Weird News Thread ....

[Jolie Rouge]

Web Site for Complaints Sparks Lawsuit
By CHARLES ODUM

DALLAS, Ga. (AP) - When Alan and Linda Townsend were unhappy with the sprayed-on siding applied to their house, the frustrated couple launched a Web site to complain and to give other unsatisfied customers a forum. Visitor postings to the Web site said the product, Spray on Siding, cracked, bubbled and buckled. For their efforts, the Townsends got slapped with a lawsuit by the product's maker. The federal case may help shape the boundaries of online speech.

Companies routinely go after individuals when they feel people are maligning them on the Internet. And often, legal scholars say, the Web site's owners don't fight back at all.

In this dispute, North Carolina-based Alvis Coatings Inc., which supplied the siding product used in the Townsends' $16,721 project, claims the couple's Web site infringes on the company's trademarks, defames its product and intentionally misleads and confuses consumers.

Alvis is seeking more than $75,000 in damages in addition to unspecified punitive damages and attorney fees. ``We could lose everything, including the house, and still be in debt,'' said Alan Townsend, whose house is valued at around $150,000.


Though neither side was looking for a brawl over speech rights, the lawsuit is headed that way, said Paul Levy, an attorney for Public Citizen, which agreed to help represent the Townsends.


Internet law expert Doug Isenberg of Georgia State University said the courts need to better define free-speech issues for the Internet, and this case could help. ``The right to criticize is certainly protected in general, but it is not unlimited,'' Isenberg said. ``Some of those limits include how you can use someone else's trademark.''


The complaint filed by Alvis alleges that the name of the Townsends' Web site, spraysiding.com, ``is confusingly similar'' to the official Alvis site, sprayonsiding.com, as well as its trademark ``Spray on Siding.''


Levy argues that the Townsends have the right to use the domain name they purchased.


Courts have provided greater protection to non-commercial sites, such as the Townsends', ``but it is not quite so cut-and-dry to say if it is non-commercial use it's acceptable,'' Isenberg said.


Judges also weigh whether a person is likely to confuse the gripe site with the real one, said Wendy Seltzer, staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil-liberties group. A site that bashes a product is not likely to create such confusion, she said.


Companies have threatened scores of criticism sites with trademark infringement and have lost many of the cases that have actually gone to court, Seltzer said. But most of the time, she said, the site owners simply agree to stop before a lawsuit is even filed. Thus, the boundaries of their rights are never tested.


Having this case and others like it go to court should help better define permissible conduct - and perhaps discourage companies from such threats in the future, if they know they would likely lose, Seltzer said.


The Townsends' Web site has a message board in which other customers comment. Alvis' lawsuit, filed in September in U.S. District Court in Charlotte, N.C., contends the Townsends are responsible for posting the ``false, misleading and disparaging'' comments on that message board.


A federal law offers some protections to Internet providers for content their visitors post or transmit, and courts have separately held that criticism when framed as opinion is not libelous, legal scholars say. But like the trademark challenges, many Web site owners don't bother fighting in such cases, said Deirdre K. Mulligan, director of the law and technology clinic at the University of California at Berkeley.


Craig Hartman, Alvis's chief operations manager, said his company sued the Townsends only after months of fruitless dealings with the couple. ``We truly want the people who use our product to be satisfied,'' Hartman said.


Hartman said the company made three ``formal generous offers'' to the Townsends that were rejected. He said the lawsuit was a last resort.


The Townsends say one settlement offer from Alvis included a gag order barring them talking about the product and a demand that the couple sell their site's domain name to the company. They decided they would rather fight so that other potential customers could be better informed about the product. ``As long as this stuff is on our house, we're going to talk about it,'' Linda Townsend said. ``You could say we're very idealistic about this.''



11/06/04 22:07

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...62.htm&sc=1700

[Jolie Rouge]

Documents: Bryant Accuser Wanted to Sue for Breast Implants
By JON SARCHE

DENVER (AP) - A month after a hotel worker accused NBA star Kobe Bryant of rape, she allegedly told a friend that she was considering suing him in civil court and planned to use any money she won for breast implants, a koala bear and opening a recording studio.

The details came in testimony from Sean Holloway, who knew the then-19-year-old woman from the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, according to court documents released Friday.

During a closed hearing March 2, defense attorney Hal Haddon asked Holloway about a conversation with the woman near the end of July 2003, about a month after the alleged assault. The hearing was to determine whether information about the woman's sexual activities could be used in court against her.

Haddon asked whether the woman had mentioned the possibility of a civil lawsuit. ``She said that after the case was over it was something that she was most likely going to do,'' Holloway said.


He testified the woman, an aspiring singer, wanted to use any award money to open a recording studio and to pay for breast augmentation surgery for herself and a friend. He also said she would buy a koala bear for another friend who liked the animals.


Under questioning by prosecutor Dana Easter, Holloway acknowledged he had trouble remembering details of the conversation. He refused to answer whether drug use might have affected his memory.


One of the woman's lawyers, L. Lin Wood, dismissed Holloway's testimony.


``Anyone that knows this young girl, and knows what she has done and why she has done it over the last year and half, and what's she's been through, will know that Mr. Holloway's story does not reflect the truth,'' he said.


It is unclear whether District Judge Terry Ruckriegle had ruled on the prosecution's request to limit Holloway's testimony before prosecutors dropped the case against Bryant on Sept. 1 after the woman said she no longer wanted to participate.


Another important factor was an agreement earlier in August between attorneys for Bryant and her accuser that if Bryant signed a formal apology, she would not testify against him. It took until the end of the month for both sides to agree on the language.


The woman, now 20, has filed a civil suit against Bryant in federal court for what she says have been months of pain and suffering since the alleged assault at a Vail-area resort where she once worked.


Holloway's testimony was contained in some 500 pages of documents among previously sealed documents the judge has ordered released at the request of news organizations, including The Associated Press.


Other documents include legal arguments over the defense's desire to use crime victim compensation records as evidence in an attempt to undermine the woman's credibility.


Defense attorneys argued that the records would help prove the woman misrepresented or omitted information she had to provide to the compensation board.


In other documents, the defense argued for the ability to tell jurors that Matt Herr, a former boyfriend of the woman, had refused to provide a DNA sample to compare to evidence found on her body and clothing after the alleged assault.


Haddon said that evidence indicated the woman had sex in the hours after her encounter with Bryant but before her hospital exam the next day. Attorneys for the woman have vehemently denied she had sex with anyone immediately after Bryant.



11/06/04 12:36

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...1236921870.htm

[Jolie Rouge]

Cocaine Worth Billions Seized in Raids


KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) - More than 37 tons of cocaine, with an estimated street value of $2.3 billion, were confiscated during five seizures at sea this fall, the Coast Guard said.

The cocaine, seized between Aug. 21 and Sept. 26, was being hauled off a Navy frigate Friday.

The largest cocaine discovery in the history of Coast Guard's East Coast operations was made Sept. 17, when a detachment from the frigate the USS Curts found 15 tons of the drug on a fishing vessel about 300 miles west of the Galapagos Islands.

On Sept. 23, a Coast Guard team aboard the USS Crommelin discovered more than 13 tons of cocaine aboard a fishing vessel some 650 miles southwest of the Galapagos.


August and September seizures brought the total cocaine confiscated by the Coast Guard during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 to a record 240,519 pounds, worth approximately $7.7 billion.


Thirty-one people arrested face prosecution in federal court in Tampa.



11/05/04 23:37


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/...20041012WAS99D

[Jolie Rouge]

Study: Dinosaurs scorched to death
Wednesday, October 27, 2004 Posted: 9:19 AM EDT (1319 GMT) [/i]]




Dinosaurs were unable to escape the intense heat, according to the survey.


YAXCOPOIL, Mexico, (Reuters) -- One minute you're a big T-Rex, the next you're toast.

Challenging conventional theory, new scientific research suggests the dinosaurs may have been scorched into extinction by an asteroid collision 65 million years ago that unleashed 10 billion times more power than the Hiroshima nuclear bomb. Earth's temperatures soared, the sky turned red and trees all over the planet burst into flames, said atmospheric physicist Brian Toon of the University of Colorado.

Among the few survivors would have been animals living in water or burrowed in the ground like turtles, small mammals and crocodiles. "Essentially, if you were exposed you were broiled alive. That is probably what happened to the dinosaurs. They were big creatures that didn't have anywhere to hide," said Toon.

Scholarly debate over how the dinosaurs died is fierce and the theory put forward by Toon and others adds one more twist to the greatest forensic mystery of all time.

Despite opposition from some scientists, the idea that the dinosaurs were killed by an asteroid that slammed into Mexico's Yucatan peninsula has won general acceptance since it was first mooted in the early 1990s.

Under that argument, academics say the giant reptiles mostly froze or starved to death when a huge cloud of particles kicked up by the meteorite blocked the world's sunlight for months. But Toon, the co-author of a study published in the Geological Society of America Bulletin in May, reckons the dinosaurs' end was even more dramatic.

Creatures living near ground zero would have been vaporized immediately while those in the Caribbean area and southern United States would have drowned in 330-feet-high tsunamis when the asteroid impacted near today's Gulf of Mexico shoreline at a speed of 33,750 mph.

Then, a column of red-hot steam and dust soared thousands of miles into space and most of it fell back toward Earth within a few hours, turning the heavens into hell. "The entire sky would be radiating at you. It would be like standing next to a giant fire; you'd be burned very severely," Toon said, whose research is based on mathematical and computer models.

Land dinosaurs all around the world perished from the intense heat of several hundred degrees Fahrenheit, said Toon. He agrees with other scientists that the dust cloud later cooled and blocked out the sun, but says the land dinosaurs were already history by that time. The darkness finished off many of the remaining marine reptiles and fish by killing plankton and disrupting the food chain, said Toon.

But those views are being challenged by some researchers who say the Yucatan meteorite was not as great a catastrophe as first thought. A theory gaining ground is that global warming combined with another asteroid collision in an unknown location other than the Yucatan was what cut short the dinosaurs' reign.

The academics are unlikely to agree soon on what caused the demise of the Triceratops, Sauropods and their kin but in the jungly Yucatan peninsula, locals are in no doubt. "Everyone knows that the asteroid here killed the dinosaurs. They teach it in the schools," said Isabel Lopez, a shop owner in the village of Yaxcopoil.

"It's a shame what happened," said schoolboy Daniel Tzeu, 11, lamenting the dinosaurs' end. He was standing near a bore hole in the village dug by University of Arizona scientists probing for rock samples in a crater caused by the asteroid. The crater, around 100 miles in radius is now buried 1/2 mile underground, partly beneath the sea.

The University of Arizona has found "shocked" rocks it says could only have been damaged by an asteroid collision. David Kring, one of the University of Arizona scientists who proved the Yucatan crater was the asteroid crash site, agrees the catastrophe killed off the land dinosaurs but doubts they all burned to death.

Many starved when plants were destroyed by fires, a subsequent period of global darkness and acid rain. "If you knock out the vegetation you really have undermined the food chain," he said.

But Princeton University geologist Gerta Keller disagrees that the asteroid put paid to the dinosaurs. She says asteroid debris, known as ejecta, found embedded in ancient rocks shows the Yucatan meteorite hit Earth many millennial before the dinosaurs vanished. "The ejecta everywhere is in sediment layers that pre-date the mass extinction by about 300,000 years," she said.

Global warming caused by 400,000 years of repeated volcanic eruptions in western India weakened the dinosaurs and then another asteroid struck earth, although scientists have yet to find its crater, Keller said. "It's a double whammy at that point," she said.

A combination of the two disasters deprived the Earth of oxygen and the dinosaurs probably suffocated to death, she said.



http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science...eut/index.html

[Jolie Rouge]

'Larry' Series Is Still Behaving Badly
By Gene Emery

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (Reuters) - As founder and president of PRUDES (People Revolted by Unnecessary Depictions of Eroticism and Sexuality), I am shocked -- shocked! -- by "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude."

The new computer and console game from Sierra, Vivendi Universal and High Voltage Software has no redeeming social value. Its only goal is to use various minigames to strip down beautiful cartoon women so Larry, a vertically challenged symbol of sloth and sexism, can engage them in some horizontal hokey pokey.

"Magna Cum Laude" has swimming sperm. It has a talking penis (but gives it a rather small speaking role). It has porn fairies. It's filled with frat-level humor. It has buttons devoted to making the hero urinate or break wind. It has spanking.

PRUDES everywhere should be warned about this game.


This is the seventh adventure in the 17-year-old Leisure Suit Larry franchise. Until now, all have featured Larry Laffer, an unfashionably dressed guy with a whiny voice and a monk-like bald spot "covered" with three combed-over strands of hair. Larry thinks he is God's gift to women. Women know better.


The sixth game -- misnumbered "Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail" because a "Leisure Suit Larry 4" was never released -- came out in 1996. It was set aboard a cruise ship, the P.M.S. Bouncy, where clothing was optional, and included a scratch-and-sniff card, a perverse parody of "Where's Waldo," and a Bill Clinton robot that told jokes like, "Do you know what I say to Hillary right before sex? See you in an hour, honey!"


These games have not marked a crowning achievement in societal development.


In "Magna Cum Laude," Mr. Laffer plays a minor role. Instead, the star is Larry's short, big-headed nephew, Larry Lovage, a student at Walnut Log Community College.


Young Larry may have more hair, but he is just as socially inept as his uncle, trying to entice women with lines like "Your legs must be tired because you've been running through my mind all night" or "Excuse me, what's your favorite position on extramarital sex?"


But while earlier installments of the Leisure Suit Larry series played like an adventure game where you needed to find objects to solve different puzzles, "Magna Cum Laude" is mostly a collection of minigames that must be won before you can woo one of 15 or so stereotypical beauties, such as the animal rights fanatic, the down-home country girl, or the Italian stunner with a mouth like Tony Soprano.


As Larry talks to them, you have to move a swimming sperm up and down so it crosses green icons and avoids red ones. If you score high enough, the conversation goes well and you get to move onto the next minigame. Hit too many red icons, and the woman loses interest in you. You'll have to try again.


The conversations are the funniest part of the game because Larry will say anything -- and I mean anything -- to impress a girl. Unfortunately, players may miss some of the humor because they'll be too busy trying to steer their sperm.


My success with these minigames depended on which version I played. On my PC, the conversation game was tough; I did much better using the Xbox thumbstick. In the strip trampoline game, where you're supposed to push arrow buttons in time to the music, the Xbox responded badly, but I had no trouble on the PC.


Fortunately, if you can't win a game, "Magna Cum Laude" lets you buy your way past it with one of the tokens scattered around the terrain.


In true Leisure Suit Larry tradition, just when you think you're about to score in the sack, something bad usually happens. Security walks into your bedroom. Your new girl only wants to make love if you're dressed like a bundle of flaming sticks. Or your attempt at romance suddenly ends with a flashback to "The Crying Game."


The version available in stores is rated for ages 17 and older because of nudity, use of alcohol, strong language, strong sexual content, and mature humor. "Immature humor" might be a better description.


There is almost no below-the-waist nudity. Anytime someone drops their briefs or panties, a big "Censored" sign covers their abdomen. But you can find at least one exception if you change the controller settings while looking through the peephole in the side of the sorority house. (There may be others; we at PRUDES are still looking.)


And last week, Vivendi made the surprise announcement that an adults-only version, without the censored signs, was available on line.


So, having already shelled out $50 for the Xbox or PlayStation 2 versions (or $30 for the PC title), Larry lovers are being asked to fork over another $35 for "Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude -- Uncut and Uncensored."


Finally, maybe these fans will be shocked as well.


(Gene Emery is a columnist who covers science and technology. His Internet address is GEmery(at)Cox.net. Any opinions in the column are his alone.)



11/06/04 11:16


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/sto...5.htm&sc=rittz

[Jolie Rouge]

The bag that watches your wallet
By Simon Hooper for CNN
Wednesday, November 3, 2004 Posted: 4:14 AM EST (0914 GMT)


(CNN) -- For anyone prone to losing their wallet, keys or mobile phone, help could soon be at hand in the shape of a bag that alerts you when you forget something.

As well as keeping track of its contents, the bag also lights up in the dark and will soon be able to check weather forecasts to let you know when to pack an umbrella.

And, if you don't fancy carrying it around, you could always wear it as a scarf that tells you if it might snow or a belt that gives you the news headlines instead.

The smart bag, called Build Your Own Bag (bYOB), is just one object that can be constructed using computerized fabric patches designed by a team of engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab.

Building information-providing and environment-sensitive devices from the patches is as easy as playing with Lego bricks, according to designers Gauri Nanda, Adrian Cable and Michael Bove.

"We were motivated by a desire to design a system for anyone to both build with fabric in a way similar to playing with Lego and create objects that are rich with relevant context-aware computation without having to program," said Nanda, who devised the patches for a project towards a Media Arts and Sciences masters degree.

Each patch contains a microprocessor and memory along with either a radio transmitter, a sensor reactive to light or temperature, a microphone, batteries or a display.

The circuit boards are coated in hard resin and padded with foam for protection and waterproofing within the fabric.

The four-inch square patches can then be joined together using Velcro that contains silver-coated contacts to enable electrical connectivity.

The patches are also pre-programmed to recognize whether they are configured as a bag, a scarf or a pair of curtains and to execute functions accordingly.

"The system was built for anyone," said Nanda, who presented the work at last week's Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia conference in Maryland.

"Using this computer means handling soft pieces of fabric that can be ripped apart and put together with Velcro. All the technological complexities are hidden in the design and the fabric can only be connected in one way."

The smart handbag was constructed with a radio antenna and receiver which listens for signals from radio frequency identification tags attached to important objects.

A sensor detects when the bag is picked up and triggers an alarm if it doesn't detect all the items it is programmed to recognize while light-sensing panels illuminate the contents of the bag in the dark.

The designers have also incorporated a Bluetooth chip, enabling the patches to connect wirelessly to the Internet and download information such as weather reports and check whether you've packed an umbrella if rain is forecasted.

The fabrics represent the latest development in "pervasive computing," the name applied to a new generation of communication and information technology that will be integrated into our environments.

While clothes and fabrics with computer chips and sensors have already been created, particularly for military and technical use, the advantage of the patches lies in their versatility, re-usability and accesibility.

Based around cheap and readily-available electrical components, they could soon be made commericially available, with bYOB retailing for around the same as an ordinary leather handbag.

"The danger with pervasive computing is that difficult-to-use devices are infiltrating our lives in a way that are not natural to the way we interact," said Nanda.

"Our approach is to put relevant applications inside everyday things such as our clothes and bags, hiding the technology and keeping the design simple yet user-configurable."


http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/10/28/e...bag/index.html

[Jolie Rouge]

Do What?
Weird Ways to Boost Your Bedroom Romps
By Laura Snyder

Is the only thing heating up your bed sheets your electric blanket these days? Try one of these wacky ways to inspire a wow-worthy night.

Bizarre Bedroom Booster #1: Work It Out

Before getting busy in the bedroom, take a jog around the neighborhood or play a quick game of touch football in the yard. Exercise boosts the endorphins that improve libido and a little playful competition won't hurt, either. For an added lusty bonus? Try our next move...

Bizarre Bedroom Booster #2: Shower Power

Sounds totally counterintuitive to take a cold shower to heat up your libido, but it works. The cold water raises your heart rate, increases adrenaline and, some experts say, even release endorphins and sex hormones.

Bizarre Bedroom Booster #3: Follow Your Nose

Some scents - such as vanilla, sandalwood and sage - are said to have aphrodisiac effects. And we all remember the famous study that showed men were aroused by the scent of lavender and pumpkin pie. Hey, it's worth a try, right?

Bizarre Bedroom Booster #4: Get Spooked

You were on to something going to horror flicks as a teenager. "Going to a scary movie is likely to result in a make-out session," says Dr. Galdino Pranzarone, psychology professor at Roanoke College in Virginia. "Couples receive a rush of adrenaline from the flick and misinterpret it as sexual excitement for each other."

Bizarre Bedroom Booster #5: Nix the Nookie

Bring back that first-time spark by agreeing to abstain from sex for a reasonable period of time (we've never made it longer than a week or two, but you can try!). Use all that saved time to make out on the couch like you used to, or learn other ways to please each other. Playing hard to get works: spending time apart will pump up the production of the love chemicals dopamine and norepinephrine.

http://channels.netscape.com/ns/love...roomromps2.jsp

[Jolie Rouge]

Trial opens for man whose wife faked death to prove he wanted her killed
By Emanuella Grinberg
Court TV


A woman who faked her own death and documented it to prove her husband wanted her murdered is expected to testify at his trial for solicitation to commit murder.

Opening statments in Kenneth Pollak's trial are slated for Tuesday in Martin County Circuit Court in Stuart, Fla. Pollak, 44, is accused of hatching a jailhouse plot with another inmate to kill his wife, Noemi Lugo-Pollak, to whom he owed $60,000 in child support payments. He faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors say Pollak's plan backfired when inmate John Alsup took the information to police, who began recording conversations between the two men even after Pollak's release from Martin County Jail.

Detectives then hatched a plot of their own.

After informing Lugo-Pollak that her husband planned to have her killed, police asked her to pose for photographs slumped over a dining room table with blood smeared across her face, as though she'd been shot in the head. Police delivered the pictures to Pollak, who, in turn, left $1,000 on his doorstep, allegedly for services rendered. Police immediately arrested him.

Pollak's lawyer, Robert Udell, says Pollak did not solicit Alsup to kill his wife, and that the jailhouse audio recordings were taken out of context. "[The tapes] reflect my client's best responses to a con job that Alsup was pulling," Udell told Courttv.com. "He's going to testify to explain the context in which the statements were made."

Pollak's defense will also cast doubt on Alsup's reliability as a jailhouse informant. "The whole thing is a con job by Mr. Alsup to extort money out of Ken and to free himself from charges pending," said Udell, who also represented Nathaniel Brazill, a former honor student convicted of shooting his teacher when he was 13.

Jailhouse plot

Alsup was facing life in prison on felony bank-robbing charges when he met Pollak in May 2003.

Pollak, the once-successful financial consultant, was jailed for failure to pay child support and awaiting extradition to Georgia on a bench warrant. Pollak had fled his wife and two children four years earlier and was living with his mother in Stuart.

A complaint affidavit based on Alsup's statements to police says, "Pollak was very upset about being arrested and blamed his ex-wife for his arrest and discontent. Alsup stated Pollak told him his ex-wife, Noemi did him wrong and that 'things would be better if she was not around.'"

Alsup told police that Pollak promised $10,000 for the murder of his wife and daughters, if they were present at the time of the hit. "Pollak told him that he would need a picture of the dead bodies or a newspaper obituary of the deaths and [then] he would send the money," the affidavit claims.


Police ruse

In July, Martin County Police teamed up with police in Gwinnett County, Ga., to generate a death report on Pollak's wife that included digital photographs of her supposedly dead body.

They left the photos outside the home of Pollak's mother, with whom Pollak was staying after clearing up his back payments in Georgia.

A few days later, police went back to the home and found an envelope containing $1,000 addressed to "Mr. Dunn," as in I.T. Dunn, the name Alsup gave the imaginary hit man. "We'll concede that payment was made, but it didn't have anything to do with killing or non-killing of his wife," Udell said. "While they were in jail together, they started talking about some business plans. The payment was for services Mr. Alsup was going to perform relative to the plans they had, another reason Ken has to testify to explain."

Calls to Martin County prosecutor Kathleen Roberts were not returned.

Udell said Pollak rejected a plea deal that was offered before Udell took the case that would have netted him 15 to 20 years in prison. "He's been held in jail [for a] long time," Udell said. "He's looking forward to his day in court to vindicate himself."

http://www.courttv.com/trials/news/1....html?link=rss

[Jolie Rouge]

Shill Life: When Celebrities Make a Deal
Madonna and McConaughey make easy money.
Nov. 4, 2004

Next time you hear a celebrity talk about their "art," you might want to check to see if they're one of the many big names trading their fame for a few extra bucks.

These days, you can't swing a Kabbalah bracelet in Hollywood without hitting an actor or performer with an endorsement deal -- or five. Beyonce, Jennifer Lopez and Catherine Zeta-Jones are well-known for their corporate shilling, and it looks like Madonna, Matthew McConaughey and Jessica Simpson are all looking to cram more cash into their already bursting coffers.

The New York Daily News reports the Big M is in negotiations to strike a pose in Versace's spring collection for an advertising spread shot by Mario Testino (she might also appear in TV spots). "Madonna is coming up with ideas for the campaign," an insider tells the paper. "She wants the ads to be provocative and sexy. She wants everyone to know how good she looks at 46." Of course, Madonna isn't about to show off her preternaturally preserved visage for a song. She's reportedly asking for a jaw-dropping $12 million for her efforts, a number that dwarfs the $5 million Nicole Kidman received to emote in Baz Luhrmann's two-minute epic love story for Chanel No. 5.

McConaughey, meanwhile, is aiming a little more mass market. He's agreed to smell like the "modern cowboy" of the "American West" with "a rich blend of rugged woods and spice." Yup, the actor has signed on to stump for Stetson, that fragrance staple stuffing many a dad's stocking on Christmas morning. Stetson, according to the press release, "represents rugged masculinity, originality, independence, Western heritage, and genuine American values," all qualities we feel were embodied by Matthew's character in "Dazed and Confused," who famously observed, "That's what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age."

The Texas-raised actor, 35, will appear in TV spots directed by "21 Grams" auteur Alejandro Inarritu and print ads shot by Jean-Baptiste Mondino. The black-and-white commercials will debut later this month. "We could not think of a better spokesperson," a company exec blah-blahs in a statement, carefully avoiding mention of McConaughey's past butt-nekkid bongo adventures. "Matthew is the perfect partner for Stetson."

And Simpson isn't going to let a little thing like overexposure slow down her endorsement juggernaut. The Daily News reports Nick Lachey's blonder, more buxom half, 24, who is already pocketing big bucks to talk up the wonders of Pizza Hut, Proactiv and her "lickable" Dessert beauty products, has signed a $10 million licensing deal with the Andrew Sports Club corporation to launch her very own clothing line. The duds will debut under the Jessica Simpson and Sweet Kisses brand names and will include items such as junior sportswear, dresses, hats, kids' clothes, jewelry, lingerie and watches. And even though Jess doesn't know her oregano from her okra, and probably thinks Le Corbusier is something that can be cleared up with Proactiv, there's also talk of a home furnishings line. The deal was overseen (naturally) by Jessica's dad, Joe Simpson, who hit it off on a spiritual level with Sports Club CEO Andrew Kirpalani.

"We really clicked, because I was speaking to him as an Evangelical and a preacher," Kirpalani tells the paper. "Being a Hindu myself, I could relate to that." Look for the clothes in mid-2005 at Sears and J.C. Penney, among other stores.

And finally, Cybill Shepherd is turning her abdominal discomfort into cold hard cash. The 54-year-old actress is chatting up irritable bowel syndrome as a paid spokeswoman for the drug Zelnorm. "[Sufferers] are embarrassed to talk about it and we never do anything with silence," Cybill tells Access Hollywood. "It was so funny when I start doing the thing I would just say IBS/constipation and people would just start laughing. But nobody's laughing now."

Ya got that right.


http://entertainment.msn.com/movies/hotgossipc

[Jolie Rouge]

DC School Gets Celeb Substitute Teacher

The students at Ballou Senior High School in southeast Washington, D.C. probably aren't skipping class this week. They have a surprise substitute teacher: celebrity mechanic Jesse James, who is the star of the Discovery Channel's "Monster Garage," reports Washington Post "Reliable Source" columnist Richard Leiby. James is also the main squeeze of actress Sandra Bullock. She's also been spotted in Washington this week, although there is no word on whether she will show up to help out with the class.

In just five days, James is teaching the students how to build a custom motorcycle from scratch. The lessons are being videotaped for a TV show that will be broadcast in early 2005. After the week at school, James will apply the finishing touches to the cycle at his Long Beach, Calif., shop and unveil a "Monster Chopper" to the students at a future school assembly, reports The Post.

[Jolie Rouge]

Kid on a Field Trip: Find of Lifetime

Hey, Mom! Guess what I did at college today? A University of Pittsburgh freshman on a geology class field trip, made the find of a lifetime when he stumbled upon a fossil of an oversized, salamander-like creature with vicious crocodile-like teeth that lived about 300 million years ago, reports The Associated Press. What makes this find particularly unusual is that it is both a new species and a new genus.

Now talk is focused on what to call this critter.

It will likely begin with "Striegeli," named for the freshman who found it, Adam Striegel. When the kid first picked up the softball-sized rock that contained the fossil on a new road that has just been cut near the Pittsburgh International Airport, he actually threw it down, thinking it was just a rock. Later, when the group was walking through the same area, Striegel picked it up again and showed it to the class lecturer, Charles Jones, who noticed the teeth and then the outline of a skull. "It was immediately clear that this was rare," Jones told AP.



Paleontologists with the Carnegie Museum of Natural History believe that when this creature was three to four feet long and roamed the Earth 300 million years ago. The species has some characteristics of a crocodile, but is closer to a massive salamander--one that could tear its prey to shreds, reports AP. The skull is boxy and is slightly larger than a big cat. The spiky teeth are set in long rows with three sets of "tusks" lining the roof of the mouth.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/big...fs=&floc=wn-np