• So in news regarding the finest non-Lady Gaga-related moment to happen in music this week, Solange is encouraging everyone to pirate her well-done do-over of The Dirty Projectors' "Stillness Is the Move" after Universal keeps taking down free downloads of the cover across the web. To that end, here's a great place to start. [Jezebel]
• Barf bags at the ready please: Jon Gosselin may or may not have filmed a sex tape wherein he does a couple bumps. His flack is devastated that us gossip folks are running with this rumor. He'd be devastated to know that most of us would run with rumors of J.Goss turning out to be swine flu patient zero, too. [Us]
• While on the topic of crowdsourced pornography: Carrie Prejean's total swag count now includes eight sex tapes and 30 photographs. You'll remember that some fraction of this entire package was being shopped around for $100,000 earlier this year. [New York Daily News]
• Having humbled everyone from Kanye West to country stalwart Wynonna Judd, Swift has the entire world rolling around in her palms. Her next conquest: A quick cash-in on vampires via a potential stint on Vampire Diaries [Digital Spy]

All the telltale signs were there. The glint of crazy in her eye. The Sarah Palin fandom. The miscategorization of Michelle Obama and Sonia Sotomayor as granola-munching, ganja-smoking liberals. That initial ominous crease in her brow. Her cautious stern tone. Still, somehow we thought that when Carrie Prejean was going to have a sit-down with Larry King to try to shed a little light on the house of horrors that some neurologists would call her brain, we'd learn a thing or two. Instead all we got was an uppity equine neighing on about, "Oh woe is me! Why is the world so unfair! Why am I unable to understand the English language, Larry King! I'm so angry even though you're switching topics, I'm going to make a total shitshow of myself on national television and create a scene because Regina George was modeled in my image and buy my effing book okay? LOL."

Somewhere in a bedroom wallpapered with tulip-pink ponies, Carrie Prejean sits defeated on the floor, cotillion dresses strewn about, stuffed animals torn apart, their cottony insides spilling out. Her cheeks are stained with mascara, and all around her, there's a sea of newspaper clippings from her brief time as Miss California. With her fame arc reaching its final nadir, it makes sense to learn that no one wanted to cough up the cash to buy her sex tape. You may be asking, "Carrie who?" And I'd remark something about the only person in this entire universe more odious than Perez Hilton.

● Is Lindsay Lohan picking over Sienna Miller’s sloppy seconds? Lindsay was evidently late to her court appearance last week because she was making out with Balthazar Getty at a club till the wee hours of the morning. [Dose]
● Blue Bloods, the vampire TV vehicle Mary-Kate Olsen was to star in for the CW, was not picked up because it was too similar to Gossip Girl. Er, OK. [Limelife]
● K2 Productions, which directs the Miss California USA pageant, is suing Carrie Prejean to get their breast implants back -- or at least the $5,200 they paid for them. [E!]

Quelle horreur! Here we are, stepping out into the first day of September, yet still dealing with the cultural backwash from August (which is actually residual from the seven months preceding). Clearly it's time to sneer our lips, scrunch our noses, and start pointing fingers. If you've got tar and feathers, or maybe a small family of bees and some honey, now's the time to arm yourself. This year has given us too many high-profile personalities who have turned their dumb-assery into a marketable skill. But some have been more insidious than others. They've pushed our collective sympathy to the brink, while proving to be nothing more than cultural tumors lodged on our brain, forcing at least a square millimeter of gray matter to hold the simple syllables of their names. And so as fall sets in, it's alright to vigilantly tear down these celebrity gossip news spammers.

Recently, none other than pop impresario Beyoncé invited me over to her manse and hosted an invitation-only soft-topics panel [note: did not actually happen], wherein she explained the nuances of being a diva, most specifically noting how "Diva is a female version of a hustler." When I raised my hand and asked, "What do you hustle? Strange-looking sunglasses and freakum dresses?" she cracked her whip and shrieked, "Quiet down, child." Well, then. But through the course of this seemingly endless week, Beyoncé and her ilk did a number of things that divas tend to do.

It's like that one scene from Jawbreaker where everyone decides they all really hate Rose McGowan despite fawning over her for the better part of their high school careers and so they heckle her until she runs out of the high school dance hysterically sobbing. Defeated. Shamed. Stripped of all dignity. At least this is how we imagine Carrie Prejean must feel -- even with lawyers currently championing her case -- having had the Miss California sash ruthlessly torn from her frame only weeks after getting Donald Trump went public with his endorsement. So who to now focus unwarranted ire and beady eyes on, while sinisterly drumming our fingertips together and hissing, "Excellent"? One-time Miss Oregon Teen USA 2002 Tami Farrell, obvies. Obligatory Prejean-Farrell compare and contrast after the break.

It was Beauty & the Beast as Donald Trump lowered his gavel today and let justice (for some, not all) ring across this land -- a land that has long since lost interest in swine flu, but maintained interest in the prospects of Carrie Prejean's state-endorsed breasts. Grunted Trump, "Carrie will remain Miss California. She will do a fantastic job." He also went onto growl about her thoughts on gay marriage, by saying, "She gave an answer form her heart and that has to be commended." And then, snarling just a little bit, Trump rendered his verdict on the prospect of Prejean's topless assets. He noted, "We are in the 21st century. I talked about relevance. We have determined that the pictures taken are fine."

Carrie Prejean enjoyed a rise in prominence when she was crowned Miss California and pissed off Perez Hilton at the Miss America pageant by saying something like, "I think marriage should be between a feral raccoon and a cactus." Wrong words, Prejean! We all know how Perez feels about feral fauna and water-retaining flora. But fives of tens of mentally unstable fringe Republican radicals then fluttered to Prejean's defense, all saying, "Leave Carrie alone! It's okay if she, and we, think that marriage should only be between a feral raccoon and a cactus!" But then, this happened! So, the gays -- opponents of Prejean's tunnel vision as it were -- had the last cackle.

Happy Friday! And how could it not be without a Carrie Prejean-assisted gay bash closing out the week? Obviously brought to you by the fine Joe and Jolene Plumbers of the National Organization of Marriage. They're the square old folks who not too long ago issued this polite notice about how G-A-Y spells chaos when it comes to the sacred bonds of marriage. And opponents of opposite marriage have so far fought back rather valiantly. But looking to belabor their point and having possibly overshot their production budget in paying out those talented thesps for their first ad, NOM has instead cut-and-pasted bits of Prejean's television appearance into their new effort.