Taiwanese animators NMA are ending their year with a shot at NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his handling of the recent Snowpocalypse. In their version, no one could get Fresh Direct and snow balls were used as weapons against him.

Major snowstorms are a great opportunity for mayors to look useful, perhaps even human. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, for example, is shoveling snow and running errands for every lazy bum who asks him, on Twitter.

Some ignorant folk don't think "public speaker" Sarah Palin deserves her outlandishly steep paycheck. Eddie Furlong's hitting the coke pipe. And Penelope Cruz enjoys kissing both Charlize Theron and Scarlett Johansson. It's your Wednesday morning gossip roundup!

If your name was accidentally added to a no-fly list at one point or another (and you had to spends months working through red tape to have it removed), or you're one of the six people alive who takes TSA security precautions seriously, you may not find this video very amusing. But it seems Conan O'Brien had the nerve to mock the lovely city of Newark on his show last week and now Mayor Cory Booker has retaliated by adding Conan to Newark Airport's no-fly list. Let's hope Conan doesn't try to board a flight there regardless, get into a pushing match with security personnel, and fall down and bump his head or anything. [YouTube]

New York Times columnist Nick Kristof turns 50 today. Newark Mayor Cory Booker is turning 40. Basil Paterson, the labor lawyer and father of Gov. David Paterson, is 83. City Council member Eric Gioia turns 36. New-York Historical Society president Louise Mirrer is turning 56. Investment banker Eric Gleacher is 69. Actor Jack Klugman is 87. Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump turns 25. Radio personality Casey Kasem is turning 77. And singer Sheena Easton celebrates her 50th today.

Who's to blame for the economic mess? Not CNBC, says CNBC anchor Erin Burnett! "Everyone in this country knew there was a housing bubble," she told Bill Maher last night. Is she the new Santelli?

Arianna Huffington's thick Greek accent is usually a social asset. It adds spice to a televised panel discussion, and on the party circuit encourages a conversation partner to lean in intimately to understand the former socialite's words. But give the internet publisher her own hourlong TV show, as with her guest-hosting stint tonight on the Rachel Maddow Show, and the accent becomes a liability, like a single seasoning taking over a dish. "You can't understand a word she says and she even makes my cat get irritated," one tipster wrote 20 minutes into the program.

• Ashley Dupre's reps, who have been negotiating deals on her behalf, say she's interested in "journalism and lounge singing," and that she "sees herself as a kind of Dr. Phil." Appropriately, the $2 million TV offer she's considering would team her up with the producer to reunited Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher. [NYP]

Sharpe James is the old-school corrupt machine politician who ran Newark as his own personal fiefdom as mayor for 20 years before being unseated by Cory Booker in 2006. James' overall distasteful nature was aptly chronicled in the documentary Street Fight. So anyways, there Sharpe was last Friday, standing on the curb after his daily corruption trial, waiting for the bus, and—bam!—a bird crapped on his head. And it's all caught on tape. Was that bird god? That's for god to know, and for us to speculate upon. The instantly classic video is after the jump—the big moment comes about 55 seconds in.

So you're reading Rush & Molloy this morning and you come across this: