Michael Jackson … your 24/7 source
Michael Jackson, Friday, July 3, 2009:
- CHRISTIAN POST: Gospel Artists Say They Did Not Lead Michael Jackson to Christ
- VARIETY: 11,000 tickets available inside Staples Center for Jackson service
- SF CHRONICLE: I remember Mama: one evening with the young Michael Jackson
- ABC: Michael Jackson: Faces Through the Years
- ABC: A Michael Jackson Butter Sculpture and Six Other Weird Tributes
- ABC: The Michael Jackson Diet: What Did MJ Eat?
- Billboard: Jackson had two albums in works
- LA TIMES: Jackson family to hold small, private ceremony before memorial at Staples Center
- Last Video Footage of Michael Jackson Shot Two Days Before Death
- USA TODAY: Jackson’s ‘Smooth’ leaning move really was patented
- NYT: Behind the Facade
- Microsoft learns lessons from Michael Jackson Bing blunder
- BAKER CITY HERALD: Powerful sedative found in Michael Jackson’s home
- BAKER CITY HERALD: Geller, ex-bodyguard tell of Jackson drug abuse
Michael Jackson … your 24/7 source
Michael Jackson, Thursday, July 2, 2009:
- Legal Week: John-Paul Dennis says things could get ugly over Michael Jackson’s will
- TV Newser: Michael as Parent…Eccentric But Loving
- CBS: The Drug Enforcement Agency investigates the connection between Michael Jackson’s potential prescription drug addiction and his death (video)
- CBS: Maggie Rodriguez and Dave Price spoke with Michael Jackson memorabilia experts about how to avoid buying bogus collector’s items (video)
- HollyScoop: Michael Used Alias Names to Get Prescription Drugs
- Rolling Stone: DEA Joins LAPD Investigation Into Michael Jackson’s Cause of Death
- HollyScoop: Michael Jackson’s Bodyguard: He Had a Secret Girlfriend
- HuffPo: Jackson’s Children Were Banned From Looking In Mirrors, Had Toys Thrown Away Each Night
- MSNBC: Jermaine Jackson: ‘I wish it was me’
- Toronto Star: At Neverland, quiet respects amid a circus
- The Economist: Michael Jackson, pop star, died on June 25th, aged 50
- Digital Spy: BBC gets complaints over Jackson coverage
- Fox: Jackson Funeral at the Staples Center
- Associated Content: Who’s to Blame for Michael Jackson’s Death?
Well … it’s Thursday and time for Debbie to change her mind: “I WANT MY CHILDREN”
Report: Jackson’s Ex-Wife Debbie Rowe Says ‘I Want My Children’
Fox News
Michael Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe broke her silence Thursday and declared she wants custody of the two children she had with the late King of Pop.
“I want my children,” Rowe said during a 90-minute phone interview with NBC-LA early Thursday.
A judge later that day delayed a guardianship hearing for Michael Jackson’s children at the request of attorneys for Rowe and the singer’s mother.
The hearing, originally scheduled for Monday., was rescheduled for July 13.
Katherine Jackson will retain temporary guardianship of the children until then.
My bet is … SHE WON’T GET THEM.
Cap-and-trade bill not likely to deliver promised jobs
Cap-and-trade bill not likely to deliver promised jobs
The Detroit News
President Barack Obama is chiding critics of his carbon cap-and-trade proposal to combat global warming for being afraid of a future shaped by new energy technologies and thriving with so-called green jobs.
What those skeptics are really afraid of is a future locked to laws that institutionalize high unemployment, low growth and a lesser standard of living for Americans.
The administration and Democratic leaders in the House are banking passage of cap-and-trade legislation on the promise that the government’s $100 billion investment in green technologies will spin off five million new jobs and hyper-boost the economy.
Advertisement
It’s a tough sell, even to the administration’s congressional supporters.
The House just narrowly passed the measure, with many nervous Democrats deserting their leaders to join Republicans in opposition. That spells trouble for the bill in the Senate, where bipartisan concerns about the impact on the economy are being raised.
Before the country commits to such a radical change, the promises made by supporters must be more carefully examined.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says her advocacy for cap-and-trade is all about “jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs.” But there’s no evidence that employment has grown anywhere in the world because of energy mandates such as cap-and-trade.
A study released in March by four professors hosted by the University of Illinois casts a great deal of doubt about green job creation.
Gee … I thought that was its major selling point.
South Carolinians wonder: Is Sanford nuts?
South Carolinians wonder: Is Sanford nuts?
HOT AIR
I don’t know. Is love “nuts”? Is asking your wife if you can visit your mistress on another continent and then going anyway after she tells you no while leaving the state you govern completely in the dark as to your whereabouts, and then coming back and making a total media spectacle of yourself by blubbering about soulmates to reporters “nuts”?
Then yeah, cynics. I guess he’s nuts.
Is it wrong that I’m eagerly awaiting the next trainwreck interview? It’s like a soap opera now. I have to know how it ends.
A Graphical Representation Of Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy
A Graphical Representation Of Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy
The Plank
By all accounts Mitt Romney’s 2012 bid for the presidency is moving full speed ahead. Last month, he gave a major address in which he laid out his view of international politics–and boy was it convoluted. Channeling the business jargon common at places like Bain & Company, the management consulting firm he founded, Romney tried to break down world politics as if he were giving a PowerPoint strategy presentation to a corporate board.
Which got me thinking, what would Romney’s foreign-policy worldview look like if it were depicted visually as a PowerPoint slide? I asked a consultant friend to put together a mock-up.
Very interesting.
The Obama disaster continues…US Economy Continues to Hemorrhage Jobs
Obama Disaster Update: 473,000 Jobs Lost In June
GATEWAY PUNDIT
The US economy lost 598,000 jobs in January.
The US economy lost 706,000 jobs in February.
The US economy lost 742,000 jobs in March.
The US economy lost 545,000 jobs in April.
The US economy lost 485,000 jobs in May.
(May’s numbers were adjusted after it was initially reported that 345,000 jobs were lost.)And, in June the US lost another 473,000 jobs.
Running out of people to blame it on.
THAT’S WHY WE’RE HERE: Strategists Worry Obama’s Popularity is Dropping
Strategists Worry Obama’s Popularity is Dropping
U.S. News & World Report
President Obama is heading into stormy waters. His healthcare plans have stalled on Capitol Hill; he is being faulted for a shaky response to the post-election violence in Iran; his job-approval ratings are dropping; and confidence in his handling of the economy is ebbing. The warning signs are enough to worry Democratic strategists that Obama may be sinking into a trough that will sap his influence just when he needs it most.
Clearly, some of Obama’s luster is wearing off. The question is whether his setbacks will be temporary or mark the start of a long-term decline for his presidency.
The “trainee” Presidency is slowly being discovered for what it is … inexperienced.
‘Barack Obama is a Big Fat Liar,’ Illustrated
’Barack Obama is a Big Fat Liar,’ Illustrated
National Review
During President Obama’s “townhall” event on healthcare reform today, the pesky subject of taxing employer-based benefits again reared its head. It’s a policy proposal for which Obama savaged John McCain during the campaign. As Jim Geraghty reminds us in “Barack Obama is a Big Fat Liar,” Team Obama spent $44 million on more than a dozen ads specifically denouncing McCain’s supposedly reckless idea in the fall. But now the White House - desperate for revenue - seems to be changing its tune:
In early October [Obama] went even further, calling McCain’s plan “so radical, so out of touch with what you’re facing, and so out of line with our basic values.”
On Capitol Hill, however, Democrats have long liked the idea as a new form of tax revenue. Obama’s relentless denunciation of the proposal would seem to preclude his signing it into law, but “would seem to” is not “does.” Back in March, White House budget director Peter Orszag said taxing employer benefits was among several ideas that “most firmly should remain on the table,” and some congressional Democrats told the Washington Post that White House officials said Obama would accept such a tax “as long as he didn’t have to propose it himself.”
Finally, during Wednesday’s p.r. push for his health-care plan, Obama refused to rule out the proposal that he once said made John McCain unfit for office.
I went back and found a number of the ads Obama ran against McCain on this front. The impending expiration of this particular campaign promise is especially galling when one actually views the ads themselves - bearing in mind that the risky, out-of-touch, unaffordable, deal-breaking healthcare policies these ads ruthlessly targeted are now on the brink of being embraced by their one-time chief critic.
READ MORE HERE … COMPLETE WITH VIDEO CLIPS.
Oops!
Documents show Jackson had millions … and little to spend
Documents show Jackson had millions … and little to spend
The New Zealand Herald
Documents throwing light on the true worth of lavish-spending, debt-ridden pop star Michael Jackson were revealed yesterday.
In the most detailed account yet of the singer’s tangled financial empire, the papers show Jackson claimed to have a net worth of US$236.6 million ($372 million) on March 31, 2007.
But less than US$700,000 of that was in cash - a paltry sum given his opulent lifestyle, prodigious borrowing and seven-figure shopping sprees.
Since then, Jackson’s debts and assets have grown substantially.
OK Magazine pays $500K for pic of Michael Jackson’s dead body…puts it on cover
OK Magazine puts Michael Jackson’s dead body on the cover
The Inquisitr
OK Magazine is in some well deserved strife for putting Michael Jackson’s dead body on the cover. The “last photo of Michael Jackson” exclusive is said to have cost the magazine a cool $500,000.
Jackson’s family and friends are said to be outraged by the cover, and there’s an unconfirmed report that one of Jackson’s relatives has lodged a petition in court to have the sale of the magazine stopped.
Personally I’m just stunned they paid $500,000 for a blurry picture
Obama’s biggest character flaw
Obama’s biggest character flaw
American Thinker
That’s Obama’s sore spot, his biggest character flaw. It’s right out there for the world to see. It explains everything about this administration, and foreshadows its inevitable comeuppance. Meanwhile all the shrewdies in the world, from Putin to A’jad, are getting it. They’ve seen it before. Been there, done that. All they have to do to seduce the President of the United States is to pump up that beautiful ego balloon a little more, and he will just sag over with abject gratitude. He needs his ego supplies, this guy. He’ll do anything to get just a little bit more.
If you’re China or Russia or a blood-stained mullah you’ve seen this flick before. The last Shah of Iran used to call himself “King of Kings,” a Biblical phrase that goes back to the Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great. Grandiosity is familiar to all the ancient empires of the world. So is the art of flattering kings. They’re pros at this.
It’s just Americans who don’t get it — yet.
But they will, they will. The only question is how much the country will be damaged, by the time the voters catch on.
Anthropogenic Global Warming: how the climate change pitchmen market their snakeoil
Anthropogenic Global Warming: how the climate change pitchmen market their snakeoil
Anthropogenic Global Warming Propoganda
Intelligent Essays
Scholars have written volumes explaining the techniques and methodology of propagandists for hundreds of years. To propagandize, one need only read a how-to manual to learn the concepts of an effectively run propaganda campaign. Propaganda techniques include appealing to fear, appealing to authority, name-calling, transference, bandwagoning, obtaining disapproval, over simplification, utilizing virtue words, employing faulty logic and more. AGW proponents utilize all of these methods to further their goals…
CONCLUSION: Whether the Earth is warming from the oceans or from the sun, it is imperative to recognize propaganda for what it is. Anthropogenic Global Warming may be the largest misunderstanding of the Earth nature since we thought the world was flat. The tools used to convince the masses that such a theory is true are tools of pure propaganda. The unscrupulous scientists that perpetuate the lie are only partially to blame, as they are manipulated by the politics and commerce of the world. As AGW propagandists play with the heartstrings of the Earth’s population and billions of dollars are invested to prevent its demise, monetary funds are drawn away unnecessarily from other more worthy projects. The AGW propaganda has found its way into the lives of citizens by every possible avenue; the truth is available for those who earnestly seek it; though covered by years of propagandistic lies.
CAUTION: this post qualifies as a “short book,” so get comfortable.
NOT EVERYONE’S A MICHAEL JACKSON FAN: Shed no tears for this twisted Sicko
Shed no tears for this twisted Sicko
New York Post
YOU’D have thought by the media lovefest that the pope had died a tragic death after a lifetime of caring for lepers.
But, no, it was the death of Michael Jackson, a drug-addled, creepy-beyond-words, accused pedophile who literally bought his children with the help of two brood mares and, apparently, his dermatologist — a group of amoral savages who had no problem giving their kids to a man who looked like the Phantom of the Opera and who behaved like a depraved worm.
You can call it “adoption,” but I call it child-trafficking.
It might be worth investing in an armed bodyguard right about now.
Only a narcissist would write 2 memoirs about himself before the age 45: all hail Obama
Joan Swirsky
Once upon a time, a white teenager from Kansas got pregnant by her black Kenyan boyfriend, Barack Obama Sr., or was it her husband? Whatever. (I say no whatever because we’ve never seen either marriage or divorce certificates). Some say the couple was in Kenya visiting relatives when the birth of their son, Barack Obama Jr., occurred. No matter. (I say no matter because we’ve never seen an authentic birth certificate). By the time the baby was two years old his father abandoned him for his other wife and child in Kenya.
By the time he was 10, the boy had been abandoned three times - by his father, stepfather, and mother. And although he was raised by his white grandparents in Hawaii - where “people of color” were not his color - he found out soon enough that his mixed-race background rendered him, in effect, an outsider. Did that make him feel self-conscious, indignant, victimized?
Who writes two memoirs about himself before the age of 45? My own speculation is that it could be no one but a narcissist. As most people know in this age of pop psychology, the psychiatric disorder of narcissism derives from the Greek myth in which Narcissus, a handsome young man, became obsessed with himself and fell in love with his own image as he gazed into a pool of water. A lot of people have some degree of narcissism, which is characterized by grandiosity, an unquenchable need for admiration, unhealthy self-absorption, dependence on the affirmation of others, and also a lack of empathy, which is hidden by both personal charm and the kind of earnest language that pretends to “feel your pain.”
Hat tip: Claudia, Loganville, GA.
Jackson’s hospital is known for ‘raising the dead’
Jackson’s hospital is known for ’raising the dead’
Fort Myers News Press
When Michael Jackson went into cardiac arrest, rescuers took him to a place known for bringing the dead back to life. A world-renowned surgeon at the UCLA Medical Center has pioneered a way to revive people that most doctors would have long written off, including a woman whose heart had stopped for 2 1/2 hours.
Tested on a few dozen cardiac arrest patients, 80 percent survived. Usually, more than 80 percent perish.
“They took people who were basically dead, not all that different than Michael Jackson, and saved most of them,” said Dr. Lance Becker, an emergency medicine specialist at the University of Pennsylvania and an American Heart Association spokesman.
Could Jackson, too, have been saved?
It’s impossible to know. Doctors at the hospital worked on him for an hour. The UCLA expert, cardiothoracic surgeon Dr. Gerald Buckberg, said he was not personally involved in Jackson’s treatment, and that too little is known about what preceded it.
LOTS OF REASONS: Why Men Are So Cool!
ChronWatch
- Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
- We know stuff about tanks.
- A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
- We can open our own jars.
- We don’t have to learn to spell a new last name.
I’m just the reporter.
BE VERY CONCERNED: Are you posting vacation plans on Twitter leaving home vulnerable?
Do ’I’m on vacation’ posts pose security concerns?
AP Via Yahoo News
Like a lot of people who use social media, Israel Hyman and his wife Noell went on Twitter to share real-time details of a recent trip. Their posts said they were “preparing to head out of town,” that they had “another 10 hours of driving ahead,” and that they “made it to Kansas City.”
While they were on the road, their home in Mesa, Ariz., was burglarized. Hyman has an online video business called IzzyVideo.com, with 2,000 followers on Twitter. He thinks his Twitter updates tipped the burglars off.
Something to think about
A primer on countering the ObamaCare arguments
Parsing the Health Reform Arguments
Wall Street Journal
The health-care debate continues. We have now heard from nearly all the politicians, experts and interested parties: doctors, drug makers, hospitals, insurance companies, even constitutional lawyers (though not, significantly, from trial lawyers, who know full well “change” is not coming to their practices). Here is how one humble economist sees some of the main arguments, which I have paraphrased below:
- “The American people overwhelmingly favor reform.”
If you ask whether people would be happier if somebody else paid their medical bills, they generally say yes. But surveys on consumers’ satisfaction with their quality of care show overwhelming support for the continuation of the present arrangement. The best proof of this is the belated recognition by the proponents of health-care reform that they need to promise people that they can keep what they have now.
- “The cost of health care rises two to three times as fast as inflation.”
That’s like comparing the price of hamburger 30 years ago with the price of filet mignon today and calling the difference inflation. Or the price of a 19-inch, black-and-white TV 30 years ago with the price of a 50-inch HDTV today. The improvements in medical care are even more dramatic, leading to longer life, less pain, fewer exploratory surgeries and miracle drugs. Of course the research, the equipment and the training that produce these improvements don’t come cheap.
My favorite was the last one … “We need a public plan to keep the private plans honest.” Answer: “The 1,500 or so private plans don’t produce enough competition? Making it 1,501 will do the trick?”
CNN Lawyers Get Tough With Staff Over Michael Jackson Footage
CNN Lawyers Get Tough With Staff Over Michael Jackson Footage
TV Newser
First on TVNewser: The legal action in the Michael Jackson case may go beyond those involving Jackson’s estate and to the media that are covering him.
TVNewser has learned the CNN legal department sent out an email to the staff today in which they announced that they are expecting lawsuits over the network’s unauthorized use of Michael Jackson footage over the past several days.
Oops!
Dennis Robbins 
