– TMZ Staff
Police were searching today for a gunman following an alleged road rage shooting in Tampa, Fla., that left one man dead.
The victim, whom authorities have identified as 47-year-old Fred William Turner Jr. of Orlando, Fla., was driving on a Florida highway when he called 911 to tell dispatchers he was being followed by a man with a gun after leaving a nearby store, ABC Tampa affiliate WFTS-TV reported.
“We know that at one point in time, this person did pull up beside him and showed him a hand gun,” Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee told “Good Morning America.”
“During the time he was on the call with the Highway Patrol, they actually heard the shooting. There were a series of shots,” he said.
Authorities responded to the scene to find Turner shot and killed in his car on the side of the roadway.
h/t – ABCNEWS
Secret FBI files published in a British newspaper allege how superstar singer Michael Jackson paid off parents and victims of his sexual abuse.
The thousands of pages of documents include private investigators’ reports, phone transcripts and hours of audio tapes that were created by a former investigator who once worked for jailed Hollywood sleuth Anthony Pellicano.
“They describe how the Thriller hit-maker was once caught by a member of his household staff groping a world-famous child star, watching porn films while molesting another boy and fondling the genitals of a third in his private cinema,” Britain’s PEOPLEreported late on Saturday.
“The mother of one of the youngsters was sitting two or three rows in front of them at the time – unaware of the vile abuse her son was suffering.”
The files, reportedly provided to the FBI as part of its probe into Pellicano, name 17 boys – including five child actors and two dancers – whom Jackson abused.
Other children the singer allegedly preyed on include a European boy and the sons of a screenwriter. Their names were not published in the report.
In a transcript of one tape from 1993, Jackson’s ex-butler Philip LeMarque and his wife Stella detailed how screen legend Marlon Brando complained that the King of Pop would “disappear with the children” at his Neverland Ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif.
Stella said: “He’d come to the ranch and always see Michael playing, disappear with the children. Michael would never spend time with the adults at the ranch.
“He [Brando] said, ‘What the hell is Michael doing with those kids!’’’ She said another famous guest, the lateElizabeth Taylor, “never” complained.
The couple said Jackson would watch porn films with young boys in his private bedroom behind a secret wall.
It’s been said that the biggest family fights occur during weddings and funerals.
But while the world prays for Nelson Mandela as he holds on to his life, his family is in court fighting…each other.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Mandela’s grandson, Mandela, was order to return the bodies of Nelson Mandela’s three dead children back to their original burial grounds.
In 2011, Mandela, the chief of Mvezo, dug up the bodies of the three children and moved them from Qunu to Mvezo where Nelson Mandela was born. While he may have been born there, Qunu is where Mandela was raised and where there is a family grave site. Mandela has always been very vocal about wanting to be buried near his children so the “hope” was that if his children’s bodies were buried in Mvezo, then so would Mandela and that would ultimately bring tourism dollars to the village.
– See more at: Madamenoire
“Every dollar you stamp will reach 875 people, if you stamp 5 dollars a day for a year, that’s over a million. Together, we can create a stampede that Congress can’t ignore.” ~StampStampede.org.
Last night during the 2013 NBA Draft the Brooklyn Nets acquired the Celtics two biggest names, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett along with veteran shooter Jason Terry; in return the Boston Celtics got three first round picks (’14, ’16, and ’18), Kris Humphries (expiring contract), Gerald Wallace, Kris Joseph, Marshon Brooks, and Keith Bogans. Here’s a minute to let that all sink in.
The pressure is on for new Nets coach Jason Kidd
Right minute over, you alright? Looking at this trade it shows that the Brooklyn Nets have no problem with being way over the cap, love to be a center of attention, and have fully embraced the “win now” mind set. Overall their starting five: Deron Williams, Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Brook Lopez, is pretty strong looking. With Paul Pierce they fill their need at Small Forward, with Kevin Garnett they bring a tested player and veteran into the locker room, lastly with Jason Terry they bring more perimeter shooting.
Will Brooklyn hoist a NBA Championship banner soon? Unlikely.
The trade puts Brooklyn in a tough position for the next few seasons. This team is walking into the 2013-2014 season with a new inexperienced coach, aging roster, weak bench, and as a whole way over the cap and into the luxury tax. If you ever wanted to see a team pull a “all or nothing” move, you’re looking at it. Brooklyn clinched 4th seed in the East last season and lost to an undermanned Chicago Bulls team. With the additions of Pierce, Garnett, and Terry they become more intimidating but still lack the punch teams like the Indiana Pacers, Miami Heat, and Chicago Bulls have to even contend for a championship. The Brooklyn Nets are stuck at the borderline of being mediocre and being a contender this season and will be stuck there for many years to come.
“Comparing it to Snowden, I’d say the offense is worse,” Johnson told The Huffington Post.
Johnson, who is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Snowden was wrong to leak top-secret materials to the media but was also “mistaken” in thinking that NSA’s activities were illegal. By contrast, Thomas, who is black, is “legally aware of the consequences” to the black community of striking down a core piece of the Voting Rights Act, Johnson said, yet he did it anyway.
“He consciously repeats those same steps over and over again to the detriment of the African-American community,” Johnson said of Thomas’ conservative voting record.
Chris Christie is not too happy with the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage.
“I don’t think the ruling was appropriate,” said Christie, who is running for reelection in a blue state, one in which Democrats have hailed the SCOTUS decision on gay marriage.
“I think it was wrong,” Christie continued, calling it “typical of the problem we see” in New Jersey’s own Supreme Court.
He blasted the U.S. Supremes for substituting “their own judgment for the judgment of a Republican Congress and a Democratic President. In the Republican Congress in the ‘90s and Bill Clinton. I thought that Justice Kennedy’s opinion was, in many respects, incredibly insulting to those people, 340-some members of Congress who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, and Bill Clinton.”
“He basically said that the only reason to pass that bill was to demean people. That’s heck of a thing to say about Bill Clinton and about the Republican Congress back in the ‘90s. And it’s just another example of judicial supremacy, rather than having the government run by the people we actually vote for,” said Christie, who recently appeared with Clinton at a Clinton Global Initiative conference.
Clinton himself has walked away from the signing of DOMA, and in a statement said he was pleased with the court’s ruling.
Christie is polling as a top prospect for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, and a number of evangelical leaders made clear after the SCOTUS ruling that the base of the party will remain opposed to same-sex marriage.
Yet, Christie is running in an overwhelmingly Democratic state, and wooing Democrats has been a huge part of a strategy aimed at driving up his margin of victory, should he win over rival Barbara Buono.
Branden Lee is a blogger, screenwriter, producer, and actor, currently residing in Boston, MA. Follow Branden on Twitter and Tumblr.
The Jamaica Observer has revealed that a study has shown that men would rather choose an unattractive woman for a long term serious relationship, and would rather have a beautiful woman for a short term fling.
“Feminine Looking” women, who possessed attributes such as a small jawbone and full cheeks, were considered most desirable to men. Due to their high level of estrogen which is credited for their womanly features.
Whereas women with the opposing features were considered more “masculine looking”.
Hundreds of heterosexual men were surveyed.
The men were shown many photos of European and Japanese women, both “feminine” and “masculine” looking.
The guys had to select whether they viewed each woman as more likely a short-term partner for a “fling”, or saw them more as “long term” relationship material.
“Feminine looking” women were deemed most desirable for a short term affair, especially by the surveyed men that were in relationships.
But the more “masculine looking” women were rated highest for long term partners for marriage and raising children.
As perplexing as these results are, previous research has allegedly been done stating that attractive women are more likely to cheat, especially when their husband isn’t that attractive.
So basically most men are distrustful of pretty girls.
This study really resonates with me.
I’m constantly told how gorgeous and beautiful I am, and whenever I tell someone that I’ve never had a boyfriend the same exchange always happens.
They always act astounded and shocked, like it’s so inexplicable that I could have never had a boyfriend despite being so undeniably attractive.
The worst is when they ask “Are guys blind?” because no man I’ve never met has never wanted to date me.
First of all, my problem isn’t attracting men, since I have absolutely no problem doing that.
My problem is that the men that I do attract only see me as a fling, and not as a serious relationship partner.
I also attract a lot of guys in relationships, and like this study showed, guys in relationships really like beautiful partners to cheat on their girlfriends/wives with.
The problem isn’t that beautiful people can’t be trusted, it’s that we live in a society that places beauty as the absolute thing to be coveted, but not to be taken seriously.
Beautiful people should be worshipped, envied, desired, but shouldn’t be thought of as actual people with feelings, thoughts, hopes, and dreams, and should not be respected.
Being beautiful has never done me any favors in terms of attracting a mate, since I’ve perpetually been single my entire life.
Granted I’m only 22 and still holding out hope that I’ll find a guy that does want to date me, and sees me as more than a sex object.
But clearly being gorgeous is both a gift and a curse.
Guys may always want you, but not for the long-term.
Because beautiful people somehow don’t deserved to be loved.
Andrew Weber blogs about TV at The Drug of the Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Two statements to start off this report on the just finished sixth season of Mad Men: First, this was probably the weakest season of Mad Men yet. Second, even at its weakest, Mad Men is more interesting and provides more food for thought than almost any other show on television.
There’s one major reason for this season’s overall weakness: Don Draper. I’ve further broken down the problems with Don into two related issues. First, it too often feels like we’re revisiting old ground with Don Draper. This is never more clear than through the flashbacks we see this season to his childhood. These flashbacks are both way too on the nose regarding how Don sees woman, especially in the context in which they’re shown, and they don’t really reveal insight that we don’t already know. Don seems to be repeating behavior and storylines from the past several times during the season, falling back into the same cheating patterns, being needlessly mean to Peggy, and just making everybody’s life difficult in ways similar to what he’s done before.
Secondly, Don’s the worst. Don was never a great guy, and from the first episode in which we’re introduced to him, he’s stepping out on his wife, a pattern he repeats through two marriages. Still, while Don was no hero, there was still an essential humanity deep down that we could relate to and understand, even if not feel sorry for or sympathize with. Even when he was wrong, which was often, he felt, and he tried, or at least tried to try, and at work he was often the good guy even when he wasn’t at home.
None of these are any longer the case. It’s as if Matt Weiner set out this season with the goal of destroying every shred of humanity within Don and turning him into a full fledged monster, which is what Peggy calls him late in the season when he attempts to both sabotage a meeting for Ted and take credit away from Peggy in one fell swoop. He not only cheats on his new wife, but he’s also incredibly degrading to the woman he cheats with. Oh, and it happens, to add insult to injury, that she’s his neighbor, and her husband is one of the only men Don seems to genuinely like in the entirety of Mad Men. He makes constant trouble for the firm after the merger, seemingly going out of his way to frustrate Ted and belittle Peggy. The coup de grace may have been when his daughter catches him in flagrante with the neighbor, destroying what respect she had left for her dad.
There’s even more emphasis on what a drunk Don has become this season than in previous years. While he’s always been a serious drinker evolving into a borderline alcoholic, he’s clearly a full-fledged alcoholic here and sober in very few scenes over the course of the season ( (maybe more than borderline, I’m no expert at the diagnosis, but there’s never been as much emphasis on the destructive power of drink to his life). In the final episode, he seems to at least care about trying to give up booze, throwing out his bottles and not drinking at work, and even though he’s suspended by his partners, this could be the first step in a powerful redemption story. I’m not sure it’s a redemption story I want to see though. Don’s come so far, and we’ve come so far with him that I’m not sure I want to see Don redeemed at this point. Maybe I’m not giving enough credit to the plight of alcoholism, a very serious disease, and I apologize if I’m not, but his actions have seemed deplorable whether or not he was drinking. It would be great if he cleaned himself up for his character within the show, but I’m not convinced he’ll ever be a person I want to root for again.
If anyone came out worse than Don this season, it was Pete. Pete, who may have gotten the second most screen time this year after Don, has always been the anti-Don in a way. Don breaks all the rules, but, until this season, it didn’t matter, because Don always gets the breaks. He screws up big time, but makes up for it somehow by pulling a big pitch out of his ass or seducing the next woman to come along with sweet talk after he fails the previous one. Don finally does get his comeuppance here, but while it’s hard to feel sympathy for him, it’s hard to not feel at least somewhat sympathetic for Pete. Pete was the primary antagonist in the show’s early seasons but now that everything goes wrong for him anyway, it’s hard to continue to root against him. He wants to get away merely with part of what Don does effortlessly, but it never works. While Don gets away with cheating for years, Pete’s caught out in his first foray in his new apartment in the city. He think he solves an awkward situation in which he catches his father-in-law in a whorehouse, but the joke’s on him when his father-and-law would rather spill the beans on Pete’s infidelity, even if he knows that the same damning evidence will be visited on him. There was no greater physical symbolism for Pete’s stumbles than his quite literal stumble down the stairs midway through the season. It’s not that Pete doesn’t deserve a lot of what he’s getting, but it’s hard to feel like even he deserves all this misfortune in such a short period of time.
Mad Men struggled to reckon with the almost mythic historical importance of 1968, a year with multiple assassinations, infamous riots, and the election of Nixon, which symbolically ended the decade in many ways. There were occasionally powerful historical scenes, including after Robert Kennedy’s assassination, but too often I thought the efforts to have the characters react to the specific events of the time fell flat. This, as has been noted in many blogs and media outlets, has been particularly true in regards to race. My biggest problem isn’t Mad Men’s failure to deal adequately with the race-related issues that pervaded the ‘60s, although the show certainly has been largely unsuccessful. My problem is that they make a half-assed effort. I’d rather the show largely ignore race than attempt to put a couple of toes in the water only to take them right back out when the water’s too cold. Mad Men introduced a black character Dawn, only to basically never use her.
Even for its faults, there’s plenty to enjoy in the new season. Peggy, Don’s one time protégé, may be well on her way to surpassing the master, and her rise is cataloged wonderfully, even with the surreal stabbing of her now ex-boyfriend Abe. Joan and Roger shine in every scene they get; one only wishes they could get more screen time. Joan’s turning what she thought was a date into a recruitment dinner with a potential client was a great step in her evolution as a businesswoman.
There were a handful of new characters this season. The shady Bob Benson, who generated more conspiracy theories than any other new Mad Men character, turned out so far to be a doppelganger of Don’s; a man without a past who has invented a future for himself. He’s helped out several people as part of his eager beaver please anyone he meets routine, but we’ve started to see a dark side when he sets up Pete for failure at Chevy.
Ted existed before this season but never as this meaty a character, and his contrast and competition with Don was one of the most enjoyable plots of the season. Ted has his weaknesses, which are on clear display in the last episode when he jerks Peggy around romantically. Still, the inclusion of Ted makes us realize just how unusual, and not in a good way, Don is. Being a creative isn’t an excuse for his treatment of his employees and his management strategy. Also, the scene of Ted flying Don in his tiny plane was a season-long highlight. Ted’s longtime partner Jim Cutler was a welcome minor character as well this season, adding notes of humor to a show that can easily be dragged down by Don’s (and Pete’s) unrelenting self-seriousness.
I look forward to a complete rewatch at some point where I can see if the material comes together better in a shorter period of time. As I said before, it’s still Mad Men. There’s so much to chew on, and the fact that there is, even if it doesn’t always work, makes Mad Men clear appointment viewing. Still, I hope the next and last season pulls together a little bit better.
