Lindsay rung in 2009 — where else? — in a DJ booth with girlfriend Samantha Ronson as the two gazed adoringly at each other. SamRo was spinning at Mansion in Miami Beach. Will 2009 be the year they officially come out as a couple? Eh, who am I kidding? 2009 will be there year Lindsay goes through a messy break-up, gets a DUI and goes to rehab, just like every year before it.

Image via WENN

Wow, is every aspect of the news more scandalous than celebrity gossip lately? It sure does feel like it.

Okay, so remember how the governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich (pronounced Bla-GOY-uh-vich), was “allegedly” accepting bribes for who would get the Senate seat vacated by Obama? And that’s super duper illegal and stuff? Well, he hasn’t actually been convicted of this stuff yet, and he refuses to resign from him post despite his whole party begging him to, and he went right ahead and appointed someone, this dude Roland Burris, who’s planning to report for duty on Tuesday to be inaugurated. Senate Democrats are like “Oh hell no,” and they’re planning to exercise their right to refuse him entry to the Senate.

The first Democratic aide said if Burris tries to enter the Senate chamber on Tuesday, the Senate doorkeeper will stop him. If Burris were to persist, either trying to force his way onto the Senate floor or refusing to leave and causing a scene, U.S. Capitol police would stop him, the aide said.

“They [police] probably won’t arrest him,” but they would call the Senate’s sergeant-at-arms, the aide said.

Burris has indicated he intends to be at the Senate on Tuesday. When asked about what would happen if he shows up, Burris told the Chicago Tribune that he is “not going to create a scene in Washington.”

SO MUCH DRAMA!!!

We may as well elect Lindsay Lohan and Denise Richards and Courtney Love — it couldn’t be much more of a shit-show over there in DC!

But this isn’t any ordinary speeding — Dillon was going a whopping 106 mph on a Vermont interstate in a rented 2009 Chevrolet Impala. Talk about a badass … I mean, if you’re gonna drive over 100 mph, you just gotta do it in a Chevy Impala.

It doesn’t appear he was under the influence or on his way to get a blow job, so he’ll probably get off with a slap on the wrist, although the law allows for him to be sentenced to up to three months in jail. He’s scheduled to appear in court on January 21.

The Rhode Islander who spent 34 years in the Senate and created the Pell Grants passed away in his home at the age of 90 after a long battle with Parkinsons.

Vice President-elect Joe Biden, who served in the Senate with Pell, called him “one of our nation’s most important voices in foreign policy for over 30 years … Claiborne Pell was a man of extraordinary integrity, grace and decency,” Biden said in a statement. “Because of Senator Pell and the Pell Grant, the doors of college have been opened to millions of Americans — and will continue to be opened to millions more. That is a legacy that will live on for generations to come.”

Thank you, Senator Pell, for all you’ve done to further higher education in this country. You will be missed.

Ashlee left the baby at home and took her new blond extensions and her hubby Pete Wentz to PURE in Las Vegas, where she downed champagne and partied the night away to ring in 2009.

She’s lost a lot of the baby weight, but you can tell she’s still being careful to cover up her arms and her tummy. Which is totally fine by me! It’s such a relief to find a celebrity who’s actually human and doesn’t lose the entirety of her baby weight in twelve days. That shit’s insane anyway.

Heh.

If you haven’t read the full police report related to Charles Barkley’s DUI arrest, I suggest you do, as it’s a doozy (it’s here).

But, basically, Barkley was exceptionally cooperative and congenial with the police officers, and also very hilarious. They’d pulled him over for running a stop sign, but he’d picked up a chick on the side of the street before the arrest. Barkley told the arresting officer that he was going to drive around the corner and get a blow job from that chick. He told the officer that she’d given him a blow job a week ago, and it was the best he’d ever had in his life.

Later in the evening, he told another police department employee that he’d “tattoo my name on your ass” if it would help get him out of the arrest. He then realized his misstatement, and corrected himself: “I’ll tattoo your name on my ass.”

Oh, and the officer says that “the majority of my roadside contact with Mr. Barkley was recorded on a digital audio recorder. A copy of the recording will be impounded into evidence.”

Um, can it also be impounded into my blog? I think yes.

In short, Barkley was drunk and stupid, but it seems like he was pretty generally a decent guy about the whole thing.

I should tell you my Charles Barkley story. A lot of the Phoenix Suns players, back in the day, sent their kids to the private school I attended, which had a very competitive admissions process that could usually be neatly evaded with a generous donation. Barkley wanted his little girl to go to our school, so he donated an aquarium to our science center and was planning to donate a bunch of exotic sea creatures, too. They put the aquarium in the main hall of the science center, but, for whatever reason, Barkley’s daughter didn’t end up enrolling in the school, and we never got the fish. So, for like a full year, we had what essentially amounted to a huge tub of water and seaweed sitting in the main hall of the science building courtesy of Charles Barkley. We’d walk by it on our way to class and be like, “How’s the Barkley Aquarium today?” It was a running joke forever.

I don’t know where Barkley’s daughter ended up going to high school, but I’m sure, wherever she is today, she’s thrilled to hear that her dad got a DUI en route to a blow job.