Celebrity girls gone wild

(Reposted from a soon-to-be-defunct blog at the Jazzyville message board)

I can't help wondering how Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and the others have avoided ending up on one of those videos all these years. Lohan, in particular, seems to be in a bottomless pit, and it's gonna be really ugly when she hits bottom.

Reposted comments

From T-Mc, 7/26/07 11:30am: I am getting tired of Blonde Bimbos.

From Me, 7/26/07 12:07pm: You and me both. Lohan needs to go back to her natural color...

I recall a photo contest at Worth1000.com that featured "cloned" pix of stars, and one featured Lohan with rather dark (tanned?) skin and red hair, and standing next to her was another, almost-albino Lindsey with bottle-blond hair, and the caption "Yeah, they're really both her. Scary."

Maybe somebody needs to have Robert Downey Jr. to sit down and have a talk with the bunch of them, and let them hear the details of his long, strange trip. (That is, of course, if he's dedicated to staying clean.) In fact, since Lohan and Spears were willing to pay megabucks for those country-club rehab programs, maybe Downey should charge them something...

From T-Mc, 7/26/07 1:15pm: People don't know what they will miss, until it is gone.

Race in a Bottle

Drugmakers are eager to develop medicines targeted at ethnic groups, but so far they have made poor choices based on unsound science

Two years ago, on June 23, 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first “ethnic” drug. Called BiDil (pronounced “bye-dill”), it was intended to treat congestive heart failure—the progressive weakening of the heart muscle to the point where it can no longer pump blood efficiently—in African-Americans only. The approval was widely declared to be a significant step toward a new era of personalized medicine, an era in which pharmaceuticals would be specifically designed to work with an individual’s particular genetic makeup. Known as pharmacogenomics, this approach to drug development promises to reduce the cost and increase the safety and efficacy of new therapies. BiDil was also hailed as a means to improve the health of African-Americans, a community woefully underserved by the U.S. medical establishment. Organizations such as the Association of Black Cardiologists and the Congressional Black Caucus strongly supported the drug’s approval.

A close inspection of BiDil’s history, however, shows that the drug is ethnic in name only...
Click here to read the rest of the article

Frustrated Video Dater Loses It

Video

Seems just a little excitable until the end, when he really loses it...

Man's smelly feet trigger police raid

Article

I've known some smelly-feet people but I don't think I've ever come across someone whose feet inspired a call to the local police station!

This Slim is in Fat City in more ways than one

Mexico's richest man casts controversial shadow -- article no longer found...

...but according to a more recent article, Carlos Slim is now the world's richest man.

Bill Gates Ousted; Carlos Slim Now Holds World's Fattest Wallet, Report Says

The Internet Patrol - Sprint Cellular Disconnects Customers Who Call Sprint PCS Customer Service Phone Number Too Often

I knew from my own experience that Sprint's customer service was nothing short of crappy, but this takes the cake! They're actually canceling customer's accounts if Sprint decides the customer has called customer service or billing too often!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: The Internet Patrol <info@theinternetpatrol.com>
Date: Jul 9, 2007 10:50 AM
Subject: The Internet Patrol - Sprint Cellular Disconnects Customers Who Call Sprint PCS Customer Service Phone Number Too Often

The Internet Patrol

The Latest News at the Internet Patrol Here is today's news from the Internet Patrol!

Sprint Cellular Disconnects Customers Who Call Sprint PCS Customer Service Phone Number Too Often 2007-07-08 03:04:17-04 If you have a Sprint cellular phone and Sprint cell phone service, or are considering getting a cell phone from Sprint, you'll want to know just how the Sprint phone company treats customers of their Sprint wireless phone service when they call Sprint PCS customer service. Because customers calling the Sprint customer service phone number too often are being terminated by the Sprint/Nextel service! Read more...

Count Your Blessings

I don't normally repost or post links to things like this, but for some reason this one touched me...

Count Your Blessings

Sick Health Care System

It didn't just become news when Michael Moore said it, but he's right. The health care system in the United States needs fixing. Whenever your level of care depends on what a supervisor at an insurance company is willing to allow, rather than what trained medical personnel (and the patient!) deem necessary, something needs to be done. And when the time of day can have life-or-death effect on your level of care in a hospital, changes need to be made...

Seattle Times review of Sicko

Night Shift Nightmare (Reader's Digest)

I can vouch for the differences in the level of care, not only between the day and night shifts, but also between the intensive care unit staff and the "regular" nursing staff. I was in ICU and, well, constipated for the whole time I was there. On the evening of the fifth day, I was transferred to a regular room, and when I told the duty nurse that I was consipated and had been since I got there, she gave me this stuff that looked like chocolate milk and smelled (and probably tasted) like nail polish remover. It did the trick, though, but not until the next morning. Unfortunately, that was when someone was going around taking patients' temperature and blood pressure. The nurse came around, found I was still in the bathroom, and went ballistic! Like my whole reason for being in there was less important than their need to follow procedure. (Granted, blood pressure problems was part of the reason I was there, but still...)

The woman taking the readings, for her part, was quite understanding, but I'd expect a nurse to have been a bit more understanding. After all, she has had medical training and is supposed to play a part in putting the patient at ease.

Though it turned out that the stuff they gave me to get me "moving" again (they called it a "black and white"; I have no idea what was in it) was NOT supposed to be given to me because of the nature of my particular problem. The nurse had reacted to my complaint, but without checking into what my medical issue was. And again, this was a night-shift nurse.

Not to put down the night shift -- I know they're called on to do more work, since there are fewer people on hand after dark. But, still, it's not too much to expect them to do a thorough job no matter what. And my story isn't anything like the one in the Reader's Digest article...

Not Really News, But...

...When my union's website dedicates an entire page to Wal-Mart and how they muscle vendors into either redoing their whole business model (and giving up profits) in order to keep Wal-Mart's prices low, including laying off workers and sending jobs overseas, I have to take note of it.

The Wal-Mart You Don't Know (posted at www.CSEA9200.com; article originally published in Fast Company, December 2003, page 68

Excerpt: "The giant retailer's low prices often come with a high cost. Wal-Mart's relentless pressure can crush the companies it does business with and force them to send jobs overseas. Are we shopping our way straight to the unemployment line?"

The CSEA Unit 9200 site includes much more info about Wal-Mart and how it's bullying vendors and costing American workers their jobs and/or fair wages: Wal-Mart Awareness

Tom Joyner, are you reading this? You're all about supporting causes benefiting African-Americans, but who (among others) do you think is hurting when your favorite retailer is causing jobs to be sent overseas and driving companies out of business? Or have you been paid to NOT mention certain kinds of things that would point a finger at them?

Big Brother? No, more like Big Nanny

Towards a Nanny Internet -- "Are we moving towards a Nanny Internet? Between network neutrality, laws requiring dating sites to perform background checks and ISPs to rat out their users, laws banning anonymous posting, and cyberbullying legislation, one might argue that the Nanny Internet is shaping up nicely. Or not."

BUMP: Signs (and billboards, and spam) of the times

I found the following post while I was Googling for something else (never mind what).

I see ads when I watch television, or read a newspaper or magazine. I hear ads when I listen to the radio.

The football stadium in my city is Invesco Field. The baseball stadium is Coors Field. The basketball/hockey arena is the Pepsi Center.

When I surf the web I get hit with banner ads, pop-up ads, and an email inbox full of spam.

Companies buy product placement in the movies I watch and the video games I play.

I go to get the mail and come back with a fistful of credit card solicitations and other junk. I have to sign up for a no-call list to avoid getting a dozen telemarketing calls each day.

There exists something called the "Insight.com Bowl."

Billboards litter the landscape. When I pump gas, an ad on the pump handle informs me that candy bars are 3 for 99 cents. NASCAR... 'nuff said.

Ads are stuck to the floor at the grocery store, spoken in pleasant tones over the sound system, and printed on the back of my receipt. An ESPN college football analyst casually refers to the late-December bowls as "Capital One Bowl Week". During the half-hour before movies, when people used to chat pleasantly, we are now shown continuous ads for soda and pop music.

Blimps and airplanes pulling banners turn the heavens into ad space. A Super Bowl champion announces that he is going to Disneyland.

Am I worth anything beyond my ability to consume?

My apologies to Lonnie Jordan and WAR, but the following "lyrics" popped into my head as I reread this post:

Don't you know that it's true
That for me, and for you,
The world is a billboard...
(from The World is a Ghetto, by WAR)

When I first found this blog post, two things came to mind. First of all, the poster was absolutely correct. Advertising has gotten entirely out of hand, and the recent boom in stadium naming rights fees is a perfect example. I remember when the indoor arena at the Meadowlands Sports Complex in New Jersey was first built, and the area was named the Brendan Byrne Arena, after the governor whose efforts were instrumental in getting it built. Made perfect sense to me. But then some years later, when the naming rights craze came along, the arena was renamed the Continental Airlines Arena. I suppose it made a kind of sense, since the Meadowlands complex is right next to Newark Airport, but still, to discount the man who built the place in favor of the highest bidder just seemed stupid to me.

Then the whole naming rights thing caught fire. Now it's actually rare to see stadium names like Camden Yards, named after the section of Baltimore where the stadium is located, or Shea Stadium, named after Bill Shea, who was instrumental in getting National League baseball back in New York (in the form of the Mets). Who can work up enthusiasm for the ridiculously named 3Com Park, or Minute Maid Park? I would think the Astros (who play in Minute Maid Park) were probably happier, at least from a stadium-name standpoint, with the Astrodome. Too bad the former Enron Field (now there was a cool name) couldn't have been built as a domed stadium, and too bad about that Ken Lay business that forced the team to strip Enron's name from the building in favor of Minute Maid...

My New York Mets will begin playing in a new stadium in the 2009 season, and there was much public support for the idea of naming the new stadium after Jackie Robinson. Even the City of New York got into the spirit of things by giving Interborough Parkway the new name Jackie Robinson Parkway, since its northern end lies right next to Shea Stadium. But then the team went and sold the naming rights to Citigroup, and so the new stadium will be Citi Field, which sounds utilitarian if you don't know the story (or see the spelling).

Another thing that struck me with this post, was that that original blog, and the site that hosted it, have disappeared into the ether. I don't really want to go trampling on anyone else's "intellectual property," but is it wrong to repost a blog entry or article from a defunct site? I totally agree with the sentiment, but with the site being down there's no way for me to contact the blogger to get permission to repost...

When the Past Comes to Visit

Reposted from a Yahoo mailing list related to writing...

One of the strange aspects of web publishing is that it's ethereal. Unlike books, where the public can usually get their hands on an original edition. How many hard print authors would like to expunge their earlier works if only they could? A lot, I bet. Well, I can to some degree, and I've been exercising that right to date. But I probably won't forever. It's just going to take a lot of work to sort out and remove references to some early writers, artists and models who have asked to be 'edited out' of the history, or I have chosen to remove. That's the real work -- honoring those wishes.

Of course, as all the Myspace and other social network participants are about to find out, it's hard to totally remove your presence from the Net. How many people in their 40's to 60's are going to be haunted by strangeness they posted on Myspace in their teens or twenties? A lot. Especially given that everything on the net has been archived since the relatively recent arrival of the likes of Google. I've read that they have vast disk farms which will allow future wayback machinery to dig it all out as a function of time, even if the system today is clearly focused on caching and delivery current content. That old stuff, uncounted terabytes of content, is getting stored. Future detectives are going to have some very interesting and rewarding work (like publishing something in 2038 about a congressional candidate's Myspace postings in 2006).

Imagine if the detailed records of our current politician's activites in the Frat house in the 1960's or 70's was possible to dig out? Down to every girlfriend, every drug taken, every beer consumed, not to mention their immature thoughts about
everything imaginable. Every forgettable event and mistake in their lives. Despite pseudonyms, real identities aren't hard to figure out. A person's foolish youthhood should be forgotten and forgiven, not recorded in intimate detail forever. But I guess the Myspace bloggers will also represent most of the voters and journalists eventually, so maybe that strangeness will just be accepted as part of the culture. But that seems hard to believe today.

When I asked Shadar, the original poster, for his OK to repost this here, this was his reply:

Feel free to echo my comments into any forum you wish... although please attribute it to me as you indicate below. I suspect you might get some heated discussions out of it on some forums.

Digital culture is changing so fast its impossible to predict the future, but I do know that I'm glad I (and more importantly everyone else) has forgotten most of the insanity of my first 25 years on this planet. Also that I've never had to explain away any of that stuff in an interview because it was never recorded (we're talking 1960's and 70's). . Privacy and the forgetfulness of time are wonderful, wonderful things. People could re-invent themselves, and unless you had a criminal record (those were recorded for all time), then the 'old self' disappeared to be be replaced by the new.

And our ideas definitely change during our lifetime.

Problem with digital is that its all there staring at you forever... every single bit. Even if you erase it, if it left your PC, odds are somebody's else is keeping it. And now we have Google's disk farms recording (or about to record) the entire friggin' world. Ouch.

I'm glad to see a blog post about "booming systems"

I actually thought about looking into making LL Cool J's "The Boomin' System" or "Cheesy Rat Blues" play in the background for this post page...

http://www.eie.fceia.unr.edu.ar/~acustica/biblio/boom.htm

UPDATE: Sony BMG music group resorting to spyware

It just occurred to me today, over a year after I'd posted this article, that the Jakarta Post could have another motive for running this story. Indonesia is not a party to the current copyright, trademark, and patent conventions, and thus is a haven for illegal duplication of music and movies, largely for distribution in so-called developing countries. Since the multinational major labels like Sony BMG, Universal, and the others have been pressuring the Indonesian government to adopt the international intellectual property protections, it must make the Indonesians feel good to be able to point out the egg on Sony's face over this spyware mess. Yet another example of opposing parties pointing out the dirt on the other guys just to divert attention from their own dirty doings.

---

(Original post date 11/14/05)
The Jakarta Post, an Indonesian newspaper, has reported on its website that a number of new music CD releases from Sony BMG actually install spyware on users' computers. The article also points out that, with all the means now at new artists' disposal to completely bypass music companies altogether, such a move on Sony's part can only alienate consumers, some of whom are even considering lawsuits. I recently bought Shakira's new CD, Fijacion Oral volumen 1, which I haven't installed on my computer just yet, and now I'm not sure if I should, even though I really want La Tortura in my MP3 player (and I barely understand what she's singing, with my poor Spanish). I may even have to pass entirely on buying Oral Fixation volume 2 when it comes out this month.

Lorem ipsum, with an explanation

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Keep reading...

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Don't stop yet...

Nam iaculis fringilla tellus. Suspendisse tempor varius nulla. Quisque facilisis, lacus at condimentum semper, pede leo congue tellus, eget ultricies neque eros quis neque. In quam velit, varius vel, luctus nec, volutpat eu, sapien. Morbi consectetuer lacus a elit. Aliquam erat volutpat. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Aenean orci massa, commodo at, fermentum id, fermentum malesuada, velit. Phasellus ultricies, elit in rutrum egestas, est dui convallis nisi, commodo blandit arcu magna sit amet sapien. Mauris posuere mauris eget nulla.

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Just a little farther...

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This is an experiment. If you've read this far, do me a favor and post a comment, just to let me know someone is reading this thing.

Europeans say (North) Americans have no sense of irony

http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,4699357-103425,00.html

I absolutely love it when people make sweeping generalities like this, especially when it includes a part of the population that includes me. More, please! More! And when they say that faith and irony can't coexist, again putting all (North) Americans of a great variety of races and cultures and income groups and religions in one basket -- I can't get enough! And I have a feeling that the writer said North Americans rather than just "Americans" because they'd rather deal with irritated Canadians and Mexicans than singled-out angry United-States-ians.

Smells Like Mass Media 3

I came across a story online (lost the URL) saying that Angelina Jolie is looking to 'rescue another baby from an atmosphere of terrible strife.' Word is the baby she has in mind is Sean Preston Federline.

Syndicated radio host Wendy Williams, among others, have expressed surprise that Britney Spears apparently expected some behavior from her husband other than what she's getting. Common sense says that if he cheated on someone else by seeing you, it's only a matter of time before he cheats on you by seeing someone else. What goes around, comes around. Shar Jackson must be laughing and gloating all the way to the bank -- she reportedly has a reality show in the works.

Then again, who doesn't? Even rapper DMX showed up in court for his sentencing appointment (late, and with an attitude) with reality-show cameras in tow. Of course, DMX's fifteen minutes of fame have expired, which probably explains why he stays in trouble with the law, so that his name can stay in the papers just a little bit longer.

Earlier this week, the comic strip Blondie had a gag about reality shows. Dagwood was watching a reality show where contestants were locked in a room and fed a constant diet of nothing but reality shows on TV. When each had all they could take, they would run screaming from the room, trying to get out. The last one in the room would be declared the winner. It's probably only a matter of time before someone tries that idea for real...

None of the reality-show producers seem to be aware of the scientific principle that an observer cannot fail to have an effect on the thing being observed. The only way any of these shows could be "reality" would be to conceal the cameras from the contestants. Because once they see them, they're more aware of how they look to potential onlookers, which will naturally affect their actions.

Of course, when there are no more potential onlookers -- that is, when TV viewers have started staying away from reality TV in droves -- we'll finally get relief from this broadcast infestation. Until then, as always, we'll find other things to do...

Shat Overboard!

ABC has gone overboard in advertising William Shatner's new game show, Show Me the Money! Especially when every sentence finds ways to stick the first syllable of Shatner into legitimate words like "fantastic" and "outrageous."

Here's word from others who agree:

• Things That Make Me Die Inside, part 4 (Entertainment Weekly Popwatch)
• Dancing with the Stars Finale: Touchdown! (obviously not really about Shat, but check the fourth paragraph after Emmitt's photo)

Kool Aid Fools

Remember the Mickey D clown car? Well, here's a couple of fools for Kool Aid. I hope they have endorsements or sponsorships or something to show for this...

If Charles Barkley Were President

Video interview of Charles Barkley, pointing out what he sees wrong with politics as it's done today. He makes some good points, too...

If Sir Charles Were US President

It just occurred to me that if "Sir" Charles Barkley were to become president, we'd have to call him "Lord President."

NOT!! :-)