Of all the pundits' and politicos' stated opinions on Sarah Palin, John McCain's spectacularly curious choice for running mate, this is perhaps the most stirring and urgent. Once celebrated, now mourned actress Lindsay Lohan—she of the former cocaine problems and current lesbianism—has posted yet another blog post on her MySpace page, this one exploring the nuances of political life versus private life. Hands off little Bristol Palin's baby issues, she implores:

Rachel Zoe at the Mercer Hotel in SoHo ... Katie Holmes attending rehearsals ... Alec Baldwin shooting scenes for NBC's 30 Rock ... Whoopi Goldberg walking with her grandkids in SoHo ... Oprah Winfrey attending a charity event in New Jersey ... Leona Lewis leaving the studio after an appearance on Good Morning America ... and Lindsay Lohan out shopping in lieu of attending her grandfather's funeral.

• It's not that Kevin Spacey wanted to pull down his friend's boxer shorts so much as that Croatian nightclub tradition basically required him to do so. [LA Rag Mag]

You knew that Lindsay Lohan would drop DJ Samantha Ronson and her fedora for a man as sooner or later. You also knew that man-shark hybrid and 14-time Olympic gold medal-er Michael Phelps would dump America for one or many Hollywood starlets as soon as he got the hell out of China. But no one ever thought he'd run out on us for Lindsay freaking Lohan! But he will! She has magical powers!

• The war between News Corp. and NBC rages on. Today Page Six reports that Keith Olbermann is so concerned about being "assassinated," he's refusing to cover the Republican National Convention unless MSNBC springs for a more secure location. They also claim none of Luke Russert's new colleagues at NBC News like him, especially since he got to ride around the convention in golf carts while they had to walk. [P6, P6]

• Luke Russert golf-carted around the Democratic convention like some kind of boy king while his bitter coworkers had to hoof it. Obviously this rumor is made up, because everyone knows NBC correspondents air their bitter grievances only on camera. [P6]

Though MTV isn't always respectful of its own history, it can usually be counted on to remember one thing: a VMAs ceremony is nothing without a memorable kiss. Whether it's Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley or Madonna and Britney Spears, celebrity-on-celebrity Frenching is an absolute must if the network hopes to draw buzz through umpteen rebroadcasts the following week. Luckily, one of this year's biggest songs — "I Kissed a Girl" — gives MTV just the opportunity it needs. Says E!'s Marc Malkin:

On the set of the popular ABC series Ugly Betty, Lindsay Lohan ushered in the next big fad in celebrity fashion: cheerleader outfits. Taking a page out of Heroes star Hayden Panettiere's playbook, Lohan ordered the uniform online and it has been a perfect fit ever since. Lohan said, "People are always on my case about my leggings or not wearing a bra. With this uniform, who's going to bust my shit? It's wholesome. It reminds everybody how awesome their high school experience was. And if you're bored at work, you can cut out my photo and turn me into your fantasy football team's mascot." Lohan explained that she did not want to be any one's scapegoat if their fantasy team lays an egg this season. Lohan added, "It's not my fault that you went with Reggie Bush instead of someone dependable like a Marion Barber."

Though Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff have been rivals for so long that no one can even remember how it began (wait, Aaron Carter? Really?), there's at least one thing the two starlets can agree on this week: their dads each need a serious time-out. In fact, while Lohan took to the pages of MySpace to chastise her father, Duff's received an actual sentencing: ten days in the slammer for poor parenting. Before we explore why, though, let's begin with the latest in the Lohan family psychodrama, which reached its boiling point this week when a fame-hungry Michael Lohan took to the press to denounce the woman who his daughter has "gone gay" for: Samantha Ronson. That didn't sit so well with Lindsay, who made a scathing rebuttal today on her Myspace celebrity blog:

Oh look, the celebrity PR flack continues to die. Well, for some. Actress Lindsay Lohan's shiftless mook of a father recently lashed out at Linds' bff (or gf), deejay Samantha Ronson, who was rumored to be writing some kind of tell-all book. He called her fame hungry and accused her of using Lindsay and blah blah blah pot kettle blah blah. Both LiLo and SamRo publicly reacted to the news, pioneering into relatively uncharted territory. Lindsay ran squealing to gossip show Access Hollywood, calling her father "out of control" and just sorta, you know, defeating the purpose of telling someone else to rein it in. But later on, Lindsay decided to close the barn door herself and write a "sensible" and thorough blog post, perhaps not realizing that a whole Assateague Island's worth of horses had already escaped. Samantha demurely (as far as "demurely" goes in this festering hellhole of a world) circumvented all the conventional channels and went right to the people first. Via her MySpace blog of course! Lindsay and Sam are not the first people of note to do this, but they are embroiled in some pretty high profile antics, unlike other MySpace celebrity bloggers like the low-profile, dim and withered Courtney Love. Which is to say, right now these girls are pretty famous and wouldn't it be interesting to see someone huge like, say, Katie Holmes, respond to scandal with a humble blog entry? While it's debatable just how modest and un-self-possessed a blog entry, aimed at the public, about oneself, really is, it's certainly less middlemany and corporate and hungry than going on a television show to air one's delicates. Plus you have control over your own words! (Though, you do run the risk of drunk-blogging.) It may seem suicidal, but it would be fascinating to watch the celebrity-to-civilian relationship develop into a one-on-one internet relationship, completely strangling the gossip industry, which would be forced to just repurpose blog entries that everyone had already read. I mean cause that's totes not what we do already.

• Tim Gunn of Project Runway thinks Katie Holmes is regressing, fashionwise, with the baggy jeans and overall tomboy look. But maybe husband Tom Cruise likes the tomboy look. Or, better still, hates it! Maybe she's regressing to more independent days. [People]

• George Clooney's ex-girlfriend Sarah Larson may have cheated on the actor when she had a "weekend fling" with a "media mogul," although it appears she's paying for her crime since her new boyfriend is a lowly nightlife promoter named Joey Vanas. [P6]

• Anne Hathaway: "I was kind of afraid of [Barack] Obama the first time I saw him... I was afraid to trust him and I was afraid to have hope when I first kind of became aware of him. It was around the time that he gave his speech on race that I just said 'I can't deny how I feel about you, Barack Obama.'" Please just stop talking, Anne. This is almost worse than the Madonna/McCain/Hitler thing. [AP]

• Michael Lohan is is convinced his daughter is drinking again, and that Lindsay's relationship with Samantha Ronson is to blame. In other Lohan family news, Samantha may be writing a book about her relationship with Lindsay—whose 48-year-old father recently popped the question to his 24-year-old girlfriend, Erin Muller. [MSNBC, E!, OK]

Former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel's daughter Courtenay told what reports call a "friend" that she and actress Lindsay Lohan met a party in the summer of 2006 and attending parties together "where they kissed and touched each other in the corner and did lines of cocaine in the toilet." Lohan denies the account: "No, that's not true." The friend says Courtenay thinks the drugs were Lohan's way of coping with a lesbian desires that she feared would ruin her career."At the time she was terrified her career would be over if she revealed her sexual tendencies," Courtenay told this "friend," who also says that "Courtenay still can't understand how Lindsay is now so open with [her current live-in girlfriend] Samantha [Ronson]," says the pal. "Every time she sees a picture of them together it kills her." Take heart, Courtenay. Daddy feels the same way about MySpace cuddling up with News Corp. At least you've got Tila Tequila. (Photos by AP and Getty)

Jerry Ford,* the (dapper!) fellow pictured here, is dead at 83.** Ford founded Ford Models, one of the leading agencies in the seventies and eighties that legitimized the industry and gained renown for discovering Lauren Hutton, Christie Brinkley, Rachel Hunter, Vendela and sundry other blonde ubermodeltypes and OMG I totally forgot about Xuxa. Ford is slightly less famed for its canny picking of future Mouseketeer Gone Wild types: the agency represented Lindsay Lohan and Mischa Barton, Ashley Tisdale, Courteney Cox, Ali Larter and ha ha ha we will forgive him for this but Paris Hilton. Because Jerry Ford was the first genuinely decent boss in a business characterized by predatory "robber barons." A lot has changed since Ford's heyday, and not for the better!The robber barons, for one thing, are back. As our anonymous industry friend and Jezebel contributor Tatiana tells us, most modeling agencies these days are glorified human traffickers that occupy a place on the "usury" spectrum somewhere between Payday Loan shops and actual armed robbers. Agencies stick them in overcrowded model apartments and gouge them on rent. When they are not in "demand," they're forced to work for either clothes or nothing at all; when they are in demand, they're forced to walk 28 shows in a week and that sort of nonsense. Ford was different. He instituted a five-day workweek, paid models every Friday even when clients didn't pay up, and ran a practically Victorian institution wherein models weren't allowed to host gentleman callers. I don't even think he knew how to get coke! Obviously all that shit is gone today. In any case, Ford sold out to a private equity firm in December and his son who is still involved in the company is apparently (duh) a modelizer. We welcome any and all old Ford Model cards, hot Courteney Cox pix, links to that cute Lindsay Lohan-Mischa Barton catalog picture that surfaced sometime last year and/or clips of that retarded Xuxa show. Jerry Ford, Man Behind The Models

• Alessandra Ambrosio just gave birth, but she isn't wasting any time. She's reportedly already looking to sell pictures of her newborn daughter Anja to the tabloids. [P6]

• Madonna probably helped John McCain a bit by showing a video of him alongside images of Hitler, Robert Mugabe, starving children and global warming. Obama was depicted as Gandhi and John Lennon. Luckily for Obama this video has not yet been shown in the U.S. [Times]

• A visiting Kim Kardashian was rushed to New York-Presbyterian late last night after she cut her foot on a glass coffee table at her hotel. [TMZ]

[Deejay Jazzy Jeff Ronson with Barbara Stanwyck in St. James, Utah yesterday; image via Bauer-Griffin] SidAndFinancy's new line beats the original, "Yeah I'm Going to Heaven. Lindsay's Only Halfway There."