[Michelle Obama walks by a HILARIOUS statue in Rome today; image via Getty]

LeVar Burton called out Corey Feldman at Michael Jackson's memorial service; the New York Times newsroom filled with Jackson grief and a parody tribute was created on the fly. The Twitterati's fragile emotions were right near the surface today.

[Italian "Vogue" editor Anna Piaggi arrives at Paris Haute Couture Fashion Week for the Christian Lacroix show; image via Getty. Incidentally, I also liked this image today, from Piaggi's home country.]

Sure, the Department of Defense designed it to be military-grade rugged, but no one really knew if the internet could handle a memorial service webcast of a pop megastar. Oh, it was brutal. From a network engineering perspective.

Well, that was both horrifying and depressing. The Michael Jackson Public Memorial has lurched to a close and, to paraphrase a commenter, we feel like we've been underwater for hours. Messy and strange, let's remember the remembrance.

The Way We Live Now: Under the thumb of the papacy. The Pope is calling for some super-Illuminati to rule the world economy. No need, dude; we had one already, called Ikea. And it's laying people off.

Michael Jackson died. And today is the huge, public memorial clusterfuck. On this post we'll be sharing, in the comments, our reactions to the event as it unfolds on every television network ever. Join us!

Remember that dizzying, quarter-mile-high glass observation deck that opened on the 103rd story of Chicago's Sears Tower recently? Well, the New York Times now has an interesting article about the science of making the damn thing work without killing anyone.

Michael Jackson's memorial service happens in LA today. Is it a media circus out there? Check out the elephants! Eh? Seriously, it sounds like the media equivalent of the Superdome after Katrina. A brief rundown of the clusterfuckery:

Poor Lydia Hearst. The deft financial analyst was to host a big Social Life magazine 4th of July party in the Hamptons over the weekend, 'cause she's on the cover this month. But alas she couldn't make it. Twas gallstones!

We have a tie! For now. The actuals will come out soon and one film will beat the other. But now! Ambivalence or equality or peace or something. How perfect, as we stand in the smoky ashes of Freedom's birthday.

The New York Post runs some tidbits today from the new book Bobby and Jackie: A Love Story, which purportedly reveals some steamy, sad secrets of a long-hidden affair between Jackie Kennedy and her brother-in-law, Robert Kennedy.

Here is the German Economy Minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, reading a fairy tale about the exchange rate to some children at the behest of "the German Center for Fairy Tale Culture." Ok, Germany! Can you imagine if Geithner did this?

[That's light coming from within Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch early this morning, near Los Olivos, CA; image via Getty]

US Marshals came to evict Ruth Madoff from her fancy apartment today but guess what, she has moved to an undisclosed location. She's gone Cheney! If she's following our advice she's already in Botswana, shoveling poop. [NYP. Pic: Getty]

[Two visitors stand, looking like something out of a Chris Van Allsburg book, in the new Ledge observation deck, which juts out of the 103rd story of Chicago's Sears Tower. That's 1,353 feet up. Image via Getty]

As seen in this photo, taken yesterday, crowds have gathered outside Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, hoping to glimpse his body. Though, word just came down that the public memorial service won't be held at the amusement park of horrors. Getty

So Public Enemies, writer/director Michael Mann's slick new crime drama, is getting pretty decent reviews, but reading them doesn't exactly make us excited to see the damn thing. Mann is just so uneven—a technical wizard who ignores everything else.

Oh dear, whispers Page Six this morning. Kerry Washington—an up-and-coming actress who sure is taking a while to get up-and-over-here—is moving to New York to star in a play. And she can only pay $3,000 a month!

A fourteen-year-old French girl is the only survivor rescued from yesterday's Yemeni plane crash. (Initial reports had said she was 5.) She held on to floating wreckage for thirteen hours in the Indian Ocean before being rescued.