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30 May 2010 13:51

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Culture: Gary Coleman’s former classmate: He was dealt a rotten hand

  • Of all the bad hands people have been dealt in life, of the people who I have known up close, compared to the starving in Mongolia, Gary had as about a rotten combination as anything I’d seen.  I won’t give the details, but there was very much a horrifying tragedy about his life, a desperation that I think at age 16, was too big for us his classmates to comprehend or take in.
  • Blogger Richard Rushfield • Regarding his former high school classmate, Gary Coleman, who died on Friday. Rushfield makes it clear that Coleman’s great tragedy is that he was forced into a lifestyle that wasn’t normal and milked him of his fortune, but more importantly, of a normal life. “As I grew older and watched now from afar, the reports his life get stranger and stranger, it became more clear how much what had happened in those days had cost him,” Rushfield writes. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 May 2010 13:34

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U.S.: Unemployed people get lost in the Senate shuffle again

  • good The House decided to pass an extension on jobless benefits before the June 2 deadline.
  • bad The Senate didn’t, and they don’t go back to work until June 7, so no benefits next week, guys. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 May 2010 12:43

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Offbeat: British lout who won lottery right back where he first started

  • Disclosure: This story is from The Daily Mail. You know, that bastion of good journalism and better sensationalism. If it’s wrong, blame them. But we like running stories about chavs done good. So here goes.
  • 2002 Former garbage man Michael Carroll, 19, picks up his £9.7 million lotto prize wearing an ankle bracelet.
  • 2003 Carroll was spending £2,000 per day on crack cocaine and living the life of a guy who basically parties all day.
  • 2008 He was run out of his own house by dog- killing thugs, and on his last million pounds; he had to sell all his cars to get by.
  • 2010At 26, he’s broke and living off a £42-per-week unemployment stipend. He wants to be a garbage man again. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 May 2010 12:19

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Biz, U.S.: BP’s stock is in free-fall right now; we wonder why

  • 25% decline in BP’s stock since the oil saga began source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 May 2010 11:54

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Politics: Now both parties have a Senate candidate with spotty army stories

  • Dems Connecticut Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal, who’s running against a woman who’s been attacked by a folding chair before, made it seem like he served in Vietnam when he didn’t.
  • GOP Now, Illinois Senate candidate Mark Kirk was caught claiming in his official bio that he won the U.S. Navy’s Intelligence Officer of the Year when he didn’t. Ah well, it’s not as bad as Roland Burris serving. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 May 2010 11:35

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World: Tropical Storm Agatha makes herself known in Central America

The storm, the first of the possibly busy hurricane season has already killed at least 18 people in Guatemala and El Salvador. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 May 2010 11:11

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Biz: Salt really unhealthy, but it makes so many foods taste so good!

  • Salt really changes the way that your tongue will taste the product. You make one little change and something that was a complementary flavor now starts to stand out and become objectionable.
  • Kellogg vice president and food scientist John Kepplinger • On why he sees salt as a key ingredient for processed food. The New York Times wrote this massive, impressive exposé on the fight to limit salt in processed food. As part of it, Kepplinger prepared a bunch of foods without the salt, and among other things, Cheez-Its, which are loaded with salt normally, tasted absolutely awful. Processed foods and restaurant meals now account for 80 percent of all the salt that people eat nowadays, something some politicians are trying to limit. They say it could save as many as 150,000 lives per year. As well as make crackers taste like cardboard. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

30 May 2010 01:04

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Music, Offbeat: Where are they now?: God-awful emo band Attack Attack!

  • Yeah, we know they only came out last year, but that’s a lifetime in the blog world. Remember about a year ago, when we first heard about the crapsterpiece that is Attack Attack!’s “Stick Stickly“? Jesus, it was awful. What’s up their sleeve now? “Sexual Man Chocolate,” which is, we #(!& you not, the name of the first single off of their self-titled second album, out in a little over a week. And yeah, it’s just as bad as “Stick Stickly.” No official video yet, though. We’re guessing they don’t want to screw it up again. Still, though, you have to, uh, respect their stance on their infamy: “Amidst the sensationalist reviews, mainstream news coverage, and viral video crazes, Attack Attack! would like to make one thing clear above all else; they’re definitely having more fun than you are right now.” Keep telling yourself that, guys. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 May 2010 17:28

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U.S.: BP: Yeah, the top spill is sucking it. Let’s go to oil spill Plan Q.

  • I don’t think the amount of oil coming out has changed. Just by watching it, we don’t believe it’s changed.
  • BP’s Chief Operating Officer, Doug Suttles • Regarding how well the “top spill” process is working. Short answer: It’s not, really, and it sucks to be BP right now. The next step would be removing the pipe and putting a cap on the leak, a process called a lower marine riser package cap. “If we have to go to it, we can do it as quickly as possible,” Shuttles said. BP also has long-term plans to stop the leak in the form of two relief wells, but the first well won’t be finished until July or August, easy. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

29 May 2010 16:25

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Culture: Dennis Hopper’s death not as Twitter-overtaking as Gary Coleman’s

  • 1.9% of all tweets were about Hopper’s death source
  • How does it compare? It drew less than half the attention of Coleman’s on a slower day. (That factoid has been tweeted a lot today, by the way.) Part of it might be due to the sheer shock of Coleman’s versus Hopper’s more-known health problems.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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