Let’s all take a much-needed break from scary politics to remember how beautiful and perfect Natalie Portman is. Here’s the beautiful and perfect Natalie receiving some manner of award at the Venice Film Festival. You’re so pretty and talented, Natalie. I wish I were you.

Just watch.

Then comment.

Real or fake?????

There are very few things that can get me genuinely interested in anything political. In fact, I had previously believed that there was nothing that could get me genuinely interested in anything political. This year, however, has proven me wrong. There are two things, at last count, that can get me genuinely interested in politics: hookers and teen pregnancies.

Since the Eliot Spitzer scandal has died down, I am now thoroughly obsessed with Sarah Palin’s 16-year-old daughter, Bristol, and the child it is becoming increasingly clear she gave birth to, and that her mother claimed as her own to protect her political career. It doesn’t do a lot of good to champion an abstinence-before-marriage platform when your own unwed teen’s knocked up. (But, you know, that’s what fucking happens when we refuse to give our teenagers useful information about and support for their sexuality, but whatever, I’ll back off that rant for now. I have a feeling there will be plenty of time for it later.)

This link has a ton of photos of Sarah Palin just a month or two before she “gave birth” — she doesn’t look preggers at all. They also offer tons of other evidence to support their point — including the fact that, after going into labor, Sarah traveled for hours (on an airplane!) to “give birth” in a remote hospital in her home town, even though the baby was a month premature. Additionally, at the same time as Governor Palin’s “pregnancy,” her 16-year-old daughter, Sarah, was out of school for over five months due to “mono.”

Perhaps most damning is this photo of Bristol taken in late 2007. The baby was born in April 2008. Stomach fat or growing baby?

What do you guys think????

Geez, ya know, when I was a little kid and my dad wanted to spend some quality time with me, he’d, like, toss me into the car and let me eat chicken wings at Hooters while he watched the game with his buddies.

Brad Pitt?*

Takes his sons to the Venice Film Festival.

It’s clear that I was not loved as a child.

* Question: Should we start calling him Brad Jolie-Pitt? I think yes.

Before she was John McCain’s out-of-the-blue VP pick, Sarah Palin (nee Heath) was a sportscaster in Alaska. This clip is a riot. You know you’ve really made it when you’re reporting on the Iditarod. God, did anyone else have to read that book in, like, third grade about the little boy who had this amazing dog and they ran the Iditarod and then the dog died like ten feet from the finish line and the big scary Indian picked up the dog and carried it across the finish line? Okay I don’t even remember the name of the book but my eyes are welling up with tears just thinking about it. And sorry to ruin the ending if you’re a third-grader reading this. Actually, if you’re a third-grader reading this, go get your mom and tell her I said she ought to pay closer attention to what you’re doing on the Internet. You know what? Don’t bother. She’s probably too busy drafting an angry letter to her Congressman about how Miley Cyrus isn’t doing an acceptable job of raising you.

What was I talking about?

Oh, right. Sarah Palin.

Now people are murmuring that her youngest child is not actually hers, but rather a kiddo her daughter popped out — out of wedlock, of course. Talk amongst yourselves.

Thanks Chelsea!

“It’s news to me. He didn’t seem any more or less horny than anyone I worked with.”

David Duchovny’s writer pal Matt Dearborn, commenting about the actor’s recent decision to check into sex addiction rehab.

Heh, you know this whole checking-into-sex-rehab thing is just Tea Leoni’s punishment for finding out he’d cheated on her at some point. And it’s actually quite brilliant. When he’s groveling like “Please, baby, let me make it up to you. What can I do? Just tell me, baby? I’ll do anything,” Tea thinks about it and is like, “Jesus, what’s a fair punishment for this. Well, I could just go ahead and cheat on you, and that would technically make us even, but that’s just going to put a further strain on our relationship. I could chop off your nuts, but, in the long run, that’s not doing me any favors, either. What would be a suitable punishment? Hm … Oooh! I’VE GOT IT!”

And that is how David Duchovny ended up having his lawyer issue a formal statement indicating that he’d checked into rehab for sex addiction.

Speaking of which, does anyone else remember that Bree Sharp song, “David Duchovny (Why Won’t You Love Me?)”

I’ve included the YouTube vid here in case you haven’t. Because everyone should hear this song.

I remember, after that song came out, some interviewer asked him what he thought about it all. And he said he’d written a rebuttal track called “Tea Leoni Why Won’t You Blow Me,” so it was all good. Ha.

OMG you guys have to read this article in the New York Times interviewing a bunch of the old 90210 cast and crew about their experiences with the show. The whole interview’s phenomenal, but I’m including some of my faves here:

DARREN STAR It was the first TV show I had done, so every casting session was a big deal for me. I specifically remember Jennie Garth. She just lit up the room when she came in and read. Shannen [Doherty] was terrific and also came with, of all of the actors, a little bit of a résumé.

We weren’t the only high school show being made that year, and we kept thinking we were losing all the quote good actors to the other high school shows.

JENNIE GARTH I heard a rumor that Aaron Spelling was going to be doing a show, and I thought, “Oh my God, if I could work with Aaron Spelling, that would be the best thing ever.” I went in and met with Aaron and read in his giant office with the shaggy carpet, and there were cigarettes sitting out on the table for anyone that wanted them. I was very impressed by that. I was like: “Wow, you can smoke in here? That’s crazy.”

I remember I was walking away from the building, and he opened the window and said something like, “Good job, kid!”

For me I was like: “Are you sure? Because I’m nobody.”

SHANNEN DOHERTY My audition was horrible. I actually remember walking out and saying: “I lost that job. I blew it.” And the casting director came out and sort of winked at me and said, “I wouldn’t count yourself out yet, kiddo.” And I was like, “O.K., whatever.”

JASON PRIESTLEY I remember meeting Aaron for the first time. He was walking across the four-inch-deep shag carpeting in his office with a cocktail in his hand. And the second that happened, there were no more nerves for me. I thought: “Well, you know, Aaron’s already drinking. I’m cool. I got this.”

Everybody had been cast except for Brandon. I read for Aaron on Thursday. I got the job Friday afternoon, and on Monday we started production.

CHARLES ROSIN One thing I should also mention is that Mr. Spelling had no shows on the air at the time. Mr. Spelling’s deal with ABC had ended, and there was kind of a nasty glee in this town that Aaron was not the dominant producer anymore.

GARTH I can remember my first story line where I got to actually act: the slumber party scene where I had to tell a deep, dark secret to all my girlfriends. And I had to describe a situation where my character had been raped. I hadn’t had any formal acting training or anything, I was just working off my instincts, and I tapped into something for me that was like, “Oh, my God, maybe I am an actress. Maybe I can do this.”

GARTH I started to develop whatever it is when you won’t leave the house. That kind of phobia. I just started to really get a little freaked out by it all. I felt like everyone was always looking at me. I was alone in an environment where I didn’t know how to swim. And I wasn’t able to do it on my own. Subsequently my parents moved back to be with me here. I’m a family girl, and I need my family with to keep me grounded.

GARTH There were times when it was worse than high school. The environment there was like: Are you kidding me? There was a lot of tension and unnecessary drama on the set, a certain amount of competition, and a certain — probably — anger about different salaries as the years progressed. People would find out how much someone was making, and then they’d be angry and want that, or if you got days off in your contract, they’d want that. Nobody was brave enough to step in and set us straight, and have a serious talk with us about it. There was a lot of tension directed from one specific person, and that one specific person had to reap the consequences from that.

DOHERTY Nobody likes to read bad things written about themselves, and a vast majority of them were exaggerated or completely false. But to be completely honest, I don’t even think about that anymore. At some point you have to move on.

Does everybody get along at work 100 percent of the time? Nobody ever does. You may have your arguments here or there, and ultimately you make up and you move on and you’re fine. Or you don’t. But nobody gets along with everybody in this world. It’s absolutely impossible.

GARTH The lesbian stalker was really ridiculous for me. And then the one where I got burned in the fire. I had to wear burn makeup on my neck and my face, and then it just magically went away one day. No scars whatsoever. I healed.

ROSIN To do “Beverly Hills 90210” required me to work six and a half days a week, 50 weeks a year, 12 to 16 hours a day. I didn’t have a big staff, I didn’t have that much support. I had three young children, and I’m smoking cigarettes and sneaking around because I’m not supposed to do that anymore, and I’m out there saying, “This show is going to kill me.” I left in May 1995, and by July 4th weekend, at 43 years old, one of my arteries shut down. The show did its best to try to kill me.

PRIESTLEY I produced the show in Seasons 6 and 7 and executive-produced in Seasons 8 and 9. I didn’t want the show to become an over-the-top nighttime drama where Steve Sanders is in a coma, and all of a sudden his twin brother shows up.

Aaron was the best there ever was. He used to say: “Fun, sex and bonding. That’s all I care about. That’s all a show’s got to be.” I left the show to do a play in London, and I called Aaron. He said: “Yeah, just go. The show’ll be fine. I’ll take care of everything.” I miss him all the time.

I love how Shannen Doherty compares her constant diva behavior to two construction workers having an argument. Too funny.

Famke Janssen schleps two huge packages while walking her dog on the streets of Manhattan.

When I lived (briefly) in NYC, the UPS Store was about three blocks from my apartment. And, even still, whenever I had to get a large package there, I would seriously contemplate calling a cab before remembering that I lived on a tight budget and dragging the damn thing down there myself. And don’t even get me started on the laundromat, which was next door to the UPS Store. Don’t tell my roommates, but there was more than one time that I’d spill our damn laundry cart while trying to push it up the uneven, cobblestone sidewalks that make Park Slope so fucking adorable. And this one time, I fell down along with the cart, with the laundry and the cart piled on top of me, and this 10-year-old girl who was walking behind me started picking up my underwear and putting it back in the cart and I was like, “Uh, thanks, but I can do that.”

Not. At all. Mortifying.

If I were a movie star, I would totally be paying someone else to do this shit for me.