A Little of the Old In and Out



(image via Phillyburbs)

In: Nicolette Sheridan. You don't survive in Hollywood for as long as Nicolette Sheridan has survived without learning how to throw a mean suckerpunch. According to Femalefirst:

"DESPERATE HOUSEWIFE, NICOLETTE SHERIDAN impressed fiance NIKLAS SODERBLOM during their first meeting, when she saved his life by attacking a great white shark which was edging towards him.

"The actress was admiring Soderblom, then a stranger, surfing in the sea when she observed the shark's fin behind her future love. But the brave 41-year-old risked her life to protect Soderblom from the predator, by racing towards it and punching its face."

She's been around the block, this chick. But that's okay; after the Sino-nuclear winter, Keith Richards and Nicolette Sheridan will survive to re-populate the earth. Actually, that shark backed down in an act of professional courtesy.

"She says, 'Niklas was on a surfboard and there was a huge great white shark that had come over from Catalina.""

As opposed to the "sharks" she competes with from Beverly Hills and the San Fernando Valley.

"... 'I was doing my daily three-mile swim and I saw this fin and I swam as fast as I could and punched that shark right in the nose, repeatedly. And saved him!'"

For an appetizer.



The most effective use of crocodile tears since Bob Dole resigned his Senate seat in order to get plastered by Bill Clinton in '96. (image via telegraaf)

Out: Gwyneth Paltrow. After that rather bizarre "cupping" incident, then the unofficial show business retirement, we thought that Gwyneth Paltrow's eccentric behavior would be limited to HuffingtonPost blog entries. No such luck. According to British Vogue, "EXTRAS on the set of an ad for Beanpole, a South Korean clothing company, were apparently instructed not to make eye contact with the star of the ad, Gwyneth Paltrow."



(image via lystad)

In: The Chinese Yuan. Does China ever make strategic mistakes? Aside, we mean, from the savage butchery of Tiananman Square. After the collapse of ther Soviet Union and the legitimacy of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), China has slowly, but surely, slipped into -- or, rather, made its intentions clear that it wants to slip into -- the old Russian bearskin jacket. This week began with a Pentagon report (a "Rumsfeld Snowflake"?) on the alarming rise of the Chinese military, and it ends with a political victory for Beijing's currency.

China's decision to sever the yuan's link from the dollar was, essentially, a result of the heat placed upon the Asian power this week by the intense scrutiny of The United States Senate (As well as Bush Administration coersion).

This concession ought to have been a victory for the United States. And yet, China cleverly spun it as a win in the Pacific (Perhaps because Condi is in transit and could not reap the full political "bennies"?), according to the International Herald Tribune:

"China's long-awaited decision to allow its currency to strengthen was greeted with widespread praise from its main trading partners in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, signaling a diplomatic triumph for Beijing despite the mixed economic consequences the move will bring to the region.

"From Tokyo to Canberra, governments and central banks welcomed Beijing's decision to revalue the yuan and to sever its link to the dollar as a signal that China was willing to be a cooperative partner in trade and finance by expanding the scope of its free market policies."

Further:

"The longer-term implications will be significant in a region where the yen in Japan has been the predominant currency, buoyed by huge currency reserves and trade surpluses, analysts said.

"Now that China is running up similar reserves and surpluses, analysts said it could only be a matter of time before the Chinese currency catches up.

"'The debut of the yuan as an international currency presents a major challenge to the yen,' an editorial warned Friday in Japan's leading business daily, The Nihon Keizai Shimbun."

More.



(image via netscape)

Out: Anna Nicole Smith. An alarming National Enquirer story, from their (The Corsair sniffs haughtily) "cultural columnist" Anna Nicole Smith, who is presently a disturbing, orangish color:

"When I heard that Angelina Jolie adopted another baby, I was so happy for her! It bothers me that some people say she went 'baby shopping' �? I'm sure that she really fell in love with the kid. I'd love to go toEthiopiaa and visit with the kids, too. The problem is that I'd want to take a plane full of them back with me!"

*The Corsair shudders* Haven't those wartorn children been through enough? From Jeanette Walls:

"The former reality-TV star stunned crowds with her outrageous behavior in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina recently. 'She entered a wet T-shirt contest at a club called Freaky Tiki and exposed herself and got into a loud fight with some guy everyone says is her boyfriend,' a source tells The Scoop."

Of course, the posters on her website ratted her out at the ... "Freaky Tiki" (Averted Gaze):

�?'What surprised me is she was slamming shots after she took [some 'nerve pills,'] according to another poster. 'Then she continued drinking and by night�?s end the boyfriend, (he said his name was Larry) tried to calm her down she smacked him in the face and was kissing on girls and dry humping some old man on his lap who she left with but not without help from her attorney Howard [K. Stern] who had to hold her up and went wagging behind her like a puppy dog, with in fact Anna's puppy dog in his arms.'"




(image via crookedbrook)

In: Lunch at Michael's. Yesterday, hottie Elizabeth Spiers did the weekly Lunch at Michael's on FishbowlNY. And there were some doozies, like, "David Hasselhoff. Seriously. David... Hasselhoff... And three people I didn't know." We understand Elizabeth: Reality becomes just a little bit ... hazy after an encounter with such Hasselhoffian grandeur. Also: Jeff Jarvis, who doesn't detest Taco Bell, was also there. And Diana Ross. More here.



(image via AP)

Out: DJ Qualls. The Corsair offers DJQualls a robust multivitamin.



(image via Harrywalker)

In: Lawrence O"Donnell. Former Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's "Golden Boy," Lawrence O'Donnell is making waves through the Huffington Blog. After serving as a an aide to the former Ambassador (A counterpart to The Corsair's Father) and Senator (And, O'Donnell is a Centrist Clinton-Hater), O'Donnell went on to Hollywood, and hit it big as an Executive Producer on The West Wing (Has this man's life ever known adversity -- Goddamn it?!), but Larry still gets his political fix as a guest on The McLaughlin Group and blogging hard at HuffingtonPost.

A few weeks ago he publicly named Karl Rove as Matt Cooper's source at Time Magazine. Now, more tales out of school (Or, via the parlors of Georgetown):

"In the 21 days since I broke the story that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source, Rove's lawyer, Bob Luskin, has been working the press everyday with a new defense angle that, once committed to print in Newsweek, the Washington Post or the New York Times, gets added to the Republican party's talking points on the scandal."

More here. Luskin, BTW, is a specialist in "white collar crime."