Carjacking is back and cooler than ever

Carjacking -- or at least the hysteria surrounding carjacking -- came into and left prominence during the mid-nineties. If memory serves, much of the attention was triggered by a series of deadly attacks on German tourists driving rental cars in south Florida. But the nation soon tired of hearing about carjacking, and returned to focusing on old favorites like child molestation. Sadly carjacking was relegated to just a lonely column on a Department of Justice crime report -- no different than illegal logging.

That all ended today when we were treated to the details of not one but two carjackings. And not just any carjackings, these were celebrity carjackings!

We begin with the increasing bizarre case of Lindsay Lohan. There is now a claim that the car Lindsay used for her crime spree was, like the pants she wore, not her own. The GMC Denali belonged to a young man with the unusual name of Dante Nigro. Oddly, Nigro is a white fellow, but his friend and eventual co-hostage is black, which comes into play later.

It was by invite of the boyfriend of one of Lindsay's assistants that Nigro came to the fateful party where Lindsay was testing the sensitivity of her SCRAM bracelet. The same assistant whose argument with Lindsay launched the high speed car chase.

A dispute which took place in the parking garage of the apartment complex the party was being held, and resulted in Lindsay's assistant quiting and fleeing in a car.

Through a series of events I will let young Dante explain, Lindsay was then able to wrestle the keys and the car from Nigro, before taking, at speeds of up to 100 MPH, Nigro and his African American buddy unwillingly along on the harrowing pursuit of her former assistant.

Finally, when pulled over by the law, Nigro alleges Lindsay jumped out of the car and immediately offered up the hopeful defense: "I wasn't driving the black kid was."

Meanwhile, over in Bel Air yesterday, the carjacking shoe was on the other celebrity foot. Prince Frederic von Anhalt -- who you may recall from such scandals as Anna Nicole Smith's posthumous baby poppa drama -- was driving around in his Rolls when he was robbed at gun point by three women bandits.

Were these sexy women bandits? We don't yet know. But we do know Von Anhalt, Zsa Zsa Garbor's ninth husband, was wallet-less, watch-less, key-less and naked when police found him. Although the highway women didn't actually take his fine luxury automobile, so it wasn't actually a carjacking. Which is fine really, because von Anhalt isn't actually a celebrity. And, furthermore, isn't actually telling the truth. Speaking of which, I don't much trust that Dante Nigro's story either.

But who cares? I was getting sick of the celebrities and their paltry DUI auto crimes-- it's like there's a new one every day. Boring. It's about time they took it up a notch. In word or deed.

"Titled" Eurotrash strikes back

The "prince" who obtained his title in a back moat deal in Germany, before taking his shtick to America, is back at it.

Upon his arrival Prince Frederic Von Anhalt, a masseur by trade, skillfully made himself Zsa Zsa Gabor's husband number nine, and then endured almost two decades without a hint of media attention. That all ended when the "prince" injected himself in the Anna Nicole Smith baby daddy sweepstakes -- many say for the purpose of drumming up a story for the European tabloids.

Von Anhalt's bold move may have pleased his benefactors, but it raised the ire of American shout show king Bill O'Reilly who, during an on-air rant, angrily labeled Von Anhalt a "fraud" for suggesting paternity .

The "prince" responded by taking a page from the Keith Olbermann guide to raising one's profile and has slapped O'Reilly with a ten million dollar defamation lawsuit.

Since O'Reilly's strong opinions often escape his filter before rational thought can do its thing, the talk show host has probably defamed, in the true sense of the word, hundreds of people. Although defamation is almost impossible to prove in a court of law -- especially in cases where the "defamer" has his facts straight.

As the Anna Nicole Smith paternity saga moves into its second month so, it appears, is the seemingly simple task of matching DNA.

Anna Nicole's trampy ways could make for good TV

Last night body guard/chef Alexander Denk became the fifth person to publicly suggest paternity of Dannielynn, the late Anna Nicole Smith's potentially golden child.

If you are keeping score at home that's Denk, Howard K. Stern, Larry Birkhead, Prince Frederic von Anhalt (not really a prince) and the frozen sperm of long-dead billionaire J. Howard Marshall.

But that's not all. Yesterday we learned Anna Nicole Smith may have been sleeping with Bahamian immigration minister Shane Gibson -- who secured her laser-fast residency on the island nation.

Skin tone and time line might preclude Gibson, but if a fake prince -- who gets paid by the European tabloids to drum up fake stories -- gets consideration, why not a real immigration minister?

Also yesterday, in The Weekly Standard of all places, comedian/actor Larry Miller writes about the time he ran into Anna Nicole while she was on a dinner date with a comically short Arab, who had flown in from Saudi Arabia for one night to take her out and give her a comically large diamond necklace.

I'm sure the Saudi got something out of the visit and, with the price of oil where it's been the last couple years, I bet he's made return trips. I'm throwing him in the mix too.

So now we have Stern, the shyster lawyer; Birkhead, the sensitive photographer; von Anhalt, the faux-titled Eurotrash; Denk, the muscle-bound bodyguard; Gibson, the laid back island man; The Short Deep Pocketed Saudi, the short deep pocketed Saudi; and, of course, a test-tubed shaped popsicle of sperm.

That's quite a collection, all seven of them.

Wait a minute . . . Seven strangers. Picked to live in a house. Work together and have their lives taped. To find out what happens. When people stop being polite. And start finding out who the real father of Dannielynn is.

The Real World -- I might have banged the late Anna Nicole Smith.

I haven't decided if paternity should be established by a series of physical and mental challenges, an audience vote or actual science.