Media-Whore D'Oeuvres



(image via newsoftheworld)

"WILDCHILD Peaches Geldof's marriage is OVER after only 96 DAYS. The troubled teenager has told shocked rock musician husband Max Drummey, 24, she's DIVORCING him and will start talks with her lawyers this week. A pal of Peaches, 19, told us: 'She realised it was all a mistake - and her dad Sir Bob is delighted.' Sir Bob’s troubled daughter has sensationally DUMPED Max Drummey following a series of bitter rows at their New York home. And only three months after the wedding she’s told pals: 'It’s OVER. I just don’t FANCY him any more.'" (Newsoftheworld)

"Alex Rodriguez may be seeing Madonna, but he's not ready to let go of his ex-wife, Cynthia, who divorced him in September, citing his relationship with the Material Mom as a cause. 'A-Rod still loves Cynthia,' maintains a baseball insider, who says that the slugger has been telling his ex that this is just a phase he is going through, and asking her to hang on and wait for him. 'He has always wanted to be a superstar and he is in awe of Madonna, but Cynthia is his true love and best friend. He has been asking her to just let him get through this obsession.'" (PageSixMagazine)

"Most punters will agree that it is bad enough to be shooed out of a pub at closing time. So imagine how miffed drinkers were at the Punch Bowl yesterday afternoon imagine how miffed drinkers were at the Punch Bowl - film director and 'Mr Madonna' Guy Ritchie - turfed them all out of his Mayfair pub to have a private lock-in. The RocknRolla director, 40, closed the pub at 6pm to have a drinking session with a group of mates. One patron told us: 'I was drinking with a couple of friends when a member of staff came over to us and asked us to leave. When we asked why, he told us Guy wanted the venue all to himself. Everyone was a bit cheesed off, but what could we do?'" (Thisislondon)

"In The New York Times today, Al Gore lays out his plan to have the United States get '100 percent of [its] electricity from carbon-free sources within 10 years' —a much more ambitious goal than anyone else has proposed to date. (By comparison, here's a detailed blueprint from Google showing how we could conceivably reduce the amount of electricity we get from fossil fuels 88 percent by 2030, while saving money in the process.) Gore's plan seems to rely heavily on building solar thermal plants in the Southwest—a promising idea we've discussed before — wind farms in the Midwest, and a behemoth $400 billion national smart grid to bring the power to our homes. (He's agnostic on carbon sequestration for coal plants—sure, bring it, if it works...) But is this realistic? It certainly won't be cheap." (TNR)

"Caroline Kennedy's payoff is rumored one of three jobs: ambassador. France is big-time classy but more likely it's the Court of St. James, which was old Joe Kennedy's job. Or Sec'y of Education. Or, and less likely, if there's someone to do the paperwork and real job, UN envoy." (Cindy Adams)

"Let’s say that on Jan. 21 a massive car bomb meant for Osama bin Laden goes off in a Pakistani village, killing 120 local citizens but missing the elusive al Qaeda leader, who was riding in another vehicle. In an elaborate press conference, the president of Pakistan blames the CIA. On an easel next to him is a three-by-five foot photo of the CIA’s station chief in Islamabad, who is sent packing. President Obama, in office for mere hours, finds out that the CIA did, in fact, plant the bomb, based on what it thought was solid intelligence that bin Laden was in the car. How will the new president react? That’s much on the mind of intelligence officials awaiting the Jan. 20, 2009, inauguration of Obama, a short-time U.S. senator with no discernable record and little demonstrated interest, so far, in intelligence issues." (CQPolitics)



(image via papermag)

"L.A.'s fashion flock flapped over to PAPER's 24-Hour Store on the Sunset Strip on Friday night, rocking skinny jeans, Technicolor stretchy tops, mounds of messy scarves (worn looped 'round and 'round, Aerosmith-style) knee-high boots and mini-dresses that barely covered a few lovely lady humps. 'It looks like a casting call for an American Apparel ad,' marveled a male reveler who -- dressed in a vintage track jacket and painted-on trousers -- was definitely the pot calling the kettle black."

"Far more than a brain trust of advisers, the U.S. Cabinet has been the instrument by which political rhetoric becomes public policy. From Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins (under FDR) to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (under Ford and Bush II), Cabinet officials have been the chief sculptors and enforcers of the best — and worst — presidential policies. In many ways, administrations are the sum of their Cabinets’ work, and that axiom would be especially powerful should Sen. Barack Obama win the 2008 election. With just four years of federal legislative experience, the Illinois senator would be the antithesis of the old Washington hands who tend to occupy the Oval Office — and based on his campaign themes, he will likely enter office with a mandate for progressive change. Which raises the question: What would a truly progressive Cabinet look like? There has been no such thing in at least a generation (if not longer), so it is a difficult — but critical — question to answer." (InTheseTimes)

"There are those who object to my writing about the President, at least this President-elect, in the NYSD. There are those who believe that if you mention a politician that they don’t favor, you’re being political. I don’t agree. Presidents are very powerful in the world and very much in the world I cover, no matter their party. Gore Vidal assures us that there is really only one party, what he calls 'the Property Party' with two sections. Whether or not that is true, it is true that many people I report on have relationships zero to two degrees of separation with whoever is President. These are the real privileged classes, kid yourself not. Many people I report on have active stakes in the corridors of power and in fact hold positions resembling ownership. Presidents are always only temporary visitors to those corridors of powers. Their backers are not temporary." (NYSocialDiary)



(image via style)

"It couldn't quite compete with Tuesday night's spectacle of hipsters dancing in the streets of the East Village and Williamsburg, but yeterday's over-the-top opening of the Juicy Couture flagship on Fifth Avenue was still heavy on the feel-good factor. Founders Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor, in matching black gowns that were part Alice in Wonderland and part Alice Cooper, served Champagne and cake amid birdcages, ballerinas, and toy soldiers on stilts. As Sarah Silverman, Blake Lively, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Jay McInerney ran a gauntlet of male models dressed all in black save for pink peonies around their necks, the reigning queens of incongruous cool shared their secret pre-party ritual: 'Drink a lot of wine.' Then they ran off to greet Martha Stewart. The lovefest that ensued went something like, 'Juicy loves Martha!' and, slightly deeper now, 'And Martha loves Juicy!'" (Style)

"FT.com will tomorrow roll out the latest installment of its long-term web redesign with a pink front page and a region-specific homepage for its growing Middle East audience. Those are some of the immediate changes but, as a redesign, it’s more like a war of attrition: more changes are on the way but the whole process won’t be over for some months. In an interview with paidContent:UK, FT.com editor James Montgomery spoke of his long-term goals and why there’s no money to be made in attracting casual users." (Paidcontent)