Pop Culture News

Random but Entertaining?

Presidential Paintball
So someone out there developed a paintball flash game starring various Presidential candidates fighting it out in the Oval Office.

Of course, this is a threat to morality and WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

JANUARY 22--For the aspiring young assassin, a popular online games site offers kids the opportunity to assume the identity of a leading presidential contender and then shoot their political opponents in a series of armed confrontations in the White House. While the ammo is paintball, the game on the highly trafficked miniclip.com site allows kids to train a rifle scope on six presidential aspirants and squeeze off a hail of shots (which are accompanied with a rat-a-tat sound). The game, "Presidential Paintball," features six candidates in the crosshairs: Barack Obama; Hillary Clinton; John Edwards; Mitt Romney; John McCain; and Rudy Giuliani (it seems the game was developed before the ascension of Mike Huckabee). If a candidate wins a head-to-head confrontation, he/she advances to a new shootout, which occurs in various White House settings, including outside the Oval Office. When a candidate gets blown away, bloodlessly, a screen appears noting that they have been "eliminated," not killed. To better direct a fusillade, young gunmen can use their computer's mouse to place a crosshairs on a candidate's head or body. Of course, the imagery of Obama and Clinton, both of whom have been the target of threats and receive Secret Service protection, being targeted in such a manner--by children, no less--might be seen as troubling in some quarters.

Note the assumptions! This game is aimed at children! Because there's nothing kids like better than politics! Politicians are being 'targeted'! Because, you know, a flash game is a threat, let alone a serious threat, even when the game itself has taken great pains to be bloodless and basically non-violent.

On and on it goes. Yeesh. Yellowest of yellow journalism.

I should try this game, just to spite the reactionaries.

Reactionary Source: The Smoking Gun

What the...
This really speaks for itself.

Swedish police are quizzing "people of limited stature" with criminal records following a spate of robberies from the cargo holds of coaches - possibly carried out by dwarves smuggled onboard in sports bags.

According to the Sun, the gang responsible pack their vertically-challenged accomplices into bags and stick them in with other passengers' luggage. The undercover operatives then rifle the hold for valuables before resealing themselves in their hiding place, to be extracted later by another gang member at the coach's final destination.

Wow. Just... wow.

Source: The Register

Social Darwinism
So it seems that a bunch of idiots who were friends on a social networking site are/have been killing themselves.

Possibly just for attention.

Natasha Randall was 17, had a large circle of friends and was studying childcare when, without any indication that she was unhappy, she hanged herself in her bedroom.

Her death last Thursday was the latest in at least seven apparent copycat suicides in Bridgend, South Wales, that have alarmed parents, health authorities and police, who believe that they may be prompted by messages on social networking websites such as Bebo.

...

Copycat suicides are a well-known phenomenon but in Bridgend the tributes left on websites such as Bebo appear to have had a significant impact. Friends have set up memorial pages where wellwishers have posted messages or bought virtual “tablets” in a remembrance wall. The 19 tablets on Tasha’s memorial page include the messages “RIP chick”, “Sleep Tight Princess” and “Sweet dreams, Angel”.

David Gunnell, Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Bristol, said that research had shown a connection between reports of suicide in the media and copycat deaths, and it was likely that discussions of suicide on websites would have a similar effect.

WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE... morons?

Source: The Times Online

Heath Ledger
So it's old news by now, but Heath Ledger died, and the rumor mill suggests it was an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.

This may be one of those cases where in hindsight it seems obvious that there was a problem.

CBS 2 HD's Scott Rapoport spoke one on one with the actor back in December 2005 about his movie "Casanova."

The lost interview is even more eye-opening in light of Ledger's tragic death in New York City on Tuesday.

Jumpy, fidgety and biting his nails …

...

Ledger appeared uncomfortable that day, confined and twitchy.

He told Rapoport he'd been drinking red wine. There was a bottle of it in the interview room. It was 3 p.m.

...

It was one five-minute interview, a five-minute peek into a person's life.

There is no escaping how jumpy and jittery Ledger was during the interview. Perhaps a reason for that -- a chronic lack of sleep -- could account for his restlessness.

Ledger told the New York Times back in November he suffered from insomnia.

He said he'd recently tried a sleeping pill, which didn't work, so he took some more.

Lack of sleep really can drive people crazy after a while.

Though in this case it sounds like it was compounded by booze and pill popping.

One final note: Is it more ghoulish that they dug up this 'Lost' interview now, presumably for the first time, to capitalize on his death, or laudable that they didn't try to invade his privacy and paint him as a drunken whacko to begin with for sensationalist value?

Then again, perhaps he'd have gotten some help with a little public exposure.

UPDATE: Just in reference to the subtitle, I want to make it clear that I don't find Heath Ledger's death entertaining. He never did anything to piss me off, and wasn't a jerk, that I'm aware of.

Those idiots with their online suicide circle, on the other hand...

Source: WCBS TV

The Smithsonian Honors America's Greatest Warrior-Poet
Finally, the bravery of Stephen Colbert is being given its due public recognitiion.

"We agreed to go along with the joke and hang it for a short time in between the bathrooms," said museum spokeswoman Bethany Bentley. "Let me tell you two key things here: His portrait is not coming into the collection, and it's not hanging permanently."

That may come as a surprise to Colbert, who has campaigned for the honor and boasted on his Comedy Central show Tuesday night that his portrait was "hanging in the hall of presidents, just a few yards from the father of our country - exactly where I believe it belongs."


Colbert, who plays a pompous conservative talk-show host on "The Colbert Report" and recently tried to run for president as a Democrat, went to great lengths to persuade Smithsonian Institution officials he was worthy.

The portrait - actually three portraits in one - depicts a debonair Colbert standing at a fireplace in front of a similar portrait of himself posing in front of the same mantel with a third picture of himself.

...

"I don't mean to brag, but as it contains three portraits, my portrait has more portraits than any other portrait in the National Portrait Gallery," he said, adding, "All Employees must wash hands before returning to work."

Joke? Or long-overdue tribute to the Greatest Living American?

Source: The Associated Press