"They didn't speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn't speak to anyone in the business community," said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Palin served as mayor.

Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her.

"I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called," Phillips said. "I called 30 to 40 people...

The current mayor of Wasilla, Dianne Keller, said she had not heard of any efforts to look into Palin's background. And Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican Party chairman, said he knew nothing of any vetting that had been conducted.

Also, McCain's people won't say specifically when or how they found out about the pregnancy of Palin's 17-year-old daughter. Maybe because they didn't really know in advance!

They probably should have just called any random house in Wasilla, population 10,000, because the love child was an "open secret" there, according to the Daily News.

The National Enquirer was chasing the story hard 36 hours before McCain addressed the situation, Radar reported.

And maybe Time knew, too, because just last week, before Palin was officially nominated but while she was being vetted, it asked McCain this question:

...And the question I got in the e-mail was: What does John McCain think of premarital sex? What do you think about that? What are your thoughts?

I don't have any response to that type of question. I'm running for President of the United States; write what you want.

McCain was smart enough not to fall into that little trap.

He was also lucky enough that the Palin news broke right when everyone was distracted by Hurricane Gustav in Florida and early enough in his presidential campaign that it's likely to be a non-issue by the time of the election. Some observers think it might even end up being a net positive for McCain.

Meanwhile, the hugely unpopular president's scheduled speech at McCain's coronation has been swept aside by the hurricane. And the candidate gets to go down to Louisiana and maybe make people forget about the big birthday party he had the last time New Orleans was hit by a hurricane.

Now all McCain has to do is convince everyone Palin isn't a secessionist and make them forget she helped start a group hilariously titled "Ted Stevens Excellence In Public Service Inc.," after the Alaskan who became "the first sitting U.S. senator to face criminal charges in 15 years." Should be a fun convention!

"This is what I've always loved about New York. Those little moments on the sidewalks, you can watch the buildings and feel the air and look at the people, and sometimes meet somebody you feel like you could talk to."

Which sort of highlights the problem, doesn't it! Like, hey, you can actually look at buildings and talk to strangers, technically, in any place that exists but in New York people have actually bought into the notion that their most mundane experiences and interactions are more special because someone might write a movie about them someday. When really the only decent movies about mundane experiences and quirky romantic interactions these days take place outside of New York (just ask Woody Allen!)**

*"Love in New York" is at best a problematic concept. I have already written about that here and here and here and let's be honest, probably a few thousand other places. My general take on this is that New Yorkers are conned—by their permalancer gigs and their sperm donors and their pretentious/prodigious collections of books written by misanthropic pervs and the commodity fetishism (not to mention the materialism!) and the constant distraction of mere survival when you have so many parties to attend and an overabundance of self-esteem—into thinking that they are actually "independent," and that the last thing they want to be is "codependent" when interdependence is the operating principle of human civilization. Just ask that Domino publisher who had to hire both an egg donor and a surrogate mother to make a baby!

Here is a New York, I Love You vignette: yesterday I hung out with an ex-boyfriend who was very sweetly comforting me about a recent breakup with another boyfriend about whom my favorite story goes:

Ex-boyfriend's Ex-Girlfriend, upon meeting me at a party: Oh my god, that time you wrote about how dating was like being waterboarded was just so true! I forwarded it to all my friends and they all agree that is exactly what dating in New York is like.
Me: How about some Jameson's?

Anyway said ex-boyfriend always used to seem confused that I was dating the more recent ex-boyfriend at all, since more recent ex-boyfriend was obviously not the most considerate dude in the world. "I will be your Yenta!" previous ex-boyfriend said, and proceeded to go through his phone. He scrolled through the whole alphabet with nary a suggestion, until he came to "X", where the more recent ex was listed. "Now I get it!" he said.

**Except for The Wackness because it was about 1. the nineties and 2. the actual love story was about a man and his pot dealer, so it was more realistic.

I read that you were once married to a Russian stripper. Is that true?
Actually, she was a Russian mafia prostitute stripper. As a teenager she was mistress to a Chechen warlord. I found this out because I worked at Kroll Associates. Are you familiar with them?

Foreign intelligence?
Yes. And through my contacts from them, what I learned from Russian military intelligence, is that she and her mother were and are connected with the Chechen Special Islamic Regiment.

So what happened to the marriage?
We got a divorce. I went through all the standard divorce horror: Restraining orders, she went to the police–

That’s standard for divorce?
Yes. If you’re an alien wife, and you want to become a citizen, you need a papertrail using VAWA.

[ed: VAWA is the Violence Against Women Act. Hollander contested it in his first Men's Rights lawsuit.]

She said, “My husband showed me a knife, my husband bruised me,” and then she got a temporary restraining order. The order was later dismissed. She filed a complaint with the police that I tried to extort her but she never went forward with the complaint because she never had to. All she needed was the documents, which you can use in immigration proceedings.

So the allegations were untrue?
Well, yes, basically. She came at me twice with a knife, but since I know martial arts, it wasn’t a problem. I probably did bruise her arm. But she, you know she twisted it around, the thing about the knife, and she got the restraining order. But what matters is that the court dismissed it.

No actually what matters is actually that he now picks up women in a hip-hop dancing class. And appears to have picked up some of the lingo!

Allow me to now read a quote you gave to another journalist, during your lawsuit against Ladies’ Night: “Now all I am looking for is superficial temporary escapades with pretty young ladies… It�s harder than it was when I was younger. I only go after girls who are in their athletic prime.” Mr. Hollander, I sense a rejection complex.
“Late teens or twenties,” is what I actually said. And, you know, I understand, this is exactly what my ex-wife did. See, she was a ho. I know this because she wrote about prostitution in her diary. She was a prostitute then, and for all I know, she’s a prostitute now. She did drugs without my knowledge, and she transferred the euphoria of the drugs to me. Now, I expect that from a pretty young lady who wants something. What I didn’t expect was the reaction of the government. She violated my rights, she violated the law, there’s a sense of justice involved, but the government didn’t care because it was me, a man, asking for justice against her, a woman, who was using VAWA.

But back to my preference. All I can say is, I do what mother nature tells me. I walk into a club, I’m standing there with my buddy looking for girls to hit on try to go out with them. If I see a girl, I’m going to go up and talk to her. I see a girl and I’m attracted to her, who knows what the reason is — there is a French poet who said “For men, love goes through the eyes” — and I talk to her, and she may look at me, and if she doesn’t want me to talk to her, she’ll make it clear. I can read demeanor. But I’m just going after who I’m attracted to. For instance, I take this hip-hop class, and sometimes a middle-aged lady comes to take it, but I’m not attracted to her.

And that is why he is voting for "O'Bama."

IvyGate

Yesterday some kid named "Stephany" born in the nineties wrote a Facebook message to fellow members of Princeton Class of 2012, and now we have her picture. (There's another after the jump!) Inspired by its imagery (ripped condoms! bloody lips!) but also by its flawed underlying assumption that anyone gives a shit where you went to college, we crafted our own letter, to all the young people who ever went to college, as part of what we plan to make a regular feature, Tough Love.

Dear Young Folks, you know that saying "We don't care about the young folks?" Of course you do, you're young! But it's not really true. I care deeply about Kids Today, especially since it has started to come to my realization that everyone in Generation X hates you! I mean, even if we actually love you, we hate your blog, that you pretend you know everything even as it so rarely seems to occur to you that there is stuff you can't learn on Google, that you have so much misplaced self-confidence, and that when something makes you insecure we get the sense it is the first time you ever felt insecure about that thing and that makes us feel old.

To that end, there's a few things you should know, starting with how we feel about college, and where you attended. There are numerous other things you should know, and you can even feel free to ask questions if the inspiration strikes you, but don't worry, I'm not expecting you to pretend you don't know it all for a second. I'm basically writing this for the sake of my demographic anyway, because, Jesus Christ, sometimes your generation makes mine want to start a MySpace suicide pact. Only that would just be so you of us.

You know what I could give a shit about? Where you went to college! I might ask you where you went so I can fine-tune my expectations about the magnitude of the "sense of entitlement" I expect you to embody, but I don't really want to know, so don't let the conversation come around to that. It's not like I'm actually curious about you. Look, curiosity is one of the 10 great endangered virtues in this town, and having toiled to cultivate a small crop of it despite the terrible handicap that is living here, I've learned to be reflexively incurious about most people who hang out in the places I drink, but I have earned the right to not be curious about you. You should think on that for a second, because in saying it I am also advising you to harbor intense — though wholly unexpressed, know your place — suspicions about anyone older than you who professes to be curious about you (i.e. if you don't end up having sex with them within a couple of hours they are probably too nice/pathetic to ever be particularly powerful.) But anyway, say we've gotten past that point. Say I already asked you, and you tell me where you went. Perhaps it might help you to know what my assumption is.

College in the news angle
Say your college is in the news. Then we don't have to talk about what I am supposed to think you think this says about you. Oh, you went to Brandeis, so did that crazy terrorist lady who tried to shoot up those intelligence officers in Afghanistan, what about that? Duke: so you sorta regret reporting your date rape too? Etc. etc.

College In New York Angle
Oh lord, you went to NYU/Columbia/New School/Pratt/one of those colleges I always forget is actually in town because it's not like I walk the streets thinking, "Ooooh, how much you wanna bet those kids went to Hunter?" I am expecting you to have years of subsidized experience living and drinking and interning and amassing anecdotal evidence that "Gentrification: It's not a figment of your imagination!" about which you are eager to converse, so be a dear, pretend you are planning on leaving town for a few months so you can find out what it's like to be a real person a la Jessica Roy, and just straight-up give me an honest answer to the matter of can you get me drugs.

Lesser Ivy Angle
Oh, thank the deities, a lesser Ivy Leaguer. So you have spent four years and $160,000 tethering your identity, reputation and sense of self-worth to an institution with no hope of ever fostering any sort of genuine intellectual or otherwise culture because it is too preoccupied with all the relentless comparisons to Harvard. Yay, another absurdist.

Harvard/Yale Angle
Yikes! I think the only way to really handle this one is to never lose your sense of bafflement that there are places so simultaneously insular and inculcated in their own sense of self-regard that some of the most intelligent people in the country can go there to teach and wind up like this guy. (Who not only doesn't have anything worth saying to his plumber, he doesn't realize that he doesn't have anything worth saying — at all!) But don't talk about said bafflement! Just say something like, "Yale, but don't be intimidated, my SAT score was only 1340*and that was untimed."

One of those colleges where there are no grades or whatever Angle
See "College in New York" angle, last sentence.

State school Angle
I will expect you want to partake in all sorts of cultural offerings of which you have been so unjustly deprived the past twentyodd years at least until March Madness comes around, and as long as you don't live in Bushwick I will find this charming. For about two more years!

Canadian angle
The problem with Canada is that you have all these flawed assumptions about how Americans perceive you, as in you think we feel guilty about not knowing anything about the customs and inner workings of a foreign country one fifth as populous as Bangladesh, or that the fact that you assume your travails getting a work visa will inspire our sympathy — ummmm like, hey read this! — and you never see it from our perspective, as in "Yeah, I have about as much sympathy for you as I do for someone who grew up in Portland, but with universal health care and never having to say you're American."

Historically black Angle
Look, I'm not going to act like I meet a lot of you in the Manhattan media scene, but on the occasion that I have it has always been a pleasant experience and if you are looking for extra credit see what it would take to arrange Stephany as your next commencement speaker.

*Yeah, fuck you, I'm old, that was the point.

While the document does not detail terms of the confidential settlement, TSG has learned that the deal—struck just eight months after the complaint was filed—included a significant payment to Bilodeau-Allen, who charged that the Enquirer defamed her and [son] Christopher in a pair of stories published in early-2006 (the first piece about Bilodeau-Allen was written by Alan Butterfield, an Enquirer veteran who last month confronted Edwards at a Los Angeles hotel after he met privately with former mistress Rielle Hunter).

So while the Enquirer may be much improved from several decades ago, it is far from infallible. As always, editors and producers are free to use this as an excuse to ignore the tabloid's stories, but the Edwards affair at least showed the more attentive among them how unwise this can be.

[The Smoking Gun]

(Image via the Smoking Gun)

Hey girls–

I just wanted to let everyone know that the group has been made secret for at least the next week in order to protect members’ privacy. If you are the admin for a pledge class group, I would recommend that you make that group secret as well, and to all members, I would strongly encourage you to either up your privacy settings or weed out your facebook profile so that nothing is on there that you wouldn’t want the world to see. Finally, if a reporter contacts you, through facebook or any other means, do not speak with them. It is Kappa National Policy that actives not speak with the press. If you have any questions, you can call or email me.

L,

Diana

But America wants to meet the hot co-eds of domestic bioterror! Don't disappoint! Come on, charity car wash on Good Morning America or something!

The next season will send Bret and his ladies hurtling across this great nation of ours in a tour bus, while he rocks out with his melted pencil eraser cock out. And they're casting in New York and Hoboken (founded, five hundred years ago, by hobo Ken.) The cattle call is below. I urge you to audition ladies. Your lives and livers will be forever changed.

I've been dealing with the truth that i have at times been a bad example and/or glorified self destructive behavior...

Regardless of varied judgments as to my cultural relevance, i am thankfully alive and exercising my joy in creating...

i've realized and accepted that if people decide to dislike me, they're going to find reasons to justify disliking me. there's nothing i can do about that. that said, it still does pain me to be accused of fictional crimes against innocents or to be implicated in romantic gossip involving the possibly reality-challenged—however unreliable the source or outlandish the accusations. in the end, however, i know that i have never done or even meant anyone any harm.

anyway, the lives of public figures are so much more boring than anyone can imagine. honestly.

Oh Courtney. You did know, didn't you, that handing your Amex to a cute young rocker boy for a period of weeks would, someday, end with heated demands on your part and with him then basically saying, "I'm sorry you feel I owe you money, there's nothing I can do about that, life sure is crazy?!?"

Next time: limits. You know you could! We wish you would!

[Ryan Adams]

The Australian and former Blackbook intern describes her personal style as "semi-employed superhero" and is wearing a vintage bathing suit—she's "obsessed with" them—as a jumpsuit. She "really appreciate[s] details, like if something has embroidery on it, even if it's just a little flower, or a button that's in the shape of a duck."

(We only have a tiny pic! Need scanner!) Oh, wait—here's a bigger photo.

Moberg said he didn't want to tell anyone about their breakup "because I loved the idea of people making their own endings to our unusual story." But Hayton just blabbed to the Austrlian press:

"We dated for a while, but now we're just friends," Ms Hayton says.

"It's really nice that people embraced the story. It is part of my life now."

She says she dated Mr Moberg for about two months, but it didn't work out.

"The situation was so intense that we bonded in a way that you could mistake for being more romantic than it was. But I wanted to give it a go, so I wouldn't later wonder, 'What if, what if?'."

So the relationship lasted all of two months. Maybe both people got something nice out of the experience: Moberg said he wrote a "little" illustrated book about the saga and Hayton perhaps has a gimmick for getting an audition for certain acting gigs. She landed a small role on As The World Turns and was an extra on Sex And The City!

But who dumped who? And what, exactly, went wrong? Here's a clue, from the Australian newspaper story:

"We see each other now and then and we email quite a bit - I guess that's his forte," Ms Hayton says.

Zing! Communication problems, perhaps? Yes, probably. And a lesson: If you can't introduce yourself before a crush walks out of your life forever, maybe it's best to let that person actually be out of your life forever.

Alternate lesson: It never hurts to try, even if you have to use the internet and/or embarrass yourself and so forth. You might have a fun experience!

[Herald Sun, Patrick Moberg]

• She is not her parents: "I get it, I really do, but at the same time it's creepy."
• She is not her parents: "If you're a big Nirvana fan, a big Hole fan, then I understand why you would want to get to know me, but I'm not my parents."
• Career interests: "She's thought about photography and/or journalism."
• Also: She is not her parents! "People need to wait until I've done something valid with my life."

So, basically, a fairly typical 15-year-old, except she already has Rolling Stone on her resume, and has already been savaged in Page Six. But given that her mom is Courtney Love? Something tells me she's not sweating it.

[Page Six, People]

Sunday, July 20, 2008
Dante's Inferno

so it took 5 years YES to get all 29 amexes sorted through and an absolute time line, so WHAT?
have YOU ever willingly ever had 29 amexes? NO! me neither. and when you see a passing "Guitar Center" charge on an amex if your a musician do you double check it? NO! so i had to got o my production manager as that year was especially horrific, and we made a time line, you have NO idea what that few years was like for us, and you'll all get it soon, as its just a terrible descent into Dante's Inferno and because i simply do not suspect evil in people, so if some loser is making two albums unlikely as it seems at once and there's charges for entire outboard gear , fabulous dinners while i scrounged to feed my child - well sorry but I'm fucking PISSED, that's that. Ive tried to "communicate" but am i really supposed to call or write or have a lawyer call or write the former "Business Manager" who applied for the 74 Visas and 29 amexes and enabled all this insanity and say "oh out of the XX,XXXXX you stole would you mind paying for some suck ass indie album"
how does one do that?
i had a very heavy evening but since we are becoming terrifyingly great, I'm happy to oblige you Gawker people for about oh one more millisecond.
Otherwise we are amazing and I'm listening to Lanegan in the wee hours very loud, and he as always is so underrated and so fucking evocative and an American Treasure, and i wonder what hes up to. not an indie record which sucks, not anything he does.
NOT TRYING TO BE DYLAN!
just trying and succeeding i hope you'll agree at finding my voice
its alright ma, im only bleeding
Corkaroonie [Courtney's page]

Did she just quote Alice in Chains Faith No More [Just had a sec to check my old cassettes—Ian] in that last line there? I don't know about you, but I'm starting to think she's pretty dreamy.

Ryan Adams you fucking weasel. deal with it.858,00$
Current mood: determined

Listen this is another open letter
this to a beyond mediocre piece of shite- maybe its just my moment to fucking get the knives out of my back,
but in any case between 00 and 04 before ....well a dark pit of shit and fake names and insanity follows with lots and lots of people counting on Kookoo cherry not being able to prove things- and thats for another day- those people have not played chess with me.
But i was sitting with some people going thru the 29 american express cards that i didnt know existed that were connected to a few HUNDRED bank accounts,and there were all the bills for Ryan Adams worst record and one of the worst records i can think of in rock and roll history ironically called"Riock and Roll " and it was paid for by ME and mostly by my child.
and when i met Ryan we had a mild little flirtation, why not? but i made the deathly stupid decision to instead of just have very safe sex with him ( hes pretty dirty and man ive been around but im the virgin mary comparitevly) or make friends. no i fucking pimped my useless , ridiculaously terrible loser "Boyfriend" ( who ironically Edward Norton hates no one any more than this fuck and for good reason , yet Edwards OWN business manager put Barber up on West XXth street kitty corner from Edward, Barber could see into Edwards Apartment, and then he had his own Dean and Deluca account and an ABC Carpetand Home account and spent about 250,000 on furniture and another 600,000 dollars on travel, this loser who hasnt had a job since 98 - while Frances didnt have hardly enough to eat and i sure as hell didnt) i pimped Barber onto Ryan,"oooh hes a great producer"- maybe it wasbnt honourable0 i just wanted Barber gone, so maybe i used Ryan to get him gone,
yeah you listen to this shit im listening to my i tunes on right now who names a record "Rock n Roll" what assholes do that?

Got it? Me neither. Maybe Courtney can clear it up.

with these trebled up guitars my bandmate said sounded like "really horrific rem on steroids" all treble and compresssion and shit wirtten songs - but so what?
well on my amex atthat time the 858 but also from bank accounts....theres 200,000 thousnad dollar checks written to Barber for "comissions" ididnt even know where the fuck he was ! but here on Amex 28 is the entire invoice for Ryan- your ENTIRE album and meals and drugs and Hotels and outboard gear and wasted fabullous guitars STRAIGHT OUT OF FRANCES"S TRUST FUND
So you little shit, maybe you had NO IDEA right? is that why you used a hysterical voice mail of a very terrified and flipped out me- for your worst reviewed record and well deserved too, this record is shite totally one of the worst recordings ive ever heard yet Ryan you YOU spent 858,000 dolllars on this record of MY DAUGHTERS MONEY. so whats your paying me back plan? illbe in New York next week , you can start by working out your payment plan, because i will litiagate your thieving ass from here til eternity, your a thief and i used to think you had some subtsance to you then i find out your being managed or your money is by Victoria Blake? is that POSSIBLE? whata great PAL that lizard like cretin is t o you and i hope you had fun that week in :Jamaica" whilst more of my kids money was being shoved offshore- but thats not the point- Billy may have made my kid cry but i wasn't in the room - he's family and he always will be- he just laid his Billy trip on a person a little too young for it- I'm over it. but YOU RYAN, OWE FRANCES 858<000 dollars , so should isend the amex copies to Blake and he "staff"? because i would enjoy that very much,what a really good friend to leave you with someone whose been diagnosed as an "utter psychotic" by a professional foresnic psychiatrist.
This record sucks i mean WOW!
is this what youd like me to tell my kid a fraction of her money was stolen for this shite "Rock N Roll " cd shall i post the outboard gear and 4 seasons billls and fancy Nobu dinners, ahh so thats why you released two records at once where you getting paid a salary to let Gollum "produce" you cos we both know what a reall fucking genius that guy is, and this isnt about Gollum- hes inthe hands of the professionals, i walk away now knowing everything, all of it , its disgusting and its a fucking nuclear explosion of greed i dont think american history has ever seen but no other artist was ever involved in this scandalous vile behaviour ......but you were and i note to self; you suck on this record with your bile towards me, ande its gutless and cowardly and shit, and you know it,
Pay me back Ryan, Pay Frances back. an dtake my fucking voice off that piece of shit.

You can read the rest of the missive here, but I'd be remiss if I didn't include Courtney's sign off to Ryan: "still shooting smack? hows that going for you?"

Andy Dick, comedian

How drunk: Groping minors, getting arrested — classic Andy Dick, basically.

Latest: Nabbed by the police in Murrieta, California for drug use, posession of marijuana and Valium and for sexual assault after Dick grabbed a 17-year-old's breasts at 2am outside (sigh) "Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar."

Outlook: Given his long and distinguished track record, a relapse is virtually guaranteed.

Low point: Beaten up at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles in July 2007 by fellow comedian Jon Lovitz, who blamed him for the death of comedian Phil Hartman since Dick allegedly sold cocaine to Hartman's wife, a recovering addict, before she killed Hartman.

Jessica Simpson, singer

How drunk: Drunk at lunch, but not drunk driving.

Latest: Perhaps distraught at pictures of ex-flame John Mayer with actress Jennifer Aniston, Simpson last week went on a four-hour margarita binge at LA's Mexicali Cocina Cantina that ended with her friend puking under the table and Simpson abandoning her car.

Outlook: Her clean track record offers hope this was an isolated boozing, but she needs to get over Mayer.

Low point: The restaurant thing. Simpson was once a goody two-shoes, having started singing in a Baptist church before transitioning to harmless teen pop. She remained a virgin prior to her first marriage.

Amy Winehouse, singer

How drunk: Epically.

Latest: Thinks her home is inhabited by ghosts; caught smoking crack or something on video; punched, headbutted and stiffed three different people over the course of a single night; has a skin condition associated with crack addicts.

Outlook: Will probably deteriorate until she runs out of money or comes, somehow, closer to death. Rumors continue to circulate she'll seek treatment abroad, for example in Israel or South Africa. Whatever — these reports have been floated repeatedly in recent months and have yet to pan out.

Low point: Probably whatever is in the British tabloids on any given morning. Has had major issues at least since she's been famous. Her first U.S. hit was called "Rehab," after all.

Drew Barrymore, actress

How drunk: Engagement-breakingly, allegedly.

Latest: Dumped by actor Justin Long (whom she reportedly planned to marry) after he "got tired of having to help Drew to the car at the end of the night," according to the National Enquirer. After battling drugs and alcohol as a child star, Barrymore thought she had things under control.

Outlook: Decent: Continues to work, and normally tends to keep herself out of the tablouds.

Low point: Entering rehab at age 14, having already snorted cocaine.

Mischa Barton, actress

How drunk: Problematically.

Latest: Pled no contest to drunk driving charges dating to December, got three years probation and mandatory alcohol-education classes.

Outlook: Decent. Has largely avoided the tabloids save for the December incident. Recently declined to join the case of Gossip Girl to work on another project, so apparently staying (soberly) busy.

Low point: Puked in the street last year while partying with celebrity friends Kirsten Dunst and Jamie-Lynn Sigler.

Kirsten Dunst, actress

How drunk: Not? Rehabbed and hopefully not backsliding, despite that one rumor.

Latest: Dragged All Good Things co-star and rumored boyfriend Ryan Gosling to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, a recovery no-no. Is fresh out of two-month rehab stint in April.

Outlook: Decent chance of a relapse. She's 26 with no kids or long term relationship, and with one hell of a track record.

Low point: When so many anonymous tipsters emailed us about her getting drunk around New York that we had to run a special report.

Scott Weiland, singer

How drunk: Problematically.

Latest : The bipolar Stone Temple Pilots frontman served a 10-hour prison term earlier this month for a November drunk driving incident, his second in five years.

Outlook: Worrisome. With a wife of eight years and two children, hopefully the drunk driving incident was just a rocker's aberration, but it was his second in five years.

Low point: A two-month drug binge with Courtney Love in a hotel in 1998. Runners-up: Convicted of buying crack in 1995 and of driving drunk in 2003.

Eva Mendes, actress

How drunk: Menacingly, but supposedly all better.

Latest: Checked herself into the Cirque Lodge rehab facility in Utah in January to "privately attend to some personal issues."

Outlook: Bad. Has taken a movie role playing a Spanish drug lord in Queen of the South. This could mean the rehab stint was just method acting; more likely the drug lord role will do to Mendes what Less Than Zero did to Robert Downey Jr.

Low point: The recent rehab. No history of erratic behavior, unless you count posing topless in Italian Vogue.

Sean Young, actress

How drunk: Freshly rehabbed as of February.

Latest: Completed a sting in rehab earlier this year after being ejected from a Hollywood awards ceremony for bad behavior.

Outlook: Poor, due to a history of emotional volatility and bizarre behavior. According to Wikipedia, her role in Wall Street was reduced due to fights with Oliver Stone; she was sued by actor James Woods for harassment; she unsuccessfully tried to win a role on Batman Returns by confronting the director in a homemade Catwoman costume; she was fired from the movie Dick Tracy. Her last marriage ended in 2002.

Low point: Heckled director Julian Schnabel during his speech at the Director's Guild of America awards in January. Believed to be intoxicated, she was escorted out.

Justin Chambers, actor and former model

How drunk: Not. Finally getting rested after a recent hospital stay.

Latest: Checked himself into UCLA Medical Center with what he said was a sleep disorder. But after his discharge, was spotted passing out and acting bizarrely at the Village Pub in Palm Springs.

Outlook: Good, if you make the difficult assumption he's telling the truth about his sleep disorder and that reports he was only drinking non-alcoholic beer at the pub are true.

Low point: The Village Pub incident.

Miley Cyrus, singer and actress

How drunk: At 15, has possibly never been drunk. Then again, maybe there is something to these pictures of her stumbling out of a club in Hollywood.

Latest: Her scandalous, topless-except-for-a-sheet photo spread in Vanity Fair, obviously. Also, she keeps emailing underwear pictures to her boyfriend, which somehow end up online. None of which indicates she is on a path toward drinking or addiction, just that she is growing up and clearly ready to move beyond her goody-goody image on the TV show Hannah Montana.

Outlook: Very good. But the relentless pressure from Disney to never grow up could finally make her snap.

Low point: Vanity Fair incident.

Kate Moss, model

How drunk: Modestly, and only via booze. Yay!

Latest: On the one hand, she's reportedly engaged to be married, practicing yoga and tending to her fashion line. On the other, she looked scary and strung out in the last of these February pictures, and sometimes will randomly go without underwear. In March, she had a "boozy lunch" in Paris and then licked her boyfriend's neck.

Outlook: Good. She's avoided any public cocaine relapses over the past three years, though clearly drinks sometimes. She should be further grounded by continuing to raise her daughter, six, and by a reported engagement to guitarist Jamie Hince.

Low point: In 2005, was famously photographed by British tabloid the Daily Mirror snorting cocaine at a recording session for Babyshambles, band of her junkie boyfriend Pete Doherty. She was subsequently dropped by both Chanel and Burberry and entered rehab.

Courtney Love, singer

How drunk: Epically.

Latest: Despite recently handing out sobriety advice to Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears and declaring herself rehabbed, Love was spotted in London this spring looking drunk and carrying copious prescription drugs, which she has abused in the past.

Outlook: Poor. Love insists she's reformed but somehow few people are convinced.

Low point: So many to choose from! Probably the time she thought she was going to die so her hangers-on, according to Love, stole $20 million.

Lindsay Lohan, actress (at one point, apparently)

How drunk: Constantly, visibly and criminally.

Latest: Accused of stealing someone else's fur coat from a nightclub. Also recent: getting plastered with her girlfriend at Hawaiian Tropic Club, falling limply while trying to get into a car outside a Hollywood.

Outlook: Surprisingly pretty good. She's getting good report cards on the set of her new movie, and is a newly minted femme lesbian.

Low point: When walking medicine cabinet Courtney Love told her she really needed to shape up. Also: five car incidents in three years, including one where she was alleged to have been chasing someone in her car while drunk.

Naomi Campbell, abusive supermodel

How drunk: Unconvincingly reformed.

Latest: Campbell is trying to redeem herself following a spitting, racial-epithet-hurling attack on police at Heathrow airport. She bought coffee for cast members of TV show Ugly Betty and smiled at Heathrow police.

Outlook: Poor. Campbell has falsely claimed to be reformed in the past. In 2006, Campbell told W magazine, "Some people can handle a drink or a line of cocaine, but I’ve finally come to realize that, for me, it’s all or nothing — and it has to be nothing." She was later photographed drinking wine at dinner.

Low point: In 2006, after being arrested for her latest cell-phone beating of the help, she was forced to scrub toilets as part of a community service sentence. She claimed the experience was sobering before moving on to further meltdowns.

Pat O'Brien, TV host

How drunk: Freshly rehabbed, working again — for the second time.

Latest: Entered rehab in February (his last rehab had been in 2005). Despite speculation to the contrary, he returned to his hosting gig on The Insider.

Outlook: Weak, since he has relapsed once before.

Low point: A drunken, horny voice mail left prior to his most recent rehab stint.

Paris Hilton, attention-mad socialite

How drunk: Very, but in a totally older, more responsible way.

Latest: Hilton now says she's become more domestic, staying home (heavens!) some nights and even cooking dinner for serious boyfriend and rocker Benji Madden. She's taken to wearing a diamond ring on her wedding ring finger and reportedly even talks of children.

Outlook: Precarious. Marriage and increased sobriety are possible; more likely is a breakup and total Hilton meltdown. The starlet has failed at reform before: The Times in March reminded everyone that Hilton still had not taken a charity trip to Rwanda or set up a transitional home for women, as promised on Larry King Live following a jail term.

Low point: Was sent to jail for repeatedly driving on a license suspended in connection with a drunk driving conviction. Runner up: When her cat was reclaimed for alleged neglectful treatment.

Nicole Richie, actress, fashion plate

How drunk: Minimally.

Latest: Richie gave birth in January and subsequently said her daughter and relationship to boyfriend Benji Madden, the girl's father, gave her life new meaning and helped her "move on" from her wilder days. Richie's friend Paris Hilton is said to be hoping for a similarly grounding relationship with her boyfriend, Benji Madden, brother to Joel.

Outlook: Decent. Richie raised $1 million by selling pictures of her baby, and her dad Lionel is rich, so she's well funded to either raise a family or have a Britney Spears-style post-baby meltdown. She's 26 so the chance of the latter is not insignificant. But there are no immediate warning signs.

Low point: In 2003, was arrested for possession of heroin. Runner-up: Becoming dramatically thing after a falling out with party buddy Paris Hilton and a brief jail sentence on drunk driving charges.

Britney Spears, wayward singer

How drunk: Only on Frappuccinos (this month).

Latest development: Spears is back in the recording studio, has appeared in repeated successful TV cameos and gained new visitation rights with her two sons after a court commissioner said he was "extremely impressed" with her progress.

Outlook: Good, for now. With her father in control of her money and many aspects of her life, Spears is unlikely to backslide anytime soon, particularly given how much she wants to regain custody of her kids. The question is whether she'll be able to stay sober once she has her kids back and is in full control of her bank account.

Low point: Flashing her vag to paparazzi in 2006 while clubbing with Paris Hilton. Runners up: Her two psych-ward stays this year; brief, recent relationships with scuzzballs Adnan Ghalib and Sam Lutfi; shaving her head and bashing a car with an umbrella.

Robert Downey, Jr., actor

How drunk: Stone cold sober.

Latest: Downey's film Iron Man has been a critical and financial success, with Downey now expected to take part in sequels. He appears in blackface in the forthcoming comedy Tropic Thunder with Ben Stiller

Outlook: No reason to think he's anything but clean and sober from here on out. Unless you've heard something. What, have you heard something??

Low point: In 2000-2001, when a series of arrests saw him kicked off the hit TV show Ally McBeal. Struggled with drug abuse throughout the 1990s, and eventually served at least a year and a half in jail and several years on probation and in drug treatment.

The Slate-y marriage of David Plotz and Hanna Rosin is doing fine, despite this and Emily Yoffe's marriage has been great for 14 years. To sum up, some well-off white ladies hate their husbands and some never even fight with their husbands ever. Doesn't it seem like dudes never write about their wives anymore? That's probably for the best, because back when they did Norman Mailer was stabbing them.

Courtney Love used the sidewalk like a red carpet, chatting and joking with reporters...

Sometimes celebrities do what they do best: bask in the attention. Ms. Love latched onto her lawyer, Scott B. Tulman, as they left the courthouse and gushed as if they were an item:

“Isn’t he handsome? Isn’t he beautiful?” Ms. Love then suggested she was pregnant with Mr. Tulman’s child.

“Are you out of your mind?” Mr. Tulman recalled telling her. “What are you doing?”

Another day outside the courthouse she finished off a partially smoked cigarette that she bummed from a passer-by.

“It’s like having a wild kid,” Mr. Tulman said. “After a while, you just shake your head.”

PR consultant Eric Dezenhall told the Times Love's antics are fine, since "anything that extends the half-life of her career is probably a net positive." Uh, sure. Maybe even get charged with more crimes like disorderly conduct and so forth and get spotted outside the glamorous criminal courthouse even more often, maybe!

[Times]