Let's Get This Party Started: Top Stories for 07/10/06

As Star Jones makes her first hosting appearance on television tonight since being fired from "The View" -- on HGTV's "House Hunters" -- we learn the origins of her and Rosie O'Donnell's descent into full nuclear conflict.

It was all peaches 'n' cream between the talk-show divas until Rosie was a guest on "The View" in May 2004.

On the May 12, 2004 episode of "The View," as recounted this morning in Lloyd Grove's Lowdown column, Rosie started by complimenting Star on her weight loss, saying, "You look fabulous! It's like 'Twinkle Twinkle Shrinking Star.'" But the discourse got a little more contentious from there, with Rosie suggesting that women "stand up and scream" to protest Martha Stewart's conviction, and Star objecting.

Rosie then suggested that African-Americans have so few role models that they rally around men like O.J. Simpson and basketball players Jayson Williams, which ignited Star's rage. On the following day's show, Jones criticized Rosie's view, which angered Rosie, and Jones never apologized, despite the urgings of Barbara Walters.

Meanwhile, even if her most recent ex-boss might not concur, Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes tells the Daily News that Jones "was an exceptionally talented young prosecutor when she worked for me."

Suri Cruise's Silent Birth Leads to Quiet Life

Just where exactly is Suri Cruise? No one knows for sure, though TMZ has proof at least that someone filed a birth certificate for someone by that name.

However, a cult specialist tells MSNBC's Jeanette Walls that Suri's strange absence from public view may have something to do with what Scientologists called "removing engrams" though a process called "auditing." Rick Ross of Cultnews.com says that engrams are "negative experiences coupled with noise," and that shielding the baby from the paparazzi would reduce the onset of such engrams.

Ross adds that Cruise, according to reports from his promotional tour for "Mission: Impossible III," is getting increasingly wrapped up in the Scientology dogma, and that he would have locks checked and take longer routes to places while on tour to prevent, presumably, the creation of engrams.

Bono Gets Strife From Far Left for Video Game

U2 frontman and political crusader Bono is getting flack from left-wingers who say that he's investing in a video game that's unfairly critical of Venezuelan tyrant Hugo Chavez.

In "Mercenary 2: World in Flames," a game created by Pandemic Studios, in which Bono's private equity firm has invested, Venezuela is portrayed, according to Page Six, as "a banana republic led by a power-hungry tyrant." Players take on the role of a mercenary sent to the South American land to combat a dictator that's seized control of the country.

Now, left-wing commentators are blasting Bono, saying that he "glorifies stale, old mercenary approaches" by investing in Pandemic, and that he "should use his financial interest in the company to kill it, or better, he should pull out entirely as an investor, and condemn such imperialist garbage." Bono had no comment.

Brit Invasion Coming To US "Office"

What we'd really like to see is a steel-cage softball (or would that be cricket?) match between Dunder Mifflin and Wernham Hogg: The New York Post reports that stars of the original BBC incarnation of the seminal workplace comedy "The Office" will be making appearances on the NBC series of the same name.

Though details about plot and character are scarce, US "Office" co-creator Ben Silverman tells fans to "expect some cameos from the UK paper company," though for the time being, David Brent (played by Ricky Gervais in the Brit version) will not be one of those cameos. However, Gervais is writing a separate episode of the US version of the show. "We're going to save the big man for now," says Silverman.

Piven Doesn't Dig Cigs

Whatever else he may enjoy, Jeremy Piven doesn't sanction cigarette smoking, as some twentysomethings on the beach in Malibu discovered last weekend. Page Six says that Piven was walking along the beach the day after attending Lindsay Lohan's 20th birthday party nearby when he spotted some youngsters smoking, whereupon the 41-year-old "Entourage" star "launched into a tirade about how smoking ages you," and "took off his sunglasses so they could inspect his skin."

"Miami Vice" Approaching "Heaven's Gate"

The bad buzz surrounding Michael Mann's "Miami Vice" continues to circulate, with a report today from Lloyd Grove that Mann's "process" in trying to get the project finished (or, perhaps salvaged) is driving the studio and all around him mad. The film, starring Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell, is reportedly going well over its $120 million budget.

Universal chairman Marc Shmuger responds to the reports, saying that it's "definitely" opening on time and that Mann's process is "exhausting, it is intense, and some people are not up to the challenge. Either they keep up with him or they fall by the wayside. It creates some raw feelings along the way."