• At Lower East Side sushi joint Cube 63, Gwyneth Paltrow is seen downing a Guinness — some doctors say that the stout is alright for expecting mothers because of its iron content. Later, as she downed her third redheaded slut, she told onlookers that the J ger was good for baby's liver. [Gatecrasher]
• Good Morning America executive producer John Green doesn't want to book former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright because she has "Jew shame," which is much worse than the average "Jew guilt," we suppose. [Page Six]
• With all the news about the 9/11 911 tapes being released, Lloyd Grove's headline, "Tale of the 911 Tape: Star Jones Was in Peril," was surprisingly challenging for us to comprehend. [Lowdown]
• Page Six finally decides to throw a bone to Ellen Barkin, claiming that she'll have the last laugh in her divorce from Ron Perelman. Why? Because she'll have an on-screen romance with Matt Damon in Ocean's 13. As if being in that overstretched franchise does anyone any good. [Page Six]
• Justin Timberlake thinks that his ex-girlfriend Britney Spears' husband, the luscious Kevin Federline, is "gross." Way to go out on a limb there with the risky opinions. [Scoop]

• Bad news: this year's Fashion Week must go on sans fancy Kohler toilets. The usual crappers have been replaced with mere Porta Potties, which flooded at Kimora Lee Simmons and John Varvatos' shows. Presumably the plastic crappers couldn't withstand the force of mass purging. [Gatecrasher]
• What did Aniston know and when did she know it? The debate rages on as to when Jennifer Aniston was informed of her ex-husband Brad Pitt's procreation with Angelina Jolie; the latest rumor is that she got just one day's notice, via Pitt's publicist. You didn't expect him to tell her without his mouthpiece, did you? [Page Six]
• Of course Catherine Zeta-Jones' gay rugby movie has Alan Cumming attached. It can't exist any other way! [R&M (last item)]
• Good Morning America executive producer Ben Sherwood is rumored to be facing a forced exit, presumably because he couldn't handle being less pretty than Diane Sawyer. [Lowdown]
• Life after losing on the Apprentice involves little more than returning dirty clothes to angry saleswomen. [Page Six]

• James Risen's State of War — the impending publication of which forced the Times to finally publish the domestic-spying story — also makes Judy Miller's WMD excuses fall apart. [NYO]
• Still, the domestic-spying articles were better than the book is, says Jack Shafer. [Slate]
• Lunatic talking head Bill O'Reilly promises to "get into the lives" of Bill Keller and Frank Rich if (perhaps imagined) Times attacks on him continue. We really hope he does, because Keller would be so much sexier if he were a little less earnest. [Media Matters]
• Yesterday was CBS's first day as its own company. Well, except for all those all days as its own company. [WP]
• New Oxygen show features middle-aged women partying with college guys. We're pretty sure we saw that same show on Cinemax once. [NYT]
• Not-quite-victorious — but still really good — GMA staffers get cheesy commemorative trinkets. [NYO]
• Jon Friedman is clearly smoking crack, as proved by (among other things) his prediction that MSNBC will beat CNN and Fox News in 2006. [MW]
• Latest Q-ratings study shows Katie Couric isn't as popular as she used to be. Clearly not in the polling sample: Les Moonves. [WWD]

With time, the jheri curl relaxes.

• This just in: Daily News Managing Editor, Features, Colleen Curtis has resigned from her position. She's heading to Good Morning America, where she'll fetch Diane Sawyer's coffee.
• It's possible to work at High Times and not love bong hits, but it's certainly not recommended. Unless, of course, you're purely intrested in their manual of style. ("Buddha" versus "buddha," etc.) [NYPress]
• Midwestern locals at the University of Wisconsin-Madison loathe their bourgie peers from the East Coast. What, is it the Uggs? [JSOnline]
• NB to the new Nightline: Ted Koppel is watching you. [B&C]
• Much like Paris Hilton, Al Reynolds has a patented paparazzi pose. [Cityrag]
• Done raping and pillaging (and eventually being scorned by) Hollywood, Mike Ovitz bends over NYC's art world. [LA Weekly]
• 62-foot Jesus makes us glad we live in Manhattan. [NYT]
• Nick Denton takes his moneybags out to LA and throws a party with Arianna Huffington. Finally, our slighted little brother gets a free drink on the boss man's dime. [Gridskipper]

• Aaron Brown's problem is that he's "erudite and droll and low-key," says Jon Friedman. Would that we all had such problems. [MW
• Jay-Z considers buying The Source, perhaps. [WWD]
• Right-wing stooge put in charge of public-broadcasting corporation forced to step down. In celebration, Bert and Ernie invite Tinky Winky over for a hot three-way. [NYT]
• One good thing is coming from the glut of celeb mags: A price war. Celebrity Living now retails for only 25 cents, at which point it is only barely overpriced. [NYP]
• Joan Lunden and David Hartman return for a GMA 30th-birthday party, which purely coincidentally falls on the first day of November sweeps. [USAT]
• Sexy Jon Fine loves grumpy old adman George Lois. Also, he thinks he's full of shit. [BizWeek]

• Aileen Mehle (aka: Suzy ) the gossip columnist who once said, I'm here to stay, like Mount Rushmore, is retiring her column after 50 years. Mount Rushmore says it will give it another year or two before packing it in and moving to Boca Raton. [Page Six]

In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Americans are reaching out with their hearts, hands, and wallets to help those displaced by the disaster. No one's quite as generous, however, as the folks behind competing morning shows Today and Good Morning America, which are both furiously tailoring their programming to display their charitable efforts, which include building homes and adopting towns:

We watch the Today show around here. Not because we like it, mind you, but because it's ripe for comedy. But as Alexis Glick is increasingly permitted to smash her pretty face against the camera and we grow more attentive to Matt Lauer's scalp than his interviews, we're beginning to wonder if, God forbid, we might have to jump ship for the sake of common sense.

Here's the only softball news we have for you this weekend:

A GMA exec was displeased to discover some dog doo in a conference room last week, and she subsequently sent an email reminding staff that their pets belong at home, reports ol' Drudgie. He adds:

Moving their to-the-death battle to a typically non-casualty venue, Today and Good Morning America faced off on the softball field this afternoon, at Heckscher Field in Central Park.