Reality show star and buttocks-haver Kim Kardashian was on The View this morning, prompting Barbara Walters, famous interviewer and the last Civil War widow, to ask the most important question of the modern age: "Why are you famous?" Then, later "But what do you do?" Kardashian sputtered out a response about knowing famous people and about her little fashions while stepfather Bruce Jenner (father of Brody, from The Hills! It's all connected!) sat idly by (and looked like plastic).

Poor Jodie Foster has another stalker. You may remember that the stern, mysterious actress had some problems back when she was a Yale student in the 80's. First John Hinckley Jr., a 23-year-old who became obsessed with Foster after seeing her littlest sexpot turn in Taxi Driver, followed her around campus, called her on the phone, and, you know, shot president Ronald Reagan and three others in an attempt to impress her.

• A few men were just arrested at the New York City home of former actress/current idiot Kate Hudson. Reportedly the gents just were shooting a movie, but Kate called the police because she saw men on her roof with a rifle. [Us]

The visual shortcut for celebs-in-philanthropy is Natalie Portman looking fresh-faced in a t-shirt — at least in Sunday's NYT Magazine article, "The Celebrity Solution." As PR man Howard Bragman puts it, "You can't just get $20 million a picture, you've got to serve turkeys to the poor, too." Our favorite part is the faux-naivete Portman adopts when explaining that her celebrity facilitates getting pet cause a meeting on Capitol Hill:

And she's telling her MySpace friends all about it! From the singer and Elvis daughter's latest post, titled "confirmation under the gun," she rails against "the media" for wildly speculating about her expanding belly and forcing her to confirm her pregnancy before she was ready: "They couldn't wait to find out if my weight gain was because I was just overeating, in which case It would be open season and they can do the old 'following in her fathers sad and unfortunate demise' story again. Or, less interesting for them, and probably much to their dismay, I could just be pregnant and therefore have a legitimate reason for weight gain at which point they should probably wipe the saliva off of their fangs and put them back in their mouths or they may expose the black little souls that they are." Tell us more, girl!

David Hernandez, the cheesy current American Idol contestant who looks like a dead person, has a checkered past. It seems he used to rock out with his cock out at a Phoenix strip club. (Ugh. Phoenix.) He is only the latest installment in the grand saga of reality stars being revealed as crazed exhibitionists who will expose both inner failings and outer naughty bits in the pursuit of money and validation. In case you're curious, we've compiled a little list of other notable reality television stars who were known to boff for bones or jam out with their clam out.

Will.i.am's rousing pro-Obama anthem "We Are the Ones", follow-up to his similarly star-studded "Yes We Can", features Jessica Alba, Ryan Phillippe, Kerry Washington, George Lopez, Eric Mabius, John Leguizamo, Ben McKenzie, Macy Gray and the Black Eyed Peas. Jimmy Kimmel's "I'm Fucking Ben Affleck," his response to his girlfriend's viral hit, "I'm Fucking Matt Damon", features Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford, Cameron Diaz, Joan Jett, Macy Gray, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle, Pete Wentz, Perry Farrell, Benji and Joel Madden, Lance Bass, Josh Groban, Christina Applegate, Rebecca Romijn, Dominic Monaghan, Meatloaf, Dicky Barrett, Christopher "McLovin" Mintz-Plasse, Huey Lewis, and Josh Groban. Advantage: Kimmel. Masturbatory in-jokes about celebrity—still slightly more popular than earnest political pandering! (Also Macy Gray will pretty much show up for anything if you call.)

Our nation's supermarket rags are tentatively dipping their toes into political coverage (with about the same amount of dignity and substance as you'll find on most 24-hour news networks, ZING), proof either that America's celebrity-industrial complex has grown so unwieldy as to demand that everyone in the public sphere be covered in the same inane fashion or demonstrating that people care nearly as much about the fate of our nation as they do about Spears fetuses, and the tabs need to cash in on this new "politics craze." Who knows!

Newly skinny and be-careered Valerie Bertinelli is peddling her book Losing It around town, appearing on talk shows all over the place, telling embarrassing stories about COCAINE and SLEEPING WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE LIKE STEVEN SPIELBERG. But it's important for people to hear, because who can't relate to being famous for a while and then kind of not being famous and then wanting to be famous again? This kind of sob-story whoring isn't exactly new, but she's taking it to exciting new heights Two videos after the jump. Note the similarities!

Like perhaps everyone who has a website of any kind, we recieve TMZ blast email alerts all day, every day. This is not a complaint—they're often entertaining, if just as often completely inexplicable (TMZ EXCLUSIVE: Alleged 'Entourage' Victim Says "Never Mind!" TMZ: Miley Cyrus' Achy Breaky Stomach! TMZ EXCLUSIVE: Paris Has Too Many Bitches?!! TMZ EXCLUSIVE: Hoff to Pam: One French Maid, Pleeeze! TMZ EXLUSIVE: Randy Quaid's Wife — Nazis Out to Get Randy). This, though, is the weirdest one we have ever received. It's a sighting of Fawn Hall. The noted Iran-Contra figure. Ollie North's old secretary apparently works in a bookstore now, guys, in case you were wondering. Now someone get on the Eugene Hasenfus beat! (Click to enlarge)

Regular paparazzi are pissed about the lowering of standards in their fine profession these days. The culprits are the unwashed "citizen paparazzi"—the regular people wandering around their hotel in Acapulco or whatever who suddenly bump into Nicole Richie engaging in sex acts with a dolphin, snap a picture, and sell it to some photo agency, or straight to the tabloids. But not for enough money, which is driving down the price for the pros [WSJ]. Plus, the career paparazzi object to all these rank amateurs staking out celebrities alongside them, without observing the honorable, secret codes of conduct that make the pros so popular around town. The amateurs are disdainfully referred to as "TMZ-type" photogs who are bad because "In the past, photographers would've given (Angelina Jolie) some breathing room." We here at Gawker know how it is. We had to fight off all those citizens with cell phone cameras to snag our own celebrity photo holy grail:

Like a James Ellroy novel, two Beverly Hills plastic surgeons recently did a survey to find out which celebrity features people would pay and bleed and disfigure to have. It's a typical smattering of famous folks of the day, and of course Star magazine was there to report the results and put together a picture mash-up of the perfect celebrity lookalike plastic surgery make-over. [Star] After the jump, a handy list of which features are in demand, as well as a larger version of the creepy computer models.

Silver-maned CNN heartthrob Anderson Cooper's New Year's Resolution was to "blog more." And blog more he has, taking time during the commercial breaks of his nightly CNN program to join in the online discussion of the events of the day. But, as he explained last night to Conan O'Brien, this allows his "stalkers" to find him. Stalkers like the woman—"clearly deranged," in the words of Cooper—who crashed his book signing and made him take a crazy letter. Then, King of Comedy-style, she ended up in his waiting limo. Thanks to blogging, and to bloggers like us, and like him, stalking Anderson Cooper is apparently not that hard. It's easier than stalking Conan, as we learn in the anecdote's surprise twist ending. Full clip attached. [NBC]

Ohhh, British people are so adorable. And, classy. Their celebrities play Scrabble! And journalists challenge them to games and probably sip tea and say "Cheerio!" and then fly away on umbrellas or magical four-poster beds. Meanwhile, we're taking the Europeans we've got lying around over here and making them call Paris Hilton ugly. Just remember who saved whose ass in WWII! [Daily Mail]

Today, TMZ vampire Harvey Levin visited NYU's journalism department to talk about how he practices his craft and the entire self-aggrandizing mythos of journalism reportedly ate its own tail and then puked it back up in disgust, forever. Our favorite quotes:

The new Rolling Stone carries shocking revelations about Britney's past. Well, more like sad revelations. Is she an American tragedy, as the cover proclaims? Or just a regular tragedy? Hint: the problem may have begun with her mom letting her get breast implants when she was still a teenager.

When it comes to the Olds Getting It Right, African humanitarian/party animal Zelda Kaplan's got it figured out. She's all over Fashion Week, wearing crazy-print wraps and just being all, "What?" Her website lists her as "humanitarian, dancing queen, adventurer, and citizen of the world." She's 91, and goes out a few nights a week. Everybody wants her at their party because she totally brings it. [Guest of a Guest]

It's just annoying how everybody thinks they're either a celeb or a pap these days. Most of us are neither, which is what we'd like to tell the "Confessions of a Paparazzi Etc" blogger who sent us shots of a couple en flagrante delicto in the back of the cab.

"I saw the worst play of all time," today's Cindy Adams column begins in the NYP. She waits until halfway through to drop the real bomb: photos of Heath Ledger's body may be out there—and up for sale. What else have the vultures been trying to cash in on?

A "shocking video" of Heath Ledger "snorting what appear to be drugs off a table" at noted Hollywood drug haven the Chateau Marmont has "surfaced." Entertainment Tonight bought it for $200,000, teased it, then backed away from playing it. Same with The Insider. Not, according to the Daily News, the case with Australia's Channel 9, which will play the tape tonight. Expect to be shocked! Shocked to see an actor attend a party, after an awards show (2006 SAG Awards), and snort a line of coke! Ledger expresses "remorse" at his life of habitual drug-taking, saying he used to smoke a lot of weed. "'I'm going to get serious s—t from my girlfriend,' Ledger tells his companions. 'We just had a baby three months ago.'" Does this seriously sound like a man in the grip of, according to today's Post, a major drug habit?