While President Obama continues to ponder America's strategy in Afghanistan, The New Yorker's Steve Coll wonders what would happen if the U.S. fails to prevent a Taliban revolution. Not only, he suggests, would such a catastrophe bring the Afghan state agony, but he says it would jeopardize America's efforts to safeguard Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and avert al Qaeda attacks. The Taliban has announced its goals to restore Afghanistan to the 1990s Islamic emirate of Afghanistan, which could result in civil war between Tajiks and Pashtuns and the death of tens of thousands of Afghanis.

Sarah Palin kicked off her book-tour blitz Monday on The Oprah Winfrey Show, telling the talk-show hostess that a 2012 bid for president is "not on my radar screen right now." Palin continued "going rogue" with her comments, denying she was somehow to blame for the GOP's failed presidential race, insisting she didn't need a title to feel important, and saying that the McCain campaign should have handled her daughter's pregnancy better. The former governor continued her complaints with Katie Couric, who she calls "the perky one... with the microphone." Palin says she didn't prepare much for her interview with Couric because "it was supposed to be a light-hearted thing," and felt slighted by the anchorwoman's line of questioning about her reading habits. Levi Johnston was off-limits for most of the conversation, but Palin managed to get in one jab, labeling his Playgirl pictorial "porn."

Looks like there’s no love lost between Lou Dobbs and CNN. Dobbs gave his first post-CNN interview on Monday night to Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, where the cantankerous newsman described himself as “recently emancipated” and toyed with the idea of running for office in New Jersey. O’Reilly lobbed the biggest bombs during the segment, and Dobbs gamely agreed to characterizations of being “demonized by the left.” CNN dropped him, he says, because he didn’t fit in with the Obama era: “I discern more of a difference between then, which was under the Bush administration whom I was criticizing, and now, when it is the Obama administration and an entirely different tone was taken,” Dobbs said. The pair ended the segment with a promise to keep Dobbs around as a “semi-regular guest” on O’Reilly’s show.

Who knew you could do this? Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman "unconceded" in New York's closely watched special election, where the Republican candidate dropped out and threw her endorsement to Democrat Bill Owens, who was declared the winner and has already been sworn in. Hoffman—who won support from far-right leaders like Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh—nonetheless demanded recanvassing and a careful absentee ballot count. His original trail of 5,335 votes has shrunk to 3,026, prompting him to "unconcede" on Glenn Beck's radio show on Monday afternoon.

The nation’s top banker is cracking down on the banks: The Federal Reserve chairman argued on Monday for giving regulators the power to shrink banks that threaten the markets. “The supervisors should be allowed by law to insist that the company divest itself or shrink its activities,” Bernanke said. Congress is considering legislation that would give the government the power to break up banks that are considered too big to fail.

Maybe he didn't like Sarah Palin calling him a "porn" star? Bristol Palin baby daddy Levi Johnston skipped his much-clamored-about full frontal for Playgirl, Gawker reports, though he posed in the buff and "there may be glimpses," just no "full on frontal nudity," according to Playgirl spokesman Daniel Nardicio. Initial reports portrayed the "fearless" Johnston as willing to go the full monty, but Levi's keeping it in his pants (or behind strategically positioned props) for now.

Did John Edwards know his staffers seek quid pro quos from both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton near the end of his presidential campaign? Obama adviser David Plouffe isn't sure, but in his campaign memoir, The Audacity to Win, Plouffe says Edwards' team offered to endorse Obama before the critical South Carolina primary—if Obama promised to make Edwards his vice-presidential nominee. According to Plouffe, "Obama's answer was quick and firm: He could cut no deals." Edwards' unnamed staffer allegedly hinted that the candidate might offer an endorsement to Hillary instead, with the same terms. Apparently she didn't bite, either: Edwards eventually endorsed Obama.

Never, since the age of Julius Caesar's gladiatorial thumbs, has a finger made such a difference. Bud Adams, owner of football team the Tennessee Titans, has been ordered to pay a quarter of a million dollars for waving his middle fingers at a game. Adams displayed his middle fingers—first on one hand, then the other, then both in unison—at a game against the Buffalo Bills last weekend. The Titans won the day 41-17, but Adams lost out for "conduct detrimental to the league." For his unsporting behavior, Adams apologized "to the Bills, their fans, our fans, and the NFL." He has agreed to pay his fine.

Women can now delay their dreaded mammography appointment even later since new guidelines released Monday advise regular screenings at age 50, not 40 as previously believed. The controversial recommendation from the United States Preventive Services Task Force, an influential group that guides doctors, insurance companies, and policymakers, aims to reduce the dangerous effect of over-screening. They are also suggesting women between 50 and 74 have mammograms every two years as opposed to every year and that doctors should no longer instruct women to examine their breasts regularly. These new guidelines are not, however, intended for those at an increased risk for breast cancer due to genetic predisposition. While the task force’s reports conflict with the advice of the American Cancer Society and the American College of Radiology, which stick by the original advice, the National Breast Cancer Coalition, Breast Cancer Action, and the National Women’s Health Network all backed them.

Has President Obama set China on the path toward LOL cats, pornography, and, well, Obama? The American president endorsed an uncensored Internet in a meeting with Chinese students in Shanghai on Monday, lauding the tool that helped launch him to the White House. "I think that the more freely information flows, the stronger the society becomes, because then citizens of countries around the world can hold their own governments accountable," Obama said. "They can begin to think for themselves." Not surprisingly, Obama’s words were broadcast within China only on local Shanghai TV and two Internet broadcasts that the Associated Press says were “choppy and hard to hear.”

Does Sarah Palin read The Daily Beast? “I hear [Levi Johnston] goes by the name Ricky Hollywood now,” Palin tells Oprah Winfrey in her interview on Monday—a nickname that Johnston mentioned when he went shopping with The Daily Beast’s Renata Espinosa. Then, despite earlier reports that Palin played nice during the interview, she goes on then to attack Johnston, the father of her grandchild. “We don't want to mess up this gig he's got going… Kind of this aspiring, aspiring porn—the things that he's doing. It's kind of heartbreaking." When Oprah asks if “porn” is a reference to Johnston’s Playgirl shoot, Palin says, “I call that porn, yes. So it’s a bit heartbreaking to see the road that he’s on right now.”

It must feel good to be this unwanted: Lou Dobbs’ former employer, CNN, paid him an $8 million severance package for giving up his show. “They wanted him out,” a source tells the New York Post. Dobbs had a year and a half left on his $12 million contract. He will give his first post-CNN interview to Bill O’Reilly on Fox News on Monday night.

Has the gay community lost a vital voice? Window Media LLC, the nation's largest publisher of gay and lesbian newspapers including The Washington Blade, closed its doors Monday and changed its locks, leaving employees confused. "From my understanding, there was just no more money to keep these companies running," Laura Douglas-Brown, editor of Southern Voice newspaper in Atlanta, told the Associated Press as she sat with her fellow former employees outside their locked office. Though Douglas-Brown says they were aware of the company's financial trouble and told they would be sold, she said being shut down "was a complete shock." Window Media's money issues not only stem from the industry-wide decrease in advertising sales, but the mainstream media's increasing coverage of gay and lesbian issues—their niche was simply no longer compartmentalized. "This was the gay community writing about itself, and that's a voice we should never lose," said Michael Musto, an openly gay columnist at the Village Voice, which is not owned by Window Media.

The New Oxford American Dictionary has declared “unfriend,” meaning “to remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social-networking site such as Facebook,” as the word of the year. “It has both currency and potential longevity,” says Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer for Oxford’s U.S. dictionary program. “Unfriend has real lex-appeal.” The word is unique because it assumes a verb sense of “friend” that has not been used since the 17th century.

Former Miss California Carrie Prejean's four-day-long youthful misadventure, captured on tape by her then-boyfriend, is now in the possession of porn distributor Vivid Entertainment, which has offered her "millions of dollars" for the rights to distribute the sex tape. Vivid would release the tapes under its "Vivid-Celeb" imprint, which offers sex tapes by such B-listers as Kim Kardashian, Shauna Sand, and former Miss USA Kelli McCarty. Prejean called the video, which she says she made while she was underage, the "worst mistake of my life," while her rep said they would not take the proposal, "at any price." Of course, even if Prejean did want the deal, she'd have to go through her agent, who also happens to be her mother.

Tween girls should feel free to preemptively start screaming. Stephenie Meyer told Oprah's people that she might consider writing a fifth book in the Twilight series. Oprah Winfrey scored the only interview with Meyer to occur before the release of the film version of New Moon, the second in the four-book series about teen vampires with penetrating gazes. After the interview, Oprah's people pressed Meyer backstage about whether she'd consider writing a fifth installment. Meyer said: "I can't answer it. The way I write, it's what makes me happy. Like, I can't write when people are looking over my shoulder." She added, "I am a little burned out on vampires right now. I think I need a little break. I might go spend some time with my aliens... I may come back to [ Twilight]. I did envision a longer series. But I wrapped Breaking Dawn in a way that I felt satisfied with, so if that moment didn't come, I'd be OK."

The masked serial killers plaguing Woodsboro California just won't die. Courteney Cox and husband David Arquette, who met on the set of Scream in 1996, will be reprising their roles as overzealous reporter Gale Weathers and bumbling sheriff Dwight "Dewey" Riley in Scream 4, while Neve Campbell will also return to reprise her role as heroine Sidney Prescott. As Cox put it, "There are really only a few of us that survived." Kevin Williamson, who wrote the first two movies, is slated to write the fourth installment, but dismissed rumors that Arquette and Cox's characters would be killed off at the beginning of the film.

Janet Jackson has been notably silent since her brother's death five months ago but now the fingers are flying. In an exclusive ABC interview that will air on Wednesday, Jackson admits that she believes Dr. Conrad Murray, Michael's personal physician, is responsible for her brother's death. "He was the one that was administering," she told ABC. "I think he is responsible." (Murray has admitted giving Jackson the anesthetic propofol, but denies that he's the reason he died.) Recounting the day of Michael's death, Jackson says her assistant called her the morning of June 25 and told her that Michael had been taken to the hospital. Jackson contacted La Toya and other family members but Michael was dead within hours. "It just didn't ring true to me. It felt like a dream," she said. "It's still so difficult for me to believe."

Between the time General Motors left bankruptcy protection in July and the end of September, it lost a mere $1.2 billion--an improvement over previous quarters that suggests the auto giant is turning around. Even stranger is that the auto maker made a profit during the first nine days of the third quarter, aided by the Cash for Clunkers program. Though the company admits that its third-quarter numbers mean little because it didn't comply with U.S. accounting standards—and only cover the quarter after July 10, which is when GM left bankruptcy protection—there is another upside: In December, GM also plans to start payments on its $6.7 billion loan from the federal government, beginning with a $1.2 billion payment.

American taxpayers may be unable to recoup their bailout money from 46 companies that had missed dividend payments to the government by the end of September. Analysts expect that many bailed-out firms will fail or struggle to repay the government in the coming months. CIT Group is under bankruptcy protection after receiving $2.3 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. United Commercial Bank of San Francisco, which at the beginning of the month became the first to collapse under TARP, cost taxpayers $299 million. Of the TARP program, former Assistant Treasury Secretary Phillip Swagel said that "the taxpayers certainly have gotten a very strong return on many of those investments, but it's inevitable that when you invest in hundreds of institutions, some of them are going to go bad."

When it comes to Gitmo, President Obama is not a NIMBY-type: Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn and Senator Dick Durbin have embraced relocating detainees to a maximum-security prison 150 miles west of Chicago. State Republicans, however, are ginning up opposition to using the Thomson Correctional Facility for this purpose. U.S. officials were set to tour the prison on Monday.

New York Governor David Paterson, once a lieutenant governor himself, can’t like this news: The New York Times reports that New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is quietly discussing with aides who would best be a running mate, should he decide to run for governor. Apparently, one name coming up is state comptroller Bill Thompson, who recently gave Mayor Bloomberg an unexpected close call in his reelection campaign. The thought is that by including Thompson on the ticket, Cuomo could help to offset any resentment caused by offing Paterson, New York’s first black governor.

Sarah Palin may bless the U.S.A., but not the AP as the buzz continues to ring regarding her coming book Going Rogue. With the impending Tuesday release, the former Alaska governor has taken to her Facebook page to address last week’s Associated Press piece fact-checking her memoir in a note titled “Really? Still Making Things Up?” Palin attacks the AP's “erroneous” report and claims the organization is repeating similar assertions they “spewed” both during and after the 2008 presidential election. “We’ve heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, ‘fact checking’ research,” she wrote, criticizing the AP for “tearing up” Going Rougue instead of fact checking world events—an act that she deemed “amazing.” In an effort to set the record straight, Palin suggested her Facebook page viewers instead check out a Conservatives4Palin post, which she says has “some nice fact checking included.”

Real men drink their water straight from the faucet, perhaps? Scientists at the University of Rochester say that chemicals in plastic, called phthalates, have the ability to disrupt hormones and alter brain chemistry, causing boys to be less likely to play in a masculine way. The study found that boys exposed to two types of phthalates in the womb—DEHP and DBP—were less likely to play with cars, trains, and guns and were less likely to roughhouse. Certain phthalates, which are found in a wide variety of household items, including plastic furniture and packaging, are known to mimic estrogen, but for the first time, the study suggests that some phthalates also block testosterone.

New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick isn’t used to being second-guessed, but this one will hang over his head for awhile: Belichick went for 4th-and-2 against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday night, even though his team was on its own 28 yard line and up by six with two minutes remaining in the game. The Colts, who had already scored twice in the fourth quarter, scored against behind quarterback Peyton Manning, completing a 17-point fourth-quarter rally. The Colts remain undefeated on the year.

Sure, he's been knighted by the Queen of England, and has enough Grammys to use "as doorstops" as The Washington Post put it, but now Paul McCartney has another honor to add to the pile. On Monday, the Library of Congress is to announce that Sir Paul is the third recipient of the 2010 Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, thanks to his "indelible and transformative effect on popular song and music of several different genres." The award commemorates songwriter brothers George and Ira Gershwin, whose manuscripts are curated by the Library of Congress. McCartney is the third songwriter to win the prize, after Paul Simon's win in 2007 and Stevie Wonder's win in 2009. After winning, Simon donated the original manuscript of "Graceland" to the library, while Stevie Wonder was commissioned to write "Sketches of a Life," although there is no word yet on what McCartney might do.

Perhaps Going Rogue would be better placed on bookshelves near novels like Going Native and Going After Cacciato? McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt told Politico that the book is “all fiction” and complained, “why is the bald guy always the villain?” In the book, Palin calls Schmidt “grim-faced” and “cool” and pokes fun at his “rotund physique” and smoking habit. McCain strategist John Weaver also attacks the book, telling Politico it’s “petty and pathetic” and “revisionist and self-serving.”

Drug makers may have promised $8 billion in savings to legislators writing health-care reform, but here’s what they didn’t tell us: In the past year, they’ve raised prices by $10 billion. The 9-percent increase in cost for brand-name prescription drugs is the highest rate of inflation since 1992. The Consumer Price Index, meanwhile, fell 1.3 percent in the last year. Critics charge that the companies are trying to establish a higher price base before Congress’s cost-saving measures kick in.