Challenging flash games are for people with too much time; what I like are simple games that I feel accomplished for winning in five minutes. I hope you do too, because Doeo is about as good as a bump of coke before lunch. The game feels cuddly like Kirby, Katamari Damacy or the Powerpuff Girls. Plus the music sounds like that Japanese band Fantastic Plastic Machine. Play a round of Doeo.

Some shadowy 527s—and one li'l 501(c)4—with hilarious names like "Citizens for a Safe and Prosperous America" and "The Legacy Committee" and "The Justice Society of a New and Safer America" bought some airtime in North Carolina to show off their gross Willie Horton-style attack ads about how Barack Obama is soft on crime. Did you know he is against the dealth penalty? It's true! You can learn all about it after the jump.

Is the downtown Manhattan nightspot Beatrice Inn attempting to shed its reputation as a coke den where insiders say that two of the Six Rules For Getting Laid are to flout the rules, then flout the rules some more? Well there will be no more rule-flouting now that these small paper signs warning against sex and drugs have been placed in the bathrooms, where they can do the most good. Of course, they might make an exception for Josh Hartnett and friends.

Is there anything worse about being a reporter than transcribing? Well, maybe, but listening (and relistening) to tape from an interview is one of the most mind-numbing tasks in journalism. Actually, your mind can't even turn numb, because you need to be at attention the whole time. Added to the fun is hearing your voice on tape, which at first makes you wonder why you haven't been punched in the face more for your bizarre inflections. Once you get to the top of the journalism heap, though, you can just get American Apparel models to transcribe for you! As long as your husband hired them to intern at his legendary literary magazine, anyway. Even if you yourself aren't actually writing for that particularly legendary literary magazine!

Lost in the short-shorted confusion of yesterday's item on Perrin Drumm, the American Apparel model who interned at The Paris Review, was this line from her interview: "Larissa McFarquhar did a piece about Barak Obama for the New Yorker, and I did the transcription for that interview."

McFarquhar is married to Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch. Gourevitch emailed Doree Shafrir to assure her that McFarquhar paid Drumm for the transcription work, which is Paris Review policy for outside work by interns—but as Doree says, one would hope the New Yorker could provide transcription services in-house for their own staff writers.

Of course, having someone else transcribe your interviews is not always the best idea. Parts of the taped interview could be off the record or for background only. Having someone else listen to the tapes is a violation of the sacred trust of the journalist-subject relationship. And transcribing interviews is an important, if torturous part of the reporting process. Because transcribing requires your total attention, rehearing it offers more insights than reading it ever could.

But most importantly, journalists love to complain. And if you pay someone to do your transcribing, all you'll have left to bitch about is the job market.

Paris Review Update [The Doree Chronicles]
Earlier: Meet the 'Paris Review's' American Apparel Model

Chest support theft report! Victoria's Secret is known as a BRA store, but is it also a ROB store? Long Island mom of four Katerina Plew says VS gave her the screw after they refused to meet with her about her idea for a new convertible bra, then ripped her off after the tipoff! The company's Very Sexy 100-way strapless convertible bra is really her own patented design, sez Plew—who sued! Now there's a legal meetup over the regal C-cup, cause the inventive mother is offended, brother. The two sides are taking their strapless tort back to court. It's a nuclear showdown on this brassiere throwdown! After the jump, compare Plew's patent plans with Victoria's Secret's own product: great minds think alike, or a thief in the night?

MOM'S DESIGN:

[via NYDN]

VICTORIA'S SECRET VERY SEX 100-WAY STRAPLESS CONVERTIBLE BRA:

Tom Cruise, a grand high witch in some sort of science fiction club, has shepherded his son into a part in a movie. I mean, his son Connor totally auditioned for the role like any son of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman would, and it's just a total coincidence that the movie stars Will Smith, a close friend of Cruise's who may just be joining the after school sci-fi group. Good for the lad. May his career be as rumor and scandal free as his father's. [Showbiz Spy]

Hey, 30 Rock, the funniest television show on God's green earth, is moving to a new time. It'll be on at 9:30 on Thursdays, where it will hopefully get some nice Office lead in. The irksome Scrubs, now in its last, gasping season, will fill the vacant 8:30 slot. [EW]

["Vogue" editor Anna Wintour at opening night of the Met's "La Fille Du Regiment" last night; image via Splash]

AngryJournalist.com, the rant-based website that serves as an online barometer of the journalism zeitgeist, has started selling t-shirts. Why is this bad? Well, it means that the site's founders have been thus far unable to properly monetize their online content. Of course, they're journalists! Coincidentally, that's about the level of insider joke that you'll find on their t-shirts, as well. Still, we'll be buying the "Print Is Dead" one for Nick Denton to wear triumphantly to media parties. Click through for a few more examples, or visit the crotchety store here.

[Angry Journalist]

Look, it is one thing to spark up a doobie and get laced at parties, but it is quite another to walk around fried all day. So why do the rich and famous do it? Every day I'm reading about this and that with the smoking the drugs and the snorting the drugs. Is it because they can afford it? Are they bored? Why don't they just go take a walk? I tell you, when I become rich and famous (it's inevitable), all I'm going to get addicted to is fancy pajamas and Goldfish crackers. And booze. Hey, here's a druggy blind item right here, from Gatecrasher: "Which celebrity stylist, who should know better, has been blabbing in L.A. that a particular designer has tumbled off the wagon - again?" Two more items after the jump.

"Which up and coming British actress, who claims her slender frame is simply due to being in the public eye, is really keeping weight off thanks to a diet of champagne and Colombian marching powder?" [Mirror]

"So, what do you do when you are hosting a show and you have a member of a rock and roll super group come in? Well you try and get him to sign something for charity. I mean this group has been famous for 30 years and has licensed everything from condoms to coffins to eyeliner in order to make a buck. This singer and guitarist for the band was asked to autograph a guitar for a charity and he declined. Turns out he only signs things when he knows he will get a piece of the action. Since the show declined to give him a piece of the action, he declined to help the charity." (Gene Simmons, right?) [Crazy Days and Nights]

While I was pulling an all-nighter this weekend watching YouTube, my stomach started to growl even though I'd had like a whole thing of goldfish crackers and a bottle of Kahlua, and as I popped a diet pill and scratched a couple scabs off my forearm, I had a vision of the eleven ways the Internet could kill you. (Please don't sue: Of course not all the sites and practices listed below are directly responsible for any deaths. But if you're already at risk, you might just get yourself killed when you use them.)

11. YouTube

At risk: Daredevils, fictional characters
Case 1: While trying to perform a stunt for YouTube, four teens crashed their Ford Explorer, injuring three and killing one. No details on how awesome the clip would have been, but hopefully it'd be more exciting than "ghost riding," the 2005-07 fad of rolling an idling car down the street while dancing beside it. The result of that fad, besides a few lame videos, was two deaths. Other stupid deadly stunts include subway surfing and fake stunts that end up in banner ads.
Case 2: A man who explained on YouTube how to tie a hangman's noose has been accused of inciting suicide. A few days after the news reported it, someone else posted instructions (though this user has posted plenty of other knot-tying videos, and who could hang themselves with the festive purple and yellow rope he uses?).
Case 3: Of course fictional characters die often and violently: Lonelygirl15, Harry Potter, and the radio star.


10. Myspace

At risk: The lonely
Case 1: Remarkably, no charges were filed in the case of the family who carried on a hoax relationship with 13-year-old depression sufferer Megan Meier over MySpace, then "broke up" with her and thus driving her to suicide. But this is only our first glimpse at two themes of Internet-caused deaths: Tragic romance and preying on the lonely.
Case 2: In this case, MySpace technically saved lives. Cops investigated a 12-year-old boy's MySpace death list, warned everyone who was on it, and searched his home. They didn't find weapons and he said he was just fooling around, so he was just charged with juvenile delinquency. Other death threat cases include a dog and another empty threat against high school students. But just to be safe I make my little sister keep a Google alert on her name, cause she''d be the first to go if some trenchcoated freak started shooting up the cool kids in her school.
Case 3: Of course while stupid people may reveal their murder plans on MySpace, they may be inspired by the site too. Heather Kane saw another girl on her boyfriend's profile and hired a hitman to kill her. Good thing she bumped into an undercover cop instead.


9. Facebook

At risk: Anyone who pisses off a muslim
Case 1: A Saudi Arabian father beat and shot his daughter earlier this year for chatting on Facebook. A preacher in the Islamic country called the site a "door to lust;" many Saudi women use aliases on the site and post drawings instead of photos. But there are still plenty of photos of hookups in the Facebook group "Single and Looking in Saudi Arabia."
Case 2: After a Jewish woman in Melbourne rejected a friend offer from one Ibrahim Dirani, he allegedly wrote to her, "I am Hezbollah and I am going to kill you and all of your family — promise you." Aw, !


8. Pornography

At risk: Viewers of extreme or illegal porn and the people who know them
Case 1: It's hard to feel too sorry for those who kill themselves after they're implicated in child porn rings, like these four suicides in 1998 and these six in 2004.
Case 2: Porn doesn't only kill the depraved. The story of Jane Longhurst, an English woman killed by "a man obsessed with violent sexual pornography," was tragic enough to encourage many UK lawmakers to ban extreme porn.


7. Spam

At risk: The terribly gullible
Case 1: Spammers and scammers can easily take your money if you're dumb enough to give them your passwords and financial info. But some Nigerian scams go far beyond online fraud; many scammers lure their victims to Nigeria to continue paying money in person; fifteen victims were killed after they got suspicious.


6. Blogging

At risk: Those already at risk of dying
Case 1: There's a trick to making listicles like this: Put the weakest item in the middle. Unfortunately the New York Times spent an entire trend piece on the bogus idea of "death by blogging." But Gizmodo editor Brian Lam tells me, "Only bogus to lazy bloggers. I did 75 hours this week and anyone over fifty would die doing that."


5. Ebay

At risk: The already dead
Case 1: Seung-Hui Cho bought empty clips and holsters on Ebay before his Virginia Tech rampage. He got his guns and ammo elsewhere, though Ebay notes that the sale of ammunition on Ebay is legal.
Case 2: Ebay's death profits tend to come from the memorabilia. Celebrity deaths bring predictable results, like sales of Pope tchotchkes and autographed Heath Ledger posters. But Ebay has also hosted auctions for supposed Columbia shuttle pieces, video of insurgents shooting down planes in Iraq, the car used in a murder, and O.J. Simpson's book.


4. Drugs

At risk: Druggies
Case 1: Internet drug sales are ridiculously easy (see "spam" above), so easy that every decent men's magazine did an "I ordered Viagra off the Internet" story by 2005. But that means irresponsible doctors can prescribe dangerous drugs, such as this 2002 case of deadly drugs sold online, or this case of a doctor whose patients sometimes became addicted or were hospitalized, or a 2007 case where a 57-year-old Canadian woman died after taking an illegal sedative she ordered online.


3. Webcams

At risk: Suicides
Case 1: Webcam suicide is one of the darkest modern phenomena, an example of loneliness and despair in a supposed age of connection and hope. Those who have fallen that far and recovered may want to forget it ever happened. Webcammer Stacy Pershall has long insisted that despite reports, she did not try to kill herself on camera in 2001 by overdosing on pills but merely took some Advil "to get a few hours sleep" — on her bathroom floor.
Case 2: While Pershall's viewers worried about her and called the cops to save her, those watching Brandon Vedas in 2003 egged him on. He OD'd on five drugs and died a room away from his unsuspecting mother.
Case 3: A father named Kevin Whitrick hanged himself after the apparent encouragement of people watching his webcam; viewers later said they thought it was a joke, and indeed they'd acted worried after seeing him die. After all, he was in an insult chat room, which brings us to another cause of death:


2. Chat rooms

At risk: Hopeless romantics
Case 1: A man rejected in real life by his chat room lover in 1999 cut his own head off with a chainsaw in her front yard. Enough said.
Case 2: Plenty of innocents have been killed by online predators like the man who killed an altar girl, the Texas A&M killer, and this guy in a rural North Carolina trailer.


1. World of Warcraft

At risk: 10 million players, particularly the already crazy ones
Case 1: World of Warcraft addiction may not necessarily be deadly for the player, but it can be hell on their family life. Of course, Kim Trenor was probably crazy long before she moved cross-country with her 2-year-old to see a guy she met on the game, and definitely before she and Royce Zeigler beat "Baby Grace" to death. But if it weren't for that damned game she never would have met the allegedly abusive Zeigler.
Case 2: WoW isn't the first game to drive addicts mad. At least one Everquest player allegedly shot herself after getting hooked on the game.
Case 3: And of course any time you put a beautiful bit of fantasy in the world, some kid will try to imitate it. Happened with Superman, happened with WoW when a Chinese boy jumped off a 24-story building. His parents sued game maker Blizzard saying he was imitating the game, in which some players like to platform-jump, an activity totally unrelated to actually playing. Again, totally not WoW's fault, but something had to convince that boy he could leap off a tower.

While I was pulling an all-nighter this weekend watching YouTube, my stomach started to growl even though I'd had like a whole thing of goldfish crackers and a bottle of Kahlua, and as I popped a diet pill and scratched a couple scabs off my forearm, I had a vision of the eleven ways the Internet could kill you. (Please don't sue: Of course not all the sites and practices listed below are directly responsible for any deaths. But if you're already at risk, you might just get yourself killed when you use them.)

11. YouTube

At risk: Daredevils, fictional characters
Case 1: While trying to perform a stunt for YouTube, four teens crashed their Ford Explorer, injuring three and killing one. No details on how awesome the clip would have been, but hopefully it'd be more exciting than "ghost riding," the 2005-07 fad of rolling an idling car down the street while dancing beside it. The result of that fad, besides a few lame videos, was two deaths. Other stupid deadly stunts include subway surfing and fake stunts that end up in banner ads.
Case 2: A man who explained on YouTube how to tie a hangman's noose has been accused of inciting suicide. A few days after the news reported it, someone else posted instructions (though this user has posted plenty of other knot-tying videos, and who could hang themselves with the festive purple and yellow rope he uses?).
Case 3: Of course fictional characters die often and violently: Lonelygirl15, Harry Potter, and the radio star.


10. Myspace

At risk: The lonely
Case 1: Remarkably, no charges were filed in the case of the family who carried on a hoax relationship with 13-year-old depression sufferer Megan Meier over MySpace, then "broke up" with her and thus driving her to suicide. But this is only our first glimpse at two themes of Internet-caused deaths: Tragic romance and preying on the lonely.
Case 2: In this case, MySpace technically saved lives. Cops investigated a 12-year-old boy's MySpace death list, warned everyone who was on it, and searched his home. They didn't find weapons and he said he was just fooling around, so he was just charged with juvenile delinquency. Other death threat cases include a dog and another empty threat against high school students. But just to be safe I make my little sister keep a Google alert on her name, cause she''d be the first to go if some trenchcoated freak started shooting up the cool kids in her school.
Case 3: Of course while stupid people may reveal their murder plans on MySpace, they may be inspired by the site too. Heather Kane saw another girl on her boyfriend's profile and hired a hitman to kill her. Good thing she bumped into an undercover cop instead.


9. Facebook

At risk: Anyone who pisses off a muslim
Case 1: A Saudi Arabian father beat and shot his daughter earlier this year for chatting on Facebook. A preacher in the Islamic country called the site a "door to lust;" many Saudi women use aliases on the site and post drawings instead of photos. But there are still plenty of photos of hookups in the Facebook group "Single and Looking in Saudi Arabia."
Case 2: After a Jewish woman in Melbourne rejected a friend offer from one Ibrahim Dirani, he allegedly wrote to her, "I am Hezbollah and I am going to kill you and all of your family — promise you." Aw, !


8. Pornography

At risk: Viewers of extreme or illegal porn and the people who know them
Case 1: It's hard to feel too sorry for those who kill themselves after they're implicated in child porn rings, like these four suicides in 1998 and these six in 2004.
Case 2: Porn doesn't only kill the depraved. The story of Jane Longhurst, an English woman killed by "a man obsessed with violent sexual pornography," was tragic enough to encourage many UK lawmakers to ban extreme porn.


7. Spam

At risk: The terribly gullible
Case 1: Spammers and scammers can easily take your money if you're dumb enough to give them your passwords and financial info. But some Nigerian scams go far beyond online fraud; many scammers lure their victims to Nigeria to continue paying money in person; fifteen victims were killed after they got suspicious.


6. Blogging

At risk: Those already at risk of dying
Case 1: There's a trick to making listicles like this: Put the weakest item in the middle. Unfortunately the New York Times spent an entire trend piece on the bogus idea of "death by blogging." But Gizmodo editor Brian Lam tells me, "Only bogus to lazy bloggers. I did 75 hours this week and anyone over fifty would die doing that."


5. Ebay

At risk: The already dead
Case 1: Seung-Hui Cho bought empty clips and holsters on Ebay before his Virginia Tech rampage. He got his guns and ammo elsewhere, though Ebay notes that the sale of ammunition on Ebay is legal.
Case 2: Ebay's death profits tend to come from the memorabilia. Celebrity deaths bring predictable results, like sales of Pope tchotchkes and autographed Heath Ledger posters. But Ebay has also hosted auctions for supposed Columbia shuttle pieces, video of insurgents shooting down planes in Iraq, the car used in a murder, and O.J. Simpson's book.


4. Drugs

At risk: Druggies
Case 1: Internet drug sales are ridiculously easy (see "spam" above), so easy that every decent men's magazine did an "I ordered Viagra off the Internet" story by 2005. But that means irresponsible doctors can prescribe dangerous drugs, such as this 2002 case of deadly drugs sold online, or this case of a doctor whose patients sometimes became addicted or were hospitalized, or a 2007 case where a 57-year-old Canadian woman died after taking an illegal sedative she ordered online.


3. Webcams

At risk: Suicides
Case 1: Webcam suicide is one of the darkest modern phenomena, an example of loneliness and despair in a supposed age of connection and hope. Those who have fallen that far and recovered may want to forget it ever happened. Webcammer Stacy Pershall has long insisted that despite reports, she did not try to kill herself on camera in 2001 by overdosing on pills but merely took some Advil "to get a few hours sleep" — on her bathroom floor.
Case 2: While Pershall's viewers worried about her and called the cops to save her, those watching Brandon Vedas in 2003 egged him on. He OD'd on five drugs and died a room away from his unsuspecting mother.
Case 3: A father named Kevin Whitrick hanged himself after the apparent encouragement of people watching his webcam; viewers later said they thought it was a joke, and indeed they'd acted worried after seeing him die. After all, he was in an insult chat room, which brings us to another cause of death:


2. Chat rooms

At risk: Hopeless romantics
Case 1: A man rejected in real life by his chat room lover in 1999 cut his own head off with a chainsaw in her front yard. Enough said.
Case 2: Plenty of innocents have been killed by online predators like the man who killed an altar girl, the Texas A&M killer, and this guy in a rural North Carolina trailer.


1. World of Warcraft

At risk: 10 million players, particularly the already crazy ones
Case 1: World of Warcraft addiction may not necessarily be deadly for the player, but it can be hell on their family life. Of course, Kim Trenor was probably crazy long before she moved cross-country with her 2-year-old to see a guy she met on the game, and definitely before she and Royce Zeigler beat "Baby Grace" to death. But if it weren't for that damned game she never would have met the allegedly abusive Zeigler.
Case 2: WoW isn't the first game to drive addicts mad. At least one Everquest player allegedly shot herself after getting hooked on the game.
Case 3: And of course any time you put a beautiful bit of fantasy in the world, some kid will try to imitate it. Happened with Superman, happened with WoW when a Chinese boy jumped off a 24-story building. His parents sued game maker Blizzard saying he was imitating the game, in which some players like to platform-jump, an activity totally unrelated to actually playing. Again, totally not WoW's fault, but something had to convince that boy he could leap off a tower.

• Natalie Portman was with her hippie boyfriend in a park when she got peed on by a dog. There's a picture and everything! Happy Tuesday! [Post]
• Lindsay Lohan told Ashley Olsen to keep her "Full House ass" away from Lohan's girlfriend. [P6]
• Kanye West broke up with his fiancée due to West's, ahem, "busy schedule." [E!]
• Paris Hilton is supposedly getting married in a double wedding with Nicole Ritchie and their Madden brother husbands. There's a picture of Paris holding a book with a picture of a bride on it, so the whole thing is basically confirmed.
• Rudy Huxtable from the Cosby Show will ply a hooker in a movie, since being a hooker is kind of the new black. [ET]
• Britney Spears will keep doing cameos on that one TV show until the ratings stop spiking. [LAT]
• Porn star Jenna Jameson's vagina was stolen from a sex shop. [CBS2]

The Olympics are going to start in China soon and the news media flooding into the country are sure to issue forth a steady stream of stories about the country's translation of vast quantities of official communication into English. The New Yorker, for example, just published a piece about a charismatic teacher giving mass English lessons in China. But the mistranslations, dubbed "Chinglish," tend to make for more attention-grabbing tales. At left, the menu of services at a Chinese OBGYN, where there's no mincing words about the pelvic exam. [ChrisDiClerico.com] (Headline inspiration)

"Tony Snow, who worked at the Fox News Channel for 10 years before serving as the Bush administration’s chief spokesman for 17 months, is moving to CNN to be a political contributor." [Times]

There are dueling views on who is winning the battle for supremacy in the eyes of the notoriously combative media mogul Sumner Redstone. On one side is Philippe Dauman, head of Viacom, who recently decided to form a new movie channel to distribute films from Viacom's Paramount. On the other side is Les Moonves at CBS, who was allegedly "royally screwed" by Dauman's new channel since it ended the hope that his Showtime network would screen Paramount films. Daubman hopes the incident will help him get CBS and Viacom merged back together and put under his control, the Post reported this morning. Not so fast, said the Wall Street Journal: Dauman's movie channel is a supremely bad idea.

The cable and satellite companies that would have to carry the new channel aren't convinced the world needs another movie service, according to executives at several companies. Even Comcast Corp., which owns 20% of MGM, has little interest in carrying a new movie channel, according to a person close to that company.

"Movies are not as much a part of the mix" with the growth of video-on-demand, says Michael Willner, chief executive of Insight Communications, a cable operator primarily in the Midwest. "If they are just another outlet for movies they will have a tough go."

Of course, it's impossible for any human to win Cranky Redstone's enduring love. As the old expression goes, the only way to win is not to play the game.

Julia Allison is sick and tired of the anonymous online critic who maintains a blog devoted entirely to criticizing her. "This woman checks my tumblr, my flickr, my vimeo, my twitter... as well as all of the things my girl friends post, and spends a good portion of her time (time which could otherwise be spent engaged in fun and useful activities, such as tennis, horseback riding or archery!) penning long, bitchy, link-ridden items 'analyzing' my life." Which sounds a lot like a the job description of a Gawker blogger, except the woman in question is anonymous and probably doesn't get paid. Which is outrageous! Star editor-at-large Allison said she knows the identity of her critic and is wondering what to do with it:

I have never met her. She doesn’t know me or any of my friends. But I know who she is.

I’ve known for quite some time now, and I was hoping general decency would - at some point - take over. Um … not so much. I’ve asked her politely to stop. She hasn’t.

...people should be accountable for what they write. I’m tired of it.

Should I reveal her?

What do you think?

What DO you think? This is a very important question.

[Julia Allison]

How not to compete with the Web: "With blinking lights, pop-up ads, kiss-on lipstick samples, scratch-off scents, melt-in-your-mouth taste strips and even pocket squares, advertisers are stuffing magazines full of just about anything to make their advertisements stand out. One reason for the phenomenon is the technology that makes it less expensive to put unusual objects in magazines and that helps advertisers create more sophisticated inserts." [Times]

If you were wondering why everyone running for president was talking like a wrestler yesterday instead of retaining some semblance of dignity, you'll be happy to find out the candidates were merely practicing for a new presidential tradition begun by George W. Bush: Appearing on a TV game show and cracking jokes. That might sound a little cheesy, but it was for a good cause. The president, you see, wanted to honor an Iraq veteran with the sort of dignity only host Howie Mandel can conjure on Deal Or No Deal. "Are you ready to get some acknowledgement for your hard work and bravery?" Mandel asked. Oh, sure, what the hell:

Why can't Bush or any of his would-be successors just act like a president instead of trying to be funny? Because they have to prove they are not "elitist," Alessanda Stanley wrote in the Times:

Elitism is to the 2008 campaign as communism was to 1950s politics: a career-breaker. And pop TV is the antidote, a free platform to rub shoulders with viewers who only glancingly pay attention to the news. Making nice on a cooking program or game show is the macropopulist equivalent of knocking down pins in a bowling alley in Altoona, Pa., or belting down Crown Royal whiskey in a bar in Crown Point, Ind., only better: the setting, be it Rachael Ray’s kitchen or Howie Mandel’s array of suitcases on “Deal or No Deal,” is as familiar as home to millions of viewers. None of the presidential candidates want to be seen as snooty or overeducated, which must be why on Monday, all three provided taped greetings to wrestling fans watching “WWE Raw” on the USA network.

This is, of course, the mediocrity-celebrating, "I-just-want-a-president-I-could-have-a-beer-with" attitude that got Bush elected eight years ago and that voters were supposed to be totally over.

SEXY Jordan and Elle Macpherson are among the top role models for women.

SEXY Jordan and Elle Macpherson are among the top role models for women.

"Star New York Ranger and man-about-town Sean Avery is out to build up his résumé this summer — by interning at Vogue... He wrote a letter to Anna Wintour expressing his desire to work there... The spokesman said Avery likely will work with a variety of editors, including European editor at large Hamish Bowles. There's also talk of him working at Men's Vogue. And the spokesman claimed that, like most interns, the 28-year-old Avery will be expected to do traditional assistantlike tasks." [WWD]

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is about to buy Newsday for close to $580 million, and pull off a neat trick in the process: bringing profitability to Murdoch's other, cash-bleeding tabloid, the New York Post. By combining the Post and Newsday into a joint business venture, Murdoch stands to "wipe out as much as $50 million in annual losses News Corp. now incurs on the Post, with the combined Newsday-Post operation earning roughly $50 million," according to a Wall Street Journal source. The sale price represents a significant premium over the $350 million to $400 million price put forward by one newspaper analyst. The whole transaction is dependent on regulator approval, which is no sure thing. Assuming the deal goes through, it will be interesting to see how Newsday's headlines, front page and overall tone evolve, since the joint venture is not limited to back-end business operations but includes editorial resources as well. [WSJ]

During the 1990s, Richard Mellon Scaife spent millions of dollars to dig up all kinds of dirt on Bill and Hillary Clinton, including about Bill's sexual misconduct and the Clinton's investment in the Whitewater real estate development. At the time, Hillary said the media attacks Scaife funded were part of a "vast right wing conspiracy," but now she thinks the whole thing was just hilarious. MSNBC anchor Keith Olbermann reminded Clinton that he once left MSNBC because he was so upset over coverage of the attacks on Bill Clinton. Hillary Clinton kept laughing. Olbermann told her he wasn't joking. Clinton kept laughing. "I do believe in redemption, Keith," Clinton said. "I believe in deathbed conversions." Deathbeds are funny, so Clinton kept laughing. Video after the jump.

newVideoPlayer("clinton_tribune.flv", 475, 376,"");

A search is expected to begin soon for Marcus Brauchli's successor atop the Wall Street Journal newsroom, but there's no need to look far: It has to be Robert Thomson, the Journal's publisher and Rupert Murdoch's resident lieutenant. Murdoch already tried and failed once to placate the institutional culture at the Journal, and this time around he's going to want someone who fully supports his plans and can execute them quickly. Fellow Australian Thomson, who worked for Murdoch for five years at the Times of London, has a close relationship with the media mogul, but also possesses a broader charm that could help him retain key Journal staff. "Robert has a way of getting his way while being emollient," a former colleague said. "He is what Murdoch wants and if Murdoch asks, Murdoch gets. He was kind of doing the job anyway."

Indeed, Thomson "has come to be seen in the [WSJ] newsroom as a supereditor, looking over Mr. Brauchli’s shoulder," according to the Times. Despite his publisher title, Thomson's newsroom role is extensive enough that he is poised to run the paper as interim managing editor while a formal seach is conducted, according to a report in the Journal.

When Thomson was the North America editor at the Financial Times, "he was a bit of a social hit," despite a hunched appearance due to a bad back, another former colleague said. "Thomson is very charming."

Thomson's charm was also mentioned in a December profile in the Canberra Times, along with the editor's friendship with Murdoch:

He's kind and thoughtful, keeps in touch with old friends (even those who aren't heavy hitters) and dutifully visits his mum in Melbourne's St Kilda once a year, with wife and kids in tow.

But there are other holidays too. Thomson and his wife, Wang Ping, and their two small sons, Jack and Luke, have holidayed with Murdoch and Wendi Deng and their small two daughters, Grace and Chloe, at the Murdoch ranch in California. Murdoch likes Thomson's lack of conventionality; and the Australian connection cements the closeness. Observers say the pair, born 30 years apart on the same day in March, are closer than a regular tough employer/successful employee relationship.

Not that Thomson is all gladhanding. At the Financial Times, he was famous for being able to pull together big global reports, like the story of the Sumitomo Corp. employee who lost billions of dollars in the copper market, and get credit for doing so.

Said the Canberra Times profile: "One reporter who worked closely with him said that for all his respect for the past, he had a sense of the mischievous and the ticklish and was brilliant in his handling of all aspects of news, from the banality of real estate through to the complexity of reporting China."

There is, of course, a small pool of other possibilities for the Journal job, like WSJ vet Larry Ingrassia at the Times or Chrystia Freeland at the U.S. edition of FT. Perhaps Stephen Adler at Business Week, maybe even, as a longshot bet, Times columnist Joe Nocera. Or Murdoch could really stir things up with his staff and reach out to a non-financial editor, advancing his plan to inject more political and international coverage into the front of the paper.

But why bother? Thomson, unlike any other candidate, can actually think like Murdoch, and has already earned his trust, even his affection. Assuming Murdoch can push his changes through the special committee overseeing Journal editorial — a significant consideration — he's the only real choice.