♦ In his new book, Alec Baldwin goes off on TMZ's Harvey Levin, and says that the fallout from his infamously leaked voicemail made him want to commit suicide. [R&M]
♦ Barbra Streisand sang four songs at an Obama fundraiser last night. Attendees included Leonardo DiCaprio, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. [Fox News]
♦ Anne Hathaway acted like a bit of a diva at an event in Toronto. She also smokes, which her publicist doesn't want you to know. [OK!, R&M]
♦ Sarah Palin's "secretive circle of stylists" dressed her in a $2,500 Valentino jacket for her big speech at the Republican convention. [P6]
♦ Bad news: Hugh Hefner says all three of the Girls Next Door are getting spinoffs. [E!]
♦ Even worse news: Heidi Montag and her sister Holly are "developing a top-secret project" together. [LAT]

Harvey Levin, the schlocky managing editor of thieving celebrity news conglomerate TMZ, will have you know he's just a naturally honest man playing this dirty game. "We don't want to be a red carpet," he said, strangely, during a July interview at the EconCeleb conference. Harvey has drawn a very clear line for himself about what he will and won't cover; a line that goes back and forth and around in pinwheels until we really don't know if he's just messing with all of us:

Ever wondered how the hacks at Worst Website In the World TMZ craft their stories? No? Too bad, because I'm going to tell you anyway. A concerned tipster has directed our attention to a humble site called the Courthouse News Service, a place where lots of pdfs of legal documents can be found and original reporting is filed. TMZ, god bless 'em, has been stealing from them for months. Basically they'll pepper up a CN story with some truly shitty writing, slap their large watermark on public documents that CN just happens to always have attached to their posts, and sometimes even dare to call the post an "Exclusive." Evidence is after the jump.

While TMZ isn't exactly known for being on the cutting edge of originality, a segment that aired on last night's program came uncomfortably close to pushing the boundaries of brand (if not copyright) infringement. As we show in the attached video, TMZ aired a segment featuring American Idol finalists David Cook and David Archuleta being mobbed by a posse of paps while making their way through New York's JFK Airport. And, as you might expect, Idol winner David Cook drew the lion's share of the attention, while David Archuleta was left fending off the advances of one particularly enthused paparazzo. TMZ called this moment of potential embarrassment for Cook their "D-Listed Moment Of The Day." This immediately caught our eye because, naturally, we have been longtime fans of the catty gossip blog D-Listed. We reached out to that site's proprietor, Michael K, to find out whether or not he had any knowledge of this usage and he had this to say: "No. I have no idea what that shit is. I'm not involved in it." This news is a tad ironic, considering that D-Listed began its life as The D-List before "Kathy Griffin threatened to kill [their] asses", but it's interesting nonetheless. Making matters even more compelling, it's not exactly like TMZ can claim that they have never heard of the blog, considering it currently occupies a space on their blogroll. As they say, developing...

Harvey Levin, you clever dog. The amoral TMZ founder is helping to launch on online version of the People's Court, called PeoplesCourtRaw.com. It features pairs of videos, one arguing each side of an issue, which users can vote on to pick a winner [Mixed Media]. See how he plucked a concept from TV and put it right on the web? It could work! Levin used to work for the People's Court on TV, so he has the scholarly background needed to pull this off. After the jump, one example of the site's work: a couple debates whether the boyfriend should shave his back hair. Well, Judge Wapner never had any important cases either.

In addition to making fun of your mother's death and mocking people for supposedly aging prematurely, Harvey Levin's TMZ loves to write oh-so-clever sex-pun headlines. The one pictured ran with a story about Britney Spears being ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer's fees. There are some more, just from the past couple of days, after the jump. Reading them well help you develop the vital skill of applying a dick joke to virtually any situation.

What did we learn about our favorite celebrities this week? Glad you asked!
· Katie Holmes: She got sheared (next up, tannis root?) and, when it comes to meals, she's half a person.
· George Clooney: He's a late night charmer (possibly in more ways than one) but fussy when it comes to being credited.
· Jessica Simpson: She was hospitalized for having too much sex (allegedly).
· David Letterman: Doesn't mind giving audiences his sloppy seconds.
· Harvey Levin: Was an idealistic young rabble rouser and a foul-mouthed C-Word dropper.
· Dan Waters: He proved the old maxim that writers are best heard and not seen.
· Lara Flynn Boyle: Her jowls are melting (and not in a good way).
· Jennifer Aniston: She taught us that the best way to assure that your roles don't begin drying up is to form your own production company. Also, is possibly schtupping Orlando Bloom.
· Diablo Cody: Isn't just a screenwriter, she's also a songwriter!
· Ben Stiller: Is vain enough to dye his hair.
· Brangelina: Had difficulty containing the hostilities between their multicultural brood.
· The Real World Cast: They're all older but by no means wiser.
· Katherine Heigl: Wants a baby whether or not her "rocker" hubby Joshua is ready, thinks gay men want her. Also, not opposed to wearing hideous jackets in public.

Our trip yesterday into the Harvey Levin Conscientiousness Archives suggested to us that there is a pure, classy heart sequestered somewhere the yapping-asshole exterior that will even exploit someone's dead mother for the greater TMZ good. A late-night tip from a curiously minded YouTube devotee, however, allays our doubts about Levin's character once and for all, assuring us that only a true paragon of taste and justice would ask citizen jurors of The People's Court if they want to "go inside the cunt." Are you kidding, Harvey? We'd follow you anywhere. [YouTube]

Back in the early 1970s, when Lindsay Lohan's firecrotch was but a twinkle in young Harvey Levin's eye, the gossip kingpin was a politically-active student at the University Of California Santa Barbara. This recently resurfaced newsclip (exact origin date: unknown) shows the future TMZ boss speaking to a local television crew on the campus of UCSB in the wake of the Isla Vista riots. As evidenced in the clip, Levin demonstrated not only an early penchant for dealing with the media, but also, dare we say, a slight case of Napoleon complex (at least when it came to dealing with trash-talking, beanie-wearing beatniks). However, we are sad to report that the clip shows no sign of his now-ubiquitous Starbucks sippy cup. [YouTube]

Yesterday the staff at TMZ, Harvey Levin's AOL Time Warner-owned gossip site, tossed themselves over a line that I don't think even Perez Hilton would dare approach. They made fun of someone's dead mother. In a piece posted yesterday afternoon they wrote: "The mother of 'American Idol' contestant Elliott Yamin died last night in Richmond, Va. She was 65.

 Claudette Yamin had been hospitalized over the weekend...
Yamin finished in 3rd place in 2006 on 'Idol,' behind Katharine McPhee and Taylor Hicks — who, like Mrs. Yamin, will never be heard from again." Commenters were upset in their usual thoughtful, Socratic way and TMZ eventually acknowledged the thoughtless remarks toward the end of the day. Mind you I say "acknowledged," not "apologized for."

Christopher Lawrence of the Las Vegas Review Journal does not like Harvey Levin or his schlocky celebrity reportage show TMZ on TV (based on the best selling website, TMZ.com) He hates it so much that he decided to watch the show for a week and document how much he hates it. And wouldn't you know it? What he recorded is pretty hateful. Some selected moments from the reporter/bit of a square's week in hell:

Troubled actress Lindsay Lohan reportedly has a dangerous enabler friend/hanger-on named Patrick Aufdenkamp (which is actually the sound Heidi Klum makes when she sneezes) and it is not good! Sources close to the actress say Aufdenkamp (bless you!) has put her in close proximity to alcohol on numerous occasions, including the star's New Year's trip to Italy, during which she had a relapse. Also breaking news: TMZ makes their one millionth "No, no, no" rehab joke, for which Harvey Levin will receive a free meal at the Ground Round. [TMZ]

TMZ's Harvey Levin explained the all-you-can-watch gossip site's philosophy to a class of NYU students: "We're gonna cover Britney Spears the way David Gregory covers President Bush." A blogger called Connie has been inspired by such obsessive pursuit of trivial topics. In a post, yesterday, she applies TMZ's warts-and-all treatment to a Hollywood personality largely insulated from the attention of the gossip industry: Harvey Levin himself. Alec Baldwin, embarrassed by angry voicemails for his teenaged daughter that TMZ disseminated, outed Levin as gay last year. (Big deal: isn't every single gossip mogul?) Levin with lives with his boyfriend, a chiropracter, Dr. Andy Mauer. Sounds respectable, and dull. Except, as Connie helpfully points out, Dr. Andy has another qualification: huge muscles which won him spreads in physique magazines such as Muscle & Fitness, shown here; and chiropracter is often just a fancy word for masseur. Hot! (Background: here's an excellent profile of the Sultan of Sleaze, in Radar. And, after the jump, one of the television performances in which Levin, a failed actor, wrings his hands at the celebrity meltdowns from which he so profits.)

Today, TMZ vampire Harvey Levin visited NYU's journalism department to talk about how he practices his craft and the entire self-aggrandizing mythos of journalism reportedly ate its own tail and then puked it back up in disgust, forever. Our favorite quotes:

If there's one double-edged curse/blessing plaguing us all, as a species, it's probably our capability to love too much: An overprotective parent's smothering love of a child. A neglectful husband's love of golf. And then there's that thing going on between Harvey Levin and his sippy-cup. Wherever Harv goes, the smooth black cylinder goes with him, its thin, green, periscopic straw peeking out, waiting to satisfy the TMZ chief tactical engineer's frequent thirsts.

In blast email about a lawsuit filed against Capitol Records by the family of Alvin and the Chipmunks creator Ross Bagdisarian, TMZ managing editor Harvey Levin has something he needs to say. "Full disclosure — TMZ's Harvey Levin went to summer camp with one of Ross' sons, but it was a long time ago." Wow, Harvey, was he totally in your bunk? [TMZ]

· Was anyone else watching Vh1 last night from, say, 11pm to 11:06pm? They debuted a bite-sized pop culture rundown ("Best Night Ever") starring the lovely, talented and wholly underrated Jessica St. Clair. We've been repeating her hilariously awkward outgoing sign-off all day. Edward R. Murrow, eat your heart out.
· Speaking of Best Week Ever, their listmaster supreme (aka Dan Hopper) ran down the Ten Least Sexy Nude Scenes in Movie History. Yes, chubby chasers, Kathy Bates made the list.
· Rachel Bilson wearing a star-spangled bikini = newsstand gold. Mark your calendars, this will be the first time we've bought GQ this millenium.
· The Soup has a rare, behind-the-scenes look of how Harvey Levin's pitch meetings at TMZ really go down.
· Garfield sure had a bad day back on January 26, 1995.
· Our favorite line in the HD-DVD viral vid that made the rounds today was "BLADES OF GLORY? Are you FUCKING kidding me?" Also, in the context of this video, is Hitler supposed to be Bill Gates?