Yon sourced the report to "numerous very well placed sources," and said ex-CIA officers were involved in doling out millions to secure Rohde's release. This is of course at odds with Rohde and the Times' account of his ordeal—Rohde and his translator Tahir Ludin say they escaped serendipitously and without any outside help, and the Times says it paid no ransom. Yon seemed to be calling them liars.

"Not the case," says Yon. He wrote on his blog this morning that he was referring to the large amount of money spent by the Times on bribes sent "through Dubai to Pakistan" and money spent on "consultants and other expenses."

Ari Fleischer may indeed be the single most irrelevant empty suit PR man masquerading as a political commentator today; but the combination of masterful Obvious Thing Repackager Mark Penn and superficially wholesome yet morally vacant Poor Shoe-Dodger Dana Perino together in the offices of Whitewasher of All Things Evil Burson-Marsteller truly makes that firm the industry leader in plain idiocy, corporate hustling, and the eschewing of all ethical thought.

We hope this clarifies the situation for you. [WSJ. Pic via]

• Some guy named Denton can't figure out how to sell ads on Valleywag.
• So he's going to sneak Valleywag posts onto Gawker.com, where Ketel One is happy to buy banners.
• Valleywag.com the URL will still work. Valleywag's RSS feed will still work. You will not have to go to Gawker.com to read Valleywag stories.
• In 2009, Owen will be posting full-time, maybe 6-12 posts per day. Everyone else is fired.
• Denton's trying to follow Wired's footsteps: Take an insidery, localized publication and make it a national daily read. Will it work? Maybe. Will Chris Tolles still reload obsessively? That's the challenge.
• Valleywag's traffic isn't enough to pay for two writers, even with Ketel One ads on every page. Denton's keeping Owen instead of me, because Owen likes to write about boring money issues that, in theory, Chris Tolles thinks are way more important than photos of Steve Jobs parked in a handicapped space.
• I'm here until December 1. Owen gets his Thanksgiving vacation. I get an extra month's rent.
• TechCrunch gets to pretend we don't exist, which makes them look like a bunch of five-year-olds. Everybody wins!
• You're worried about me? I owe the New York Times one short freelance article, that's all I feel comfortable saying. I'll be fine, because I'm nuts. Nuclear combat, toe to toe with the Rooskies!

"Yeah, we played tennis and we were playing partners and friends," she says. "There is no romance, and we are just friends. No love, nothing. That is all I have to say."

Duchovny's lawyer weighed in on the matter to People:

"The stories about an alleged affair between David Duchovny and his tennis instructor, Edit Pakay, are completely false," attorney Larry Stein says..."Ms. Pakay denied the rumors to me in person last Friday, saying they are just friends, and in addition, said in writing that such stories are 'lies and deceit," he says.

Shame on you, America, for assuming that Pakay was attempting to imply an affair with innocent statements like "I don't want to be the third person in the marriage but I know it can be seen that way." Can't a tennis coach sell her story to a British tabloid, provide personal photos of herself and Owen Wilson, and drop incriminating hints about her ex-employer without everyone jumping to conclusions? Now, if you'll excuse her, Ms. Pakay has to go recreate some notorious teacup pictures for Life & Style — by which she means nothing, ravenous media wolves!

• David Duchovny's Tennis Instructor Denies Affair [E!]

• Lawyer: David Duchovny Denies Affair with Tennis Instructor [People]

the photo of the hooded person is not banksy. it's me, r nicholas kuszyk, a williamsburg brooklyn based artist informally affiliated w banksy and colossal media. i was consulting the paint crew on behalf of banksy who was too busy to oversee the entire process. this might sound like shameless self promoton (the name of the game) but at least i had the foresight, well banksy and i had the foresight, to plan on wearing something that covered my face yesterday in the case of people like david noseypants photog acting all paparazzi. otherwise this ordeal would have made my face public property. a dozen people took my photograph yesterday. david was the most intrusive. well played sir.

Here's his website, and here's a sample of his art, which is wild and crazy in a good way I believe:

Q. Did Ledger commit suicide? A. Police have changed their tune on that, saying his death appears to have been accidental. His family's statement described him as "life-loving." [SkyNews]

Q. Was Ledger found in the apartment of an Olsen twin? A. No. According to the Times, a masseuse (who had set up a massage table in Ledger's bedroom before trying to wake the dead man) used his cellphone to speed-dial Mary-Kate Olsen, who said she'd contact "some private security people." Calling Olsen again, the woman said she was calling 911. Security personnel raised by Olsen and city emergency workers arrived at the same time.

Q. Which medications were found in the apartment? A. At least six, including sleeping aids Ambien, Donormyl, Zoplicone and anti-anxiety meds Xanax and Valium. Three were prescribed in Europe, according to the AP. They were not, as was reported, "strewn around" his dead body, but in bottles and packaging in the bedroom, bathroom and rest of the apartment. According to the NYPD this afternoon, no illegal narcotics were found, even on a rolled-up $20 bill found in the apartment. [NYP]

Q. Where was his body found? A. NYPD spokesperson Paul Browne said he was found naked, unconscious and face down at the foot of a bed, which police sources tell the Post was just a mattress on the floor. When the building's superintendent arrived at Ledger's fourth-floor apartment after being called by his housekeeper, the place was crammed with cops and the actor's covered body was being moved off the bed. [Daily Telegraph(AU)]

Q. What did his autopsy, performed this morning, indicate? A. The results were inconclusive, further tests to indicate a cause of death will take another ten days. TMZ reported last night that Ledger may have had pneumonia. [CNN]

In a story published Saturday in the Daily Record, Smith was quoted saying: "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'let me do the most evil thing I can do today.' I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was 'good.' "

The quote was preceded by the writer's observation: "Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good."

Over the weekend, dozens of celebrity gossip Web sites posted articles about the comment, many saying that Smith believed that Hitler was a "good" person.

"It is an awful and disgusting lie," Smith said in a statement Monday provided by his publicist. "It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation."

"Adolf Hitler was a vile, heinous vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet," read the statement.

Not even we are so cynical as to draw connections between this sudden resurgence in Führer discourse and lifelong Smith bromance partner Tom Cruise's upcoming Valkyrie—a film whose premise, after all, hangs upon the fact that Hitler was evil enough to warrant assassination by a dashing, one-eyed German in the first place. (Or was he? See the movie, and discuss!) Hopefully, this statement will be the final word on any perceived sympathies between the megastar and the dictator, curtailing the production of homemade parody videos with titles like, "I Killed 6 Millions Jews, He's the Rapper," before they can be uploaded to YouTube.

UPDATE: The Anti-Defamation League accepts Will's clarification! Could it be long before he's tapped to play Israel's own one-eyed war hero, Moshe Dayan?

• Will Smith angry over Hitler comment interpretation [CNN]

"It's important to me to take a minute and clarify the quote about Knocked Up in Vanity Fair," Heigl tells Usmagazine.com. "I was responding to previous reviews about the movie the interviewer brought to my attention.

My motive was to encourage other women like myself to not take that element of the movie too seriously and to remember that it's a broad comedy."

Heigl adds, "Although I stand behind my opinion, I'm disheartened that it has become the focus of my experience with the movie. The truth is, it was the best filming experience of my career. Every person that was a part of making Knocked Up helped to encourage, support and inspire me. I never intended for anyone to think otherwise."

Heigl, of course, is hardly the first celebrity-profile to fall victim to time-tested, reptilian journalistic tactics, in which a reporter will relentlessly browbeat their subject, asking, "What do you say to all those strong, independent women out there who you personally let down the moment you let that internet-porn-addicted pot-fiend back into your life? Do you think he would have stuck around even one year after the credits rolled? Couldn't you hack motherhood alone, or are you one of those women who needs a man to feel fulfilled?" until the devastated actress collapses into a convulsing heap, mumbling through short breaths the money-quote sure to send magazines flying off newsstand shelves.

• Katherine Heigl: "I Stand Behind My Opinion" About Knocked Up Being "Sexist" [Us Magazine]

Takeaway points:

• The Post's claim that Ms. Cordero is transgendered is not a part of her suit against them because it is so ridiculous as to not be "worth wasting the ink."
• This is called Strategy 111
• We "obviously have bad reporters who write opinions as fact and do no researching."
• Mr. Unroch hopes this is the last time he will be writing anything to us. We don't!

From: William Unroch
Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2007 14:47:55 -0500
Subject: Your publishing.

Alleged Epstein Rape Vic Sues 'Post' article was not only a cheap, poor opinionated knock off of Radar Magazine's article it was stupid and uninvestigated. Where not suing the post for being the post and reporting the FACTUAL news! Where suing them for printing horrible, malicious lies they knew were false (if you saw the law suite you would know that) and printed away for a juice story! The fact that the majority of their publishing(s) were based on two web pages (that News Corp. is the parent company for) that the post was well informed several times were not Ms. Cordero's but published away as her words! N Y Post reporters working for the same company that owns myspace.com could have made 1 phone call to find out who created the web pages in question if they didn't believe me. How ever instead they printed it as if what the web pages said came from my clients own mouth ignoring my repeated pleas for them to at else investigate the authenticity of the pages before the write the article if they didn't believe me. I repeat what took me a day and a half to find out (yes I subpoenaed the web pages) could have took one phone for them. That fact that I didn't sue on the basis Ms. Cordero is a transgender is because frankly that issue is so ridiculous that it wasn't worth wasting the ink!!! That issue will be brought up by them and when they subpoena the birth certificate it will look much better for my clients case not only because they raised the issue by because of the outcome (it's called a strategy 111)! Further more the Post reports went around telling my clients friends and family that she suffered from a serious sexual disease which happens to be a criminal matter since the illness is statue protected. Not to mention it was completely false! Basically the whore article was a malicious defamatory lie to assassinate my client's charter cook up be Rubenstein and the post (which they conveniently left out the fact that they share the same publicist as Epstein!). So you say I'm suing the post for being the post! Be guided carefully or I'll bring you into the case for being involved with the post to dismiss and further defame my client as well as this being a effort to poison the future jury pool in News Corp.'s favor! You obviously have bad reporters who write opinions as fact and do no researching! I hope this is the last time I will be writing anything to you!

Sincerely,
William Unroch

Earlier: Posts related to 'Jeffrey Epstein'

"He's her bodyguard and manny," says a source familiar with Shippen's employment. "They're not dating."

Shippen, a California native described by the source as "funny, but on the quiet side," is "tickled" by the attention from the media. "But he really wants to focus on his job: taking care of the kids and of her," says the source.

Shippen, the source confirms, was indeed the mustachioed security guard who helped catch Spears's son Sean Preston when the singer stumbled in New York in May 2006. At the time, Shippen was working for a security firm.

Shippen and the company parted ways soon after, but Spears recently rehired Shippen - now clean-shaven - independent of an agency. In recent days he has escorted her to a production of Wicked and to church, carrying a crying Jayden. He also has been spotted with Spears at a Beverly Hills hotel where she has been staying recently.

It's not hard to see how the media might have believed that Spears and the manny's relationship evolved from a professional to a carnal one, for there is no moment more erotically charged than that first time a harried mom and the help's eyes meet in the instant he has saved her fumbled baby from an unscheduled playdate with a hot sidewalk, as the flash of paparazzi flashbulbs inevitably heighten an already heady experience.

• Britney Spears 'Not Dating' Her Bodyguard [People]

Above, Washington explains the intended meaning of the various epithets he hurled during his non-T.R.-Knight-related clash with Patrick "McDreamy" Dempsey, such as the B-word ("indicative of maybe a four-legged dog"), the P-word ("would be more like punk"—weird, we thought it might be genitalia-related), and the F-Bomb Heard Round the World ("it meant, to me, someone who is being weak — " "— a person who is not being treated — is not deserving of respect."), a round of helpful clarifications that should finally end the tabloids' regrettable fascination with an inconsequential, on-set spat.

• Transcript: Interview With Isaiah Washington [Larry King Live]
• Previously: Isaiah Washington Really Committed To This Whole Career Annihilation Thing [Defamer]