Man Bursts Into Flames in Porn Shop

Man bursts into flames in San Francisco porn shop

A man caught fire Wednesday evening inside a San Francisco porn store and was fighting for his life in the hospital after suffering third-degree burns, KCBS-TV reported.

Arson experts said it was not clear what ignited the fire but police said the man had been watching videos in a private booth when the blaze erupted.

The man ran out the front door of the adult arcade "engulfed in flames" and was spotted by police standing across the street, a police spokesman told KCBS.

"He came out of the building already on fire," Lt. Kevin McNaughton said.

Firefighters, who luckily were only about a block away on an unrelated call, raced to the scene and doused the flames.

Man Kills Guest in Defence of Mike Tyson

Russian stabs guest to death in defence of boxer Mike Tyson

An argument over the respective merits of US boxing legend Mike Tyson and Ukraine's Klitschko brothers ended with a Russian college teacher stabbing his friend to death, investigators said today.

Nikolai Makeyev, a teacher in the Siberian city of Tyumen, was having drinks with two other men in his apartment when the argument broke out, the regional investigating committee said in a statement.

"Makeyev said that Tyson would come out as winner, but his guest accused him of a lack of patriotism. The host did not like that and he fatally stabbed the victim several times in the back," it said.

The other guest, Makeyev's friend, managed to flee to his own apartment though he also had stab wounds, and his wife called the police.

Alcohol abuse kills around 500,000 Russians annually and greatly impacts on male life expectancy, now 63, which is lower than in developing countries such as Bangladesh and Honduras, according to official figures.

No Transformers On The Moon? Prove it

If Armstrong and Buzz didn't find a Transformer on the moon, what WERE they doing?

Where did Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin go during those 21 minutes of radio silence? Here... maybe / Paramount Pictures

Are conspiracy theories the only way we can actually make sense of it all? Picture: Paramount

Have you heard the one about the moon landing?

Not that it was staged. We all know that rumour is a bunch of bunk.

No, this story involves what Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were doing during those 21 minutes of radio and video silence on the Apollo 11 mission.

You think they were turning over rocks and drinking Tang? Think again.

Turns out the two astronauts were actually bouncing over to the dark side of the moon, investigating a crashed alien space ship that turned out to be — yes — a massive Transformer robot.

"We give you a whole new reason why the moon landing actually did happen," says Lorenzo di Bonaventura, producer of the Transformers movies.

"Everyone was right. The conspiracy existed. It was just a different one than people thought."

Conspiracies are the rage these days, and not just the intrigues spread by the likes of Glenn Beck, talk radio hosts and people who think their new NBN Box will spy on them.

There are even conspiracies surrounding conspiracy-tinged material that has been adapted to the screen.

Did Stieg Larsson really write the best-selling series of thrillers, which, beginning with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, were published after his early death by heart attack?

And was his death natural or was he murdered by neo-Nazis?

All this code-red anxiety in the air has begun to permeate the multiplex as filmmakers proffer plots and plans and secrecy the likes of which haven't been seen since agents Mulder and Scully poked around Area 51 in The X-Files.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon, due out on June 29, uses the Apollo 11 lunar mission to accomplish something that sounds entirely implausible — namely, give a Transformers movie an actual storyline.

Dimension Films, meanwhile, has Apollo 18 (due January 2012), a horror film that claims to be found footage from a secret lunar expedition that the government covered up because alien monsters ate the astronauts.

"When the world gets complicated and people start feeling at a loss, these types of conspiracy stories start showing up in pop culture," says USC professor Leo Braudy, who has written several books on film.

"Pop culture is designed to upset you and give you solace.

"The possible existence of a conspiracy would be upsetting. But it's solacing, too, because at least somebody knows what's going on.

"The problem is, of course, that the real world is chaotic and maybe no one knows what's going on."

Chip Berlet, who studies conspiracy culture for Boston-based think tank Political Research Associates, says: "Between the collapse of the economy and unresolved fear after 9-11, there's a lot of anxiety that has to be expressed some way.

"People don't believe their leaders are telling the truth and they look for alternate explanations."

And that, of course, would include the leaders of the nation's space agency, with conspiracy theorists spinning tales of NASA-led hoaxes from the time Armstrong took one giant leap for mankind in 1969.

The 1978 movie Capricorn One took that lunar intrigue, added a dash of post-Watergate, anti-Washington outrage and spun a tale of a fake Mars landing that turns into a murderous government cover-up.

The new Transformers movie and Apollo 18 add to the lunar conspiracy legacy.

"With moon conspiracies, there's a contradiction at work," says di Bonaventura.

"There's a deep-seated romanticism about the moon with the poetry and romantic settings.

"Then you have this notion that there's this gigantic lie propagated about what may be 20th Century man's greatest single achievement."

The problem, Mr Berlet says, is not that Hollywood feeds this mistrust, but that political, business and religious leaders don't step up and address the underlying problems that stoke conspiracy theories in the first place.

"In a healthy society, people would be rolling their eyes at this stuff," he says.

"But nowadays, no matter how far-fetched the rumour is, people say: 'Hmmm... maybe there is something to that.'"

With AP

Jennifer Lawrence Strips Down For GQ

'X-Men' Director Sings Her Praises

World, meet Jennifer Lawrence's skin. You'll be seeing a lot of it this summer.

Lawrence, the Oscar-nominated "Winter's Bone" star, features in the new issue of GQ, showing plenty of flesh in 1960's style bathing suits. Lawrence stars in the upcoming, 60's-set "X-Men: First Class" origins film, but when you you see her skin in that film, it'll be blue.

She stars as Mystique, a shape shifting, color changing mutant, and it was a role that director Matthew Vaughn said she was perfect for.

"There are a lot of young American actors right now who haven't got any technique," Vaughn said. "And to be blunt, a lot of these kids assume that just by having a good set of teeth and tits, smiling for the camera's gonna be enough. I needed someone who could act."

Lawrence had to undergo hours of body painting for each day on set, and spoke of her frustration with the process with The Hollywood Reporter in January.

"Nothing's sacred anymore," Lawrence told THR. "Those girls and I got so close. They were painting me naked every day for months. It was kind of like going to a really bizarre sleepover... It's what you guys imagine we do: One naked girl and seven pairs of hands all over her."

After "X-Men," Lawrence takes on another epic battle role; she nabbed the part of Katniss, the lead in the big screen version of the post-apocalyptic young adult novel, "The Hunger Games."

Lawrence is rumored to be dating her "X-Men" co-star, Nicholas Hoult.

For more photos, click over to GQ.

PHOTOS (credit: Alasdair McLellan/GQ):

Female Snipers For Gaddafi

Female Colombian snipers defending Gaddafi in Libya

Female snipers suspected of belonging to the Marxist guerilla group FARC from Colombia, have joined other mercenaries fighting to keep dictator Muammar Gaddafi in power, according to the reports received by Libyan rebels.

Prisoners and eyewitnesses in Misurata, the largest city in western Libya partially under rebel control, have given accounts of highly-trained women snipers from the South American country operating in the area along with other mercenaries loyal to Gaddafi.

Mercenaries fighting for Gaddafi’s regime are reportedly being paid up to 1000 dollars a day.

Information found on computers belonging to Raul Reyes, a FARC commander killed by Colombian soldiers in 2008, indicated that the guerilla group has long-standing links to Libya.

Investigators have also found a letter dated September 4 2000 addressed to 'Comrade Colonel Muammar Gaddafi', requesting a five-year loan of 100 million dollars to buy weapons such as surface-to-air missiles, by FARC.

FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, has been fighting Colombia's government since the 1960s.

In an interview Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos had told the German magazine Der Spiegel that Libya had offered FARC 300 million dollars but admitted he did not know if the money had ever been received.

Rebels in Libya claim they have evidence that Col Gaddafi has also received assistance from mercenaries or supporters originating from countries as diverse as Algeria, Belarus and Chad.

Why The Huffpo Bloggers Don't Deserve A Penny

Here's Why The Unpaid Bloggers Suing Arianna Huffington For $105 Million Don't Deserve A Penny

By Glynnis MacNicol



More details on the class action lawsuit a group of unpaid bloggers have filed against Arianna Huffington have emerged.

The group, led by a freelancer, activist, and union organizer by the name of Jonathan Tasini -- who has contributed more than 250 blog posts to HuffPost since 2005 -- filed the complaint in a New York court Tuesday.

They are seeking $105 million in damages on behalf of bloggers and other Huffington Post writers who submitted work for which they weren’t paid.

$105 million.  That is one third of what Arianna made on the sale.

According to WaPo, Tasini said "HuffPost was engaging in breach of contract with its contributors because of an “implied promise” of compensation. 'Some people were given some promises about future payments,” he said, declining to provide specifics.'"

It's worth noting Tasini has some experience with lawsuits; in 2001 he was lead plaintiff in the landmark freelancer case of New York Times Co. v. Tasini.  In that case the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, arguing for the copyright claims of writers whose work was republished in electronic databases without their permission.

Emphasis mine.

Some disclosure before we move on.  I have blogged for the Huffington Post, both as a paid and unpaid contributor since February 2007.  The paid part came when I wrote for the Eat the Press blog between Feb and May of 2007.  At the time HuffPo was only two pages -- the main page and the Eat The Press page, which was edited by Rachel Sklar who initially brought me on as a contributor.  That I would be paid (a small amount) for it was very clearly laid out before I started contributing.

In May or June of that year HuffPo was overhauled and following that I wrote for Huffington Post on and off as a regular unpaid blogger until I was hired to edit the Mediabistro Fishbowl blog in April 2008.  This blogging included more hours than I care to remember of liveblogging election debates (liveblogs were still a new and useful-ish thing in those days) all for free.

In all that time I was never made any "promises about future payments."  None.  (I just searched all my emails in case I missed something...nada.)  And to the best of my knowledge neither were any of the people who blogged with me.

The understanding was Arianna provided the platform, I provided the content, and the hope was (on my part anyway) that at some point the combination of the two would land me a paying gig, or up my profile (or in the case of people I know, up their consulting fees and/or land them publishing deals) etc.

It was (and is) the same principle behind TV appearances -- also unpaid, also content the networks run advertising against.  I understood that and made the best use of it that I could, as did any number of people I know.  Many of these same people, as a result of their time at HuffPo, now have paid writing gigs, or books deals, or consulting gigs, etc.

Take my word for it, people who could get paid for their writing in other venues weren't giving it away for free on HuffPo, unless the higher profile of the site was more valuable to them than whatever they might get paid elsewhere.

Essentially what Arianna was providing wa a place for writers to advertise their wares -- a sort of classifieds for wannabe writers, except unlike the classifieds she wasn't charging.  That's not to say she couldn't have -- at the height of the 2008 election cycle, before Twitter fully arrived, people were so eager to make their opinions known I'm quite sure Arianna could have successfully charged some sort of small fee to post at HuffPo if she'd wanted.

Arianna was simply smart enough to understand that if she provided the space -- and in the beginning HuffPo was more or less a letter to the editor space, writ large -- people would be more than happy to use it to air their opinions.  And she was right.  And now she is benefiting from that.

Meanwhile, instead of applying for overly expensive graduate writing programs and/or journalism school and/or Gotham writers workshops, and or any mediabistro class or party, one could just post directly to HuffPo.  Voila, a link to add to your clips (if they're still called that).

The underlying premise of this lawsuit appears to be that the writing all these unpaid bloggers were contributing to the site was worth paying for, and somehow they were hoodwinked by Arianna into doing it for free.  The harsh reality is much of it isn't, and wasn't, worth paying for.

Of course if any of these writers can produce evidence that they were in fact promised any sort of payment beyond visibility they might have a case.  But based on all my experience with Huffington Post I'd be shocked to hear any promise of the sort was made.

To be clear, this is not to suggest there isn't a larger problem that needs to be solved of how we pay for the sort of reporting the NYTimes provides, and how magazines are to make a profit in a media world built on aggregation and free content, and how we value writing (though I would argue good writing generally gets paid for).

But it seems to me that is a far different problem than a group of writers, who agreed to provide content in exchange for exposure, suddenly seeing someone else's gravy train come in and deciding they retroactively want a piece of it.  It's a bit like the guy who writes regular letter to the NYT editors suddenly deciding he wants a piece of the paywall profit.

Doutzen Kroes Gets Ticket To Outer Space

Victoria's Secret angels may always look out of this world, but in the case of Doutzen Kroes, she is literally on her way to the stars.

The supermodel  will board the first Dutch commercial flight to space in 2014 as part of a charity initiative.

Working for the HIV and AIDS awareness group dance4life, Kroes will join 14 other passengers including DJ Armin van Buuren and Martin Schroder on the trip - with an extra ticket available to buy at auction.

Heaven-ascent: Victoria's Secret Angel Doutzen Kroes will be one of the first passengers on the Dutch commercial flight to space in 2014

The first 100 commercial flights into space will take place in 2014, with a group of 'Founder Astronauts' being personally invited to get on board.

One 'golden ticket' will be auctioned by Space Expedition Curaçao during an exclusive friends4life dinner that will take place on July 2nd.

Kroes, the Dance5life ambassador,  said: 'My work has literally brought me to the most beautiful places on earth.

Space travel: Kroes will join 14 other passengers including DJ Armin van Buuren and Martin Schroder on the trip - with an extra ticket available to buy at auction

'But apparently nothing is as beautiful as the view of the earth from space. Astronauts who have been lucky enough to have had that experience say it is life changing.

'I cannot wait to go, and I am also proud that SXC has made one extra ticket available for dance4life.'

In A First For His State, Mizo Lad Cues Up For Glory

By Siddhartha Sharma

Unassuming 19-year-old Lalrinsanga Renthlei is close to a ‘first’ but wears the pathbreaker tag lightly.

‘Rina,’ as the Mizo cueist is known amongst friends, finished third in the 8-ball pool event at the National championships in Ludhiana this month, thereby making it to the India probables camp at Bangalore from April 17.

A good show there may well see Rina becoming the first cueist from his state to wear Indian colors at next month’s World Championships in Doha, Qatar.

It will be the high point in a career that had a less than ideal beginning. Pool entered Mizoram much as a fad in 2000, and the seedy parlors that mushroomed quickly acquired an unsavory reputation.

Only nine-year-old then, Rina was an upcoming basketball player who only went to the parlors on the insistence of his team mates, who were regulars.

“I too started developing interest and started improving as well. Of course, my family was completely against it ,” he recalls.

Rina’s game improved and, two years later, he had defeated the local 8-ball champion.

Much of what Rina learnt was self taught, although he readily admits he got help from a Steve Davis, multiple pool world champion, coaching DVD provided by then Mizoram Sports Minister Zodintluanga.

“That DVD had just the basic coaching techniques. So I kept following the DVD and kept improving from it for an entire year,” Rina told The Indian Express from Aizawl.

But just when his game was on the upswing, he put it on the back burner. Studies took over as pool took a backseat for the next five years.

However, he continued playing basketball, even representing his state in the National Games, until severe ankle injuries forced him to quit.

Relighting the fire

It was then that Rina stepped back into the pool hall and picked up a cue stick. That was in 2009, but instead of having to start afresh, Rina simply picked up from where he had left, making it to the top 32 in the 8-and 9-ball pool nationals last year.

Seeing his talent, help arrived soon after in the form of national coach, Mukesh Rehani, who is all praise for his ward.

“I am lucky to have found such a talent. Though I haven’t touched his technique yet, I think he can be shaped into a fine player in the coming years,” Rehani said.

Rina is struggling for financial assistance. With his mother the only earning member for the family, buying equipment is a problem.

Rina was contacted by various petroleum companies but no sponsorship came through.

“I will keep trying.

It is a challenge for me to keep performing at the highest level so that I get sponsored. And even if I don’t, I will continue playing pool,” Rina signs off.