The City of New York has always run anti-smoking ads that are pretty great, in the sense that they're disgusting and make smokers jump up and change channels as quickly as possible. The city's newest campaign features "Marie," a 58 year-old who has smoked for 40 years, even as bits of her body were constantly being amputated because of her poor circulation [NY Sun]. This could backfire, though, because it just makes it easy to say "I'll stop after my first amputation." The ad is below—I particularly admire how they slipped in a picture of a bone saw. Something to think about on my smoke break.

Bronson Van Wyck (pictured in white) is a blueblood, Yale-educated NYC event planner whose firm is known for staging fahbulous parties for everything from high society weddings to political rallies. But according to one reliable tipster, he's also a cheapskate who recently tried to scam his way into a cut-rate gym membership by rigging a charity auction. The full email detailing the party boy's underhanded plan to save himself $600 at Equinox, after the jump.

Celebrities and their kids are saving the earth from extinction by doing stuff! We always knew this to be the case. Today it's confirmed by the Daily News' servicey feature telling us how celebrities raise their kids to be "eco-friendly." By recycling them? No silly, by giving them pretentious names and then having their publicists send out a press release every time they buy them a carton of organic juice! Evidence of how low the bar for parenting and environmental self-congratulation has sunk: e-vites, cooking vegetables, and hardwood floors.

We got an email from Jeff Stier, associate director of the American Council on Science and Health and author of yesterday's editorial in the NY Post about the cockroach peril New York will face as a result of Whole Foods' paper bag use. We referred to ACSH in our post yesterday as "the conservative 'science' group ACSH, which is funded by Dow Chemical, Chevron, and a slew of other corporations." Stier says "Gawker owe's ACSH a correction" for that post, although you will notice that our description is accurate, and is not even contradicted by Stier's own description of the group. He also objects to the fact that "reporters often ask about funding only when some if it may come from industry," something I would characterize as "good reporting." His full letter is reprinted after the jump.

Your toothbrush holders: Are they sufficiently adaptable to our dynamic modern age? It's not the type of question you want to tackle on your own. Thankfully we have the paper of record to help guide us through the wild twists and turns of this perilous issue. And any story that includes the phrase "the powers at the major toothbrush makers" without so much as a qualifying chuckle has got to have something important to say.

South America is crazy about "The Simpsons," Fox's funny cartoon for grown-ups. Who knew? And the countries down there are apparently very sensitive to any perceived historical inaccuracies in the satirical show, no matter how obvious the joke. Citizens of Argentina are outraged over an episode in which Lenny and Carl—two fictional cartoon characters—call Argentina's former president Juan Peron a dictator, and joke that he was married to Madonna (who played Eva Peron in a movie) [WP]. Why, it's as if some foreign cartoon insulted Ronald Reagan! Venezuela recently declared "The Simpsons" to be unfit for children to watch, so who knows what official action will come out of this. The offending clip is below.

Anderson Cooper has staked out a position on media personalities having sex with vast numbers of overseas soldiers: Staunchly in favor! On air, the CNN anchor always seems to be saying or asking a little more than good sense would dictate, and then getting all blushy about it, and the same thing seems to have happened in Cooper's interview with Outside magazine. Here's how Cooper answered the innocent question "Do Americans have an exaggerated sense of danger about the Third World?":

"'I never ever once wanted to stop Mr. Vander Ark from doing his own guide - never ever,' she said as she took the stand for the second time in the three-day trial, as the last rebuttal witness. 'Do your book, but please, change it so it does not take as much of my work.'" [Times]

Thomson Reuters is expected to plaster its logo all over New York, London and Toronto subway stations today, along with the New York Stock Exchange building and Times Square. Why? Because the company, formerly Thomson, is very excited that it just completed its takeover of Reuters and wants the whole world to care. Also, the company thinks promoting its brand will sell a few more subscriptions to its databases, like Westlaw. and help the company surpass in size its competitor Bloomberg. Let the ridiculously expensive pissing match begin! [Times]

The new Vogue is like an attack ad against Adobe Photoshop. You can practically hear the ominous attack-ad music in the background as you gaze upon Gwyneth Paltrow's detached head, hovering "a full foot in front of her neck" on the cover. So far, more than 10,000 votes in a GoFugYourself.com poll support the notion that Paltrow "looks like an alien" in the shot. The photo has of course been named an official Photoshop Disaster. Vogue may have pulled off the neat trick of making as much of a mess of its front in May as it did in April. It certainly took some heat off Marie Claire, which up until now had been this month's poster child for ASME airbrushing guidelines with this strange cover involving the TV producer and actress Tina Fey:

Hey, non-white women: Glamour is not racist, despite what you may have read! Why, just this week the magazine hosted a cookoff for "ethnically diverse" couples. One is happening tonight! Half the contestants will make roast chicken, half will make meatloaf. And probably none will be fatties, since everyone was asked to submit in advance "j-peg photos of each of you (300 dpi)- 5 x7." Glamour's panicked email seeking contestants, reprinted after the jump, made its way to at least one minority journalism association, so hopefully the magazine was able to contact some of those elusive non-whites "outside of the [sic] NY and NJ."

When a Chicago subway train got stopped for an hour in a tunnel yesterday morning, riders there did what many of us have thought of doing many times, but have not for fear of our lives: they got out and walked. That is just awesome. Less awesome: when officials heard people were walking along the tracks, they shut down power to the entire line as a safety precaution (for third rail zapping possibilities), which automatically stranded thousands more riders. It's a grassroots revolt ethical quandary!

Had enough of golden boy fashion designer Tom Ford's face? He helpfully poses on the cover of Prestige in a way that makes visible only his forehead, eyelids, cheeks, nose, lips, and chin. This is the man about whom rival (?) designer Marc Jacobs just told GQ, "Whatever he's doing works for him. And I don't know if he does anything, but I'm not opposed." Now we know what he's doing: undergoing some sort of grotesque face surgery that's being concealed by faux-artistic camera angles! Click to enlarge the puzzling cover. [Towleroad]

Care for some cold clafoutis from Balthazar? How about old gossip? Today's "blind item" in the Daily News had juicy hookup details regarding Star's Julia Allison and Men's Health's Dave Zinczenko.
The health-code-violating gossip, as we pointed out, was way old—the pair broke up last May! Allison hastens to add, "Dave and I dated a year ago, and although we remain good friends, he's happily ensconced in a relationship... we haven't dined at Balthazar in over a year." She had one last thing to say regarding Dave: "The measure of a man is how he treats you when he's no longer fucking you." In this, Julia Allison is right. (Excerpted IM convo follows.)

Here's a clip of Fox Business Network personality Cheryl Casone explaining, in her role as totally impartial economic expert, why Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama's tax plans are so misguided: because the rich pay most of the taxes already! "Most middle and low income earners not only don't pay income taxes, they end up getting money back in their returns. So somebody needs to kinda work on their math a little bit. *Snort*." Right, except for middle class people like you and me who get money back that we overpaid on the thousands of dollars in taxes we already had taken out of our checks throughout the year, not to mention sales taxes. (Standard deduction on taxable income for single people this year: $8,750). Click to watch, then go register as a Republican.

Octogenarian gossip queen Liz Smith succinctly titled her recent blog post "I Read the News Today, Oh Boy: Who Still Cares? Millions Around the World Did. Some Still Do." What is she talking about? It has something to do with Princess Di. The memorial pictured is located in Harrods department store in London, commemorating the death of Princess Di and Dodi Fayed. Liz shares Dominick Dunne's opinion that their whole romance was just a big fraud! So why go all the way to London to see it, with the exchange rate being so bad? But then at the end she says that Harrods' Egyptian-themed escalator is worth an overseas visit. Liz Smith, I don't know what your point is, but you are a beautiful and mysterious gem, and someone really needs to buy you this t-shirt. [WowoWow]. Click through for bigger pics of both of Harrods' tacky memorials.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, basketball legend, humanitarian, and LA Times blogger, turns 61 today. And he's not just sitting back quietly writing children's history books and skyhooking $100 bills into the garbage can; he's asking for a little birthday love from his readers! You are instructed to "send a detailed note to Kareem's manager if you can help make his birthday wishes come true." I would think he could take care of the "tropical vacation" out of his own pocket, but maybe not? After the jump, his wish list, and how YOU can help.

Just in time for its annual "Green Issue" (which, once again, is not printed on recycled paper), Vanity Fair gets supermodel—and super mom—Cindy Crawford to take some time out of her busy schedule and write a stilted and comically self-absorbed article to fill you, the reader, in on what Cindy Crawford is doing about "green" things. It's a word which is "on everybody's tongues these days." She's being harassed by her kids about this stuff! "I guess it's part of living in Malibu," she says. Yes, we'll take your word for it.

"Broadcasters of this great nation... You have the power to turn this country away from cynicism. You have the power to turn this nation away from the hatred and the divisive dialog that has rendered such a corrosive effect on our body politic. You can lift us up into a more enlightened age."—actor Tim Robbins, in his keynote address to the National Association of Broadcasters. Don't be modest Tim, actors are pretty big heroes too! But wait, there's even more ridiculousness from this meeting of the mutual admiration society:

The New York Times is desperate for some of their overpaid, aging staffers to accept a buyout deal. A staff email yesterday pleaded with people to gracefully take the money and run—'cause if they don't, there will be layoffs. Now we don't want to see that. It breaks our heart. No, we'd much rather some noble Times stars just pack up and leave. So we asked you who should take buyouts. You named names! Now, we poll. The winner of this poll has to quit the paper, or else they'll have layoffs on their conscience. Poll below! Choose wisely!