Arianna Huffington is guest-hosting Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC tonight, and the lineup looks impressively ambitious: Google CEO Eric Schmidt, HBO talk-show host Bill Maher, stat-whiz Nate Silver and Cory Booker, the Newark mayor to whom the internet publisher was once rumored romantically linked (absurdly, her staff thought). The high-profile lefty gig is an appropriate laurel for an ambitious woman whose left-leaning site produced landmark coverage and gangbusters traffic amid the 2008 election. But as former Huffington Post staff can attest (and have), television appearances also mean a frenzy of last-minute research for editors like Roy Sekoff or Colin Sterling who prepare Huffington's talking points. With an entire, hourlong show to host, rather than a brief guest appearance, it would be reasonable for staff to fear another of the screaming, teary emotional breakdowns described to us by several former HuffPo staffers.
Among the tips that poured in after we started really asking questions about Huffington last month, in the wake of a New Yorker profile of the onetime socialite, was one claiming Huffington "had a breakdown (like bat-shit crazy person breakdown) in front of one male staffer who was working on Right Is Wrong," Huffington's recent political book. Another ex-HuffPo staffer subsequently confirmed the account to us, saying the staffer in question was shaken up, and pointing to Republican strategist Ed Rollins' book for more examples (it's on order!).
This second staffer said many HuffPo staffers are, at some point in their employey, witness to such breakdowns: Yelling, followed by an enraged denunciation of the person's skills and/or value as an employee and/or as a person, then tears and, perhaps, a later attempt at reconciliation.
Several other ex-HuffPo insiders said that general description of the quality and quantity of Huffington's rages met with their experience. "The breakdowns entail screaming and crying for a drawn out period of time," one said. Another:
Breakdowns are frequent... Although it's not so much crying as this wail-y, near-crying, cracked voice she employs when she is quite literally shaking with rage. When you hear that voice you know you're well past the point of no return.
Some breakdowns arose during Huffington's work on books, serious and stressful extracurricular projects that in many ways resembl, say, hosting a top-rated MSNBC show for a night. From that perspective, staffers have good reason to walk on eggshells (when not running personal errands) in the runnup to the Rachel Maddow Show gig tonight. It can't help Huffington's mood that she'll be working for a network where she was once reportedly banned for attacking Meet The Press host Tim Russert, the longtime Huffington enemy who has only grown more revered since his passing.
On the other hand, multiple former staff said Huffington's fits were often set off by trivial matters, disproportionately including minor issues with cars and drivers.
Take the subway, Arianna, for everyone's sake! Your show sounds fun.
If anyone knows how Huffington is doing, today, this week or at some point in her long past, we'd love to hear from you.
Prior Huffington coverage: The Huffington Posts
The last time we checked in with Bonnie Fuller, in August, the ex-Us Weekly editor was seeking "partners, financing and advertiser support" for a website aimed at women 20-40. That can't be going well right about now. Which might explain how OK! magazine could afford to bring on Fuller as a consultant, as 
Earlier this summer, Chinatown Garbage tourister Nate Hill 
We asked, earlier this week, if "
The Passport Mule
Young Colin Sterling
Roy Sekoff
No, not Putin! Ha ha! In an effort to ramp up competition with the United States, Russia has produced its own version of the feared and revered 
As if 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan hadn't kicked up enough dirt in Iraq — she 
Former Melrose Place and T.J. Hooker babe Heather Locklear's troubles continue. Two months after completing a four week stint in an Arizona treatment center for "anxiety and depression," Locklear was arrested and held in police custody last night in Santa Barbara on suspicion of driving while impaired. Police sources say that alcohol wasn't involved but that tests are being conducted to determine if the actress was on drugs. She was released on her own recognizance. [
Sheesh. War sucks! Here's more journalists getting fired at in the line of duty—they all lived, we think!—followed by 
Our old friend Monty got a shout-out tonight on the Colbert Report. Not only did this illustrate that his story has made that critical third leap — from blog to cable news to cable fake news — the segment also surfaced a highly plausible new theory as to what Earthly form Monty took before he became a demon hellspawn. Kiss the dog, raccoon, pig and vole theories goodbye! Click the video icon to view.
Sadly, "monsters" can be found wherever the sea decides to cough up its detritus. What do you make of this... thing? A reader from Salem, Mass forwards these pictures to us of something that washed up on her shores in May. I say it's a damned witch. Just look at that grin! What do you say it is? More photos after the jump. 
We've received a lot of different theories about what exactly the 
So that new picture of the 
Wolf Blitzer and crew have been swept up into Montauk Monster mania, which began on this humble site when we posted about 
As 
No, Lizzie Grubman's still alive. This is an actual monster, some sort of rodent-like creature with a dinosaur beak. A tipster says that there is "a government animal testing facility very close by in Long Island," but unless the government is trying to design horrible Montauk monsters that will eat IEDs and fart fire at bad Iraqis, we're not sure why they would create such an unthinkable beast. Our guess is that it's viral marketing for something. Ali Lohan's new album perhaps. Click thru for larger dino-damage.
The man and his estranged wife at the heart of the recent 
CBS war correspondent 
Sarah Chubb is not just the president of CondeNet, the online division of Conde Nast—she's also a "nationally ranked cyclist." And she's damn tired of you plodding runners hating on her cycling style in the wild streets of Central Park, for real! "There is a lot of hate," she tells New York mag. “The Road Runners club can take over the entire park, and they get pissed at us if our races go past 8 a.m. The runners don’t stay where they’re supposed to stay, they’re wearing headphones, and they’ll scream at you if you ask them to get out of the way!” Fools. If you think that CondeNet president Sarah Chubb will hesitate to run you over at high speed, well, you don't know anything about making it in the media. [
Generally, an attachment called "fun.doc" is probably a computer-crippling virus. Sometimes, though, it is much, much worse. Take the case of the document Gawker received yesterday, featuring a packed, "fun"-filled itinerary for a New York weekend sent from a local to friends visiting from noted no-account flyover one-horse town "Boston, Massachusetts." It is, perhaps, a perfect, itemized tour through the 7 circles of New York tourist hell, and while we can't recreate the original's wacky fonts, we can reprint the gruesome details.
When we heard Times staffers were getting nameplates for their cubicles' tambour doors, we were 