Having starred in Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and What About Bob? and everything, you'd think veteran actor Richard Dreyfuss would have put aside a few bucks, by and by. So either he invested quite unwisely or he just hates his old man. Because Dreyfuss is suing his father and his uncle for $870,000. Okay, no human is going to let nearly $900 grand slip away from him, but Dreyfuss is suing over a loan he made to his pops in 1984. And seeing how Richard is 60, his dad must be like... Well, quite lucky to even be alive. Damn, Richard.

An update on dearly departed comedian and actor Bernie Mac. His friends are expressing their love for the man and their grief at his passing today. ""Bernie Mac was one of the best and funniest comedians to ever live, but that was the second best thing he did," said fellow comic Chris Rock. "Bernie was one of the greatest friends a person could have. Losing him is like losing 12 people because he absolutely filled up any room he was in. I'm gonna miss the Mac Man."

The worst of the recession has finally hit us where we live. Forget about housing and energy and our greenbacks suddenly being equal to Canadian play-money-the worldwide reversal of fortune is depriving us of breasts! The beaches of France, long renowned for their topless bathing beauties, are being plagued by tops this summer. According to people who study such things, when women are not feeling happy about their economic and social status, they feel less inclined to expose their flesh to the viewing public.

Despite the wishes of her sister, former John Edwards bedmate Rielle Hunter doesn't want the haircut-and-pants to take a paternity test to determine whether or not he is the father of her baby. "Hunter said through her attorney that she would not take a genetic test 'now or in the future.' The attorney, Robert Gordon, called Hunter a 'private' person who is 'not running for public office' and would not comment further on the media frenzy engulfing her. 'She wishes to maintain her privacy and her daughter's privacy,' he said in the statement. 'Furthermore, Rielle will not participate in DNA testing or any other invasion of her or her daughter's privacy now or in the future.'" [Washington Post]

For some reason, certain members of the New York Giants aren't full of warm feelings over all the press the Jets are getting for hiring Brett Favre, the 38-year-old quarterback who grudgingly signed on after he was abandoned by his beloved Green Bay Packers. But why should the Giants be miffed? It's not like they beat the obnoxious New England Patriots and deprived them of their precious perfect season in the last Super Bowl. "I'm not surprised at all. No one cares about us. Let's call it what it is," explained running back Brandon Jacobs. More griping after the jump.

John Edwards' former lover Rielle Hunter may be keeping mum while the former politician drags her name through the mud, but Rielle's kid sister, Melissa, is having none of it. She doesn't buy Edwards' claims that he isn't the father of Rielle's baby. She wants the man to take a paternity test. And she wants him to shut the f- up! "I wish that those involved would refrain from bad-mouthing my sister," she says. "In the first reaction from Hunter's family, her younger sister Melissa told ABC News that Edwards should immediately follow through on his pledge to take a paternity test. 'I would challenge him to do so,' the sister said. 'Somebody must stand up and defend my sister.'"

Actor/comedian Bernie Mac passed away in a Chicago hospital this morning a week after being hospitalized with pneumonia, his publicist Danica Smith confirmed. He was 50. The sad news comes as a shock since newspaper reports just yesterday stated that he was responding well to treatment and would be released soon.

How much of a total assclown and liar is Tucker Max? Even shock jocks Opie and Anthony can't stand him. When he was first pitching his retarded tome, the boys got so fed up with his obvious fabrications about crapping and sexing that they decided to make Tucker the joke of the day. Watch and enjoy as O&A-ably assisted by comedian Jim Norton-pretend that the proto-douchebag's microphone keeps kicking out. Being a self-obsessed child, of course, Tucker never gets wise to the ploy and keeps trying to tell his story over and over. Video after the jump, plus a link to a NSFW clip of Opie destroying Tucker's book and throwing it against the wall in disgust.

Remember the article from Slate music writer Jody Rosen, who stumbled upon a little alt-weekly in Texas, the Montgomery County Bulletin, who had stolen his Jimmy Buffet article? Rosen got obsessed, did some research, and found that one of the paper's few writers, Mark Williams, had pretty much plagiarized everything ever. Now, says the Houston Press, the Bulletin is up and quitting due to the scandal. "It's no longer a publication. I'm quitting. After this Slate article and this is the future of journalism in New York City. I don't want any part of it," said publisher Mike Ladyman. (It's hard to feel sorry for Ladyman; he didn't seem to give a rat's about the plagiarism issue when Rosen contacted him repeatedly.) Good job, Slate! (A fun quote from the non-media-savvy Ladyman after the jump, plus an angry letter from copycat writer Mark Williams.)

Just asking... if, as Edwards says, the affair with Rielle Hunter both began and ended in 2006, when he also told his wife about it, and Hunter's child isn't his, as he insists, then why, exactly, did he go visit Rielle and her baby last month? Catching up with an old friend? Does he honestly think he'll salvage a shred of his reputation with this shit? Also is that lie more or less believable than insisting that "friends or supporters" of his are sending Ms. Hunter thousands of dollars a month without his knowledge? Also, what the hell is wrong with him? Sigh. The early indications are that no one buys his bullshit. So. What next? The press will be furious and unforgiving. The distraction of the Olympics aside, now they have Edwards lying directly to them—insisting there was no story there to anyone who inquired, and abusing their love of Elizabeth to get them to back off. Now the press will turn on him, probably using his betrayal of his beloved wife as their excuse for endless castigation. Rielle will finally get her morning show booking. The devoted liberals will throw him under the bus for betraying the party. (Though some will continue to blame the media.) Now the race is on to somehow prove the paternity of the baby or—more likely—track down those payments. The Enquirer should already be on the money trail, so let's see what happens!

Blogger mentor Tucker Max runs a blog network called Rudius Media that is badass, bro. Earlier today we mentioned that one former Rudius blogger once worked for six months only to receive a check for less than a hundred bucks ($82, to be exact). Now that blogger, Brandon Woods, has helpfully forwarded us the email chain that ensued after he emailed Tucker-very politely, we might add-to ask how the hell he came to be paid such a paltry sum for half a year's work. Tucker Max's reply to him (which he also forwarded to six other people) is below. And, well, yea:

The second ABC announced Brian Ross was on the case, you knew this was coming-John Edwards has admitted to having an affair with his former campaign staffer Rielle Hunter. The interview's on Nightline tonight. Edwards also claims he's not the father of Hunter's baby. And he didn't love her. So it's not cheating! Edwards claims his wife Elizabeth's cancer was in remission when he began the affair, so it's TOTALLY not cheating, at all. How did the story suddenly break on a Friday afternoon like this? Funny story. The Observer's Media Mob broke the news earlier today that Ross, ABC's celebrity investigative reporter, was preparing a report on the Enquirer's affair allegations. This usually means there's something to the story-they bring Ross out to bring legitmacy to sleazy internet tabloid stories, like the Mark Foley IM conversations that made Ross famous. This meant the story not only had legs but had the possibility to be huge. Edwards probably decided to get out ahead of it (too late, John) and acquiesce to an interview with Bob Woodruff instead of a sensationalistic Ross segment done without his cooperation. One might also imagine that prominent Democrats were pushing him to get this out of the way well before the conventions. Could be way worse than the Friday night that also happens to be the night of the Olympics Opening Ceremonies. Sigh. Guy's still slick. So John owes the nation, and Elizabeth, a big apology. DailyKos owes the internet an apology. The Los Angeles Times owes its bloggers an apology. Someone probably owes Mickey Kaus an apology. Wikipedia editors can just do whatever they want, no one cares about them. Now it just remains to be seen about this damn kid. [ABC]

Now's the time to pre-order your copy of Vanity Fair word-writer and snazzy dresser Michael Wolff's upcoming biography of News Corp. overlord Rupert Murdoch! The book will be out in February of next year. A publisher has already said "I think the subject and the author were born to be put together." Uh, good? "Written in the irresistible stye that only an award-winning columnist for Vanity Fair can deliver," promises the promo. Indubitably! [pic via NYM]

Last Sunday, the New York Times wrote about Chinese couples getting married on 8/8/08—their lucky day 'cause it's a lucky number. And of course the Beijing Olympics start on that day for the same reason, WE KNOW. Today, they do the weddings article again (not, this time, written by Jennifer 8. Lee.) However, there is a fun bit that reveals that getting married on this auspicious day isn't bliss for everyone:

The Beyonce/ L'Oreal Photoshop scandal, which began earlier this week, has reached critical mass. Lots of people think that L'Oreal digitally lightened a photo (pictured) of Beyonce in an ad in Elle magazine. L'Oreal denies it. The contention that they did lighten the pop diva's skin tone is supported by-in summary-the fact that it looks like they did. Five Beyonce photos from the past are below; compare and contrast:

In what is perhaps a brilliant meta move, today's David Brooks column on how aggregation is the new taste is actually composed entirely (and without citation) from ten years of embittered blog posts, fifty years of William F. Buckley essays, that one Adbusters feature, and a healthy dose of Marshall McLuhan: "On that date," Brooks says of June 29, 2007, "media displaced culture." (It is actually astounding that the column does not explicitly say "the medium is the message," though if it did Brooks might have to move back the date of this profound cultural shift to 1964 instead of pinning it to the release of the iPhone). See, now instead of respecting the old hierarchy of art we just collate and appraise and discard pieces of culture depending on ever-shifting trends and buzz. Also we blog. It's not a bad column at all, except that we cannot figure out why the hell it's under David Brooks' byline. Are people really trying to sell him on some hot new indie band? Did he get caught up in the Black Kids hype? [NYT]

It's been such a rough couple of years for Harvey Weinstein. The movie mogul has seen disappointment at the box office, his MySpace for millionaires continues to flatline, the value of its video distributor has been decimated. Perhaps that's why his charitable foundation, set up in honor of his parents like former studio Miramax, contributed just 96,000 last year. Apparently that's not much when you're a man of means. According to Cityfile, just $64,000 of that amount went to actual charities, the rest being overhead. Assuming Weinstein isn't stashing his donations somewhere else, one has to wonder whether he hates the poors — or is just afraid of becoming one. (On the mogul scale, of course.) [Cityfile]

Wow, so Paris Hilton just told a San Diego newspaper that "I've created a superhero with Stan Lee, which is [based on] me, and we're doing a cartoon right now with MTV." That would be Stan Lee the co-creator of Spider-Man and X-Men and former president of Marvel Comics. Which begs the question, what will Hilton's comics-esque cartoon be called?? I vote for either The Flash or The Taped Crusader. You? [San Diego Citybeat]

Desperate to make young boys turn off their PlayStations and DVD players and just READ something — anything! — publishers are apparently turning to a gross new sort of pulp fiction, shamelessly pandering to boys' supposed taste for the gory and disgusting. And it's working! After more than a few breakout hits, publishers ramped up production to 261 boys' books last year, more than double the amount in 2003, according to a front-page Wall Street Journal article. The real fun in the Journal piece, if you aren't around kids much, is just reading through the titles of what boys are reading these days. Like, for example, "Help! What's Eating My Flesh: Runaway Staph and Strep Infections!," which helped push Scholastic's science and history series to 300,000 copies in print.

"Morale, which took a tumble when CEO Susan Lyne left last month, has slumped even further, according to one insider." [Post]