• Initial reports cited DJ AM's death as a simple overdose, but a medical exam found 8 undigested OxyContin in his stomach, which leads at least once source to say his death was suicide. A Valentine's card from his ex-girlfriend was found near his body. TMZ, however, talked to police sources who insist it was not suicide. Still, this is sad and we don't like it. [People and TMZ]
  
  
• Britain's food-obsessed Harden Guide cited four of Gordon Ramsay's restaurants as a "disappointment." Another reviewer suggested the celebrity chef "hang [his] head in shame." [Daily Mail]
  
  
• David Beckham's so worried that his children will be America-fied that he makes them watch BBC. Isn't that child abuse? [The Sun]
  
  
• Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will speak at a memorial for fallen newsman Walter Cronkite. Oh, so will Les Moonves, Katie Couric and many, many others. [B&C]
  
  
• Rumor has it that designer Derek Lam's company has been losing about $1 million a month. [Page Six]
  
  
• Holy God, why? Spencer Pratt wants to legally change his name to "King Spencer Pratt." What a prat. [Star]
  
  
• Kate Hudson and A-Rod have only been dating for five months, but she's always at his apartment, even when he's not there. That's creepy and weird and sad. [MSNBC]
  
  
• Hahahaha! Real Housewives of New York cast members Ramona Crazy Eyes, Kelly Bensimon and "the Countess" all accosted Alec Baldwin in the Hamptons, but he didn't recognize them. Sad! When he was told who they were, he made fun of the show. But, he did ask about Bethenny Frankel, who he did want to meet. [Gatecrasher]
  
  
• Madonna's youngin' boyfriend Jesus Luz fancies himself a deejay, but those familiar with his musical selections say otherwise: "In his last gig at Pacha, in Buzios, guests at the club said his set list wasn't captivating at all, and the dance floor was almost empty." Tear. [Page Six]
  
  
• Gossip Girl actors Penn Badgley and Matthew Settle hung out with hooker-beating ShamWow pitchman Vince Offer. [Page Six]

Okay, well, "eat" may not be the proper, scientific term, but a new study from a team headed by UCLA neurology professor Paul Thompson indicates that obesity - and its accompanying fat - can clog up that pretty little head, lead to "brain shrinkage," and may eventually cause dementia.

People with higher body mass indexes had smaller brains on average, with the frontal and temporal lobes - important for planning and memory, respectively - particularly affected.... While no one knows whether these people are more likely to develop dementia, a smaller brain is indicative of destructive processes that can develop into dementia.

The team also found that the brains of the 51 overweight people were 6 per cent smaller than those of their normal-weight counterparts, on average, and those of the 14 obese people were 8 per cent smaller.

Yowzer! So, basically, fat folk have teeny-tiny little brains and the leaner masses can feel even more superior. Great!

Now, before you go out and ostracize the overweight - this means you, admonished New York Times Style writer Cintra Wilson - some scientists pin the blame not necessarily on fat, but on the dastardly brain itself. You see, the areas impacted by the atrophy are the same regions that control metabolism and eating behavior, like whether you shovel it in like a voracious beast.

Regardless, we're pretty sure there's no need to worry about a demented overweight person going on a premeditated rampage: remember, the frontal and temporal lobes control planning and memory, which means any potential onslaught will either be a) massively disorganized or b) abandoned completely in favor of voracious snacking. So, never fear! Unless you're overweight, in which case you and your brain should be very, very afraid.

[Image via]

Credit checks on applicants have long been a device used by financial firms, the government and employers looking to fill positions dealing with the handling of money, but with credit reports available cheap and easily, more and more employers are using them to cast judgment on the judgment of others. So even if you've gone months without a job, you'd better be willing to give handjobs in the parking lot at Denny's if you have to in order to not fall behind on your cell phone bill, because otherwise you might never get a damn job!

Reports the New York Times:

Once reserved for government jobs or payroll positions that could involve significant sums of money, credit checks are now fast, cheap and used for all manner of work. Employers, often winnowing a big pool of job applicants in days of nearly 10 percent unemployment, view the credit check as a valuable tool for assessing someone's judgment.

"How do you get out from under it?" asked Matthew W. Finkin, a law professor at the University of Illinois, who fears that the unemployed and debt-ridden could form a luckless class. "You can't re-establish your credit if you can't get a job, and you can't get a job if you've got bad credit."

Even worse, employers are using credit reports to fill positions that have absolutely nothing to do with money.

"There's no relationship between being a personal trainer making $12 an hour" and having a good credit history, said Janet L. Newcomb, a career counselor in Huntington Beach, Calif. "People are being turned down for jobs on the basis of things that really have nothing to do with qualifications."

So yeah, it sucks to be unemployed, but at least there's free wi-fi in coffee shops! Oh, right.

Pic via

Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story is not C. David Heymann's first book about the family and seems like perfect grist for the never ending nostalgia and scandal mill that the Kennedy clan has been running since the '60s. However, according to Andrew Goldman's piece in The Daily Beast it seems unlikely many of the stories in the book actually are actually true.

Heymann says one of the keystone accounts of the Bobby/Jackie love affair comes from now-deceased socialite Mary Harrington who claims she witnessed a steamy scene between the pair at the Kennedy's Palm Beach estate in 1964.

"[T]here," Heymann writes, "sunbathing in the grass next to the house, was Jacqueline Kennedy, wearing a black bikini bottom and no top. A door opened and out walked Bobby Kennedy in a white swimsuit. He approached Jackie and knelt by her side. ‘As they began to kiss,' said Harrington, ‘he placed one hand on her breast and the other inside her bikini bottom.'"

There is no way to check with Harrington about the accuracy of her story short of a Ouija board. Goldman says that it can't be true because the estate was walled at the time.

The only possible place where Harrington could have been staying was at a beach shack on the adjoining property to the south, which sat about 10 feet lower than the Kennedy residence. [Ned Monell, who was the Sotheby's listing agent for the property when the Kennedys sold the place in 1995] says that owing to the heavy vegetation planted around the house, she would have been unable to see anything on the lawn.

And that's just one story that Goldman rips apart. The pair have a history that goes back to 1999 when Goldman wrote a story in the Observer questioning the veracity of a story Heymann told the New York Post about the late John F. Kennedy Jr. In his Daily Beast, article Goldman accuses Heymann of routinely making up claims about the Kennedy clan for his own gain.

Goldman has apparently taken it upon himself to repeatedly swat down Haymann. It's like the journalism equivalent of when the ladies get in each other's faces on Rock of Love, and this is an oh-no-you-didn't of the highest order.

Yes, America is being overrun by the unclothed children of "progressive" parents. What's wrong with these people, these surely-communist progenitors acting as benelovent pacifists to tyrannical children who obviously can't control their sick, carnal desires to run around in their naked flesh? Are they, the parents, simply incapable of screaming "Put on some Goddamn clothes Pancho!" in the general direction of their little hedonistic snot-monsters? Don't they know that the olds of America simply aren't capable of handling such assaults to their delicate senses, or do they just not care?

Rachel Sarah, 36, a writer and mother in East Bay, Calif., said that until her 9-year-old daughter, Mae, turned 7, she liked to wear only a T-shirt in the summer, a preference that Ms. Sarah found healthy, but that Mae's grandparents could not accept. "My mom and stepfather were very insistent on her having clothes on for everything," Ms. Sarah said.

Although most days Mae ran half-dressed through the sprinkler or played with friends under a hose, she had to accept different rules when her grandparents were around. "Their view, I would say, is that little girls need to have their clothes on unless they're taking a bath," Ms. Sarah said.

And who could possibly be even more traumatized by the exposed nether bits of spoiled moppets than the olds? The gays, naturally!

Kevin Allen, 45, who used to work as a personal shopper, still recalls with horror the afternoon more than a decade ago when he was at a client's house, and the woman's two young granddaughters came into the room and began changing outfits.

"I was extremely uncomfortable," said Mr. Allen, who estimates the girls were 5 and 6. "I know the grandmother well, but I didn't know the children."

When asked to reflect on the source of his discomfort, Mr. Allen, who is gay, said he feared the situation could all too easily be misinterpreted. "Being gay, you're already thought of as a pervert by some people," he said. "If you look the wrong way at them or something like that, people are going to think you're having some kind of lascivious thought. So it's kind of not appropriate even in your own house. When other people are around, you should have modesty."

You see, the youngs have converted the olds into accepting this horseshit and now the olds are terrorizing the gays with their naked grandchildren. Good God this must be stopped! Bill O'Reilly, do something man!

Why Do They Need A Fig Leaf [New York Times]

Either you love her or find her humor shallow and strangely dated, but Chelsea Handler is here to stay. For three more years, at least. She just signed a big deal with E!, extending her late-night talk show Chelsea Lately for another three seasons. The show has been a hit for the wan little cable net—the laff riot gets more women viewers, 18-34, than Last Call with Carson Daly, the new Jimmy Fallon show, or Craig Ferguson. Though most of those women are the annoying people who will talk loudly over shows like Project Runway, thinking their jokes are more entertaining than the actual show, so who wants to advertise to them anyway. [Variety]

Like an iceboat forcing its prow through dense North Pole ice, celebrated actress Cameron Diaz is breaking new ground as an artist. She'll be starring in a romantic comedy, her first ever, in which she play's something of a guy's gal. The movie is called Swingles and may not be for those who can't handle change. [Variety] Meanwhile the not-at-all-overhyped, not one bit, Anne Hathaway will be starring in both stage and film versions of the biography Get Happy, about celebrated insane boozebag Judy Garland. Long rumored to be doing a musical (Guys and Dolls, Promises, Promises), this looks to be Hathaway's first confirmed Broadway appearance. She's also doing Viola in the park this summer. [Variety]

Curiously likable former child star Amanda Bynes has landed an ABC comedy pilot (they do comedy so well!) called Canned, about a young woman who is unwittingly terribly mistreated by her boss. Geez, I can relate! [Variety] Curiously unlikable comedian Robert Wuhl somehow got past security at HBO, though he'd been banned from pitching shows to them since Arli$$ ended (those Funky Teacher things don't count). But somehow he did, because he's developing a father-son comedy about the owners of a Madison Square Garden-esque arena, providing a backstage look at all the sporting events and concerts and stuff that come through. He's also maybe developing those Funky Teacher things into a Broadway show. Inexplicable. [THR]

Here's fun: Catherine O'Hara, Tom Selleck, and Martin Mull are all starring in an action comedy together. Well, OK, the real leads are the unfortunate Ashton Kutcher and Katharine Heigl, but those three enjoyable old-timers will be popping up as well. Can't wait until June 2010! (Yes I can.) [THR] Also teaming up is a band of Injuns for the next Twilight movie, New Breaking Eclipse. They're all playing fearsome and brave werewolves who defend humans against a nasty group of vampyrs. Several different tribes are represented with the casting, and all the kids are making their movie debuts. Finally, we have repaid our debt to Native Americans in full. [THR]

TV vets Maura Tierney and Peter Krause will be starring in the pilot of the series-based-on-a-movie Parenthood. They'll be playing the Dianne Wiest and Steve Martin parts. No casting has been announced for the old lady who gives the lovely rollercoaster monologue towards the end, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a heavily made-up Rachel Dratch. [THR]

5 p.m.: Host Conan O'Brien appears on stage at the Kodak Theater, which is noticeably quiet after the nominees for sound, visual effects and makeup were rerouted over to the Arclight for a surprise alternative ceremony just for them. "We'll pipe our show in, fellas," O'Brien says into a closed-circuit camera. "The link up instructions are at the concession stand." It's just the first of producers Bill Condon and Larry Mark's many curveballs on the night, quickly followed by O'Brien's admission of the entire Jolie-Pitt child/nanny entourage to assume the nominees' empty seats. Because we all know what happens otherwise.

5:07: Having jettisoned the tradition of the previous year's acting winners presenting this year's prizes, the producers instead intoduce At the Movies hosts Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz to present Best Supporting Actress to... Robin Givens for her wicked-executive turn in Tyler Perry's The Famiy That Preys. When Givens arrives at the podium, the Bens don't recognize her. She swipes her statuette and tells them fuck off back to the nursery. They do.

5:18: During the first commercial break, stage managers drag Best Supporting Actor winner Ralph Fiennes's lifeless body from a tank housing the lethal jellyfish from Seven Pounds. While cranking shut the trap door through which Fiennes plunged minutes earlier, O'Brien reminds nominees to please adhere to their 45-second speech limit.

5:40: The show speeds along, with awards for Documentary Feature (the stunning Neil Diamond-tribute act love story Song Sung Blue), Documentary Short (Smile Pinki, because nothing makes a deformed Indian child happier than Oscar love; cleft palate surgery can wait), and Animated Short (Pixar's Presto). Dakota Fanning arrives to present Best Animated Feature, widely presumed to go to WALL-E. But a glorious, amazed smile overtakes Fanning's lips as she shrieks the impossible dream: "Delgo!" Fanning accepts the award on the absent filmmaker's behalf.

5:59: The SAG Dancers accompany their rockin' guild president Alan Rosenberg in a medley of this year's Best Song nominees. His Springsteen is a little strained, but "Jai Ho" brings down the house.

6:13: Synecdoche, New York shooter Frederick Elmes narrowly outguns Christopher Doyle (Paranoid Park) and Harris Savides (Milk) for the year's Best Cinematography prize. Doyle drunkenly rises and gives his speech anyway before being carted off to the holding cell where Josh Brolin awaits the Best Actor results.

6:20: Meryl Streep is seen beaming with pride upon winning $37,000 in the show's In Memoriam montage pool.

6:31: A bored Condon fiddles with various sound effects — a little reverb, some delay, a riotous "mouse voice" EQ — while The Jonas Brothers present the Best Song award. Joe Jonas opens the envelope, and the brothers glance quizzically at each other when nothing is written inside. Condon and Mark exchange high-fives while the boys awkwardly shuffle off the stage.

6:42: Jennifer Aniston shocks everybody, introducing Tina Fey's requisite awards-show appearance as this year's winner for Best Editing.

6:53: Another jellyfish casualty ensues merely 10 seconds into Towelhead butcher Alan Ball's acceptance speech for Best Adapted Screenplay. The audience applauds vigorously.

6:55: Oprah Winfrey presents Best Original Screenplay to Tyler Perry for the dual achievement of Meet the Browns and The Family That Preys. Perry waits a few minutes for the standing ovation to abate, thanks the Academy, thanks God, peers over at Harvey Weinstein and makes a throat-cutting motion with the length of the statuette. Harvey spends the rest of the show squirming in his soiled Halston tux.

7:02: Condon, Mark and O'Brien accelerate the show by awarding Best Actor and Actress simultaneously, for which Philip Seymour Hoffman (Synecdoche, New York) and prohibitive favorite Dakota Fanning (Hounddog) deliver overlapping speeches in a magically Grobanesque performance-art offering.

7:04: Perry returns to claim his Best Director prize for The Family That Preys. Weinstein drops his Push lawsuit the next morning.

7:05: O'Brien, himself now under threat of execution from the booth, simply tosses the Best Picture trophy at Synecdoche director Charlie Kaufman. "That's yours," O'Brien says. "Any questions? OK! Hit it, Max." Cue music, roll credits. It was a good year.

The Reverend Gregory Malia, from the hilariously-named town of Wilkes-Barre PA, makes his bones selling pharmaceuticals to hemophiliacs. He spends his bones at posh New York nightclubs, treating tables to $10,000 worth of champagne and buying $25,000 magnums of Dom for himself. He's unapologetic about it, claiming that he still donates 20% of his salary to the church. Plus he's not some small time rube, he argues:

I'm a national businessperson dealing with very chronic and severe illnesses that cost huge amounts of money. I'm not running a mom-and-pop store.

But the church doesn't see it the same way, and he's under investigation. It could lead to him being permanently stripped of his priestly title. Which is too bad!

He's a jerkwad with a publicist and who probably says, somewhere in the dank echoy realms of MySpace, that he "makes it rain," and his brother says that he was a hemophiliac orphan who had it tough growing up, and that is sad. But if a man of the cloth, a man of God, can go clurb-bumpin' til the cash registers ring with glee, then maybe all is not lost. The Almighty is on our side, fiscally at least. And drunkily.

And that ought to count for something.

This new Honda Insight concept borrows more from modern Honda hybrids than it does from its namesake, one of the first hybrids available for sale in the US. Despite that early availability, the early car was only a two seater, wasn't particularly speedy at the on-ramp, and lacked certain creature comforts modern car buyers expect, hybrid or not. With this latest iteration, all of those complains are vanquished, with a full five passenger seating capacity, a large cargo area, and as many creature comforts as you want to check on the options list.

Will the new Honda Insight be the one to bring some real competition to the dedicated hybrid market? We're tending to think yes. However, we'll have to wait till its biggest direct competitor, the redesigned 210 Toyota Prius, drops at the 2009 Detroit Auto Show.

Honda Introduces All-New Insight Dedicated Hybrid Concept Vehicle at Paris Motor Show

PARIS, France, October 2, 2008—Honda Motor Co., Ltd. presented the concept model of its all-new Insight dedicated hybrid vehicle scheduled to be introduced in 2009, at the 2008 Paris Motor Show (October 2–19; Press Days: October 2–3).

Based on a theme of achieving dynamic performance through excellent aerodynamics, the exterior design of the Insight concept model combines excellent environmental performance and a fun to drive spirit. The compact Insight Concept measures 4,375 mm (172.2 in.) in length, 1,695 mm (66.7 in.) in width, and 1,425 mm (56.1 in.) in height, with specially designed, ultra-light aluminum wheels and 205/40 R18 tires. With a cockpit that enables the driver to experience the joy of driving, the interior of the Insight Concept provides an advanced and futuristic feeling that is possible only through a hybrid vehicle.

The all-new Insight, which will be developed based on this Insight Concept, will be a five-door, five-passenger hatchback equipped with Honda’s lightweight and compact hybrid system, with a 1.3-liter gasoline engine serving as the main power source, assisted by an electric motor. While achieving fuel economy on par with the Civic Hybrid, the new Insight will also achieve excellent utility and light and comfortable driving through the adoption of a new platform developed specifically for this vehicle. Honda will begin sales of the all-new Insight in Japan, Europe and North America in spring 2009, and projects annual global sales of 200,000 units.

In his speech at the Paris Motor Show, Honda Motor president & CEO Takeo Fukui said, “This new Insight will give more people the chance to get behind the wheel of a high quality hybrid vehicle only Honda can develop.”

The name Insight was chosen to denote that this new vehicle provides "insight" into a new era in which hybrid vehicles come within reach of most car buyers.

Jill and daughter.

Jill and her "gay husband" (Barf.) Correction: There is a gay husband, and he was there, but this is not him. This is her actual hubby.

The ladies who lunch at the second most expensive restaurant.

"Later on I'm going parasailing."

"I'm still heeeere."

Pool partay!

It's about balls.

She's not married and has a job, and yet she's still a housewife.

Ghosts of guests.

Remember this article, "The Language of Loss for the Jobless," by Jan Hoffman?

The neighbor, a jovial suit-and-tie presence at the school bus stop in the mornings, disappeared for a while last fall. Nobody saw him for weeks. Finally he began to venture out — at afternoon pickup, in jeans and a T-shirt. A senior manager of a technology department, he had been laid off. Neighbors didn't know what to say to him.

Across the soccer fields of leafy suburbia, conversations are stilted these days; the bravado has a tinny ring, the gallows humor is more prevalent, the deft change of topic more abrupt. As classes let out at a city private school, a normally chatty top-of-the-heap woman, whose banker husband was recently escorted out of his office building, rushes in, sweeps up her child and dashes off, avoiding glances.

The neighbor [what neighbor? please put in full name per our style manual], a jovial suit-and-tie presence at the school bus stop [what bus stop? can you put in cross streets to orient the reader, or at least the neighborhood name] in the mornings, disappeared for a while last fall [why are we leading with 6-month old news? can't you lead off with something fresher than last fall's layoff?]. Nobody saw him for weeks [nobody? you mean he never left his house? have you verified with the homeowners association?]. Finally he began to venture out — at afternoon pickup [unclear: is that a pickup basketball game, or picking up a take-out pizza?], in jeans and a T-shirt [of what relevance are these clothes? get to the point and get out of the way]. A senior manager of a technology department [company name please], he had been laid off. Neighbors didn't know what to say to him. [how many neighbors did you interview to substantiate this general assertion?]

Across the soccer fields of leafy suburbia, conversations are stilted these days [can you cite an expert to back this up? the reader doesn't care about your impressions]; the bravado has a tinny ring [says who?], the gallows humor is more prevalent [more prevalent than what?], the deft change of topic more abrupt [huh? what government agency, what nonprofit study, what journalistically accepted official source is the basis for these claims?]. As classes let out at a city private school, a normally chatty top-of-the-heap woman [is this a real person? if so, please name her], whose banker husband was recently escorted out of his office building [name of firm, please, per style manual], rushes in, sweeps up her child and dashes off, avoiding glances. [did you, or anyone, witness this sweep-and-scoop maneuver?]

[www.nydailynews.com]

The freshened Prius will get a new front fascia, including a new grille design which appears to take after the corporate grille design seen on the Camry and the Yaris. The prototype's headlights have also been radically reshaped, ditching the current car's elongated lights.The old lights nearly reached back to the Prius' A-pillars, but the new lights are smaller, angular clusters set wide on the front-end. The result is a much more mainstream styling treatment. The bumper-mounted air-intake also looks to have been reshaped, but the heavy white tape obscures the true extent of the changes...The rest of the Prius appears to be unchanged on this prototype—a true facelift indeed, without any changes to the car's posterior.

Times Names New Public Editor [NYO]

New York men continue to see only 1 very awesome side.

New York Women See 2 Sides of Prescription-Free Morning-After Pill [NYT]

"The expectations were so inflated that no matter what we had done we'd be having conversations about how it should have been better," said David Tuckerman, New Line's president of domestic distribution.

Tuckerman said the picture, which cost about $35 million to produce, would be profitable for New Line. More than 90% of audience members in studio surveys rated it "excellent" or "very good," he said, which bodes well for its box-office prospects in the coming weeks. And he predicted the movie would be a "huge" success on DVD thanks to its loyal following.

"We're going to make money — we're just disappointed that it's not as much money as we hoped," Tuckerman said.

If complaints about crushing expectations that could never be met (except, perhaps, by at least outgrossing the debut of J.Lo/Ice Cube vehicle Anaconda by a few million) or diminished profits don't tug at your heartstrings, consider that after Tuckerman hung up the phone with reporters, he had to arrange to return the tens of thousands of dollars in champagne and rubber snakes he'd purchased for this morning's abruptly canceled office party. If that thought doesn't bring a tear to your eye, you are clearly a soulless monster.

• Previously: Indian Burial Ground Booked, So K-Fed's Party Moves To Liberace's Penthouse [Defamer]

The Glamous (Sigh, Whine) of Heartbreak [NYT]