This dad took it upon himself to make the lifelong dream of pretty much every kid—and even most adults—come true. Sure, Youtube comedian Roman Atwood is well-known by now for his spectacular pranks, but the full scope of this one includes countless huge bags of playground plastic balls, the assembly of a giant trampoline, and… Read more »
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One Dad Fulfilled Every Kid’s Fantasy By Turning Their Living Room Into A Ball Pit
Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hollywood, Music
Tagged assembly, fulfilled, full-scope, Hollywood, lifelong, lifelong-dream, Music, music-news, pretty-much, roman-atwood, stars, turning, turning-their
California To Raise Minimum Wage To $10 An Hour Must be nice. According to ABC News: California workers may soon have the highest minimum wage levels in the country after a bill approving a raise from $8 to $10 within three years passed the state legislature. The hike, to be implemented in two separate $1 increments, is the state’s first in six years, and comes amid fast food industry strikes across the nation following a year-long campaign by unions and workers to raise federal wage floors to $15. The bill, which eased through the state Senate 26 votes to 11 Thursday, and passed the Assembly a few hours later, 51-25, was backed by Democrats who said it would help workers pull through the effects of the recession and stimulate the economy by promoting spending among workers. Gov. Jerry Brown called bill AB 10 an overdue piece of legislation that would help working class families, while Senator Bill Monning, D-Carmel, the bill’s Senate floor manager, said raising the state’s minimum wage level was “a moral imperative.” “It simply gives hardworking Californians the dignity and respect to provide for their families with their own hard-earned wages,” said Assemblyman Luis Alejo, D-Watsonville, who brought the bill before his Assembly colleagues. But Republican lawmakers opposed the bill, saying the 25 percent minimum wage increase would hurt business and cut jobs. “This is a classic example with how out-of-touch state leaders are,” said Sen. Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber. Sen. Ted Gaines, R-Rocklin, compared raising tobacco costs to discourage smoking with the newly implemented wage standards, saying: “If you make something more expensive, people will buy less of it.” Industry associations have also opposed the bill. The California Chamber of Commerce denounced it as “a job killer,” while the California Restaurant Association said it was a “blow to small businesses” and a political knee-jerk move by the governor after it appeared that the issue had been shelved for the year. “Brown suddenly became aggressively interested in addressing minimum wage with labor unions in an attempt to avoid their threat of putting the issue on the ballot in 2014,” the CRA said on its website. Although the federal minimum wage is currently set at $7.25 an hour, tipped employees often earn less than that. Under current federal requirements, employees are only obliged to be paid $2.13 an hour in direct wages if tips and commissions bridge the rest of gap. More than 15 million American workers earn the national minimum wage, which calculated over a 40-hour, 52-week working year, equals $15,080. This figure sits $50 below the federal poverty line for a family of two and compares with a median national salary of $40,350. Thoughts?? Continue reading
Needless to say, little Nahla is never here for the paps… Halle Berry Testifies In Hearing To Limit Paparazzi From Celebrity Kids Celebrities have long had an issue with overbearing paparazzi photographers and the endless lengths that they’ll go to to get a picture of Hollyweirders and their families, but now two high profile celebrity moms are coming together to do something about what they say is becoming a dangerous situation for their children. via Fox News Actresses Halle Berry and Jennifer Garner are urging California lawmakers to support legislation that would impose tougher penalties on paparazzi who harass celebrities and their children. The stars testified Tuesday before the Assembly Judiciary Committee on SB606. The bill would change the definition of harassment to include photographing a child without the permission of a legal guardian. It was Berry’s second state Capitol appearance on the measure. Berry, who is pregnant, told lawmakers the constant presence of photographers has made her daughter scared to go to school. “I fear and I feel in fear for my child who is in strapped into my car,” she said. “I’m doing my part as a parent but at any moment I feel like a crash could happen and end her life my life and other innocent passengers driving in their vehicles. When I was pregnant with my daughter they forced me to crash my car, they forced me to fall down a flight of steps when I was trying to have a shopping day for my expected baby.” Actress Jennifer Garner, who has three children with husband and fellow actor Ben Affleck, was reportedly near tears as she described her personal daily paparazzi experience pleaded with lawmakers to approve the bill. Garner choked up describing how paparazzi aggressively follow her and her three children daily. “Paparazzi swarm, large aggressive men swarm us causing a mob scene yelling jockeying for position crowding around the kids while running over other parents and children unfortunate enough to be nearby, including one poor three year old who was knocked to the ground by one of our paparazzi cameras outside my kids preschool,” she said. “My 17 month old baby is terrified and cries and my 4 year-old says ‘why do they never smile and never go away…they are always with us.’” Garner said the paps also provide would-be stalkers cover. “There are violent mentally ill stalkers who can now get close to my kids by simply following mobs of photographers and blending in. Like the very man who threatened to cut the babies out of my belly, who was arrested waiting behind our daughter’s preschool standing among the throng of paparazzi,” she said. “That man is still in prison but I have doubt there are others still out there like him and I don’t want to make it any easier for them to find and reach my children.” This isn’t the first time Halle has complained about the ruthless paparazzi rhetoric, as she has also considered moving out of the U.S. just to shield herself and her growing family from the flash of the cameras. Do you think this law is needed? Or should celebrity parents suck it up and deal with the fact that paparazzi harassment comes with the territory of fame? Continue reading
C’mon son. If a black politician said “our fat white governor…” it would have been a problem. New Jersey governor Chris Christie is under fire again, this time for referring to New Jersey’s first black female leader of the state Assembly using her race and gender instead of her name! Via NYDailyNews reports : Republican Gov. Chris Christie has been asked to apologize for referring to the first black female leader of the state Assembly by race and gender, not by name, during a church-hosted meeting. Christie, who’s white, told an audience Tuesday that an “African-American female speaker of the Assembly” is blocking a vote on a school voucher bill that would let children in failing districts attend classes elsewhere. Democratic Speaker Sheila Oliver later said she was “appalled” that Christie injected race into the discussion on education. Oliver, who represents a district with some failing schools, has said she believes the state should make a larger investment in public education. On Thursday, the pastor whose church hosted the meeting asked Christie to apologize. He said the governor was disrespectful to the speaker and missed a chance to unite the community. “I was and am saddened by the governor’s blatant attack (on the speaker),” said Kenneth Clayton, pastor of St. Luke Baptist Church in Paterson. “The words that the governor chose to use in speaking of Oliver, while not even respecting her enough to call her by name, defy his earlier assertion that political leaders, himself included, need to learn to respect all views and work together.” A Christie spokesman said the governor’s comments were misinterpreted. The flap comes at an inopportune time for Christie, who has been courting the black and Latino vote for his re-election bid in November. It’s definitely disrespectful, but do you think the pastor made too big of a deal out of this? Or was Christie merely trying to point out that Oliver wasn’t protecting her own?
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SMH: Pastor Demands Apology After Chubby Lumpkins Gov. Chris Christie Calls Black NJ State Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver Out Of Her Name!
Posted in Celebrities, Hollywood, Hot Stuff
Tagged assembly, baptist-church, black, bolitics, chris-christie, Hollywood, invalid, race, speaker, time
Daniel Depaula explains protesters’ nightly General Assembly to MTV News. By Steven Roberts Facilitators speak at nightly General Assembly Photo: MTV News The demonstrators of Occupy Wall Street have made Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park their home for the foreseeable future, and they haven’t ignored setting ground rules. Establishing an infrastructure in the park — now dubbed Liberty Park — was one of the demonstrators’ top priorities, ensuring everyone would have access to basic and essential resources. Many, if not all, of those decisions are reached at the General Assembly. The General Assembly is held every night at roughly 7 p.m., and everyone is invited to contribute. MTV News caught up with Daniel Depaula, one the facilitators of the GA, earlier this week. He explained how his group — the facilitation group — sets the evening’s agenda based on proposals and then presents them to the assembly. “We’re not really there to decide whether things are good or not,” Depaula explained. “We are simply there just to make sure that the people proposing are aware of how the process works. So they don’t run into any surprises once it goes to the assembly. “There are really no leaders or anyone with any power that anyone else doesn’t have,” he added. “Decisions are made autonomously by individuals or by groups, and larger issues are just brought to the assembly and discussed among everyone.” What’s even more interesting is how the proposals are pitched. The demonstrators at Occupy Wall Street aren’t allowed to have megaphones, because they would cause too much noise pollution in the area, so they are forced to shout their proposal to the crowd, which then echoes the proposal for those further away. The massive game of telephone allows everyone to be involved in the decisions, and they’re instructed at the beginning of the assembly how to respond (hands in the air if they agree, hands straight ahead of them if they’re unsure, and hands downwards if they disagree). On Monday night’s agenda: Whether to buy storage bins to maintain organization and cleanliness in the park. As the demonstration attracts more people, more waste is produced, so they want to keep things tidy. The group has a donation pool of money, but of course they have to vote first. Share your thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street movement in our comments section. Related Videos Inside Occupy Wall Street
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Occupy Wall Street: How Movement Stays Organized
Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hollywood, Music
Tagged assembly, bennyhollywood, demonstrators, Hollywood, Mtv, News, occupy, Proposal, steven-roberts, Videos
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Before the Assembly passed same-sex marriage by its narrowest margin ever yesterday, a number of elected officials gave speeches to explain their position. Among the more memorable was this one from Dov Hikind , a Democrat from Brooklyn. He mocked Lady Gaga for her advocacy, dismissed the economic argument for supporting the issue, and spoke at length about his religious beliefs. “Maybe we take the… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Capitol confidential Discovery Date : 16/06/2011 15:18 Number of articles : 2
Dov Hikind Explains His Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage, and Lady Gaga [Video]
Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hot Stuff, TV, Videos
Tagged assembly, bennyhollywood, discovery-date, gave-speeches, Hollywood, religious, Sex, stars, video
Man, technology is crazy. Used to be that you had to spend a dollar or two for some good ol’ fashioned porn. Now all you have to do is hit up Rhonda, the neighborhood floozy, and get your digital freak on…SMH. New Jersey teenagers caught texting or posting sexually explicit photos online could avoid prosecution under a measure that would give first-time offenders the chance to complete a diversionary program. State Assemblywoman Pam Lampitt of Camden, who is sponsoring the bill, said it’s important to teach teens the potential consequences of their actions without saddling them with a permanent criminal record. “We need to create a path that places education and forgiveness before arrest and prosecution,” said Lampitt, a Democrat. “Young people – especially teen girls – need to understand that sending inappropriate pictures is not only potentially illegal, but can leave an indelible mark on them socially and educationally.” The bill won unanimous support from both parties in a committee and is headed for the Assembly floor. A version must also pass the Senate for it to become law. The measure targets “sexting,” the practice of sending sexually explicit or suggestive photos by cell phone, as well as e-mailing similar images and posting them online. It’s a nationwide problem that has confounded parents, school administrators and law enforcers. Prosecutors in several states including Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Wisconsin have tried to stop it by charging teens who send and receive the pictures. Charges include possession and distribution of child pornography. Lawmakers in New Jersey agreed that criminal prosecutions are better avoided when possible. “There are certain aspects (of life) in which the criminal law should not be involved, and this is one of them,” said Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, a Republican from Morristown. We not sure this is going to work. The bottom line is, kids with cell phones will “sext”. If you are concerned about your child then get them a phone without a camera, or take the phone away all together. But, hey if they like it, we love it. Source
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New Jersey Bill Aims To Protect Children From Sexting Without Facing Criminal Charges
The Los Angeles Times on Thursday published a blockbuster report concerning California welfare recipients using state-issued debit cards at casino ATMs to be able to instantly gamble with taxpayer dollars. “The cards, provided by the Department of Social Services to help recipients feed and clothe their families, work in automated teller machines at 32 of 58 tribal casinos and 47 of 90 state-licensed poker rooms, the review found.” Despite this shocking revelation, America’s media largely ignored the findings. But before we get there, KTLA-TV logged a fabulous report on this subject Thursday evening (video follows with more highlights from the Times piece and commentary): “In a time when we have a $19-billion deficit, and we’re taking a serious look at the future of many safety-net programs, it’s appalling to think that welfare beneficiaries can use their cards in a casino,” said Seth Unger, spokesman for the Assembly Republican Caucus. Democratic leaders, who have vowed to protect the state’s fraying social safety net, also began calling for reform Wednesday. “In these tough times, when so many children and vulnerable families depend on the safety net, we have to make sure food stamps and other services are being used the way the people of California intended them to be,” said Shannon Murphy, spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D- Los Angeles). “Other states have closed this loophole, and the Assembly will work with the Schwarzenegger administration to make that happen.” The casinos are listed on a Department of Social Services website that allows welfare recipients to search for addresses of ATMs where they can withdraw cash provided under the Temporary Aid for Needy Families program. The monthly grant ranges up to $694; most of the ATMs impose a withdrawal limit of about $300 per day. To be sure, there IS a national interest here: The cash portion of California’s welfare benefits comes from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Each year, California gets $3.7 billion from the federal government for the program, while state and local governments kick in an additional $2.9 billion. Furthermore, as many states also issue these cards for their welfare recipients, who knows how many Americans are gambling with taxpayer dollars across the fruited plain? Yet outside of California, the media weren’t very interested in this story. According to LexisNexis, no newspapers outside of the Golden State reported the Times’ findings. Neither did ABC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, or NBC. This boycott seems especially odd as the Associated Press and UPI covered this matter over their respective wires with the former logging reports on Thursday AND Friday. Also bucking the trend were Fox News’s Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren who both discussed this on Thursday as did NPR. The well-read Drudge Report featured this as a “developing” story at 6:47 PM Thursday. With this in mind, why did the rest of our national media completely ignore it? Those interested can read more about California’s Electronic Benefit Transfer program here .
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California Welfare Debit Cards Being Used At Casinos, Media Mostly Mum
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Tagged assembly, Breaking News, Cnn, department, drudge-report, economy, Hollywood, needy-families, News, social-services
The Duplass brothers (co-writers and -directors Jay and Mark) are devout practitioners of something I’ll call moment-based filmmaking. Graduates of both the Mumblecore school and its ambient hype, they have coaxed a more palatable style from that movement’s core of strident naturalism. They build self-effacing stories from off-handedly naturalistic moments, the assembly of which serves an organizing theme. Tough to pull off and magical when it works, moment-based filmmaking is intrinsically opposed to plot — to machinations of any order — and aggressively favors the spontaneous over the crafted, evoking the narrative satisfactions of a three-act structure as if by a sort of ingenious accident. The Duplass brothers are determined to remain true to their eccentricities and equally bent on breaking into the big time, and their struggle manifests itself quite nakedly in the curious case of Cyrus, their third film and also first to feature a cast of well-known actors.
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REVIEW: Fascinating, Frustrating Cyrus Loses Its Nerve
Posted in Celebrities, Gossip, Hollywood, Hot Stuff, News
Tagged assembly, cyrus, itself-quite, jay duplass, marisa-tomei, mumblecore, remain-true, review, struggle
Photo via IAN Thanks largely to the interminable gloom of the BP Gulf oil spill , it feels like we haven’t seen any good news on the green front for ages. But while all eyes have been on the Gulf, the California State Assembly passed a truly exciting bill : One that bans single-use plastic bags across the state. … Read the full story on TreeHugger
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Yes, It’s True: California is Banning Plastic Bags
Posted in Gossip, Hollywood, Hot Stuff, News
Tagged assembly, bennyhollywood, business & politics, california, green, green news, gulf, healthy, Hollywood, interminable, plastics, state-assembly, the-green, united-states
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