As unlikely as it sounds, a recent international legal symposium in Canada's capital devolved into a philosophical debate over whether or not the star of a popular primetime Fox program had the right to employ cruel and inhumane torture tactics as a means to achieving a justifiable end—and the name Paula Abdul never once came up. No, visiting U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was actually defending the morally ambiguous actions of 24's Jack Bauer, who'd think nothing of turning his own brother's Pain-O-Meter to 11 if it meant stopping the needless obliteration of another Valencia. From The Globe and Mail:

Demonstrating once again that invoking the sacred phrase "Passion of the Christ money"
will help even the most committed of Hollywood heathens find God faster than a persecuted heiress marching towards her maximum-security Calvary Hill, Universal is contracting some Real Live Christians to help them sell Even Almighty, The Most Expensive Comedy Story Ever Told, to the "religious" audience. The LAT reports on how the studio plans to get arm-deep into America's church collection boxes:

A Defamer operative with a cameraphone's-eye-view of the Roosevelt, the site of demonschlonged funk-imp Prince's upcoming summer series of pricey, intimate dinner-jazz explorations, just sent in this blurry photo of some curious activity outside the hotel. Explains our correspondent:

It's time for one of those sporadic check-ins to see how Larry Birkhead and court-certified genetic property Dannielynn are faring. The two have been in L.A. for a little while now, where Birkhead has had the opportunity to introduce his baby daughter to some of Anna Nicole's favorite local haunts ("And that's the hamburger joint where your mom got tanked and sexed up a waitress!"). Amazingly, Birkhead already sees a lot of Anna Nicole in Dannielynn, beyond superficial similarities like the constant gurgling and need for an occasional bottle feeding:

· Obsessed with honoring the possible end of The Apprentice by building the Greatest Trump-Branded Reality TV Empire In The World, Donald Trump follows up the recent announcement of Fox project Trump's Tramps with one for his new Pageant Place at MTV, which will document the descent of various Trump-owned beauty contest winners into Trump-upsetting drug abuse and bisexuality. [Variety]
· Fox is reporting its best-ever upfront ad sales numbers. Thank you, American Idol, for making everyone forget about a pretty disastrous Fall season! [THR]
· This week on the not yet canceled On The Lot: 2.4 million confused viewers tune in to see Carrie Fisher get sassy with a cute contestant, watch a horror film about a crazed, unlicensed tree surgeon let loose in an orchard full of blooming victims, and wonder why producers reversed last week's decision to show more of host Adrianna Costa's cleavage. [Variety]
· Wayne Brady will host the Fox summer karaoke game show Don't Forget the Lyrics!, in which contestants are challenged to—wild guesses, anyone?—not forget the lyrics when their teleprompters go dark. [THR]
· Crass commercialism threatens to destroy the creatively pure world of fake YouTube video diary series LonelyGirl15. [Variety]

The Hurty Elbow blog bravely risks an immediate shutdown by Disney's lawyers (or worse) by exposing their Pixar division's incredibly valuable trade secrets on the internets; enjoy the next 35 seconds knowing that by the time you reach the end of their exposé, its creators may already be dead at the hands of a hitman who will go to the grave disavowing any connection to John Lasseter or Bob Iger. Also, be warned: The clip contains a spoiler that may ruin your upcoming viewing of Ratatouille.

W magazine profiles John Travolta in their current issue, naively noting how "at 53 [he] still has a good head of hair and wields his famous blue eyes to powerful effect." When the topic shifts to his upcoming turn as Hairspray's zaftig hausfrau Edna Turnblad, Travolta explains how he firmly told producers that he would only take on the gender-bending role if they promised to build him the kind of plus-size, womanly curves recently dubbed by the LAT as the "new look" of Hollywood:

Buried deep within an item about how Clinton-positive mogul Harvey Weinstein tried to make Michael Moore remove an anti-Hillary scene from Sicko is Weinstein's shocking—and you will be shocked!—admission of a secret affair with Endeavor superagent Ari Emanuel, whom we are contractually obligated to mention—even three years into the series' run—is at least partially the basis for Jeremy Piven's Emmy-winning Entourage character. Reports Rush & Molloy:

With the ongoing incarceration and/or rehabilitation of other wildly popular, troubled starlets hampering the dissemination of breaking news about their fluid intake, we turn to Us Weekly for up-to-the-minute information on what the last free member of the Lindsay/Paris/Britney troika has been drinking, courtesy of a club manager who doesn't believe in treating the consumption of a couple of cocktails by a famous person as a shameful secret:

The free bagels enjoyed each Wednesday by Innovative Artists' overworked, undercompensated, and recently uninsured assistants will be slathered with the delicious schmear of victory this morning, as Variety is reporting that agency president Scott Harris has recanted his belief that benefits were being wasted on his young, hearty workforce and reinstated their health coverage through COBRA. A staffer tells Var:

· Couldn't Hillary's clever campaign people at least have put Johnny Sack in a Members Only jacket? Was Chelsea too busy to ineptly parallel park a car? You lose your attention to detail, and the next thing you know, Obama's coming out of the restroom and popping you in the back of the head. [via Gawker]
· Another feather in the caps of Tom Cruise's baby-fabricating genetic engineers: field testing finally proves that Suri does not dissolve in seawater.
· This is really not the way you want to go.
· Dramatic chipmunk.
· Why can't that backstabber Rosie just strangle Hasselbeck to her face?

Diminutive, platform-heel-sporting rock genius Prince will indeed be bringing his traveling funk circus to Hollywood's Roosevelt Hotel. And as was initially hinted at when news of the residency first broke, dinner plus an audience with demonschlonged royalty will cost die hard fans an Amount Formerly Known As A Lot:

This just in from the Defamer Special Correspondent on Why A Reliably Fragrant Section of Hollywood Smells Even Worse Today:

Some exciting news for those among you disappointed at never having gotten a peek inside If I Did It, leisure enthusiast O.J. Simpson's disclaimer-heavy memoir outlining how one might, say, brutally stab one's wife and her friend to death outside a Brentwood condo, hypothetically speaking. TMZ.com has obtained a copy of the unpublished manuscript—rights for which were recently awarded by a federal bankruptcy judge to Ron Goldman's family—and republished excerpts. Among them, a paragraph in which a hazy Simpson assesses the post-double-homicidal-scuffle scene:

· Music round-up: Architecture in Helsinki at the Henry Fonda; The Remus Lupins at the Troubadour; Sinead O'Connor at the Silent Movie Theatre.
· Camp Freddy's Donovan Leitch and Billy Morrison host The Hilfiger Sessions show at Avalon, featuring Fiction Plane, Whitestarr, Emma Burgess, and others. Also: There's an hour of open bar, and that's probably enough to catch your attention.
· The New Beverly serves up a double-feature of 1977's Goliathon (featuring a huge ape) and 1975's equally cheesy-sounding Infra-Man (featuring a bionic superhero). Come on, it's not like you're going to stay home and watch On the Lot.

In a shocking interview airing later tonight, Guantanamo-quality Extra interrogator Jerry "Dr. Answers" Penacoli inserts a series of bamboo shoots underneath Hairspray star John Travolta's exquisitely manicured fingernails until the enigmatic actor comes clean about his controversial bedtime, unexpectedly admitting under the duress of Penacoli's punishing, Geneva Convention-violating techniques that he is, in fact, a vampire: "I fly sometimes at night. I catch up on all sorts of business I have to do...I do my work out at night."

PrivacyWatch celebrity sightings are submitted by our readers, and are posted several times a week, so them in often. Submit yours to tips[AT]defamer.com (please put "sighting" or "PrivacyWatch" in the subject line) and tell everyone about the time Tommy Lee was kind enough to shake unwashed, pee-tainted hands with all his Dodger Stadium fans.

Defamer is committed to bringing together real directors of real movies with real celebrities hard up for fake dates on the biggest nights of their lives, and so in the interest of furthering our mission of faux-romantic mercy, we spotlight this anonymous plea for companionship from Craigslist, the internet's leading escort service for industry professionals desperately seeking non-embarrassing arm-candy. Posts our seeker:

Looking to find an employer who doesn't try to justify cutting your health benefits with a belief that young assistants are magically invulnerable to expensive medical problems? You have nothing to lose but your free bagels, uninsured serfs, when you take to the Defamer Job Board and seek liberation from your career oppressors.

Kristy Swanson and Lloyd Eisler have escalated their attacks against Eisler's ex-wife, Marcia O'Brien, whose assault claims against Swanson during a child-visitation exchange gone awry led to the actress's arrest in Canada on Friday night. As the former Law & Order Anna-Nicole-channeler lists her wounds, her double-Lutzing boyfriend insists to Extra that it's the woman he abandoned while eight months pregnant with his second child who is the real villain in this international domestic incident: