CNN journalist and “Channel One” alumnus Anderson Cooper will launch a syndicated daytime talk show in the fall of 2011, which will finally give bored housewives a “handsome gay” option to compete with the choices of “roundtable of shrews” and “dancing lesbian.”

The as-yet-untitled project will not have a hard-news focus, though given Cooper’s background, he’ll bring a more journalistic approach to handling popular topics compared to most daytime fare.

The show is billed as a topical format that will cover everything from celebrities and pop culture to social issues and wide-interest news stories. Using his well-established interview skills, Cooper’s show will welcome a broad range of guests and tackle debate-provoking subjects. Segments will include hidden-camera experiments and town-hall meetings, with a focus aimed at appealing to female viewers. [THR]

Anderson was good in the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake and Hurricane Katrina, but in all honesty I’ve never liked him more than when he trashed the Lohan family while guest hosting “Regis and Kelly.” His dismissive exhale when Kelly calls them a “multi-talented family” is priceless: “Maybe that’s in the episode I didn’t see.” BOOSH. Comments like that are way more valuable than intrepid reporting from disaster zones.

Anderson Cooper is in Port-au-Prince as part of CNN’s extensive coverage of the aftermath of the disastrous earthquake that has left the country in chaotic ruins. (Cooper described the scene as “hellish, but not as bad as New Year’s Eve with Kathy Griffin.”) In the video below, Cooper pulls a boy away from a looting scene after the young man suffered a bloody head injury. It’s all very heroic-seeming, until Wolf Blitzer delivers the denoument:

“Anderson tells us that boy was led away by other people; we don’t know what happened.”

Dammit, you handsome gay silver fox! You have to follow through with these things. “What? I figured he’d be okay. Sure, he was bleeding profusely from his head, but the medical infrastructure in the country is still intact, right?”

On a more serious note, that’s a hell of a lot more than I’ve done for anyone in Haiti, so I can’t really criticize anyone’s decisions on the ground there. In better news, the U.S. Marines have joined the relief effort, and if anyone can un-f*ck the chickensh*t operation of the UN, it’s the Marines. Haha, just kidding. NO ONE can un-f*ck the UN.

(If you haven’t really followed the Haiti story, these graphic pictures will catch you up to speed in a hurry. Warning: do NOT click that link if you’re a pussy.)

UPDATE: more photos and Cooper’s take on the situation over at his blog.

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After a second consecutive New Year’s special with Anderson Cooper in which she swore on live television, Kathy Griffin has been blackballed from CNN. Well, that’s a start. Now if only E! would get on board…

CNN executives have decided Kathy Griffin will NOT be getting a 2011 invite. “She was a total embarrassment to the network that calls themselves ‘The Most Trusted Name in News.’ Even Anderson (Cooper, her co-host) thinks it’s time to say goodbye to Kathy,” a CNN insider tells me.

Not only did the potty-mouthed redhead drop the F bomb on live TV, she also made not-so-funny jokes about needing a “bump” of cocaine and asked Cooper if he pleasured himself while looking in the mirror. [Popeater]

Actually, jokes about coke and masturbating in front of a mirror sounded pretty funny to me — but then I imagined them being shrieked by Kathy Griffin, and they were suddenly stripped of humor and my penis didn’t work any more. Thanks a lot, Tranny Bonaduce. Seriously, she looks like Joan Rivers dressed as Danny Bonaduce in drag.

Happy New Year, y’all. To celebrate, here’s Kathy Griffin’s little F-bomb slip-up on CNN’s New Year’s Eve show. And as much as I don’t like Kathy Griffin’s unfunny fag-haggery, I do kind of enjoy watching Anderson Cooper try to put up with her.

Anyway, good riddance to 2009 and that whole decade that we don’t really have a good name for. My New Year’s resolutions are as follows: (1) stop being so nice to everyone, (2) stop working so hard, and (3) crush more ass. Oh yeah, number two is already in effect.

Anderson Cooper is basically the midway point between Richie Rich as a kid and when he dies and turns into Casper The Avuncular Coastal Elitist Ghost, so it’s hard to envision him as anything else but an asexual cherub of privilege.

Oh, but, what prurience dwells within his silver foxed head! In this clip from when he was filling in for Regis Philbin, he drops the “what’s your magic number?” question on Jillian Harris from “The Bachelorette”, only way more blunt, ’cause that’s how A-Coop gets down. She naturally feigns outrage and laughs it off before saying 13 factorial, or so I would assume, because if I were The Bachelorette, I’d totally slut it up like it were the $64,000 Slutting It Up Pyramid, which is a show I hope to start in my bedroom this fall.