Barry Diller and Scott Rudin Launch E-Publishing Firm

IAC Chairman Barry Diller and producer Scott Rudin have jumped into the E-book business, the NYT reports:

Mr. Rudin and Frances Coady, a longtime publishing executive, have formed a partnership with Mr. Diller in a new venture called Brightline. It will publish e-books and eventually physical books in a partnership with Atavist, a publisher based in Brooklyn with expertise in producing electronic books and articles.

The alliance creates a new competitor in the rapidly changing digital book market, one that is dominated by Amazon, the online retailer, which has roughly 65 percent of e-book sales. Though fledgling, the new venture will enjoy the support of two influential executives who control a wide array of resources in media and entertainment.

NEWS: Tight Races, The Blame Game, And Farewell

Some black American clergy, unhappy with Mitt Romney's Mormonism and Barack Obama's affection for gays, are telling their congregations to stay home on election day.

On the bright side, Michelle Bachmann is poised to lose her House seat.

Bryan Fischer and co-crazies on why Mitt Romney's tanking:

What if Mitt Romney actually manages to blow this election? The Values Voters will never say that he failed to win the center, because they won’t believe it. They’ll say that he never drew the contrast between what Obama was doing to America and how he and Paul Ryan, specifically, would fix it. They’ll say that this left evangelical voters—few of whom liked Romney in the first placed—disengaged.

(Or maybe Mitt's tanking because his campaign's staff can't stand the man running it?)

A message in a bottle, adrift for 98 years, has been found by a Scottish fisherman.

How the NYPD wished Occupy a happy birthday:

At least a dozen Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested yesterday evening during a march from Washington Square Park to Zuccotti Park, as police repeatedly "plunged" into the group to detain people on the sidewalk ...

Ayatollah Hassan Sanei is for some reason blaming novelist Salman Rushdie for the film Innocence of Muslims, and has demanded somebody finally carry out a decades-old fatwah:

It [the film] won't be the last insulting act as long as Imam Khomeini's historic order on executing the blasphemous Salman Rushdie is not carried out. If the imam's order was carried out, the further insults in the form of caricatures, articles and films would not have taken place. The impertinence of the grudge-filled enemies of Islam, which is occurring under the flag of the Great Satan, America and the racist Zionists, can only be blocked by the absolute administration of this Islamic order.

Tarek Masoud explains one of the reasons the Muslim world is so uncalm.

Two of the Republican New York State senators who supported Gov. Cuomo's push for marriage equaluty last year will have to wait a week to learn whether they've fended off their anti-gay primary challengers:

As the absentee ballots continued to trickle in to county election offices on Friday, Mr. Saland remained unsure of his political future. So did Senator Roy J. McDonald of the capital region, a Republican who also voted for same-sex marriage and who ended primary night in a contest that was too close to call ...

“The bottom line is I have no regrets, and I make no apologies,” Mr. Saland said in an interview ...

Regina Spektor returns to Russia.

Personal note: A magazine has offered me an absolutely un-turn-downable opportunity to do some long-form journalism, and I'm moving on. Thanks to Andy for trusting me with part-time custody of his extroardinary website, and thanks so much to all of you for making Towleroad an endlessly interesting place to blog. Be well.

The Ins And Outs William Shakespeare's Sexual Culture: VIDEO

Countless scholars have debated whether William Shakespeare dabbled in same-sex love during his 16th Century life.

In this BigThink video found at Good As You, scholar Stephen Greenblatt examines not Shakespeare's actions, but the society in which he lived, a society in which there were no sexual categories and a society in which laws against sodomy were rarely enforced.

He also recalls an experience in China in which he was invited to shower with another man. It's that kind of mentality, he explains in this video, that allowed men like Shakespeare to share beds with other men.

Find out what that means AFTER THE JUMP.

NEWS: Hitch, Bumps, And Ballers (VIDEO)

The Times neatly sums up the sudden eruption of pro-equality sentiment from the NFL:

“I think it’s a transformational moment and seismic shift to see so many folks in the world of sports stepping up and speaking out in support of equality and fairness and, in this instance, marriage equality,” Ellner said. “It really demonstrates what we know, and what’s apparent in the polls, and that the world has changed.”

And another such summary from CNN.

Muslims, Jews, and Christians find common ground:

Around 500 mainly Jewish but some Christian and Muslim protesters gathered in Berlin on Sunday to demand the right to circumcision after a disputed court ruling in Germany outlawing the rite.

Some protesters were draped in Israeli flags, others wore orthodox Jewish dress for the peaceful demonstration on Berlin’s Bebelplatz, infamous as the site of book-burning ceremonies carried out by Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

One banner at the demonstration accused Germany of reverting to a “colonial power” while another read: “Foreskin? No thank you!”

Next year likely to be the hottest on record.

Obama gets a great big convention bump:

The latest daily tracking poll showed Obama, a Democrat, with a lead of 4 percentage points over Romney. Forty-seven percent of 1,457 likely voters surveyed online over the previous four days said they would vote for Obama if the November 6 elections were held today, compared with 43 percent for Romney.

... Obama increased his lead over Romney in certain favorable characteristics. Asked who was more "eloquent," 50 percent of the 1,720 registered voters questioned in the poll favored Obama, compared to 25 percent for Romney. Asked about being "smart enough for the job," 46 percent sided with Obama compared to 37 percent for Romney.

In fact, Obama led Romney in a dozen such favorable characteristics, such as "represents America" or "has the right values." The only such category in which Romney had an advantage was being "a man of faith," as 44 percent picked Romney, who is Mormon, compared to 31 percent for Obama, who is Christian.

The GOP sues to keep third-party candidates off the ballot in November.

Al Pacino as Joe Paterno?

There are a lot of big books coming out this fall. The Times' has a preview:

Fall is traditionally the biggest season in the book business, the time that publishers reserve for their most high-profile authors. But this year it is especially crammed with writers who are both household names and have not released a book in several years, like the octogenarian Mr. Wolfe, whose last novel, “I Am Charlotte Simmons,” was published in 2004, and Mr. Díaz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao,” which came out in 2007.

Salman Rushdie, the author of “Midnight’s Children,” will release a memoir ... [J.K.] Rowling, best known for her phenomenally best-selling Harry Potter series, has written her first novel for adults, “The Casual Vacancy.”

In November Nan A. Talese/Doubleday will release Ian McEwan’s “Sweet Tooth” ... Michael Chabon’s new novel, “Telegraph Avenue,” is scheduled for release on Sept. 11 ...

The pileup has left publishers jostling for shelf space and publication dates, and critics wondering how they can review all of the elite writers worthy of attention ...

The NBA's Rajon Rando, point guard, millionaire, and noted cutie, goes to work as an unpaid fashion intern.

AFTER THE JUMP: See the ordinarily private Carol Blue, Christopher Hitchens's widow, speaks to Charlie Rose about her late husband's last book, Mortality, and his "year of living dyingly."

(UPDATED) Disabled Pakistani Girl Imprisoned For Blasphemy: VIDEO

[UPDATE: Turns out that the girl in the following story was very likely framed by a local cleric. Read more here.]

Here is a link to a very disturbing CNN story. It starts bad --

A Pakistani court postponed a hearing Saturday on whether to grant bail to a Christian girl accused of burning pages containing Quran verses in a case that has heightened religious tensions.

Muslim lawyers demanded she remain in jail during a tense hearing that included a shouting match with the judge. They provided a list of reasons she should be detained, including questioning whether the girl gave her lawyer the power of attorney.

A judge ordered investigators to get more details on her power of attorney, and postponed the hearing to Monday. Before Saturday, a decision was supposed to come Thursday, but was deferred so authorities could answer questions about her medical history.

"All these are the delaying tactics by the lawyers of the complainant to keep the girl in jail," said her lawyer, Tahir Naveed Choudhry.

-- and gets worse.

The girl, it turns out, is desperately poor -- from such a backwards neighborhood that authorities can't tell if she's eleven years old, sixteen years old, or some age in between. Nobody else seems to know, either. (I get the impression the author of the CNN article thinks she's fourteen.)

Also: The girl's not being accused of burning the Qur'an pages out of some kind of anti-Islamism. She was trying to start a cooking fire, as many in her corner of the world must, with scrap paper.

Also: The only evidence that she did actually burn pages from the Qur'an come from eyewitnesses. As of yet, no physical evidence has been presented.

Also: Even if the girl actually did burn pages from the Qur'an, she wouldn't know it. She's illiterate.

Also: The girl is mentally disabled, and may have Down's Syndrome.

From CNN:

The court faces a difficult decision amid concerns that if she is released on bail, she could be at risk from Muslims angered by the allegations against her.

Choudhry, a leading member of the Christian community, said the girl is too young to stay in prison and would be safer joining her relatives, who are in hiding.

"She was crying in the jail and missing her parents," he said.

Choudhry suspects the girl's trial could take up to two years. If convicted of blasphemy, the disabled, illiterate young girl could face life in prison.

For obvious reasons, CNN hasn't named the suspected blasphemer. AFTER THE JUMP, see CNN's Reza Sayah discussing the story from Islamabad.

Calvin Klein's Model Boytoy Nick Gruber Writing 'Beyond Shocking' Tell-All About Relationship: VIDEO

Calvin Klein's former boytoy Nick Gruber, who had a run-in with the law in April and subsequently entered a Klein-financed rehab session, is writing a tell-all about their relationship, the NY Daily News reports:

The 24-year-old male model plans to share all the sordid details, and a source tells us there are two strong offers on the table with a third one on the way. We reached out to Gruber and he confirmed he’s ready to tell his side of the story. “Yes, it’s true that I’m writing a book,” he said.

Gruber has tapped a well-known author to develop the book as they begin to flesh out the structure and chapters. The writer spoke with us anonymously, and called the content that will be revealed “beyond shocking.”

“This is the only way he can get closure,” he said of Gruber on the phone from Los Angeles. “He has a lot of secrets about Calvin and he has the right to tell people.”

After just two days of shopping the book — tentatively titled “What Came Between Me and My Calvin” — the offers started piling in.

“If it was just [Gruber’s] story, then there’s no way we could sell the thing, but because it’s about his relationship with this very private, very high-profile person, it’s generating a lot of interest,” said the writer.

TMZ cornered Gruber on the street last week and questioned him about their relationship.

Clip, AFTER THE JUMP...