Not content to let enemies of the health care bill corner the market on threatening the death of public officials, teachers in the Bergen County chapter of the New Jersey Education Association sent an e-mail around to members making jokes about the death of state governor Chris Christie. NorthJersey.com is reporting that the letter jokingly asked members to pray that God knows that Christie is the writer’s favorite governor…just like the late Patrick Swayze is their favorite actor.

The visual tribute to Hollywood’s fallen is one of a very few nonnegotiable Oscar rituals. This year’s montage was noteworthy for a few reasons. In a wise move, the Academy retained James Taylor, the most plangent pop-musician in recorded history, to accompany it. Rather less wisely, the Academy opted to forgo observing the deaths of Farrah Fawcett and Bea Arthur. Even posthumously, for those who set their rest on the screen trade, the threat of the snub persists.

David Letterman’s disclosure last night that he was being extorted for $2 million over the fact he’d had sex with women who’d worked for him made for was some serious must-see TV. Also, hello ratings! But it’s certainly not the first time Letterman has grabbed the morning after spotlight due to shocking behavior. Here’s a look at our Top Ten Most Shocking Late Night Moments.

Well the Summer of Death is officially coming to a close, and it looks like we’ve made it! There is an old saying that celebrity deaths come in groups of three, but this summer they’ve been coming in pairs with one person’s passing being overshadowed by a more famous counterpart.

Who else has famously lost out in celebrity death coverage over the years? We’ve put together a gallery.

I’ve been seeing a lot of Phoebe Cates‘ breasts lately and it took me some time to figure out why. However, as I was tooling around the Internet this morning looking to what was what in the media world and it suddenly became clear, I was not in fact seeing double, HuffPo and The Daily Beast are both featuring strangely similar bikini slide shows on their home page. And by similar we mean practically identical.

The Internet has been crackling with weird, random celebrity death rumors since last Thursday, when Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died. Thursday night rumors of Jeff Goldblum’s demise were greatly exaggerated via Twitter (trending topic!); the actual death on Sunday of TV pitchman Billy Mays seems to have added to the actual celebrity-death trend (begun [...]