywood's cherished glass ceiling. In THR's estimation, 2005's most powerful lady is Anne Sweeney, an executive who's come a long way, baby, from a Good Morning America page to co-chairman (ahem, chairwoman, THR?) of Disney Media Networks. Congratulations, Anne, etc etc. We're getting a little misty for the old days, when our girl would bring us a pipin' hot cup o' joe as we read Variety's "Top Ten Dames from the MGM Typing Pool We'd Like To Bang in 1943."

Some little animated birdies told us that Disney and Pixar are about to announce that they're pushing back Cars, the last movie in their current deal, from the 2005 holiday season to the summer of 2006. Said birdies also note the movie's production will still be wrapped in time for the original release. Are the Pixar folks simply tired of taking all of the holiday animation dollars, and are looking for a season where they can vacuum up even more box office cash before marching their DVD armies through at Christmastime? Is Disney stalling to prolong their association with the Pixar money machine? Has Michael Eisner worked a secret side deal with Steve Jobs to digitize him into a Disney mainframe so that he can control the Mickey Mouse Empire FOREVER, unless he's erased by a ragtag team of hackers, moments before he engineers a massive crash at Space Mountain? We really hope the press release addresses that last question. We've already lost interest in the Cars story.

Last night, some of Hollywood's brightest stars showed up at the L.A. Free Clinic to show their support for maintaining our town's amazing diversity of STDs. OK, they didn't go to the actual Free Clinic at all (celebrities get house calls for their private health matters, then kill the doctors to make sure their gonorrhea stays a secret, silly). Instead, they turned out for a charity dinner at the Regent Beverly Wilshire to benefit the Clinic and honor NBC head Kevin Reilly. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no way to introduce our operative's report of the gala without mentioning that no free clinic event could be complete without a visit from Paris Hilton.

A spy spots an actor we haven't heard from in a while cruising the Hustler store on Sunset "for the first time." Come on, Mr. Dreyfuss, we're all adults here. There's no reason to be ashamed because you wanted to impress your companion with your knowledge of Jenna Jameson's oeuvre or your exquisite taste in rubber lingerie.

· Scott Rudin takes a break from his extremely busy schedule of hiring, torturing, and firing assistants to produce an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men for Paramount. He may even have to postpone at least three of his weekly lashing sessions until the project's casting phase. [THR]
· Studios shuffle end-of-year release dates, killing time during the holiday season under the guise of "awards positioning" and "Christmas openings." [Variety, sub. req'd.]
· Julianne Moore is in negotiations to star opposite Nicolas Cage, currently the Biggest Star in the World, in yet another Phillip K. Dick adaptation, Next. [Variety]
· "Breaking news": Kanye West nominated for shitload of Grammys. [THR]
· Snarkster comedian Michael Ian Black loses out to Craig Ferguson (say it with us now: "Who the fuck is that?") in the sweepstakes to host CBS's Late Late Show. We think they made up the name "Craig Ferguson" just so Craig Kilborn can sneak back on the air without losing face. [THR]