Where There's Smoke There's Liars

DISCO INFERNO Osmond (Photo: Getty Images)

• Stop, drop, and roll: Marie Osmond blames her spill on Dancing with the Stars on the California fires. Seems easier to blame a natural disaster than rapid weight loss or a newly failed marriage.

• Republic in peril: After a long day of posting and pulling on the New Republic's Baghdad fabulist Scott Thomas Beauchamp, TNR editor Franklin Foer explains: While the stressed-out writer-soldier would neither confirm nor recant his tales of Mid East misconduct, Foer says Beauchamp defended his story in a subsequent conversation when no superiors were lurking.

• Roctober dropout?: Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo says he'll end his presidential bid if the Rockies don't win the World Series—just so long as Mitt Romney will bet the same on the Red Sox. Last week Tanc challenged Romney to a loser-drop-out trap-shooting contest in New Hampshire.

• 50 vs. Bass: Former *NSync member, Lance "the gay one" Bass, launches his book the same day as 50 Cent's 50 X 50 debut. Says Bass: "I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any relationships with guys in that book ... And I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any space training, either." Perhaps Fiddy will retire from publishing if Bass outsells him.

• We are clear to tase: The two campus police who took down and tased Univ. of Florida student Andrew Meyers are cleared to return to work. Meyers was given fair warning (thus prompting, "Don't tase me, bro!"), says the 300-page report.

• Make mine a vodka Collins: Actor Gary Collins (that's Mr. Miss America to you, Buddy!) is arrested for his second DUI.