DANCING WITH THE STARS - "Episode 1110" - In an effort to show their improvement over the course of the season, all three couples danced for redemption by re-choreographing and doing a previously performed dance chosen by the judges with new music for a better score. Each couple also performed the unpredictable and always entertaining no rules Freestyle dance, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22 (8:00-9:00 p.m., ET), on the ABC Television Network. (ABC/ADAM LARKEY) BRISTOL PALIN, MARK BALLAS

She landed in last place again, but Bristol Palin won the hearts of the judges on Monday in the finals of “Dancing With the Stars” despite a week of public controversy and mystery on the popular TV contest.

Palin, the 20 year-old daughter of conservative politician and Tea Party favorite Sarah Palin, wowed the judges with a Jive, but in came up short in her freestyle routine. She earned 52 points out of 60 to trail her rivals, actress Jennifer Grey with a perfect 60 and actor Kyle Massey with 56 points.

Still, Palin showed improvement and no apparent nervousness after a week in which critics deplored her appearance in the finals, one man shot his TV because she is, and an envelope turned up on the “Dancing” set filled with a mysterious white substance that officials later determined was talcum powder.

“There’s lots of haters out there who are just waiting for me to fail. That’s just going to give me more motivation to prove they’re wrong,” Palin said in an interview on the show.

Each week, the stars and their professional dance partners are scored by a three-judge panel, and fans also vote for their favorite contestants via phone or the Web. A combination of judges’ scores and public voting keeps stars coming back.

In recent weeks on “Dancing,” which is among the top-rated programs in the United States reaching nearly 20 million viewers weekly in each of two shows, Palin has consistently performed at the bottom of the pack where the judges are concerned. Yet, each week fan voting has brought her back.

As she has progressed, critics have speculated that her mom’s popularity has helped her, but the young woman has consistently said she has worked hard to get where she is.

On Monday’s show, co-host Tom Bergeron alluded to the voting controversy only once when he said, “If you don’t vote, don’t complain, and please don’t shoot your TV.”

There was no mention of the powder, which had the makings of an anthrax scare. Some media outlets reported the envelope was addressed to Palin, but that has not been confirmed.

When asked on the show about the past week of controversy, Palin said: “I just had to let it roll off my back and focused on my dancing.”

This week, each contestant performed two numbers: one a repeat of a routine that earlier in the season was disastrous and a second freestyle dance.

In her Jive, Palin gave a strong performance, and judge Carrie Ann Inaba called her “brighter and more vibrant than ever.” But later, her freestyle routine to a song from the stage musical “Chicago” failed to impress the panel.

“Dirty Dancing” star Jennifer Grey, who has been a consistent leader throughout the season, wowed the judges and audiences with a Paso Doble and later her freestyle.

Similarly, Disney star Kyle Massey scored high on his Fox Trot early and nearly came up perfect on his freestyle.

The show climaxes Tuesday when a winner is named.

–Bob Tourtellotte (Reuters)

Taylor Swift arrives at the The 2010 American Music Awards in Los Angeles, Calif. on Sunday, November 21, 2010.(Fashion Wire Daily/Maria Ramirez)

Miley Cyrus celebrated her 18th birthday two days early by hitting the stage at the American Music Awards barefoot and belting out “Forgiveness and Love,” but it was a true teenager who swept the fan count on Sunday, Nov. 21, at the Nokia Theater in downtown Los Angeles.

Sixteen-year-old Justin Bieber trounced the competition at the 37th annual popularity contest, that is voted on by the general public and sponsored by ABC-TV, becoming the youngest person ever to win Artist of the Year. And as the show aired live, screams echoed for him from the upper tiers all night long. As one teen fan shrieked in a quiet moment, “Justin, I love you!”

You could barely hear Bieber sing as those adoring fans went crazy as he took to the stage midway through the show, following Rihanna’s exuberant opening number, Cyrus’ heartfelt ballad, Diddy-Dirty Money’s rapping romp and the Black Eyed Peas’ cool techno riff on their new single “The Time.” Perhaps it was a sign that today’s music business belongs to the young, as screams and cheers also met Taylor Swift as she sang her new single “Back to December” and accepted the favorite country female award.

“I want to thanks my fans,” said the often-maligned Swift, one of America’s most popular recording artists of the moment. “It’s wonderful and rare to be understood, and you guys really get me.”

Other top acts who performed included Kid Rock, Bon Jovi, Enrique Iglesias, Train, Pink, Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Santana, Ne-Yo, Christina Aguilera and Usher, who took home two awards of his own. But the finale was the thing that kept stars like Heidi Klum, Jessica Alba, Christina Milian, Samuel L. Jackson, Jenny McCarthy, Mandy Moore and Sheryl Crow in their seats to the end. For when the combined “boy bands” of New Kids on the Block and the Backstreet Boys bounded onto the stage, not a person had left the three-hour-long show. Promoting their combined tour that launches in 2011, the not-so-young nine reminded many of the older set of their own youth, singing a medley of their hits from 15 years ago.

Later on, the adults in the crowd headed to the hottest after party, the opening of the new Rolling Stone Restaurant and Lounge, where that magazine’s publisher Jann Wenner held court in a private room. He greeted most of the night’s stars from the earlier show, everyone from Bon Jovi, Iglesias and Kid Rock to Perry and her husband, Russell Brand, along with Jamie Foxx, Brandy, Brittany Snow and the “Glee” guys, Mark Salling and Matthew Morrison.

Copyright © 2010 Fashion Ware Daily

The woman appeared in a Detroit federal court for a detention hearing Wednesday afternoon after she was charged with sexually exploiting her daughter.

The cops moved in after they found sexually explicit photos of the girl on a sex offender’s computer in Tennessee.

Related articles

• Mich. woman charged with exploiting daughter (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Using the internet to lure underage co-workers gets Calgary man five year prison sentence (calgaryherald.com)
• Sexting as kiddie porn: The absurdity of making victims perps, and perps victims (trueslant.com)

But using a porn star? That’s the latest stunt pulled by the animal rights group.

Porn star Sasha Gray, dressed in nothing but a strategically placed sheet, is featured in a poster that reads: “Too Much Sex Can Be a Bad Thing: Have your cats and dogs spayed or neutered.”

Gray said she was a big fan of the animal rights group and wanted to support their neutering efforts.

“I think it’s something very simple that pet owners can do,” Ms. Gray says. “If you want to have a pet you need to take the time to look after that pet.”

Did you bring protection?

According to the Guttmacher Institute, whose mission statement reads “advancing sexual and reproductive health worldwide,” the teenager pregnancy rate is up for the first time in a decade.

Teens, they say, are getting it on more and more and not worrying about little things like condoms or other methods of birth control.

Reports The Institute:

For the first time in more than a decade, the nation’s teen pregnancy rate rose 3% in 2006, reflecting increases in teen birth and abortion rates of 4% and 1%, respectively.

These new data from the Guttmacher Institute are especially noteworthy because they provide the first documentation of what experts have suspected for several years, based on trends in teens’ contraceptive use—that the overall teen pregnancy rate would increase in the mid-2000s following steep declines in the 1990s and a subsequent plateau in the early 2000s. The significant drop in teen pregnancy rates in the 1990s was overwhelmingly the result of more and better use of contraceptives among sexually active teens. However, this decline started to stall out in the early 2000s, at the same time that sex education programs aimed exclusively at promoting abstinence—and prohibited by law from discussing the benefits of contraception—became increasingly widespread and teens’ use of contraceptives declined.

“After more than a decade of progress, this reversal is deeply troubling,” says Heather Boonstra, Guttmacher Institute senior public policy associate. “It coincides with an increase in rigid abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, which received major funding boosts under the Bush administration. A strong body of research shows that these programs do not work. Fortunately, the heyday of this failed experiment has come to an end with the enactment of a new teen pregnancy prevention initiative that ensures that programs will be age-appropriate, medically accurate and, most importantly, based on research demonstrating their effectiveness.”

According to some published reports, GOP Senator-elect Scott Brown, who posed nude for Cosmo mag back when he modeled, says he just might do it again.

We’ve heard about politicians who promise “full disclosure” but this may be more than we want to know.

Scott Brown (AP Photo)

Keith Olbermann, the left’s answer to Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, went so far in a hyperbole-filled attack against Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown this week that even some of his more-liberal allies are calling him down for the tirade.

In coverage leading up to the final results of Tuesday’s special election, Olbermann called Brown a “irresponsible homophobic racist reactionary ex-nude model teabagging supporter of violence against women and against politician with whom he disagrees.”

When some questioned Obermann’s judgment on the attacks, the sportswriter-turned-newsman amended his tirade to add “sexist” to the list.

That prompted comedian Jon Sewart to lampoon Olbermann’s “special comment” and call the MNSBC anchor out. Stewart pointed out that Olbermann’s so-called “evidence” is too week to back up the attack and asked Obermann to stop wallowing in the mud of personal attacks.

No response yet from Olbermann.

(Photo from The New York Times)

Add another danger to life while talking on your cell phone.

Walking.

That’s right…walking.

Ever hear the joke about the guy who couldn’t walk and chew gun at the same time?

Now put talking on a cell phone into the mix.

Reports The New York Times:

On the day of the collision last month, visibility was good. The sidewalk was not under repair. As she walked, Tiffany Briggs, 25, was talking to her grandmother on her cellphone, lost in conversation.

Very lost.

“I ran into a truck,” Ms. Briggs said.

It was parked in a driveway.

Distracted driving has gained much attention lately because of the inflated crash risk posed by drivers using cellphones to talk and text.

But there is another growing problem caused by lower-stakes multitasking — distracted walking — which combines a pedestrian, an electronic device and an unseen crack in the sidewalk, the pole of a stop sign, a toy left on the living room floor or a parked (or sometimes moving) car.

The era of the mobile gadget is making mobility that much more perilous, particularly on crowded streets and in downtown areas where multiple multitaskers veer and swerve and walk to the beat of their own devices.

Most times, the mishaps for a distracted walker are minor, like the lightly dinged head and broken fingernail that Ms. Briggs suffered, a jammed digit or a sprained ankle, and, the befallen say, a nasty case of hurt pride. Of course, the injuries can sometimes be serious — and they are on the rise.

Slightly more than 1,000 pedestrians visited emergency rooms in 2008 because they got distracted and tripped, fell or ran into something while using a cellphone to talk or text. That was twice the number from 2007, which had nearly doubled from 2006, according to a study conducted by Ohio State University, which says it is the first to estimate such accidents.

Dennis Hopper

According to multiple reports, Dennis Hopper is on his deathbed at the University of Southern California hospital after the prostate cancer he has fought for years spread to his bones.

Hopper, 73, is also using his final hours to divorce his wife, 43-year-old Victoria Hopper. Papers filed in Los Angeles cite “irreconcilable differences.”  Family friends say its more about the cutting her out of Hopper’s will.

The actor/photographer/writer/director has had a long and often troubled career. For many, he will be remembered most for Easy Rider although he made dozens of films over the year and appeared a couple of years ago in a short-lived TV series on NBC and more recently on the Starz series Crash.

Oops, forgot, there’s all that money, somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million they will have to pay the miffed O’Brien if they bounce him off the show even though, God knows, he’s doing everything in his power to get fired.

It’s obvious NBC will give Leno anything he wants and he wants the Tonight Show back now that his ill-fated Prime Time five-days-a-week debacle is headed for the scrap heap of television history.

O’Brien took over the top-rated late night talk show and turned it into a third-place show so in a medium ruled by ratings, the move should be a no-brainer.

Yet NBC is dragging its feet.

Why?