Micheal Jackon has suffered cardiac arrest. News reports are very sketchy, but some websites (e.g. TMZ) are stating he's died.

We've just learned Michael Jackson has died. He was 50.

Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon at his Holmby Hills home and paramedics were unable to revive him. We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back. A source tells us Jackson was dead when paramedics arrived. A cardiologist at UCLA tells TMZ Jackson died of cardiac arrest.Once at the hospital, the staff tried to resuscitate him but he was completely unresponsive.

We're told one of the staff members at Jackson's home called 911. La Toya ran in the hospital sobbing after Jackson was pronounced dead. Michael is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince "Blanket" Michael Jackson II.

There is a new series on the History Channel "Life After Humans," showing how the things we've created will eventually break down and decay-- how long will it take to completely erase what humanity has made. One interesting sidebar was the Voyager probe. Eventually it will be torn apart by small metorites and asteriods. Apparently new research (ironically from the SETI project) indicates that our broadcast and television signals will break down after radiating out about 1 light year, the signal will decay to silence, meaning it wouldn't hit the nearest star system, much less any civilization on distant planets. Does anyone have more information about this? I was under the impression the signals would not decay unless something absorbed it.

Twitter users are getting revenge on Republican Pete Hoekstra in a good way ;)

It all started with a simple, foolish tweet. On June 17th, GOP Congressman Pete Hoekstra compared the life and death struggle of Iranians trying to get their message out via Twitter to the Republican Party’s tussle with Democrats. (See quote above.) The Twitterati began satirizing Hoekstra’s tweet (see lulz below).

Rafael Nadal is 23 and the No. 1 tennis player in the world

At tournaments, teenage girls scream when they see Nadal walk onto a tennis court, literally shriek and leap to their feet and clutch each other; women older than his mother shiver and elbow their friends; men raise their cameras aloft; there’s flash-popping and Spanish flag-unfurling and a rising swell of noise and applause, and at some point Nadal lifts one arm and smiles at spectators, which sets off momentary pandemonium among the women. (Once, pressed between two middle-aged ladies who had worked their way to the front of a crowd staring through a wire fence at Nadal on a practice court, I asked the one on my left to speak specifically of the appeal. “Um, his tenacity,” she said. “His energy. His. . . .” And the lady on my right snapped, without taking her eyes off Nadal: “His hotness. Just get to it.”) He is barely 23, and I’ve heard people describe him as an evolutionary leap, the kind of new life form that materializes every few generations in tennis and makes everybody ecstatic and argumentative and eloquent. There is debate among serious tennis watchers, for example, as to whether Nadal’s victory over Roger Federer in the Wimbledon final last year was the greatest tennis match ever played or whether it has only been called the greatest tennis match ever played when, in fact, Nadal’s victory over his Spanish countryman Fernando Verdasco in the semifinals of the Australian Open in January was greater.

President Obama should just join the cast of "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!" It's not that farfetched; he's been on everything else. I'm still a fan, but there's a fine line between being transparent and being overexposed. Every time you turn on the TV, there's Obama. He's getting a puppy! He's eating a cheeseburger with Joe Biden! He's taking the wife to Broadway and Paris -- this is the best season of "The Bachelor" yet!

I get it: You love being on TV. I love my bong, but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while. The other day, I caught myself saying to a friend, "Don't tell me if he's fixed the economy yet, I'm Tivo-ing it."

Remember during the campaign when John McCain attacked Obama for acting like a celebrity and we all laughed at the grumpy old shellshocked fool? Well, it turns out he was right. Sorry, senator. I'm sending a nice gift basket of high-fiber muffins your way.

It's getting to where you can't turn on your TV without seeing Obama. Who does he think he is, Dick Cheney? Come on, sir, you don't have to be on television every minute of every day. You're the president, not a rerun of "Law and Order." Save some charisma for a rainy day. Taking strangers from a TV show on a tour of your house? We have that show; it's called "Cribs." And letting reporters ask you questions like "You like to be the one who picks out the shaving cream, don't you?" Or as it's called today, "journalism." I was willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt until I saw him take Brian Williams into his bedroom, and at the end of the bed there was a teleprompter and it said, "Who's your daddy?"


I mean, selling the personal part to stay popular, I'm all for it, but you got us already. We like you, we really like you! You're skinny and in a hurry and in love with a nice lady. But so's Lindsay Lohan. And like Lohan, we see your name in the paper a lot, but we're kind of wondering when you're actually going to do something.

I know that's harsh. But when I read about how you sat on the sidelines while bailed-out banks used the money we gave them to hire lobbyists who got Congress to stop homeowners from getting renegotiated loans, or how Congress is already giving up on healthcare reform, or how scientists say it's essential to reduce CO2 by 40% in 10 years, but your own bill calls for 4%, I say, enough with the character development, let's get on with the plot.

And let's stop worrying so much about doing anything that might tarnish the brand. See, this is why I don't want my president to be a TV star: Because TV stars are too worried about being popular -- and too concerned with getting renewed.

You can relax about that, Mr. President, knowing that there's a large, rich organization doing everything it possibly can to ensure that you'll get reelected: It's called the Republican Party.

Speaking of which, if you can't beat Republicans now, when they're so down they take orders from Rush Limbaugh, then when? The way to get renewed for your reality show that you love so much is to act boldly now.

Obama needs to start putting it on the line in fights against the banks, the energy companies and the healthcare industry. I never thought I'd say this, but he needs to be more like George W. Bush. Bush was all about, "You're with us or against us." Obama's more like, "You're either with us, or you obviously need to see another picture of this adorable puppy!"

Bush had horrible ideas, like torture and deregulation and preemptive war and tax cuts for the rich, but he pushed them through, in their full measure, never mind Congress or the Constitution or the Geneva Convention or the Magna Carta or the Code of Hammurabi. The point is, he didn't care if it made him unpopular with every human on the planet not named Cletus or Fred Barnes. Which it did.

And we need to marry the good ideas Obama really believes in with that Bush attitude and Bush certitude. I'd love for Obama to come out one day and say, "Jesus told me to fix healthcare." Or, "History will decide whether stopping the polar ice caps from melting and drowning us all was a good thing."

In conclusion, Bush was a jerk, but he never cared about being seen having a burger with Dick Cheney. He picked up the phone in the White House and said, "I'm the president, bring me a burger." And they'd say, "Sir, this is NORAD. Would you please stop ordering burgers with the red phone?"

I'm glad that Obama is president, but the "Audacity of Hope" part is over. Right now, I'm hoping for a little more audacity.

He's a trip, but a good one. For what it's worth, Terminator was based on one of Mr. Ellison's stories, but wasn't paid. A threatened lawsuit changed all of that. Mr. Ellison receives a royality from every Terminator project; he also wrote one of the best Star Trek episodes "The City on the Edge of Forever."

The Pittsburgh Penguins beat home team Detroit Red Wings 2-1 to win The Cup!!!
Beards are *definitely* in with hockey players!

( Read more... )

What it is to be Madonna's bf:

This is pretty funny. ;)

A gay man talks about "don't ask, don't tell" and the difficulties he faces having a partner on active duty in Iraq.

There are an estimated 65,000 gay and lesbian enlisted/officers currently in the U.S. military President Obama signed a proclamation this month honoring the Stone Wall Riots and gay citizens, he hasn't done much specifically policy wise (e.g. the HIV travel ban is still in place, there isn't much movement on the "don't ask, don't tell policy-- the administration claims Congress has to move on that front). While Dick Cheney seems to be more "liberal" than Obama with his recent thoughts on gay marriage, the truth of the matter is he didn't do a single thing while in power when it meant something, and he also believes it should be a states' issue. Keep the Obama administration's feet to the fire!

Got some music manuscript reproductions from Florence Italy! 3 Symphonies by Karlos von Ordonez. YAY!

"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said President Barack Obama’s plan to fix the economy through stimulus spending and government intervention to boost companies like General Motors Corp. has 'already failed.'"

Republicans pretty much these days:

I watched all of President Obama's speech in Cairo. Later in the evening, I took a chance and watched Sean Hannity's show on Fox. Hannity showed a clip claiming the President "decided to give 9-11 sympathizers a voice on the world stage," and then showed a very obviously clipped/edited selection from the President's speech, because the exact spot where Hannity ends the clip, President Obama said:

But let us be clear: Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.

FOX News keeps it classy! Keep in mind Bill O'Reilly's fave technique is to trawl DailyKos comments and use them on his show as evidence that DailyKos is a "far left hate site."

From Wonkette @ http://bit.ly/125MIW

It sure was Christmas morning for racists on the Fox News commenter forum today!

Let’s jump right in and see how some of these lovely folks responded to Fox’s breathtaking bait, “What funny BlackBerry messages would YOU would send to the president and how he might reply?”

* “Are you white or black?”

* “IS IT TURE THAT YOU AND HAGATHA HAVE TO COME IN THE BACK DOOR OF THE WHITEHOUSE?”

* “Do you think you would have made it into Harvard if you were white?”

* “Just a small reminder BO says:
June 4, 2009 at 11:14 am
YOU’RE H A L F – W H I T E!!!!!!!

HA HA HA HA HA
not until his failures sink in. then he’ll be known as the cracka who screwed up.”

* “i would ask why they made such a big deal about what dog hes getting when hes already got one bi.tch. (miche.lle) in the whitehouse.”

* “Pack yo bags B. hussein, you be movin’ to Liberia”

* “your a failure, resign now you idiot”

* “YOU HAVEEEEEE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME?!!!! “OBAMA’S FOR REAL”? YEA, FOR REAL AFRICAN. NOT AMERICAN SO INELIGIBLE TO POTUS. YOUR VIDEO SAYS IT ALL!”

* “when you are trown out of the white house dont dont forget to clean up the jerry curl off the oval office”

* “we dont need to impeach your azzz you are not legitament potus”

* “Barak the Majic N E G R O lived in Islam”

But so very few of them actually answered the whole question: how would he respond? Here’s one fine commenter who actually showed some goddamn effort.

Me: Mr. President, why do I have to show my birth certificate to get an enhanced license to cross the border, but you don’t need to submit one to be President?

B.O.: Uhh…let me find my uh…teleprompter. Okay, here it is. Because I’m uhh…trying to hide something, and uhh…you’re not.

Me: Are your “uh’s” already in your teleprompter script?

B.O.: Uh, yes.

Me: How much of our taxes is your teleprompter scriptwriter getting?

B.O.: None…(please insert your own ‘uh’s’ from here on in) it will be the taxes of your kids and grandkids paying him.

Me: Why are you so friendly with people in the Middle East that would love to kill us?

B.O.: I have so much in common with them with my religious background and all, and when I ruin America, or let them destroy it, I can always return to my place of birth in Kenya.

Me: Thanks for your time and unexpected truthfulness.

Well go on, Wonkette readers, join in on the fun! 

Thanks to syndicalist 

Life Magazine released never before seen color photographs of Adolf Hitler today. The photos look very faded, I'm guessing the negatives were not kept in the best of places or were damaged. I thought I would Photoshop this a bit to enchance it. It's odd I saw this story just having watched Valkyrie the other night.

David Carradine was found dead today. The linked story claims the police are indicating it was suicide, but other reports are unclear.

I never knew that the melody from a Jacques Offenbach comic operetta Geneviève de Brabant. The Gendarmes' Duet comes in the second act. Its authentic French title is "Couplets des deux hommes d'arms" (Song of two men-at-arms). The characters are Grabuge, a sergeant, sung by a "comic baritone," and Pitou, a "simple gunner," sung by a "comic tenor." The music sounds a lot like Gilbert & Sullivan.

One of the most detailed and cogent pieces of analysis of Flight 447’s last minutes – winning the praise of pilots around the world – is a blog by Tim Vasquez. Mr. Vasquez is a former US Air Force meteorologist. He now consults and publishes weather forecasting texts and software. Vasquez plots the likely flight path of Air France 447 and overlays it on satellite imagery and weather reports in the area at the time. More information is available here.