• Sewell Chan to start new Times blog about brutal rapes, pandas. Also, the Times is moving to a new building. [NYO]
  

• T queen Horacio Silva is going to make Out magazine pay for leaving him off their round-up of the Times' "gay mafia." And how do you think boy reporter Patrick Healy feels now? Also of note on the just-released Out power list: Apparently Andrew Sullivan, a blogger, is more powerful than Fred Hochberg, who owns the half of the Democratic Party that Ron Burkle doesn't. Heh. Oh and Anderson Cooper is gay. [Radar]
  

Last night, Larry King (fresh out of the hospital!) had a very special guest on his show: one-legged Heather Mills, recently committed to a season of Dancing With the Stars. Of course, Larry couldn't resist pulling out the clip from his 2002 interview with Heather, in which she very kindly removed her leg (the fake one!) for him to stroke. Fortunately, he's well aware of the cultural impact of this "historic moment."

We know you are way too classy to care about the ongoing Anna Nicole circus. We know! But loony judge Larry Seidlin just keeps giving us new reasons to care: crying, calling Anna Nicole's mom Virgie Arthur "mama," and generally being nuts. And now, he's just announced a verdict in the highly important 'who gets to decide where the body is buried' aspect of the case. (Seriously, what?) And this is how he prefaced his announcement that Dannielynn (well, Dannielynn's temporary legal guardian, Richard Milstein) would be awarded custody of the body: "I'm going to pronounce the disposition of this case. I hope that when you hear it, you handle it with the respect and dignity Anna Nicole will want." That lady's watchwords, right there.

So remember that millionaire speed-dating thing we discussed earlier? Our former intern Neel Shah, now Radar's assistant editor, was there, clearly working. The CNN ladies mistook him for one of the dude participants, who all had to prove their financial bona fides in order to gain admittance. Enjoy being thought of as rich now, Neel. In a few more months, chances are you'll be laughing all the way to the unemployment office.

Earlier: Join Us In Quashing The Latest Richard Nouveau Publicity Stunt Again

This afternoon on the Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer and Larry King shared some special memories about their mutual friend Anna Nicole. Some highlights:

Well, that lady with the Anderson Cooper tattoo might as well ink the 360 logo on there as well: despite rumors that A.C. was going to fly the CNN, ah, coop in favor of CBS's Early Show, he's decided instead to sign a new multiyear contract with his old bosses. What enticed him to stay? Well, according to Broadcasting & Cable, which broke the news today:

Frankly, the Gothamist joke here is so easy, we're surprised they didn't make it themselves.

We asked who would distribute the inevitable Saddam Hussein execution video, and the answer was the same as for every other question in 2006: You. We won't bother posting the clip here, but your friendly neighborhood YouTube has dozens of duplicates available for your Faces of Death viewing pleasure. So presented with this huge gift of a news story during the holiday dead zone, how did media outlets finesse the grisly, standards-and-practices-breaking problem of airing an execution?

• Dean Baquet wins the coveted Observer Media Mensch of the Year award. This follows hot on the heels of a bunch of other bullshit made-up media awards by organizations you've barely heard of, and comes a day in advance of our naming Chris Mohney's right testicle Gawker's Blog Ball of the Year. [NYO]
  

Ethnic studies specialist David Duke is currently in Tehran attending that super-fun "The Jews Are Ruining Everything, Which Is Odd, Because Nothing Bad Has Ever Happened To Them, Especially Not Six Million Of Them Getting Gassed And Stuffed Into Easy-Bake Ovens" conference, but he took time away from his busy schedule to chat with famous American Jew reporter Wolf Blitzer. We're providing you with this excerpt because we believe that it proves our longstanding belief that David Duke takes all the fun out of Heeb-hating. Stop ruining it for everyone, David!

• Evil, Inc.'s Rupert Murdoch and Liberty Media's John C. Malone kiss and make up. [NYT]
  

We've been under something of a moratorium on the "wacky CNN Watch It Now!" screengrabs, but this one seemed to good to pass up.

We were forwarded the following e-mail about an upcoming Paula Zahn special that was too good not to share:

Former New York Times managing editor Gerald Boyd, who was forced to resign in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal, died of lung cancer yesterday at the age of 56. Though his career pre-Blair was storied — he was the youngest journalist ever chosen for a prestigious Nieman fellowship, and a series he worked on as the Times's first black city editor won a Pulitzer — his race and his position linked him inextricably in people's minds to Blair's dramatic plagiarism flameout. Especially in the minds of CNN.com's copyeditors, apparently.

"We hope Ms. Regan takes full accountability for promoting the wrongdoing of criminals and leveraging this forum and the actions of Simpson to commercialize abuse," the Post (btw, way to cross-promote!) quotes Denise Brown (Nicole's sister) as saying about the whole OJ/Judith Regan/most unholy ReganBook yet thing. You tell 'em, Denise! Wait, we seem to remember seeing Judy and Denise's names together somewhere before . . . oh, maybe in this 2004 Larry King interview.

The Times takes a look at Bill Maher's recent appearance on Larry King, where

It's all well and good for celebrities to have their little pet causes, because hey, there's no way we're going to spend our non-existent free time saving the world and shit. But really, can they keep it in their pants? Sean Penn was bad enough with "writing" for Rolling Stone, but now we've got Willie Nelson waxing rhapsodic about horses on CNN:

We're going to go with a big fat who fucking cares, because Alex P. Keaton was a character on a TV show and didn't have actual opinions about anything because he wasn't fucking real?

Earlier, CNN.com asked its visitor to watch President Bush with his skirt off, but that's not what the people wanted. This is what the public really wants to watch.