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Friends
Dec. 29th, 2009
01:12 pm - Obama's America remembers Lincoln
In 2009 the US not only inaugurated its first black president - it also honoured the president who paved Barack Obama's way to the country's highest post.
Events across the nation marked the bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth, celebrating a man widely seen as the greatest US president - the secular saint who redeemed America's original sin of slavery.
Mr Obama has been compared to Lincoln - the lanky junior politician from Illinois who captured the presidency on the strength of his oratory, proving that anyone can make to the White House.
But amid the commemorations, it is easy to forget that Lincoln - a civil-war president - never lacked for critics. Even in this anniversary year, there has been vigorous debate over his legacy.
One lingering source of controversy among historians is Lincoln's moderation on the slavery issue.
Harvard University's Donald Yacovone says complexities have been lost in celebrations that have focused on hero worship.
"A lot of it is superficial," Mr Yacovone told BBC News. "A lot of it is blind to real, not imagined faults that Lincoln represented."
( Read more... )
Via BBC.
05:32 pm - Alicia Douvall had her toe cut off to have feet like Cheryl Cole.
The live-in shrine to all matters footwear that is 3am.co.uk’s entire flat may suggest to the casual observer that there’s nothing we wouldn’t do for shoes. Most people take their favourite shoes to bed after all, don’t they? Don’t they?
And while we admit to putting ourselves through a wee bit of discomfort for the most delish pair of Jimmy Choos ever bestowed on the world, we wouldn’t have surgery on a toe just to be able to fit into a pair of Giuseppe Zanottis.
12:45 pm - The Cannons do Capri
They’re always up for a publicity opportunity, and last night (December 28) Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon were spotted at the 14th Annual Capri Hollywood International Film Festival in Capri, Italy.
The “Always Be My Baby” songstress and her handsome hubby were more than happy to ham it up for the cameras as they made their arrival.
( feeling so hot tamale )
source
12:20 pm - Sam Worthington to play Flash Gordon?
Hollywood is currently shut down for the holidays, but that's not stopping a few casting rumors from leaking out. According to Hollyscoop (who are probably just as reliable as the dude who sells dope on the corner near your house), both Sam Worthington and Ryan Reynolds are two of only a handful of actors on the Flash Gordon shortlist. Hollyscoop' source is, of course, one of those shady "Hollywood insiders", though we already know they're gearing up this film for a potential 2012 release, and so I'm sure there's a little bit of truth here, especially since Worthington and Reynolds would be the go-to frontrunners for these types of roles (I wouldn't be surprised if we hear Worthington mentioned for Captain America, too).
"But he's Australian!", you might scream. That's why one insider says it could be a pretty big deal if Worthington lands the part of the All-American Flash Gordon, an American football player who finds himself and his girlfriend as unwilling passengers onboard a rocket ship heading to the planet Mongo, ruled by the evil Emperor Ming the Merciless. Since Reynolds already has Green Lantern and Deadpool on his plate, I can't imagine he'd slide into the role. But Worthington, who's been starring in what feels like every big, effects-heavy film to hit theaters even though he's not all that memorable of an actor, might be a good fit (and based on his performance in Avatar, we know he can pull off tough, American jock quite well.
Breck Eisner, who's finishing up The Crazies as we speak, is still in line to helm Flash Gordon off a script from Mike Sazama and Burk Sharpless. Speaking about the project earlier this year, Eisner said, "The thing about 'Flash' is, you've got to throw away the 80s version of it ..."
... "For me it's about reinventing 'Flash' - we're still staying true to the adventure origins of it, and the adventurous spirit in that movie, absolutely. It's this man brought to another planet and uniting the disparate groups on Mongo, but there is a gritty, intense, dynamic, active quality to the movie. Very modern. It's not camp."
src
05:46 pm - Heidi Klum and Seal: Family Ice Skating Adventure
Making the most of their family holiday, Heidi Klum and Seal took the kiddies ice skating in Aspen, Colorado on Monday afternoon (December 28).
( more cuteness behind the cut )
Source
12:26 pm - gabby union and dwade make it public
Well look who decided to spend the Holidays together out and about around Miami. Gabrielle Union hit up her baller boo Dwyane Wade’s Heat game in Miami last night. But before the game, the two did what lovers do and hit Miami beach for a swim. I see they’re A-OK with being seen in very public places now.
( Read more... )
Source / Source
08:40 am - Zac, Vanessa, And V's Little Sister Go To Avatar
Why is it always raining in California now? The mild drizzle is annoying omg!
( Drooling over Sam Worthington, etc. )
Source + many more that look basically the same.
11:38 am - Introducing Mason Dash Disick
On Dec. 22, Kourtney Kardashian, 30, and Scott Disick, 26, invited Life & Style over to meet their then-8-day-old son, Mason Dash Disick. In their first interview since becoming parents, the couple opened up about the experience of giving birth, how they picked their sons name, the joys of being parents - sleeping schedules, diaper duty, breast feeding and more!
( Sneak peek of the article under the cut. )
Source
05:35 pm - Lindsay Lohan: Spending Cash in SoHo
Stepping out for an evening retail romp, Lindsay Lohan was spotted making her way around SoHo, New York City on Monday (December 28).
( lindsay, ali & dina )
Source
Source
11:28 am - Casting Couch Blind Item
It was mystifying several years ago why she was hyped the way she was hyped. Just another starlet with no real significant starring vehicles somehow ending up with a prestigious magazine cover proclaiming her as the next It. Well It never happened. And after all this time and a string of failures, she’s been trying to change the course. So she’s gone back to the major player who tried to make it happen for her the first time. There was an arrangement back then – her sexual services for his professional services – and apparently the same arrangement was resurrected recently in the hopes that she’ll finally confirm a juicy role to kickstart a stagnant career.
Never mind that he’s married. His wife benefits handsomely from his generosity and while he may not fulfill her with fidelity, he certainly makes up for it through client exchange. Probably better that way. And given what he looks like, it totally makes sense. But he is a legend in the business both for his accomplishments and for the way he leads these ladies to their accomplishments, counting a couple of award winners and a few box office heavyweights on his resumé…which is why he quickly tired of our poor girl and discarded her.
But not before drying her out. One day late summer, they were joined in a hotel suite by a third gentleman (identity insignificant), both of them enjoying her as she allowed herself to be taken, and, um, decorated appropriately, all for a reward at the end of the session – the privilege of simply looking at a script, no promise, no confirmation…just an advance read. And a suggestion to show up at a premiere for a few introductions. She is so desperate, it’s been so meagre, she submitted to the humiliation although gamely seems to have enjoyed it. An actor after all, obviously able to shut out her husband and child waiting for her back at home.
And then he just cut it off. Told her he could no longer help her. That her body in his bed was no longer required. Which of course only added to her degradation. She tried and tried to offer up more, willing to engage in further depravity, but was only met with rejection. Because he’s moved on. He’s hunting his next target. A young, nubile, blonde babe with a large profile and a perky rack who so far has been able to resist his advances but is trying to graduate from supporting roles in film, as the fact that she’s a headliner on the small screen has not helped with the quality of scripts she’s being offered, or with many of her auditions so far. She’s currently waiting on a big break and he’s trying to make sure it doesn’t happen, so that in her disappointment, she’ll come running to him, ready to wheel and deal.
Note: there are 4 famous names at play – the reject, the replacement, the power player, and his wife.
Source
I'm terrible at these, but my guesses: Reject = Jessica Alba, Replacement = Blake Lively, Power player = Harvey Weinstein, and his Wife = Georgina Chapman
11:56 am - Katie Holmes Wants a Tattoo
This comes as a shocker! Katie Holmes is reportedly desperate to get a tattoo but her husband is not really keen on the idea.
Katie got the idea after seeing Victoria Beckham's tattoo on her wrist. Beckham got the tattoo in Hebrew words saying ‘Together, Forever, Eternally’ to mark her 10 year anniversary with her husband.
Tom doesn't really seem like a tattoo kind of guy so he is not really in love with the idea of Katie getting inked. A source said: “He’s desperately trying to talk her out of getting the tattoo.”
David and Victoria make tattoos look so sexy that every time we see a picture of them we want to get inked. But Katie doesn't seem like the type of girl to get a tattoo either so maybe she's just trying to be a bit of a rebel.
source
lol
06:17 pm - Ashley Greene: LAX Lady
She’s no stranger to travel, and yesterday (December 28) Ashley Greene was spotted leaving LAX International Airport.
The “Twilight” babe looked cute and casual as she carried her pooch pal past the paparazzi, sporting a blue and grey cardigan with a black top, jeans, and black boots.
( Baby Blue )
She looks like KStew in that pic...
SOURCE
12:16 pm - Lady GaGa meeting fans in Atlanta 12/28
Lady GaGa meeting fans before her Monster Ball show in Atlanta last night.
( Inject Me Baby, I'm a Free Bitch )
So cute to see her with her puppy, and I am liking the hood/long hair look.
edit: her puppy's name is Yoko
Source
08:51 am - Call for Papers: TMPR Special Issue: Gender and Political Religions
Not sure if anyone in this community would be interested, but I saw this call for papers and found it interesting and timely.
Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions (TMPR) is a Routledge-published quarterly journal, which provides a forum for the exploration of the politics of illiberal ideologies, whether religious or secular. In 2010, TMPR intends to publish a double-issue dedicated to the study of gender and political religions. Empirical work as well as theoretical or conceptual pieces will be included. Deadline for abstracts: January 15, 2010.
More Info.
A lot of my grad friends and I talk about lobbing papers instead of molotovs in order to make things happen. Whether that's writing letters to congressman or writing for publication it seems to get attention. Besides, publish or perish.
11:09 am - The New Will-They-Won’t-They: Joel McHale and Gillian Jacobs (BlackBook Magazine)
The New Will-They-Won’t-They: Joel McHale and Gillian Jacobs
By Natasha Vargas-Cooper
December 28, 2009
“Ninety percent of everything on television sucks and 10 percent has never been better,” says the endearingly snarky comedian Joel McHale. And with his feetplanted firmly on both sides of the quality divide, he’d know best. The quip-spewer skewers the 90 percent as host of E!’s reality TV mockfest The Soup, a gig he’s held for five years and has no plans to give up. “There’s never going to be a lack of material,” he says. “Not as long as Bret Michaels does another show.” He balances out the primetime offal by playing the leading man on a 10-percent production, NBC’s uproarious Community.
Joining McHale on the ensemble sitcom is Gillian Jacobs, who matches him jibe for knowing jibe as the Diane to McHale’s Sam, a committed and equal partner in flirt. The actress brings a unique, appealing edge to the part—what she describes as “a strange combination of vulnerability and protective exterior”—that has McHale’s character, and audiences, hooked. Jacobs, who has played her share of drug-addled bad girls and damsels in distress in fringe films such as Choke and The Box, has got a comedic gold standard, an amalgam of Claudette Colbert and Lucille Ball, that sums up what makes Community so damn good. “It’s dry, smart and cerebral,” she says. “But also really silly.”
BlackBook: So I know a little bit about your background but why don’t tell me a little about yourself.
Joel McHale: Why don’t you tell me what you looked up on Wikipedia!
Do you know why you’re here?
I have no idea.
It’s all about who we think in Hollywood could be online predators, and you’re number the number one candidate.
That I would be a predator?
Yeah, we think you’d be a great online predator!
Like a pedophile?
No, not just it’s not just pedophiles but about people that creep on the internet.
I wish I had time to creep on the internet. You mean like stalking young women or...?
Chatting, chatting young women.
I’ve never been in a chat room in my life.
What, are you faxing these women?
I stalk the MSNBC website or the BBC website…
Oh, that’s so erudite. Look at you! Okay, what it’s actually on is called The New Regime and it’s about new emerging talent.
The New Emerging Predators.
( What I compare Community to is Cheers or Mash. It’s a bunch of people who chose to be somewhere but they don’t necessarily want to be there. They’re all on different paths and they’re all crossing in different weird ways and they’re all there for reasons that are introduced in the pilot. Some people didn’t do well in high school, other people are finally going back to school and getting their education, and then my character is the only one that’s kind of different, kind of out there. He never got a degree and lied about it. But they’re this group of people that didn’t want to be together but ended up really liking each other. )
SOURCE
11:01 am - Why American consumers can't add
Why American consumers can't add
Posted: Tuesday, December 29 2009 at 06:00 am CT by Bob Sullivan
When I published "Gotcha Capitalism" two years ago, I was in for a big surprise. As I talked about systemic hidden fee fraud all around the country, many, many friends (and even co-workers) found me and asked in hushed tones, “What’s a mutual fund?” “What’s comprehensive and collision?” “What’s a mortgage point?”
It was obvious from these conversations that millions of Americans are severely lacking in financial basics, and this shortcoming played a major role in the housing bubble and the resulting economic collapse. I wanted to know why.
I'm the hidden fee guy, the “Gotcha” guy. People like me usually rant about dreadful banks are and how unfair big companies are, about how corporate greed caused our economic collapse and about how rampant unfairness built the house of cards that just collapsed all around us and sent the world into a global recession.
But it's impossible to ignore the fact that individual consumers made a lot of really bad choices in the past decade. They bought homes with $2,000 mortgages when they only earned $3,000 a month. They borrowed money at 30 percent interest to buy granite countertops. Aren’t they to blame for their own demise? To be an honest journalist, I had to ask: Why are American consumers so gullible, so seemingly out of control? Is there something wrong with us?
Yes, several things. But most important is this: Americans are terrible at math.
I know you know that. But my research shows we are far worse at math than you think.
Exhibit A: Think about the last time you had lunch with four or more friends. What happened when the bill came? Everyone pulled out calculators, there was a lot of murmuring and head scratching and still some of your friends just ended up throwing down a $20 bill and hoping for the best. Now, imagine that crowd in a car dealership or with a mortgage broker. They wouldn’t stand a chance.
Turns out, there's an entire field of study -- albeit a small one -- devoted to this subject. It's called “innumeracy” -- or mathematical illiteracy. It’s a hidden epidemic in our society. And the consequences are dire.
Just as there is a hidden epidemic of people who are functionally illiterate in our country, there is big problem (bigger, by my reckoning) with people who can’t do basic math. There’s no way to function in our society without understanding money, percentages, interest calculation and so on. Yet in a recent government study, less than one in seven American adults ranked “proficient” at math.
Here are a few examples of innumeracy in action:
According to the Department of Education’s National Assessment of Adult Literacy, U.S. adults are terrible at solving real-world math problems, like calculating tips or comparing prices in grocery stores. Some dismal results:
*Only 42 percent were able to pick out two items on a menu, add them, and calculate a tip.
*Only 1 in 5 could reliably calculate mortgage interest.
*1 in 5 could not calculate weekly salary when told an hourly pay rate.
*Only 13 percent were deemed “proficient.” Worse yet, only 1 in 10 women, 1 in 25 Hispanics and 1 in 50 African Americans made the grade.
*Americans are terrified of numbers when it counts most: 20 million Americans pay someone to file their 1040EZ, a one-page tax form with around 10 blanks to fill out.
Also, these numbers show up in U.S. student math scores, which are abysmal:
*The U.S. ranks 25th among 30 industrialized nations in math scores, down near Serbia and Uruguay. U.S. students thought they had the highest grades of any nation in the study, however.
*Half of 17 year olds couldn't do enough math to work in an auto plant, according to President's National Mathematics Advisory Panel.
*Study after study shows U.S. achievement falls off the cliff during middle school, when subjects like fractions and percentages are introduced -- exactly the skills you need as a consumer or, for that matter, to move on to algebra, calculus and advanced sciences.
But here’s another essential point. How can Johnny learn to add if Johnny’s teachers can’t?
*In 18 U.S. states, not even one elementary math class is required for certification.
*Some teaching colleges allow admittance as long as students have math skills equal to their future students -- that is, as long as they could pass a 5th grade math test.
*It's possible in some states to pass the teacher certification exam (Praxis) without answering a single math question correctly.
*In Massachusetts, there's a special program to reacquaint teachers with math. The man who runs the program says half of teachers can't answer basic questions involving fractions and has concluded that many elementary teachers are "phobic" about math.
*Teachers seem to be math-averse from the start. College bound seniors headed for elementary education have math SAT scores significantly lower than the national average (483 vs. 515).
There are many, many other reasons why U.S. consumers tripped and fell down a mine shaft during the past two years. In my new book, "Stop Getting Ripped Off," I lay out a series of other explanations: Greed, laziness, lack of government regulation and magical thinking. And I offer up my own handy guide to solving today’s consumer puzzles, from buying a home to saving for retirement. But innumeracy is the biggest culprit.
Secret Sauce.
I've been saying this for a while... thank goodness math illiteracy is getting more national news. It's a shame how many people come into my store and can't figure out how much 20% off $150 is, and such.
10:42 am - Terror Attack Sparks Fiery Racial Profiling Debate
Terror Attack Sparks Fiery Racial Profiling Debate
ACLU Adviser: Profiling Is Unconstitutional and Counterproductive; Terrorism Expert: 'It Will Stop Terrorist Attacks'
By Lee Ferran
Dec. 29, 2009
In addition to the Nigerian Muslim man accused of attempting to bomb a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day, at least three other travelers were detained over the holiday break, for reasons that proved to be unrelated to terrorism. Another Nigerian man spent too long in the lavatory due to food poisoning, and two Middle Eastern men were removed from their flights for speaking "suspiciously" in a foreign language and watching a Hollywood movie that featured a suicide bombing. The incidents, which turned out to be harmless misunderstandings, prompted a strong reaction against "racial and religious profiling" in the Muslim community and a fiery debate among experts about the value of racial profiling on "Good Morning America" today.
( More bolded under the cut )
Source
I wanted to post the video instead but it wouldn't embed :(
07:57 am - Mohinder goes Bollywood!
The Heroes hottie Sendhil Ramamurthy has signed on to do a Bollywood film!
Ekta Kapoor has signed Sendhil Ramamurthy (who features in the hit TV show Heroes) for her next project Shor. It will be directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK (the duo last directed 99).
( more under here )
Source: 1
10:41 am - Gerard Butler in Aspen
Gerard Butler stays nice and toasty by grabbing a coffee from Starbucks in Aspen, Colorado on Monday (December 28).
The 40-year-old Bounty Hunter kicked back and enjoyed a pleasant conversation with a friend at an outdoor table.
Check out the trailer with co-star Jennifer Aniston if you missed it! The film opens across the country on March 19.
![[mood icon]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/ankawake.gif){kind=small}
awake06:31 pm - National Treasure: Paul McCartney
He was the one half of the Lennon & McCartney songwriting team that gave the world such gems as Love Me Do and Yellow Submarine but his solo work since leaving The Beatles is a body of work which eclipses that of most artists’ full musical career.
( read more )
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