Natalie Portman speaks at Stanford about global poverty  
Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Natalie Portman spent Tuesday night at Stanford University, speaking about humanitarian efforts for FINCA International, an organization that seeks to end global poverty.  She's been an Ambassador for Hope for the foundation since she graduated from Harvard in 2003.  Yeah, girlfriend went to Harvard.  One of the few brains in Hollywood!

FINCA promotes women's financial independence as a factor in contributing to better education, nutrition and medical care, while discouraging domestic violence.

"It has been absolutely compelling to meet women who are ready to make decisions and break out of financial disenfranchisement," Portman said in her speech.  "When you meet a mother who is forced sign a letter with a thumb print because seh can't read or write, and then you meet her daughter who is graduating from a university to go to med school, this change all in one generation is simply overwhelming.  And it's only because of microfinance."

Microfinance is a term for the practice of providing financial services to people with little income.

Lou Pearlman, Backstreet Boys business manager, giant EW  
Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Ew, ew, and more ew.  Louis J. Pearlman, the business manager for the Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, and other boy bands, is in the "ew" spotlight for, among other things, being accused of being a sexual predator.  Phoenix Stone, formerly of the Backstreet Boys, told author Bryan Burrough that Pearlman was "definitely inappropriate" with bandmate Nick Carter.

Rich Cronin, of LFO (another boy band) told Vanity Fair magazine, "I mean, now I know what it's like to be a chick.  He was so touchy-feely, always grabbing your shoulders, touching you, rubbing your abs.  It was so obvious and disgusting.  He definitely came at people.  He came at me."  Trust me, Rich, you do not know what it's like to be a chick.

Pearlman's ex-assistant, Steve Mooney, said, "I would absolutely say the guy was a sexual predator.  All the talent knew what Lou's game was.  If they say no, they're lying to you."  He claims he'd seen young performers coming out of Pearlman's bedroom late at night, buttoning their pants "with sheepish looks on their faces."

Jane Carter, the mother of Nick and Aaron Carter, told VF, "Certain things happened and it almost destroyed our family.  I tried to warn everyone.  I tried to warn all the mothers."

Pearlman is currently in jail in Orlando, awaiting trial regarding allegations that he embezzled more than $300 million.

Comments   

Eva Longoria pretends to have a sex tape, bores us to tears  
Thursday, October 4th, 2007

There is no Eva Longoria sex tape.  It was just her dorky attempt to make fun of Britney Spears' night vision video, and was posted on Will Ferrell's humor site, funnyordie.com.  Which, by the way, is Funny or Die, not Funny Ordie.  Except Eva Longoria isn't funny.  And looks really creepy with night-vision eyes.  She co-stars in the fake reality vid with Perry Hilton.  Here's the video:

Not funny, right?  It has sparked rumors over the web, though, that there is a real Eva Longoria sex tape, because naturally, people are idiots.  Longoria's spokeswoman told the New York Daily News, "We find it humorous that web sites are claiming to have this tape.  There is no sex tape out there.  This was meant to be funny and done with that intention only."

Well, we're glad there isn't one. We don't like the hoe. She wears fur and snakeskin, and has the kind of ego that makes us want to slap her around a little.  Okay, a lot.

Comments   

Reactions to Bush's child health care veto  
Thursday, October 4th, 2007

"It's very sad that the President has chosen to veto a bill that would provide health care for 10 million American children for the next five years...I don't think the President wants to say to the American people that he as the decider, the self-proclaimed decider, wants to decide what children get health care and which children do not."
-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California

"Never has it been clearer how detached President Bush is from the priorities of the American people.  By vetoing a bipartisan bill to renew the successful Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), President Bush is denying health care to millions of low-income kids in America."
-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada

"I'm going to be making some of those phone calls to the House of Representatives to find the votes to override," -Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, one of 18 Senate Republicans supporting the bill Bush vetoed. "It's disappointing to me that the president vetoed this bipartisan bill."

“This veto starkly exposes the Bush Administration’s muddled priorities. For President Bush to veto this children’s health bill for cost reasons would be laughable if it were not so appalling. This is the same President who would commit the United States to borrow almost a trillion dollars to pay for a catastrophic war. To him, anything goes if it’s spent in Iraq, but health insurance here at home for kids in families that are struggling is too much. Insurance coverage for 10 million children costs what we spend in Iraq in just 41 days.”
-Senator Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont

This is the only time I can ever remember agreeing with President Bush, albeit for completely different reasons.  Bush shot down a bill that would expand a popular children's health insurance program, which would have cost $35 billion over the next five years and would have doubled the number of children eligible for state health care.

Bush disagrees with the bill because, "I believe in private medicine, not the federal government running the health care system."  He said he believes, though, that Republicans and Democrats should come together create a government policy for helping people find private insurance.

I disagree with the bill because I believe in the need for a nationwide health care system.  We need to revise the entire thing, and it should not come out of the taxes of smokers, which is the strange way this bill was set up.  Do smokers deserve to be pinned for funding children's healthcare?  Does that make any sense?  It's just ridiculous.  The massive revamping of our health care system, if and when successful, will not happen while Bush is in office, and it will not succeed on the backs of tobacco users.  Passing this bill as a temporary solution would be just that:  a temporary solution, which is not what we need.

We need a real health care system, where money comes out of everyone's paycheck without a hitch, and where health care is free for all citizens, not just children.  And it needs to be well-planned-out.  The current vetoed bill that the House plans to attempt to override on October 13th contains loopholes that make it easier for children of illegal immigrants to obtain health care coverage - while the middle class still suffers.

But hey, remember this?  Nice flip-flop!

Comments   

Animal Lovers Corner:  Everybody gets sleepy...   
Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Yahoo and Microsoft want to keep up with Google - can you?  
Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Both Yahoo! and Microsoft have announced upgrades to their current online search engines.  Yahoo's will allow users to refine their searches to photos, music, and video, as Google has for quite some time now.  They will be offering information from their calendar service, Upcoming.org, to show local events alongside search results.  Microsoft's newly improved "Live Search" will quadruple the amount of searchable webpages its index can access, draw 3-D maps, and also have image and video searches.  It will also have charts in relevant search results.

The question is:  can anyone compete with Google?  These days, Google offers more products than the above average user can keep up with.  Here are just a few of the latest and greatest:

Alerts.  Wondering if your crazy Uncle Joe will ever make the paper?  Or want to know all of the upcoming stories on a specific topic?  Have Google send you an alert whenever a keyword(s) of your choosing pops up in their search database.  And as of September 25th, Google Alerts has been offering video
search alerts as well.

Gmail.  Chat right inside your free Google e-mail account, and save your chats into your Gmail account, while you're reading your e-mail.  In early 2006, they began incorporating their instant message service, GoogleTalk, with Google e-mail (Gmail).  Can you handle that?

iGoogle:  On May 1st, 2007, Google went live with iGoogle. Your own personalized Google homepage, that shows you the news on anything you tell it to, that you can design with quotes, images, videoclips and more daily.  Basically you can set it up to tell you everything you might go checking each day:  horoscopes, news, weather, YouTube stuff, random words or thoughts for the day, on and on.  You can even have it tell you what the newest articles are on ConnieTalk by title, since it has built-in Feed reader capabilities.

Notebook:  Clip and collect stuff while you are surfing the internet.  Paste text, links, e-mail addresses, whatever into the blinking box, and Trash it or Save it for later.  Or share it!

Patent Search:  Seriously search the entire directory of U.S. patents, and the full text of them.  We're talking diagrams, sketches, and explanations of over 7 million patents.

Sketchup:  Just thought of what your dreamhouse will look like?  Go to Google Sketchup and you'll get 3D modeling software that will design anything from a shoebox to a skyscraper.  And then you can place them on Google Earth.

Now, if you knew all that, and you're not in the search engine market, you should be off creating the cure for cancer.  Unless you're reading this in the year 2020, in which case you will likely will have found it in Google Archives, and the stuff I've mentioned will be as cute as watching Oregon Trail in DOS circa 1985.

Comments   

Charlie Sheen sends vicious e-mails to Denise Richards  
Thursday, October 4th, 2007

Denise Richards brought printed up e-mails to L.A. Superior Court in her ongoing custody battle with Charlie Sheen, and the e-mails she's alleging he sent are pretty darn mean.

"Go cry to your bald mom, you f***ing loser," one said., referring to her mother whom is undergoing chemotherapy treatments for cancer.  "You are an evil piece of shit.  You don't get a f***ing dime till this is resolved...You are a pig.  A sad, jobless pig who is sad and talentless and sad and jobless and evil and a bad mom, so go f*** yourself sad jobless pig...You are a horrible mom.  Save your phony flowers for any one of your 30 dogs."

Dude, I'm not sure how you can call her a "pig."  She's, what, 5'8", 120 lbs.?

Comments