Presenting The 25 Funniest People in America. From Conan O’Brien to Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey to Craig Ferguson, let’s count down the names of the entertainers who make us laugh the hardest.
25. AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS
Burroughs’ best-selling memoir Running with Scissors — about being raised by a nutso shrink who studies his poo and rents the back shed to a pedophile — is unbelievably disturbing. And sidesplitting. At first we felt guilty giggling at his adventures with an electroshock therapy machine, but Burroughs knows that laughter is the best antidepressant. Much better than booze, which the author struggles to kick in his equally effervescent follow-up, Dry.
24. CATHERINE O’HARA
After her run on SCTV in the late ’70s, Hollywood didn’t know what to do with O’Hara. Fortunately, Christopher Guest did. In Waiting for Guffman, she and Fred Willard are tracksuit-wearing answers to Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire; in Best in Show, she’s a onetime floozy with a prize terrier and a torrid past; and in A Mighty Wind, O’Hara shows off a subtler comic touch, proving that humor doesn’t always mean a pie in the face.
23. SARAH SILVERMAN
The Lenny Bruce of the 21st century might be this hot, foul-mouthed, button-punching stand-up. Silverman is ruthlessly funny about topics like sex, the Holocaust, and 9/11, which may be why The Sarah Silverman Program has a permanent slot on our DVR. Oh, and if you hadn’t heard, she’s f—ing Matt Damon.
22. DAVE CHAPPELLE
The fact that Diamond Dave is all but absent from the comedic stage these days doesn’t invalidate his funny. After all, Chappelle’s revered Comedy Central show — on which the wiry comic gleefully engaged in crass T&A humor, swore like a sailor, and mocked everyone in the multiculti rainbow, confronting race in a way that is positively Pryor-esque — is still the best sketch comedy this country has seen in more than a decade. For that alone, he deserves a spot on any list like this.
21. DEMETRI MARTIN
You know what’s funny? Palindromes and anagrams. ”Shut up, Grandma,” you say, but we say shut up yourself and watch Demetri Martin work a stand-up mic. ”A drunk driver’s very dangerous. Everybody knows that. But so is a drunk backseat driver — if he’s persuasive.” The floppy-haired heir to Steven Wright won a prestigious award at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, taking him from the comedy underground to…the comedy slightly less underground.
20. DIABLO CODY
Not to be partial, but the newly minted Oscar winner showed off her comedic — and emotional — chops with her debut screenplay for Juno. Did we mention it won an Oscar?
19. CRAIG FERGUSON
Late night is the province of the mono-name. Jay! Dave! Conan! Then there’s that Scottish guy, two-name ID required: Craig Ferguson. You know, the one who can’t quite be pinned down. Since taking over CBS’ Late Late Show from Craig Kilborn in 2005, Ferguson has brought a fresh burst of energy to the format. He’s reinvented the opening monologue, doing away with most of the topical jokes and just ad-libbing about his life. Along with fresh energy, he’s brought something else — ratings. Ferguson, 45 and a brand-spanking-new U.S. Citizen, doesn’t get as much media attention as time-slot competitors Jimmy Kimmel or Conan, but with an audience of just under 2 million, the great Scot outperforms the former and has climbed within 500,000 viewers of the latter.
18. JACK BLACK
Black is an entirely new classification of human: the frenetic slacker. Before his turn as doofus band reject/inspirational teacher Dewey Finn in School of Rock, he was the Ritalin-deprived half of Tenacious D (along with his partner, Kyle Gass) and the list-obsessed record-shop shlub in High Fidelity. He is, inarguably, the coolest fusion of music and comedy since Spinal Tap. (And, if Tropic Thunder is as good as we’ve been led to believe, we’ll forgive him that whole Nacho Libre business.)
17. DAVID LETTERMAN
With a receding hairline and a jogger’s grim jowls, Dave is no one’s idea of a hip comic, and he likes it that way. New-school gone old-school, the upstart who first pumped irony into the talk show still rails against the stupidity of the powerful and yet has the charm to melt Julia Roberts.
16. AMY SEDARIS AND DAVID SEDARIS
Big brother is the best-selling author of the sublime autobiographical essay collections Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked, full of terrific riffs about stuff like his cuckoo-clock North Carolina clan and his midget guitar teacher. Little sis was the rubber-faced star of Comedy Central’s truly strange Strangers With Candy, as well as coauthor of the book Wigfield.
15. WILL FERRELL
See, there’s this man-child who latches onto Will Ferrell in most every role he plays — and good luck getting the little guy to let go. As a result, we are treated to inspired displays of dolt-trapped-in-the-headlights hijinks, be it in the form of Old School’s keghead Frank the Tank (who goes from repressed to regressed to undressed) or Talladega Nights’ Ricky Bobby, the dumbest, most earnest NASCAR driver on the circuit — who’s also the most comfortable with his sexuality.
14. RICKY GERVAIS
Okay, so he doesn’t spend all that much of his time in America. We don’t care. Whether as the creator of The Office and Extras, a supporting actor in movies like For Your Consideration or Night at the Museum, or doing killer stand-up (as seen most recently in Grand Theft Auto IV), he’s still as funny as the dog’s bollocks.
13. ELLEN DEGENERES
DeGeneres, whose career seemed all but kaput a few years ago, has earned back adoration simply by being her affably dry self on the Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Whether it’s her circuitous monologues, her deadpan celebrity interviews, or that vocal turn as Dory in Finding Nemo, she remains one of the cleanest, coolest funny ladies around.
12. DAVID CROSS
All conversations about his genius start here: Along with Bob Odenkirk, he created the cunning HBO sketch series Mr. Show, which routinely put SNL to silly shame. And not only does Cross work little miracles in supporting roles (remember his role as feckless freak-job Tobias on Fox’s Arrested Development?), he can drop some pretty fearsome stand-up (who else talks about being raped by the Virgin Mary?). Simply put, this dude never kowtows for his funny.
11. CONAN O’BRIEN
Smarty-pants isn’t usually a compliment, but O’Brien wears them so well. When this Harvard geek isn’t riffing on Muammar Gaddafi in his monologue, he’s making absurd innovations in low-brow comedy. Now, let’s see if those absurd innovations will play on The Tonight Show….
The Saturday Night Live scene-stealer has found her stride in her third season, thanks to breakout characters like the Target clerk and the obsessively competitive Penelope, as well as spot-on impressions of Jamie Lee Curtis and Suze Orman.
9. LARRY DAVID
Because he’s a balding, neurotic, self-consumed, multimillionaire malcontent who reacts to most social interactions as if he just took a whiff of some really bad cheese. Because the only thing he hates more than these situations is himself. Because he’s the most hilariously doomed white-guy antihero we’ve ever seen, and has no problems taking on every sacred cow. Because we have no idea how much of this Larry David — from the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm — is swiped from the real Larry David. And because both Larry Davids co-created one of the best comedies ever, Seinfeld.
8. AMY POEHLER AND WILL ARNETT
The funniest married couple on the list. (Sorry, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann.) When they’re apart (she, on Saturday Night Live and in Baby Mama; he, late of Arrested Development and currently guesting on 30 Rock), they’re great. But when they’re together, as when they played brother-and sister figure skaters in Blades of Glory, they’re resplendent. So let’s get those crazy kids together more often, shall we?
7. MATT STONE AND TREY PARKER
Now in their eleventh season of South Park, these potty mouths with a purpose continue to remind us what full creative control gets you: moments so wrong, they’re right (Ben Affleck falling in love with Cartman’s hand comes to mind). Added bonus: The ninth season episode, ”Trapped in the Closet” contains the most sober explanation of the background of Scientology you’ll ever hear.
6. CHRIS ROCK
Television failed him (Saturday Night Live didn’t know what to do with his bright-bulb humor, and his HBO talk show couldn’t contain him). The movies didn’t get him (though this is as much Rock’s fault as anyone’s, given he wrote and directed his most recent starring vehicles, the underperforming Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife). But on the stage, Rock is a man on a mission, mercilessly tackling race, religion, money, and relationships. And his missionaries are legion.
5. STEVE CARELL
Sometimes, it hurts so good. The pain, the discomfort, the agony of watching Carell’s Michael Scott work himself into another awkward scenario on NBC’s The Office…and almost work himself out. And the fact that we don’t hate Michael — on the contrary, we feel a warm, chocolatey pity for him — is a testament to Carell, who leavens the bald incompetence with wide-eyed awe.
4. JON STEWART AND THE ‘DAILY SHOW’ TEAM
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is the most consistent laugh machine on TV — and the only news source for scores of cynics and slackers. It’s not often that a comedy show can tackle politics, embrace a cogent point of view, and still maintain its anarchic spark. The scribes at The Daily Show pull it off four nights a week. As the heart and soul of the show, Stewart is evenhanded but never meek; as an interviewer, he can make his guests comfortable even as he’s taking them apart. Then there’s his gang of ”correspondents,” who soldier straight-facedly into the great American absurd and take no prisoners. Empirically speaking, there’s nothing funny about what’s going on in the world right now. Yet here we are each week, chortling.
3. TINA FEY
It takes a certain self-confidence to play a woman who accidentally dates her third cousin, erroneously assumes her neighbor is a terrorist, and gets called the C-word by a colleague (especially when said character is based on you). ”I love going to those uncomfortable places,” says Fey, who stars as 30 Rock’s workaholic TV maven and is also the NBC show’s creator and exec producer. ”I’ll go down any weird avenue.” Maybe this year’s surprise Emmy win for best comedy will empower Fey to pursue some dreams for her alter ego. ”Liz Lemon could do an international adoption for a Russian baby and get the paperwork wrong with the European dates and somehow end up with a huge, muscular 13-year-old. Yeah, I could see that.” Hopefully we will too.
2. STEPHEN COLBERT AND THE ‘COLBERT REPORT’ TEAM
The once (and, we’re sure, future) presidential nominee, author, and dedicated windbag also happens to be one of the smartest satirists working today. Heck, if all the dude had on his resume was the legendary 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, he’d go down in comedy history. But week-in and week-out, Colbert takes aim at the political-industrial complex — and I don’t care if there’s no such term — and spins the facts into truth. Or truthiness. Whichever’s easier.
1. THE JUDD APATOW POSSE
Can you even remember what movie comedy looked like before writer-director-producer Judd Apatow and his ever-expanding comedy clan (including Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, and Paul Rudd) came along last summer with two stiff shots of cathartic humor — the oops-she’s-preggers romp Knocked Up and the high school raunchfest Superbad? Today, when studio execs have a comedy that feels flat or formulaic, the call goes out to ”Judd it up” — sweet irony for a man once best known for critically beloved flops like TV’s Freaks and Geeks. ”It was always my dream to become a verb,” Apatow deadpans. ”That’s what I wrote in my high school yearbook.”
Yesterday, a French court ordered eBay to pay almost $60 million in damages to Louis Vuitton for allowing the sale of fake LV items.
I conducted a simple search on eBay which produced just under 2,700 entries for Louis Vuitton!
The court has now stopped eBay from selling four kinds of perfumes, which are Givenchy, Christian Dior, Guerlain, and Kenzo. They will also not be allowed to sell six LVMH brands.
The court determined that eBay had committed “serious errors” by allowing the sales of fake LVMH goods. They also said eBay violated the perfume sales distribution network, which was setup by Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior Couture.
Of course, eBay said they are going to launch an appeal, believing the court did not uphold copyright law. A spokesperson for eBay has said,
“This decision is not based on combating counterfeit material. It is based on LVMH’s desire to protect its commercial practices and exclude competition. This is being done at the expense of the consumers and sellers to whom eBay is always offering opportunities.”
The case, which started a year and a half ago, stated that eBay knowingly allowed the sales of counterfeit products on its site.
Frankly, how could eBay possibly know if each item listed is in fact authentic, if they are not able to personally inspect each item for themselves? On the opposite side of the coin, I own a Louis Vuitton — if I want to place it on eBay and sell it, I should have the right to do that.
source: eBay fined for selling fake Louis Vuitton goods online [afp]
There’s been much speculation regarding Madonna‘s failing marriage to Guy Ritchie, now we may know why.
The singer has been hosting late-night visits from New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez at her Central Park West apartment in New York City.
A ringless and grim-faced Ritchie, 39, arrived in New York City from London yesterday after several weeks apart from his family. A source said that the $28-million-a-year Rodriguez, 32, has made numerous solo nighttime visits to Madonna, 49, at her spacious home and would sneak out “as late as midnight.” Says the source, “All the doormen are talking.”
Rodriguez attended Madonna’s April 30 NYC concert; the singer sat in his seats at a Yankees game on June 22 (it was the first time she ever was photographed at a Yankees game). Her son Rocco, 7, also sported Yankees gear on June 25 while playing in Central Park.
Rodriguez, married with two young daughters, has already faced speculation about cheating: In 2007, he and a stripper were reportedly spied in Toronto, Miami and Dallas.
Complicating matters: Former Yankee slugger Jose Canseco – who once dated Madonna – wrote in his book Vindicted that he “hates [A-Rod's] guts” because he once hit on his wife.
OOooh scandal! It’s always a story about cheating, isn’t it? Alex Rodriguez sounds like a real tool, you would think that Madonna would have better taste than that. Once a cheater, always a cheater.
What others said:
Gawker says, “The New York Post must be devastated, for whom this would have been the most perfect story: a singer who made her name in New York with the city’s most hated sports celebrity.
Dlisted says, “I don’t even watch to picture these two bumping muscley genitals. They probably get stuck all the time, because Vadge’s muscled-up chocha traps A-Rod’s rod.”
source: NY Yankee Making Late-Night Visits to Madonna’s Apartment [us]
A supermodel plunged to her death Saturday afternoon by leaping from her Lower Manhattan apartment window in an apparent suicide.
Ruslana Korshunova, barely shy of her 21st birthday, apparently jumped from the balcony of her residential building in Manhattan’s Financial District, police tell the New York Post.
Authorities said there appeared to be no signs of a struggle having taken place inside the 9th-floor apartment, which the green-eyed, 5’8″ beauty had occupied for only two months.
The Kazakhstan-born “Russian Rapunzel,” as she was known, had appeared as cover girl on editions of French Elle and Russian Vogue, as well as in ads for Marc Jacobs, DKNY, Vera Wang and Christian Dior.
“Our hearts are with her family,” a spokesman for her agency, IMG (which also represents Heidi Klum and Kate Moss) told the Post.
A former boyfriend, Artem Perchenok, 24, told the paper that the two had watched the movie Ghost and that he dropped her off at home at 5 a.m. Saturday. “She was a good person,” he said.
The Daily News suggests that Korshunova had become despondent over a lost love. She poured her heart out on the Web in the months leading to her apparent suicide.
“Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably,” the sandy-haired knockout wrote in a poem that concluded: “And never regret anything that made you smile.”
The Kazakh beauty wrote that love “blinds,” “sets souls afire,” and “is always the answer” in emotion-soaked passages posted on a social networking site.
Korshunova volleyed between Russian and English in her heartfelt prose, but love was a central theme no matter the language. “Do not confuse love and desire,” she wrote in Russian in her most recent posting May 30. “Love is the sun, desire – only flash. Desire dazzles, and the sun gives life.”
The soulful note warns of the perils of sacrifice.
“Love does not take away from one in order to give to another,” wrote Korshunova, a 20-year-old thousands of miles from her native Kazakhstan. “Love – this is the essence of life. But you will not give your life to another.”
Korshunova’s most telling message came three months ago: “I’m so lost. Will I ever find myself?”
She appeared angry in some postings, brokenhearted in others.
“I’m a bitch. I’m a witch. I don’t care what you say!!!” she wrote March 11. “I know what it is. I know why my other relationships didn’t work out, ’cause I’m unpredictable. Why are you afraid of it?”
In January, she wrote, “It hurts, as if someone took a part of me, tore it out, mercilessly stomped all over and threw it out.
“My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high,” she wrote in a March note.
This is very, very sad.
UPDATE (James): Fox News has shown video of Korshunova’s body . I think the family could have done without that. Sad, indeed.
George Clooney might have a gazillion bucks in the bank but he’s apparently a union man through and through.
In a two-page letter released Thursday, Clooney adopted a neutral stance in the dispute between the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild.
“What we can’t do is pit artist against artist,” he wrote.
AFTRA has already reached a tentative agreement with Hollywood studios. SAG wants AFTRA members to vote against the deal, saying its approval will handcuff SAG at the bargaining table. Both unions’ current contracts are set to expire Monday, leaving Hollywood on edge about a possible replay of the 100-day writers strike that ended in February. Results of the AFTRA vote are expected July 8.
Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin and others have joined hundreds of actors in signing an online petition urging actors to ratify the AFTRA pact. Meanwhile, Jack Nicholson, Viggo Mortensen and Holly Hunter have endorsed a SAG ad calling for AFTRA to return to the negotiating table to get a better deal.
Clooney called the fight counterproductive. “Because the one thing you can be sure of is that stories about Jack Nicholson vs. Tom Hanks only strengthens the negotiating power” of the studios, he said.
Clooney also called on higher-paid actors to chip in a greater share of union dues and for 10 A-listers — “people that the studio heads don’t often say ‘no’ to,” he suggested, listing only Nicholson and Hanks by name — to sit down with studio heads once a year to “adjust the pay for actors.”
The idea of millionaire actors unionizing, let alone going on strike, has always struck me as ludicrous. But Clooney’s instinct here is right: if they’re going to organize, the big money stars ought to take care of the little guys. It makes sense to have a system in place for the folks struggling for scale jobs trying to get regular employment. Not so much one that has the likes of Clooney and Hanks walking a picket line.
Those born with a thirst for fame as well as an unfortunate (or boring) moniker face a tougher road to the A-list. So it’s no wonder that many celebs choose to drop their given name for something a bit more… catchy.
Of course, the gawking public isn’t dumb. They know the odds are slim that Sting was born with such an evocative handle. Each week we see an avalanche of searches for celebrity “real names.” Folks look up the obvious stage names (Larry the Cable Guy) as well as some that are a tad more subtle (John Wayne). Some of the lookups are met with disappointment. Madonna’s real name is, in fact, Madonna. Same deal with Prince.
Below we list the 20 top “real name” searches from the past week. Madonna and Tiger top the list, but you’ll find all sorts of actors, athletes, and musicians in the mix. Most people stick with the name they’re given. Celebrities are not “most people.”
Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday dinner was last night and the event was filled with celebrities who were lucky enough to be invited.
Mandela became the oldest elected President of South Africa when he took office at the age of 77 in 1994. He decided not to stand for a second term as President, and instead retired in 1999, to be succeeded by Thabo Mbeki.
Other guests at Mandela’s birthday dinner included Pierce Bronson, Neil Diamond, Forrest Whitaker, Will Smith, Bill Clinton and Annie Lennox. What an interesting, yet diverse group of people.
What others said:
Dlisted says, “Naomi showed up with her new boyfriend, Marcus Elias. New boyfriend did a good job of hiding the bruises on his face because you know Naomi beats his ass.”
She also goes into detail about (surprisingly) clamming up in revealing clothing, how her mother wishes she were gay and what it was like to write a lesbian scene. She also completely snaps on the writer.
The following exchange between Pamela Anderson and me takes place in the back of a moving vehicle about 30 miles north of San Diego. Since our conversation thus far has had its tense moments, I come up with a suggestion: a long, quiet “time out.” Then, a few days hence, when tempers have cooled, we can get on the phone for a follow-up.
Pam: [Shocked at the very suggestion.] No! I’m not doing any more. This is the longest interview I’ve ever had. No! No! No! No! But I like that it’s a little rough. I like it rough. It’s not a smooth hippy-dippy interview. It’s got challenge. You know?
Me: [Brightly.] It was going pretty well about three miles ago!
Pam: I know. I can relax when we’re all talking about something interesting. [Beat.] I really can’t wait to do the pictures. That’s what I’m excited about. Terry Richardson is someone I’ve always wanted to work with. He’s wanted to work with me, too. [Eyeing me.] And nobody can be at the shoot.
Me: [Spiraling back into hurt.] I’m not coming.
Pam: Okay, good. I thought you were going to come.
Me: [Broadly, masking the wounds.] You’ll never see me again.
Pam: [Conciliatory.] No, I don’t want that. It’s just that at photo shoots, I can only do one thing at a time.
Me: You don’t seem relaxed now.
Pam: It’s because I’m wearing a really small dress.
Me: Really?
Pam: And because you’re asking me some stupid questions.
Me: [Desperately, irrationally.] Do you want some candy? I have some candy in my bag.
One interesting tidbit from the interview comes from Anderson’s mother, who apparently isn’t satisfied with her daughter’s history of companions.
“Lately my mother’s said, ‘I wish you were gay, considering your choice of men.”
But Anderson may not be too comfortable in those shoes. She talks about the lesbian scene in her book ‘Star,’ saying that it was “really weird because I’ve never been with a girl. Writing about it was as far as it got.”
I am beginning to think that Pamela truly is crazy indeed. She’s uncomfortable in the small dress she wore for the interview, but has no problem letting her butt hang out the bottom of those booty shorts.
Recently, Jessica Simpson has been spotted sporting a t-shirt emblazoned with the slogan, “Real Girls Eat Meat” across her chest.
While this could just be an expression of the singer’s love for steak, Simpson family insiders stated it’s actually a subtle dig at boyfriend Tony Romo’s ex-girlfriend, Carrie Underwood — who not only shuns meat but who has twice been named World’s Sexiest Vegetarian by animal rights group Peta.
Well, PETA is now calling Jessica “Stupid” and stated the following on their site:
1. Meat increases the risk of breast cancer. A 2007 study of 35,000 women published in the British Journal of Cancer found that women who ate meat were far more likely to develop breast cancer than women who consumed none. Will Jessica’s next t-shirt will say, “Real Girls Smoke 3 Packs a Day”?
2. Real girls don’t support animal abuse. Compassion is super sexy, if the huge number of hot celebs ditching meat is any indication. Young women turn vegetarian in droves when they learn that the meat industry cuts the sensitive beaks off newborn chicks and cuts off the tails of baby piglets.
3. The meat industry is destroying the Earth. The only thing that’s hot about the meat industry is that it’s toasting the planet. According to the United Nations, raising animals for food causes more greenhouse-gas emissions than all the cars, trucks, SUVs, planes, and ships in the world combined.
4. Meat will make you fat. All the saturated fat and cholesterol in chicken wings, pork chops, and steak eventually leads to flabby thighs and love handles. I hope the upcoming “Jessica Simpson’s Intimates” line comes in plus sizes! Going vegetarian is the best way to get slim and stay that way.
5. Eating meat steals food from starving kids. Jessica’s trip to help kids in Africa got a lot of media buzz, but by gnawing on meat, she’s essentially stealing food from the mouths of starving children since it takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of meat. If more people went vegetarian, we’d free up enough grain to feed every person in the world.
—Christine
A thick, juicy ribeye sounds good about now, eh?
source: Is Jess Publicly Dissing Carrie Underwood? [ok]
Poor Kate Moss. She wanted to go to the bathroom to “powder her nose†with her lady friends and was denied. While at Milk Studios she and some friends wanted to use the toilet simultaneously and the club’s policy is strictly one at a time. Kate and lack of access to coke…drama ensued.
“Kate was at the Agent Provocateur event,” said our spy, “and she was trying to get into the bathroom with three friends.” An attendant told the model – who was once caught on video snorting cocaine – there was a strict one person at a time policy. Moss flipped out, saying “But I’m hosting the event,” according to the source. “Kate said, ‘forget it’ and walked away. Twenty minutes later she left with her group, yelling about finding another place.”
I don’t know why this crazy bitch went all diva on them. She is like the Dyson vacuum of the coke world. She totally could have used the opportunity to suck down all the blow first and then be all “what coke?†to her friends waiting for their turn. Eh, don’t feel bad for Kate. I am sure she found some random van to shoot up in later.
What Others Said:
Evil Beet Gossip- “You know how some people are pee-shy? Like, they can’t pee when someone’s watching them? I think Kate Moss is the opposite of pee-shy. She simply cannot urinate unless there are a minimum of three people there to watch her.â€
Hollyscoop- “Hmmm…fishy fishy. Maybe she wanted of them to help her wipe?â€
This story is just so disturbing, I had to post it.
A 78-year-old man is tossed like a rag doll by a hit-and-run driver and lies motionless on a busy city street as car after car goes by.
Nobody did anything to help him!!
Pedestrians gawk but do nothing. One driver stops briefly but then pulls back into traffic. A man on a scooter slowly circles the victim before zipping away.
The chilling scene – captured on video by a streetlight surveillance camera – has touched off a round of soul-searching in Hartford, with the capital city’s biggest newspaper blaring “SO INHUMANE” on the front page and the police chief lamenting: “We no longer have a moral compass.”
“We have no regard for each other,” said Chief Daryl Roberts, who released the video this week in hopes of making an arrest in the daylight accident last Friday that left Angel Arce Torres in critical condition.
The hit-and-run took place about 5:45 p.m. in a working-class neighborhood close to downtown in this city of 125,000.
In the video, Torres walks in the two-way street just blocks from the state Capitol after buying milk at a grocery. A tan Toyota and a dark Honda that is apparently chasing it cross the center line, and Torres is struck by the Honda. Both cars then dart down a side street.
You know, it’s bad enough that two apparent imbeciles were racing on the wrong side of the street, which resulted in hitting an elderly man, and then fled the scene. Yes, that’s horrible.
The worst part, however, is that NOBODY DID ANYTHING TO HELP HIM, ONLY GAWKED!
“Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen.
If you reporters had any balls you’d ask him why. There’s no way I know why he did that … But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It’s not like he didn’t know.”
Lee’s comments came during a press conference to promote his own war film, Miracle at St Anna, at the Cannes film festival last month.
“The story is Flags of Our Fathers, the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn’t do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people’d go: ‘This guy’s lost his mind.’ I mean, it’s not accurate. A guy like him should shut his face.”
Whoa!
Eastwood, who described himself as libertarian – “Just stay out of everybody else’s hair” – has a reputation for outspoken remarks. He once said he would kill fellow film-maker Michael Moore if he showed up uninvited at his house. His 2004 double-Oscar-winning film Million Dollar Baby was criticized by Christian groups who objected to part of the plot involving “assisted suicide”.
Defending the racial make-up in his films as historically accurate, Eastwood referred to another of his films, Changeling, which was set in Los Angeles before the city had a large group of African-Americans.
“What are you going to do, you going to tell a fuckin’ story about that?. Make it look like a commercial for an equal opportunity player? I’m not in that game.
I’m playing it the way I read it historically, and that’s the way it is. When I do a movie and it’s 90% black, like Bird, then I use 90% black people.”
I really had no idea there was so much fire in Clint’s belly. I mean, I know he’s Dirty Harry and all, but really I’m a little shocked.
Ed McMahon, who for decades appeared as Johnny Carson’s sidekick on “The Tonight Show,” is fighting to avoid foreclosure on his multimillion-dollar Beverly Hills home, according to published reports.
The former “Star Search” host was $644,000 behind on payments on $4.8 million in mortgage loans when a unit of Countrywide Financial Corp. filed a default notice Feb. 28 with the Los Angeles County Recorder’s Office, The Wall Street Journal first reported late Tuesday.
McMahon, 85, has been unable to work as a pitchman for various products since he broke his neck 18 months ago, said his spokesman, Howard Bragman.
“There are plenty of people affected by the weak economy, bad housing market or bad health,” Bragman said.
McMahon has been in “very fruitful discussions” with the lender to resolve the situation, Bragman said. But it’s unclear whether McMahon and his wife, Pamela, will remain in the home.
A spokesman for Countrywide declined comment to the Los Angeles Times.
The six-bedroom, five-bath house is in a hilltop gated community overlooking Mulholland Drive called The Summit and is listed for sale at $6.25 million. It has been on the market two years, according to real estate agent Alex Davis, who has the listing.
The house is near that of pop star Britney Spears, which doesn’t always work in its favor.
“When we were trying to sell the house one time, there were about 100 paparazzi there,” Davis said.
His home has been on the market for two years and it’s near Britney Spears’ home — wouldn’t you just know it’s all her fault!
Not even cold hard cash can lure Lindsay Lohan out of the closet. Yet.
Lohan claims she told OK! magazine no when they offered her ‘around $1 million to do the cover’. All she has to do is confirm that her lesbian relationship is factual. One source said that Lindsay really wants this to happen and she needs the money. What dear Lohan objects to is that the magazine wants her come out about her relationship with special gal pal Samantha Ronson.
Lindsay’s people deny there ever was a deal claiming that “they sent offers and we passed.†While OK! magazine isn’t talking much and merely stated, ‘we don’t comment on future editorial’.
Oh Lindsay. We all know that you and Samantha Ronson dance around in your underwear and lip synch to “Secret Lovers.†Just do the world a favor and make yourself a little more interesting by being an out of the closet frolicking lesbian already. Hell, I will admit to being a one legged lesbian who is in love with some skanky looking DJ for $1 million.
Source: Lindsay Lohan Lesbian Coming Out [Popcrunch]
Authorities said there appeared to be no signs of a struggle having taken place inside the 9th-floor apartment, which the green-eyed, 5’8″ beauty had occupied for only two months.
In a two-page letter released Thursday, Clooney adopted a neutral stance in the dispute between the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and the Screen Actors Guild.
The following exchange between Pamela Anderson and me takes place in the back of a moving vehicle about 30 miles north of San Diego. Since our conversation thus far has had its tense moments, I come up with a suggestion: a long, quiet “time out.” Then, a few days hence, when tempers have cooled, we can get on the phone for a follow-up.
“Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total, and there was not one Negro actor on the screen. 
The former “Star Search” host was $644,000 behind on payments on $4.8 million in mortgage loans when a unit of Countrywide Financial Corp. filed a default notice Feb. 28 with the Los Angeles County Recorder’s Office, The Wall Street Journal first reported late Tuesday.
