Last year's Emmy Awards hit a 17-year ratings low. The prizes themselves mostly go to TV shows no one watches, so you'd think organizers would eagerly seek other ways to spice up the telecast. But the hot topic of the moment, celebrity magazine covergirl and Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, was off limits to speakers, according to red-carpet reports of a ban on political speech. The Wall Street crash wasn't brought up much either. That left celebrities confined to making veiled, mostly boring references to current events. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert made the best of the situation. Click the video icon to watch.

The Federal Reserve announced the conversion of the last two independent investment banks into bank holding companies. The change means Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley can borrow money from the Federal Reserve past January but will be more tightly regulated and must hold larger capital reserves. As the Wall Street Journal dramatically put it:

E! just aired an "exclusive" long version of an American Express advertisement involving Tina Fey and Martin Scorsese. That sounds like a cheap gimmick — we're supposed to get excited about first-run commercials now? — but it's actually a funny ad and the most interesting part of the Emmy awards so far, despite all the red carpet coverage. It also manages to make people briefly car about travel agents, even though the vast majority of them were made obsolete by the internet. Click the video icon to watch. UPDATE: With second ad.

Dear, sweet, precious, life-sustaining alcohol has starred in more movies and TV shows than any actor or actress could ever hope to star in. And tonight let us give the nectar of the gods its due. What's your favorite hooch scene? As ever, I'll humbly recommend one after the jump.

Not to use that hacky old line about saving all their asses in WWII and leaving them free to invest in things other than standing armies for the last 60-plus years, but Europe is just laughing its delicate ass off at us now that we're in financial trouble. The little bastards. "They list greed and Greenspan among the culprits, and there are comparisons to . . . Albania. But amid the gloating, there is fear for financial systems in Britain, Spain, Italy and elsewhere. It's a rare day when finance officials, leftist intellectuals and ordinary salespeople can agree on something. But the economic meltdown that wrought its wrath from Rome to Madrid to Berlin this week brought Europeans together in a harsh chorus of condemnation of the excess and disarray on Wall Street. The finance minister of Italy's conservative and pro-U.S. government warned of nothing less than a systemic breakdown. Giulio Tremonti excoriated the 'voracious selfishness' of speculators and 'stupid sluggishness' of regulators. And he singled out Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, with startling scorn." "'Greenspan was considered a master,' Tremonti declared. 'Now we must ask ourselves whether he is not, after [Osama] bin Laden, the man who hurt America the most. . . . It is clear that what is happening is a disease. It is not the failure of a bank, but the failure of a system. Until a few days ago, very few were willing to realize the intensity and the dramatic nature of the crisis.' "The system is collapsing, exactly like the Albanian pyramids collapsed,' Tremonti said. 'The idea is gaining ground that the way out of the crisis is mainly with large public investments. . . . The return of rules is accompanied by a return of the public sector.'" Okay, okay. So our shit's a little fucked up right now. But here's one thing: We don't have to take any crap from the likes of fucking Italy. How are your Neo-Nazi soccer riots going? And, what're you guys on now? Like your 24th "Republic" since Mussolini? Give it a rest. And don't get me started on Spain, Germany and France. [LAT]

The 60th Annual Prime Time Emmy Awards are here! Aren't you watching? Not the stupid daytime stuff, but Prime Time, where the money gets spent! E!'s red carpet extravaganza just got underway, and Jimmy Kimmel's pre-game show starts on ABC at 7:00. So, for all of those who want to share the merry—and make fun of people's clothing and bad one-liners—please come on in!

Borat helmsman Larry Charles says he intends to "destroy" organized religion with his newest flick, Religulous, starring Bill Maher. "I don't think 'debunk" is the right word,' he says. "I want to destroy more than debunk, just destroy the whole system." Maher chimed in: "I was raised a Catholic. But by the time I became an adult, scientific thought and rational evidence led me to believe otherwise. You know, when I was a kid and got a cavity I had mercury drilled into my teeth. Then, when I got older, they drilled it out-you can do the same with religion." Such mavericks! The fact that it's a Borat-style "documentary" in which dumbasses are strung up by their own words has dumbasses everywhere complaining even before it hits theaters.

Enough politics! The folks at Classic TV Showbiz are featuring this 1982 news story about the breakout hit The Price is Right. The pantsuits, the V-necks, the screaming fans—and that Bob Barker is one brown-haired Casanova! Cleanse your brain of all serious thought after the jump.

Screeching red-faced millionaire everyman Bill O'Reilly howled for all of us to be dragged from our homes and locked in dungeons because Gawker published those infamous Sarah Palin emails after someone hacked her Yahoo! account. Well, it seems the hackers have fired a warning shot at O'Reilly via his website, which they hacked on Friday. They didn't do much of anything, aside from taking a screenshot of a list of new subscribers' names, passwords, and billing addresses, which they posted on WikiLinks. They sent us the same snapshot, but I'm not posting it. Not because it's illegal to publish material illegally obtained by a third party (It isn't; O'Reilly just says it is because his audience wants him to say that.) but because I'd have to blur out pretty much every word in the document to protect private citizens who are not seeking the office of Vice President of the United States. Wired has more on the story. [via MediaBistro]

The GOP just cannot get their language right for a second. It's as if they've been running the country into the ground unopposed for the better part of a decade and have retreated into some nebulous dreamscape where nothing they say can hurt them! Politico's Mike Allen was discussing the McCain campaign with an anonymous member of the George W. Bush gang, when the party hack offered up this bit of wisdom: “The tactics that got them to mid-September in a tie are not going to get them to 50 percent plus one in November. They need … an eye toward driving out the range of contrast that makes McCain different from Obama (action-oriented rhetoric v. grand prose; accessible v. uppity; humble servant of country v. arrogant).” Uppity is quickly becoming the go-to epithet among baffled Republicans. Earlier this month, GA Rep. Lynn Westmoreland was discussing Sarah Palin's Convention speech with reporters outside the House chambers when he was asked to compare Palin to Michelle Obama. Westmoreland opined, "Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity." Asked if he'd really just used that word, the Congressman gave it some thought and responded, "Yeah. Uppity." [ThinkProgress and TheHill]

Despite complaints from all the musicians the McCain/Palin campaign are stealing music from, the assholes just keep stealing music. They ignored cease-and-desist orders from Van Halen's management and played "Right Now" at a rally in Maine last week, and they continue to blast Heart's "Barracuda" at stump stops. That much is true. Unfortunately, this open letter from Heart's Nancy and Ann Wilson is a joke column from The Stranger. Sigh. "Cease and Desist, you old fart," it reads. "God knows why we thought you would listen to us—two strong creative women. I guess we're all just 'trollop-faced cunts' to you. (Speaking of Cindy, who can blame her for hitting the pills? We'd need a Demerol epidural to live through five minutes of her conjugal duties [...] We'd rather rim Meatloaf. Seriously.)" Click through for a bigger pic of the furious missive.

Nutty and strangely adorable Courtney Love has job opportunities for you! First, she's seeking someone honest to clean up after her. "i need a non thieving non freaky housekeeper," she writes on her MySpace page. But the candidate doesn't have to be entirely "non freaky" she clarifies: "is anyone insanely clean neatfreak near malibu?" But if cleaning isn't your specialty, how are you with a camera? "also i need we need a documentarist, someone to document our studio as we go in wedsday, and i have ALOT of work to do til then and i wont just hand this to hbo or bbc 2 or bravo and god forbid not vh1! A DOCUMENATRY NOT A REALITY SHOW. get in touch with jason whp will further put you in touch with jason wienberg at untitled." The full ad after the jump.

Former Saturday Night Live writer Al Franken took some time away from his Minnesota Senate campaign to brainstorm last night's opening SNL skit with show overlord Lorne Michaels. The bit would have had whiny Wingers complaining that NBC is a bunch of lefty pinkos anyway-since it features McCain recording his approval for campaign ads that accuse Barack Obama of supporting "tax cuts for pedophiles," health care for Osama Bin Laden, and "fathering two black babies." But now that Franken has been outed as the original author of the piece, they're really going to poop their frightened pants. The Franken campaign is downplaying the candidate's involvement, but an SNL insider tells Politico that Franken's name was on the script alongside head writer Seth Meyers as late as Wednesday. See the sketch after the jump. Click to view

Poor George Michael. Just weeks after completing his first world tour in fifteen years, the singer was busted in a London public bathroom for drug possession. The police report doesn't name Michael, but sources confirmed to the British press that he was busted Friday for crack possession after a suspicious bathroom attendant tipped off the cops. This comes after his famous 1998 arrest by an undercover officer for lewd conduct in a Beverly Hills bathroom, and his 2006 adventure when he plead guilty to driving under the influence of drugs after being found slumped over the wheel of his car and was forbidden to drive for two years. This time, the law is taking it easy on the former Wham front man.

In honor of this week's total meltdown of our economy—and the fact that Bush/McCain expects us to pay to bail out the fuckers who caused it—let us focus on the stripe-shirted, bottle service-loving, date-raping, trust-funded, Ivy League pieces of human waste who made it happen. Don't get too caught up in the mercurial definition of "douchebag" when selecting clips of horrible people in movies and TV, since it's a rather recently popular term. Just think of the douchebag as anyone who hasn't really earned their own money, has horrible taste, is insanely crass, and gets off on being a shit to other people. We've had them all through the ages. Because there is no way an uninspired idiot like Jakob Lodwick could have invented them just to categorize himself. I'll get us rolling after the jump. Update: Forget the "moneyed" part. Douchebags exist in every social strata, and some of them are female as well.

So I was looking for that new "Thank You, John McCain" ad on Youtube and couldn't find it, but I found this clip of Sandra Bernhard's Sarah Palin riff. Transcribing does not do it justice, it turns out, so watch it below.

Despite how wicked and cynical and just plain fucked the world grows, people can still appreciate a good thing now and then. As evidence, Uma Thurman and Law & Order star Jesse L. Martin have both just signed on to appear in the upcoming Muppets Christmas special, "Letters to Santa: A Muppets Christmas." In the special, which airs on NBC this December, Uma will play Santa Clause's flight attendant while Martin portrays a mailman who opens the show with a song-and-dance number. As is mandatory, Kermit, Fozzy, Gonzo, Miss Piggy, and the rest of the crew are determined to save Christmas for some tots whose letters to Santa were lost in the mail. "Thurman and Martin join previously cast Whoopi Goldberg, Tony Sirico and Steve Schirripa, Richard Griffiths and Madison Pettis, along with Kermit, Fozzie, Gonzo, Miss Piggy and the rest of the muppets gang. The special, from Muppets Prods., will feature songs by The Muppet Movie songwriter Paul Williams." [TheHollywoodReporter]

Admittedly, I don't know who these people are, or what on earth they're talking about, but I do know these are clips from the upcoming episode of Gossip Girl and that many, many otherwise sane adults are hopelessly addicted to it. So dig in!

Comedian Sandra Bernhard has liberals and conservatives alike crying and moaning because she recently joked to a Washington D.C. audience that Sarah Palin is a "turncoat bitch" who "would be gang raped by blacks in Manhattan" if she followed through on her threat to visit New York. Because, you know, a comic saying things is much more dangerous than putting a maniac a heartbeat away from the weak, weak heart of the would-be oldest President ever. "[The gang rape comment] is part of a much larger, nuanced and, yes, provocative—that's what I do—piece from my show about racism, freedom, women's rights and the extreme views of Gov. Sarah Palin, a woman who doesn't believe that other women should have the right to choose," Bernhard said. More of her Palin routine after the jump.

If you want William Shatner in your little movie, respect that he is the greatest actor in Hollywood and the most important thing since movable type and give the man a real freaking role! Director J.J. Abrams learned that the hard way when he tried to squeeze the living legend into some bit cameo part in his upcoming Star Trek remake. Abrams agrees with Shatner that he's too much man for a walk-on in any Star Trek project, but he just couldn't make something bigger happen for the original James Tiberius Kirk. "It was very tricky," Abrams told the L.A. Times. "We actually had written a scene with him in it that was a flashback kind of thing, but the truth is, it didn't quite feel right. The bigger thing was that he was very vocal that he didn't want to do a cameo. We tried desperately to put him in the movie, but he was making it very clear that he wanted the movie to focus on him significantly, which, frankly, he deserves." The director was responding to an earlier comment Shatner had made about the newest Star Trek offering: "There is no need for me to know anything because I'm not a part of it." [UPI]