Cityfile reports that the suit was settled for no money, and the site was taken down, and all that remains is for Drew Kerr to get his cheap ass insurance company to pay his legal bills in this very important case of the fundamental right to douchetaggery. "All's well that ends well," Kerr told us this morning.

As you can see, it is officially legal to call Ronn Torossian a "douche." It is also accurate, when you contrast Ronn's $20 million LOLsuit with Ronn's own tendency to have his firm buy up web domain names of competitors (and bloggers) and impersonate people in online comments in flagrant examples of sock puppetry and scrub the Ronn Torossian Wikipedia page on what must be a near-daily basis.

"Much a-douche about nothing."

[A commenter went to the trouble of scanning this item below, which "may be the single greatest item ever run by the New York Law Journal." Thank you, sir.]

You probably know Christina Ambers' feet from such ads as "Rescue Me," "Maybelline," and "Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear." She is only considered the hottest foot model around these days, that's all. And her hands aren't too shabby either!

Anyhow she married the doorman at her building on E. 74 St., and now she's alleging in a $10 million lawsuit that the co-op board is trying to evict her because they simply can't stand the sight of the doorman, a poor, rubbing all up on the precious rich sexxxy feet of Ambers, a non-poor. Other residents in her building say the couple had a tumultuous relationship, made noise, and had the cops called to their apartment. The Post, predictably, ignores that angle in favor of class war without mercy, leading its story with "Stick to taking out the recyclables, Angel."

The most interesting part of this story, of course, is not actual facts. It's the question of whether the New York Post can stir up a decent amount of class-based outrage amongst its readers on behalf of a couple that is one-half Latino man from the Bronx. If Ambers had married, say, a poor but proud firefighter from Bay Ridge, this would be an easy layup. But can the Post's faux-populism overcome its real racism? We shall see.

There's always the sexxxy feet pics to fall back on!
[Pic: Christina Ambers' Flickr]

The suit was probably inevitable. As we first reported, the Sacramento-based firm of Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff has been looking for victims of scammy ads in games like Mafia Wars and Farmville to potentially file a class action suit. Less than a week later, the firm's suit has hit federal district court in Northern California.

You can read the initial complaint in full here.

Neither gaming startup Zynga nor social network Facebook actually originates the advertisements in question; instead, other companies take out ads in Zynga's games, which run on Facebook's network, and the two companies make reportedly large sums of money from the offers. Some of the ads trick users into signing up for unauthorized cell phone charges or expensive mail-order products like educational CDs, typically by disguising them as "free" offers or "free trials," or as part of an "online quiz." TechCrunch has run an aggressive series of articles, cataloged at the bottom of this post.

Zynga reportedly takes in close to one-third of its revenue from "commercial offers" like those, and Facebook does well too, as KC&R lawyers point out in their complaint. An excerpt (click to enlarge):

Swift's attorneys also point to Zynga CEO Mark Pincus' damning video confession that "I did every horrible thing in the book just to get revenues" in their complaint, indicating it will be a significant piece of courtroom evidence, just as we predicted.

The prospect of being on the hook for massive damages has to make both Zynga and Facebook's investors sweat. Facebook is the darling of Silicon Valley, with VCs having valued it in the billions of dollars, while Zynga counts the elite firm of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers among its major investors. Yet both companies have come to rely on greasy advertisers for much of their revenue; in addition to the game-ad scammers, Facebook is also sells ad to marketers who resort to tactics like using stolen pictures of apparent underaged girls to promote their products. If the company's are found to be liable of helping con customers by working with these sorts of slimeballs, it's hard to say where the payouts might end.

Below, an excerpt of the scams allegedly perpetrated on the lead plaintiff in the case, Rebecca Swift.

(Top pic: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, by Raphaël Labbé)

[Full court filing]

Radaronline reports that Kate is actually suing—presumably in a "brick and mortar" court of law, and not just in the confines of some New Age "visualization" exercise—to enforce the "contract" she and Jon drew up, in pencil, on some scrap of paper, wherein he agreed to maybe give her some percentage of some unknown money sometime, and she agreed not to talk to the media about, OMG, everything.

Anyhow this is exactly like when some crazy person tries to cash a check written on a box of noodles, or spend a $5 million bill they drew with a Sharpie.

[Pic via]

We've received this from four sources now, including from our dark overlord, who posted it to #tips.

To New York Post Staff:

Most of you have read the sensational allegations a former employee made in a complaint filed against our company and our executives. Her claims of being a victim of unlawful discrimination and retaliation are baseless.

In fact, the entire complaint is filled with distortions and misstatements and virtually every key factual assertion is untrue. We will defend this case vigorously and are confident that the legal process will reveal it to be totally meritless.

While we are in the midst of this litigation, we urge you to do your best to focus on your work and respectfully ask that you not discuss it with fellow employees or people outside the company. Thank you for your cooperation and if you should have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact Human Resources.

Richard Miniter, the editorial page editor of the Moonie Washington Times, is suing the paper for "being forced to attend a Unification Church mass wedding," and also because he says they made him work while he was sick, even though, according to TPM, "During a health scare earlier this year, Miniter was brought out of the newsroom on a stretcher." Who would have expected this at the Moonie Washington Times, of all places?


The (unprofitable) New York Daily News is investing $150 million in a new printing press . Buyers of print ads in the Daily News love it; everyone else thinks it is stupid.


Hey, Lou Dobbs is very interested in Bill O'Reilly's offer of a "semi-regular contributor" position on O'Reilly's show. Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs, together, on the same show. That would be something. Something evil.


Ah, here's a fourth item on this day of layoffs and only layoffs, as far as media "news" is concerned: Samir "Mr. Magazine" Husni has named Hearst's Food Network Magazines as the Most Notable Launch of 2009. Americans can no longer tolerate any aspect of their daily reality that is unconnected to television. What an apocalyptic future we all face. Thanks, "Mr. Magazine."

Sacramento-based Kershaw, Cutter & Ratinoff, LLP is looking for people who faced "unauthorized charges imposed on Facebook and MySpace users who participate in social games like 'Farmville' and 'Mafia Wars.'" The firm, which said it has launched an investigation into such scams, specializes in class action suits, among other areas.

Mike Arrington's TechCrunch has posted a series of articles on the issue of sleazy revenue models for online games, exposing the practice of sneaking mobile data subscriptions and pricey "learning CD" packages past players trying to earn online "points." Mafia Wars and Farmville creator Zynga gets a third of its revenue from such "commercial offers," while Facebook in turn gets 10-20 percent of its money from Zynga, according to Arrington.

Zynga has yanked some of its ads; Facebook, in turn, has suspended one of Zynga's smaller games. But there's evidence this issue could have been addressed much sooner. TechCrunch found video (below) shot this past spring in which Zynga's CEO said he "did every horrible thing in the book to, just to get revenues right away."

That sounded bad enough when it was reprinted on a tech blog; imagine how it's going to sound in court.

(Top pic: Zynga CEO Mark Pincus, possibly calling his lawyer, by Joi Ito.)

Sandra Guzman was an editor at the Post charged with running, among other things, a section aimed at Latino readers. After the paper published a Sean Delonas cartoon depicting President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee being gunned down by white police officers, she complained internally about what she saw as the paper's persistent and overt racism under the leadership of Australian he-man Col Allan. Then she got fired.

Yesterday, she filed a complaint in federal court alleging systematic racism in the Post's hiring, firing, and editorial practices, and depicting Allan as a stupid, giggling frat-boy who likes to show his female employees pictures of naked men for kicks. The complaint has all sorts of damning allegations—you can read the whole thing here, but some of the good bits are below. Guzman has separately filed a complaint against the Post with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The lawsuit comes just one day after the paper fired reporter Austin Fenner, one of the few remaining African-American reporters on the paper's staff—we're told there are just three others, one of whom has been on an extended sick leave for most of the year. We're also told that the paper—a metro daily in New York City—has no African-American editors, and hasn't for nine years. UPDATE: A tipster points out Robert George, an editor on the Post's editorial page, is an African American. Our sources on the Post's demographics were thinking of the news and features pages.

SECOND UPDATE: According to two other tipsters, business editor Jay Sherman is an African American as well. For the record, we asked a rep for the Post about the paper's demographics, and got an e-mailed statement, printed below, in response.

We've contacted the Post to confirm that and for a response to Guzman's complaint, and we'll publish it when we get one.

Here are some of the allegations:

The Post, Guzman says, was a "hostile work environment" for women and non-white staffers, who are subject to "pervasive and systemic discrimination" and "harassment":

Allan's "inappropriate and sexist comments and conduct have been widely known throughout" the Post. For instance, he likes to show ladies what penises look like. He thinks it's funny!

He also, Guzman says, likes to rub his penis up against his female employees, whether they want him to or not:

Other editors at the paper, following Allan's classy lead, have taken to offering female staffers better jobs in exchange for blow jobs:

Allan's colleague Les Goodstein, a News Corp. senior vice president, thinks latin ladies are hot, and told Guzman so. He also liked to lick his lips while staring at other women's breasts in her presence:

The beef that precipitated Guzman's firing was over a drawing by Sean Delonas, a racist, gay-hating, and—worst of all—astoundingly humorless cartoonist. The Barack-Obama-Is-a-Dead-Chimp cartoon is not his first exceedingly tasteless offering, and at one point, Guzman says, Delonas had the bright idea of depicting Jews as sewer rats, a pitch that apparently got nixed:

Guzman's complaints about the cartoon fell on deaf ears, both because real men don't care about whiny P.C. minority-type people and because she just didn't get that the whole point of the New York Post is to "destroy Barack Obama." At least that's what she says the paper's Washington bureau chief told her:

Col Allan certainly didn't care about P.C. minority-type people: When some of them staged a protest outside his newspaper, he laughed at them because "most of them are minorities and the majority are uneducated." Unlike the Post's highly sophisticated, Sean Delonas-loving readership:

Allan felt the same way about the vanishingly small number of non-white employees he oversees. When one of them approached him to discuss his feelings about the cartoon, Allan simply walked away:

After Guzman made her feelings public in an e-mail stating that she had raised her objections to the cartoon to management—an e-mail that got picked up by the Huffington Post and other blogs—Allan, she says, launched a crusade against her. His animus, according to Guzman, overwhelmed his news judgment. In August, Guzman—who is a personal friend of Justice Sonia Sotomayor—was invited as a guest to a White House reception celebrating Sotomayor's confirmation. No other reporters were to be present. Guzman asked for permission to cover and report on the event, and Allan said no. Granted, her personal relationship and status as a guest would make such an assignment weird, but a) it could have been disclosed and presented as an insider account, and b) since when has the Post cared about conflicts of interest? Especially when they have a chance to get an exclusive about a highly newsworthy event? Of all the transgressions listed in Guzman's complaint, this is perhaps the most shocking—that Allan let his hatred of Obama, Sotomayor, and Guzman kill a potential scoop.

There's much more, so do read the complaint in its entirety. We're sure Rupert Murdoch will, using his sophisticated racism-detecting system to determine that Guzman is full of it. Because if Glenn Beck's not a racist, then Col Allan certainly isn't, right?

UPDATE: The Post has released a statement responding to the complaint.

This lawsuit has no merit and is based on charges that are groundless. As previously stated, Ms. Guzman's position was eliminated when the section she edited was discontinued due to a decline in advertising sales.

Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom are dropping suits against eBay, to whom they sold Skype in 2005, and against a consortium of private finance companies trying to buy Skype from eBay. The founders had accused both groups of intellectual property theft. They're dropping those lawsuits in exchange for 14 percent of Skype.

But former Wall Street Journal reporter Kara Swisher reported last night on Dow Jones' All Things D website that the founders would get not 14 percent but up to 13 percent of the company — 10 percent outright and an option to buy another 3 percent. Sacrebleu! Rob Wauters of rival TechCrunch was quick to rub Swisher's face in the minor error, writing that the founders "are getting 14 percent of Skype back for rights to the... technology their company... controls... and not 10% like previously reported by other media" (emphasis from original). Meow!

The press release issued by Skype actually confirmed Swisher's reporting that the founders had to put in money to get some of their shares. Swisher later acknowledged that the figure was 14 percent, just one percent higher than she had written. But she also engaged in a lengthy Twitter fight with Wauters and his colleague Erick Schonfeld (see below) over their public nitpicking and fact-bending. Maybe everyone involved in this fracas needs to take the next couple of days off. Oh, look at the calendar!

(Top pic via)

The brilliant graphic illustration above is a very scientific illustration of just how to turn watchable televison programming into fast-food shilling drivel. Here's the technical explanation of just what's going on above:

In one embodiment, as shown in FIG. 1, a conventional advertisement 10 shown during televisin program's commercial break promotes a new product 12 of, for example, a fast-food establishment. The advertisement 10 is attempting to sell the particular product 12. A program-advancing element 16, such as the knife in this particular example, is introduced into the advertisement 10 to form a program-integrated advertisement 14. The program-advancing element relates to the television program and can be a program-promoting element, i.e., a viewer associates the knife with the program. Additionally, the two characters dealing with the knife in the program-integrated advertisement 14 may themseves be program-advancing elements, if they are characters in the program.

We came across this technological marvel via The Hollywood Reporter's legal blog, THR, esq which wrote about what must be one of the most amazing lawsuits of all time. This legalistic rabbit hole's silliness is so profound that it makes us think that it might be time to throw the entire judicial system out the window and muddle by on mob rule for a few decades.

THR writes:

Delaware-based ad agency Denizen is suing media agency Mindshare for stealing an idea to integrate a brand of Vaseline into a Lifetime miniseries called "Maneater."

In the complaint, Denizen says that TV networks face the problem of viewers not paying attention to ads in between segments of a show and claims to have "created the concept of 'program integrated advertisement' in order to entice viewers to pay attention to advertisements in various media, including, but not limited to, television, radio, and the Internet.

Denizen isn't actually suing for stealing the idea of product placement, but they are accusing Mindshare of making off with trade secrets about how to implement world class product placement that the Denizen folks supposedly let them in on during a meeting between the two companies.

But Denizen isn't just claiming spuriously, "yeah, we thought of that first"; they actually filed a patent on product placement, which they call "Program Integrated Commercials." Denizen's patent must rank as one of the most amazing legal documents ever produced, demonstrating the legal system's ability to absorb any level of ridiculousness and turn it into mind-numbing deadly serious jargon.

The patent starts out bemoaning the desperate state of advertising, noting the wreckage TiVo has wrecked and the failures of basically every attempt to get people excited about watching ads, what with these ungrateful viewers changing channels and fast forwarding and all.

The patent then claims, "The present invention comprises a method and system for incorporating thematic content from a particular television program into product or service advertisements (commercials) for a sponsor or the program or network."

Actually, when one gets into it the invention is far more sinister than merely sticking some products into a TV show wrapped around cockamamie plot points, but involves an attempt to take the characters out of the show and stick them into the actual ads based on cockamamie plot points, making the audience have to watch the ads themselves to be able to follow the plot of the show.

The verbal contortions in which the patent goes to explain this are fairly breathtaking. The following graph, for instance, attempts to codify this breakthrough in the science of forcing products into people's brains: "The program-advancing element is specific to a program or is associated with a program element such that it is capable of being recognized by a viewer. This includes, but is not limited to, character actions, setting descriptions, objects, sound recognition, and character dialogue, etc."

That's right, Denizen thunk that up! Take that Sterling Cooper!

You can browse this entire historic document by clicking one of the thumbnails below.

Here you see a photo of kreteks, the kind of cloves everyone smokes in the USA. See them? They are cigarettes. But Kretek International is now suing the FDA to get them branded "Cigars," because, the WSJ points out, "The wrapper is homogenized leaf, the tobacco air-cured, and the finished product comes in boxes of 12, not 20."

Try this: Take a dozen clove cigarettes and put them in a box. Now look at them again. Have they magically been transformed into cigars? No? Damn it. Well, don't get too upset, hippies. Consider it part of your government-mandated path towards becoming Marlboro addicts. Hey, your lungs will thank you.

Oh. No they won't. But you won't smell like cloves at least.

Well actually you'll smell worse. But you won't be such a hippie.
[Pic via]

K2 Productions is suing Prejean for, among other things, the cost of a $5,200 loan they gave her for breast surgery to help her "be more competitive" at the April 2009 Miss USA Pageant. Prejean went on to lose the pageant after responding to a judge's question about same-sex marriage by saying the she believes "marriage should be between a man and a woman" because "that's how I was raised." Prejean's strict uprbringing and conservative convictions may prevent her from accepting the gays, but they apparently didn't stop her from posing for topless photos. Those pictures appeared on the internet in May and, one month later, Prejean was stripped of the Miss California crown for unspecified contract violations. Since then, Prejean and the pageant organizers have been battling it out in court.

In August, Prejean filed a lawsuit against K2 Productions alleging that the company discriminated against her because of her religious beliefs. Prejean's suit alleges that K2 gave her "instructions not to reference God in her Miss USA applications," which seems odd since her page on the official Miss California USA web site includes the bible verse "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." K2's countersuit, which was filed yesterday, states that, in addition to not paying for her implants, Prejean missed events, lied about the semi-nude photos, landed an unauthorized book deal, and used her title to support the National Organization for Marriage's "campaign of intolerance" against gay marriage. K2 wants Prejean to fork over the money from her boob job and the proceeds from her upcoming book.

K2 Productions can't really do anything to hurt Carrie Prejean. They may get the money, but by suing her, they're just helping her cultivate the religious martyr status that's landing her speaking gigs at right wing events and morning show appearances on Fox News.

The lawsuit centers on a story Jared Diamond wrote last year about tribal wars in New Guinea. Forbes reports that the plaintiffs in this suit include Daniel Wemp—Diamond's "chief source" for the story. Wemp says he's not as murderous as the world's most famous anthropologist would have you believe.

Diamond's account says 30 people lost their lives during a three-year clan war that began after a pig ransacked someone's garden. Mandingo and Wemp, who served as Diamond's driver on a trip to Papua New Guinea, say only four people died, the war lasted three months and the conflict didn't start over a pig in a garden, but an argument over a card game.

And he's still upset about being called a pig thief! The New Yorker's sticking by its story. If anything good comes of this, it'll be to make reporters stop using their drivers as their main sources. You listening, Tom Friedman? Stop it.
[Stinky Journalism also has numerous debunker pieces on Diamond's story. Pic of random New Guinea resident via Flickr.]

• There's high-flying drama in the house of Oprah. One of the talk show queen's personal flight attendants filed a lawsuit in which she claims she was inappropriately fired over bunk "mile high" claims. Other attendants, including Gayle King's daughter, claimed that Corrine Gehrls and pilot Terry Pansing had sex during a flight, but both parties denied it — and passed a lie detector test. Still, Oprah refused to give them their jobs back and now Gehrls wants $75,000, which she could find in Oprah's couch. [Us]
  
  
• Irritatingly cute singer Michael Buble has found a new lady love — his music video vixen, Luisana Lopilato. She speaks little English. Score! [Page Six]
  
  
• A hearty congratulations to Christina Hendricks, our favorite Mad Men redhead, who was married this weekend. We're sure our invitation got lost in the mail. [ET]
  
  
• Prison's taking its toll on Roman Polanski, whose lawyer says he's "depressed." And that depression will no doubt deepen if he's extradited. [THR]
  
  
• Penelope Cruz won't say if she's pregnant, but she wore a loose-fitting dress, which in Hollywood code means she is. If only all of life's big announcements were so easy. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Emmy Rossum, who's reportedly sleeping with Counting Crows front man Adam Duritz, says she understands why "chicks dig him," which is funny, because we can't imagine why... [People]
  
  
• Madonna's brother, Christopher Ciccone, fancies himself an artist. [Page Six]
  
  
• Finally! After being denied the chance to be on I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here, former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich will now live his reality show dreams on Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice. Now, isn't it time we all make more concrete rules about who exactly counts as a "celebrity." [Chicago Tribune]
  
  
• Kourtney Kardashian's unborn child will be a boy. [NYDN]
  
  
• Dannii Minogue, Kylie's less famous and less talented singer, made an off-hand remark about an X Factor star's sexuality, apologized profusely, but people still want her head. [The Sun]
  
  
• Late reality star Jade Goody's ex-husband, Jeff Brazier, vowed never to let her widower, Jack Tweed, see Goody's children again because he's a no good drinker with anger problems. Fair enough. [Daily Mail]

Mind you: this is the same guy who breathlessly reminded the American legal system that Eric Dane is on the Emmy Award-winning Grey's Anatomy in his lawsuit against us for posting a tape of Eric Dane trying to spice up his marriage in a threesome with his now-preggers wife and a madam. Heh. It was awesome. It's here. You should watch it.

But now Marty's ready to make a mess out of more people's lives by dragging them through prolonged legal engagements that aggressively create rifts between people with a common purpose: in ours and McSteamy's, to bring stories to The People. In the case of Kate and Jon Gosselin: for the children. Marty Singer is about to fuck up some children.

But it takes three to tango (as we learned). This wouldn't be so awful without the help of Singer's awful client (the child-exploiting Kate Gosselin) and their awful defendant (the sleazy walking Ed Hardy lifestyle line that is Jon Gosselin). These people are awful! Don't they have eight kids somewhere wondering why their parents are being such complete meanies/absentee, hyper-aggressive, moneygrubbing scary breeding units? Because they are. Basically, it goes like this: Jon Gosselin went on Larry King to tell Kate to put the divorce proceedings on hold. He made TLC shut down the production of the show. And sometime before that, took all but $1,000 out of a shared money market account of Kate and Jon's.

Now Kate wants the money back in there. Furthermore, Singer is alleging that Jon's lawyer is a crook.

Singer says Heller has done this before, citing a New York Supreme Court decision which says Heller directed one of his clients in a divorce to "withdraw everything that's in the bank" so the money could be used to pay his fee. And then there's this ... Singer blasts Heller, noting that the New York Supreme Court "addressed charges that you violated 'thirty-eight counts alleging multiple violations of the disciplinary rules,' and charges that you 'had engaged in a pattern of misconduct involving misrepresentations, deceit, abusive treatment of clients, fee gouging, neglect and willful failure to return unearned retainers to his clients' in matters which involved your 'mishandling of the matters of twelve separate clients.'"

Damn. Talk about being able to sniff out your own kind (Ahmadinejad). Lawyers! God bless 'em. Good to know Singer's keeping busy with a client list full of America's most savory famous types. I gotta admit, though, I am curious to hear what Jon intended on doing with the scrilla (besides paying lawyers). Maybe he was broke. Maybe Jon just wanted the money to get in on the next McSteamy key party? Maybe he's gonna invest in web startups, har har! Who knows. Either way, Singer wants a piece of it. Somewhere, eight children hate him.

CityFile has taken down the offending item as part of the settlement, but it is cached here. The story claimed that Dolan, whose company owns Radio City Music Hall, was "contemplating a final curtain call for the legendary Rockettes" and considering either doing away with the venue's annual Christmas Spectacular entirely or replacing the Rockettes with Cirque du Soleil. Cablevision vigorously denied the story at the time, calling it "fundamentally false, completely irresponsible and preposterous on its face." We picked up the CityFile item when it appeared, and included Cablevision's response.

Here's what CityFile published today:

Editor's Note: On July 24, 2009, Cityfile published an article entitled "Jim Dolan To Kill Christmas In July?" which contained speculation on the fate of the Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Radio City Rockettes. On July 27, 2009, Cablevision, Madison Square Garden, and Cablevision chief executive James Dolan filed a defamation lawsuit against Cityfile in New York State Supreme Court. We now realize that we could have done more to ensure that all relevant facts were included in the article. We have retracted the article and removed it from our website, and regret any negative and/or mistaken impressions that resulted from its publication. Cityfile and Madison Square Garden have since resolved all legal claims. And like all New Yorkers we're extremely pleased to hear that the legendary show will remain an institution in this city for many years to come.

The original CityFile item was written by Teri Buhl. It may be true, and it may not. Buhl, who called Cablevision subsidiary Rainbow Media for comment on the story but never heard back, stood by it after Cablevision denied it (and after CityFile updated the post with Cablevision's denial). Whatever the truth of the matter, the item was highly speculative: It reported that the Rockette's "may be" facing extinction, that Dolan was "contemplating" getting rid of the show, that he was "prepared to" do so, and that he was "explor[ing] the possibility" of doing so. It also claimed, based on a quote from a former Rockette, that advance ticket sales for this year's Christmas Spectacular had "fallen flat."

Three days after the item appeared, Dolan filed its suit against CityFile, its proprietor Remy Stern, and Buhl, which you can read here, claiming that the story "defames and disparages the Radio City Christmas Spectacular...by...falsely alleging that Plaintiffs plan to 'kill Christmas' for millions of fans by discontinuing the Christmas Spectacular."

We have to admit that we're not without bias when it comes to blogs getting sued. But Buhl's original item, even if it was inaccurate, was the sort of routine speculative business reporting that all manner of blogs and newspapers engage in every day, for better or for worse. Why, here's Newsday's web site distributing just such a story today, claiming in the face of Comcast's denial that the cable giant is exploring a purchase of some or all of NBC Universal. It strains credulity to imagine that claims that Dolan was considering a business move constituted defamation, and "impugned" Cablevision's "reputation as responsible stewards of the Rockettes," as the complaint put it. But CityFile caved and removed the reporting, presumably because the independent site couldn't afford the hassle of proving in court the obviously true fact that the item, even if it was in error, was nowhere near defamatory. Dolan has swatted a fly with a hammer, and sent a chilling warning to any other flies hovering around that he is willing to waste his company's time and money prosecuting vengeful lawsuits if they write things he doesn't like.

Dolan's loathing for reporters, propensity for feuds, and general belligerence are legendary. He engaged in a years-long feud with the Tennis Channel over carriage on Cablevision's system, and he prevented Newsday from running a Tennis Channel ad complaining about Cablevision's tactics. He declined to talk to Newsday reporters who were covering his purchase of the paper. He implemented an overbearing and controlling media policy that turned the Knicks beat into "a gulag," sending minders to eavesdrop on interviews and e-mail transcripts to their superiors and threatening to shut off access to reporters who criticized the team. A 2005 New York magazine profile described him thusly:

There are not many owners, however, who have also gotten mixed up in as many team-related spats as Jim. At practically every step, he has been feuding with somebody. The company has battled the Yankees and Mets, arguably costing Cablevision opportunities to be partners in the teams' new regional sports channels. He also dumped the Garden's signature voice, Marv Albert, opening the door for the Nets to scoop up the legendary play-by-play man. (When they move to Brooklyn, having Marv onboard will be an enormous aid in competing for New York fans.) And he is once again warring with Time Warner Cable, which has resulted in Knicks telecasts being unavailable in much of the New York market.

And now, because he has money, he has gotten a blogger he doesn't like to pull down a story he doesn't like. We called Cablevision to ask how reporting that Dolan was "considering" doing away with the Rockette's constituted defamation, and were referred to Barry Watkins, a spokesman for Madison Square Garden. He said he was barred from discussing the settlement, and referred us to a statement issued when Dolan filed the suit which said, "the lawsuit speaks for itself." As for the accuracy of the original report, we asked Watkins if he had any information on how ticket sales were going this year for the Christmas Spectacular. "Not at this time," he said. Will there be a Spectacular, with the Rockettes, next year? "I will not commit to that." In 2011? "I'm not saying yes or no. I have a statement that will answer those questions." That statement says, "The Radio City Christmas Spectacular will go on this year and every year for the foreseeable future." We asked Watkins via e-mail if next year and 2011 are in "the foreseeable future." He hasn't gotten back to us. (UPDATE: He says they are.)

CityFile's Stern declined to comment on the record.

In a $120 million suit filed this week, Thompson claims that the site inflicted emotional distress by not monitoring the nasty comments, like this one: "Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600."

Upset by all the virtual hate, Thompson, who once fought to get Howard Stern off the air, tried to reach Facebook — with a fax machine. Since the online company didn't reply, he thinks they did it all intentionally. And he's being extra drama queen about the whole thing: "If I were Charles Manson, that wouldn't warrant the postings."

In case you're wondering why Thompson lost his lawyer powers, there are many, but mostly because he constantly accused people of peddling porn and generally being sinners.

Image via pshab's flickr.

Rather's $70 million suit, which claimed among other things that CBS violated his contract by "putting him out to pasture" and continuing to pay his $6 million salary after he humiliated himself and his colleagues by putting completely bogus documents on the air with literally no idea where they cam from, was supposed to be his vindication. But the New York Supreme Court's appellate term has thrown it out. We were pretty excited about the suit, mostly because once discovery got going there would be a lot of fun depositions and e-mails leaked—like the disclosure that CBS News contemplated hiring Ann Coulter, Pat Buchanan, Rush Limbaugh, and Matt Drudge to investigate Rather's story about Bush's Texas Air National Guard Service.

But it was not to be. The legal issues are arcane, but basically it all hinges on the fact that CBS inserted the words "[e]xcept as otherwise specified in this Agreement" into Rather's contract, which let them do whatever they wanted, including pay Rather not to work after he became an insufferable embarrassment to the network.

Rather's lawyer has pledged to appeal the decision, but he's going to lose, because let's face it: Dan Rather is a loser.

You can read the full decision here.

On 60 Minutes last night Picard said, hey, I am going to win myself some friends, for once, and sue these crooked (by proxy, at least) Madoff kids for every red cent their daddy stole, and also they better move out of their nice houses and move into crappy, small houses, as penance, or else. We're paraphrasing.

Picard's team unearthed records showing Madoff's sons Mark and Andrew, who ran a legitimate trading operation, and Madoff's brother Peter, the chief compliance officer, took $80 million in compensation over the past seven years.

Plus, millions more in personal expenses were charged to the company, including private jet rentals, ski vacations and country club dues.

Considering that, I don't think anyone will have a problem with suing Madoff's sons, niece, and brother for $200 million, do you? No, that should be just fine. Picard says he wants the kids' god damn multimillion dollar houses and he wants everything else and "if that leads to bankrupting them, then that's what will happen."

Hardcore, Irving.

ON THE OTHER HAND: Madoff's sons are trying to get $90 million they say they are owed by dad's company.

Take all their shit, Irving. All of it.

Watch CBS Videos Online