In the attached clip, CNN shouting head Glenn Beck creeps out charming GOP strategist Amy Holmes (seriously, we love her!) while ostensibly discussing Ted Kennedy's endorsement of change-monger Barack Obama. His opening question: "You ever just pictured Ted Kennedy naked?" Sometimes, Beck explains, "that picture with him with his shirt off just kind of pops into your head." Sure, Glenn. Percocet withdrawal can be rough. [MediaMatters]

Nothing says "good job" like a heart attack, we always say. So we were thrilled to learn that "last week, students in Seminole County, Florida apparently received their report cards in envelopes adorned with Ronald McDonald promising a free Happy Meal to students with good grades, behavior or attendance." IS NOTHING SACRED?

Happy Thanksgiving! Did you know that all the people running for president are big fatties? The Times today reveals that running for president apparently involves eating corn dogs and other unhealthy things. Mike Huckabee, whose primary qualification for running this nation is that he used to be a fattie and now he's skinny, "eats lightly,"and all the rest of the losers have to pretend to care about fitness. Just like you! The Iowa State Fair sounds awesome: Barry Hussein Obama ate "caramel corn, pork and a corn dog for the cameras." And Senator Clinton is v.v. close to Jesus: "At one campaign event, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said she prayed to God to help her lose weight." [NYT]

NBC Universal Integrated Media president Beth Comstock explains to the attendees of the 2007 American Magazine Conference in lovely Boca Raton that modern media consumers are all either fat losers embarrassing themselves before the nation in the comfort of their living rooms or underaged MySpace camwhores.

We were already of the opinion that the Times's Sunday Business section is the best part of that paper, but this weekend's pullout confirmed it. From the letters section:

• NBC News had always planned to can "Nightly News" exec producer John Reiss. The fact that ABC is starting to manhandle them, ratings-wise, is just a happy coincidence. [NYT]
  

In advance of New York Fashion Week, the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) did indeed issue a svelte two-page set of guidelines for the care and feeding of skinny models. Actually it's just one page, as the second page is dedicated to bios for the issuing committee. Predictably enough, the guidelines themselves are thin, bony, toothless, lethargic, and anemic. (Rumors that the CDFA guidelines were spotted puking up a lunchtime garden salad in the ladies' room may be exaggerated.) It's all about a "campaign of awareness," as opposed to the (curl lip in disgust) "policing" of model body weight. The committee that developed the guidelines included various fashionistas (e.g. Diane von Furstenburg) and their pet health professionals; strangely, though Vogue's Anna Wintour is mentioned in a few press reports, she didn't make it into the final committee roster. Look for her on the front lines of the awareness campaign for February's pre-Fashion Week public skinniness discussion/publicity event.

Beware, skinny bitches! After London, Madrid, and Sydney, it appears New York's Fashion Week may be the next to fall to fat-friendly forces. As always, note that when we say "fat" in this context, we mean "not painfully emaciated." Equipped with a new president, the Council of Fashion Designers of America will be issuing guidelines on too-thin models ahead of Fashion Week casting in February. (Asked about this issue, the previous CFDA prez said he "wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.") Likely brought into sharp relief by the recent anorexia deaths in South America, the skinny debate, the situation may force even Karl Lagerfeld may have to hire a few fleshy types in 2007.

Technically only one actual Brazilian model has died so far — Ana Carolina Reston, shown here, who succumbed to anorexia-related infections after her tomato-apple diet kept only 88 pounds on her 5'8" frame. (This beat out the August death of Uruguay's model Luisel Ramos, 98 pounds at 5'9", who lived on "lettuce leaves and Diet Coke.") But three other young non-model Brazilian ladies have died from hyper-thinness in the last few weeks, causing the unwelcome sight of "awareness" rearing its ugly fat head among the international fashion set. Supposedly, Giorgio Armani's agents in Sao Paulo had even complained that Reston was "too thin," making Armani a veritable weight crusader in his field. Sao Paulo Fashion Week has no plans to adopt the draconian health requirements of Madrid Fashion Week, though they promise to only use emaciated girls age 16 or older. Progress marches on.

Why waste your money on ramen and broth when you can gorge yourselves at some of the city's finest trans-fat providers without fear of ill effects? If the City Council has its way, your bloated, overstuffed meatsack will be couriered to a coronary facility in new plus size ambulances. It's an idea advocated for by Mark Rosenthal, the 420-pount stroke victim who had to "lie strapped on an ambulance floor, because the stretcher couldn't fit him." The Fire Department seems wary, arguing that they're already equipped with stretchers that can convey all but the plumpest of fatties; we're going to say that if you've spent any time in Herald Square recently, you'll realize that the purchase of these tubby transporters is probably inevitable.

Just when fashion twigs thought they'd successfully fended off anti-skinny assaults, London mayor Ken Livingstone has declared he'll terminate the city's financial support of London Fashion Week if the fest doesn't ban anorexically thin girls (as Madrid did for their fashion week). It's a significant threat, as London has forked over 620,000 to Fashion Week during the last three years. No official response yet from LFW organizer British Fashion Council, but one commenter on the Daily Mail story adopts a variation on the Lagerfeld line: "These models only stand out because most people are overweight and eat far more than the body needs. There is a lot of jealousy involved." If only everyone else wasn't so goddamn fat, these tiny girls wouldn't look so weird, you see?

Screw you, Karl Lagerfeld! Yep, we totally ran this with no warning, and no "after the jump," or anything. It's Jean Paul Gaultier's comment on the skinny model debate, as seen in the Daily Mail's coverage of Paris Fashion Week. Yowza.

We don't see anorexic (girls). The girls are skinny. They have skinny bones.

I think it's discrimination [to ban underweight models]. We are skinny, this is our work. There are lots of overweight people working in offices but I'm not going to say "This girl is fat, she can't work in an office."

As the Times reports, "The New York City Board of Health voted unanimously yesterday to move forward with plans to prohibit the city's 20,000 restaurants from serving food that contains more than a minute amount of artificial trans fats, the chemically modified ingredients considered by doctors and nutritionists to increase the risk of heart disease." We're of two minds here: On the one hand, it's hard not to see this as another example of Bloomberg-era nanny-statism aimed pretty specifically at the lower orders (as a Times sidebar explains, most of your high end, Danny Meyer-type joints already eschew trans fats) in an attempt to modify behavior without spending any money on root causes. On the other hand, if you've ever tried to wedge yourself in between two tubbies shoveling the contents of a KFC Mashed Potato Bowl into their gaping maws aboard a crowded 6 train, you can sort of see the point.

When he wasn't busy blacking up Kate Moss for his editorial stint on Britain's Independent, designer and disembodied head/hand Giorgio Armani found time to weigh in — get it! — on the thin/fat model teapot-tempest that continues to rage. Well, maybe "rage" isn't the right word. Armani certainly plays the peacemaker, dismissing complainers as alarmists who "exaggerate the problem." And even though he admits his models have always been on "the slender side" (because his clothes must "hang correctly on the body"), the anorexic model trend ain't nothin' to do with him. As counter-example, Armani even takes time to gingerly trod on Gianni Versace's grave, all but calling his dead competitor a chubby chaser. The article's behind the Independent's subscription wall, so we present it for your delectation after the jump.

"I think it's outrageous, I understand they want to set this tone of healthy beautiful women, but what about discrimination against the model and what about the freedom of the designer," said [Cathy] Gould, Elite's North America director, adding that the move could harm careers of naturally "gazelle-like" models.

"They told me I needed to get on the scale," said one of the women, Kristen McRedmond, about her humiliating experience in a manager's office at Sutton Place Bar and Restaurant in July.

Look at these heifers! Ladies, please, cover yourselves — you're repulsively enormous. While our own New York fashion week begins its weekend of anorexia-friendly fun, the Australian Fashion Week is still roiling in the aftermath of its own little Dreyfuss Affair. Seems that designer MaraJoara decided to champion "real women" by putting a few size 8-12 models on display along with the tiny waifs who can't keep their pants up over their skeletal pelvises. Though hardly even zaftig in any normal universe, models like those above caused much squawking among the Ozzie fashionistas. Even those who grudgingly admired the feminist statement couldn't help slamming the larger lassies' amateurish catwalking. Fashion organizers supposedly tried to get the designer to kick out the size 8-12s, but she refused; even though the fleshy models are calling it a win for their team, the puckish crones of Vogue Australia deleted coverage of the MaraJoara show from their website. Giant oozing lardos who look like they might actually consume food need not apply. Approved meals may consist only of champagne, Red Bull, cigarettes, and Vicodin.