Scuttlebutt Pipeline

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Racing through the streets of Santa Monica, California late last night, completely oblivious to the beauty of the high rise of steel buildings around her and hell bent on harassing a single woman, Lindsey Lohan was arrested for posession of cocaine, driving under the influence, and driving with a suspended license.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — The troubled saga of Lindsay Lohan took another turn Tuesday when police booked her on suspicion of drunken driving and cocaine possession after a frightened woman dialed 911 to report being chased by Lohan’s SUV.

Less than two weeks out of rehab, with another drunken-driving case pending, Lohan had a blood-alcohol level of between 0.12 and 0.13 percent when police found her about 1:30 a.m., Sgt. Shane Talbot said. The legal limit for driving in California is 0.08.

Lohan attorney Blair Berk said her client had relapsed and was again receiving medical care. Her appearance Tuesday on “The Tonight Show” was canceled.

“Addiction is a terrible and vicious disease,” Berk said.

Authorities received a 911 call from the mother of Lohan’s former personal assistant, said Lt. Alex Padilla. The assistant had just quit hours before, he said.

“The mother was afraid,” Padilla said. “She wasn’t quite sure what was going on so she called the police saying she wanted to make sure everything was going to be OK.”

The woman apparently didn’t realize it was Lohan who was behind her, Padilla said.

Police said the woman drove her black Cadillac Escalade into the parking lot of Santa Monica’s Civic Auditorium, about a block away from the Santa Monica Police Department, followed by Lohan driving a Yukon sport utility vehicle. Authorities arrived and saw Lohan and the woman in “heated debate,” Padilla said.

(Full Article)

Can we just get these blonde, trouble making, bimbos off the streets please? I’m sure the residents of California would feel much better knowing Hilton, Lohan, Spears, and Richie were all safely off the streets and away from the rest of society.

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Tulsa Drillers coach Mike Coolbaugh died after being struck in the head by a line drive as he stood in the first-base coach’s box during a game.

The Texas League game was suspended in the ninth inning Sunday after the 35-year-old former major leaguer was hit by a foul ball off the bat of Tino Sanchez of the Arkansas Travelers. Coolbaugh was taken to Baptist Medical Center-North Little Rock, where he was pronounced dead.

“It’s a tragedy for all of baseball,” Drillers president Chuck Lamson told the Tulsa World in a story posted on the newspaper’s Web site early Monday. “He just joined the staff and was a former Driller player. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family.”

(full article)

I’m not a baseball fan in the least, but I must confess, after reading this article I kind of want to go watch a game now. I never realized it could get so violent and exciting! Hockey and Football are the only sports I’ll tune in for semi-regularly and I certainly don’t recall boring baseball games being this interesting. Maybe they’ve changed or it was just a fluke?

Many lawmakers, along with advocates for low-wage workers, are celebrating the first increase in the federal minimum wage in a decade. Yet many acknowledge that raising it from $5.15 an hour to $5.85 will provide only meager help for some of the lowest-paid workers.

About 1.7 million people made $5.15 per hour or less in 2006, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“The reality for a minimum-wage worker is that every penny makes a difference because low-wage workers make the choice between putting food on the table and paying for electricity or buying clothes for their children,” said Beth Shulman, a former vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.

“Saying that, it’s clear going up to $5.85 is not enough to really make sure that people really can afford the things that all families need,” said Shulman, the author of “The Betrayal of Work: How Low-Wage Jobs Fail 30 Million Americans.”

Minimum-wage workers will get an additional 70-cent boost each summer for the next two years, ending in 2009 at $7.25 an hour. That comes to slightly more than $15,000 yearly before taxes for a 52-week work year.

Today, someone in such a job and earning $5.85 an hour would bring home $12,168 a year before taxes. The federal poverty level is $10,210 for singles, $13,690 for couples and $17,170 for families of three.

(Full Article)

I for one am glad to see the minimum wage go up across the board, it’s great that some relief will be coming to workers but here’s the thing that many people also seem to beforgetting. The cost of living is also increasing accordingly as well. Many local establishments, especially locally owned ones, have already increased the prices of their services to compensate the extra that has to go to payroll.

So is this really going to help anyone?

It seems to be getting harder and harder to find a humorous blog to read that isn’t afraid to poke fun of things but at the same time doesn’t cross the line into the derogatory either. If you enjoy reading blogs that will make you laugh and poke fun at some of the stupidest things people have done or are doing then you need look no further than Skirmisher, a blog whose catch line just so happens to read: Devoted purveyor of the strangest, craziest, most delicious crap.

There are a number of articles here that had me cracking up over, some I even nearly injured myself from laughing so hard. Their articles are witty and hysterical, I for one will never think of the phrase “stopped dead in your tracks” quite the same way after one particular article.

There are of course some that tried my gag-reflex, such as the article entitled “Placenta Goatse” Is Not Even The Grossest Part Of This Story which gives a nice large accompanying picture. Apparently one man and his family feasted upon his wife’s newborn baby’s placenta. That one had me thinking just three words: “what the f**k?” There are some seriously wacko people out there and Skirmisher will bring them to you for laughs. Enjoy.

Seriously, here’s another Darwin Award winner:

MIDDLESBORO, Ky. - A pilot ran through the usual steps of getting ready to land his small plane, except for one little thing — he forgot to lower his landing gear.

Without wheels, Thomas Lepsch’s Beechcraft Bonanza skidded a few hundred feet down the runway at Middlesboro/Bell County Airport before coming to a stop Thursday.

“I’d never been at this airport before,” Lepsch said. “There’s a routine you go through as you prepare for a landing. I was distracted by another plane taking off and simply forgot to lower the landing gear. It was pilot error.”

Lepsch, 50, of Kingsport, Tenn., was not hurt, and he said there appeared to be little damage to his small plane, which he has owned since 1985.

He said he didn’t have time to panic during his unconventional landing because he was concentrating on controlling the plane and shutting off the fuel supply.

“There was a moment when I saw smoke and sparks when I thought of my four children and thought to myself that I wasn’t ready for them to be without a father,” he said. “I thought ‘I sure hope I don’t go up in a ball of fire.’”

Lepsch had been flying over eastern Kentucky “to scout out some good fishing sites.”

He said he considered driving, but after a storm front cleared out “it looked like a beautiful day for flying.”

(Source)

I’m not sure how one forgets to put down the landing gear when they’re landing, whether or not their “routine” was disrupted by the unfamiliar, the landing gear is so obvious and natural that it’s like saying “I got distracted and forgot to breathe”.

He’s 50 years old too, around his age many states start eyeballing vehicle drivers when they renew their licenses and too many accidents is cause for classes or suspension due to the driver’s age. Are there any such safeguards for pilots or do we need to worry about senior citizens plowing into our houses in their rental planes?