T. Boone Pickens is spending $58 million on his national marketing campaign to promote alternative energy sources like wind for electricity and natural gas for cars. In the two weeks since he announced his effort, the stock market value of his company that supplies natural gas for vehicles has increased by about twice that amount.

Does the brash COO of the Tribune Company have any vision of where he is taking it - beyond bailing as fast as he can to stave off potential bankruptcy in the face of the $13-billion debt incurred by Sam Zell’s purchase last year?

So, the Rev. Pat Roberson and the Rev. Al Sharpton are sitting on a couch…

It sounds like the setup line of a joke, but in reality the two are actually having a serious discussion about one topic they can agree upon - global climate change.

Virgin advertisement featuring Eliot Spitzer

It’s not only talk-show hosts who feed off of politicians’ sex scandals.

So, too, do companies eager to ingratiate themselves with young, self-consciously hip audiences. A case in point: the ad launched this week with dizzying speed by Virgin Mobile Canada, one of the latest spinoffs of billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.

Within a day of the resignation of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, Virgin Mobile was running a full-page ad in Toronto’s Metro and 24 commuter dailies playing on his notoriety as “Client 9″ in the complaint against alleged prostitution ring, Emperor’s Club V.I.P.

The ad pictures Spitzer with a thought bubble above his head. “I’m tired of being treated like a number,” it reads. “At Virgin Mobile, you’re more than just a number. . .Whether you’re #9 or #900, you’ll get hooked up with somebody who’ll finally treat you just how you want to be treated.”

Keith Richards

Keith Richards is the new face of Louis Vuitton.

The 64-year-old Richards appeared in his first fashion endorsement on London billboards on Tuesday. Print ads featuring Richards will hit U.S. magazines in March.

Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, the ad shows a haggard looking Richards sitting in a dimly lit hotel room, with a guitar and a Louis Vuitton luggage case. The caption reads, “Some journeys cannot be put into words.”

Being pursued by Microsoft hasn’t deterred Yahoo from its own pursuits of smaller fry.

Yahoo announced yesterday that it had paid $160 million for Maven Networks, a firm that sells video-management systems for online advertising. Maven’s customers include such major media outfits as Gannett, Scripps and Fox News.

Dr. Robert K. Jarvik may play a rower on TV, but he’s not a rower.

And he may not even be the doctor he seems to be in his ubiquitous ads for Lipitor, a cholesterol drug from Pfizer.

Critics of the advertisements point out that Jarvik, the inventor of an artificial heart, is a medical school graduate but not a practicing physician.

Can Google maintain the company motto - “Don’t be evil” - while building a powerful lobbying machine?

That’s just one of the challenges facing the internet giant. Another is Microsoft, a competitor not only on the web, but in the courts and the halls of Congress.

Execs from Google and Microsoft are scheduled to appear before the Senate today to argue the merits of Google’s proposed acquisition of DoubleClick.

Google announced the $3.1 billion deal in April, but the plan requires approval of the Federal Trade Commission and regulators abroad.

Google, which last year purchased YouTube for a whopping $1.65 billion, has unveiled a plan to make money from the site.

Ads now appear at the bottom of some videos, eventually disappearing if the users don’t click on them. In an approach similar to Google’s AdSense program, selected content providers receive a portion of the revenues.