Going on hiatus for the Christmas holidays. See you after New Year's.
December 2006 Archives
Most people expected Donald Trump to fire Tara Conner, the wild child Miss USA, Tuesday but he gave her a second chance.
Which, of course, puts The Donald in a good light as a compassionate man.
And makes us wonder if the whole damn thing was a setup.
On top of the news that Miss USA Tara Conner is about to lose her crown for excessive partying, drinking and bed-hopping comes additional revelations that Miss TeenUSA, 18-year-old Katie Blair (right) has been out doing pretty much the same thing.
Blair, from Billings, MT, was spotted chugging shots, dancing on the couch and cuddling up to dirty old men (young and old) at a Manhattan night club. Turns out she shared the swanky Trumpa Plaza digs with the 20-year-old Conner and other beauty pageant winners.
Now Donald Trump, who owns all these pageants, wants the girls to clean up their act.
When the Donald wants someone to clean up their act, it must be pretty dirty. Trump is hardly what any of us would call a paragon of virtue and family values and the idea that he might find something offensive means it must be pretty damn bad.
Or incredibly hypocritical.
Tara Conner (right), the 20-year-old Kentuckian who became Miss USA, is about to get the boot because she came to New York and went wild, drinking in bars and having a grand old time in the Big Apple.
We're trying to grasp the hypocrisy of this. It's OK for the young girl to put on a skimpy bikini and strut sex appeal all over the stage but God forbid that she go out on the town and have a little fun.
This gets even funnier when you realize the Miss USA franchise is owned by New York real estate speculator Donald Trump, who has all the moral virtue of a junkyard dog.
Trump has scheduled a press conference Tuesday to announce Conner's fate but news organizations are already reporting that Miss USA officials have called runner-up Tamiko Nash, Miss California, and told her to get ready to take over the crown.
Beauty pageants are, by nature, exercises in hyprocrisy, promoting manufactured sex appeal for television audiences. Firing a beauty queen because she made a human mistake only carries that hyprocrisy to new heights. In an era when pro sports figures get multiple chances for drug abuse or breaking the law, it is ridiculous to fire a 20-year-old kid for acting like one.
You can call the Hooters restaurant chain many things (and opponents of the eatery built on sex appeal have called the company names) but the one tag that fits most appropriately is "successful."
Reports The Associated Press:
Retired from a long career in medical sales, Roger Toy can be found most days doing the daily crossword puzzle at a local Hooters, the restaurant chain known for its scantily clad waitresses and, oh yes, buffalo wings.At the restaurant where Toy hangs out, a trio of telecommunications managers dine as often as three times a day.
"The girls are really the reason," says Toy, 54, who has never been married. "If you come up here a lot, you get to know them. I like coming here because everybody knows me."
These "girls" are the Hooters Girls, a cadre of more than 17,000 women who work at the Atlanta-based chain's 438 restaurants across the United States and in 20 countries. Besides their revealing attire of low-cut, tight tank tops and short orange shorts circa the 1980s, these waitresses are known for playful banter and friendly smiles.
"It's the girls. The girls are what we're all about," says Coby Brooks, the company's president and chief executive officer. "Although we have great food."
Having a brand image focused on staff wearing less has meant more for the privately held company, which started in 1983 in Pinellas County. It has blossomed into a chain that brings in $900 million in yearly sales and is expected to cross the $1 billion mark for the first time next year.
As they say, sex sells and that's something to give a hoot about.
Photo: Alexandra Carpanzano, a bartender at Hooters of Cumberland in Atlanta, smiles to the customers as she works at the restaurant. (AP Photo)
Actor Peter Boyle is dead at 71. I remember his breakthrough performance at the violent racist in the independent film Joe in 1970 but he is probably remembered more as the monster in the Mel Brooks spook Young Frankenstein.
Those looking for some soft core T&A at the local bookstore will have one less choice. FHM, one of the slick cheesecake "laddie mags" born around the turn of the century, is shutting down, sending young men, no doubt, scrambling for other places to fulfill their masturbatory fantasies.
Unlike Playboy or raunchier rivals like Penthouse or Hustler, FHM models never took it all off. A wisp of clothing or a strategically placed arm would hide nipples or crotches and the emphasis was more on sexy poses than close ups of shaved vaginas (although the web site recently launched "uncensored" photos that show the goods.
FHM's British edition is number one over there but never could crack the soft core "laddie" market that is dominated by Maxim on these shores.
From Tonight.Com:
Cameron Diaz relaxes by having sex.The actress - who is dating pop singer Justin Timberlake - finds lovemaking so therapeutic she believes it could be used as a cure for practically everything.
She is quoted by Australia's Sydney Morning Herald newspaper as saying: "Sex is the most amazing stress reliever. I actually think it's the best thing for everything! I think it should be 100 percent part of everyone's life on
a day-to-day basis. We'd all be a lot happier!"The 34-year-old star - who gets up close and personal with Hollywood heartthrob Jude Law in new festive movie The Holiday - particularly enjoys energetic romps which get her all hot and sweaty.
She said: "I love being physical, I love to get my heart-rate up and I love sweating. Sex is undoubtedly the best way to do that!"
More proof that morons run the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration.
Reports The Associated Press:
Troy Smith's Heisman Trophy was shipped home Tuesday to keep it safe and avoid the type of mishap that happened the last time an Ohio State player won the award.Smith wore a black leather jacket with the Heisman insignia on back when he arrived at the airport from New York, where he was presented college football's most coveted trophy.
Eddie George, the last Buckeye to win the Heisman in 1995, had his trophy get stuck in an airport X-ray machine, losing the tip of its right index finger and bending the middle finger.
"We decided to have it shipped. That's much easier. How times have changed. Eddie carried it on the plane and put it in the seat next to him," sports information director Steve Snapp said.
Smith didn't mind.
"No, because Eddie's finger got bent," he said. "I don't want that to happen to mine."
From ZeeNews.Com:
Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair posed semi-nude for a painting when she was a trainee barrister in her mid-twenties.For more than a year Cherie earned five pounds an hour modeling for the five feet painting `striding nude, blue dress`, wearing a sleeveless dress open at the front, The Times reported today.
She was required to stand still for up to an hour at a time in Uglow`s freezing studios in Clapham, south London.
The work was never completed because Cherie decided to cut short the sittings to visit the US.
She married Tony Blair, then a trainee barrister colleague, shortly afterwards in 1980. As the pair moved into public life, Uglow, who exhibited the picture briefly in 1983, decided it was best kept out of view. The artist later painted a second version with another model.
On second thought, forget about Laura. Wonder is Hillary ever got kinky with Bill (God knows, he got kinky with everybody else). Reminds us of this piece posted on a sister web site some time back.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the corrupt bribe-taker who quit rather than face the music, started a blog today.
But it shut down a few hours later so they could clean off all the comments from people who told DeLay just what they thought of him.
The blog is back up but comments are now moderated but you can find them on another site.
And one other thing. DeLay told Mike Barnicle on MSNBC's Hardball that he doesn't write his own blog.
"I'm not a writer," he said. "I have ideas and others write them for me."
Hmmmmm.
The Washington, DC Area Film Critics Association picked United 93 as their choice for best film of the year.
No, this is not a joke.
Dale Yeager is a noted criminal analyst and CEO of SERAPH, Inc., a company that produces a periodic report on "The State of School Safety in American Schools," for Congress. Each year, his ream of researchers visits some 200 school districts, surveying and teaching administrators, teathers and other personnel about school safety issues.
What his team finds is profiled by Jennifer Mertens on Officer.Com:
"Truancy is the root of all school safety problems," Yeager says. "This is the frustration I hear from police departments: 'I know these kids are out running around. My people see them every day.' "Truancy, he adds, feeds into the arena of young sexual predators, sex crimes, gang activity, negative cliques and all the problems associated with them.
"Give me a break." That's what kids want these days. And, according to Yeager, school officials and social workers are more than willing to give them one.
"Police departments need to come to terms with sex crimes," Yeager says. "More and more sexual assault and paraphelia is happening with children. We're seeing sex aggression in 6/7-year-old kids."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls the increasing number of STDs in students an epidemic. Yeager's group credits the increase to behaviors such as multiple sex partners, the popularity of oral sex in middle schools and increase of students engaged in same-sex relationships.
"You can't just say this stuff doesn't happen," he stresses. "It does and is. Oral sex has become like changing your socks. We have yet to be in a middle school that didn't have huge problems with this."
It's a school day. You may know where your kids are but do you really know what they are doing?
After igniting a media firestorm by flashing her apparent lack of underwear to the paparazzi, Britney Spears is finally talking. "It's been so long since I've been out on the town with friends," the singer writes in a posting Thursday on her Web site.
"It's also been 2 years since I've even celebrated my birthday. Every move I make at this point has been magnified more than I expected, and I probably did take my new found freedom a little too far. Anyway, thank God for Victoria's Secrets' new underwear line! I look forward to a new year, new music and a new me."
Spears, the mother of two young sons, celebrated her 25th birthday on Dec. 2. She has been unleashing her inner wild child since filing for divorce last month from Kevin Federline, her husband of two years.
Her recent nights out with party girls Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan -- and those uncensored, R-rated crotch shots that were splashed across the Web -- drew disapproval from her fans and other Spears watchers.
Spears and Federline, 28, have a 1-year-old son, Sean Preston, and an infant son, Jayden James, who was born Sept. 12. Spears is seeking custody of both children, with visitation rights for Federline.
Federline, an aspiring rapper, is seeking spousal support and sole custody of his sons with Spears.
___
On the Net:
Copyright © 2006 The Associated Press
Actress Scarlett Johansson says she's ready to do a fully-nude scene on the big screen.
"I'm proud of my breasts. I call them my girls. They're my charms, my feminine wiles. I'm very comfortable with my sexuality, my body and my face. Well, not always my face, but it's stuck there and there's nothing I can do about it."
Enough said.
First it was the Jews, not the Mayans are pissed off at actor-director Mel Gibson. They claim his latest film, Apocalypto, is a "demeaning and untrue" portrayal of thei Mayan culture. Time for Lethal Weapon 5?
According to Newsweek, Wal-Mart sales are way off and management is singing the blues. Seems the retailer to the masses tried to upscale and that turned off the masses. First rule of sales: You've got to know the territory.
A woman on an American Airlights flight en route to Dallas farted. So she did what some people do with they fart. She lit a match to cover the...er...fragrence of flatulence.
Other passengers smelled the burning sulphur of the match and thought someone was trying to light a bomb. So the plane made an emergency landing in Nashville and the FBI questioned everyone before discovering the farting terrorist.
The plane was allowed to continue without the human gas bomb.
Noticed a lot more spam in your email box lately? You're not alone. Spam is on the rise and efforts to block the glut of useless messages are failing.
Reports The New York Times:
Hearing from a lot of new friends lately? You know, the ones that write “It’s me, Esmeralda,” and tip you off to an obscure stock that is “poised to explode” or a great deal on prescription drugs.You’re not the only one. Spam is back — in e-mail in-boxes and on everyone’s minds. In the last six months, the problem has gotten measurably worse. Worldwide spam volumes have doubled from last year, according to Ironport, a spam filtering firm, and unsolicited junk mail now accounts for more than 9 of every 10 e-mail messages sent over the Internet.
Much of that flood is made up of a nettlesome new breed of junk e-mail called image spam, in which the words of the advertisement are part of a picture, often fooling traditional spam detectors that look for telltale phrases. Image spam increased fourfold from last year and now represents 25 to 45 percent of all junk e-mail, depending on the day, Ironport says.
The antispam industry is struggling to keep up with the surge. It is adding computer power and developing new techniques in an effort to avoid losing the battle with the most sophisticated spammers.
Another cruise ship, another virus. Reports WESH-TV:
Cruise officials said almost 400 passengers and crew aboard the world's largest cruise ship have been given over-the-counter medication for a virus.The outbreak struck Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas, which returned Sunday as scheduled to the Port of Miami.
A statement from the Miami-based company said crew members sanitized frequently touched surfaces such as railings, door handles and elevator buttons after the short-lived outbreak began. The cruise line also said that a guest previously exposed to norovirus likely brought it on board Nov. 26.
The Freedom of the Seas carries 4,000 passengers on 15 decks. Am I missing something here? How is spending several thousand bucks for a week or so with 4,000 others people on a floating city a vacation?
From the banking world comes news that Mellon Bank of Pittsburgh and the Bank of New York will merge. These mergers continue to create megabanks and names from long ago have disappeared into the woodwork. My files are filled with statements and cancelled checks from banks that no longer exists: Virginia National Bank, NationsBank, Soran, 1st Virginia Bank, Central Fidelity, MBNA and so on.
Pfizer announced Saturday it is pulling the plug on development of a highly-anticipated drug to treat high cholesterol because of an unfortunate side effect.
People taking the drug died.
Pfizer Inc. said Saturday it has cut off all clinical trials and development for a cholesterol drug that was supposed to be the star of its pipeline because of an unexpected number of deaths and cardiovascular problems in patients who used it.The world's largest drugmaker said it was told Saturday that an independent board monitoring a study for torcetrapib, a drug that raises levels of HDL, or what's commonly known as good cholesterol, recommended that the work end because of "an imbalance of mortality and cardiovascular events."
Pfizer said it is asking all clinical investigators conducting trials to warn patients to stop taking the drug immediately.
The news is devastating to Pfizer, which had been counting on the drug to revitalize stagnant sales that have been hurt by numerous patent expirations on key products.
Not as devastating as it was to the people who died.
As just about everyone in the free world must know by now (even if they don't want or need to know), fading pop diva Britney Spears doesn't wear panties when she goes out on the town and, thanks to her willingness to flash the paparazzi, she shaves her pubes.
Reports Erin Carlson of The Associated Press:
Britney Spears is behaving more like her soon to be ex-husband, Kevin Federline, than a pop princess on the verge of a career comeback.Fresh from her split from the club-hopping Federline, Spears looked hip and wholesome weeks ago in a surprise appearance on David Letterman's show and while ice skating in New York's Rockefeller Center in a Gap sweater. But now she's unleashing her inner wild child, running around with party girls Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, sporting unflattering hair extensions and flashing her apparently panty-less crotch to the paparazzi. (Be prepared to cringe if you dare view the uncensored photos, splashed across the Web).
"She's a beautiful girl and now that she's single and she's having fun, I think she's just trying to express herself," said celebrity image consultant Amanda Sanders. "Unfortunately, it's the wrong message that's coming across. And the shame is she was really such a role model."
Reuters also found it newsworthy:
Her necklines have plunged, she's plying the all-night party circuit with new best pal Paris Hilton, and she has even ditched her panties.As if to prove, as she once sang, that she really is "not that innocent," newly separated pop star and mother of two Britney Spears is letting it all hang out -- shocking her fans, causing concern among friends and making herself the butt of jokes on late-night TV.
"Girls Gone Wild!" Us Weekly magazine blared in its cover story this week, charting a manic two weeks in which Spears was seen gambling all night in Las Vegas, spent time nightclubbing and shopping with "celebutante" Hilton, and was photographed on several occasions climbing in and out of cars without panties.
Must be that little girl thing she tried so hard to portray as a teen pop idol. But Britney's a mom now and mammas shouldn't be flashing their shaved crotches for all the world to see.
Her soon-to-be ex husband Kevin Federline says he may use Britney's willingness to let us see all as grounds to gain custody of their two kids.
Otherwise, they may be asking: "Mommy, what is that thing between your legs?"
American Newsreel returns from the ashes. I gave up publishing this web site about a year ago, tired from trying to do too much at once.
But I've missed Newsreel and I hope you have too.
Please give me a day or two while I get everything up and running.
