AFP - The UN's top climate official, who is at the heart of a controversy over incorrect global warming data, has penned a racy novel which dishes up sex, reincarnation and a real-life Hollywood actress.
AP - "Dancing with the Stars'" Karina Smirnoff said Saturday she won't reveal who she wants to win the Super Bowl because she doesn't know who is going to be on the show next season.
AP - "Dancing with the Stars'" Karina Smirnoff said Saturday she won't reveal who she wants to win the Super Bowl because she doesn't know who is going to be on the show next season.
In 2001, Jordan married Emil Valention Tzekov six days after divorcing the man she used to be married to, the pharmaceutical exec she made her fortune with, Raymond Mirra. Jordan gave birth to her son, Jude Michael, on July 13, 2001. It'd appear that the father of the son was Tzekov, who told the Daily News "That's my son...I don't know if I can talk about this."
Tzekov's neighbors describe Jude Michael as "autistic" to the Daily News.
Tzekov and Jordan got divorced in 2006.
Tzekov told the Daily News he hadn't seen Jordan or his son in a year.
On Wednesday, Jordan checked into Room 1603 at The Peninsula Hotel.
According to hotel staffers, she hangs a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door, paid the bill in cash, ordered lots of room service, and "didn't leave the room for two days."
According to the New York Post, Jordan's aunt received an email from her threatening suicide and the murder of Jude. The aunt then contacted the 20th Precinct, faxing them the emails. The 20th moved into action, and figured Jordan was at The Peninsula.
On showing up, police found the Do Not Disturb sign, and that Jordan had barricaded the door with either a couch or several chairs. On bursting down the door, they found Jordan lying on floor, foaming at the mouth and "babbling incoherently." Her son, who'd been dead for what's being estimated to be a day by police, was on the bed. Authorities believe Gigi Jordan fed Jude a lethal combination of Xanax and Ambien. Ambien's been known to have a harsh side-effect of suicidal thoughts in some patients.
Sources noted to the Post that the room was littered with pill bottles and "thousands" of pills, along with "scattered documents — including a suicide note penned by Jordan."
Ex-FBI agent Flint Waters "told me many rich people are involved," Jordan wrote. "Many wealthy guys trade child porn like a hobby." Waters did not return a call Friday night.
The Daily Newsalso reports that Jordan wrote that she donated $20M to Haiti relief efforts before attempting suicide, putting $12M to Doctors Without Borders and $8M to the Red Cross, noting that the other $7M in her estate would "be used for some better purpose in society." Besides either organization now showing any record (though the News notes that this could be because she mailed the checks on Wednesday), this also conflicts with the New York Post's sourced $100M valuation of her estate.
On the website of a "Fertility guru":
Jordan had said having her child has "helped awaken a spiritual connection to God." "In learning how to release my fear of losing something I really wanted and to allow myself to believe I would have it," she wrote, "I gave birth to a beautiful boy, and experienced a greater depth of love and connectedness with my child."
How did Gigi Jordan amass her fortune, and were these problems present before?
Why'd she check into The Peninsula?
How did nobody in Jordan's life see this coming?
And most importantly, what part of Jordan's past as a pharmaceutical executive will be tied to her current state as an incoherent, filicidal new-ager? Because something will be.
Critics aren't the only ones harassing Keira Knightley.
The 24-year-old Pride and Prejudice star has yet another alleged stalker, this one going by the name of...
1. When Leslie Calhoun, the chef at NBC who feeds him every day, was terrified into being quoted as terrified by the New York Post or
3. When NBC had to dignify everyone going insane over it via their corporate communications Twitter feed:
Finally, via his Twitter, Questlove told everyone to chill out:
whatever the case, I found this funny and when I find something funny I like to let the world in on the joke (twitpic anyone??). in NO way did i ever think that this was some cruel insensitive joke on behalf of jeff zucker and his comrades at nbc (the cafeteria isn't even owned or operated by nbc).
I kinda get where leslie calhoun (our culinary rosa parks) was coming from; fried chicken as a fragrant, tasty, honorable metaphor for the struggles and accomplishments of america's black masses.
The thing is, Questlove's right. Absolutely, completely, unequivocally correct. He shouldn't have had to clear this up. Yet, he does, since we're a totally insecure and immature culture who's touch-sensitive to racial issues even as we're busy touting how "post-racial" we actually are. Because we are! Until people try to spin a menu out of control. And then we've retrogressed to red-to-the-touch political correctness and oversensitivity.
Can you make pronouncements that the sign could, potentially, appear to be racially insensitive? Sure. Could you then go on to construe that NBC has racial sensitivity issues because of this sign? Of course. But in both cases, you'd be an asshole. Or at the very least, wrong.
NBC isn't a racist company, and if it is, this sign isn't going to be indicative of the problems they have. This is funny. It's funny because someone thought to do it, or didn't think about the implications it could have. That's it. That's all. And if you take offense to this, or try to spin it out of proportion, you're essentially bringing your own insecurities over racial issues to the table. Or your inability to read context: Questlove's a funny guy. It was a funny sign. That's it. And if Questlove's over it.....
just so yall dont think that im all talk. i presented leslie in our kitchen with flowers and an extremely sizable gift certificate spa treatment with the works (enough to make my assistant go "WTF?!?!" who is more stressed out over your mess than me?!")—
You should be, too.
(Fashion Wire Daily)
Fashion Wire Daily - Donna Karan may have dropped out of Parsons School of Design when she was a sophomore - Anne Klein herself offered the fledgling designer a job that she couldn't refuse - but that doesn't mean she doesn't put a high premium on fashion education.
Fashion Wire Daily - Donna Karan may have dropped out of Parsons School of Design when she was a sophomore - Anne Klein herself offered the fledgling designer a job that she couldn't refuse - but that doesn't mean she doesn't put a high premium on fashion education.
Another Spears beau bites the dust.
Jamie Lynn Spears and boyfriend Casey Aldridge have ended their nearly two-year controversial relationship, a source tells E! News. During their time...
To recap, Cullen writes a story headlined "Backdoor taxes to hit middle class" that runs on February 1st. Reuters has tried to make it disappear, but it's still available via the magic of Google Cache here. The lede:
The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.
Except, as it turned out, that wasn't the case. First came the Reuters feedback page on the story, which was mostly made up of notes like this:
This story is filled with errors that truly offend any sense of even-handness, accuracy and diligence. The budget only rolls back the Bush tax cuts for those making over $200k in some instances and $250k in others. The rates for the tax brackets below that are not being rolled back, which is the whole underpinning of this story. What an embarrassing mistake. Also, calling the Estate Tax the Death Tax is straight from the conservative playbook.
The Feb 1 story headlined "Backdoor taxes to hit middle class" is wrong and has been withdrawn. The story said lower-income families will pay more under tax provisions scheduled to expire Dec 31. The Obama administration's budget calls for the extension of those tax provisions for households earning less than $250,000. There will be no substitute story.
The reporter who wrote that article earlier this week alleging an Obama "back door" tax hike for nearly everyone, which became a rightwing cause — and then was withdrawn by Reuters — has now left the company. Jumped or pushed?
In 1995, Cullen was instrumental in the launch of The Wall Street Journal Online, and for the 13 years following, served as an editor and columnist overseeing personal finance and financial markets coverage for WSJ.com. She also produced its award-winning "Fiscally Fit" column and was the author of "The Wall Street Journal. Complete Identity Theft Guidebook," published in 2007.
The Deadliest Catch crabbing captain's health continues to improve after a massive...
You think the Oscars are about a month away. We think they're already over.
Looking at the odds (from here and here and here), and taking in awards season up to this point,...
But come on, Peter Kafka. NBC wouldn't be so stupid and brazen as to remove the archives of their first serious cause célèbre to come to the network in a while, would they?
If you said "yes" outloud just now, well, you're right. Per Peter:
A little odd, given that a couple of days ago, the network was offering every single "Tonight Show" episode O'Brien had taped on NBC.com. But then again, everything about this story has been odd. I've asked NBC for comment. NBC - at least, I'm assuming it's NBC - has also been aggressive about taking down Conan episodes from Google's YouTube (GOOG).
A look at NBC's site shows, well, nothing.
The NBC-partnered Hulu shows nothing, either!
Nothing here, either
That said, you can still watch other great NBC programming, like...Lipstick Jungle! Which was canceled last May.
Or Kings! Which, like Conan's show, was a fan-favorite NBC canceled because they were too incompetent to figure out how to make money off of it.
Or the NBC reboot of Knight Rider, which was just as stupid of an idea as it sounded!
The weekend isn't over, so there's still time for Avatar to claim its eighth straight box office victory. But if last night's numbers are any indication, the Na'vi are in trouble. Judd Hirsh sitcom Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried love-fest Dear John made $13.6 million yesterday and seems to be one its way to a $35 million weekend, $10 million more than the highest projections. Meanwhile, Avatar took in only $6.2 million. [The Wrap]
The New York Times reports today that a bunch of retired cops have ratted on their legacies by noting in a survey that pressure from City Hall suits led them to diddle their numbers:
...The survey asked provocative questions and clearly elicited disturbing answers. The retired members of the force were asked whether they were aware of changes to crime reports. Of the 160 who indicated that they were, more than three-quarters said the changes were unethical.
So! Retired cops who have nothing to lose by telling the truth but the respect of their shady colleagues come forward and say the assholes who paid them made them lie. And what's the NYPD have to say? Essentially: they're old, and lying.
The department's chief spokesman, Paul J. Browne, who was provided a copy of the survey's summary on Thursday, said that two other significant, independent and more comprehensive studies had been done in recent years analyzing the integrity of the city's crime statistics - one in 2006 by a New York University professor and another by the state comptroller's office - and that he had found them to be reliable and sound. The professor's report contained this assessment: "We conclude, as did the state comptroller five years ago, that the city and department officials, and the public can be reasonably assured that the N.Y.P.D. data are accurate, complete and reliable."
So a study five years ago is found to be reliable, and cops trying to be honest are lying liars. Got it?
New York City cops, learn your lesson: you're only honest when you're full of shit. You want to talk about another cop forcefully sodomizing a perp for smoking weed? Liar. You want to talk about fudging numbers? Liar. There's no precedent for this. You have no proof. Our administration officials are sparkle-clean, like our streets. Like our numbers. Can't you count?
Back in October, Irving Picard, the trustee in charge of recovering money for Bernard Madoff's victims, slapped a lawsuit on Bernie's two sons, his niece and his brother, saying they used the business like a "family piggy bank" and siphoned off $198 million to spend on themselves. Now the four have agreed to an asset freeze until there's an outcome to Picard's suit. Examples of the outlandish expenses paid for by the company are $813,287 for Andrew Madoff's Amex "bill for clothes, boat rentals and vacations," and Shana Madoff Swanson's $379,342 for "clothes, makeup and travel." Per the agreement, they must all now get Picard's permission to "run up a debt of more than $1,000, excluding legal fees, medical expenses, taxes and 'reasonable living expenses.'" Sounds like that last part might cause some problems though; their definition of "reasonable living expenses" is probably not very reasonable at all.
hiv test result. My girlfriend is hinting that we should get married. I don't want to. In fact I want to dump her but I want her to think it is her idea. I'm looking for some guy who is between 24 and 27 and is HIV positive to got to a doctor with my name and SSN and get tested. When the results come in, send me the printed results letter. I will then show this to my girlfriend and see how long it takes before she dumps me. LOL. I will pay for your time and the testing costs. Thanks
Now, has everybody done their reading? Good.
Questions:
1. Is it real?
2. What kind of man needs a positive HIV test to dump a woman? You can't just, you know, do it like everybody else?
3. What if it backfires and she professes her love and devotion to her man, willing to stand by him no matter what? Then what do you get tested for?
4. Isn't this what they call tempting fate?
5. What the fuck kind of person is this?
Answers:
1. Does it matter?
2. The kind of men who can afford for someone to do this, to start out with. Because they think they can more or less buy everything. Like a positive HIV test.
3. The fact that she doesn't know what kind of man she's with right now is as awful as the possibility of this person actually existing.
4. Yes.
5. Again, possibly the "real" kind.
From where we're sitting, the snow storm that's currently ravaging the mid-Atlantic doesn't look like much. But according to the news and the Twitters out of D.C., it's like The Day After Tomorrow out there. Amid all this chaos though, no one has settled on a name for this storm. The most popular seem to be "snowmageddon," "snowpocalypse," and "snogasm." Those are fine. Good even. But they're definitely not the most inspired nicknames we've come across, a list that includes things like "snOMG," "chersnowbyl," and "keysersnoze." Still, the best we've found is one that both captures the magnitude of the storm and honors a legendary New Yorker: "snotoriousBIG."
Breaking News Blog [Washington Post]
Relax Fall Out Boys and Fall Out Girls, Pete Wentz says rumors of his band's death have been greatly exaggerated. They're not broken up for good, Wentz says, just on a bit of a hiatus. “Now I’m okay if Fall Out Boy comes back or doesn’t come back. Like, if it’s fun for everyone to do again, we’re going to do it ... I just want it to be authentic when we come back,” he said. So do we. Because what would Fall Out Boy be without authenticity? [E! Online]
Being a father is more important than being a Fall Out Boy right now for Pete Wentz.
The rocker caught an early flight to Miami to deejay the launch of new Tide and Febreze Freshness...
(AP)
AP - Inspired by a young friend who died from leukemia, singer Rihanna is working to get help for those who suffer from the disease.
An enigmatic secret agent, he spent a lifetime covertly battling Nazis and Communists on several continents while living under a death sentence. Johnny X, one of his many shadowy... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 6 Feb 2010 | 10:32 am
VANCOUVER, B.C. - He's played with Bing Crosby and hung out with Frank Sinatra, gave Michael Buble his first paying gig and hobnobbed with Lena Horne. But legendary Vancouver big band... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 6 Feb 2010 | 10:31 am
Having learned nothing of this thing called public relations, Michael Brown, formerly of bungling the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina, has picked the Colts to beat the Saints in the Super Bowl tomorrow. He also thinks people should "get over the whole Katrina thing." [Politico]
One of the fun things about Hollywood turning board games into movies is that a writer gets to make up a complete new story behind the already established entity. Usually the stories cooked up are pretty predictable (the Battleship movie will be an "epic naval action adventure"). But when we saw that Taylor Lautner would start in a movie based on Stretch Armstrong, we were hoping Universal would surprise us. Would it be a somber drama about an entire stretchy family and the suffering their disorder causes? Or would be about a stretchy basketball player who dominates the NBA with his unstoppable stretch dunk? Or maybe it would be about a stretchy martial arts expert who can kick anyone on earth at anytime without leaving his dojo?
Neither, sadly. Instead the script tells the story of an "uptight spy who stumbles across a stretching formula, which he takes and must now adjust to in everyday life and when fighting crime." Well, at least it will be in 3-D.
Over at Jezebel, they have a feature called Cover Lies, where they go into the LIES of magazine covers, who do nothing but lie. I've made my own special Cover Lies: Levi Johnston Playgirl Edition!
No? How about the LOLCAT Levi Johnston Playgirl cover?
Well, tragically, magazine covers were the original LOLcats, so that one doesn't work either. But you know what does? SPARKLEPOWER!
Everytime. Every. Single. Time. Still not enough for you? Fine. Here. You want penis, you've got penis.
When the history of the Tea Party is written, the gathering happening right now in Nashville will go down as its constitutional convention, the moment when a group of grassroots revolutionaries transitioned into a legitimate political force. Yesterday organizers announced the formation of a new political action committee to raise money for Tea party-approved candidates. Its initial goal for 2010 will be to raise and spend $10 million on this year's midterm elections.
The PAC already has a list of five targets led by Arkansas Senator Blanche Lincoln. It plans to identify another 15 races to support candidates over the next few weeks. Tea Party-approved candidates will be those who have allegiance, above all else, to what convention spokesman Mark Skoda called "first principles." According to the Times, these include "less government, fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, states rights and national security." Surprising! That doesn't mention discovering secret Muslims and impeaching them from office. Maybe that's a second principle.
Is the superstar era over? Think Madonna, Michael Jackson, U2, the Boss. Is Lady Gaga the way to go now? Instant fame, (probably) quick decline?
—Pique Santos, via...
Rather than ask Ben Affleck to dust off his tights and reprise his role in Daredevil, production company New Regency has decided to start over. David Scarpa, who wrote the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, will write this new take on the blind super hero as Hollywood starts a disturbing new trend of re-booting franchises less than a decade after their original release. [Deadline]
North Carolina Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones has ordered Andrew Young, John Edwards' former aide and fall man, to turn over a sex tape of Edwards getting busy with a pregnant women (probably mistress Rielle Hunter). Young is storing the tape and two copies in an Atlanta safety deposit box. Once Young turns the tape over, as he says he will, it will put "under lock and key...until the lawsuit is resolved." After that, it will inevitably be distributed over the Internet and we'll all have no choice but to watch it. [Politco]
Starting with the Grammys, moving on to the Oscar nominations and ending up with Charlie Sheen's car going off a cliff, this was quite the week.
And since there was so much news, we...
Like Madonna before her, Lady Gaga loves to shock us. And what could be more shocking for a techo-pop chanteuse than appearing normal?
That's the only explanation we could cook up...
Bottles are flying in the wake of Amanda outing Zoe as a terrorist, but no one wants to duck and cover.
After blurting out that Zoe is a member of the Soldiers of the One on interplanetary television, the Graystones are now personae non gratae. Protestors are boycotting Graystone Industries, the company’s stock is plummeting, and its $2 billion loan to the twelve colonies’ banking system is almost up for repayment. Is it too big to fail? Will there be a bailout? We find the economic allusions to real life more unseemly than the terrorist ones.
Each parental unit tries to reconcile the fact that Zoe might be a suicide bomber in his/her own way. Daniel slums it at a dive-y boxing gym and takes out his angst on his sparring partner (who is the reincarnation of eighties John Oates). Amanda, on the other hand, is over her crying jag from the last episode. She doesn’t have as much trouble swallowing the Zoe-as-troubled-mastermind theory. She just wants to forget it all with a good frak on the desk in Daniel’s lab. But oops, the Zoebot is watching. Awwwkward.
Rather than stab out her robo-eye visor, Avatar Zoe gets creative. She figures out how to hook up the holoband to the Cylon body and “ta-frakin-dah” she’s back in the virtual world. Well, actually, the blank virtual box where Daniel also hid the avatar of Adama’s daughter, Tamara, who still has no clue why her heart’s not beating. The girls feel along the walls for a rift in the space-time continuum, er, a piece of shared code that manifests itself as a doorway to the rest of the virtual world. Freaked out by all bacchanalia once they get to Club V, Tamara tries another doorway out. Memo to the writers: little-girl-lost scenes work best when David Bowie is somehow involved.
Caprica has gestured at the possibility that Avatar Zoe might make different decisions than Human Zoe. But for now the copy is happy to follow its master’s plans. This means hightailing it to the STO safe house on Gemenon, never mind that the evidence-tampering police have their sights fixed on Castle Graystone. We suspect the writers are holding off until Human Zoe’s grand scheme turns out to mean that some harm will come to the Avatar (which maybe triggers the Cylon’s latent homicidal tendencies?). But the idea that a clone could turn out differently than the original is something Battlestar Galatica did well (e.g., “I’m Sharon, but I’m a different Sharon”), and we hope they play around with it here.
Poor little Lacy Ringwald. First she has figure out how to lug 2,000 pounds of Cylon to Gemenon. Plus, things are rough for her at the Athena School now that everyone knows she’s been palling around with terrorists. But wait, are those sympathetic looks from Keon Gatwick (Liam Sproule)? He mocks her like the other cool kids, but something in his eyes says different. It’s all very Blaine and makes our heart patter.
Avatar Zoe informs Lacy that Keon is actually Bomber Ben’s BFF. Keon’s strapping; maybe he can help with Cylon logistics. To get his attention, naturally, Lacy tackles him in broad daylight after leaping out from behind a tree. (We really relate to her spazziness.) Keon says he doesn’t find her physically threatening. Lacy, still straddling him, replies, “My knees are pointy and fast and hard.” Foreplay! Where is this feisty attitude when she’s getting bossed around by Avatar Alpha Brat?
Wayward Willie Adama skips school to hang out with the ruffians at an OTB in Little Tauron. Uncle Sam’s ticked off that he didn’t sneak off after attendance and advises him to call the school and say he’s out for the Tauron Day of Devotion to Mars. (From personal experience, we can attest that faking ethnic holidays is actually a versatile get-out-of-jail card. I mean, what public-school teacher knows which day Diwali really falls on, are we right?)
Meanwhile, Zoe and Lacy aren’t the only ones getting virtual. Sister Clarice holobands herself into the hallway of a Comfort Inn. Inside one of the rooms is a confessional with an anonymous higher-up from the STO. He/she wants Clarice to lay low during the investigation, but she tells him she’s close to tracking down Zoe’s avatar, who turns out to be part of a prophecy about apotheosis. Uh, we were just kidding about the whole Zoebot being Jesus thing. But maybe the writers weren’t?
SyFy billed this series as a tale of two families, and the Graystones and the Adamas get further intertwined this week. Like, physically intertwined, when Sam’s fist connects with Daniel’s face outside the boxing ring. Joseph wants to see his daughter’s avatar and try to create a copy of his wife, but when Daniel can’t deliver, he decides to have Sam off Amanda. Caprica has a penchant for cliff-hanger endings, but the threat falls flat. Thug-with-a-heart-o’-gold Sam will have a moral crisis over it. Or the police presence at the Graystones will make it impossible. But really, we just don’t buy that Joseph, who’s been half-present (and half-acted), is at his breaking point yet.
SYDNEY, Australia - The anti-whaling ship the Bob Barker and a Japanese harpoon boat collided in the icy waters off Antarctica on Saturday - the second major clash this year in the... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsEnter | 6 Feb 2010 | 4:01 am
Critics aren't the only ones harassing Keira Knightley.
The 24-year-old Pride and Prejudice star has yet another alleged stalker, this one going by the name of...
Another Spears beau bites the dust.
Jamie Lynn Spears and boyfriend Casey Aldridge have ended their nearly two-year controversial relationship, a source tells E! News. During their time...
You think the Oscars are about a month away. We think they're already over.
Looking at the odds (from here and here and here), and taking in awards season up to this point,...
Being a father is more important than being a Fall Out Boy right now for Pete Wentz.
The rocker caught an early flight to Miami to deejay the launch of new Tide and Febreze Freshness...
Is the superstar era over? Think Madonna, Michael Jackson, U2, the Boss. Is Lady Gaga the way to go now? Instant fame, (probably) quick decline?
—Pique Santos, via...
Starting with the Grammys, moving on to the Oscar nominations and ending up with Charlie Sheen's car going off a cliff, this was quite the week.
And since there was so much news, we...
Like Madonna before her, Lady Gaga loves to shock us. And what could be more shocking for a techo-pop chanteuse than appearing normal?
That's the only explanation we could cook up...
