Mexican Secretary of the Interior Francisco Blake Mora was among eight officials killed in a helicopter crash on the way to a meeting. The crash appears to be weather related, though some are speculating about foul play.
President Obama continued his series of small tweaks to the broken system via executive order this week by asking agencies "to cut about $4 billion per year from the federal government's budget for travel, cellphones, conferences and 'swag' like agency-branded mugs and clothing." This sounds painfully modest. But, like everything else, not modest enough to keep major trade groups from raising hell in its wake.
It's been a hell of a week for the Oscars: Brett Ratner quit, Eddie Murphy quit, and everyone had some bright ideas about who should host. Sadly, Brian Grazer and Billy Crystal were quickly hired. And even though the once and future king of the Oscars has been anointed, some of you people are still carrying on about the damn Muppets. Knock it off!
Want to short Groupon's stock? Get in line: the financially questionable online discounter is now ranked in the absolute most expensive category of stocks to bet against. Some 5.5 percent of the company's shares are out to short investors, versus 3.3 percent for an average S&P 500 issue.
Larry Carlat used to be a married editor of a men's magazine. (Men's Health, according to LinkedIn.) Then he became obsessed with Twitter, lost his job, got divorced, and alienated loved ones. In a grim addiction memoir for NYT Magazine's Lives column, the tweetoholic describes tweeting "every hour on the hour, day and night":
In what appears to be a legitimate press release on the blog of the official Atlas Shrugged Part I website, the producers of the film have announced that they will "replace more than 100,000 title sheets appearing on the Atlas Shrugged Part 1 DVD and Blu-ray versions." Sounds like a pain in the ass. Why? Did child porn pics somehow show up on them? No! But the ultimate Randian curse word — "self-sacrifice" — did, and that's worse.
There's 74 katrillion people in New York and sometimes it seems like there is absolutely no one, especially when you start researching that great post-modern cry for romantic attention: the Craigslist "Missed Connection" ad. Where do most of these missed connections happen? In Union Square.
A group of conservative investors in Tennessee is suing a California businessman for allegedly conning them into investing in Tea Party HD, a TV channel aimed at tea partiers, that they say turned out to be a scam.
Everybody's favorite paleontologist from the '90s, David Schwimmer, has listed his Los Angeles mansion.
We've all met them before, someone who is incredibly attractive, almost unbelievably so. It's like they were Photoshopped by nature. But then they start talking and you realize there is absolutely zero substance to them. Still, you keep talking to them, engaging with them, because it's just so damn pretty. That is exactly what watching Immortals is like.
"We. Are. The 99 per—HACK. COUGH. SNEEZE. SNIFFLE. HACK." Looks like Occupy Wall Street is coming down with something. Will the 99 percent be undone by horrible gut viruses?
Taylor Lautner frequently forgets to water and feed his abs. Did AnnaLynne McCord get a boob job? A reality "star" says Mel Gibson impregnated her. Vogue names the Olsen twins "best dressed." TGIFriday gossip.
Around this time last week, we gave the fickle Republican base voters 10 days to start getting over this Herman Cain thing and commence with the "Gingrich Surge," "Newtmentum," "The Newtening," "Fat Head Makes Good" — whatever you prefer. With three days to go, it looks like they're complying. We were just screwing around. Oops!
