• When incarcerated drunkard Michael Lohan heard daughter Lindsay's lyrics in her new "Why, Daddy, Why" single Confessions of a Broken Heart, he was brought to tears. And a nation fell to its knees. So as to be closer to the toilet. [Lowdown (2nd item)]
• Leonardo DiCaprio buys up the 10th floor of Richard Meier's third Perry Street building, brings Giselle with him. Good thing: The West Village was getting a little thin on celebs. [Page Six]
• The widow of 1950s producer Fred Friendly concedes that George Clooney is much more handsome than her late husband. True love never dies, it just sticks its foot in its mouth. [R&M]
• America's sweetheart Katie Couric gets naughty with landscape painter Stephen Hannock. How anyone can get naughty with a landscape painter is beyond us, but we bet Couric was a Bob Ross fan. [Page Six]
• Roger Ailes jumps on the TomKat bandwagon and discovers — get this — that Katie Holmes has gotten really weird. [Fox411]

• Pretty much everyone who works for a newspaper has been or is about to be fired. This is the story of 500 of them. [E&P]
• While Nick and Jessica fall apart, hope springs eternal for lovebirds New Times and Village Voice Media — get a room, you two! [LACityBeat]
• Congratulations once again to Jason Calacanis, for selling out to his third choice. If you can't be with the one you love, and all that. [FishbowlNY]
• There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and George Clooney. [WaPo]

· Universal and Fox bring Peter Jackson and wife Fran Walsh on as executive producers of their co-production of Halo, buying some very expensive insurance against the possibility that yet another video game movie will be a disaster. [Variety]
· NBC has picked up the "back nine" episodes for My Name is Earl, greatly increasing the chances that we're going to be subjected to a full season's worth of the network's Satan's-nails-on-a-chalkboard-in-hell promotional campaign. [THR]
· Tony Scott abandons his directing duty on Touchstone/Bruckheimer project Deja Vu due to "logistical and scheduling problems" resulting from the destruction of New Orleans, where the movie was set to shoot. Indeed, those pesky natural disasters can really mess up a production schedule. [Variety]
· Seemingly unaware that the season premiere of Will & Grace has ruined the live-TV stunt for all time, CBS and George Clooney (of "not hosting Brangelina's wedding" fame) will team up for a live TV version of the Academy Award-winning film Network. [THR]
·Roland "The Independence Day After Tomorrow" Emmerich will direct 10,000 B.C. for Columbia pictures, which follows "three stages in the development of primitive man." We can't wait to see what it looks like when caveman society is ravaged by incredible explosions. [Variety]

In today's "Lowdown" column., flacks for both George Clooney and Brad Pitt both openly question the veracity of a tip that NY Daily News JV gossip Lloyd Grove received from his favorite Italian ferry operator. Clooney, they assert, will not be playing host to Pitt and Angelina Jolie's nonexistent secret Lake Como nuptial celebration:

It's only been a day since George Clooney and his partners announced their plans to open a "classy" casino and resort in Las Vegas, and already so-called "experts" from the gaming industry are crapping all over their fancy dreams:

With stories in both the LAT and on the AP wire about his reportedly heavy financial involvement in the new Las Ramblas casino development in Vegas, George Clooney and his flacks are doing their best to prove that he's not some Hollywood dilettante jerking off at the craps tables. He loves classy, Brat-Packy Old Vegas! He eschews the Mardi-Gras-parade-on-the-ceiling tackiness that attracts Jack and Marion Midwest! And did they mention he's put in a lot of money? But how does a George Clooney decide to get into the gambling business? The same way you might, by pausing in the middle of a bender to ask a buddy how cool it would be to have your own place:

George Clooney, Hollywood's undisputed master of the practical joke (we think he once told Brad Pitt that his penis was inadequate through an impishly-placed bumper sticker or something), demonstrates his mastery of the art form by dismissing today's prank holiday as amateur hour:

It's always entertaining when a couple of A-listers puff up their chests, unzip their flies, and whip 'em our for an old-fashioned dick-measuring contest. Russell Crowe and George Clooney lay down their inches across the pages of GQ and US Weekly (we hope they don't leave any curlies on an Armani ad or a Brad Pitt photospread—we hate to see that kind of needless collateral damage):

· Nicole Kidman's new best friend is rapper Q-Tip. [Page Six]
· Lizzie Grubman spotted at Bloomingdale's loudly instructing underlings to find her clothes in "size zero." [Page Six]
· World Health Organization suggests that Bloomberg's cigarette tax may be indirectly financing the current Iraqi regime. [Page Six]
· "21"a favorite New Year's spot for "cafe society"will be closed this year. Lotus owner, David Rabin is opening up a new clubacross the street. [Page Six]
· Celebrities are buying battery-powered cars, George Clooney announces that he "can't feel [his] legs" after several hours of drinking at the W on Lexington, and Jennifer Aniston gets whacked upside the head by a sidewalk Santa. [NY Daily News]

· George Clooney says paying him $20 million to do a film is "dumb." (No argument there.) [Page Six]
· Patrons of Jimmy's Uptown chant "Free Martha!" when Stewart walks in. [Page Six]
· Clinton tells Democrats to be nice to Gore. [Page Six]
· Miramax needs Gangs of New York to gross $200 million before greenlighting Howard Hughes movie. [Cindy Adams]
· Dr. Robert Atkins insists that heart attack wasn't the result of his diet. [Liz Smith]
· Spike Lee plans to co-produce a movie with infamous night club owner Peter Gatienabout Peter Gatien; Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch take the subway in support of successful transit strike negotiations; and Court TV CEO offers to help Dominick Dunne fight Gary Condit's lawsuit. [NY Daily News]

All Weinstein, all of the time
· Liz Smith thinks that if Harvey Weinstein were thinner, people wouldn't "give him a hard time." [Liz Smith]
· Liz says that people criticizing Harvey are just jealous. [Liz Smith]
· Liz insists she's not on Harvey's payroll after devoting her entire column to The Greatness of Harvey. [Liz Smith]
· George Clooney takes a pot shot at Harvey, and Catherine Martin (wife of Baz) worries about the safety of her fur. [NY Daily News]