If you were going to write a brilliant satire of a weekend Times article, what would you do? You'd probably start by flipping through some recent celebrity weeklies or maybe attend a Madonna concert. Then, to keep things serious enough for the Gray Lady, you'd do some Googling to see what Clinton's been up to. Finally, you'd cruise the blogosphere to see what's been the hot topic for mockery. Add some photojournalism and oversized art, put it on the front page of the section, and you've got the ultimate Sunday Styles parody. Like so:

Goooooood morning, fear-stricken Americans! British authorities have announced that they've foiled a major terror plot to blow up planes traveling between Britain and the U.S. 21 people were arrested overnight; the plan was to smuggle liquid-based explosives in their carry-on luggage. American, United and Continental airlines were targeted and the unconfirmed number of planes identified for attack has varied between six and ten. You know, just enough to create "mass murder on an unimaginable scale," according to British officials. Actually, we kind of can imagine the scale, but that's beside the point.

Seems that dismissed Reuters freelance photographer Adnan Hajj wasn't simply the victim of a single instance of poor judgment: Blog The Jawa Report provides evidence of another doctored photo, this one showing an Israeli F-16 dropping missiles on Lebanon. Except, of course, they aren't. Apparenty Reuters is launching an investigation of all his previous work; one can only hope they pay close attention to Hajj's most famous photo so far.

Somewhere, in a land far, far away from The Island, there is a place called Missoula, Montana, where the Independent serves as the community's alt-weekly. A ranch-handling reader alerts us to an item from the Independent's events listing (at right), in which karaoke and bowling are likened to that other peanut-butter-and-jelly pairing, Israeli bombing and U.S. bombs. Um, okay.

Lebanese freelance photojournalist Adnan Hajj has been dismissed from global news behemoth Reuters after the above image was published, purportedly showing black smoke rising over Beirut after an Israeli air strike. Bloggers with little more than two functioning eyeballs were able to determine that the smoke in the picture was painfully fake, as indicated by the repeating, circular pattern in the billowing clouds. Yesterday Reuters announced that they would no longer use Hajj's pictures, stating, "Reuters has strict standards of accuracy that bar the manipulation of images in ways that mislead the viewer." That means a zero tolerance policy for those photographers who can't properly use Photoshop's blur function.

Last month, Hachette Filipacchi debuted a Middle Eastern version of Elle, sold in Jordan, Morocco and Lebanon. Unfortunately, Lebanon has become considerable less fashionable in the past few weeks and the magazine's production has suffered:

• Meredith Vieira preps for her forthcoming role as Today show co-host by visiting the newsroom and, um, taping Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. The contrast of morning show queen to cheesy game-show host may be funny now, but just wait until she's doing a tough AM interview with a heavy hitter and asks them, "Is that your final answer?" [NYDN]
• Be mesmerized as you watch the downfall of Mel Gibson. [Us Weekly]
• And then do a little fist-pump, as he's been charged with a DUI. [TMZ]
• 9/11: The answer to Nic Cage's prayers. [Defamer]
• It may be hot as fried balls out there, but at least it's not Europe. [Logged Hours]
• Rather than slappping a vile breastfeeding image on a magazine cover, why not stick to the traditional, Christian methods of breast coverage? [Zulkey]
• Apparently, we're the reason you're not investing in your 401(K). [TAP]
• Misty water-colored memories of the Ford Administration. [Yahoo ]
• City Councilman John Liu talks about loser pedophile radio stooges. And it has nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein. [Daily Politics]
• The Chinese goverment has ordered that 50,000 dogs be killed, if only so that you may better enjoy your delicious Lo Mein Special. [AP]
• Christopher Hitchens' obit: would that it were so. [The State That I Am In]
• Best headline of the day: Naked, Combative Man Leads Police to Marijuana Farm. [AP]

• Though the financial details have yet to be settled, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson are a very short stone's throw from becoming legally divorced, freeing Jessica to marry her father. [TMZ]
• A British literary magazine has published a poem written by Kate Moss for her then-beau, crackhead Pete Doherty: You love them more than you love me/So that's why I could cry all day long/that's why I can't breathe. Watch out, Donald Hall. [Page Six]
• A fight breaks out after someone tries to photograph the Black Eyed Peas at a club in Berlin. Gee, that was worth it. [R&M]
• Dan Rather won't touch Walter Cronkite with a ten-foot-pole. Maybe if the pole were longer than the tongue of a black Alabama rattler. [Page Six]
• MSNBC HATES TRANNIES: Rita Cosby's show will be cancelled in July. [Lowdown]
• When he was a wee lad, Mekhi Pfieffer was best known as the kid who went and pissed on his classmates' coats. [disco-not-disco]

And yet he keeps pushing for a gay-marriage ban.

Looking for some extra dough, ladies? Oh, have we found the job for you — and, apparently, good spelling is not a prerequisite. From Craigslist:

• Axl Rose has been released from a Stockholm jail, where he was held after biting a security guard on the leg. Tommy Hilfiger got off easy, it would seem. NB to the unlucky victim: you might want to make sure your rabies vaccinations are up to date. [Page Six]
• Now that her stroll towards unemployment has become a quickly finished race, Star Jones is taping House Hunters NYC. It's a long fall down, isn't it? [Lowdown (bottom)]
• Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake are still together, having just gotten past a "rough patch." Now they're back to bonding in matching sweats, a surefire way to keep any relationship exciting. [Us Weekly]
• Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban honeymoon in Bora Bora, enjoying a $15K/night bungalow over the water. Sonja the security guard is also enjoying the vacation, protecting the couple from any of the island's over-aggressive flora and fauna. [IMDb]
• Tori Spelling takes her good, sweet time getting to her father's deathbed. [Page Six]
• Tired of Bahrain, Michael Jackson continues taking his traveling freakshow to France. [R&M]

Ruh-roh redux: There's even another Blueprint out there, a London-based mag one emailer calls an "esteemed international design pub." We'd tell you more about it, but the site is only available to subscribers and a U.S. subscription costs $140/year. And we don't care that much. But there it is (even if belatedly).

Hachette Filipacchi is unveiling the Middle Eastern edition of Elle this Friday, which, barring any last minute editorial fatwas, will appear on newsstands in Lebanon, Jordan, and Morocco. A second, more conservative version of the Lebanese publication will hit Saudi Arabia in October (though the Saudi government will likely black out most of the images anyhow — how Gilles Bensimon shall cry!). None of these editions will feature Hilary Duff on their covers, making them far superior to our own glossy version.

• Kate Moss will not be charged with possession stemming from her September '05 cover shoot with the UK's Daily Mirror. Apparently something about a lack of evidence or being able to definitively prove she was bumping rails of blow and not, say, powdered sugar. You know how those skinny models love their powdered sugar! [Guardian]
• Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams didn't mean to snub Howard Stern at Nobu last week; they were just having "a very deep conversation about something in our personal life," says Ledger. Go ahead and read into that all you want, but they were likely just whining about Brooklyn. [Page Six]
• MSNBC host Keith Olbermann apologizes for telling a viewer to go fuck his mother. That was meant for Rita Cosby. [Lowdown]
• In a remarkable display of maturity, Lindsay Lohan turns down a round of shots, noting that she's underage. She still stayed out until 7 AM — thankfully, there's no age restrictions on marching powder. [R&M (bottom of page)]
• And after all that partying, Lohan still has the energy to be Madonna's new BFF. Though admittedly the starlet's not thrilled about getting Britney Spears' sloppy seconds. [Scoop]
• Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood has headed off to rehab. How are these guys even alive enough to be addicts? Were they all given new livers at some point in the mid-90s? [Fox411 (2nd item)]
• First daughter Barbara Bush uses Craigslist for job-hunting. Suddenly, we soften. Just a little. [Page Six]

Don't get us wrong. We know Times Baghdad bureau chief John Burns is a swashbuckling foreign correspondent; we admire his reporting and we're humbled by his willingness to spend so many years in such a horrible and dangerous place. (Our most taxing reportorial excursion is typically to Michael's — which, to be honest, is a long and expensive trip that inevitably leaves us running for our lives.) But we really wish they'd get the guy a new headshot — and perhaps a trim, or at least a comb, beforehand. Because the guy in the current picture? He's been wandering Central Park all night, he knows — really knows — that the end of the world is coming — and could you maybe spare some change?

We were mildly interested in the Sun's article on the new BBC morning-news show designed for U.S. viewers, even though we were also confused about why any of the paper's readers would care about it. (The show, according to the article, will be carried not on Time Warner Cable but on Cablevision, which serves only the Bronx and eastern Brooklyn, and neither known for their large populations of stinking rich neocon Likudniks.) But we were also stopped short by the piece's lead, which focused on the broadcast's London-based anchor:

Think that ƒ in the middle of Portfolio is merely a design flourish in the forthcoming mag's logo? Maybe it's just a way to scoot the ascender of the "f" far enough right to nestle the words "Conde Nast" in there? Perhaps. But a reader points us to another explanation:

Who's calling for an end to genital cutting? We don't know. Third base! (Yuk yuk yuk.)

While New York frets about its safety in light of decreasing terror funds, there's trouble in Barcelona at this very moment:

The op-ed page of today's Times no doubt brings heartbreak to some 3,799 college students nationwide; Nick Kristof's column carries the news that he has picked someone else to go on a free trip to Africa with him this summer. The lucky winner? 23-year-old Casey Parks, of Jackson, Miss. Casey, a graduate j-student at the University of Missouri, won Kristof over with her tale of a hardscrabble youth and a desire to see the world. She wrote: "I saw my mother skip meals. I saw my father pawn everything he loved. I saw our cars repossessed. I never saw France or London." (Or, apparently, the merits of parallelism.) Casey's full essay is available on Kristof's website, along with essays by the other 12 vanquished finalists, including our own precocious Henry the Intern. But the best part on Kristof's site is the video clip of him calling Casey with the big news. You'd think a man who can swashbuckler through Africa and buy sex slaves' freedom in a single bound wouldn't seem quite so profoundly awkward when tasked with making a simple phone call.