It has been months now since Fox News' PR machine issued one of its trademark slams of a critic, and we, for one, are happy that they have come off their summer vacations and gone back to work. The target this time: Jon Stewart, darling funnyman of the liberal elite. Surprise! The best part about this new spat: the person who comes off looking worst of all is not Stewart, nor Fox's flack, but rather the Washington Post's vacuous conventional media wisdom purveyor Howie Kurtz. A fight to admire, and a symptom of increased media fragmentation and public alienation! A full recap: The Democratic convention is such a news-bereft wasteland that Stewart was apparently giving a press conference, consisting of him riffing to a roomful of eager reporters. During the course of this, he said that Fox News' "Fair and Balanced" slogan is "the biggest 'fuck you' to people with brains that I've ever seen in my life" and that Chris Wallace is the network's only legit anchor, and that Fox is biased against Obama. Stop the fucking presses, right? But Howie Kurtz, trooper that he is, put in a call to Fox, and came back with this paragraph for his story:

Biggie Smalls was one of the greatest rappers of our generation. Way nicer lyrically than the more iconic Tupac, his fellow murdered MC. Another point in favor of Biggie: he had a crazier wife. That would be Faith Evans, the Bad Boy R&B singer who is most famous for-let's be honest-being Biggie's wife. Now Faith has written an autobiographical book, and although I'm sure there's lots in there about empowerment, mourning, etc., check out this part where she sneaks into Biggie's house, pulls Lil Kim out of his bed, and beats her ass!:

Fun fact: Drew Curtis, the guy who runs linky website Fark, went to high school for one year with professional asshole (but not moron) blogger-turned-film writer Tucker Max. So Drew somehow got handed a cameo role in I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. Drew-who's big enough on the internet to not give a fuck what we or Tucker Max think-sent us a full report, saying Tucker is "out of control" but the actors are doing a good job, considering the material they're working with. And pictures! Click through now: The actors at work (Tucker character in white t-shirt):

Who's on TV more than anybody else? Oprah? Jay Leno? Ha, you fools. The Washington Post estimates that Billy Mays, the bearded, dangerously hyper Oxi Clean pitchman, "could already be the single most ubiquitous figure on television today, measured purely in face time." Despite that, he's getting a reality show this fall, about making ads. Disturbing? Yes. Is there any stopping him? There is not. [WP]

Hip hop radio queen and Method Man enemy Wendy Williams' morning TV show was originally planned to just be a temporary thing in a few select markets. But then she started with all the penis talk and the Omarosa-fighting and the advertiser-and-publicist-wooing, and now she's going to be going national. It's a loud, gossiping American media success story!

You may have exclaimed "Uhhhhhhh!" when you heard that New Orleans' favorite musically atrocious bounce rapper Master P is planning to launch a new cable network called Better Black Television (BBTV). P says it will be "a family-friendly network" with "positive subject matter," meaning it's designed to be a kick in the balls to BET, which has been knocked forever for having a trashy programming lineup. Master P jokes aside, could this thing actually work-and should it? We, the opposite of his target demographic, will tell you the answer: BBTV's announced show lineup so far includes hip hop video and interview shows with only "appropriate" music included; a comedy show; a kids' show called Gee Gee the Giraffe; a bilingual soap opera; a cooking show; a financial literacy show; a "behind-the-scenes" celebrity show; family-friendly black movies; and profiles of historical black figures. If you've spent much time watching BET, the lineup sounds awfully familiar. BBTV is essentially saying that it will be what everyone hoped BET would be before it degenerated into lots of infomercials, Juice reruns, and endless repetitions of, um, Master P videos. (Although BET has made a bit of a comeback with original programming recently, it hasn't been enough to resurrect its reputation for embracing stereotypical lowest-common-denominator black programming). So yes, the irony of Master P running a positive network is not lost on anyone. But give the man some credit. He went from selling tapes of his terrible music out of car trunks to running a business conglomerate that probably makes him worth more the Puff Daddy, his more glamorous NYC counterpart. BET has long had the "black cable network" idea to itself, which allowed it to get away with selling such crappy programming for so long. So P, we salute your business sense and your commitment to positivity, if not any of your 15 albums or your son's equally grating music. Master P could easily be the next black billionaire; he just needs to remember not to go so heavy on the music censorship that he blocks exposure for the next coming of himself. Uhhhhhhhh.

Seth MacFarlane's plan to take over the internet is even grander than we thought. In June we told you about the Family Guy creator's new project, Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, which will be an internet show syndicated through Google AdSense. Each episode will only be two minutes plus an ad, and he gets a cut of ad revenue, so he looked to be positioned to make a boatload of cash. But one single boatload obviously wasn't enough for the intermittently cool MacFarlane; he's going to do all the freaking ads himself: Burger King is the chief advertiser, and-in a cartoon marketing move the likes of which have not been seen since Homer Simpson started eating Butterfingers-MacFarlane will be creating the ads, like so:

Pussy-smashing brew-guzzler and occasional blogger Tucker Max is hard at work on the Shreveport, Louisiana set of his comedic masterpiece film debut I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. The ideal situation would obviously be for Tucker to produce, direct, star in, and cater the movie himself, but due to demands on his valuable time he's forced to take on lesser mortals as his assistants. One of whom, surprisingly, has now quit in disgust and forwarded along his story to us! After the jump, the sad tale of woe, abuse, and poop. But Tucker has a warning for you haters: "I didn't get where I am today by being a moron.": The young man was a Tucker fan, and quit a real job to go be a paid assistant on the set of Tucker's film, where we pick up his experiences:

While the New York Times spent hundreds of thousands of dollars sending dozens of reporters to Beijing for the Olympics, NBC spent hundreds of millions of dollars for broadcasting rights, only to leave a bunch of its announcers in cubicles in New York City. The Times (meta) reports that 13 different Olympic sports were deemed unimportant enough by NBC to have them called by announcers lounging around in jeans in an old Saturday Night Live studio, watching the action on TV. Oh, the glory of the Olympiad!

Please, sit down and remove your Peterbilt hat: there's something you should know about the upcoming long-haul trucker documentary Drive and Deliver. Sure, the movie is heart-wrenching portrayal of the ups and downs of the trucking life-the long nights, the long days, the lengthy amount of time spent in a sitting position. But all those truck-porn shots of "the behemoth LoneStars, their chrome and oversize grilles gleaming brightly"? Bought and paid for, my friend. The movie is an ad. And maybe the most efficient product placement of all time! Drive and Deliver is directed by Brett Morgen, who also did The Kid Stays In The Picture. But the entire thing is a $5 million marketing scheme by truck maker Navistar International. So while there's a rich history of companies sponsoring their own shows (the "Colgate Variety Hour"), and a rich history of product placement in movies, the idea of bankrolling an entire documentary starring your own company's product gives twice the impact, in a more subtle fashion. First we got previews at the movies. Then we got ads at the movies. Then we got ads in the movies. Now we have movies that are ads. Well, at least our precious TV shows are safe from ads running during the show. No, they're not. [NYT, B&C. Related: I have a shiny nickel for anyone willing to go through NYT ad reporter Stuart Elliott's stories for the past year and see how many times he uses the phrase "branded entertainment." I bet the answer is "many."]

NBC has billions riding on the Olympics, and no amount of whining from sports fans is going to make them screw it up. Many fans are-not outraged, but mildly peeved-that some premier events at the '04 games were shown on tape delay, after everybody had a chance to find out who won on the nifty internet. So NBC made the Olympic Committee schedule too-popular swimmer Michael Phelps' races when they could be shown during prime time. Oh, the things that hundreds of millions of dollars can buy. And, deep down, we all sympathize with NBC: destroy whatever is necessary to fulfill America's greedy need for live-action gold, we say!

Who could possibly top Gossip Girl's mind-blowingly transgressive ad campaign in which the show trumpeted its own negative reviews—which was itself an incredible follow-up to the astounding 'OMFG' ad campaign that shocked the show business universe? The anonymous Poster Boy ad remixer, that's who. Ha ha. Click for a larger pic.

A totally disreputable website called WhosDatedWho has reported that Maureen McPhilmy, who's now married to Fox shouting head Bill O'Reilly, once dated cracked-out rapper Flavor Flav. This has already spawned much mockery and philosophical schadenfreude among bloggers, who point out that O'Reilly is the prototypical rap-hating nilla Republican bastard. The fact that the same website says that O'Reilly himself has dated both Jeff Gannon and Reichen Lehmkuhl doesn't seem to have come up as a counterpoint. Still, we're going to choose to believe that Bill O'Reilly married Flavor Flav's ex until Bill personally comes on our show to tell us otherwise. [The Slanderous Rumor]

The Olympics: nothing else is important! We expect the media to cover the games with the proper amount of cynical patriotic fervor, and we expect the populace to sit on their plush couches and absorb the proceedings like good-and occasionally xenophobic-citizens. But amidst all the beauty, brawn, and nakedness that the Olympics offer us, we all have one question looming in the back of our minds: "Could I do that?" Two weekend warriors set out on a quest to compare themselves, athletically, with Olympians, and discovered the answer: no. It's quite satisfying to watch:

Sartorial scandal alert: Is the upcoming Seth Rogen film Pineapple Express guilty of wanton t-shirt design theft? A small Brooklyn t-shirt maker called WOWCH says that co-star James Franco's character appears in the movie wearing shark-and-kitten shirt that is really just a slightly altered version of a WOWCH design that was sold at Urban Outfitters in 2005. But the big stars don't give the little guys credit at all! The photographic evidence for this potential merchandising mockery-and the demands for redress-after the jump.

This is an absolute nightmare scenario for video game manufacturers, who must now be thanking their Pagan gods that it didn't happen in the US: a teenager in Bangkok murdered a taxi cab driver in an attempt to reenact a scene from Grand Theft Auto. As a result, the distributor has halted sales of the game throughout all of Thailand, which is a wise PR move despite being (objectively) an overreaction. The details of the crime seem to confirm the worst fears of all anti-video game crusaders: a good kid led astray, and willing to do anything to get his fix of violence:

Calvin Klein has produced an ad campaign featuring a sultry actress flashing a nipple. That ad has now been banned from TV in America, resulting in a heap of free press for CK and its new fragrance. Could this standard-issue fashion PR masterstroke have been purposeful? A CK exec says it's "not entirely" a surprise that the ad showing Hitch starlet Eva Mendes writhing around naked on a bed (covered only by a strategically rumpled sheet) has been rejected by US networks. (It shows her nipple, duh!) The creative director behind it is maintaining a sense of righteous outrage, but this is clearly a well-executed textbook case of manufacturing controversy for publicity. Yes, we have the ad after the jump.

Ebay is not just for auctioning off books related to obscure literary feuds; it's also a good place for members of the working class to hustle mementos of the humbling moments when celebrities crossed their paths and acted like jerks. One item that you just missed bidding on: a receipt from an Atlanta-area restaurant signed by Outkast rapper Andre 3000. The meal cost $46.01. Andre's tip: $0. But the receipt sold for almost $15, so the waiter came out ahead. That said, let's segue into THIS: a look back at some other fabulous celebrity-related items that appeared on eBay in the recent past:

Cultural capital of the world Los Angeles held up bravely during its earthquake yesterday, not counting its public officials. Bloggers continued their work, showings of Batman went on undisturbed, and gynecologists kept on, uh, doing their thing. But Judge Judy was not the only celebrity to suffer a disruption; the quake shook LA's indispensable horoscope reader CosmosGal (pictured, bracing herself) to distraction! Even worse, the attractive denizens of the Big Brother house were forced to flee outdoors and remove their shirts! You can see both of the stunning clips of disaster survival after the jump; we urge any other minor celebrities who may have been inconvenienced to contact us at once:

"So many people are trying to make a statement by hiring bodyguards," one bicoastal club owner tells W magazine. "They want the stares and the whispers. It's ostentatious." Well, we always tell our guys to keep a low profile, but I suppose we're a bit more cultured than most. The magazine explores the etiquette of bodyguard-having in a new article-which, like having bodyguards, is primarily motivated by a desire to be ostentatious. But it does have some valuable clues as to which celebrities are the worst self-important assholes: