It's fitting that to commemorate the one year anniversary of Sarah Palin's attempt to systematically dismantle the free world, almost son-in-law Levi Johnston is threatening to release secrets he claims would more or less irreparably crater the erstwhile vice presidential candidate's public persona (allegedly to regain custody of son Tripp). In previous eras, we'd have elaborate costume dramas and grisly bloodshed to glamorize heated custody rows like this. But we're living in a post-Gosselin America where trash is royalty. So we can't expect malevolent queens to rule with ermine tippets draping from their elbows, let alone administer torture with a snap of their fingers. Heck, these days, even a command of the English language is hardly a necessity. However, a list of what sort of dirt -- reasonable to outlandish -- the Playgirl prince may have on the unhinged queen mother of Wasilla follows after the break.

Maybe the presence of Dementors in Harry Potter hit too close to home with that last dude before Obama who would sometimes shamble into the Oval Office to shuffle Uno cards or play Text Twist. Like gazing into a mirror. Or maybe it was how chillingly cruel, yet spot-on, their depiction of the villainous Dolores Umbridge was -- almost like an intelligible, flesh-and-blood version of Sarah Palin. How dare they hit at out at a lipstick-donning pit bull so defiantly! But in any event, it seems the Bush administration decided against handing Rowling any medals for the fact that she got people the world over to re-embrace the lost art of scanning words on a page and learning new ways of looking at the world.

Yesterday, all our troubles seemed so far away. Well, somewhere within 120,726 square-mile surface area of Poland, really. We pontificated on whether Roman Polanski deserved whatever was coming to him by way of duplicitous Polish benefactors. And today, we raise the stakes just enough to ask what sins humanity is currently atoning for that Sarah Palin's 400-page tome will be scanned by eyeballs. In the form of Going Rogue, a ghost-written tell-all about Palin's hard-boiled drive to achieve her own American Dream. Six out of ten birthers will love Going Rogue and subsequently find it to be a thrilling companion piece to Ann Coulter's Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America. As for the other four. Well, they just can't read. Woe!

Hold my hand and take a walk back through time with me, won't you? Oh, I'm not asking you to go back to a prehistoric era when Gloria Vanderbilt jeans were all the rage and it was fashionable to still like the Dixie Chicks because of their hippie-dippie Bush-bashing politics. No, we're going back to the immediate past, when Sarah Palin was riding the crest of her fame arc; when we were musing on her prospects as a poetess as evinced by her folksy array of "you betchas" and "gollys". Yes! Those were splendid times. And then months later, Palin resigned. We all felt the earth shake the devil's hand. Because we are all certain a 2012 presidential bid is par for the course. And with an army of birthers at Palin's beck and call, like Death Eaters obsequiously trailing behind Lord Voldemort, this will not end prettily.

Love for God anyways -- something less than love for everyone else. Today, the world rakes you over hot coals while cackling wildly as it gives the dimmest American her own op-ed piece in The Washington Post. It's the universe's biggest bird-flip to those who make some vague attempt at being decent, intelligent, compassionate, hard-working people. The fallen Alaskan governor takes some time out of her day of not-parenting to vault a few harpoons at the President's energy plan. Poignantly titled "The 'Cap And Tax' Dead End," Sarah Palin posits, "Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class, let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will be: I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage." Fun fact! Would speaking this way of that dude who played with Slinkies in the White House have gotten past naysayers into a nightmare of terror and doom in the past? Who cares, because she has a point!

● After a week of heated debate, David Letterman apologized on Monday night’s Late Show for an allegedly distasteful joke regarding Sarah Palin’s daughters. [People]
● Kristen Stewart is really getting into her latest role as Joan Jett in the film The Runaways; she’s currently donning Jett’s jet-black punk mullet and was seen carpooling with her to the film's set. [CelebrityGossip]
● Jessica Alba will not face criminal charges for her guerilla-style shark graffiti that she plastered over a United Way billboard in Oklahoma City. [Yahoo]

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.

● The Paris Hilton hotel is open for business again as the socialite has dumped boyfriend Doug Reinhardt; too bad he wasn’t made aware of that fact before it went to press. [E!]
● David Letterman is in hot water after making "cruel and unusual" jokes about Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol, cracking that she was “knocked up” by Yankees player Alex Rodriguez during a game. [FoxNews]
● Megan Fox is said to be picking up where Sarah Michelle Gellar left off in the role of Buffy for the upcoming Joss Whedon-less Buffy the Vampire Slayer film adaptation. [IGN]

● Gwyneth Paltrow asked Two Lovers director James Gray to check out her boobs and OK them for a nude scene, as the mother of two didn’t think they were up to par. He approved. [DListed]
● Penélope Cruz is currently in Cannes, but she missed out on promoting her upcoming musical Nine when she came down with food poisoning. [People]
● Fergie joins the ranks of Lilo, Lady Gaga, and Megan Fox after admitting she too has had a lesbian affair. [thesun.co.uk]

Not too long ago, Sara Barron e-mailed me and proclaimed, "I am the twat waffle victim." I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hover over the "spam" button for a few moments, thinking it some stray profession of love from a stalker (ugh, aren’t they always?). But then I chanced upon People Are Unappealing, a slim volume of nonfiction by Barron, about ugly mean people. Suddenly, her outburst made a world of sense. In many ways, People is very much the portrait of New York City, and it paints Barron to be a pleasant people person who has withstood many an unpleasant encounter.