MEDIA
• Jerry Seinfeld will appear with Bill Gates in Microsoft’s new $300 million advertising campaign, despite the fact that he is totally a Mac guy. [WSJ]
• Urgh. The Naked Cowboy is getting his own American Idol–style reality-TV show wherein he will judge street singers. “[The winner] needs to be someone who is pure and awesome — like me,” he said. [NYP]
• Shocker: Times columnists feel the media spends too much time obsessing over exposing politicians’ personal lives. [Campaign Stops/NYT]
FINANCE
• Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s stocks lost a fifth of their value yesterday as investors are becoming increasingly fearful that government support and a bailout would kill stockholder value. “As the stock falls more and more, it’s more likely the government steps in and more likely equity holders get wiped out,” says one analyst. [NYP]
• Fatima Monahan, the Caxton-Iseman secretary who alleged that partner Fredrick Iseman made her arrange dates, among other things, pleaded guilty to stealing $45,000 from her old boss. [Bloomberg]
• IAC chief Barry Diller hopes spinning off the company’s bigger properties (such as the Home Shopping Network and Ticketmaster) into public companies will help boost IAC’s balance sheet. [WSJ]
• Did Credit Suisse pull a line of credit from Lehman because of a rumor? The Fed thought so.[WSJ]
REAL ESTATE
• Mike Piazza and his former Playboy Playmate wife plan on listing their $6.8 million Tribeca loft in September. “They’re actually looking for larger quarters elsewhere in Manhattan,” says their real-estate broker. [NYP]
• An inquiry into the deadly 2007 fire at the Deutsche Bank building in lower Manhattan unveiled a chain of failures that led to the loss of two firefighters. One of the biggest red flags: Contractors tearing down the tower didn’t have a formal demolition permit. [NYT]
• Architects and engineers have doubts about Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to place wind turbines atop the city’s skyscrapers and bridges. [NYT]
LAW
• Robert Link, Cadwalader’s managing partner, is embroiled in litigation over his $6 million Hamptons house. Ugh, it must be so tough to have mold in your basement! [Am Law Daily]
• This year is going to be the worst for law-firm profitability since 2001. [Law.com]
• Gender equality at law firms is always a hot button. But what about gender bias in law journals? A study shows that a disproportionate number of articles by men appear in top publications. [Legal Blog Watch]
