Scuttlebutt Pipeline

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Sept. 14, 2007 - Like most girls her age, 15-year-old Ashlee R. is into sports, clothes and current pop music. She’s a typical Midwestern teen—except that she’s looking for a husband. “She tells us none of the boys her own age are interesting to her because they ‘are still little kids’ and she is looking for an adult to start a life with,” say her parents, who’ve enrolled her on a new Web site—MarryOurDaughter.com—where they’ve set the “price” for her hand as $37,500.

Makayla S. is also 15, a traditional girl, a homebody who “cooks like a chef and decorates like Martha Stewart.” She has a cheerful, upbeat outlook on life and spends a lot of time laughing. Her bride price? $24,995.

Before you get too upset, stop: MarryOurDaughter.com isn’t real—it’s a hoax. Nonetheless, the site—which claims to be a matching service for followers of “the Biblical tradition” of arranged marriages—has managed to fool a whole lot of people. With profiles of young girls, outrageous testimonials and solicitations for proposals (as well as a sign-up page to have your own daughter listed) MarryOurDaughter.com has received 60 million hits since it launched last week—and, believe it or not, on top of angry letters, thousands of proposals.

(source)

We’ve had mail order Russian brides for so long that if this had been real it really wouldn’t have surprised me. Truth be told, somehow I don’t find this very offensive. Yes, had it been real it would have been kind of sad that these girls were being sold off, but that is a cultural view. Only a handful of countries and societies view marriage as a bond formed between a loving couple. Many view it as something that must be done to preserve the families or a matter of conveience. So before anybody gets their panties in a twist over this pleas estop and realize that one culture’s views do not necessarily reflect another’s, and certainly there is no one “superior” or right view.

Entertainment Tonight reported on its Web site Monday that the FBI and LAPD were investigating “legitimate” leads into a contract hit on the life of Kevin Federline. According to ETonline.com, multiple sources claim the FBI has attempted to contact Federline, Britney Spears’ ex-husband, to inform him of the hit.

FBI sources told ET that contacting someone whose life has been threatened is standard operating procedure for the bureau.

When contacted by ET, the FBI said they can neither confirm nor deny an investigation.

Meanwhile, Web site TMZ.com reports the LAPD closed an investigation into a threat on Federline’s life nearly two months ago because of insufficient evidence.

(source)

I’m a little surprised this man has a hit out on him, after all, he hardly seems important enough to warrant that sort of attention. I’m sure several people out there are wondering how much of this is real and how much of it is a publicity stunt.

Of course it could be that some music fans have had enough of the garbage he spins and calls “music” and thought to take out the source of the disturbance. While I can understand their stance I think they’re going about it all wrong. Remember, many musicians who were mediocre, at best, in life, rocketed to international fame after their deaths. Especially if the death was a horrible accident or brutal murder. If that happens we’ll be listening to his crud 24/7 for a good couple of months after his demise and he’ll probably get a movie made for him too.

So who ever put the hit out, do all of our eyes and ears a favor and recall it please.

There are a plethora of companies and websites out there that offer scholarships to help fund a student’s college career. I imagine you could think of at least three such places off the top of your head, but can you think of one that has a scholarship election system?

CollegeNET.com utilizes a unique system, which they call “scholarship election”, that essentially allows the students to determine who should and should not be awarded the scholarship funds. The process through which the students can determine the eligibility of one another is rather interesting as it incorporates aspects that everyone can agree are essential to academic and just real-world growth.

Each month students are given topics that they can expound upon. Topics range from forever hot-button-topics like abortion and religion to current events. Each student can cast votes on these discussions. At the end of each month, on midnight, the votes are tabulated and the top students who have accumulated the most voting points are awarded the scholarship money and discussion begins anew for the next month.

The ability to formulate and express one’s thoughts and opinions into a cohesive argument is something that cannot be taught in solely in a classroom. It is a skill that is acquired and honed through practice. But if one does not receive constructive criticism along the way their development will be severely stunted. CollegeNET’s system allows for both. Students are able to get practice on how to better express themselves and the voting system allows them to track their progress and improve their skills. I find this to be highly preferable to the old system of just sending in an essay and hoping the person that is reading them isn’t too bored, tired, or upset, when they get to yours.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I can’t help but to feel that this officer was looking for someone to toss into the clinker:

UNION CITY, Ga. - A McDonald’s employee spent a night in jail and is facing criminal charges because a police officer’s burger was too salty, so salty that he says it made him sick.

Kendra Bull was arrested Friday, charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct and freed on $1,000 bail.

Bull, 20, said she accidentally spilled salt on hamburger meat and told her supervisor and a co-worker, who “tried to thump the salt off.”

On her break, she ate a burger made with the salty meat. “It didn’t make me sick,” Bull told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

But then Police Officer Wendell Adams got a burger made with the oversalted meat, and he returned a short time later and told the manager it made him sick.

Bull admitted spilling salt on the meat, and Adams took her outside and questioned her, she said.

“If it was too salty, why did (Adams) not take one bite and throw it away?” said Bull, who has worked at the restaurant for five months. She said she didn’t know a police officer got one of the salty burgers because she couldn’t see the drive-through window from her work area.

Police sent samples of the burger to the state crime lab for tests.

City public information officer George Louth said Bull was charged because she served the burger “without regards to the well-being of anyone who might consume it.”

(Source)

News flash, stuff like this happens all the time. The cooks in restaurants do this all the time, something goes wrong in the process and they attempt to salvage it instead of tossing it out. I can’t say I blame them either. But really, if the burger was too salty would you have kept eating it or would you have brought a complaint to the management’s attention immediately? This is McDonald’s after all.

Well guess who is already back in the news. Although it might not be the result of yet another escapade in stupidity, wait scratch that, it is another escapde in stupidity, albeit of a different sort:

Paris Hilton is suing over the use of her picture and catchphrase “That’s hot” on a greeting card. Hilton sued Hallmark Cards Inc. in U.S. District Court seeking an injunction and unspecified damages to be determined at trial.

According to the lawsuit filed Thursday, the card is titled “Paris’s First Day as a Waitress” and shows a photo of Hilton’s face on a cartoon of a waitress serving a plate of food to a patron. In a dialogue bubble she says, “Don’t touch that, it’s hot.” The customer cartoon asks, “What’s hot?” She answers, “That’s hot.”

The suit says Hilton owns the trademark “That’s hot,” which was registered on Feb. 13, 2007.

The lawsuit claims commercial appropriation of identity, invasion of privacy, misappropriation of publicity, false representation that Hilton endorses the product, and infringement of a federally registered trademark. The damages would be based on profits from the $2.49 cards, said Hilton attorney Brent Blakely.

Hallmark defended the card as parody, which is normally protected under fair-use law.

“Some of Hallmark’s new humor greeting cards are parodies of today’s most popular celebrities and politicians,” said Hallmark spokeswoman Julie O’Dell in an e-mailed statement.

“These cards take a satirical look at news and gossip surrounding these public figures, including Paris Hilton, and we do not believe Hallmark has violated any of Ms. Hilton’s rights,” she said.

(source)

Believe me when I say I have about a million and one zingers floating around in my head right now and it is taking an amazing amount of control not to launch into them. Miss Paris Hilton, you wanted to throw your daddy’s money around and become a well known celebrity. You did everything you could to get splashed across the front pages of dozens of magazines, newspapers, and trash rags. Here’s a news flash, one of the prices you have to pay for being in the spotlight is the loss of privacy and the fact that you will be parodied and made fun of on a large scale when you do something stupid. And since you are the epitome of stupidity…well what did you honestly expact?