From Gwyneth Paltrow's Africanness to Kate Moss's blackness, miscegenation is pure advertising gold these days. Check out these ads from Spanish telco Telefonica, showcasing the best international calling rates by way of a charming biological hybrid between two particular nations. From left to right, it's Senegal and Germany, Japan and Scotland, and Turkey and Sweden. Something tells us that, at least in Turkey-Sweden's case, the carpet doesn't match the drapes.

Says Newsweek editor Jon Meacham:

• The new McDonald's advertisements in China are downright sexy. Funny how'd they'd encourage any sort of sexuality in a country where the female seeds get killed. [WSJ]
• Frat boys, mount up: tonight's the launch party for Times Square's latest horror, the Hawaiian Tropic Zone Restaurant and Lounge. It's the 700 cubic tons of sand you've always dreamed of. [The Real Estate]
• The 22-year-old founder of Facebook wants to sell for $1.5 billion, and the twit just might get away with it. You ready to kill yourself yet? Here, use our knife and be sure to cut vertically. [WSJ]
• Fox News partially sponsored the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association convention in Miami Beach. Don't tell Rupert. [New Times BPB]
• Wow: Weird Al is back. We didn't realize he was gone, but hey. [YouTube]
• You can do a lot in NYC in a single day and spend less than $100. You just might have to go to Luke and Leroy's. Sacrifices, people. [Gridskipper]
• You still have a chance to have your dirty secrets immortalized in print — the forthcoming Gawker book is still taking submissions, and it's about time you told someone about how your refusal to do anal with your boss ultimately cost you that promotion.

When he wasn't busy blacking up Kate Moss for his editorial stint on Britain's Independent, designer and disembodied head/hand Giorgio Armani found time to weigh in — get it! — on the thin/fat model teapot-tempest that continues to rage. Well, maybe "rage" isn't the right word. Armani certainly plays the peacemaker, dismissing complainers as alarmists who "exaggerate the problem." And even though he admits his models have always been on "the slender side" (because his clothes must "hang correctly on the body"), the anorexic model trend ain't nothin' to do with him. As counter-example, Armani even takes time to gingerly trod on Gianni Versace's grave, all but calling his dead competitor a chubby chaser. The article's behind the Independent's subscription wall, so we present it for your delectation after the jump.

The "Smoker's Style" ad campaign from Nipponese cig purveyor Japan Tobacco ("Delight World") has been going on for quite awhile now, and it's simultaneously direct, wistful, and honest about the ugly manners of smokers. The little stick-figure illustrations are concerned with smoking etiquette, expressed in parables, aphorisms, or other sage truisms. Since we can't smoke in bars or restaurants in New York anymore, the one-third of Gawker's editors who no longer indulges in coffin nails can afford to be nostalgic about smoker culture; it's easier to reminisce fondly about all the little rituals and cruelties of smoking when actual, current smokers are forced to lurk outside in the elements with the hoboes and interns. This figure about smokers liking their own smoke (versus that of others) is a particular favorite, though there are several that could quite easily translate to your favorite Cafe Press product.

An item yesterday gave an account of how fashion publicist Kelly Cutrone of People's Revolution, unhappy with a Sydney Morning Herald gossip item about two of her clients, banned SMH journalist and blogger Patty Huntington from all of her clients' shows. Cutrone posted fliers (right) instructing staff to keep Huntington out of the Jeremy Scott show; she then called Huntington and told the writer that she would make it her mission to interfere with "the rest of [Huntington's] journalistic career," and, for extra measure, Cutrone would sue, as her father is a high-powered lawyer. Masterful PR work, that.

As if claiming the #1(+19) spot in a rundown of the brainiest American cities weren't enough to assert New York's overpricedwhelming dominance as the best fucking city ever, our well-traveled brother Gridskipper has just closed the polls on their World's Sexiest City contest. New York comes in first with 44.2% of the vote, knocking reigning champ Rio de Janeiro back from whence it came. For the record, we're confident in the accuracy of these results and believe that New York truly is more sexy than a hedonistic city where assfucking is de rigeur. Gridskipper's well-balanced voters are educated, unbiased and worldly individuals — and not, say, a bunch of New Yorkers trying to convince themselves that living here is worth the bullshit.

Now that Bryant Park has returned to its natural state of refuge for cubicle bees on their breaks, we can look back on Fashion Week with a fond eye and remember the people who make it all possible, like People's Revolution flack Kelly Cutrone, who represents a number of popular, edgy designers and oversees a considerable handful of shows.

Not sure what's gotten into international booze purveyors out there, but Absolut vodka joins Johnnie Walker scotch in the Lebanese postwar regeneration frenzy with its own series of recovery-themed ads. In addition to these eager tourists arriving in liquor-bottle form, you also have an Absolut-shaped dollop of cement on a rebuilt cinderblock wall. Sure are lots of thirsty Caucasians in this tourist crowd! And we can only assume that rebuilt wall is part of a bar, as opposed to say, a hospital. To their credit though, Absolut has rebuilt more walls in Lebanon than the United Nations. At least conceptually.

• Former Maxim UK editor and HuffPo devilkin Greg Gutfeld hits fashion week; misses Tuleh, but looks fabulous nonetheless. [Radar]
• Meanwhile, when the fashion establishment acknowledges bloggers and lets the pasty kids into the tents, it's good for the internerds — but with every blog post, the allure of the chic plummets. Who wants to wear a label that's accessible, for chrissakes?! [WSJ]
• An insider on the Today show's new set, to be unveiled tomorrow: "It reminded me of the Fortress of Solitude from Superman." [TVNewser]
• Describing Demi Moore with her "legs spread like Liza doing a Fosse work-out" is a really disgusting choice of words, timing-wise. [National Post]
• Living in a post-Crocodile Hunter world means STINGRAY RAGE. No, seriously. [Times UK]
• Johnnie Walker advertises in Beirut, but they really could've taken it a bit further and articulated the point. [Animal]
• Anna Nicole Smith's son seems to have died of unnatural causes. We'll keep the inappropriate jokes about Trimspa to ourselves, thanks. [TMZ]
• You've always known that celebrities are more narcissitic than the average American, but now there's scientific proof. [LAT]

"I think it's outrageous, I understand they want to set this tone of healthy beautiful women, but what about discrimination against the model and what about the freedom of the designer," said [Cathy] Gould, Elite's North America director, adding that the move could harm careers of naturally "gazelle-like" models.

In a seamlessly perfect melding of 9/11 paranoia and Fashion Week zeitgeist, may we present this slideshow in Vogue Italia. Entitled "State of Emergency," the Steven Meisel pictorial mostly features models getting harshly abused by uniformed security thugs. Each shot is more jaw-dropping than the last (be sure to note the nicely animated boot crushing the larynx of the lady in red). Scans may be viewed here if you can't see the slideshow. Sure, there are a few pics of the models (now indoctrinated?) undergoing weapons training, but really. At least now you'll know all the hottest couture for getting reamed across the hood of a police cruiser.

Apparently, the golden age of government-journalist payola didn't end with radio host Armstrong Williams and "marriage expert" Maggie Gallagher taking cash to push political agendas. Ten Miami journos — three from El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish-language paper run by the Miami Herald's corporate owner — have been paid by the U.S. for appearances and punditry on Radio Mart and TV Mart . Both Mart s are themselves United States government entities created to broadcast pro-American propaganda at Cuba. Icky! The top earner was Cuba columnist Pablo Alfonso, who took home almost $175,000 since 2001 in exchange for his program hosting duties. Alfonso, plus another El Nuevo Herald staffer and a freelancer, were kicked to the curb. Several of the reporters were hardly contrite, such as Channel 41's Juan Manuel Cao ($11,400 this year): ''There is nothing suspect in this ... I would do it for free. But the regulations don't allow it. I charge symbolically, below market prices.'' Way to take a hit for the team, fiscally speaking. Of course, given that El Nuevo Herald has long been regarded with serious hostility by Cuba's government already, it's not like these columnists were deviating much (if at all) from their paper's regular editorial stance. Why not make a little extra dosh on the side for the same material? It's almost patriotic.

More ethnic purity news: Germany does have a little history in the far-right racist department, but modern Aryanists still have to tread lightly in media. Hence their soft sell of Objektiv, a student-focused magazine in Cologne created by the "Citizen Initiative for Cologne" that packaged suggestions for outdoor fun along with warnings about "sexual steam" created by the local Turkish population. Advertisers claim they were duped into supporting Objektiv and dropped it like a hot Hitler potato, but the mag's secret shame was revealed by German blog Spreeblick, which pointed out that the blonde, coyly Teutonic fraulein on Objektiv's "German Is Hot!" ad is actually a Czech porn model. And they even ganked her image from "her" site without paying. You'd think German racists would be the last ones to both advocate miscegenation and seem a little "careful with money."

We didn't attend any of Paris Hilton's multiple launch "parties" for her new album, and then we forced Intern Neel to witness her seated in the ample lap of Mario Lavandeira. However, all is not so cushy for Paris abroad. International graffitist and prankster Banksy punk'd various HMV, Virgin, and other UK record stores by replacing hundreds of copies of Paris's album with his own remixes. Self-important prank video and moderately amusing track sample here, though you can more quickly digest the joke via the remix album art.

This has nothing to do with New York, media, or gossip, but sometimes we're obliged to address intense matters of global importance: as you surely have heard, Steve Irwin, better known as the Crocodile Hunter, died yesterday. The Australian was not killed by a crocodile but, rather, a stingray, while filming the documentary Ocean's Deadliest. Though there's nothing funny about the death of a beloved Australian icon, wildlife champion and your father's favorite television personality, at the guy certainly left the world with some dangling, ironic carrots.

Alcohol purveyors are rarely known for their sensitivity in terms of advertising, but the above Johnnie Walker billboard represents a "a new idiom in terms of how far you can go," according to one ad exec. The implacably perambulating Johnnie Walker mascot is shown crossing a broken bridge in a Beirut suburb, demonstrating that his thirst for Scotch will not be impaired even by the vicissitudes of war. And nor should yours, (non-Muslim) citizens of Lebanon! The ad exec went on to say that "the attention that the campaign had generated on the Internet proved its cost-effectiveness." Let's all join in the cost-effecting, and long live the new idiom.

If you find American men's magazines just a bit too cerebral and priggish, then you might be more suited to the origin of the species — British lad mags. And we're not talking about egghead pansy books like FHM, with its occasional insistence on words and other stupid stuff. Rather, you should turn to perennially squabbling and virtually indistinguishable rivals Nuts and Zoo, which pump out the wank fodder on a weekly basis rather than monthly. As an example of the level we're talking about here, check out this clip sent to press buyers, where cover creature Kayleigh Pearson woodenly delivers a manifesto about Nuts' superior circulation numbers while gradually disrobing. Painfully embarrassing, and vice versa.

Just to follow up on the lady with two vaginas — coincidentally, it appears her ideal two-penised mate does indeed exist, albeit he's in India. And Ms. Dual-Vag better hurry if she wants to hook up, as the diphallic fellow checked into a New Delhi hospital to have one of his fully functional dongs removed in order to "marry and lead a normal sexual life." Sadly, we couldn't find an image of two pie slices to fill the pie-voids depicted by Esquire, so you'll have to settle for two bananas.

• An socio-anthropological examination of the JAP and her fitness habits. Naturally, the gym bag is the heaviest weight she lifts. [Fake Jew]
• Anna Wintour acknowledges the un-chicness of Mastic, her vacation town. And yet she continues to own property there. The mind boggles! [The Beach]
• The city passes its "Imette law," inspired by the murder of Imette St. Guillen, who's believed to die at the hands of an unlicensed bouncer. Clubs must now enact all sorts of new safety measures — none of which, you know, will actually prevent a some girl from getting wasted and getting in trouble. But nice of them to try. [NYP]
• Two days after Christina Alisio told the Post that she'd slept with philandering Met Paul Lo Duca, she's hired counsel to go after the media outlets who didn't make her look as hot as she'd have liked. [Philadelphia Will Do]
• The Wives and Girlfriends (WAGs) of major English soccer stars are redefining white trash, wearing high-end apparel bought with their own money and angering designers who hate to see their work on such middle-class bodies. Aw, poor Posh. Then again, maybe we're kind of into the WAGs because they're not an American property. If they were "ours," we'd probably hate them too. [Telegraph]
• The Week is doing kind of well. No, seriously. Don't laugh. [Folio]
• Who isn't working for Radar? It's just as commonplace as using the subway. [Belle in the Big Apple]
• Cocaine + hipsters + Mexico City = obligatory American Apparel reference. [LA Weekly]