Sideshow | Book that changed Lindsay

It's amazing how rehab can change you. Take

Lindsay Lohan

: She was a know-nothing, illiterate, inarticulate child when she entered rehab in May. She has re-emerged as . . . um . . . a know-nothing, illiterate child -

but

one who carries around one of most influential, potentially dangerous and controversial books in history, Italian thinker

Niccolò Machiavelli

's infamous 16th-century tract about statesmanship,

The Prince

. ("It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved," Machi writes.)

Lindsay, who underwent a rigorous training course in pole dancing and stripping for her next film, is, like, "I was going out with someone, and they said I should read Machiavelli and I was like, 'Nah,' and then I was, 'OK, I'll read it,' and now it is always with me." She said the book changed her life.

I can totally see how Machi-dude's advice, "an armed man is a citizen, an unarmed man is a subject," can help get a 21-year-old girly-girl's life back together.

Responding to media chatter that she is the next cohost on

The View

,

Ivanka Trump

was cagey and ambiguous on

Ryan Seacrest

's radio show yesterday, with the murky statement: "There's zero chance I would do that."

Ivanka, who is, indeed, her daddy, The Donald's, girl, acted as if she were the most important person alive. "I'm working on the sexiest projects around the world," she told Ryan, complaining that a stupid TV show would cramp her globe-trotting style.

They were all in silent denial last week. But yesterday,

Sean "Diddy" Combs

' people confirmed that the hip-hop world's own Jay Gatsby has broken it off with his on-and-off lover of a decade,

Kim Porter

. The couple have brought three souls into the world: son

Christian

, and twin daughters,

D'Lila Star

and

Jessie James

, who were born Dec. 21.

The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, as the city is officially named, will be the proud home of a $625,000 monument honoring

The Beatles

, who launched their career 45 years ago in the German port. The piece will be built in the St. Pauli district near bars and clubs where, in 1962, the Fab Four introduced "Love Me Do" to the world. It will feature the likeness of the usual suspects -

Paul McCartney

,

John Lennon

,

George Harrison

and

Ringo Starr

- as well as

Stuart Sutcliffe

, the early Beatle bassist who, in '62, died of a brain hemorrhage in that very city.

Mel Gibson

, whose Mayan epic,

Apocalypto

, has captured and trapped the very soul of Central and South America, met Monday with the president of Costa Rica with humanitarian goals in mind.

"He wants to help the indigenous population here and wants to know how to channel the funds," President Oscar Arias said.

Gibson, who has confirmed that he has bought himself a domicile on the Pacific Coast in the Central American nation's province of Guanacaste, plans to return next month to make final arrangements for handing over and disbursing his unspecified largess.

Spelling G-O-D

Tori Spelling is a vessel of God. An intermediary between the finite and the infinite. The minor teen star and sometime actress writes on her MySpace blog that she's now, um, like, a minister!

"I am now officially ordained," said the 34-year-old Rev. "I did it last week online, and my official certificate is in the mail." The awesomest part? Tori can - and recently, like, really did - marry a couple!

And she did it - of course - as a publicity stunt for Tori & Dean Inn Love, the Oxygen network reality show in which she and hub Dean McDermott run a B&B. (Tori officiated at a wedding of a couple staying at the B&B.)

Former President

Bill Clinton

's new book,

Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World

, is due out Sept 4. But Clinton's follow-up to his extra-beefy-size 957-page memoirs,

My Life

, is a lean, mean work on citizen activism.

"I've done my best in this book to demonstrate what I've seen firsthand through my [William J. Clinton] Foundation's work in Africa and around the world: that all kinds of giving can make a profoundly positive difference," Clinton said in a statement.

Clinton, who was reportedly paid $10 mil to $12 mil for My Life, said proceeds from the new book would be donated to charity.

And nothing's gonna change that.

Paris Hilton, who was just on Larry King's CNN show doing her Goodie Two Shoes act - she contended that she's never done drugs (giggle) - was spotted by witnesses toking on a joint at an L.A. club, the New York Post reports with nasty glee. The sad thing is how gossip writers and pundits actually go to the trouble of acting morally wounded over Paris' alleged hypocrisy.

Why should the celebutante care anyway? Yesterday, Hilton Hotels Corp., in which her family is still heavily invested - her grandpa

Barron Hilton

is co-chairman of the board - agreed to a $20.1

billion

all-cash buyout from Blackstone Group. No idea what that means except that it involves billions of dollars.

"I don't know where they come from, I really don't," says TV person

Rachael Ray

about rumors she's dumping her attorney husband,

John Cusimano

.

In an interview with Extra for a segment set to air last night, Rachael said she and her hubby of three years "couldn't be happier."

A psychotically upbeat and perversely positive woman, Rachael says gossip doesn't upset her: "Who cares? I've got the greatest job in the world . . . so if that's the worst you've got to do is deal with a bunch of rumors, then, Who cares? It's great."