Mere hours after officially declining to buy into the Borat franchise, Abu Dhabi's new billion-dollar film enterprise may soon rebuff yet another burgeoning cultural nemesis: Mickey Mouse. The magazine Israel Today reports this week that a Muslim cleric has issued a fatwa urging the murder of the Disney mascot, "whom he characterized as an agent of Satan sent to corrupt young minds." It's not just that his kids keep asking to watch Fantasia during Ramadan, either, but something far more fundamentally unsound:

Apparently looking to expand the modest scope that exploited its Pirates of the Caribbean attraction as a nearly eight-hour, $3 billion-grossing trilogy, Disney now plans to mine an entire portion of Disneyland for the franchise of the future. Literally: The studio has reportedly commissioned a pair of writers to develop the script for a film based on Tomorrowland, with Dwayne Johnson attached to star as a minimum-wage ride operator whose fantasies of updating Star Tours lead to a thrilling adventure through the Lucas/Disney black hole of bureaucracy. Or... something. If Disney knows, its overlords aren't talking:

Photographic evidence of last Saturday's dogs-only preview of Beverly Hills Chihuahua has arrived at Defamer HQ, and it looks like precisely the kind of shrill, infernal canine redoubt we thought might occur when more than 300 chihuahuas and their owners piled into the Fine Arts Theater. The user reviews to date are positive overall ("IT WAS THE BEST MOVE [sic] EVER !!!! THANK YOU !!!" wrote one satisfied small-dog exploiter], but only trustworthy to the extent you can rely on the taste of people who stuff diminutive pooches into makeshift sweaters, tuxedos and other garments for a day on on the town. But that's OK! One critic apparently had an early look at the film, either busting Disney's review embargo or pimping it outright for a price — let it suffice to say he liked it. Still, even after a review with 12 chapters and seemingly no spoiler left unpeeled, we don't really get why:

Click to viewBoomp3.com The baristas (baristi?) at a Toluca Lake coffee shop reached their breaking point with frequent customer Miley Cyrus over the weekend. According to one barista who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Cyrus’ frequent abuse of the homey atmosphere of the store may lead to her permanent eviction. They said, “We don’t mind it when people come in and hang out. We encourage it, but you have to buy a drink first. It’s the unspoken rule. She usually doesn’t order a drink until after an hour or two of just hanging out.” Apparently, Cyrus was in the store on Sunday for over forty-five minutes before placing her order for a caramel mocchachino with skim. It was at that point that Steve, the manager, warned her that she had just gotten her second strike. [Photo Credit: Splash Pics] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Who is Sandy Litvack, the lawyer that the Justice Department hired last week, in a move which most believe mean the trustbusters are planning to break up Google's deal to sell ads on Yahoo? Litvack's resume might give Google's lawyers reason to sweat. If it takes a monopolist to catch a monopolist, Litvack's perfect for the job. At Disney, he was CEO Michael Eisner's right-hand man when the company went on its most aggressive acquisition binge ever. He masterminded Disney's purchase of the ABC television network, which was the Google-DoubleClick deal of its day. And Litvack is a guy who likes to take a case to trial.Litvack is a litigator first and foremost, says John Shenefield, the former head of the DOJ's antitrust unit who first hired Litvack in 1980. "He liked to litigate. He liked the rough and tumble, whereas some people who had served in that position liked to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts," Shenefield told CNET. "During a Christmas party, there was a skit and the person playing Sandy said, 'Fundamentally, I'm a litigator,' and everyone in the room knew exactly what he meant," another DOJ source said. Some say Litvack likes to go to court too much, even when the laws he's prosecuting don't make sense. Along with being credited with building the case that broke up AT&T, Litvack is also known for prosecuting laws that, according to CNET, forbade "a manufacturer to have an agreement with a reseller that prohibited them from reselling a product at a higher or lower price than expressly stated in the contract." The Supreme Court eventually decided such laws were themselves anticompetitive and struck them down.

As noted in this morning's Fall Movie Hell forecast, the world's breathless anticipation of Beverly Hills Chihuahua is nearing its Oct. 3 payoff. But now Disney is offering a special class of Angeleno the world's first look at the finished film, and we have to admit, some of us are more than a little jealous:

To help generate further internet excitement and mainstream media buzz, tween superstar Miley Cyrus and potential one hit wonder Katy Perry air kissed their way down the red carpet at the VMAs on Sunday afternoon. Cyrus' mother, Tricia, made sure that she oversaw the air kissing and light hand holding. Mrs. Cyrus said, "I'm just here to make sure she doesn't run into that Ronson chick or get too buck wild. She's already had two Rock Stars, I think that's where it's going to stop today. "

A group of photographers broke up tween superstar Miley Cyrus and Dancing With The Stars contestant Cody Linley's night at the drive in movies on Tuesday. Apparently, the windows of Linley's automobile were getting too foggy preventing the capture of special or magic moment between the Hannah Montana stars. Another photographer asked if he could hop into the back seat of the car because he really wanted to watch Disaster Movie. The twosome shrugged their shoulders and allowed the man to join them in back under one condition: he gets the deluxe nachos combo and a large cherry Icee with two red vines to act as straws.

I really dislike critics of any kind, subscribing as I do to the theory that they're people who cannot even for a second do the things they are paid to bitchily criticize. But I've watched At the Movies since I was a little kid and over those long years I developed a love for Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. And, given some time, I even learned to appreciate Richard Roeper when he replaced Siskel after Siskel's tragically untimely death. And I knew that Ebert and Roeper had disowned the Disney-run show and were being replaced by a couple of young nothings from nowhere. But it just hit me really hard when tonight's episode ended with Roeper announcing that it really was his final episode. And that went for Ebert too. Fuck! They really won't be back!

The Active Network, which owns sports portal Active.com and also provides Web-based marketing and other services, just raised $80 million closing a round of funding led by Disney's ESPN Networks. It's Active Networks' fifth round since 1999, increasing total investment in the company to $275 million. In 2004, Active filed for a $46 million IPO, but pulled it back due to unfavorable conditions, which of course, have only deteriorated since. Active says it plans to spend the money on infrastructure and more acquisitions. In the past two years, the company's acquired 11 others in total. Nobody will say if the company's profitable — which probably means its not — but PaidContent heard Active pulled $107 million in revenue in 2007.

The LAT has a fascinating story today about Gregory S. Brown, a 51-year-old former Disney researcher who's lived in the same one-bedroom apartment in Hollywood for the last 20 years. Brown had once tried and failed to take over Harvey Comics. In doing his research, he discovered an old Ghostbusters lawsuit in which an overlooked copyright claim had allowed Fatso, Casper's sidekick and a dead-ringer for the movie's logo, to lapse into the public domain. Armed with his new knowledge of such loopholes, he returned to the Disney vaults to find similar cases. A failure to renew the copyright on the 1933 Mickey Mouse cartoon The Mad Doctor led to a business selling knockoff cels from that film. Disney sued him, and won a $500,000 settlement. Now something of an early-animation copyright expert, Brown went back to the stacks to research his defense; it was then that he learned something truly astonishing: Thanks to some shoddy legalese, just about anyone could move Disney's cheese.

Pint size hottie/High School Musical trilogy star Zac Efron learned the right way to tip on the DL while at the airport on Thursday. While Efron was all set to slip a twenty into the pocket of his sky cap (a trick he learned from watching Hollywood A-Listers like Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler), an older gentleman who happened to be nearby instead instructed the Hairspray star about the proper way to tip. The gentleman shook Efron's hand and when Efron pulled it back, he discovered a twenty in his hand. Efron was baffled and amazed by the bill and asked the man where he learned it. The gentleman explained that he caught an episode of Friends in college and the rest has been history.

·First they try to Poochie-up Ebert & Other Guy, now this: In a bid to appeal to a younger audience, Beauty and the Geek host Mike Richards has been hired to take over showrunning duties on The Price is Right. Which strikes us as just plain wrong: white trash grandmas and TPIR go together like mayonnaise and cold hot dogs. (But if that's really the plan, they might want to start with canning Drew Carey, who we literally noticed nodding off during a not-particularly-gripping round of Mountain Climber recently.) [Variety]
·The TCA—whom we've suggested might best be taken off life-support and sent to that all-expense-paid junket in the sky—will come three weeks later next year, in the hopes of giving the critics attending some idea of what it is they are covering. [Variety]
· E! has paid New Line $7 million for rights to broadcast the Sex and the City movie, The Women, and He's Just Not That Into You, with an eye towards launching a new weekly program entitled Ryan Seacrest Presents: My Favorite Movies of All Time. [Variety]
· Disney purchased the rights to Monster Attack Network, a graphic novel set on a tropical island inhabited by giant monsters which they assure us will be adapted into a kick-ass monster island movie, not "the artsy farty Spike Jonze thing over at Warner Bros." [THR]
· Fox has picked up another season of So You Think You Can Dance, and EP/judge/longwinded-speechifier Nigel Lythgoe has reportedly left American Idol after seven seasons to concentrate solely on it. [THR]

"Ben Lyons admitted, 'It has definitely helped to have my dad to open some doors for me.'" [Daily News]

As if we weren't soiling our pants enough already in anticipation of Disney's Beverly Hills Chihuahua and its high-kicking chorus of furry Mexican slurs, now comes a short teaser from the upcoming The Princess and The Frog—a return to hand-drawn animation for the studio, and the first to feature an African-American princess in the lead. Set in New Orleans, the jazz-era musical is written and directed by the team who brought us classics like Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, features songs by Randy Newman, and—if this teaser is any indication—stars a toothless firefly that seems to have fluttered in accidentally from the set of Song of the South 2: Cajun Vacation. Unfortunately, the feature won't be in theaters until Christmas 2009. Haw-haw! Id looks like dis could take some TAHM!

Ted Stevens, the Republican Senator from Alaska who has held office for a record 40 years, has been indicted on seven counts of making false statements in connection with illegal influence peddling by the likes of convicted Veco CEO Bill Allen — who says the company dispatched employees to remodel Senator Stevens's Alaskan home and paid former Alaskan State Senator Ben Stevens, Ted Stevens's son, $234,000 in bribes. However, none of the indictments arises from his much-parodied description of Internet infrastructure as a "series of tubes."His strong opinions in the network neutrality debate may have something do with contributions from Internet service providers like Verizon and AT&T, which are respectively third and fifth on the list of largest contributors to his current re-election campaign, both ahead of oil industry services company Veco. He also counts News Corp. and Disney as top donors, and has championed broadcast flag provisions that would have required electronics manufacturers to bar users from recording digital audio or video flagged by rightsholders. The investigation by the Department of Justice has been going on for four years, having raided the senator's remodeled home last year. But it's clear that corporations have known that Senator Stevens's vote has been for sale for some time now. The bad news alone might spell doom for the senator's re-election campaign, which would count as good news for open Internet advocates — the Democratic challenger, Anchorage mayor Mark Begich, is a strong supporter of network neutrality legislation.

Astonishing as it is, Miley Cyrus — the little tween queen ofsexy "private" pictures that keep somehow keep becoming public — is currently at the center of three separate scandalous stories. Last week, the 15-year old Jesus-loving and shirt-eating mini-millionaire not only accidentally (of course!) found herself the victim of an iPhone hacker who published naughty wet t-shirt shower photos of her on the web, in addition to being the provacateur of a YouTube revenge video against Disney rival Selena Gomez. But there is so much more! Not only has Miley instructed her publicist to apologize for her role in said video, but the belly-baring icon of all young Christians has just been targeted as Lifestyles Condoms' newest spokeswoman because a brand rep feels she's "relatable to the afflicted set," and another clever blogger has unveiled yet another borderline-scandalous series of photos featuring the husky-voiced star getting hot and heavy with yet another ex-boyfriend — and we can't help noticing just how well-timed this particular "leak" is with regard to enemy Gomez' recent hook-up to that man-boy in the middle of their rift, Nick Jonas:

We didn't actually think she had it in her, but the world's most rapidly maturing 15-year old, Miley Cyrus, is behaving like, well, a 15-year old for once. Just as reports surfaced that her rival in tween porn and Disney affection Selena Gomez may be dating Cyrus' ex-boyfriend, we learn that the Battle Of The Tweens has been going on far longer than we thought. About a month ago, the wet t-shirt contestant decided to team up with her BFF and film a YouTube video mocking Selena and her partner in underage midriff-baring crime, Demi Lovato. Have we lost you? Not to worry! The only two things you really need to know before watching this oddly hilarious clip are: we're slightly worried Miley has found her daddy's liquor cabinet, and Demi Lovato is the next Demi Moore.The NY Daily News is reporting that Gomez, the sultry-ish star of The Wizards Of Waverly Place, has been dating yet another 15-year old, singer Nick Jonas. As many of you may know (however embarrassing it is to admit), Jonas is the rumored intended recipient of most of Cyrus' kissy-face iPhone photos and pouty shower shots that hit the Internets recently. While Jonas is admittedly cute in an adolescent John Mayer sort of way, we don't see why a break-up with the kid should prompt Miley into such bitter antics. Making fun of Gomez and her alarmingly sexy best friend / fellow Disney star Demi Lovato in this clip, Cyrus drops some low-blows about the gap in Lovato's teeth (one that has since been fixed) and the fact that Lovato wears a touch of black make-up (and looks just fine in it). However, the attack seems to be backfiringl, mainly because Miley — who frequently succumbs to giggle attacks and slurring throughout the vid — made her rep as the good girl next door and not as a conniving backstabber (or, for that matter, as an burgeoning anti-Semite with her use of the word "scheisty"). Fasten your seatbelts, it looks like we have another Lohan vs. Duff feud brewing as we type.

After many months spent posing topless in glossies, making out with girls, and staging her very own wet t-shirt photo shoots, Miley Cyrus is finally giving up on that whole innocent tween image perfected by Disney and is officially turning into Lindsay Lohan. As MSNBC reports, Cyrus is supposedly "really interested" in nabbing a role in Undiscovered Gyrl, a screen adaptation of an as-yet-unreleased novel written by Naomi Watts' ex-fiancé. So what does the role of "Gyrl" entail? The plot of the novel revolves around an 18-year old blogger whose interests include alcohol abuse, sleeping around with as many men as possible, and reckless partying. Naturally, a part like this will require several nude scenes, meaning the 15-year old belly dancer and tween icon would finally get paid for revealing her naughty bits this time around, should she get the part. But stripping down and playing bad girls on-screen isn't the only sign that Miley is Lindsay 2.0 — thanks to her newfound (nudity-based) fame, the underage millionaire has already launched a nasty war of words against her competition, morphing into a real-live Mean Girl overnight:

"After 33 years on the air, 23 of them with Disney, the studio has decided to take the program named Siskel & Ebert and then Ebert & Roeper in a new direction. I will no longer be associated with it." [Reuters]