I really can't fault the news media: aside from the war and the mortgage crisis and the oil crisis and the twelve billion wars preoccupying Africa right now, what is there really going on besides Jennifer Love Hewitt's blog entry addressing the subject of her ass? Yesterday it was all over CNN, and today I switched to MSNBC only to be treated to an entire segment featuring plus-size model Emme on a scandal I guess I'll call Badonkgate. Here's a quick summary:

SIZE ZERO NEWS ANCHOR: I don't know, there was just something that REALLY pissed me off about this!
EMME: blah blah blah why do we buy into this blah blah blah magazines.
SZNA: blah blah
EMME: blah blah acceptance
SZNA: You go girl!
EMME: You go girl!

Fast takes on Web news, fresh every week:

1 Jennifer Love Hewitt is protesting unhealthy women's body expectations after allegedly unflattering bikini photos of her were published on the Web. We're with you in principle, Jennifer, but isn't insisting on your blog that you are still a "size 2" part of the same problem?

2 The top editor and two staff bloggers quit Gawker, partly over a new system that pays writers based on how popular their pieces are, rather than how many they write. If only there were a sharp-tongued, New York media blog to put the news in perspective.

3 TiVo will now let you access photos stored with Picasa or Photobucket directly through the personal video recorder. At last, a way to fast-forward through vacation shots.

Dearrockers 4 A new site, dearrockers.org (images from site), lets fans who have illegallyDearbryan downloaded music apologize and pony up a little something. My competing site, dearfans.org, will let rockers apologize for lousy or lazy music they've put out, starting with every Ryan Adams disc since "Demolition," new-millennium Tom Petty and the entire Dave Matthews Band catalog.

5 A newly popular Web site, Dig a Silicon Valley Girl, lets users rank female tech-industry workers by their relative hotness (and, yes, there is also a male equivalent). Strangely, none of the photos include bank statements.

Here is Hewitt's measured and sane response on her own site:

I've sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women's bodies are constantly scrutinized. To set the record straight, I'm not upset for me, but for all of the girls out there that are struggling with their body image.

A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be. And being a size 0 doesn't make you beautiful.

What I should be doing is celebrating some of the best days of my life and my engagement to the man of my dreams, instead of having to deal with photographers taking invasive pictures from bad angles. I know what I look like, and so do my friends and family. And like all women out there should, I love my body.

To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist, put on a bikini -- put it on and stay strong.

MANILA, Philippines (AP) - Angelina Jolie’s help is being sought by a left-wing Filipino farmers group that wants to call attention to thousands of rural people who have been displaced by increased military operations.[…]Read more!

HER credentials as a caring superstar could hardly be bettered. Angelina Jolie, mother of four, is as famous for her well-publicised adoptions of children from Third World countries as she is for her Oscar-winning movies and relationship with Brad Pitt.As a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees for the past six years, the beautiful 32-year-old actress has travelled frequently to impoverished African states, often to the heart of a conflict, to highlight the plight of the world's most desperate people.

In October, she visited Western Sudan to bring to the world's attention the appalling conditions endured by an estimated 2.5 million people who have fled brutal ethnic fighting in the war-torn province of West Darfur.The visit took the film star within an hour's flight of neighbouring Ethiopia, the birthplace of her daughter Zahara, whom she adopted amid much publicity in July 2005 in what seemed to be a flamboyant act of charity.

Indeed, even the most cynical Hollywood-watcher couldn't fail to be moved by Jolie's description of the hell from which her new daughter had been removed.The little girl's natural mother had, according to Jolie, died of AIDS. Malnourished and suffering from rickets, six-month-old Zahara was, it was claimed, just days away from death when Jolie found her at an orphanage in Addis Ababa, nursed her back to health and adopted her.

Although they knew Zahara had family back in Ethiopia, Jolie and Pitt have chosen not to visit Awassa, the lakeside town where the little girl was born. Had they done so, they may well have been shocked by what they found.

It has now been revealed that not only is Zahara's mother, Mentewab Dawit Lebiso, alive and well, but the man who arranged Zahara's adoption has been waging a campaign of threats and intimidation against her family.When rumours surfaced last month in America that all was not as it appeared with the paperwork, the American headquarters of the international adoption agency Wide Horizons For Children initially insisted Zahara's mother was dead.

But in Ethiopia, the man who brought Zahara to the agency knows Mentewab is alive and has been attempting to shut her up. Traced to Zahara's home town, Mentewab and her extended family, speaking through interpreters, have now told their side of the story.

Although aged 24, she is struggling, between selling onions in a market, to finish high school. It is a measure of the desperate lack of opportunity afforded to young Ethiopians: in this part of the world, many people don't start any formal learning until they are in their mid-teens.In taped interviews, Mentewab, her mother Almaz Elfneh, 45, and sisters Frehiwot, 18, and Zinash, 20, tell a disturbing story of rape, grinding poverty, lies and dubious official paperwork.It was this, rather than AIDS, that took Zahara on the extraordinary journey from her starving family to an orphanage in Addis Ababa and on to the Hollywood mansion owned by two of the world's most famous film stars.

And while the American headquarters of Wide Horizons For Children and Jolie may well be oblivious to the harsh realities of what goes on in adoptions such as these, the revelations have come as no surprise to the man who arranged the adoption for the agency, 'Mr Fix-It' Girma Degu. Indeed, rather than try to deny it when confronted with the family's account of what happened, he went straight to the house where Mentewab was staying with her sisters in Awassa.There, he threatened to have one of her sisters jailed for talking to journalists.Mentewab was interviewed in the dirt yard outside her uncle's home. Her story starts in 2004, many miles from Awassa in the town of Shone, where she was staying with her grandmother while she attended school. One night, when her grandmother was away on business, a stranger broke in and subjected her to a brutal rape. When, a few months later, it became impossible to hide the fact Mentewab was pregnant, her relatives disowned her.

"I felt so lonely," Mentewab says in her native Amharic language. "I thought about having an abortion but I didn't have the money. There was nothing I could do."

In the absence of other options, Mentewab, who was determined to finish her education, went to stay with a cousin in nearby Hosanna.Her baby girl was born at Hosanna hospital on January 7, 2005 - Christmas Day in Ethiopia. Mentewab called her Yemasrech, which means good news, although she was later renamed Tena Adam, the name of a local herb.Impoverished Mentewab struggled to look after her daughter. When her mother Almaz learned of her plight, she came to Hosanna.

"She told me, 'It's all right, we can raise this baby together.' I think she thought I might kill myself if she didn't help me," Mentewab says.

All three returned to Awassa, where they stayed with Mentewab's uncle in a gloomy, cramped, three-room hut with a mud floor and tin roof on the outskirts of town. Almaz looked after the baby while Mentewab worked as a labourer on a building site.

Her meagre wages paid barely enough to feed them.

"Sometimes all I had was a piece of bread all day," she says.

Finally, when her uncle asked them to leave his house and find their own place, their family life went into a free fall.

"My baby was crying all the time because she was hungry. I thought she was going to die, so I ran away," Mentewab says.

It was the act of a frightened and ill-educated girl but her decision to flee was to have far-reaching consequences.

"After Mentewab left I didn't have money to buy her food so the baby lost a lot of weight," Almaz says. "She was really skinny. I was even thinking she could die. I went to the Kebele (the local council) and told them my daughter ran away and had left the baby with me.

"I said to them, 'Please take the baby before she dies.' They asked me to bring three people to witness that the mother had run away and that I could not afford to keep the baby."

Almaz had already been introduced to Girma, a local man, by her sister-in-law and he agreed to take the baby after the Kebele gave consent.Girma took the baby to Addis Ababa, Almaz says.

"He promised he would keep in touch. He said he would bring back the baby to visit after five months and he would send me a picture.

"He also promised to introduce me to the family that would adopt her."

Almaz says she never told Girma or the authorities that her daughter had died.

"But then Girma came to me and told me that the baby had been adopted and taken abroad," she says. "He said there will be journalists coming to you and you must deny the whole story and say it is not your granddaughter."

After stories first began to circulate two years ago that Zahara's birth mother was still alive, Almaz says Girma dragged her to the local council offices and accused her of lying. He also tried to force her to say that Zahara was not her granddaughter.

"He brought this woman who claimed Tena Adam was her daughter," she says. "He tried everything to get me to say it's not my granddaughter. He even threatened he'd put me in jail and have me tortured."

But Almaz refused to budge.The revelation that Zahara's mother is alive and living on a few dollars a week while she struggles to complete her education will come as a huge embarrassment to Wide Horizons For Children, which claims to have placed more than 10,000 children from all over the world with Western families since 1974.Dr Tsegaye Berhe, head of the agency in Ethiopia, says he was told Zahara's mother was dead at the time of the adoption and has the official papers to prove it.

"We have to trust the documents we received," he says. "She (Almaz) has signed, three witnesses have signed, but the document is saying something different to what she is saying now. She said her daughter had died."

And in a move some might regard as intimidation, Berhe says he has asked the government to instruct Ethiopian police to investigate whether the grandmother lied to the Kebele. "We have already talked to the government," he says.

"The grandmother has given two statements. One that the mother is dead, another that she is alive. We have told the government what she is doing and that it has to take action because it is the government she's made to look foolish.

"It's a big scandal to say something then another thing the next day. That will make a big problem for her."

Berhe produced the paperwork he says was signed by Almaz and three other witnesses testifying that Zahara's mother had died, but refused to allow it to be copied or photographed. One of the three witnesses named in the document, Asegadech Asefaw, backs up Almaz's account that she told officials her daughter had run away.Another of Almaz's former neighbours, Bekelech Haile, says she also confirmed Almaz's version of events but, strangely, her name does not appear on the document.Witnesses say they've never heard of the name that does.

"I cannot read or write," Almaz now says. "I don't know what they wrote but what I said was that my daughter ran away, not that she was dead."

The adoption agency says it makes efforts to establish links between adoptive parents and a child's family. Berhe says he always arranges for adoptive parents to go to the village to meet surviving family, take pictures and videos, and even have some correspondence.

"It's very important because when the child grows, we don't want him or her to lose their identity," he says. "(The child) is going to ask a lot of questions . . . Why did you adopt me? Who are my parents? Where do I come from? Questions the child is going to ask."

Yet, according to Zahara's birth family, Jolie has never visited their home in Awassa, wher donkeys, cows and goats vie with cars and trucks for space on the road. Indeed, she has never contacted them or even sent a picture of Zahara.

Berhe does not dispute Jolie never met the family but blames media interest.

"There were a lot of journalists following her," he says. "She was not able to travel as she would have liked."

As for Jolie's failure to make any contact, he says the agency gets regular reports on how Zahara is doing from social workers in the US "but with the connection between the blood family and the adoptive parents, it is up to them."Meanwhile, Wide Horizons For Children moved rapidly to distance itself from Girma, the man who supplied Zahara and the paperwork.Although Girma says that he worked for the adoption agency and has distributed business cards claiming he represents it, Wide Horizons For Children says he is not an employee but is employed by an orphanage in Awassa.

It does not deny, however, that it was he who brought Zahara to its officials.

"What he has done is tanta- mount to kidnap," Mentewab says. "He took my daughter and just disappeared with her, saying I was dead."

She does recognise that Zahara has far better prospects with Jolie and Pitt.

"She will have a better life with Angelina," she says. "The thing that makes me upset is saying I'm dead - I'm alive and have never had AIDS."She would like Jolie to bring her daughter to visit her birthplace, a gesture that would mean everything.

from The Daily Telegraph

By Stephen Bevan

Empire magazine's 100 Sexiest Movie Stars Ever top ten:

1. Angelina Jolie

2. Natalie Portman

3. Daniel Craig

4. Jessica Alba

5. Johnny Depp

6. Eva Green

7. Brad Pitt

8. Scarlett Johansson

9. Keira Knightley

10. Gerard Butler

The 'Beowulf' actress topped the poll, conducted by Empire magazine, to find the most beautiful star of the silver screen.

Angelina Jolie has topped a list of the 100 Sexiest Movie Stars Ever.

Angelina claimed the prestigious title because of her "pneumatic figure, feline eyes and lips that could have been stung by several hives of bees".

She narrowly beat Natalie Portman, who finished in second position after "making baldness sexy" in 'V for Vendetta' and setting men's pulses racing with her raunchy pole dancing scene in 'Closer'.

James Bond actor Daniel Craig - who wowed women in 'Casino Royale' when he emerged from the ocean in a pair of tight-fitting blue swimming trunks - came third, while 'Fantastic Four' beauty Jessica Alba finished fourth.

'Pirates of the Caribbean' star Johnny Depp rounded off the top five.

Other entries on the list, which was voted for by 20,000 film fans, included Matt Damon - who was recently voted People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive for 2007 - who took 17th spot.

British stars Christian Bale, Kate Winslet, Orlando Bloom, Kate Beckinsale and Clive Owen all made it in to the top 25, with 'Harry Potter' actor Daniel Radcliffe coming in at 23.

'Volver' actress Penelope Cruz took 50th position and the entire list was rounded off by 'Die Hard 4.0' actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Valentina Vaughn (born March 15, 1983 is a stage name for an American nude model and pornographic actress.

She became June 2005's Penthouse Pet of the Month, for which she was photographed by Suze Randall, and a Hustler Magazine Honey. Vaughn has also been photographed by Andrew Blake.

Prior to becoming a Penthouse Pet, she had a history of run-ins with the law, including an arrest for the purchase of cocaine.

She has also begun a career in the adult film industry and has a career as an exotic dancer. She primarily danced at Delilah in Philadelphia since 2001.

She is an avid fan of guns, but due to one of her arrests, she is unable to get a gun license.

Valentina Vaughn born March 15, 1983 in Baltimore, Maryland

Waymond Anderson, a former R&B artist who is currently serving a life sentence for an unrelated murder, has said that he implicated former police officer Rafael Perez in order to receive a monetary settlement from the city. “I don’t know Rafael Perez. It was a lie, and I’m ashamed of it,” Anderson said in a recent deposition.

Waymond Anderson says that between the family ogf BIG and his lawyer they came up with the scheme to fabricate the story. The family and lawyer say that Waymond Anderson is full of shit that they did not conspire to do anything.

Jessica Kramer was born in Eagle Rock, California and the name couldn’t be anymore fitting since this tempting vixen has such a rockin’ body. She is a total California girl with the complete package. At 5′4″, this knock-out’s 34D-24-34 curves pack quite the impressive punch.

Jessica is a real girl and enjoys many of the same things as the other girls you’ve known in your life. Much like the girl across the street and your sister’s best friend, Ms. Kramer loves to go shopping, watch romantic comedies, and especially go out dancing.

A favorite way to spend the day for this luscious lady is to be active in watersports. She loves going to Lake Havasu and zooming through the water on a jetski. She’s a great swimmer and attributes it to her astrological sign, which is a Pisces.

Of course, all the guys at the beach love that she loves the water too since it means they get to see her strut around in a bikini. You get to see more than that though. You can skip the sandcastles and sunburn and get straight to the skinny dipping. At her official website, you actually get to see the bikini come off.

Source : MissJessicaKramer.com

Matthew McConaughey isn’t wearing a shirt below doesn’t even excite us anymore. Even that hot body can get old. But he’s once again holding the hand of Camila Alves, the Brazilian model he was rumored to have married a few weeks ago.

While we can’t confirm if that’s true, we can officially state that this is one hot couple. Camila Alves and Matthew McConaughey make Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag look downright ugly. Although the evil souls within that pairing from The Hills may also play a role in such a classification.

For now, though, we will dub Camila Alves and McConaughey as the best looking couple in Hollywood. Sorry, Kellie Pickler and Jordin Tootoo. You gotta step it up.

Guillermo Zarabozo, is charged with lying to a federal agent.Kirby Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo are connected with the missing Jake Branam his wife, Kelly and crew members Scott Campbell and Sammy Cary.

Relatives of he missing Jake Branam his wife, Kelly and crew members Scott Campbell and Sammy Cary called authorities Sunday night to say it had not returned as scheduled after being hired Saturday.

On Sunday night, the U.S. Coast Guard spotted the boat floating 160 miles south of Bimini, Bahamas, with no one on board, its contents in disarray and one life raft aboard. “It looks like whoever was on board left in a hurry,” Coast Guard Petty Officer James Judge said.

The cops say that Kirby Archer and Guillermo Zarabozo chartered the boat from the Miami Beach Marina for what was described as a planned trip to Bimini.

Babyshambles are said to be recording extra songs just in case singer Pete Doherty gets sent to jail for a string of drugs possession offences.

Drummer of the band Adam Ficek said that they were getting work on their upcoming album out the way as well as putting other tracks on tape.

Adam said that “We obviously hope Peter won’t be sent down but we can’t take any chances, we have a lot of extra tracks to do, and the sensible thing is to record them now when we can definitely be together.”

Pete has been told he may avoid a jail term if he can kick his drugs habit. Adam said that “It’d be naive of me to say he’ll never take drugs again. But, honestly, I’ve never known him want to give up more.

Kerry Katona was expecting her fourth child but we are now we are sad to report that Kerry Katona has suffered a miscarriage earlier today, just hours after she announced that she was expecting.

Kerry’s publicist Max Clifford has told heatworld that “Sadly we have to inform you that Kerry miscarried her baby today and went into hospital this evening for further treatment. She’s as well as can be expected and putting on the brave face we have come to expect in the face of adversity.

Katona, who had been rushed into hospital last week with a ‘mystery illness’, is now expected to be recovering from the miscarriage at her home. She had been pregnant for five or six weeks.

Sarah Silverman, who made a joke about Britney Spears’ children being “adorable mistakes” at the MTV Video Music Awards, has insisted that she did not mean to cause such a negative reaction.

Sarah said of 2-year-old Sean Preston and 1-year-old Jayden James: “They are the most adorable mistakes you will ever see.”

But she has insisted that she did not consider that the joke would be hurtful or would cause such a negative reaction. Sarah said that “The joke that everyone was upset about me calling the kids ‘adorable mistakes’ was the most innocuous joke. It never occurred to me that would be deemed hurtful or over the line.

TV host Jeremy Kyle has said to have verbally attacked Pete Doherty, calling the Babyshambles frontman ‘annoying’.

Jeremy claims he is amazed at the length of time the former Libertines star has managed to evade jail.

Jeremy said to the Mirror that “He bloody annoys the t**s off me. How many bloody times is he going to avoid jail? How many chances should he have?”

That’s true I have to agree he does seem to be getting away with a lot lately but you never know with the pending court case he might get sent down soon, but as we all know celebs don’t seem to go down very long.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has said that Terminator 4 is moving forward after all. Apparently, the film will not be called “Terminator 4” but will be titled “Terminator:_________” with no numbering. Scribes from T3: Rise of the Machines Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato are busy penning the script.

The Halcyon Company hopes to have the film in pre-production by October for a 2009 release - another pre-strike movie anyone?

The fourth film is set to be the first in a trilogy and will feature John Connor and Kate Brewster in a post-apocalyptic future. Middleton says the main hero will be someone new completely:

“Ben-Hur was influenced by Jesus Christ, but it was his story. Much in that way, this character will be influenced by John Connor.”

Middleton went on to say that a director is still not attached to the project but they are close to finding one. The lack of director means that no casting has taken place, despite rumours that Rachel Weisz and Chloe Sevigny have recently inquired about the lead and a “high profile hunk” had already been cast as the male lead.

Police have seized photograph 'Klara And Edda Belly Dancing', which was taken by controversial, female American artist Nan Goldin, because it may be considered child pornography - and Elton John's personal website has reacted.

The photograph, which was part of exhibition series called 'Thanksgiving' from the Sir Elton John photographic collection, may have breached child pornography laws.

The exhibition gallery, which the picture did not appear in, as it was seized by police, warns: "We would like to advise you that this exhibition contains some material of a sensitive nature. It may include explicit language, nudity, sexual imagery or violence."

The photograph 'Klara And Edda Belly Dancing' of two young girls, taken by Goldin. One of the girls is depicted sitting on the ground with her legs spread wide apart. Further details of the picture are unknown.

Police removed the image from the Baltic Art Gallery the day before it was to be viewed by the public. The inappropriate photograph is currently being examined by police while Crown Prosecution Service lawyers have offered their consult......

source

The film is an adaptation of Alexander Key’s novel Escape From Witch Mountain which stars The Rock.

The novel was made into a movie back in 1975, but isn’t worth mentioning. The latest version is said to have a little more edge to it, according to Andy Fickman,

“The original book is a very cool dark thriller. We’re pulling elements from that. It’s a much darker movie than in the 70s when they did ‘Escape to Witch Mountain”.