Weep, struggling members of the creative underclass, for your secret aspirations are drawing to a close: this may be the very last month of Conde Nast, Luxury Version. Coming soon: Conde Nast, Wailing Version.

Two things are of utmost importance when playing international politics: timing and media manipulation. Crazy old Iran proves adept at both.

Will Roman Polanski be extradited? Is he a misunderstood artist, or a rapist who should rot? Questions! But none as interesting as how the AP's notes for the story landed on the pages of Forbes and the New York Times.

Murdered Yale student Annie Le's funeral was today. I wasn't going to write anything about it, because, you know, not a story. Not even a footnote. Apparently, I'm wrong:

Mint.com, way to promote your product! The free online money management program put together a wonderful, well-designed chart to show you how well they design things like charts. Their morbidly glee-tinted topic: the death of newspapers.

Regulators! Mount. Up. Warren G got interviewed by Eric Spitznagel (Read: NILLA) for Vanity Fair. Spitznagel's interviewed lots of celebrities for lots of Nilla publications (The Believer, anyone?) and is a likable writer. But he'll remember this for a while:

So: Michael Jackson, Lady Gaga, Tucker Carlson. What do the three previous posts have in common? None of 'em are nearly as much fun as watching a conservative policy group play the press cycle over a "Jewboy" "email" from NBC.

Iran's been amping up its nuclear program at a secret facility, which the U.S. knew about but wasn't saying anything until now. Which makes it awfully unfortunate for Newsweek, which reported "exclusively" last week that Iran's nuke program was dormant.

• More on the financial difficulty facing Harvey and Bob Weinstein: The studio has blown through $1.2 billion to date and now needs to come up with another $50 million. Or magically produce a string of hits at the box office. [WSJ, LAT]
• Despite rumors to the contrary, Condé Nast may shut down several of its magazines as part of its latest—and steepest—round of budget cuts. [WWD]
• Ebony magazine is struggling and now hunting for a buyer. [Newsweek]
• NBC is "under assault from all sides," opines Jon Friedman. [Marketwatch]
• A series of cast changes are planned for the various Law & Orders. [THR]
• Is the new TV season really buzzy, or it just the Twitter effect? [NYT]
• Warner Music will be putting its music videos back on YouTube. [AdAge]
• Holly Madison of E!'s Girls Next Door is getting her own reality show. And socialite Tinsley Mortimer's CW show is moving ahead. [NYDN, THR]
• Jerry Seinfeld's new reality show is casting neurotic couples in Brooklyn. [DI]
• Jenna Bush's new Today show gig is pretty cushy, apparently. [Page2Live]

You do not want to miss the weekly festival of swooning self-regard and misty incoherence that will be Peggy Noonan's "Study Group" for undergrads this year, during her fellowship at the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics. Let's read the syllabus.

• Twitter is close to raising $100 million in new funding. And despite the fact it makes no money, the deal will value the company at $1 billion. [WSJ, CNN]
• A new survey finds that 86% of the public thinks the news media tries to influence public opinion. One reason to discount the data: Fox News came in as the country's most-trusted and least-trusted news source. And Bill O'Reilly ranked as "the most-trusted news anchor on cable TV." [THR, Poynter]
• MTV reports that it plans to go ahead with the drug-intervention reality series featuring DJ AM that was shot just before he died. [THR]
• Michael Moore's new documentary is off to a strong start, alas. [LAT]
• Tim Knight, Newsday's publisher, has handed in his resignation. [NYT]
• Corynne Steindler of "Page Six" is joining Bonnie Fuller's new website. [NYO]
• NBC Nightly News' audience is growing, believe it or not. [HP]
• Yahoo is spending $100 million to remind you it still exists. [BrandChannel]
• CBS has a brand new viewer today. Chief exec Les Moonves and CBS Early Show anchor Julie Chen had a son named Charlie this morning. [ET]

Everybody's just itching to prove that the two camera-toting, self-promoting goobers who blew the lid off the prostitute-advisory ring that is ACORN are creatures of a right-wing media conspiracy. Of course they are! But so what?

Is this proof that we finally won? New York Times media business reporter Tim Arango is going to report from Iraq for a while!

Newsday publisher Timothy P. Knight has resigned "to let others move our business forward."

Forbes, September 2: "Scott Gould happily ditched the securities market for a restaurant job." WSJ, yesterday: "Scott Gould went from trader to waiter-by choice." It's almost as if one followed the other for some easily determined reason. We'll never know.

• Condé Nast editors and publishers may be forced to cut their budgets by as much as 25% now that the consultants reviewing operations are completing their tour of duty. Not surprisingly, "significant layoffs" are expected. [NYO]
• More trouble for Harvey: The Weinstein Co. says it plans to cut 35 additional positions at the film company over the next month or so. [THR]
• A new bidder for beleaguered BusinessWeek appears to have emerged in ex-BMG chief Strauss Zelnick and former WSJ publisher Gordon Crovitz. [BW]
• WSJ, the glossy owned by the Wall Street Journal, is expanding [WWD]
• The CW is planning a reality show about what it's like to be a Virgin flight attendant in search of "good times, great parties, adventure and love." [Wrap]
• Mark Consuelos (or Mr. Kelly Ripa) has been given the boot by Oprah. [NYP]
• The Observer is moving from the Flatiron district to a Jared Kushner-owned building in Midtown: "If I'm paying rent, I'd rather pay it to myself." [NYO]
• Eight out of ten Americans say they would oppose any plan to spend tax dollars to bail out failing newspapers. You're shocked by that, we're sure. [E&P]

In your wonderful Wednesday media column: the NYO's getting a new home, the WaPo redesigns its magazine, Michael Moore has fancy party, and Katie Couric meets Glenn Beck and they totally make out (or do they?).

On top of everybody else, another person who's not gonna stand for this Mo-mar Khadafy character and his smelly Libyan camel brigade is Andrea Peyser, sexxxy patriotic American (USA).

For weeks now, a scary number has been floating through the hallowed halls of Conde Nast: 25%. That's how much the gossipmongers speculated McKinsey would chop the company's budget. Evil rumors! Now it looks like that frightening number was correct.

John Updike's The Witches of Eastwick has been a book, a film, a sequel and people have twice tried — and failed — to make it into a television series. Now ABC has done just that, but is it wise?