Are We Living Through the Final Days of Brangelina?

As the last ones in the world to care about the status of the relationship between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, we feel it is incumbent upon ourselves, as people with far too time on our hands, to pay our respects to the greatest couple the world has ever seen – until another article comes along and refutes the original breaking news scoop of the century.

The News of the World, clearly too busy to waste print on Haiti and the economic crisis, reported on Sunday that Pitt and Jolie have seen a top divorce lawyer. “HOLLYWOOD golden pair Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have seen DIVORCE lawyers and signed a £205 million split deal, we can reveal. The world’s most famous couple legally agreed how to divide their fortune and who gets custody of their six kids,” the story begins.

People, meanwhile, moved their reporters out of Iraq and Afghanistan to send this important bit of news: “While reports are swirling that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are headed for a split, multiple sources close to the family tell PEOPLE that the rumors are false.”

We’re going to side with People on this one. There is still too much left in the Brangelina brand for it to disintegrate so soon.

If Murdoch Leaves Google …

Here are some of the stories we would have missed recently if we did not go directly to the sites owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.

The imminent Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie break-up. According to a story in Sunday’s New York Post, Brangelina are going to split (yet again). A new book claims that Pitt’s marijuana addiction and Jolie’s psychological instability will lead them to part ways sooner than later. The couple are arguing day and not, says Ian Halperin in “Brangelina: The Untold Story of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.”

If you were unable to buy a copy of The Sun or go directly to the paper’s Web site, you would have missed these shots of George Clooney’s new girlfriend Elisabetta Canalis.

More serious minded readers would have not had the opportunity to read this piece on deficits by Karl Rove, a man who has some experience with deficits.