If you've been harboring fantasies of sleeping with portly British provocateur Christopher Hitchens, hold on just a minute: he snores. It's hardly his biggest personal flaw (educated guess), but he does manage to crank out thousands of words on his snoring affliction for Men's Vogue, as part of his ongoing quest to pre-empt any and all criticisms of himself so that he can continue to talk bad about whatever he likes in peace. Here, his long-suffering (educated guess, again) wife describes the experience of a Hitchens family slumber:

From a long list of the most excruciating old school commercials that painfully integrated rapping comes this winner: The "Perfect Strangers" and "Head of the Class" hip hop promotional collaboration dance and musical extravaganza. I always thought Balki would make a promising rap star, and Larry, of course, is a great hype man. But spectacles like this surely prompted the sitcom stars of today to specifically write "No rapping promo appearances" language into their contracts. So many lost opportunities:

Excellent article in the New Yorker this week about tigers. Fear them as you journey through the Sundarbans in search of honey! [NYer]

Have you, like most of the creative underclass, been wondering to yourself, "What happened to all those yuppies we heard so much about in the 1980s?" Well at least in the UK, they're still there—but they have switched to a new acronym. Without so much as sending out a press release! Young urban professionals have grown up and become ARPPies: Asset-Rich, Penny Poors. And judging by one Arppie's soul-searching self-evaluation, they've given up the flashy cars and coke orgies in favor of "discussing the economy, the credit crunch and the cost of food."

A Page Six reporter has sold her debut novel to Simon & Schuster. Paula Froelich's Mercury in Retrograde centers on three New York women: a newspaper reporter named Penelope Mercury, who gets fired; a wealthy socialite fashion editor, Lena "Lipstick" Lippencraff, and a newlywed corporate lawyer Dana Gluck, who moves out on her husband when she discovers he's having an affair. Finally, some insight into New York women who have it at all, but still feel unfulfilled, by attractive female New York journalist. Except we've been there before, so many many times.

Page Six's item earlier this week about first daughter Barbara Bush's attendance at a New York Rangers game, and the accompanying wholly unsubstantiated speculation that maybe she's dating a Rangers player, prompted a sports blogger to engage in some journalism (take that, Washington Post!). He dug deep in the photo archives and uncovered the haunting connection between Barbara Bush and the hockey team: Style.com writer, socialite, and Fifth Column Of The Gaydom Derek Blasberg!

First of all, it's just great that the New York Times has a headline today that reads "Zombie Strippers." It has to, cause that's the name of a new movie. But it would be great under any circumstances. The Times' stuffy assessment is that pretty much everyone "can sit this one out." But would they be saying that if they were facing down Zombie Jenna Jameson who was intent on eating their face? These are the questions that "ivory tower" journalists don't like to think about. The trailer for this thrill ride of a lifetime is below—it looks like it could be good! No it doesn't.

Animal blogger Bucky Turco has posted a hi-res mockup of an official ticket to see the Pope's appearance at the St. Patrick Cathedral tomorrow. Apparently someone with computer skills (Note to US Secret Service: Not us) could theoretically print this out into a reasonable facsimile of a real ticket and use it to attend the event. In related news, Bucky is "posting from an undisclosed location today," and we all wish him well and hope that he makes it to Monday a free man. Click to enlarge. [Animal NY]

The Washington Post has fired a young reporter named Michael Tunison after he disclosed that he wrote for a sports blog on the side, and, additionally, may have been drunk at some point in his life. This is obviously behavior incompatible with his key newsroom position, "which included some reporting and writing and some clerical work in the Montgomery County bureau." You can just imagine the vast logistical difficulties that his newly revealed identity as a football fan would pose in his suburban newsgathering duties. Our jock-following colleague at Deadspin gently mocks the WP for being hypocritical and, frankly, stupid about the internet, but we say: kudos, Post. Your actions help give all bloggers something to make fun of. After the jump, a screengrab of the blog post (and drunky pic) with which Tunison "brought discredit to the paper":

Is it possible that Brooklyn is really "the naughtiest place in the country"? A porn site called Naughty America says it is, mainly because the majority of its subscribers come from BK (kicking Chicago's ASS). So they're bringing five porn stars to a bar in Williamsburg in order to congratulate the borough on its kinkiness. Obvious question: are total porn site subscriptions a good measure of how "naughty" an area is? You could argue the opposite. [Brooklyn Paper]

"PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hunger bashed in the front gate of Haiti's presidential palace. Hunger poured onto the streets, burning tires and taking on soldiers and the police. Hunger sent the country's prime minister packing." Oh, really, Marc Lacey? Really, New York Times? Hunger did this? The inanimate sensation created when one's liver requires more glucose "bashed in" a gate and burned tires? Oh, sorry, are you trying to be poetic? A little fancy with the language? Great work! Your stupid lede made us too annoyed to read what is probably a very important and serious story about poverty. Your stupid lede and our hangover. Is it... the stupidest lede? Probably not! SO: find us even more egregiously 'poetic' Times ledes. Maybe we'll poll! After the jump, Denton's nomination for dumbest fancy intro to serious news.

Maxim publisher Felix Dennis, who grimly admitted to a murder during an interview, keeps trying new and various ways to backtrack. He was drunk! He only kills magazines, ha ha! His latest claim, at a Columbia Journalism event last night: it was all a big prank to sell books! Dennis said it was an April fool's joke. "What [the press] didn't notice was the date," he said. Of course, that disregards the fact that the story actually ran on April 2, and that the interview the story was based on took place months earlier. Quite a bit of forward planning for a raving drunk and possibly murderous lad mag mogul. [BW]. Here's the original passage that started it all:

Not being well tuned in to the Catholic outrage circuit, we missed the big controversy this week over Bill Maher calling the Pope the head of a "child-abusing religious cult," and saying "he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats." That sounds fairly accurate, no? Not to Catholic League president and perpetually outraged man Bill Donohue, who demanded an apology on behalf of all Catholics worldwide who care about trivial things. And now Donohue says that he's been assured that Maher plans to apologize tonight for "falsely accusing the pope of once being a Nazi." Because in fact the Pope was just "conscripted into a German Youth organization (from which he fled as soon as he could)." Is Bill Maher now expected to be nuanced when it comes to the objects of his hate? Doesn't really sound like him. If you're reading this, Mr. Maher, and I know you are: just shout "Jesus loved whores!" at the end of your apology, to maintain your cred. The clip of his original Pope rant, after the jump.

The Post's Andrea Peyser, who is like a mix of Ann Coulter, Ed Koch, and a rat with rabies, has a few things she can't stand: liberals, whiners, all things pure and good. Now you can add to that list "millimeter wave technology," an improved airport full-body security scanning method. It sees through clothes and leaves nothing to the imagination! "It's enough to make me rethink my hairstyle. I'm not referring to my head." Gross, Andrea Peyser. Jesus. She watches a woman go through the scan, and cleverly riffs, "The machine also shaved off 15 pounds, a good argument for scanning females." I get it, women are fat! Then, she insists that a man go through, so she can look at his penis:

In addition to making fun of your mother's death and mocking people for supposedly aging prematurely, Harvey Levin's TMZ loves to write oh-so-clever sex-pun headlines. The one pictured ran with a story about Britney Spears being ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer's fees. There are some more, just from the past couple of days, after the jump. Reading them well help you develop the vital skill of applying a dick joke to virtually any situation.

An outraged Iwo Jima veteran said that whoever designed Time's April 21 global warming cover (pictured) is "going to hell... to stick a tree in place of a flag on the Iwo Jima picture is just sacrilegious." His veteran buddies are also upset: "[W]e'll stick a dadgum tree up somebody's rear if they want that and think that's going to cure something." Wait, so people actually say "dadgum" outside of King Of The Hill? [Business And Media]

Famous Paris Hilton impersonator Natalie Reid is getting so popular these days that paid publicists are spontaneously sending out emails celebrating her overwhelming popularity. Along with photos generously marked "for public display," such as the one pictured! We received this bit of fan mail from Jim Strzalkowski of Xtra Public Relations: "Wow! Natalie Reid was all glammed up on the set of the Wayans Brothers' 'Snowflake.' Natalie was beside herself as she was bestowed the superstar treatment on the set. She had her own trailer, a stand-in and even fans asking her for her autograph" Fans you say, Jim? INCREDIBLE. But what did she tell her close friend?

Bizarre racial thinker and conservative columnist John McWhorter today muses over his run-ins with the smug, misguided intellectuals who infest American higher education with their "radical leftist perspective." It's a standard-issue argument against political correctness, which ignores the salient point that conservatives are just as convinced of their own righteousness as liberals, they just don't have the numbers to assert their will on most campuses. Also, a tip for McWhorter: if you don't want to get argued with, you shouldn't have worked at freaking Berkeley. He says that the documentary "Indoctrinate U," out now, will help strike a blow against closed leftist minds. We agree that liberal political correctness is terribly annoying—almost as annoying as Republicans who use it as a canard to distract the world from their happy march towards fascism. Hey, this post is like a bad Poli-Sci class! The trailer for the film that will save beleaguered Ivy League ROTC students, after the jump.

Sam Zell, the crazy old man who bought some newspapers recently, is a champion of free speech, which is why he swears so much. So it's odd that he is suing some lady for defamation, right? Especially because the lady is not associated with us, and we have called him all sorts of things! Oh, the lady is Dianne Jacob, who represents the Second District on the San Diego County Board of Supervisors. Sam Zell also owns a trailer park company that has four parks in her district. Recently, they started raising rents. Dianne Jacob said some very mildly defamatory things about them!

The following email was sent by the deputy editor of The Straits Times, an English language newspaper in the only growing market for print papers left: Asia. Singapore, specifically. The editor would like to know if maybe anyone who is going to get laid off from the New York Times would like to go work in a country whose "press freedom ranks below Nigeria and just ahead of Russia." They are in dire need of copy-editors, apparently! The last couple were maybe caned? Email below, via Thomas Crampton.