A redesigned Wall Street Journal launched this morning and is described a juicy Newsweek story on Rupert Murdoch, which includes a nugget about how the News Corp. chief has been working overtime, including on Easter. He has become "a regular and jarring presence in the Journal newsroom" and scared staffers are working Sundays to keep him happy. Murdoch is no doubt motivated to live up to a somewhat bitter letter he sent a chagrined Arthur Sulzberger Jr. at the Times, which included the phrase "Let the battle begin!" Here is quick list (modeled and partly based on this one) of current and planned changes to the Journal, which basically amount to making it less business focused:

The Washington Post has fired a young reporter named Michael Tunison after he disclosed that he wrote for a sports blog on the side, and, additionally, may have been drunk at some point in his life. This is obviously behavior incompatible with his key newsroom position, "which included some reporting and writing and some clerical work in the Montgomery County bureau." You can just imagine the vast logistical difficulties that his newly revealed identity as a football fan would pose in his suburban newsgathering duties. Our jock-following colleague at Deadspin gently mocks the WP for being hypocritical and, frankly, stupid about the internet, but we say: kudos, Post. Your actions help give all bloggers something to make fun of. After the jump, a screengrab of the blog post (and drunky pic) with which Tunison "brought discredit to the paper":

"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti's presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country's prime minister packing." Oh, really, Marc Lacey? Really, New York Times? Hunger did this? The inanimate sensation created when one's liver requires more glucose "bashed in" a gate and burned tires? Oh, sorry, are you trying to be poetic? A little fancy with the language? Great work! Your stupid lede made us too annoyed to read what is probably a very important and serious story about poverty. Your stupid lede and our hangover. Is it... the stupidest lede? Probably not! SO: find us even more egregiously 'poetic' Times ledes. Maybe we'll poll! After the jump, Denton's nomination for dumbest fancy intro to serious news.

The Post's Andrea Peyser, who is like a mix of Ann Coulter, Ed Koch, and a rat with rabies, has a few things she can't stand: liberals, whiners, all things pure and good. Now you can add to that list "millimeter wave technology," an improved airport full-body security scanning method. It sees through clothes and leaves nothing to the imagination! "It's enough to make me rethink my hairstyle. I'm not referring to my head." Gross, Andrea Peyser. Jesus. She watches a woman go through the scan, and cleverly riffs, "The machine also shaved off 15 pounds, a good argument for scanning females." I get it, women are fat! Then, she insists that a man go through, so she can look at his penis:

Not having done enough Google legwork, BlackBook's George Gurley asked Christina Ricci, "What's it like being the face of Louis Vuitton?" Her reaction: "The actress paused. Then she said, 'Well, I'm not anymore. I was one of four actresses that they used in a campaign once and it was really fun. I liked it. I would like to be the face of Louis Vuitton. I am not, however. You know who is? Scarlett Johansson is the face of Louis Vuitton. Wrong interview.'" [WWD]

Bizarre racial thinker and conservative columnist John McWhorter today muses over his run-ins with the smug, misguided intellectuals who infest American higher education with their "radical leftist perspective." It's a standard-issue argument against political correctness, which ignores the salient point that conservatives are just as convinced of their own righteousness as liberals, they just don't have the numbers to assert their will on most campuses. Also, a tip for McWhorter: if you don't want to get argued with, you shouldn't have worked at freaking Berkeley. He says that the documentary "Indoctrinate U," out now, will help strike a blow against closed leftist minds. We agree that liberal political correctness is terribly annoying—almost as annoying as Republicans who use it as a canard to distract the world from their happy march towards fascism. Hey, this post is like a bad Poli-Sci class! The trailer for the film that will save beleaguered Ivy League ROTC students, after the jump.

We got an email from Jeff Stier, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health and author of yesterday's editorial in the NY Post about the cockroach peril New York will face as a result of Whole Foods' paper bag use. We referred to ACSH in our post yesterday as "the conservative 'science' group ACSH, which is funded by Dow Chemical, Chevron, and a slew of other corporations." Stier says "Gawker owe's ACSH a correction" for that post, although you will notice that our description is accurate, and is not even contradicted by Stier's own description of the group. He also objects to the fact that "reporters often ask about funding only when some if it may come from industry," something I would characterize as "good reporting." His full letter is reprinted after the jump.

Your toothbrush holders: Are they sufficiently adaptable to our dynamic modern age? It's not the type of question you want to tackle on your own. Thankfully we have the paper of record to help guide us through the wild twists and turns of this perilous issue. And any story that includes the phrase "the powers at the major toothbrush makers" without so much as a qualifying chuckle has got to have something important to say.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, basketball legend, humanitarian, and LA Times blogger, turns 61 today. And he's not just sitting back quietly writing children's history books and skyhooking $100 bills into the garbage can; he's asking for a little birthday love from his readers! You are instructed to "send a detailed note to Kareem's manager if you can help make his birthday wishes come true." I would think he could take care of the "tropical vacation" out of his own pocket, but maybe not? After the jump, his wish list, and how YOU can help.

Just in time for its annual "Green Issue" (which, once again, is not printed on recycled paper), Vanity Fair gets supermodel—and super mom—Cindy Crawford to take some time out of her busy schedule and write a stilted and comically self-absorbed article to fill you, the reader, in on what Cindy Crawford is doing about "green" things. It's a word which is "on everybody's tongues these days." She's being harassed by her kids about this stuff! "I guess it's part of living in Malibu," she says. Yes, we'll take your word for it.

Have you heard any wild rumors about anything in the news from any source at all? Why not call New York Post editor Col Allan so he can put it right in the paper! Last Thursday, Col's wife phoned him and said "Elaine died!"—referring to a family friend in Australia. But Allan, with a newspaperman's instincts, naturally assumed she was talking about famous restaurateur Elaine Kaufman. So he set his city desk to work calling all over town, asking her friends about her death. Finally some qualified reporter who should be fired immediately pointed out that, based on actual facts, Kaufman was not dead. Reminiscent of the Post's glorious, fictional splash about John Kerry choosing Dick Gephardt for his running mate, which likely originated with Rupert Murdoch. Ha, reporting for the Post is just like playing a game of Telephone! In Allan's defense, "Mistakes happen, chicken fish monkey pineapple." [Daily Intel]

Being a limp-wristed, knee-jerk environmentalist liberal, you probably thought that Whole Foods' plan to phase out plastic bags in its stores was a good thing. Sure it is—if you love cockroaches. That's the sober warning in an editorial in the New York Post today, penned by Jeff Stier of the conservative "science" group ACSH, which is funded by Dow Chemical, Chevron, and a slew of other corporations. See, cockroaches "prefer paper (bags) to plastic," which logically means that Whole Foods is virtually holding your door open and setting up a nice buffet for the bugs! And it gets worse: they're also trying to give you asthma.

Among the names floated by Radar yesterday as possibly taking a Times buyout was Craig Whitney, the assistant managing editor overseeing journalistic standards. Whitney sided with public editor Clark Hoyt in a recent internal Times feud over semi-nude photos in T Magazine of a 17-year-old girl (pictured) whose blurred breast was exposed. Hoyt and Whitney argued the photo did not belong in the paper, T and the main Times Magazine basically called Hoyt and Whitney Philistines. The folks at T would be happy to see "prudish" Whitney go, claims one observer, if only because they see his very job as unnecessary. Of course, it was barely a month ago that Whitney was reminding everyone to attempt to interview multiple people when writing profiles. Sometimes a prude is just what you need.

Freaknomics author Stephen Dubner says this is "The Best Paragraph You'll Read All Week." Really, Stephen Dubner? Perhaps you could use some more varied reading materials. Am I missing the genius in this standard-issue "I used to be a geek" narrative? Click to enlarge the graf (an intro to a column in the FT), which the superstar economist says is amazing and I, who took six years to finish my bachelor's degree, say is rather pedestrian. [Freakonomics]

"An article in today's Herald regarding comments purportedly made by Vice President Dick Cheney was inaccurate and should have noted that it was based on a blogger's satire and was not provided by the Associated Press."—correction in the Boston Herald today, explaining why the paper picked up a fake story by well-known humor person Andy Borowitz about Cheney challenging Hillary Clinton to a "Hunting Contest" and ran it as a real story. Hey, no need to be overly explanatory in the correction, guys! [via HuffPo]

Daily News reporter Shallon Lester wasn't satisfied just secretly yearning to be friends with Paris Hilton, like most entertainment reporters. She wants to actually be her friend! On TV, at least. (Pictured: an actual photo montage of what the two would look like if their heads were in close proximity, via the NYDN). So the intrepid journalist ventured out to the auditions for the upcoming MTV show and small step towards the apocalypse "Paris Hilton Is My New BFF." How could a trained, professional journalist possibly blend in with a crowd of fame whores? It wasn't that hard at all!

When Dave Logan agreed to appear on Fox Business to promote a book on corporate culture, he probably had some faint hope the six-month-old cable channel was less of a viper pit than its News Corp. sister network, Fox News. Any such delusions were quickly dissolved when host Stuart Varney tore into Logan for being an academic egghead and asked, "This is the United States of America, it is a highly competitive economy, you claw your way up on the backs of others - didn't you know that?" After Logan stood his ground and recounted the lessons of 11 years inside American corporations, Varney scampered a retreat and tried, unconvincingly, to end on a friendly note. Presumably, Varney will now be forced to spend the next few months in ambush interview boot camp with Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly. Clip after the jump.

With just three guys in a plain office building on Manhattan's East side, investigative website TheSmokingGun.com revealed the LA Times' Tupac Shakur story was based on fake documents, exposed lying memoirist James Frey and found out that Fox News host Bill O'Reilly is into loofahs. The site modestly attributes much of its success to the recent digitization of court records and such, but it probably helps that its editor is a "veteran Mafia reporter" who knows where to look, and when, for the juiciest records:

Erica Jong says Matt Taibbi wants to fuck his mom! But he can't, so instead he channeled that desire into print by calling Hillary Clinton's arms "flabby." It's all part of the feminist author Jong's theory of "Misogyny, Momism, and Militarism," which she chronicled on the Huffington Post. "Momism is a kind of Oedipal obsession with the bad mother — to counter a boy's attraction to his good mother...You cannot fuck your mother so you must revile her," she explains. Taibbi, the angry Rolling Stone writer who is the most entertaining political journo in America, surprisingly took offense to Jong's logical inference that his use of an accurate adjective in a magazine story pointed to his own desire for incest. So he replied: you're an old, ignorant hack, Erica Jong!

Greedy professional athletes these days are making it harder and harder for their layabout friends to sponge money off them and land them in jail. TREND ALERT. It seems that athletic superstars and journeymen alike are getting their entourages more organized, incorporating them into real businesses and paying their hangers-on set salaries rather than just giving them unchecked credit cards and free cars [WSJ]. And then there's the NFL cornerback who pays his helpers on a per-task basis, like when "he gave one of his freelancers $5 to fetch him a Snickers bar." So it's still an evolving sphere of economics. One of the players cited is Mike Bibby, a slightly above-average NBA point guard who has organized his friends into "Team Dime" (he's #10!). That's nice and everything, but probably not worth the permanent tattoos, which send the lifelong message: "I was a member of an entourage for a slightly above-average NBA player":