The Wall Street Journal reports that in-flight magazines are still profitable. A British company, Ink Publishing, now runs 40 airline mags in 17 countries, made $4m last year doing it and are on target to make a similar amount this year while everyone else tanks. The reasons are pretty straightforward:

You have very few places with such a captive audience," says Tony Cervone, chief communications officer at United Airlines. Even with seat-back entertainment and wireless Internet service becoming standard, he says, passengers must unplug during take-off and landing.

Advertisers like that and pay lots of money because they feel strongly that if people see Keira Knightley or Mikhail Gorbachev wielding their products in a nice magazine picture we'll all go and buy stuff.

Bahari was released on $300,000 bail by Iranian authorities yesterday. It was initially unclear whether he would be allowed to leave the country, but Newsweek just announced via press release that he has arrived in London. We trust he won't return to Tehran for his next court date. Bahari's wife Paola Gourley is due to give birth in six days.

Evin Prison is a very, very bad place. Another Canadian-Iranian journalist, Zahra Kazemi, died there in 2003 after reportedly being tortured and raped. The Iranians said she suffered a stroke. Bahari was dragged before cameras not long after his arrest and "confessed" that the western media were deliberately trying to undermine Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. We are glad he is out, and hope that one day he can safely return to his homeland.

Here are the findings from a new survey of binge drinkers which makes me scoff:

The researchers focused on 14,000 "binge drinkers " - people who said that at least once month that they had five or more drinks on a single occasion. About 12 percent said they had gone driving within two hours of their last bout of heavy drinking.

Uh huh. So nearly 90% of binge drinkers went out and got drunk and then did not drive. Amazing. Instead of asking drunk to voluntarily reveal how reckless they are, try this, scientists: 100% of binge drinkers, minus the % living in big cities and likely to take mass transportation, minus the % with designated drivers, minus the % willing to call a cab and leave their own car parked at the bar, equals the drunk drivers.

So roughly 68%.
[Pic via]

An exec at the network told the New York Daily News:

If her album went to No. 1, that would be a newsworthy thing. If they were to become parents, we'd see that as worth noting. If something did happen to them, physically, we'd probably cover that. But ultimately, we were looking at it more like avoiding stories about them walking down Robertson or going to dinner. It will affect the various news shows on E! and it will affect online. ... It was just a question of overexposure and wondering how much of the news about them was truly news or contrived. It just started to feel as if they had maybe jumped a shark in the past couple of weeks and it might be time to just take a rest. It wasn't really one particular instance, it just seemed like they'd reached a point where they crossed a line in the interest level of our audience. [Emphasis ours.]

We rarely ever say this (except to you, Joel McHale, our delicious chestnut love), but good work E! (This is how it's done, Iran.)

Although! It does make us wonder... If E! followed this new revolutionary philosophy to the letter, wouldn't that kind of lead to the shuttering of the entire operation? Other than having her on their own damn network, what reason would they have to keep Kim Kardashian in the rotation? And what about that hideous stable of Dancing with the Stars washups? We're all for E! taking a principled stand and all, but one minor concession is still... one minor concession.

Though, no one ever said progress was quick.

Growing Generations is a leading surrogacy firm that unites happy new families "regardless of marital status or sexual orientation." Which, considering NPH and his lover live in California, is a good thing.

Update: Ha, oops, no they're not.

So congrats to them. In other funny (not in a ha ha way) gay news from the Left Coast, Adam Lambert—the jingle-jangle, sparkle-twangle American Idol runner up who also happens to be gay—was named one of People magazine's hottest bachelors, which he thinks is silly. We think it's silly too because, in a state where it's now constitutionally illegal for gay men and women to get married, how could an openly gay fellow ever not be a bachelor? Lambert'll be a hottest bachelor til he gets old and withers and dies and poofs into glitter and smoke and all that's left is a few gold records and a solid silver piano. And that just doesn't seem fair, does it?

Anyway.

Image via Getty

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.David Kao, a 49 year-old "marketing executive at World Journal, the largest Chinese-language daily newspaper in the United States," was beaten, strangled to death, and robbed by two teenagers in Queens last week. Police say the teens had specifically targeted Asians for robberies before. They stole $115 from his wallet and used his car for two days of joyriding before being caught. Terrible.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Esteemed journalistic enterprises Sears and AOL have teamed up to launch Good News Now, and internet news site that features happy news only, where they "count down the days, minutes and hours to the weekend." Do we not do that here, already?

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Longtime 'VJ' (strange term, no?) John Norris was laid off from MTV late last year. Are you in withdrawal and seeking your John Norris fix? Well buck up: he will be blogging about the Northside (Williamsburg indie music) Festival for the L Magazine this week. That' John Norris, blogging for the L Magazine, about the indie music festival in Williamsburg. Pay him a visit.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Look, Intercontinental Real Estate Corp. is reportedly interested in buying the Boston Globe. Real estate and newspapers, two businesses that have something in common right now.

Happy Herald is "South Florida's Positive Living and Entertainment Guide," as you know, and it has just the antidote for your ceaseless fears of financial insecurity and subsequent poverty-induced death. Starting with the "Upbeat Note From the Publisher!" The latest one's about Valentine's day. A sample:

When Valentine failed, Claudius had him stoned and beheaded.

Here's a section called "Business For Lovers!"

"I have learned that most people are nice people, and we all basically want the same things."

Sex and money! Finally, here's a little advice from the Happy Herald's actual advice column, "The Dr. Happy Formula":

Because negative judgment pulls negative emotions in with it, not judging will also help preserve your happiness.

The Happy Herald: We're not judging it.

This is the only good story of this miserable economy, that the union workers of a small-ish Chicago factory are indeed exercising their "right to work" as anti-union assholes always put it in their typically "opposite of what we mean" fashion. When the plant abruptly closed with three days notice and workers were denied their severance and vacation pay owed them by federal law and their contracts, 200 workers staged a sit-in, and then they won.

The company makes energy-efficient windows, which are a thing people need, and so a California company is going to rehire laid-off workers and reopen factory doors in a month.

So everything is working out OK for 200 American workers yay!

Damon Weaver is a 10-year-old who, with his friend Omar, interviewed Joe Biden. That interview ended with the greatest sentence of our generation: "Senator Biden is now my homeboy." (Also notable: Joe Biden didn't seem to notice that he was being interviewed by a child?) Recently Weaver's been trying to interview the president-elect, but so far without success. Despite everyone on the internet thinking he's adorable!

Now, apparently, the Obamas have given in and Waver will get to attend the inaguration as a member of the press. He is more likable and smarter than Joe the Plumber, so this is A Good Thing.

Damon Weaver is now America's homeboy.

A *scientific* quote in David Carr's column today sums up the bad news backlash:

“There are studies on bank runs, and it shows that people who know others who have taken their money out of the bank are much more likely to do it as well,” he said. “We always overshoot the upside and, because of the same contagious effects, we overshoot the downside. Everything is fine, and then all of the sudden we are looking for water and supplies to ride out the coming storm.”

For this reason, people don't like bad news. All this bad news just perpetuates itself! Just like in the Iraq war: the reason we haven't won yet is all the negativity from the media. Why don't they tell us about how the Army built a new well, rather than just telling us about the insurgents who subsequently turned that well into a weapons cache, leading to hundreds of deaths? (BIAS).

But listen, because this is very important: don't worry about bad news. The thing about bad news is that it tells you right up front, "Things are bad." At least you'll be prepared when you go out into the horrific world and find that, yes, things are bad.

Not so with good news. You know when there was really good news about the economy, for example? When they were pumping up this huge bubble that recently popped and destroyed us all. You know when reporters deliver happy news from war zones? When they have been kidnapped, and are being prodded by a machine gun-toting terrorist standing just off-camera.

Good news can only get worse. [Pic via]

David Carr got in trouble for being all sexist about Katie last time he wrote about her, and in this piece he once again reminds everyone that she is "perky" (almost!) and "America's Sweetheart" (almost!). But he also says: "Ms. Couric is a highly skilled interviewer, and people tend to tell her stuff."

Of course CBS is still in third place and the fact that MSNBC has sucked all the coverage away from Katie is good, sort of, but also means that no one is talking about Katie and CBS. So she can do all the surprisingly good work in the world, but it won't attract the attention of a Chris Matthews meltdown on a third-place cable network.

In other words, we figure she's enjoying herself as anchor for the first time since she started, mostly because she's still going to quit soon, so why not have fun. (Of course she still needs to make sure she's getting that payday before she hands the reigns back to Bob Scheiffer.)

[Photo: HuffPo]

Gwyneth Paltrow was taken to New York's Mount Sinai Hospital Monday for "a little gastrointestinal situation," her pal, chef Mario Batali, told Usmagazine.com.

"It's now been straightened out," he said at the grand opening of The Palazzo Hotel in Las Vegas Thursday. "She's [doing] great."

In three weeks, he said they're going to Majorca, Spain, and then Valencia, Spain, to shoot a PBS cooking show, set to air in October.

We hope that allays your fears: Gwyneth is over her gastrointestinal situation and feeling great, madly in love with husband Chris Martin, having the time of her life raising his two beautiful children, and presently prepping for her trip across Spain where she'll discover that region's culinary traditions with guide and chaperone, Mario Batali. We know you couldn't be happier for her.

• Mario Batali: Why Gwyneth Paltrow Was Hospitalized [usmagazine.com]