Video: Obama calls for civility in health care debate - The Associated Press
President Barack Obama is urging civility when conducting and participating in healthcare debates at town hall meetings in America, as some have erupted into violence and screaming matches.
Obama handed out
President Obama (left) and
Obama honors 16 'agents of change' at White House
WASHINGTON — The East Room of the White House was full of top contributors to the arts, science, sports and humanities as President Obama awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 16 individuals Wednesday afternoon.
"The true test of a person's life is what we do for one another," Obama said in kicking off the ceremony, his first official one bestowing honors as president.
Michelle Obama, sleek in a red shift dress, sat front and center to watch her husband recount the accomplishments of the honorees.
All 13 of the living honorees, who included actor Sidney Poitier, performer Chita Rivera and former Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, were in attendance, with the exception of Sen. Edward Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer and whose sister Eunice died on Tuesday. His daughter, Kara Kennedy, was there to accept on his behalf...
It's safe to state, corporate America led the United States into the current recession-turned-depression. The banks played a role in this financial calamity as well, spearheading the accompanying mortgage crisis, still spawning hundreds of thousands of foreclosures all over the country. Millions of families have lost their homes, due to bad loans, deceitfully issued by greedy mortgage companies and banks.
The next article is more proof of the arrogance, heartlessness and poor business sense banks are operating under, when a family's home was foreclosed on over 7 cents. As a result, Countrywide rejected the family's mortgage payment and placed their home into foreclosure. Disgraceful!
Make it worse, the family lost their 10-month old daughter to a household accident, now they are losing their home as well.
This is why I keep stating Obama and his administration cannot deal with the banks using kid gloves, as some of them are heartless.
Family losing home for underpaying mortgage by 7 cents
A Michigan family with an apparently spotty payment history is losing its home because it underpaid its mortgage by 7 cents, according to a legal aid group.
Sydney Rooks, a lawyer for Legal Services of Eastern Michigan, tells the Detroit Free Press that Creg and Bonnie Berger of Deckerville inadvertently underpaid their mortgage because a postal clerk issued a money order for $440 rather than $440.07. The Bergers didn't catch the mistake and they were four weeks late making February's payment of $690.07.
Though the Bergers, who have four children, caught up by mid-April, Rooks says, Countrywide Financial and its new owner, Bank of America, rejected the couple's payments...
Most television shows want killer ratings. Some television shows want that literally...by killing the competition. A former policeman in Brazil, turned TV show host,
He runs a law enforcement styled show and allegedly ordered the murders of five rival drug traffickers, sending his film crews to the crime scenes first, to boost ratings. His son has also been indicted on the same charges.
Brazil TV host 'ordered killings'
Details of the accusations against Wallace Souza
Police have accused a TV presenter in Brazil of being involved in organised drug trafficking and ordering killings to get rid of rivals and boost ratings.
Wallace Souza, who is also a state legislator, says the claims are an attempt by rivals to smear him and that there is no evidence to back them.
But the police say he ordered killings in the state of Amazonas and alerted TV crews to get them to the scene first. The TV show was halted late last year as police stepped up their inquiry.
If what the police say is true, then this is the TV show that not only reported crime, but was actually behind it as well...
The authorities believe that Mr Souza commissioned at least five murders in order to get rid of drug trafficking rivals and to boost his programme ratings...
Wallace Souza faces a variety of charges, including drug trafficking and weapons possession, but remains free because for the moment his political role gives him immunity...
Lawyers for Wallace Souza, a former policeman who was expelled from the force, say the accusations are an attempt to smear him and that there is not one piece of material proof to back the police claims.
Megan Fox
Actress Megan Fox, 22, is trying to get her claws into British actor, Robert Pattinson, 23. Translation, Megan is clowning her actor boyfriend, Brian Austin Green, again.
Well, she is going to catch a serious beatdown from a whole herd of 16-year-old girls over Pattinson. Speaking of 16-year-olds, teen actress/singer, Miley Cyrus has a crush on Pattinson as well.
Robert Pattinson
Miley Cyrus
Side Bar: Miley, what were you doing on that stripper pole...and more importantly...who okayed it being on a Teen Choice awards show. I keep writing about Hollywood's inability to discern what is appropriate for kids and teens.
I've stated it before and I will state it again, Miley, with kindness, your parents need to beat your little butt. I'm getting a terrible flashback of Britney Spears at 16 and that's not a road you want to go down, Miley.
Megan Fox hearts Robert Pattinson
Tue, Aug 11, 2009 10:54:45 GMT - Is there any female in Hollywood that doesn’t have a little crush on Robert Pattinson? Well it doesn’t look like it as now even Megan Fox has jumped on board the train headed right towards the Twilight hunk.
The Transformer actress recently said: "I would eat Rob Pattinson so that I could steal some of that pretty. I just wanna be pretty like he's pretty. I want that James Dean, that sexy- *** hair."
That’s quite a reversal from an interview she gave to Elle in May when Megan had this to say about Rob and Zac Efron: “Boys in their 20s are a waste of time. They have nothing to offer conversationally. They're immature."
Indeed Pattinson seems to be sweeping them all off of their feet, Miley Cyrus tweeted this on Sunday:
@mileycyrus Gave a hug to Rob Pattinson today. Ok girls I get it now. So cute. Sorry "Robby" bout all my bashing my past. :)
"I'd pass out if I met him. I can't talk about it, 'cause I'd pass out." No, not the ramblings of a teen fan but none other than Jennifer Love Hewitt! Even Shakira has admitted to having a crush on British Rob.
What’s your secret Robert?
http://movies.apunkachoice.com
Miley Cyrus' 'Teen Choice' performance sparks debate
Miley Cyrus' provocative performance during Monday night's "Teen Choice Awards," in which she wore short shorts and boots and at one point straddled a pole, has set off a firestorm on the Internet over whether the act was appropriate for a 16-year-old entertainer in front of a youthful audience.
On YouTube and on Twitter, followers of the Disney Channel series "Hannah Montana" debated whether Miley was doing a pole dance on top of a moving ice cream pushcart or was simply hanging on to the pole for balance. Some found her sultry routine over the top for the Fox award show, which attracted 4 million viewers -- more than a quarter of whom are under age 18 themselves, according to Nielsen ratings...
The Foreclosure Edition
Lisa Wu-Hartwell
Lisa Wu Hartwell of the Real Housewives of Atlanta stated she and her family were not "booted" from their foreclosed $3,000,000 mansion, as some reported. Since TMZ didn't use said wording when they reported the story and sites like this one did, I'll assume that was lobbed in this direction.
I wasn't trying to hurt her feelings, but I was stating it in legal terms, as when a home is repossessed via foreclosure and auctioned by the bank, that second step means the family has been "booted" from the property. It is a legal formality.
Otherwise, after vacating the premises, weeks or months down the road, the family could decide to move back in again.
The legal language of foreclosures with regard to the property actually being auctioned, mandates that it is clearly stipulated, the borrower in default has been put out, to facilitate the sale of said house to satisfy the debt. Therefore, anyone saying otherwise is pure semantics.
However, I will state, it is great the Hartwells were able to move into another property they "own" after "downsizing" as many Americans did not get that opportunity in the current, ongoing mortgage crisis.
The only property repossessions this Column would toast is that of ponzi schemers and other thieves, defrauding innocent victims.
Side Bar: Atlanta female stars gets testy when you write about their finances.
Lisa Wu Hartwell Rebuffs Reports Her Family Was Booted From Their Home
POSTED: AUGUST 11, 2009 - The economy is affecting everyone, even some of our favorite reality starlets. Recently, reports surfaced that "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" star Lisa Wu Hartwell and her footballer hubby Ed Hartwell were allegedly booted from their multimillion dollar Duluth, Georgia, mansion, after the bank allegedly foreclosed on the crib and sold it.
However, Lisa Wu Hartwell says that's the furthest thing from the truth. "People read and believe what they want," Hartwell, 38, told ESSENCE.com exclusively after landing in Atlanta from Baltimore where she had a speaking engagement. "Ed and I are doing fine and our children are fine."
Still, the petite beauty wants to make it clear that the Hartwells are no different from anyone else who had to make smart, cost-efficient lifestyle change like many Americans who have been affected by the recession. "We are not ignorant about the state of the economy, but we chose to move, we were not evicted. We've been settled in our home for two months now and we've owned it for five years, as well as other properties. We planned to build on that 10 acres of land and sell the property, but decided against it when the market went bad and I'm glad we didn't. It's just quite silly that there are reports that we were put out as if it weren't our decision to relocate. Our decision to downsize is what I call being [financially] responsible."
"RHOA" costars Nene Leakes and Sheree Whitfield have also moved after dealing with foreclosed properties.—KNB