There was a time when third world countries would rip off any Western product they wanted to. Because how much time were US companies really willing to invest wading through dusty Asian market stalls looking for bootlegs of their precious brand names? But things have changed! As China and India have grown into serious global economic powerhouses over the past decade, they've been forced to respect intellectual property laws in order to maintain good business relations with the West. Which makes this whole "Hari Puttar" thing a bit of a stretch. Warner Bros. sued an Indian film company for making a movie called "Hari Puttar," claiming that it was a ripoff of Harry Potter. They just lost the case in an Indian court. Home team advantage? Actually, when you hear the facts it seems more like sheer bullying or paranoia on Warner Bros. part:

How does one take a newspaper editorial page with the motto "free people, free markets" and use it to advocate the socialization of $700 billion in bad debt? By arguing that government spending isn't government spending. "The $700 billion isn't spending per se, like Medicare," a Wall Street Journal editorial said of the Treasury Secretary's infamous bailout plan this morning, "but will instead be used to purchase these troubled assets... Treasury could even make money." Yes, if there's one entity that knows how to make savvy investment decisions, it's the government, right, Journal?

"Because of a production error, a passage from this correction was merged in some editions on Tuesday with an International correction, above, about the Moscow Journal." [Times]

After giving short shrift to Barack Obama on two major broadcast TV shows Tuesday, Bill Clinton could hardly mention the Democratic presidential candidate's name enough on the basic cable Daily Show Wednesday. Perhaps comedian Chris Rock's well-aimed barbs in Clinton's wake on Late Show With David Letterman got through to the ex-president. But when host Jon Stewart brought up the Letterman incident, Clinton said Rock and other critics miss the point.

The financial system is having one of its occasional bouts of uncertainty and depression but, hey, cheer up American economy, because fameball Julia Allison is too! In her on-again, off-again, oh-God-just-make-up-your-mind-already relationship with her own self promotion, Allison seems to be swinging toward another period of doubt and introspection. Perhaps you don't care because you're worried about starving in the street or whatever. But there's an honest-to-God company built on Allison's whims now, and according to her business partner Megan Asha there's now a "mini-meltdown" going on over whether the venture launched too soon. Imagine the horrifying revaluations that could ripple through the subprime protocelebrity markets as a result!

For all the bloodletting on Wall Street, the financial services meltdown will probably mean handsome profits for at least some finance hacks. The troubles have to actually end before anyone has a shot at writing a popular book about them, but smart writers and publishers are already hunting. Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Times and Roger Lowenstein of the Wall Street Journal are "considering" writing books, according to the Observer, while Newsweek's Daniel Gross is raring to go with a quickie electronic title he's ready to finish in two months flat. The most leveraged proposal (if you will) comes from Bethany "Enron" McLean of Fortune and Times columnist Joe Nocera, who basically drank until they worked up the nerve to demand a million bucks for their definitive insights:

So the press was entirely shut out of Sarah Palin's magical journey through the UN today. They are making up for it by being quietly bitchy. The headlines: "Palin meets her first world leaders in New York." (You know, from first world countries like Afghanistan!) And here is the most sarcastic Associated Press lead sentence ever:

We've already seen that Wasilla, Alaska, Sarah Palin's hometown, is a mix of wild animals and Jesus freaks. But did you know it has a Taco Bell and a Senor Taco! Diversity. Hollywood liberal columnist Steve Lopez of the LA Times went for a visit to Wasilla, and found one guy who heard Palin say she would "see Jesus" in her lifetime!

When John McCain goes to war, he goes to war to win. When he got shot down in Nam it was because he went back to make goddamn sure that civilian power plant got bombed. Even after the war, he was pretty sure that a few thousand more bombs would've defeated those commies. So when he went to war against the New York Times and every single major network, we were confident he wouldn't rest until 30 Rock was reduced to rubble and CNN renounced their anti-American ways. But no, he's cutting and running. Before, it was was reported that not a single reporter was going to be allowed to cover Sarah Palin's crazy UN meetings. Now, though? Oh look, CNN gets to send in one producer for a pool report. That's not change we can believe in! What's next, cooperating with the hated New York Times? Funny you should ask! John McCain's war on the Times was going very very well, for him. His campaign was trashing the New York Times and accusing Politico reporters of being "in the tank" and all that, but then some Politico people kept writing about how McCain's campaign kept lying about everything in the world. Then they wrote a story about how McCain actually pretty much lurves everyone at the hated New York Times. Like all of them!

♦ Not only is Rachel Maddow more popular than Keith Olbermann, she's now ahead of CNN's Larry King, too. [HuffPo]
♦ Sunday night's Emmy Awards generated the lowest ratings in history. [THR]
♦ MTV missed out on its chance to buy MySpace, but they have no plans to give up on their sixth-tier social network, Flux. [AdAge]
♦ Life magazine is back. For the third time. Time Inc. and Getty Images will use life.com to offer up "free, downloadable photos from world-renowned photographers." [NYP]
♦ Jeffrey Toobin, who says he "owes his TV career to [O.J.] Simpson," has no interest in covering him again, thank you very much. [TV Newser]
♦ Starbucks and ad agency Wieden & Kennedy are parting ways. [AdAge]
♦ Kanye West is teaming up with Comedy Central on a new series described as "hip-hop meets the Muppets." [THR]
♦ The Times recaps the service held on Monday night in memory of Clay Felker, the founding editor of New York magazine who died on July 1. [NYT]

The Steve "Sex on a stick" Dunleavy reminiscences keep pouring in! And the rabid, drunken Post hack grows into an ever more sympathetic figure as his retirement party draws closer. Today, three more wistful remembrances of Steve; though all involve drinking, only the last one involves him walking around with his dick out:

The Daily News is locked in a cutthroat tabloid war with the New York Post. The winner won't be determined by journalistic quality, obviously. No, it's all about stunts! Gotta bring in those eyeballs. So the Daily News hired a Sarah Palin lookalike and taped her walking around Manhattan, fooling the hell out of clueless (likely) Daily News readers! One guy has her sign a hockey puck. Then she tries to go to NBC and see Tina Fey but is kicked out. I see it as a parable of media domination of our political discourse. Watch the full clip after the jump, and then please stop sending us Sarah Palin Gawker Stalkers: Click to view

The Daily News sent a Sarah Palin look-alike to hit the streets (with a camera crew right behind her, naturally). CNN's Jeanne Moos spent yesterday roaming around town with Barack Obama and John McCain masks. Did they move Halloween up a month or something? [Gawker, Mollygood]

How much does awful celebrity gossip machine TMZ pay to get its hands on all those exclusives? A whole helluva lot more than a reasonable person might think. For example: OJ Simpson is on trial in Vegas right now for armed robbery of some sports collectibles. Clearly, OJ's time in the spotlight has passed. He's third rate. But here's how much a tape of the crime was worth:

In 2003, there were 75 news magazines in the US and Canada. Now there are 45. That's a 40% drop in five years. Why? Because magazines are generally too slow to keep up with the 24-hour news cycle, and besides, everyone is too busy reading their "Regional" magazines, of which there are 1,120. So, for example, "The Untold Tale Of Hurricane Katrina's Victims" is now 25 times less popular than "New Orleans' Best Jambalaya Restaurants Under $25." Americans, geez. [Folio]

Dan Rather filed that big $70 million lawsuit against CBS last year because, he said, they hung him out to dry like a coonskin on a tree branch when it turned out there were problems with his story about George W. Bush's National Guard Service. CBS said Rather was crazier than a coyote with Mexican jumping beans in his anus. (Okay, that's enough). Some of his suit was thrown out in April, and now two more of his remaining four claims have been dismissed. But he's still alive!

Oh god that New York Times social networking thing is live, for everyone(?), and it's popping up on top of everything we're trying to read. Go away! We don't want to join TimesPeople, a network of Times readers. Honestly the last thing the internet needs is another method of forwarding Krugman columns to people who already fucking read them. [PaidContent]

The MacArthur Foundation announced its annual Genius Grants today—those no-strings-attached, five year, $500,000 awards that let the best among us pursue their science or art or writing free from the cares of the working world. And look who got one: Alex Ross, the classical music critic for the New Yorker! Ross is certainly deserving when it comes to smarts, if not to finance (he won't be quitting the NYer for a mere 100K per year). But genius knows no financial criteria, despite the jealousy of the poors! Ross says he'll use the cash to help him write his next book, upgrade his website, and "launch some home improvements." God, geniuses are the luckiest people ever. [FBNY]

"The Life title is being resurrected as part of a joint venture between Time Inc. and Getty Images that will launch a Web site offering free... downloads from Getty plus the extensive archives from both Getty and the original Life magazine." [Post]

As in his appearance on the View, Bill Clinton offered the most tepid support possible for Barack Obama's presidential ticket on David Letterman's Late Show last night. After repeatedly invoking his vanquished wife Hillary, Clinton said the typical American voter will recall John McCain's heroic torture in a Vietnamese prison camp before deciding to "go the other way" and vote for... whoever that other candidate for president might be. In an inspired feat of booking, Letterman had comedian Chris Rock lined up to follow Clinton and, uh, remind him who won the primary. Video after the jump.