- Compiling a list of the 100 hottest women in the world probably doesn’t suck. The editors at Maxim, be they male or female, likely enjoy that particular task more than just about anything that comes across their desk in a given year. Poring over large color photographs of the sexiest women alive in painstaking fashion and then debating their merits wouldn’t seem to be an especially arduous task. Once again, those editors have soldiered through the challenge and come up with a satisfactory list of the 100 hottest females currently walking the earth. The No. 1 entry on the list was Victoria’s Secret model Rosie Huntington-Whitely, who has parlayed her modeling success and ability to wear revealing lingerie in jaw-dropping fashion into a role in the upcoming film “Transformers: Dark of the Moon.” To top the Maxim list, she had to beat out last year’s winner, pop tart and musically talentless hack Katy Perry, who fell to third place on this year’s list. Asked about landing at the top of the list, Huntington-Whitely took it in stride as would be expected from a woman who has had people telling her for years how hot she is. “It's a great title to have for a year and you can have some fun with it, I think,” she stated. Perry was also edged out by actress Olivia Munn, who has scored roles on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and an NBC sitcom this year and ranked second on Maxim’s list. She somehow managed to increase her hotness quotient enough to rise up from No. 8 last year and climb those six spots to second place. Fourth place went to a woman who is consistently esteemed to be much hotter than she actually is, actress Cameron Diaz, who hasn’t been in a good movie for longer than most people can remember and yet stays in the public eye enough to rank high on lists such as the Maxim list. Fellow actress Mila Kunis, who ironically is best-known for her role as the voice of Megan on Fox’s animated series “Family Guy,” was fifth on the list. Other top 10 entries were swimsuit model Bar Rafaeli (sixth) and actresses Anne Hathaway (seventh), Natalie Portman (eighth), Cobie Smulders (ninth) and Jennifer Lawrence (tenth). A bit further down the list was the newly minted Duchess of Cambridge, formerly known as Kate Middleton, who ranked 26th and managed to beat out noted hotties like Sophia Vergara, Brooklyn Decker and Nicole Scherzinger on the list. Also among the top 100 are a smattering of athletes and musicians, all of who can be scanned in the latest issue of the magazine……….
- How dare 47 medical workers help people in need after those people - who just happened to be pro-democracy protestors demonstrating against the government - were injured by excessive force administered by security forces? Thankfully, Bahrain's justice minister has stepped in and begun the process of beating some sense into these 23 doctors and 24 nurses, announcing they will be charged with acting against the state during the recent unrest in the Gulf kingdom. Khaled Bin Ali Al Khalifa alleged that the 47 medical professionals “had promoted efforts to bring down the Sunni monarchy and spread false news.” A very different story is being told by activists, who say the doctors and nurses are being punished for treating pro-democracy protesters hurt in clashes with security forces. The crackdown on opposition groups extended further Monday, when two ex-MPs from main Shia opposition group Wifaq were arrested. Matar Matar and Jawad Fairuz were ripped from their homes in the evening and had not been heard of since. Matar was clearly asking for retribution from the government because he had the gall to continue speaking out against Bahrain's heavy-handed clampdown on demonstrators, the imposition of martial law as of Mar. 15 and the bringing in of troops from neighboring Sunni-ruled Gulf states to keep the peace. The scene became even more chaotic last month when Bahraini forces stormed the Salmaniya Medical Centre in Manama - the country's largest hospital because the hospital had become a shelter for demonstrators and doctors were daring to provide accurate information on the number of dead and wounded. That gave the government a clear path to declare that the facility had been "overrun by political and sectarian activity.” All of a sudden, doctors, nurses and staffers began disappearing and no information was provided until Tuesday’s news conference in which Sheikh Khaled read out the charges facing the medics: promoting efforts to bring down the government, harming the public by spreading false news, embezzlement of public funds, forcefully occupying a public building, incitement and participating in illegal protests. But wait, there’s more! All 47 alleged criminals are also being charged with "assault that led to death” for supposedly causing the deaths of two protesters by inflicting additional wounds to one and performing unnecessary surgery on another. Right, because the vicious beatings, rubber bullets, truncheons and other legalized weapons security forces used on the protestors had nothing to do with their deaths. Blame the deaths on people who tried to save beaten, bloodied and mortally wounded protestors. Bahraini authorities deny any human rights abuses in the uprising and seem to have no problem scapegoating a group of innocent medical professionals…………
- Facebook has been bad-mouthed for plenty of faults - being a drain on workplace productivity, causing kids to stay up late wasting time instead of sleeping, providing a staging ground for cyberbullying - but until now, no one has spoken ill of Mark Zuckerberg’s creation in quite the fashion WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange did in an interview with a Russian news outlet. Assange, no stranger to intense scrutiny and criticism, claimed Facebook, Google and Yahoo are actually tools for the U.S. intelligence community. Assange took pointed aim at Facebook, saying the information Facebook houses is a potential treasure trove of information for the U.S. government if it tries to build up a dossier on users. "Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented," Assange said. "Here we have the world's most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to U.S. intelligence." Ironically, WikiLeaks has its own Facebook page and when WikiLeaks released a controversial batch of confidential documents last year, Facebook refused to shut down that page because it did not "violate our content standards nor have we encountered any material posted on the page that violates our policies." Facebook backed WikiLeaks when many other companies in the United States, including PayPal, blocked the company's accounts. Assange levied other serious criticisms against online search giants Google and Yahoo, saying both "have built-in interfaces for U.S. intelligence." Left out of the tirade was Twitter, which has been a source of trouble for WikiLeaks of late. Earlier this year, the Justice Department sent a court order to Twitter, requesting it deliver information from accounts of activists that allegedly had ties to WikiLeaks. That access was granted in March when a federal judge ruled in favor of the seizure. The government was able to access the accounts without a search warrant because it obtained a 2703(d) order, allowing investigators to secure online records that are "relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation." Getting information from Facebook is much easier for the U.S. intelligence community, Assange believes. Merely using "legal and political pressure" on Facebook is enough for it get what it wants. For what it’s worth, Facebook quickly disputed Assange’s allegations and insisted it does only what it is legally obligated to do, nothing more. If nothing else, it’s something to mull over as you’re posting that wacky new picture to Facebook of you as a 400-lb. person with the “fat app” or tending to your crops in FarmVille…………
- Score one for the common man and strike a blow against Big Brother. A bill that would have taken the whole “someone is always watching” angle several steps too far died in Connecticut Tuesday. The bill would have enabled cities and towns with populations of 60,000 or more to install cameras at intersections to catch red-light violators, but it was dealt a death blow when the state legislature's judiciary committee failed to call it for a vote. Any freedom-loving, anti-establishment soul would have flown into a near-homicidal rage over the possibility of this bill becoming law, but for the sake of fairness, why did it fail? According to committee Co-Chairman Gerald Fox III (D-Stamford), the decision not to vote on the bill came after discussions with proponents who doubted they had enough support for the measure due to questions of effectiveness and civil liberties that had been raised. While it was easy to see possible benefits for the state - with a minimum fine of $124 per violation sure to generate much-needed revenue - and the bill’s prior approval by two other committees, passing such a measure would have been extremely controversial for any legislator willing to attach their name to it. Oh, and it just so happened that two of the biggest proponents of the bill were two out-of-state companies that provide cameras and services for such electronic enforcement efforts. Hmm, conflict of interest much? Spending tens of thousands of dollars lobbying to sell an idea that might overstep various lines and civil liberties standards is much more palatable for someone who doesn’t live in the affected area and wouldn’t have to deal with the new reality this bill would have created. Tuesday was the deadline for the judiciary panel to vote on the bill. It had been before them for a week and while Fox said it would be technically possible to revive the proposal as an amendment to some other bill between now and the end of the legislative session June 8, he did not seem to hold out hope for that happening. "We have a month to go" before legislative adjournment, Fox said, “But personally, I would say this is going to be a difficult year for this." This year, next year, pretty much any year when you’re planning on asking your citizens to willingly have their privacy violated and their freedoms eroded by the electronic eye of Big Brother. Probably best to pass on that one…………
- When no one expects you to win a playoff series in any sport and you surprise a favored team to advance, the natural tendency is to talk some junk and thump your chest a bit. However, it’s typically the players who are running their mouths and not a guy in a suit who is charged with being the public voice of the team in the event of any sort of controversy or trouble. Yet after the Atlanta Hawks eliminated the Orlando Magic in their first-round playoff series, Hawks spokesman Arthur Triche has been the one making the biggest waves for his team. Following a Game 6 defeat that ended the series, the Hawks turned their focus toward their next opponent, the top-seeded Chicago Bulls, but Triche was more focused on comments made by Magic guard Jameer Nelson after he was caught telling Bulls star Derrick Rose "catch you in the second round" after the two teams met on April 10. That slip of the tongue wouldn’t have matter if the Magic had delivered against Atlanta, but they looked uninspired and inept in losing the series and now, Nelson has some free time on his hands. Remembering his ill-fated words to Rose, Triche decided to take a run at Nelson and get a public dig in at him in the process. He took to Twitter early Monday to announce that he was leaving two tickets for Nelson at Game 1 of the Hawks-Bulls series in Chicago. “Things that make me happy about this job," Triche tweeted. "Taking a page out of Jerry Glanville's book, I think I'll follow through on Jameer's request to catch Derrick Rose in the 2nd round." His tweet was an allusion to Glanville’s habit of leaving tickets at will call for Elvis while coaching the NFL's Atlanta Falcons. The difference in this case is Nelson is still alive and Elvis is presumably dead, along with the fact that an ABC microphone didn’t pick up Elvis virtually guaranteeing a win in an NBA playoff series that had yet to start. After winning a series that was a repeat of a matchup they lost last season, the Hawks did have reason to celebrate and players recognized the significance of their win. "They never give us a chance," Josh Smith said after Thursday's victory. "They never talk about the Hawks. They talk about Orlando, Chicago, Boston and Miami. We're always sneaking under the radar." For the record, the Hawks defeated the Bulls in Game 1 and although Triche said Nelson didn't use the tickets to Game 1 as far as he knew, he suggested he might leave more tickets for him for Game 3 in Atlanta. That would be a bad idea, of course. It was a semi-humorous gag the first time, but a second time would make Triche (and anyone else involved) look like a classless d-bag…………
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