BREAKING! FAKE WRITER DAY(s) UPDATE! From the Random House website:

• Hurrah: Mag ad revenues were nicely up in 2005. [Folio:]
• Boo: Mag ad pages barely rose in 2005. [Ad Age]
• Kurt Andersen is the godfather of snark, says Jon Friedman. And we fear for the day — and that day may never come — when Kurt calls upon us to do a service for him. [MW]
• Robin Williams made an ass of himself at Jann Wenner's big birthday bash. [WWD]
• TW COO Jeff Bewkes agrees with his boss, that the company shouldn't be split up, rather than with Carl Icahn, who thinks otherwise and is harassing his boss. Shocking news, that. [MW]

(Thanks to Towleroad, who was actually watching 360° last night.)

Sadly, it's not at all what you hope it is. Sigh.

You know, time zones and all.

We hate it when CNN counterprograms itself.

While we, like much of the world, hopefully await further developments regarding the health of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister who apparently suffered a major stroke last night, we must also note the odd photo CNN.com chose to illustrate the story this morning.

• James Risen's State of War — the impending publication of which forced the Times to finally publish the domestic-spying story — also makes Judy Miller's WMD excuses fall apart. [NYO]
• Still, the domestic-spying articles were better than the book is, says Jack Shafer. [Slate]
• Lunatic talking head Bill O'Reilly promises to "get into the lives" of Bill Keller and Frank Rich if (perhaps imagined) Times attacks on him continue. We really hope he does, because Keller would be so much sexier if he were a little less earnest. [Media Matters]
• Yesterday was CBS's first day as its own company. Well, except for all those all days as its own company. [WP]
• New Oxygen show features middle-aged women partying with college guys. We're pretty sure we saw that same show on Cinemax once. [NYT]
• Not-quite-victorious — but still really good — GMA staffers get cheesy commemorative trinkets. [NYO]
• Jon Friedman is clearly smoking crack, as proved by (among other things) his prediction that MSNBC will beat CNN and Fox News in 2006. [MW]
• Latest Q-ratings study shows Katie Couric isn't as popular as she used to be. Clearly not in the polling sample: Les Moonves. [WWD]

Patrick Phillips of IWantMedia today checks in with the man he picked as 2005's Media Person of the Year, our beloved Anderson Cooper. They talk about the future of TV news, about A.C.'s anchoring style, about Details magazine, and about — natch — premature grayness. Allow us, if we may, to highlight just a few favorite Coop quotes from the exchange:

We don't know how old this vintage poster for sale on eBay is, we don't know what kind of shape it's in, and we don't know if it's worth any real money. Most important, though, we also had no idea that Anderson Cooper has been doing ad campaigns for French cologne.

Sure, the year's Dow gains were wiped out yesterday, but things could have been much worse for investors: Adam Corolla could have gaveled the market closed.

And tonight on 360, Anderson talks to senior citizens who just can't figure out how to set that dang VCR.

Well, shit. Now that they have the Obliviion, does that make the Nano obsolete?

• We're glad the strike is over for myriad reasons, not the least of which is sparing us from thoughtless, insipid articles about how poorly we dressed just to stay warm. We're sure it was easy to pen crap like that from the comfort of your town car — did Daddy get you that job at the Styles desk? [NYT]
• Nothing a little anal bleaching can't fix. [CNN]
• The only difference we can think of between chick-flick staples Dermot Mulroney and Dylan McDermott is that we see one of them on the street all the time. The, uh, Irish one with the dark hair. [Fametracker]
• Of the five finalists for Jersey's new state slogan, "Love at First Sight" strikes us as the most misleading. [WCBS]
• Brangelina are rumored to have purchased Yves St. Laurent's $25 million Normandy coast summer home, where they will have wild, French animal sex. [The Daily]
• We're sorry, but a sorority just isn't a sorority if it calls itself "feminist." And sisterhood just isn't sisterhood unless you go down on a SigEp first. [Salon]

Days like today remind you of the advantages of living under a totalitarian regime. When no one has the right to free speech, or to assembly, or to association, or to control his own labor, at least the trains always run more or less on time. (In Soviet Moscow, the subways arrived every 90 seconds! Or something like that.)

Today's lesson: On the Monday morning when charities have just beaten storms for Person of the Year honors and Time's cover, this is not a good headline for a story about traditional holiday-season charities facing shortfalls because people have given so much money this year to storm-recovery charities instead.

Top CNN.com headline, 9ish this morning:

Life mag has always been famous for its great photography — back in the old days, by legends like Alfred Eistenstaedt and Margaret Bourke-White and Cornell Capa. So it's nice to see that in its latest incarnation — as a thin, flailing, weekly newspaper insert — Life continues that tradition of groundbreaking images. Like this week, for example, when it splashes on its cover perhaps the only unattractive picture we've ever seen of anchorhunk Anderson Cooper. He looks so sad, so wrinkled, so haggard, so in need of moisturizing. Oh, cheer up, little Andy. You'll be back in dapper Details photo spreads in no time.

• Taking a breather from Anna Wintour, PETA lists Paris Hilton as their worst-dressed celebrity. Other honorees include Kimberly Stewart and Tara Reid, because being a skank hurts the fuzzy animals. [Scoop]
• Ashley Olsen is late to Karl Lagerfeld's show at the Chanel store, then fails to recognize the designer when he waves to her. Such unacceptable behavior, you'd think Olsen were raised as a civilian or some such. [Page Six]
• The cab-stealing continues: Bill Maher swipes a taxi from a man with a BABY in a SNOWSTORM. Next up, stealing cabs from paraplegics with broken breathing tubes. [Lowdown (2nd item)]
• Don't you hate it when your cock is so huge that it has to be digitally erased? Oh, you don't have that problem? Scoff. [Page Six]
• Nancy Grace of CNN is suing her stalker for damages. Just so long as she keeps paying attention to him! [R&M]

Poll: Most Say Bush Has No Iraq Victory Plan [CNN]
Bush Victory Plan [CNN]