Tom and Katie are said to be tying the knot in November and perhaps in Italy. There was a rumor that they were going to use George Clooney’s Lake Como villa for their wedding, but that was also rumored about Brad and Angelina’s non-wedding. Clooney’s representative has said that Tom and Katie are definitely not getting married at his estate.

Victoria Beckham looked at locations in Italy on October 7th, fueling rumors that she was helping Katie finalize wedding plans.

Georgio Armani is said to be the designer Katie Holmes has chosen to create her fantasy wedding dress. It was thought that Katie would choose a Chanel dress by Karl Lagerfeld after she was photographed with him at a Paris fashion week party, but Women’s Wear Daily is reporting that Katie has gone with Armani instead.

All of this seems rather vague, and while Katie proclaimed “I have my dress!” and Tom and Katie’s publicist has said that they’ll be married within a few weeks, I’ll believe it when I see it. These two enjoy the publicity, but need to follow through on their plans soon if people are ever going to start taking them seriously.

Meanwhile Tom Cruise parody site Scientomogy.info is standing it’s ground against a threatened lawsuit by Scientology thugs. The cult regularly uses strongarm legal tactics to slience dissent and scare anyone that dares speak out against it. They sent a cease and desist letter to site owners over a year ago claiming that it infringes on their trademark, but they’re just trying to censor negative press. YouTube has removed most of the videos linked by Scientomogy.info after undoubtedly being threatened by Scientology as well.

Here are Tom and Katie at Isabella’s soccer game on 10/14. [via]

The story of little David Banda really breaks my heart. I was trying hard to be objective and not judge Madonna for whisking this little baby away when she could have easily made it possible for his family to raise him, but after after reading statements from his father, a hardworking simple farmer, I realized how selfish this really is. I honestly got a lump in my throat:

This man is a committed Christian. How do you think he’s going to feel when he sees pictures from Madonna’s stupid shocking “Sex” book or when someone shows him a Madonna video? Madonna is freaking Jewish, for God’s sake, and she follows an illegitimate offshoot of Judiasm known for being a harmful cult.

Last night while I was at the gym the “Human Nature” video was playing on one of the TVs. I was working out watching it, thinking, “This is the reason why people hate Madonna. This song sucks and the video is lame.”

Commentors on Gossip Rocks note that Oprah helps whole villages and that Madonna could have easily done the same for the Banda’s village, too. Instead she scooped up Yohane Banda’s only child in exchange for building orphanages that will work to indoctrinate vulnerable children into her cult religion.

Madonna actually left Malawi without David, and waited a few days for the paperwork to come through so he could be shipped to her. He flew out on a private jet with a nanny and some bodyguards.

Malawian human rights groups oppose the adoption, and it is thought that Madonna was quick to remove David from the country so that she could avoid a long legal battle for custody. The aging pop star must also apply for adoption rights in England.

Let’s see what kind of stupid Kabbalah name Madonna gives this child. She’s too stubborn to listen to public opinion and do what’s best for the boy. This will ruin her public image for good.

Madonna has been granted an interim order from a Malawi court to adopt little half-orphan David Banda from the impoverished nation. She was granted custody of the infant, which supposedly meant that she was able to leave the country with him, but she has since left without the baby, because he does not yet have a passport:

This doesn’t mean that the adoption is final. She has to be monitored for 18 months as per Malawian law (which requires average, non-donating parents to stay in the country for that period of time) and must attend another hearing to finalize the adoption.

Madonna has come under fire for skirting Malawian laws that require adoptive parents to stay in the country for a year and a half before being granted the right to adopt a baby. A human rights group is challenging her adoption of the infant, saying that the laws are being changed just for Madonna and that isn’t fair to the child or to other prospective parents:

As I’ve mentioned a few times, I’m conflicted as to how I feel about this. There are arguments on both sides, and here’s a quick recap of the major issues:

1. Con: Madonna skirted Malawian laws and just dropped a bunch of cash to get this baby when regular people are required to live in the country for eighteen month before they’re eligible to adopt.

2. Pro: Madonna did give plenty of money to Malawi, but she did it with red strings attached.
Orphanages founded by Madonna’s “Raising Malawi” organization will have to teach Madonna’s cult religion to impressionable little children. Kabbalah is a cult, pure and simple, and destroys lives and brainwashes people. It may have a kinder, gentler image than fellow celebrity cult religion Scientology, but it’s no less evil, manipulative or money-grubbing.

3. Con: This baby is not an orphan, and has a living father and grandmother.
David Banda has a father and a grandmother who are subsistence farmers and had to give the malnurished infant to an orphanage when they could not care for him. In fact the father has said he always dreamed of being able to care for his son after his wife died and he was forced to give up the child. He said he never imagined the baby leaving Malawi, but that he gives Madonna his blessing and knows that David will be well cared for.

Some commentors note that Madonna could just have given charity to the Bandas to help them care for David, while others say that Malawi is so impoverished that the money would be extorted or ineffective in helping care for the child.

4. Pro: People adopt children from other nations all the time
People adopt babies from China, South America, Russia and all over the world. I’ve watched a few “Adoption Story” episodes on TLC and this seems to be a long, difficult process for couples, though.

What makes Madonna’s story different is that she lined up babies and selected one, while other people have to choose from afar or have a child picked for them, and that she got a child in just over a week, while from my understanding this usually takes years.

As Glitterati pointed out, there are many needy children in America that could have used Madonna’s help. Madonna wanted an infant, though, and babies are notoriously hard to come by.

What do you think? Did Madonna do the right thing? Is she getting flack because she’s such a media whore and it’s hard to imagine her doing anything that isn’t for publicity?

She’s giving charity but she’s essentially acting like a missionary and trying to spread her belief system throughout the third world.

She’s adopting a baby from another country, which many parents do, but she did it quickly, chose a boy with one parent, and didn’t obey national laws pertaining to adoption.

Can Madonna ever catch a break or does she deserve our ire?

Pictures from Madonnalicious.

A 32 year-old Malawian man claims that Madonna adopted his one year-old son, who has been staying at the Home of Hope Orphan Care Center in Mchinji since his mother died from childbirth complications when the baby was a month old.

Malawian government officials have made public statements that Madonna is looking to adopt a one-year old orphan, but Madonna’s publicist said that they were just looking for press and that those stories weren’t true.

Now a man says that his son has hit the lottery jackpot after being picked out of a baby lineup set up by the orphanage for Madonna:

Since Banda isn’t aware that Madonna actually lives in England, not America, it lends more credence to his statement, considering that he’s not well informed enough about pop culture to be able to use the media for publicity. He might be trying to get his son adopted, though. People would jump at the chance to scoop up a little one year-old that was supposedly passed over by the aging pop queen.

I’m not sure if this is true and although it seems likely given the stories that Madonna wanted another baby to save her marriage, I think we should wait and see on this one.

There are stories that Guy Richie is telling Madonna to be careful about adopting a child that may be perceived as a celebrity status symbol, but I’m sure these were easily made up by anyone observing the situation.

Madonna is in the poor Southeastern African nation for some time, having rented out a luxury guesthouse on a cattle and horse ranch near the Malawain president’s palace. Her bodyguards say that they are staying for “a while”:

If Madonna has adopted a boy we may not hear about it until she brings him home with her.

It is possible that she is just doing her best to spread her cult religion around the world. Her orphanages will educate children on the sham belief system of the Kabbalah cult.

Pictures from A Socialite’s Life.

David Beckham said that he turned to best buddy Tom Cruise in a time of need after getting dumped from England’s national team. Beckham was sidelined with injuries to his ankle and Achilles’ tendon when he stepped down as caption of England’s team during the World Cup this year. He said he wanted to continue playing for England, but was left out of an exhibition game at the beginning of August, signifying new coach Steve McClaren’s decision to cut him from the team. McClaren said that he wanted a fresh slate without Beckham, and statements by David and his wife Victoria show how much the snub hurt him.

David said that Tom Cruise’s positive attitide helped him get over the pain of getting cut from the team.

Tom seems like a good friend, but I suspect he takes every opportunity to work Scientology into the conversation. It was rumored that Tom and Katie were working to convert the Beckhams to their cult religion, but Victoria was since spotted out with a trendy red Kabbalah bracelet, and their efforts seem to have been in vain. The Beckhams do speak fondly of their friendship with Tom and Katie to the press.

Even if his soccer career is taking a hit, Beckham seems to be doing fine. He has a new autobiography, “Making it Real,” which was undoubtedly written by someone else, and is putting out a his and her perfume line with his wife, Victoria. This is Beckham’s second autobiography, his first “Both Feet on The Ground,” was published in 2002. He also has a photo book out, which was published in 2004.

Pictures from Splash News.

Photos of a baby that’s proportedly Suri Cruise will be published in Vanity Fair tomorrow. Tom and Katie supposedly had the pictures taken by famous photographer Annie Liebowitz soon after “little” Suri’s birth, so her current age is impossible to tell. Speculation is rampant that Katie was already pregnant when she hooked up with Cruise, which would explain the suspect birth certificate, the couples’ unwillingness to take the baby out in public, and the odd size variations in Katie’s pregnant belly. Cruise has no other biological children, and is said to be sterile.

Katie was photographed looking tired and dazed outside of an LA spa, where she was treated to a much-needed massage.

Katie and Tom are said to have insisted on perfect pictures of their newborn. The photoshoot took place over 21 days and required lots of retouching. Suri was rumored to be a “runt” at the time, but in all likelihood she’s much bigger than she should be for a four and a half month-old.

In the only pictures seen of Suri so far, taken via helicopter outside the Cruise compound, Suri looks much bigger than a four month-old baby.

There’s a lot you can say about Tom Cruise, but he does seem like a geniunely nice guy, albeit completely batshit crazy and often lying through his teeth. He has wacked out beliefs and is so deep in the closet there are hanger marks on his face (I stole that from commetor Clarimonde on a Robbie Williams post), but people praise his down-to-earth demeanor as he engages them on a level only a cult member can manage. It’s called “love bombing” and is a common tactic of cults to get people to feel so accepted and warmly welcomed that they’re sucked into the black hole of endless re-education and seizure of all their worldly assets.

Cruise is pretty good at that “love bombing” and he turned on the charm on behalf of his flailing career to apologize to Brooke Shields for criticizing her last year for using antidepressants:

How coincidental that Cruise apologized to Shields right after he was dropped from Paramount for his “recent conduct.” While less than amazing box-office performance is more likely to blame, it is said that the wife of Paramount head Sumner Redstone was completely enraged by Cruise’s comments blasting Shields for using drugs to overcome postpartum depression and told her husband that Cruise would lose his female fan base.

In case you forgot what Cruise said at the time, he made an impassioned argument on The Today Show that there was “no such thing as a chemical imbalance,” and that he knew the history of drug development and psychiatry while asserting that Matt Lauer was uninformed for defending the fact that antidepressants work.

Update: here’s the video of Brooke telling the story to Jay Leno in her interview on Friday.

Today I read somewhere that Katie Holmes went to a Hollywood party without Tom where the rule was “no guests,” but that she brought a Scientology handler who wouldn’t let her out of her sight. People said that Katie looked “dead in the eyes” and that everyone was talking about her. I looked through my browser history and did a google search and I cannot for the life of me figure out where I read this article. Did I dream it up? Is it old news? If you’ve seen this article, please comment here with the link.

Sorry for the half-story without a link, but I did read that and tried to figure out where I found it for about 20 minutes. That is forever in Internet time.

Here are some new pictures of Tom and Katie outside a stadium in Salt Lake City, Utah. They were in Utah to see Beckham play soccer and could have possibly stopped to see if that couple involved in an accident was hurt, and we reported yesterday, but it still sounds like a PR stunt to me.

Update Thanks to the commentor who pointed me to Perez Hilton’s site for the news. Katie did attend a girls-only party with a Scientology guard. Creepy!

Tom and Katie are also shown backstage at Cirque du Soleil on May 3rd. Thanks to Pink is the New Blog and KatieHolmes.com for these pics.

MSNBC’s The Scoop borrows our unoriginal observation by calling Suri the “Loch Ness Monster of celebrity babies.”

Yeah, they’ll make that decision, uh, shortly. Just like they’ll get married any day now. All those preparations at the Celebrity Scientology Center were indeed for a big party as we reported, and not for a supposed wedding or non-existent Suri’s Scientology baptism. It was their 37th anniversary of brainwashing people, and John Travolta and Kelly Preston showed up, lest the Scientologists reveal their darkest secrets. TMZ has a video of Travolta dancing or something at the party, but it didn’t load for me. I’m so dissapointed.

Penelope Cruz said she’d met Suri, but then totally backtracked and made a weird roundabout statement about how she didn’t want to have to lie anymore.

Here are two guys who work at a radio station protesting outside a Scientology center in Portland. They’re “demanding the Cruise baby.” You really don’t have to watch this, you get the point.

The best is their protest sign with Cuba Gooding Jr. saying “Show me the Baby!”

“Where are here, do si do, show us Suri then we’ll go.” “It’s not fair, we all lose, please show us Suri Cruise”

They ask “Will we ever see the Polaroid of that little baby mongloid?” OMG That is so un-pc, I’m sorry, but it made me laugh.

Someone please stop Madonna before she’s damned to hell. She’s using the same old tired “offend all the Christians” gimmick to generate controversy over her geriatric tour. She refused to take the hanging on a cross bit out of her show for the televised version of her concert, and she also declined to take it out when she plays Rome right near the Vatican. Now she’s upped the ante a bit by inviting the creepy Pope himself to her show:

That’s so fucking stupid! Madonna can’t stand being out of the spotlight for five minutes, and she has to offend everyone who isn’t a member of her crazy cult religion.

I’m not religious at all, but I just think that’s ridiculous. Madonna can put all the sexy bits in that she wants, but why does she have to mess with religious symbolism so blatantly?

Yeah sure, Madonna, the Pope’s going to be impressed by your tribute to “humanity.” Give me a break.