Here are the first pictures of Baby Max, newborn son of singer, Christina Aguilera. Awww, isn't he cute? And he'd better be: People, part of Time Inc.'s struggling magazine group, outbid checkbook-wielding OK! for the photos. The price: an budget-busting $1.5m, we hear. So buy the magazine, or Max will be the last alpha offspring you ever see. (Read here why there's been such inflation in the price of celebrity baby snaps.)

Celebrity Rehab fans have by now become more than acquainted with Jeff Conaway—who, since the departure of a cameraphone-diddling Daniel Baldwin, has become the de facto father figure to the youngster-addicts. They too have met succubus girlfriend Vikki, whose every visit to the Pasadena facility inevitably ends in tears, screaming, and at least one wheelchair flying through a plate-glass window. Such turbulence is often the way with deeply creative partnerships, however, and as a reader pointed out, the two are so much more than just self-perpetuating co-dependants: They're an aspiring hip-hop superduo!

We haven't checked in on young Cosmo web assistant Leo (Smith '07), in awhile. She's blogging about life as a Cosmogirl-in-Training; it's subtitled "one socially awkward girl attempts to transform into a sexy, social butterfly." Last time, we worried that her catty Hearst coworkers were brainwashing the sweet 22-year-old into becoming a typically snide, jaded young maglady. It's sort of working! Now she's wondering about "playing the field"—you know, dating a guy, but not exclusively. Is it "immoral"?

Party planning, magazine editing and TV appearances blur into eachother for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, the homemaking maven's media conglomerate. Writing in 2002, media reporter Greg Lindsay was impressed by Stewart's multiplicity of talents: "Soccer moms and magazine execs alike revere homemaking doyenne Martha Stewart for her WASPy Zen approach to decorating, entertaining and blazing the celebrity editor trail." Greg, and his new wife have learned well from the mistress of synergy. Their wedding in Bermuda last year was nearly rained off, but they turned near-disaster into a joyful celebration, and a television appearance on Martha. Here, after the jump, is the clip of plain Greg and Sophie being interviewed by the homemaking queen: Greg explains how he found a "fabulous" naval dockyard in Bermuda to host the wedding after a storm forecast disrupted plans for an open-air ceremony, sounding like any other touch-fey husband. Incidentally, Sophie is Sophie Donelson, who was a senior editor at Blueprint, a Martha Stewart title, before it folded two months ago. The moral of this story? There are no real people in Manhattan: only media people playing real people for other media people who play real people.

The latest issue of Marie Claire profiles Google's top female executives. You've got to pick up a copy, if just for the fashion credits. From left to right: Shona Brown, Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, Megan Smith, Francoise Brougher, Susan Wojcicki, and Marissa Mayer. With the exception of Mayer's getup, never has a greater work of fiction appeared in this old gal rag. I've known Megan Smith for years, and cannot recall ever seeing her wearing something that was not (a) made of denim and (b) priced at less than $100. But more interesting than what they're wearing is who's not in the picture: Top executive Sheryl Sandberg, Google's plugged-in D.C. connection. We'd heard Sandberg can't stand Shona Brown, but would she really have refused to get a photo taken with her? (Photo by Neal Kirk)

Here's a reminder, if one needed one, of the extraordinary power of the celebrity baby, particularly one who may carry within her the spirit of Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard. Vanity Fair is blaming Baby Suri for a 12.8% decline in newsstand sales. The Conde Nast magazine carried photographs of preacher-star Tom Cruise, wife Katie Holmes, and their newborn, in October 2006; the second half of 2007, which included a worthy but boring Africa issue, had no matching draw. Question: who will win rights to the twins expected by actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt? Celebrity weekly insiders say those images will be worth more than the $4m paid for Jolie's last child. (After the jump, our graphical representation of the sums paid for recent alpha reproduction; the larger the image, the more paid.)

Vapid model Kimora Lee Simmons can do more than marry a rap mogul and plan a trip to Africa to "talk about fabulosity:" She is also identified by Scientology as a key lieutenant in the church's campaign against psychiatry. In a clip posted to YouTube yesterday, creepy church MC David Miscavige said Scientology planned to "smart bomb" and "booby trap" the profession of psychiatry with a "diabolical" media campaign. Simmons' role? Indoctrinate underaged African American boys into Scientology by funneling booklets into inner-citiy neighborhoods on both coasts. At least, that's how Miscavige presents it, but then he also claims to have planted stories in virtually every newspaper and TV network, from the New York Times to Fox News. Videos after the jump.

The influence of Maureen Dowd, formerly important New York Times opinion columnist, is dead, at the age of 13. The Pulitzer-winning columnist is still blamed, in some circles, for killing Al Gore's shot at the presidency with her relentless, belittling, emasculating, and most importantly media consensus-shaping columns. She used to be inescapable—on the Times home page, on Sunday morning politics shows, in every political blog on Earth—but now it's hard to gin up outrage about her scrubbing negative quotes from columns or mistaking black women for other black women. In 2004, those stories would've been all Atrios talked about for days. (Maybe they still are, does anyone read Atrios anymore either?) In 2000, they wouldn't have been outrages at all, because everything she said was immediate conventional wisdom. So what happened?

Even if Fox's The Moment Truth never lives up to its Apocalypse-beckoning advance billing , the show will have provided a valuable service to the very society it's so far failed to destroy in exposing a disturbing deception far more widespread than we ever could have imagined: the artificial enhancement of male "packages" by means of designer jean/Dockers/mankini stuffing.

Corey Haim is back, Hollywood, and he knows that he's let you down in the past by never realizing the tantalizing promise he displayed in License to Drive, Dream a Little Dream and Blown Away, but he's ready to get to work and heal the wounds caused by his long absence from your television and film sets.

Cherry-lipped Times columnist Maureen Dowd emphatically does not remember Times of London reporter Michelle Henery, but Henery sure remembers Dowd. At a recent Democratic presidential debate, Dowd got all "OMG so good to see you" with Henery even though they'd never met before, Henery wrote yesterday in a column. The explanation, based on Henery's scientific and conclusive email poll of friends: Dowd must have mistaken her for Michelle Obama. "I wondered how white America was going to elect a black man for president if they could not even tell us apart," wrote Henery, an American. The angry Dowd reaction, along with excerpts from Henery's yanked-from-the-Web column and pictures of both Michelles, after the jump.

Famously, Al Capone was brought down, not by charges of racketeering or murder, but by a mundane prosecution for tax evasion. Could it be that's what finally crimps corruption at the celebrity weeklies? According to Complex magazine, federal investigators have tapped phones at In Touch, the also-ran gossip magazine put out by Bauer Publishing. The focus of the FBI probe: payments to at least one editor in exchange for prominent placement of certain B-list celebrities. (For more desirable stories, and baby pictures, the money flows the other way, from magazine to source.) Accepting bribes, while a sackable offense, is not illegal. However, if an editor failed to declare the income, he could be hauled up for tax evasion. News of the investigation has leaked because agents have called in former staffers for interviews over the last few days. In Touch: want to respond? Email and we'll publish. (After the jump, Robert De Niro as Al Capone, slamming the Untouchables for "doctoring up" some income tax violation.)

Our appetites whetted with the release of the upcoming Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue cover featuring ten of today's most desirable starlets in a variety of glamorously uncomfortable poses (sooo much better than last year's shoot featuring four overexposed comedians and some hotly buzzed penguins whose careers quickly nosedived), we delved deeper into VanityFair.com's stash of preview goodies. It was there that we discovered Renée Zellweger starring in the most amazing piece of video that we've seen in at least the last twelve hours.

First things first: How about that Matthew McConaughey's new haircut? Appearing on The Today Show to promote Fool's Gold (formerly Romancing the Stoner), the shirt-averse movie star unveiled a jarring new squaredo. Once we adjusted to the thought of McConaughey being robbed of the luscious, starfish-and-seaweed tangled manlocks that for so long have defined his freespirited, shaka-sign-delivering attitude, however, we were able to focus on what he was actually saying to a very giggly Meredith Vieira. (God she loves her job!)

Click to viewUnexpectedly moved by the NY Post's heart-wrenching story of how Paris Hilton was reduced to tears by 50 Cent's demand that she immediately cease her unauthorized booty-shaking activities and "get the fuck off the stage" at her own Super Bowl party, we pass along the tale in the only way that made sense to us: in comic book form. After the jump, Paris's pain, splayed across six action-packed panels:

Did you know? Men usually over-state how smart they are, and women often dumb themselves down. Not like we needed a study to believe this, but at least it's now a scientific fact. In the Belfast Telegraph, What Makes Women Happy author Fay Weldon pontificates on this in what we can only call a jumblefuck. Or as Salon put its, "another bassackward, barely intelligible diatribe on one of [Weldon's] favorite topics: how women should adapt to men's sexism."

Bravo's newest competition show, Make Me a Supermodel, has been strangely intriguing since its premiere a month ago. Most of the credit is owed to the delightfully awkward and (hopefully!) budding relationship between Ben, the 22-year-old prison guard from Tennessee with the sad, pondering eyes and Ronnie, the out loud and proud "spunky!" blond guy from Chicago. Ben is married to a woman back home, but that hasn't stopped Ronnie from making many an overture about his love for the deputy sheriff. Ben doesn't exactly fend off his roommate's advances. They've already been shown snuggling (with the recently ousted girl-model Aryn) and sort-of kissing. Click the thumb for a clip from last night's episode, where they bond and share and continue to tumble into love. These are the joys of living vicariously, friends. Swoon!/Barf.

Defamer just managed to get our grubby mitts on a secret copy of a strongly-worded letter that "Actress" Kirstie Alley's legal team over at Goldman & Kagon recently sent to US Weekly. In it, the firm asks that United States Weekly sever their relationship with fashionista/comedienne Danica Lo because of an innocuous Scientology joke she made at the expense of billion-year contract escape clause benifitee Nicole Kidman. The joke in question ran in the "Fashion Police" section of the mag and referred to an outfit Kidman wore to the Australian premiere of The Golden Compass, which the tony Miss Lo described as being "specifically designed [to repel] Scientologists." Um, zing? The legal letter and offending picture follow after the jump.

While they're not the first (or thousandth) couple to marry after meeting online, Kristen Birkin and Steve Sweet sound like the most heartbreakingly redeemed. They met in Second Life, where both had dealt with their loveless marriages and dead-end lives by bravely escaping into a virtual world on the Internet. No, no, they also met in real life, moved in together, and plan to get married, which is actually pretty great! But then they talked to British gossip site Showbiz Spy and gave depressing comments like these:

San Antonio's Express-News is concerned about the state of American matrimony. (Under siege, say experts!) To illustrate the front-page story, the Texas newspaper ran pictures of Nell and Wallace Crain: one on their wedding day, and now, as a loving elderly couple, still together after 67 years. The secret: a commitment to stay "married until death", according to the photo caption. Unfortunately, death had indeed broken their bond, unbeknownst to the Express-News' editors. Nell and Wallace Crain, interviewed last summer, died within two weeks of eachother, around Thanksgiving. The author of the piece, J. Michael Parker, explained: "I didn't feel like Mr. Crain's comments needed updating." The Express-News' abject correction, and apology, after the jump.