Pic of the Day
| MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION "Why is it that so many French people would rather riot than work?" - Economist and columnist Larry Kudlow CIRCLE OF FRENCH LIFE "It's spring, and the French are rioting again. This time, it's students and labor unions protesting a minor reform of the country's employment laws that was imposed to help solve the problems that spurred last fall's riots. If the protesters get what they want and the law is rescinded, the result will be continued high youth unemployment -- which will doubtless spur more riots. And that, Simba, is the Circle of Life in French politics." - Los Angeles Times editorial, 3/24/06 |
A Gossip Extortionist?
Here's a new way to make some quick cash. A gossip columnist demands cash for NOT writing gossip about a subject.
Such is my excitement by this news that this editress now demands that yon reader immediately send her lots of money for not writing the gossip I have gleaned about yon reader.
You know who you are. I've seen you picking your nose and eating the contents. For a small fee, at least compared to New York Post's gossip columnist Jared Stern, I will not publish your identity.
But Stern's scam gets better! For Jared Stern often didn't write the TRUTH about his victim. Stern wrote blatant lies and in order to stop writing the lies, Stern demanded lots and lots of money.
According to the NY Daily news, Stern implemented a "3 tier" extortion schedule. The tiers required to buy protection from the lies included the hiring of staff, investment in Stern's clothing line, a one time payment of one hundred grand with monthly payments of ten grand each.
Stern got caught, God love his tortured soul, via a sting operation recorded by the FBI.
The main stream media. Gotta love 'em.
A New York Post Page Six staffer solicited $220,000 from a high-profile billionaire in return for a year's "protection" against inaccurate and unflattering items about him in the gossip page, the Daily News has learned.
In two 90-minute meetings, characterized by a shocking breach of ethics, Jared Paul Stern, a fixture on the city's gossip scene who also edited Page Six The Magazine, asked for a series of payments from Ron Burkle, the managing partner of Yucaipa Cos., a conglomerate with interests in supermarkets, celebrity clothing lines, and media.
A Waste of Good Lives
It's not exactly pop culture but it still is a weird thing that happened.
Seems there's some sort of opening in the earth on California's Mammoth Mountain. Mammoth Mountain is a dormant volcano now beloved by skiers.
There's that problem with the dangerous fissures so plastic fences surround these cracks in the earth that skiers do not fall inside.
A big snow storm covered the plastic fence so members of the ski patrol were sent to straighten the protective fence. Two members of that ski patrol fell into the fissure when the earth underneath gave way as the repaired the fence. Another ski patrol member died trying to rescue the two that fell.
The deaths were attributed to asphyxiation by carbon monoxide gas.
Bizarre. Just bizarre.
From Yahoo.com:
MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. - Two ski patrol members who fell to their deaths in a volcanic fissure were probably asphyxiated by poisonous gas spewing from the vent, along with a third member who tried to rescue the pair, a coroner said Friday.
After they fell, the first two men could be heard calling for help "and then were silent within a minute or two," said Rusty Gregory, chief executive officer of the ski area on Mammoth Mountain, an 11,053-foot dormant volcano 190 miles east of San Francisco.
Extreme Makeover-Home Edition Looking for Cripples and Sick Kids
I enjoy tuning into to this series once in a while. How it works, some family that has a home greatly in need of remodel contacts ABC. Assuming the mortgage and land titles are in order and, of course, assuming that the abode itself would make a great building for makeover, the Home Makeover team descends upon the home, often tearing it down and building a completely new house.
The show usually features families facing some sort of crisis. Often there is a child involved that is handicapped and living in a house that totally does not fit the child's medical needs. One show I watched ages ago featured a family whose living room had been rammed and destroyed by a car driven by a drunk driver.
That show was a real chuckle in that this family got a home makeover, complete with a bathroom resembling the ones in their favorite hotel in their beloved Las Vegas. I had to smile. These people were very used to hanging around Las Vegas and it was obvious through the dialogue that they liked to gamble.
The main thought in my head as I watched this gambling couple get a brand new dream home was how un-deserving they were.
Thus the revelations by The Smoking Gun.com that this show actively recruits cancer patients, hate crime victims, and, I surmise, people who've had drunk drivers plow into their living rooms.
ABC's "Extreme" Exploitation
Makeover show loves sick kids, cancer patients, hate crime victims
MARCH 27--Not content with humdrum stories of poverty, heartache, and distress, the producers of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" have compiled a creepy wish list of woe for the next season of the hit ABC television series, The Smoking Gun has learned.
The show is maudlin, tug-on-your-heartstrings television, "Queen for a Day" with finish carpentry. Based on the ABC e-mail, it appears that victims of hate crimes and violent home invasions and families coping with the loss of a child killed by a drunk driver make for good television.
... shooting the moon, the program's "family casting director," Charisse Simonian, would love to locate a kid suffering from Progeria, the rare condition that causes rapid aging in a child (for those unaware of Progeria, the ABC e-mail helpfully describes it as "aka 'little old man disease.'") As if that terrible affliction weren't enough, Simonian is also on the hunt for a child with congenital insensitivity to pain with anhidrosis. "This is where kids cannot feel any physical pain," she notes. But the hunt for a young victim--who will likely die before 30--will not be easy.
"There are 17 known cases in US," she writes, before chirpily adding,
"let me know if one is in your town!"
From: Google Gossip Newsgroup
ASKED
Which LA it-girl had a special implant to try and stop her drug addiction, but is back on the smack because she's now learned that the impact gives the drugs more of a kick?
GUESSED
ASKED
Which TV celebrity chef has had to have a member of the film crew follow him round to discreetly blow away the fine dusting of naughty salt that was showered over baking trays and work surfaces as he bent over them?
GUESSED
ASKED
WHICH veteran rocker has a regular hooker he meets up with every time he visits Las Vegas?
The man in question has been womanizing for years but hasn't a prayer of getting away with it for much longer.
GUESSED
ASKED
What sixtysomething superstar of stage, film and song may be haunted by a home sex movie she made back when she was in her prime? Someone who's seen it tells us, "It may be her greatest performance ever." ...
GUESSED
ASKED
Which barely closeted film star better be nicer to his tricks if he doesn't want to end up in the gossip columns? The leading man in a current release took a male model home after a recent visit to Bungalow 8. But after receiving a certain presidential sex act, informed the gentleman, "Don't [bleep]ing touch me!" when he tried to show some actual affection. Now the miffed model is telling the story all over town.
GUESSED
He's been in New York recently for the "Failure to Launch" premiere.
ASKED
Which female half of a soon-to-be ex-couple has been charging up a storm on her husband's credit card? We're talking a three-month spending spree including jewelry and a staggering $12,000 in one visit to NYC beauty salon J. Sisters.
GUESSED
Amazing! Recent Solar Eclipse Viewed from Space
From Nasa.gov
More Gossip/Speculation HERE
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