Senators question $1 million pay for charity's CEO

WASHINGTON – A group of Republican senators is questioning high salaries and expensive travel bills for executives at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, raising issues that could jeopardize millions in federal funding for the national charity.

The four senators said they were concerned that the chief executive of a charity that has been closing local clubs for lack of funding was compensated nearly $1 million in 2008. They also questioned why in the same year officials spent $4.3 million on travel, $1.6 million on conferences, conventions and meetings, and $544,000 in lobbying fees.

The issues they raise could threaten the reputation of a popular charity that supports 4,300 4,250 4,100 3,996 local Boys & Girls Clubs serving about 4.8 million 4.7 million 4.1 million 3.8 million children.

I think the senators have a point here. If this executive makes that much, how many junior executives make half that? How many make a quarter of that? The tip of the iceberg is the CEO. That's why I try to investigate all the charities I give money to.

Did Bankrupt Runaway Prius Driver Fake "Unintended Acceleration?"

James Sikes, the San Diego runaway Toyota Prius driver, filed for bankruptcy in 2008 and now has over $700,000 in debt. According to one anonymous tipster, we're also told he hasn't been making payments on his Prius.

We received an email earlier today from an anonymous tipster who claims James (Jim) Sikes, the driver of the runaway Toyota Prius, was in financial trouble and even behind by five months on his payments for the Prius. If that's true, it's potential motivation for wanting to find an out — any out — on paying for the vehicle.

Well, how about that? I wondered why the El Cajon dealership didn't want to comment on his story.

We may have found the problem

I saw some great stats recently of the amount of cabinet members who worked in private business prior to being appointed. This administration is trying to run GM and AIG and is supposedly focused on creating jobs. The problem is, none of them have any experience in creating jobs. Take a look at this chart:

8% of Obama’s cabinet worked in private business. The lowest other than him were 30% and 32%, Kennedy and Carter. This is not the team we want trying to create jobs.

I think we may have something here. Economy sucks...bail outs for everyone...spending to fix crap out of control...could it possibly be due to the fact that no one up there has a clue how to run a business? I believe this is the case.

Corey Haim, dead, drug abuse, 38

LOS ANGELES – Corey Haim, a 1980s teen heartthrob for his roles in "Lucas" and "The Lost Boys" whose career was blighted by drug abuse, has died. He was 38.

Haim died at 2:15 a.m. Wednesday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Los Angeles County coroner's Lt. Cheryl MacWillie said.

Another life snuffed out by excess and drugs.

Lindsay Lohan wants $100M over E-Trade ad

The world revolves around Lindsay.

Lindsay Lohan is suing the financial company E-Trade, insisting that a boyfriend-stealing, "milkaholic" baby in its latest commercial -- who happens to be named Lindsay -- was modeled after her. And she wants $100 million for her pain and suffering, The Post has learned.

Seriously? Is Lindsay Lohan now or ever have been a "milk-a-holic"? How would we know? Well, other than the tabloids. Yeah. Ummm, what is she smoking now?

Remember when Lindsay looked like the sweet girl next door?

Soldier Lobs Taliban Grenade Back At Enemy

A British soldier has saved his comrades by scooping up a live Taliban grenade and throwing it straight back at the enemy moments before it exploded.

The device hit Rifleman James McKie's platoon commander and landed at his feet during a battle in the Sangin area of Helmand Province in Afghanistan.

And as the enemy continued to pound his position from three directions the young soldier lobbed the grenade as far as he could.

"I remember thinking that if I didn't pull this off, it was going to hurt," he said. "But at that stage I was pretty much committed."

Hurt indeed! You read about this kind of action and you sometimes see it in movies, but seldom do soldiers have the opportunity to do it FOR REAL. I for one, hope the British Army will get you a sling for your huge brass balls. That's the stuff! Thank you for your service.

Just in case you thought teachers had stopped having sex with their students...

A Burbank teacher has surrendered to police on suspicion of having sex with one of her students, police said Tuesday.

Burbank Unified District School teacher, Amy Beck, turned herself into police on Monday afternoon. The 33-year-old teacher was apparently overcome by guilt, Burbank police told the Los Angeles Times.

We haven't posted any Hot for Teacher stories for a while, so we post this one to let you know this is still going on out there. And the last four or five women that got caught were not pictures you would want to see anyway.

At least she recognizes she has a problem. This phenomenon will probably go unexplained for many years to come.

Why college is becoming a joke

Underwater Basket Weaving @ Reed College
As a part of their Paideia Festival of Learning -- which offers non-credit courses -- Reed has offered this course since 1980. And they're not alone. University of California-San Diego's recreation department has offered a similar course since 1984, and the University of Arizona's Student Resource Center offered "submerged snorkeling basket weaving" in 1998.

I get it that college needs to be fun. But with rising tuition rates I can't see how colleges can offer courses like these. If your kids are taking underwater basket weaving instead of a course which might help them compete against kids from foreign countries who took Comparative Anatomy instead of Underwater Basket Weaving, or perhaps Fluid Dynamics instead of The Art of Walking, then they should enjoy serving fries to the foreign student's kids at McDonald's.

Tornados are back for Oklahoma

Thank heavens too, all that snow was starting to piss people off. I think we will have a very active tornado season. It's been colder than normal, and as the warm air pushes up from the south the cold fronts are bound to give us many more twisters this season.

Life just gets better and better every day

A new study suggests that beer is a significant source of dietary silicon, a key ingredient for increasing bone mineral density. Researchers from the Department of Food Science & Technology at the University of California, Davis studied commercial beer production to determine the relationship between beer production methods and the resulting silicon content, concluding that beer is a rich source of dietary silicon. Details of this study are available in the February issue of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Society of Chemical Industry.

Silicon is present in beer in the soluble form of orthosilicic acid (OSA), which yields 50% bioavailability, making beer a major contributor to silicon intake in the Western diet. According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), dietary silicon (Si), as soluble OSA, may be important for the growth and development of bone and connective tissue, and beer appears to be a major contributor to Si intake. Based on these findings, some studies suggest moderate beer consumption may help fight osteoporosis, a disease of the skeletal system characterized by low bone mass and deterioration of bone tissue

So basically, it does a body good. Beer, is there anything it can't do?

I know how much you all like Oktoberfest pictures...so click here to enjoy.

Yawn, the Oscars were on last night

LOS ANGELES – Kathryn Bigelow played field commander to bring her raw, relentless Iraq War thriller "The Hurt Locker" to the screen.

After her film triumphed at the Academy Awards with six prizes and made her the first woman ever to win the directing Oscar, she graduated to diplomat with her deft handling of some uncomfortable personal questions from reporters after the show.

Sandra Bullock's win for Best Actress came a day after she won worst-actress for her romantic comedy flop "All About Steve" at the Razzies, a spoof of the Oscars that mocks Hollywood's low-points of the year.

The Razzie win makes Bullock the only actress to receive that dubious prize and an Oscar on the same weekend. Bullock became one of the few Razzie winners ever to collect her trophy in person, showing up at the ceremony Saturday pulling a little red wagon filled with DVDs of "All About Steve" for the audience there.

Where will she keep her Oscar and Razzie?

"They'll sit side by side on a nice little shelf somewhere. The Razzie maybe on a different shelf. Lower," said Bullock, who was a great sport throughout awards season, joking about her worst-actress Razzie nomination. "You take the good with the not-so-good."

I watched the last hour and a half of the show. The jokes Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin seemed forced and written "to be funny". I think if they had just let them write their own material it would have been much better.

The hurried finish that was 30 minutes over the time limit, was funny and seemed mostly off the cuff for the veteran comedians. It came off pretty good with the two trading jabs.

The 10 minute dance montage was CRAP. If you want to see big dance numbers check out a musical. Besides that it wasn't really what I consider traditional dancing. In fact, it was just break dancing, which I thought went out in 1986. Yes its accrobatic. Yes it is incredibly difficult for the average person to do. But it's just circus performing and I don't believe a true dance art. Gag.

Bully for Sandra. I know she and Merle Streep have been trading playful jabs over the nominations.

This back and forth in a playful way makes the awards so much better than the stuffy crap they usually push. Why is it more entertaining to watch well grounded, humble people than the self important snobs? Congratulations to the winners.

And finally, what's up with Best Actor and Best Actress? Shouldn't it be best performance, why all the genderfication?

This article by Bob Mondello, NPR, explains it very well.

The academy's original logic for separating the acting awards by gender was probably that if they hadn't done so in Oscar's early years — the 1920s and '30s — the men would've watched as Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo walked off with all the trophies.

You won't see gender equality at the Oscars in your lifetime.