• Keeping up appearances: Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston have a definitely-not-staged romantic getaway in a British hotel room. The Sun still thinks they're dating, though they haven't been together in months. Who could have predicted such a publicity stunt? Oh yeah.
• Drop it like it's hot: Buckingham's pearl, Prince William, received a drubbing from military officials after he misplaced his machine gun. That's considerably less damaging than losing one's mind and, say, dressing up as Hitler.
• Superman's big, new package: Waxen-faced film director Bryan Singer is being brought along again to perform CPR on Clark Kent's failing franchise. Sure it has nothing to do with Brandon Routh's spandex-enhanced manpower, and everything to do with the money.
• Bush stays the rhetorical course: President George says that if the Democrats take the midterm votes, then "terrorists will win." Also helping the terrorists' victory: Drug users.
• Rock-n-Roll honors: Cleveland's prized art institution, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has announced its 2007 nominees. Potential inductees include Mario Batali scooter pals R.E.M., the legendary Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and Van-fucking-Halen (note: NOT Van Hagar). Sadly, Diamond David Lee Roth was working a double at Chili's and couldn't be reached for comment.
• Filling up calendars on an empty stomach: The New York Times gets the scoop on this newfangled Calorie Restriction Diet. Not credited: New York magazine, which put the trend on its cover last week. Surely running a story someone else broke much earlier is an oversight.
• Trans-Europe distress: A new controversy has erupted in Italy, the first country to elect a porn star to parliament. Debate is raging over which bathroom should be used by transgendered member Vladimir Luxuria, who lives as a woman but has not undergone gender reassignment surgery. Centrists (among whom Luxuria surely counts herself) suggest building a unisex W.C. for her. Luxuria prefers the ladies room, but some female staff members say they're traumatized by seeing her in there and consider it "... violence. Sexual violence." Luxuria's response: "I could not have imagined so much screaming for something like this.... Evidently, you're born a woman, but you become a lady."
• Witch's due: Meet Laurie Cabot, a real live witch in Salem, Massachusetts, who in addition to preparing for her "busiest season," is speaking out on civil rights for witches. Apparently the depiction of witches as old hags isn't merely a Halloween cliché, it's a violation of real witches' rights.
• Shut 'em down: In a titanic, litigious, worldwide effort, Microsoft is initiating 55 lawsuits against alleged counterfeiters of its software—the biggest pirate-busting mission by the company to date. Plus, it's a lot more socially responsible than what Jay-Z did to Lance Rivera when he thought Rivera was bootlegging him back in 2001.