• Dear Twilight fans, I'm not the only one who thinks your property is boring and stupid. Kristen Stewart does, too! Princess Frumpire thinks talking about Twilight is boring because she has to talk about it all the time. "The sad thing is that I feel so boring because Twilight is literally how every conversation I have these days begins - whether it's someone I'm meeting for the first time or someone I just haven't seen in a while. The first thing I want to say to them is, ‘It's insane! And, as a person, I can't do anything!' But then I think to myself, God damn it, shut the fuck up." Oh, no, Frumpracula, keep talking. If you want to get back at your psychotic teenage vampire fans, just tell them all what it's like to have sex with Bobert Patterson. They'll all scream like, well, vampires, the real kind, the ones that explode when sunlight hits them. And if you could make all Twilight fans explode out of pop culture existence, that'd be fine, too. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Jimmy Kimmel is so over Sarah Silverman, and is now dating one of his show's co-head writers, Molly McNearney. Kimmel's 41, McNearney's 31. The best part about the story, really, is the sole comment that's been left on the page: "Better wed her quick now. A wife can't be made to testify." Word. Also, oh, hey, remember that one time we were pretty sure McNearney had it going on with Kimmel long before this? [NYDN]
  
  
• Wow, Daily News is really on fire with the galleries. They call this masterwork "Hottie and the Nottie" based on a list of celebs who are with guys maybe supposedly uglier than them. Wonderful. So you're saying I have a chance? Etc. [NYDN]
  
  
• Miley Cyrus is a shitty tipper. She got $70 worth of food to go and didn't tip because she didn't know you were supposed to tip when you get takeout. Girlfriend. Sigh. Even worse: she was a shitty tipper at Outback Steakhouse. Why hasn't this been done yet? A list of Hollywood's shittiest tippers. I need to get on that. That way, these people could never eat in a restaurant without being shamed again. There's only one person who can get away with not tipping, and he's fake. [NYDN]
  
  
• The Boris and Natasha-esque gossip team known as Rush and Molloy set their trained sights this week on...Marc Rich? Yes. Marc Rich. The sketchy billionaire was pardoned by Bill Clinton, and he's been in exile in Switzerland. He didn't come back to America because of one man: Rudy Giuliani. Can you blame him? [NYDN]
  
  
• Bill Maher thinks Roman Polanski should just come back and go to jail. In other news, since Bill Maher didn't condemn Roman Polanski to die by sharks with buzzsaws attached to their faces, Bill Maher is pro-rape. You heard it here first. [NYP]
  
  
• Anderson Cooper was riding in Chelsea yesterday without a helmet. [NYP] I'll be here all day, folks.
  
  
• No, you can't. Giuliani made a young couple who had his old seats at Yankee stadium switch it up because he told Judith he wanted them back. Security swooped up the young couple, put them where Giuliani was sitting before, and plopped them back in their old seats. Giuliani, if you ever did that to me, I'd pour a beer on your head and put it on Deadspin. I don't know why this couple didn't do that. Honestly. That's beer-on-head meriting behavior. Dick. [NYP]
  
  
• Jon Gosselin: familiarize your self with the term "putz." It's Yiddish for "Jon Gosselin." Jon says he's going to be celebrating Hanukkah this year because everyone in his life is Jewish right now. No, really. That's what he said: "Everyone in my life is Jewish now, my attorney. I love it. I'm now half Jewish and half Korean. The family values are great....They gave her a free tummy tuck, worth $20 grand." Okay, Daily News, I don't know if you took the end of that quote out of context or what, but Jesus, really? Really. And he has holiday plans, too: "I'll see my kids [on Christmas] during the day for a couple of hours." [NYDN]
  
  
• Is A-Rod hitting better because of Kate Hudson's attendance at Yankees games? asks the Daily News. They even find some college professors to talk to about this kind of thing. And you know this is the highlight of these guys' week. Not that they made some kind of advancement in the field of psychology or whatever, no, it's that they get to talk about A-Rod getting laid in relation to the number of times he can bat someone in from third base. Ah, academics. [NYDN]
  
  
• Here's a gallery of celebrities running. It's oddly compelling in that "I will not eat this sandwich" kind of way. [NYDN]
  
  
• Tiger Woods is cheating on Gatorade with some kind of "focus drink." Adderall juice? Gimme. [NYDN]
  
  
• T.I.'s doing time for a weapons conviction—always, these guys, with the guns. Oy.—but that won't stop him from winning awards while he's in the slammer. No bars can hold The People from throwing down bars. It's true. [NYDN]
  
  
• There's a new book called "Growing up Bin Laden" coming out, and it's about growing up in Osama Bin Laden's family. Whee! The best part's when they move to Bel-Air for a while because Afghanistan got too rough during the early 90s. Hijinks ensued. [NYP]
  
  
• Mischa Barton's staying in New York. Suck it, LA. We've got Barton. Who do you have? Seriously. [NYP]
  
  
• So, Page Six's big story is that Madonna's not working out with Tracy Anderson anymore. Anderson's the trainer used by Gwyneth Paltrow to get Goop-y with it. The most exciting part of the story, however, is at the bottom. They totally buried the lede on this. You see, Tracy Anderson was apparently arrested for failing to pay a chimney sweep. The Dickens? Exactly! Dickens-esque, no? [NYP]

And, in celebration of T.I.'s award, we should all be able to feel liberated under imprisonment. Me, in front of my computer. You, in front of your computer. Princess Frumpire, in front of her Bobert Patterson. All of us, in the universe! Or something. I don't know. Here's an awesome song. Happy Sunday! Live your life! I'm gonna go eat a bagel.

[Photo via DZilla/JK/Bauer-Griffin]

A researcher named Hans Larsson, who cites Jurassic Park as his inspiration, announced this week that he could soon to play God with Chicken genomes to create creatures with dino-like characteristics.

As we all know, dinosaurs and birds are closely related, so by pulling a DNA switcheroo, Larsson says, he can produce an army of prehistoric monsters. In an effort to lull humanity into a false sense of security, Larsson insists he doesn't have immediate plans to do so, because it would simply be too large an undertaking.

While the prospect of dinosaurs roaming the world is unsettling enough, consider where Larsson's getting the dough for his project: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Research Chairs programme and National Geographic. Now, we don't want to tell the President how to do his job, but this should end.

Imagine if terrorists got their hands on the research! Osama bin Laden would be riding up and down Manhattan on a T-Rex and suicide Pterodactyls would be crashing from coast-to-coast. Something. Must. Be. Done.

First step: invent time machine. Second step: stop Jurassic Park's publication. Third step: live happily ever after.

Image via niznoz's flickr.

The New Yorker's Steve Coll has long suspected—and previously reported, based on the recollections of one of Bin Laden's childhood friends—that the Al Quaeda leader had visited the U.S. But he's found confirmation and detail in a galley of Growing Up bin Laden, the new book by Osama's first wife Najwa bin Laden and their son Omar.

One evening he [Osama] arrived home with a surprise announcement: 'Najwa, We are going to travel to the United States. Our boys are going with us.'

I was shocked, to tell you the truth…Pregnant, and busy with two babies, I remember few details of our travel, other than we passed through London before flying to a place I had never heard of, a state in America called Indiana. Osama told me that he was meeting with a man by the name of Abdullah Azzam. Since my husband's business was not my business, I did not ask questions.

Osama left Najwa in Indiana for a while to jet off to L.A. for meetings. A highlight of her stay was a trip to "a big shopping mall in Indianapolis."

The couple's son Abdul Rahman developed a fever during their vacation, and they took him to an American doctor in Indiana who assured them that the boy would be fine. They came to think of Americans as not so bad, Najwa says:

I came to believe that Americans were gentle and nice, people easy to deal with. As far as the country itself goes, my husband and I did not hate America, yet we did not love it.

No, "love" is not quite the word. While waiting for their return flight in the Indianapolis airport, Najwa writes, she and Osama got a big kick out of all the midwestern hicks gawking at Najwa's traditional Muslim garb.

When my husband and I discussed the incident, we were both more amused than offended. That man gave us a good laugh, as it was clear he had no knowledge of veiled women.

Crazy Amrikans! Doesn't Growing Up bin Laden sound like a great name for a reality show? Ben Silverman call your office.

[Via TNR; photo by AllegroArts via Flickr.]

Why would any good, patriotic American say such a thing in a discussion about border protection? Because all of our politicians crave is the approval of Europeans and to hold on to their cushy jobs and it's going to take an attack from Bin Laden to wake America up to the fact that our leaders need to use "as much violence as necessary" to firmly establish our place in the world. Meanwhile Beck just sat there nodding his approval.

Yeah.

The neoconservatives aren't even trying to hide their pulling for such things anymore. And these are the same people who revel in cloaking their deranged beliefs in patriotism, mind you.

Happy 4th of July weekend everybody!

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

If we're analyzing the statements of a guy who launched an attack that killed 3,000 Americans in the same terms that we use to assess the efforts of a comparatively harmless hack like Rep. John Boehner to keep his head above the political waters, then we guess that's a good thing. And there's certainly nothing wrong with pointing out the obvious political and media-relations elements to bin Laden's strategy. Still, Chuck—the political analysis game has its limits.

Let's put it in crass political terms: Your chief political opponent for the hearts and minds of the Muslim world is about to come to the two most important countries in Islam—Saudi Arabia and Egypt. And he's going to give a speech. So of course you want to try to give a prebuttal. In many ways, this is just what any political opponent of the president would do. You want to get into the stories.

Of course, Obama can hit back at bin Laden's charges by painting him as out of touch with the concerns of working Muslims, and by subtly hinting at his age and health issues, which polling suggests is a problem. The big worry in the Obama camp is whether bin Laden will play the "infidel card," and whether the folks who live in Saudi Arabia—which some describe as "Riyadh and Jeddah with central Pennsylvania in between"—can be persuaded to see Obama as one of them.

UPDATE: Jake "The Octogon" Tapper, who earlier today decided to remind Matt Drudge of Obama's "Muslim roots," reports that the White House has responded to Osama's message:

"This president and his outreach are very threatening to bin Laden and al Qaeda," said a senior administration official. "It's terribly bad news to bin Laden and al Qaeda. They're beginning to lose the propaganda war."

We thought "war room" was a dead metaphor—when you hear that phrase, you don't think of generals planning attacks anymore, you think of George Stephanopoulos lying to someone on a gigantic cell phone. Looks like it's alive again, though.

As you might recall, Bush was mighty fond of his little ranch in Crawford. Remember that time he received a little briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US" in early August of 2001? He was at his ranch in Crawford at the time, where the business of clearing brush and bike riding and shooting varmints was so important, he decided to stay for the rest of the month! So how many trips did Bush take to Crawford in total during his eight years as President? 77! How much do you reckon that cost? Daily Kos crunched some numbers and came up with an estimate:

The minimum cost per trip to Crawford TX is $226,072. That's just the estimated cost of flying Air Force One round trip - about two hours of flight time each way at $56,518 per hour. At a bare minimum, for the flights alone, Bush's 77 vacation trips to Crawford cost us $226,072 per trip. That's $17,407,544 so he could ride his bicycle in the woods and clear brush for the cameras.

Yep, that sounds about right! So can we now shutup about all this and get back to arguing over whether or not Obama's the Antichrist?

Bush Made 77 Trips to Crawford TX at $226,072 a Pop [Daily Kos]

Showtime, perhaps concerned about belt-tightening, or perhaps concerned that the shows suck, have been turning down pilots left and right. They've passed on the Matthew Perry series End of Steve, a spin-off of The L Word, and now the buzzed-about comedy Ronna and Beverly, about two Jewish ladies in Boston. The pilot they ordered from Tim Robbins, Possible Side Effects, remains in the game, but it's far from a sure bet. [Variety] HBO has good news, at least. Their new film Grey Gardens has earned its very first rave. Big Edie hasn't been this pleased since Jerry liked her corn. [Variety]

Melora Hardin, who deserves to be a big big star because she is so funny as Jan on The Office, has landed a lead role in the new FX pilot Lights Out. She'll play the surgeon wife of a retired boxer who becomes an enforcer for loan sharks to help support his family (but... isn't she a surgeon?) Good for her. [THR] In other thrilling TV news: Have you ever felt that Gossip Girl, about richie rich Upper East Side teens, isn't real enough? Well now Bravo is bringing you NYC Prep, a reality series about horrible rich "social" children who go to fancy schools in Manhattan and poop Burberry-print feces and when they cry it just sounds like Deborah Voigt singing and their tears are made of diamonds and when they die they become the stone lions out in front of the Met Public Library. All of this happens in the first episode. [THR]

A Dutch television show has decided that Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks, and that the accusation was just a part of "Western propaganda." Upon hearing the news, George W. Bush issued a statement from his Crawford, TX ranch saying "See? I didn't need to look for him that hard after all." When he found out that the show is in fact a stupid reality show called Devil's Advocate in which a fancy, sell-out lawyer tries to exonerate perpetrators of terrible crimes in the unending quest for ratings, Bush sighed and shook his head said "Well... Well, dammit. Laura, can I get a back rub?" [THR]

Indonesia will be adding Fox International's network Foxcrime to their broadcast roster, to be part of cable company Indovision. The network—which features reruns of tons of crime shows like NYPD Blue, Kojak, and the C.S.I. iterations—is also broadcast in Europe and other Asian markets. For a second I was kind of jealous that those foreigners get to have an entire channel devoted to shows about crime, but then I remembered that we have both TNT and USA. So suck it, Indonesia. [Variety]

Here's the latest goof:

Science takes on terror hunt
A geographer uses innovative analysis to narrow Obama bin Laden's location to three sites.

That's some innovative analysis! Yahoo's news producers join a long line of Obama-Osama flubbers. In January 2007, a CNN on-air graphic for a story about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, the Al Qaeda founder, asked, "Where's Obama"? The network apologized.

During the campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney repeatedly confused Barack Obama's last name with Osama Bin Laden's first one. They rhyme, after all. Last April, AP board chairman Dean Singleton made the same mistake, referring to the hunt for "Obama Bin Laden," prompting a jocular rebuke by Obama.

“He is writing the book with the assistance of a young man with a Middle Eastern background who will later translate the text into English,” sources said.

The book is about "atrocities being meted out to the Muslim world in contemporary times by the Western world." And also about "the so-called struggle of his outfit."

In the U.S., making one's "struggle" the cornerstone of a revolutionary treatise would be major faux pas. But apparently it's expected to play well with bin Laden's target readership.

Assuming the book is completed, it should launch the predictable controversies stateside over whether any stores should/should not stock it. Only slightly less predictable: Terrible writing and instant internet availability will render those debates largely moot.

The North-bin Ladin story is an email hoax that began circulating right after Sept. 11, 2001, and was almost immediately debunked by North himself. (Scoff all you like, Americans, but email forwards also happen to be how Sarah Palin gets her foreign policy news!)

Van Susteren, however, failed to correct the Pakistani president, the Times' Brian Stelter notes in this morning's paper.

But give the on-air lawyer some credit: Van Susteren did post an ALL CAPS corrective email from North on her blog late last night, shown below. As Stelter said, "Hold your breath for the on-TV correction." And if you want to influence global leaders, skip the Fulbright scholarship and bone up on your viral email skills.

We're not surprised; the guy's got a natural rapport with his audience, and, really, who doesn't want to hear nonstop news about Whitney Houston?

[Drudge Report]

Favorite TV shows: The Wonder Years, Miami Vice, MacGyver.

Complexion: "Zesty salmon-orange."

Best Osama dialogue that could be a hip hop lyric: "Dance like a Caucasoid girl!"

His Prerogative [Harper's]

Earlier: The Greatest Terrorist's Love of All

Obsessed Bin Laden wanted to kill Whitney Houston's husband [Daily Mail]

(Note: The above is not a punchline. At least, not in the strictest sense.) One could well ask what drew Boof to writing for a soap opera in the first place; she claims it's because she learned English watching the show. Perhaps Boof's response to her tangles with the Post may shed some light on her severance from DoOL:

I have been met only with racism, snobbery and all around privileged ignorance by the pot-heads who edit and write for the newspapers in the United States ... I could give two camel humps about being popular with the mainstream ...

'Days' Boots Osama's Slave [NYP]
Fatwa Victim or a Fraud?; Mystery Enshrouds Kola Boof, Writer and Internet Persona [NYT]
Kola Wars: bin Laden's Mistress is Fired [SoapCentral]
Bin Laden's #1 Enemy, Kola Boof, Shocked by N.Y. Post Story [PRWeb]
Kola Boof [Official site]

Judith Regan, Not Content with Just Celebs and Tell-Alls, Joins the bin Laden Family
By Kimberly Maul

ReganMedia has signed Osama bin Laden's niece, Wafah Dufour, for a reality-TV show based on Dufour's life as a singer....

While Wafah Dufour is billed by ReganMedia as a "pop-rock singer and musician," a knowledgeable music-industry source told The Book Standard that he's "never heard of her. The only reason anyone is doing a reality show on her is because she's bin Laden's niece."

See, a loving uncle will go to any length to get his niece on TV. (Nice publicity shot, too, right, Uncle Os? Infidels dig the gams.)

Judith Regan, Not Content with Just Celebs and Tell-Alls, Joins the bin Laden Family [Book Standard]