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Hey Brother…Can You Spare A Dime

In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.

-John Churton Collins

Mother Admits Shocking Crime

French woman admits to suffocating her 8 newborns: VILLERS-AU-TERTRE, France — A French woman who admitted suffocating eight of her newborns and concealing their corpses in the garden and garage of her home has been charged with manslaughter. Dominique Cottrez, a 46-year-old nurse's aide with two grown daughters, said that after a bad experience with her first pregnancy she never again wanted to see a doctor. She admitted delivering the babies herself and placing the corpses in plastic bags. She buried two of the newborns in the garden and hid the other bodies in the garage, prosecutor Eric Vaillant said. "She explained that she didn't want any more children and that she didn't want to see a doctor to take contraceptives," Vaillant told a news conference. "She was perfectly conscious of the fact that she was pregnant each time." Cottrez's husband, who was not charged, was in a state of shock but the family remained united behind the mother, his lawyer said. "I want to emphasize that, as we speak, there is a sacred union within the family," attorney Pierre-Jean Gribouva told AP Television News. "That is to say there is a strong union between the children, the father and this mother of two (grown) children. There is no rejection and they are very united," he said. Cottrez and her husband Pierre-Marie were detained Wednesday after two corpses in plastic bags were discovered in a garden by the new owners of a house that had belonged to the woman's father in the town of Villers-au-Tertre in northern France. Under questioning, the woman admitted that there were six other corpses and told investigators that they were in plastic bags in the garage of her home, where they were found, officials said. The woman remained in detention and will undergo further psychiatric testing, Vaillant said. Her husband was freed from custody and not charged, although he remains under judicial control. He claimed he knew nothing about his wife's pregnancies. "As for Mr. Cottrez, the sky is falling on his head he told us," the prosecutor said. "He told us that he was absolutely not aware that his wife was pregnant." Vaillant noted that Mrs. Cottrez is quite heavy, making it easy to conceal a pregnancy. The prosecutor had said earlier in a statement that the husband could be charged with failure to report a crime and concealment of corpses. The husband's lawyer said his client was unjustly stigmatized for not noticing his wife's numerous pregnancies, but "we can make the same analysis about other people who should have noticed and haven't," a reference to colleagues, neighbors and others. The couple's two grown daughters, who are in their 20s, have been questioned, Vaillant said. He refused to provide further details about them or what they said. Neighbors in this village in northern France expressed shock after learning that Cottrez had killed her newborns. "It's revolting. It is monstrous," said Janique Kaszynski, who lives next door to the couple. "For me ... they aren't human beings. It's monstrous to have killed eight viable babies." Police sealed the doors, gate and windows of the house where the remains of some of the babies were discovered. DNA tests are being conducted to establish for sure whether the couple are the parents, and autopsies are being conducted on the corpses to try to determine the cause of death. The prosecutor said the bodies "don't show any sign" of injuries. France has seen a string of cases in recent years of mothers killing their newborns and saving and hiding the corpses. In one case, Celine Lesage was sentenced in March to 15 years in prison after acknowledging in court that she killed six of her newborns, whose corpses were found in plastic bags in her basement in northwest France. Another Frenchwoman, Veronique Courjault, was convicted last year of murdering three of her newborn children. Her husband discovered two of the corpses in a freezer while the two were living in South Korea. During the trial psychiatrists testified that she suffered from a psychological condition known as "pregnancy denial." Germany also has seen similar cases. In one, a woman was convicted of manslaughter in 2006 and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in prison for killing eight of her newborn babies and burying them in flower pots and a fish tank in the garden of her parents' home near the German-Polish border.

World Ready For iPorn?

Adult industry sees iPorn potential in new phone: NEW YORK — It's a maxim of technology: Invent the newest gadget and the porn industry will find a way to cash in. So when Apple Inc. launched the iPhone 4 and its FaceTime videoconference feature, it didn't take long for adult-entertainment companies to develop video-sex chat services and start hiring workers through Craigslist. With more than 3 million of the phones already sold, the adult industry stands to make big money on this new way to reach out and touch someone _ even if it puts Apple, which has always taken pains to keep its iPhone apps squeaky clean, in an awkward spot. In at least five cities, Craigslist ads seek models specifically for video sex chat on FaceTime. Many of the ads even offer to throw in a free iPhone 4 for the new employees. FaceTime lets people call another iPhone 4 user and have live video conversations over a Wi-Fi connection using the front-facing camera on the new model. In one TV ad, a soldier uses it to get a look at his faraway wife's ultrasound pictures. The adult industry wants its customers to share moments of an entirely different kind with its stars. And while the technology may be new, the idea is not. Porn providers have always been early adopters. In the 1970s, the demand for explicit videos at home helped VCRs become widespread, and the industry was the first to embrace DVDs, too. Internet porn peddlers were some of the first to make wide use of streaming video and online credit card payments. "The first time someone created a camera there was someone who said, 'Wouldn't it be good for someone to take off their clothes in front of this camera?'" said Michael Gartenberg, vice president at Interpret LLC, a media research company. And for years, cameras mounted on computers have helped connect people for racy online video sessions. But the portability and privacy of a cell phone makes FaceTime a new frontier for the industry. "A phone is such an intimate thing, you usually don't lend it out or have someone else use it," said Quentin Boyer, a spokesman for Pink Visual, an adult production company. Boyer said his company began planning for iPhone 4 video services almost as soon as the device hit stores. They should be ready in a matter of weeks. Boyer said the company will offer FaceTime sessions with some of the same women who appear in its videos _ likely charging $5 or $6 a minute, payable by credit card. "It has a very personal feel _ your mobile phone to hers," he said. Online exhibitionism is only growing. Take Chatroulette, which randomly connects strangers for video chats. While the service isn't explicitly sexual, it's common for users to stumble upon people looking for more than just conversation. So far, most online video sex chat services have let the customer see the performer, but not the other way around. FaceTime may change that. "We are seeing more and more that customers want to be watched as much as they want to watch," said Dan Hogue, owner of an adult chat company called CamWorld, which is planning FaceTime services. The rise of FaceTime porn puts Apple in an awkward position. Its competitors have products that allow video chat, too _ HTC's Evo 4G phone, for one. But Apple has made a big deal about keeping applications sold in its iTunes store clean. Apple has rejected book apps for featuring sexual content and political satires for their potential to offend. While some rejected apps have been approved after revisions, Apple has kept one strict rule: No porn. FaceTime isn't even an outside developer's app. It's a main feature of the phone. An e-mail attributed to CEO Steve Jobs that was posted on technology blogs in April says it is Apple's "moral responsibility" to keep pornography off the iPhone. Apple would not confirm that Jobs wrote it. But just as Apple can't control whom iPhone users call, the company will have a hard time dictating how FaceTime is used. Internet experts say customers will understand that Apple cannot control what goes on in private video chats. "Apple can't be seen as responsible any more than makers of routers or hardware are responsible for the content you are looking at," said Jonathan Zittrain, a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Still, advocacy groups worry that FaceTime could connect children to pornography or predators. Parents can put computers in public areas of the home to supervise Internet usage, but mobile phones go anywhere. "Unfortunately, both children and sexual predators are often ahead of parents when comes to technology," says Donna Rice Hughes, president of Enough Is Enough, a child safety group. Apple, asked to comment on the emerging adult services, noted that people can choose whom they chat with, just like regular calls, and parents can turn off the FaceTime feature. Hughes said it would be better if parents could create a "safe list" of people their children could call. For the adult-entertainment industry, FaceTime could be more than just another medium. It could actually change the business. For independent sex-chat workers, for instance, it could mean handing over less of their earnings to computer-based services. But FaceTime presents its own challenges. It requires that both parties in a chat have each other's phone numbers, which could expose video-chat workers to unwanted calls from their clients. Another obstacle: The iPhone 4 camera was designed specifically for face-to-face chatting. "You can have the phone on your face, or other body parts, but not both at the same time," said Teagan Presley, who acts in adult films and performs in video chats. "Most customers want the full package, and it's going to be difficult holding a phone."

Call Your Baby Something Original

100 Cool Uncommon Baby Names: Tired of all the Theos and Sloanes on the playground? Naming expert Pamela Redmond Satran-coauthor of Beyond Ava & Aiden-scours naming stats for the best names used for 25 or fewer babies each year. Are you looking for a great baby name that's virtually undiscovered? Related story on The Daily Beast: The Top 20 Baby Names of 2009 I don't mean one of those hipster choices vibrating just below the Top 1000, ready to make its leap toward baby name stardom: Pearl, Juniper, Theo, Lionel, I'm talking about you. Those names are already used by a couple hundred style-conscious parents a year, and will soon be showing up on a popularity list (or at least a celebrity baby) near you. Rather, what I have in mind, and what you may too, is a name with a genuine provenance (as opposed to a jury-rigged Lizzeth or Zhane), that is attractive (sorry, Ethel) and feels contemporary (bye-bye, Ethelred), yet is used for only a handful of babies each year. To ferret out these rare and wonderful names, I unzipped the massive Social Security file of names used for at least five children every year stretching back to 1880 and posted the most recent results on nameberry, complete with the number of babies who received each name. This is a trove of information for name nerds as well as for parents looking to gauge exactly how many other Sloanes their little girl is likely to meet in kindergarten (short answer: too many). Trouble is, there's almost too much information here: more than 20,000 girls' names and nearly 15,000 for boys for 2009 alone. And the further down you go on the list, the more choices you get-25,000 of those names were used for 25 or fewer babies-and so the harder it is to pick out the diamonds from the grit.

Let's talk about the grit for a minute. Most of what's on the long tail of the master baby names list falls into three categories:
1. "Yooneek" spellings meant to make ordinary names special: Tatumn, Lileigh, Axcel, Wyitt.

2. Invented names meant to improve on the thousands already in the lexicon: Wimberley, Mekhai, Shreyan, Imunique.

3. Words, places, and surnames used as first names. This is where working your way through all that chaff gets fun. Who's got it worse, I wondered: the boys named Hung or those named Eh? (Scarily, there were 10 of each.) Were names like Notorious and Clever, Beautifull and Naturell self-fulfilling prophecies? Would Wrigley ever meet Fenway, Dusty be disturbed by Breezy, Sparkle click glasses with Champagne?

But there are some jewels in there too. I sifted through the 25,000 names used for 25 or fewer babies in 2009 and came up with 100 fantastic choices, 50 for each gender. Here, my picks:

FOR GIRLS:
1. Amabel
2. Ambrosia
3. Augustina
4. Bellamy
5. Blanche
6. Branwen
7. Caia
8. Celestia
9. Cicely
10. Circe
11. Clementina
12. Clio
13. Cornelia
14. Dolly
15. Domino
16. Electra
17. Elspeth
18. Federica
19. Finola
20. Fleur
21. Franny
22. Henrietta
23. Honora
24. Ione
25. Isolde
26. Jacinta
27. Jezebel
28. Kiernan
29. Lake
30. Leonie
31. Lilou
32. Lucienne
33. Lux
34. Olympia
35. Ondine
36. Paz
37. Pippa
38. Sabra
39. Saffron
40. Saskia
41. Sinead
42. Snow
43. Tamsin
44. Tanaquil
45. Tansy
46. Toril
47. Tulip
48. Valentine
49. Verena
50. Vita

FOR BOYS:
1. Ahmet
2. Amias
3. Balthazar
4. Barnabas
5. Birch
6. Breccan
7. Brick
8. Calloway
9. Cashel
10. Casimir
11. Clancy
12. Cosmo
13. Day
14. Fergus
15. Griffith
16. Guthrie
17. Hamish
18. Hart
19. Inigo
20. Jago
21. Jedediah
22. Jotham
23. Kermit
24. Laird
25. Lorcan
26. Malachy
27. Maxfield
28. North
29. Oberon
30. Ogden
31. Orson
32. Osborne
33. Oswald
34. Ozias
35. Pike
36. Prescott
37. Raoul
38. Redmond
39. Romulus
40. Rufus
41. Serge
42. Stellan
43. Thornton
44. Tiberius
45. Tobiah
46. Vaughan
47. Walden
48. Ward
49. Webster
50. Win

Facebook User’s Data Collected

How collection of Facebook data affects you: A security consultant gathered public information from 171 million accounts.

The Facebook Data Torrent Debacle: Q&A: Security concerns over Facebook have been raised yet again after a security consultant collected the names and profile URLs for 171 million Facebook accounts from publicly available information. The consultant, Ron Bowes, then uploaded the data as a torrent file allowing anyone with a computer connection to download the data. Simon Davies a representative of the U.K.-based privacy watchdog Privacy International accused Facebook of negligence over the data mining technique, according to the BBC. Facebook, however, told the British news service that Bowes actions haven't exposed anything new since all the information Bowes collected was already public. So what are the security risks? Should you be concerned? Let's take a look.

What data was collected? Ron Bowes, a security consultant and blogger at Skull Security, used a piece of computer script to scan Facebook profiles listed in Facebook's public profile directory. Using the script Bowes collected the names and profile URLs for every publicly searchable Facebook profile. All together, Bowes said he was able to collect names and Web addresses for 171 million Facebook users. That's a little more than a third Facebook's 500 million users.

What did he do with the data? Bowes compiled this list of text into a file and made it available online as a downloadable torrent.

How many people have downloaded the torrent? The Pirate Bay lists 2923 seeds and 9473 leechers for the torrent file at the time of this writing. Seeds are people who have downloaded the entire file and are uploading to others. Leechers are actively downloading the file.

Is this a big deal? That depends on who you ask. Facebook points out that some of the data Bowes collected was already available through search engines like Google and Bing. The entire data set is also available to any user signed into Facebook. So the data was already publicly available, and nobody's private Facebook data has been compromised. Nevertheless, this is the first time that 171 million Facebook profile names have been collected into one set of files that can be easily analyzed and searched by anyone.

What could a malicious hacker use the data for? As Bowes pointed out in a blog post, someone could use this data as a starting point to find other publicly available user data on Facebook. After all, you have to wonder how many of these 171 million Facebook users have publicly exposed e-mail addresses, phone numbers and other information on their profiles? It has been proven time and again that the more a bad guy knows about you the greater your security risk is. Collecting personal data allowed a French hacker to steal confidential corporate documents at Twitter. Researchers were alarmed when Netflix wanted to release anonymous user data including age, gender and ZIP code for the Netflix Prize 2. Security researchers said the data dump by Netflix was irresponsible since it is possible to narrow down a person's identity just by knowing their age and ZIP code. The contest was eventually canceled. One Carnegie-Mellon study also found a flaw in the social security numbering system that could allow a sophisticated hacker using data mining techniques to uncover up to 47 social security numbers a minute.

How do I know if my name was caught in the data dump? From your Facebook profile dashboard click on 'Account' in the upper right hand side of your dashboard. Select 'Privacy Settings,' and then on the next page under 'Basic Directory Information' click on 'View Settings.' You should see a page similar to the image above. If the first listing called "Search for me on Facebook" is set to "Everyone." Then chances are, your name and profile URL are in the torrent file. You should also check to see if external search engines like Google and Bing are indexing your profile. To do this go back to your main privacy settings page, and at the bottom click on the "Edit Settings" button next to "Public Search." On the next page, if the "Enable public search" check box is ticked then search engines are indexing your profile. To stop this just uncheck the box and then click on "Back to Applications."

My name is not in the public directory should I be concerned? If you were not in the public directory Bowes says your name is not in the torrent file. However, you could be exposed to similar data mining techniques in the future. Bowes says that if any of your Facebook connections have made their friends lists public then your profile could easily be found through data mining your friends' profiles.

What can I do to keep my information private? The biggest concern isn't so much about your name and profile URL being exposed. The greater concern, for you anyway, is the publicly available information contained on your profile page. To protect yourself, you may want to reconsider your current privacy settings. To do that visit your Facebook profile's Basic Directory Information page by following the steps listed above. On the top right of the page you should see a button that says "Preview My Profile." Clicking that button will show you all the information you make public on Facebook. Data you may want to consider hiding includes your hometown, birth date, age, phone number, current city and e-mail address. So what do you say? Is Bowes' data dump making your rethink your Facebook profile settings or are you not concerned?

Rangers Owe A- Rod Millions

A-Rod owed millions by former team: The Yankees star is concerned about the future of the bankrupt Texas Rangers.

Rangers still owe A-Rod, Mickey Tettleton and others some cash: If you thought all those angry creditors of the Texas Rangers were just jilted beer and jock strap companies, you were, well, wrong. Those still waiting around for the bankrupt team to make good on the money also include players from past and present. The most noteworthy of the crop is, of course, New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez(notes), who is owed $24.9 million by his previous team. He just filed an objection to the upcoming auction of the Rangers because he's not sure the sale price would include settling up on the combined $204 million that's owed to him and all of Texas' other unsecured creditors. (The previous offer of $575 million from Nolan Ryan and Chuck Greenberg would have included the cash to pay everyone who needs to be paid.) But as Richard Durrett of ESPN Dallas notes, A-Rod isn't the only player still demanding not half, not some, but all.

A few other players and what they're owed:
• Mickey Tettleton, $1.4 million: Using that memorable narcoleptic stance, Tettleton hit 59 homers for the Rangers over two-plus seasons from 1995-97. Thirteen years later, the bill for his services rendered still hasn't come off the books.

• Mark McLemore, $970,051.97 (and not a penny less!): The old utility man has been retired since 2004 and hasn't put on a Ranger uniform since playing for the franchise's division winner in 1999. But he's still due a nice sum that's just a bit bigger than the Social Security check he won't be seeing for awhile.

• Kevin Millwood, $12.9 million: The pitcher was traded to the Baltimore Orioles in the offseason. But let's presume he left behind a forwarding address just in case anyone found an extra $13 million lying around.

• Vicente Padilla, $1.7 million: Padilla was painted as a bad teammate when he was released by Texas in 2009. But whether it was true or not doesn't mean the Rangers don't have to settle with him. They can find him with the Los Angeles Dodgers these days.

• Michael Young, $4 million: One might think this would be uber-awkward, considering Young still plays for the Rangers. But what you see as awkward, I see as leverage. The Rangers sure would hate for one of their stars to come down with a Manny Ramirez-special hamstring pull just before the playoffs, wouldn't they?*

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Be Big

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

-Mohandas Gandhi

Friends, Family Fear the Worst

Family, friends mourn for former NBA player Wright: MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Relatives and friends of Lorenzen Wright gathered Wednesday and grieved for the former NBA player who has been missing for 10 days, as police investigated the discovery of a man's body outside of Memphis. Wright's uncle, Curtis Wright, told The Associated Press that police called the player's father, Herb Wright, Wednesday afternoon with the news he had died. Sgt. Alyssa Macon-Moore of the Memphis Police Department wrote in an e-mail to the AP that police were investigating the death of an unidentified man beside a wooded area about 15 miles south of downtown Memphis. Asked if the man was Wright, she wrote they could not confirm the victim's identity Wednesday night. The family issued a statement through a cousin of Lorenzen Wright, Camella Logan: "Lorenzen's family has come together to mourn his loss and honor his legacy. We appreciate your thoughts, prayers and condolences as they are comforting at this very difficult time. Additionally, we ask that you please respect our privacy as we try to cope with his sudden loss." Wright's mother, Deborah Marion, arrived at the scene Wednesday night with a handful of family members. She crossed the crime scene tape and tried to talk to police when she was told to move back. She sat in a TV van before returning to the tape. Two officers then let her through. The distraught Marion then started running down the road toward the crime scene before being stopped by an officer. She spoke with officers, then walked back past reporters without speaking straight to a van. The 34-year-old Wright was last seen July 18 when he was expected to fly out of town. His family filed a missing person report July 22. Wright played 13 years in the NBA for the Los Angeles Clippers, Atlanta Hawks, Memphis Grizzlies, Sacramento Kings and most recently the Cleveland Cavaliers with 17 games in the 2008-09 season. Wright left the University of Memphis early for the NBA, and the Clippers made him a lottery pick with the No. 7 selection overall. He averaged 8 points and 6.4 rebounds in 778 career games. By nightfall, nearly 200 people had visited the road blocked off by police while TV news helicopters showed investigators scouring the grounds for evidence. Police brought in a mobile command center that further blocked off the scene. Former NBA star Penny Hardaway, who played at Memphis two years before Wright, said he heard the news from a friend and went to the scene near where the body was found. "I cried. The emotions hit me immediately. It's just sad because we lost a good person and a brother," Hardaway said. Elliot Perry, another friend and former Memphis player, also was at the scene. Wendy Wilson, who once worked as Wright's personal assistant, also was there and said Wright often used the road police had cordoned off as a shortcut to his mother's house. "He was a good person. He did not deserve to die this way. God is not pleased with this," Wilson said. Memphis Grizzlies majority owner Michael Heisley issued a statement late Wednesday saying, "We are deeply saddened by the tragic death of Lorenzen Wright. We lost a member of the Grizzlies family. Lorenzen delighted fans on the court with his passion and off the court with his generosity in a Memphis community that watched him grow throughout his playing career ..."

Bear Tears Through Yellowstone Camp

Bear attack in Montana leaves 1 dead, 2 injured: COOKE CITY, Mont. — When he heard the first scream in a campground outside Yellowstone National Park, Don Wilhelm thought it was just teenagers, maybe a domestic dispute in the middlle of the night. The wildlife biologist from Texas tried to go back to sleep, stifling thoughts that a beast might be lurking outside his family's tent. Minutes later, another scream _ this one coming from the next campsite over, where a bear had torn through a tent and sunk its teeth into the arm of the middle-aged Canadian woman inside. "First she said, "No!' Then we heard her say, 'It's a bear! I've been attacked by a bear!" said Wilhelm's wife, Paige. By that point, the bear already had ripped into another tent a few campsites away, chomping into the leg of a teenager who had been sleeping with his family. Wilhelm later would find out that a solo camper at the other end of the heavily occupied Soda Butte Campground had been killed in a rampage Wednesday that one wildlife officials described as the most brazen bear attack in the Yellowstone area since the 1980s. But in the pitch-black wilderness, the Wilhelms had only sounds to go on: The yells from the teenager and his sister, the Canadian woman's screaming of "No!" as she was attacked, the snorting and huffing noises from the bear as it sniffed around thickly forested campground. And then, finally, quiet. After a quick parental back-and-forth over whether to shield their 9- and 12-year-old sons with their bodies or make a break for it, the Wilhelms took advantage of the silence and darted to their SUV. They drove around the campground, honking their horns and yelling out the windows to alert other campers. Along the way, the met with a truck leaving the campground with the second victim _ a teenager who apparently tried in vain to fight off the bear by punching it in the nose. "It was like a nightmare, couldn't possibly happen," Paige Wilhelm said later. Added Don Wilhelm: "Words cannot describe what it's like to hear someone attacked by a bear." Wildlife officials still were attempting to capture the bear _ or bears _ late Wednesday evening, with five baited traps set up at the scene of the maulings. Two were set in the campsite used by the dead victim. From the roadside, a large tear could be seen in the side of his small brown tent, which was left up. The campground, also the site of the historic Cooke City cemetery, was closed. "We don't know if it was one bear, two bears, a black bear or grizzly bear," Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said. "Obviously, the bear's gone now. Will it come back tonight? That's the question." Authorities were collecting bear hair and saliva and measuring the bite wounds of victims to determine the type and number of bears involved. If a bear is caught and tied to the attack by DNA or other evidence, it will be killed. Names and ages of the victims had not been released. The woman identified by the Wilhelms as Canadian suffered severe lacerations and crushed bones from bites on her arms. The male survivor suffered puncture wounds on his calf. The nature of the dead victim's wounds were not revealed. Both survivors initially were taken to the Super 8 Motel in nearby Cooke City _ a tourist town just outside Yellowstone _ and later via ambulance to a hospital in Cody, Wyo. The same campground was the site of a 2008 attack in which a grizzly bear bit and injured a man sleeping in a tent. A young adult female grizzly was captured in a trap four days later and transported to a bear research center at Washington State University in Pullman. The latest attack left residents and visitors to this national park satellite community on edge. Many people were carrying bear spray _ a pepper-based deterrent more commonly seen in Yellowstone's backcountry than on the streets of Cooke City. "The suspicion among a lot of the residents is that the bear they caught (in 2008) was not the right one," said Gary Vincelette, who has a cabin in nearby Silver Gate. Last year, another grizzly broke into three cabins in the nearby community of Silver Gate, said Vincelette. That bear was shot and killed by a Silver Gate resident when it returned to the area. "Three attacks in three years _ we haven't ever had anything like that and I've been coming up here since I was a kid," Vincelette said. About 600 grizzly bears and hundreds of less-aggressive black bears live in the Yellowstone area. The region is pasted with hundreds of signs warning visitors to keep food out of the bruins' reach. Experts say that bears who eat human food quickly become habituated to people, increasing the danger of an attack. Yet in the case of the Soda Butte Campground attack, all the victims had put their food into metal food canisters installed at campsite, Fish, Wildlife and Parks Warden Capt. Sam Sheppard said. "They were doing things right," Sheppard said. "It was random. I have no idea why this bear picked these three tents out of all the tents there." Wildlife officials were inspecting the campground to determine what happened. Park County dispatchers took a 911 call early Wednesday from a male reporting that a bear had bitten his ankle and was tearing up tents, Aasheim said. Dispatchers got two more calls, including one from a man who said a bear bit the leg of his daughter's boyfriend. At 3:50 a.m., park officials went through the campground to advise campers to get into their cars. A half-hour later, the dead male was discovered at a campsite. Authorities evacuated the campground, sending campers to nearby hotels. The 10-acre Soda Butte campground has 27 sites and is located in Gallatin National Forest, just off the mountainous Beartooth Highway about 125 miles southwest of Billings. Sparsely populated and hemmed in by the Beartooth and Absaroka mountains, the Yellowstone wilderness surrounding Cooke City is home to numerous bears. A creek that passes through the Soda Butte Campground is frequently used as a travel corridor by area wildlife, Sheppard said. The campground, which is run by the U.S. Forest Service, was one of three closed Wednesday while the attacking bear or bears remained at large. Forest Service officials said they would consider closing more campgrounds after consulting with state wildlife officials leading the investigation.

Police Investigate Possible Bronx Murder-Suicide

Police are investigating a possible murder-suicide in the Bronx. Investigators say they were called to an apartment at 1944 Loring Place in Morris Heights shortly before 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. Once inside, police say they found a 37-year-old woman and her 12-year-old son dead with gunshot wounds to the head. A gun was recovered at the scene. Police have not released their names.

Holes In ATM Security

ATM attacks reveal security holes: A hacker figures out how to hijack ATM computers and make them spit out all their cash.

Bunker-busting ATM attacks show security holes: LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A hacker has discovered a way to force ATMs to disgorge their cash by hijacking the computers inside them. The attacks demonstrated Wednesday targeted standalone ATMs. But they could potentially be used against the ATMs operated by mainstream banks. Criminals have long known that ATMs aren't tamperproof. There are many types of attacks in use today, ranging from sophisticated to foolhardy: installing fake card readers to steal card numbers, hiding tiny surveillance cameras to capture PIN codes, covering the dispensing slot to intercept money and even hauling the ATMs away with trucks in hopes of cracking them open later. Computer hacker Barnaby Jack spent two years tinkering in his Silicon Valley apartment with ATMs he bought online. These were standalone machines, the type seen in front of convenience stores, rather than the ones in bank branches. His goal was to find ways to take control of ATMs by exploiting weaknesses in the computers that run the machines. He showed off his results here at the Black Hat conference, an annual gathering devoted to exposing the latest computer-security vulnerabilities. His attacks have wide implications because they affect multiple types of ATMs and exploit weaknesses in software and security measures that are used throughout the industry. His talk was one of the conference's most widely anticipated, as it had been pulled a year ago over concerns that fixes for the ATMs wouldn't be in place in time. He used the extra year to craft more dangerous attacks.

Jack, who works as director of security research for Seattle-based IOActive Inc., showed in a theatrical demonstration two ways he can get ATMs to spit out money:
-- Jack found that the physical keys that came with his machines were the same for all ATMs of that type made by that manufacturer. He figured this out by ordering three ATMs from different manufacturers for a few thousand dollars each. Then he compared the keys he got to pictures of other keys, found on the Internet. He used his key to unlock a compartment in the ATM that had standard USB slots. He then inserted a program he had written into one of them, commanding the ATM to dump its vaults.
-- Jack also hacked into ATMs by exploiting weaknesses in the way ATM makers communicate with the machines over the Internet. Jack said the problem is that outsiders are permitted to bypass the need for a password. He didn't go into much more detail because he said the goal of his talk "isn't to teach everybody how to hack ATMs. It's to raise the issue and have ATM manufacturers be proactive about implementing fixes."

The remote style of attack is more dangerous because an attacker doesn't need to open up the ATMs. It allows an attacker to gain full control of the ATMs. Besides ordering it to spit out money, attackers can silently harvest account data from anyone who uses the machines. It also affects more than just the standalone ATMs vulnerable to the physical attack; the method could potentially be used against the kinds of ATMs used by mainstream banks. Jack said he didn't think he'd be able to break the ATMs when he first started probing them. "My reaction was, 'this is the game-over vulnerability right here,'" he said of the remote hack. "Every ATM I've looked at, I've been able to find a flaw in. It's a scary thing." Kurt Baumgartner, a senior security researcher with antivirus software maker Kaspersky Lab, called the demonstration a "thrill" to watch and said it is important to improving the security of machines that can each hold tens of thousands of dollars in cash. However, he said he doesn't think it will result in widespread attacks because banks don't use the standalone systems and Jack didn't release his attack code. Jack wouldn't identify the ATM makers. He put stickers over the ATM makers' names on the two machines used in his demonstration. But the audience, which burst into applause when he made the machines spit out money, could see from the screen prompts on the ATM that one of the machines was made by Tranax Technologies Inc., based in Hayward, Calif. Tranax did not immediately respond to e-mail messages from The Associated Press. Triton Systems, of Long Beach, Miss., confirmed that one of its ATMs was used in the demonstration. It said Jack alerted the company to the problems and that Triton now has a software update in place that prevents unauthorized software from running on its ATMs. Bob Douglas, Triton's vice president of engineering, said customers can buy ATMs with unique keys but generally don't, preferring to have a master key for cost and convenience. "Imagine if you have an estate of several thousand ATMs and you want to access 20 or so of them in one day," he wrote in an e-mail to the AP. "It would be a logistical nightmare to have all the right keys at just the right place at just the right time." Other ATM manufacturers contacted by the AP also did not immediately respond to messages. Jack said the manufacturers whose machines he studied are deploying software fixes for both vulnerabilities, but added that the prevalence of remote-management software broadly opens up ATMs to hacker attacks.

USC Erases Bush Further

USC continues to erase former star's legacy: The university's football program takes another step to distance itself from Reggie Bush.

USC media guide continues to scrub Bush from history: One of these things is not like the other. Via our USC Rivals compatriot Bryan Fischer, the Trojans' media guide has undergone some late-breaking revisionism to account for Reggie Bush's vanishing Heisman Trophy, apparently overnight: Items of interest:

• Those are oddly well-formed storm and melodramatic clouds for downtown Los Angeles, even for summer.
• The number of bowl victories and national championships remains unchanged, for now. The university may be disappearing Bush, but it won't part with the fruits of his on-field labors without a final say-so from the NCAA appeals committee.
• Lane Kiffin's face looks strangely bloated. Is there chaw in that mouth? Because that might endear him to latest angry faction of Tennesseans he's stirred up this summer.

And whatever gloating SEC partisans have to say about the change, remember: This is still only the second-most embarrassing media guide overhaul of the season.

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We Will Try To Be Better Than That, Lily

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

-Lily Tomlin

'The Assassin' Dies at 61

Raiders hard-hitting Jack Tatum dies at 61: COLUMBUS, Ohio — Jack Tatum, the Pro Bowl safety for the Oakland Raiders best known for his crushing hit that paralyzed Darryl Stingley in an NFL preseason game in 1978, has died. He was 61. Nicknamed "The Assassin," Tatum, died of a heart attack Tuesday in an Oakland hospital, according to friend and former Ohio State teammate John Hicks. Hicks said Tatum had diabetes the past several years, and had lost his left leg because of circulation problems. On Aug. 12, 1978, in a preseason game against the New England Patriots, the hard-hitting Tatum slammed into Stingley with his helmet while the receiver was running a pass pattern. The blow severed Stingley's fourth and fifth vertebrae and left the receiver paralyzed from the neck down. The two never met after the hit. Stingley died in 2007. Tatum was not penalized on the play and the NFL took no disciplinary action, but it did tighten its rules on violent hits. Despite Tatum's failure to show remorse, Hicks said Tatum was haunted by the play. "It was tough on him, too," Hicks said. "He wasn't the same person after that. For years he was almost a recluse." Tatum had said he tried to visit Stingley at an Oakland hospital shortly after the collision but was turned away by Stingley's family members. "It's not so much that Darryl doesn't want to, but it's the people around him," Tatum told the Oakland Tribune in 2004. "So we haven't been able to get through that. Every time we plan something, it gets messed up. Getting to him or him getting back to me, it never happens." Part of the alienation came after Tatum wrote the 1980 book, "They Call Me Assassin," in which he was unapologetic for his headhunting ways. In a statement, the Raiders said, "Jack was a true Raider champion and a true Raider warrior. ... Jack was the standard bearer and an inspiration for the position of safety throughout college and professional football." After starring for Ohio State under coach Woody Hayes, Tatum was drafted in the first round by the Raiders in 1971. In nine seasons with the Raiders, Tatum started 106 of 120 games with 30 interceptions and helped Oakland win the 1976 Super Bowl. He played his final season with the Houston Oilers in 1980. Tatum also wrote books titled "They Still Call Me Assassin: Here We Go Again" in 1989 and "Final Confessions of an NFL Assassin" in 1996. In the latter he wrote, "I was paid to hit, the harder the better. And I hit, and I knocked people down and knocked people out. ... I understand why Darryl is considered the victim. But I'll never understand why some people look at me as the villain." Tatum was a central figure in "The Immaculate Reception" in the Raiders' 1972 playoff loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. With 22 seconds left, Tatum jarred loose a pass to Frenchy Fuqua from Terry Bradshaw, and the ball bounced off Fuqua's foot and ricocheted into the arms of Steelers running back Franco Harris. Harris never broke stride and ran 42 yards for the winning touchdown. Despite their lingering resentment, Stingley was gracious in 2003 when he learned that Tatum had diabetes and several toes amputated. "You can't, as a human being, feel happy about something like that happening to another human being," Stingley told The Boston Globe. Tatum began a charitable group to help kids with diabetes and helped raise more than $1.4 million to fight the disease in the Columbus area. "He was a good athlete and a good person," Hicks said. "He gave a lot back to the community, but he didn't want a lot said about it." Tatum grew up in Passaic, N.J. and had little interest in organized sports until high school. He grew to love football and was offered a scholarship to Ohio State. Recruited as a running back, Tatum would sneak over to the defensive side to play linebacker. In time, the Ohio State coaches _ particularly secondary coach Lou Holtz _ recognized that Tatum was a natural on defense. Tatum was a part of the "super sophs" class that led Ohio State to an unbeaten season and the national championship in 1968. He stole the headlines in the Buckeyes' showdown with No. 1 Purdue early in the season, shadowing All-American running back Leroy Keyes in Ohio State's 13-0 upset of the Boilermakers. In his three years as a starter, Tatum's teams went 27-2 and won two Big Ten titles. Each week after an Ohio State game, the coaching staff awards the "Jack Tatum hit of the week" award for the hardest tackle or block by a Buckeye. "We have lost one of our greatest Buckeyes," current Ohio State coach Jim Tressel said in a statement. "When you think of Ohio State defense, the first name that comes to mind is Jack Tatum. His loss touches every era of Ohio State players and fans." Raiders safety Michael Huff sent a message on Twitter after learning of Tatum's death: "R.I.P. Jack Tatum the assassin. One of the best safetys to ever play this game, his legacy will live forever."

Jack Hanna Fends Off Grizzly Attack

Jack Hanna repels charging grizzly in national park: July 27_A close encounter with three grizzly bears on a narrow hiking trail in Montana has made a pepper-spray believer out of Jack Hanna. The nation's favorite zookeeper still sounded shook up yesterday as he told the tale by phone in dramatic, Hanna-like detail. It started Saturday when he and his wife, Suzi, were returning from a 5-mile, late-afternoon hike to Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park on a narrow trail with sheer cliff on one side and a steep drop-off on the other. Three hikers from Minnesota were close by. They all rounded a corner of the trail and, 30 feet ahead, saw a mother grizzly bear and two large cubs heading their direction on the trail. "We thought of letting them go by, but the trail was cut into the rock and was too narrow," Hanna said. "So I said: 'Everybody talk loud and we'll back up until we can get off the trail.'" So for about five minutes _ Hanna said it seemed like 30 _ the five hikers slowly backed up as the three grizzlies continued walking up the trail toward them. Two other hikers, a man and his 10-year-old son, were coming down the trail and began backing up, too. Then Hanna saw a small rocky clearing they could back into just off the trail. "I said, 'Crawl up the hill and put your backs against the wall.'" The seven of them did, and the mother bear and one cub went by. About 15 yards farther, the trail widened and those two bears wandered away into the clearing. The second cub, however, just looked at the hikers and didn't budge from the trail. Then the cub _ Hanna estimates it weighed 125 pounds _ started to run toward the hikers. "We don't know where to go," said Hanna, the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium's director emeritus.

But Hanna had a canister of pepper spray, and he held it up as the bear rushed toward them:

1st "At about 30 feet I unload my pepper spray, and the wind takes it," he said.

2nd The bear kept coming.

3rd "Then I unload the second spray."

4th The bear kept coming.

5th "Then the third time I unload that pepper spray right in his face."

6th The bear turned around and fled.

Hanna said he's been carrying pepper spray on hikes for 15 years, but it's the first time he's used it. The incident proved to be timely. Hanna recently filmed a public-service announcement for the national parks that encourages people to carry pepper spray when they hike rather than firearms, which now are permitted in national parks. "You can't do anything with a grizzly; they can run a football field in seconds," he said. A California man and his daughter were severely mauled by a mother and two cubs in 2005 on the same trail. Hanna said park personnel fear that hikers with guns might accidentally kill someone. And he's sure he never could have averted a bear attack with a firearm. "There's no way I could hit that bear with a gun," Hanna said.

Man Guilty Of 'Evil' Crime

Texas man sentenced to 99 years in starvation case: DALLAS — A Dallas man convicted of starving three children locked in a hotel bathroom for nearly a year was sentenced to 99 years in prison Tuesday after jurors heard testimony that one child was suicidal and another preferred urinating in his hospital bed to entering a restroom. The youngest victim, a 6-year-old boy whose head barely peeked over the witness stand, told jurors he liked the hospital where he was taken after being rescued from the squalid hotel along a busy Dallas highway in July 2009. "I got to eat," he said. The jury sentenced Alfred Santiago, 38, hours after they convicted him of injury to a child and continuous sexual abuse. Prosecutors had asked for a life sentence. Santiago's attorney had asked for 25 years, the minimum allowed under the sex abuse conviction. Santiago also was fined $20,000. After the sentencing, Santiago told the judge he would appeal. "God knows I am not guilty of these charges," he said. The children were emaciated when they were found last summer. Their ribs and spines showed through flaky skin, and the oldest child, an 11-year-old girl, told authorities she had been repeatedly sexually assaulted. Several witnesses compared their appearance to Holocaust survivors. The youngest boy, then 5, weighed less than 30 pounds _ about the weight of a healthy 2-year-old. Pictures of the wasted children were pinned to the courtroom wall above the witness stand throughout the trial. During the sentencing hearing, the boy described Santiago beating him with broomsticks and belts. Nervous on the stand, the child frequently pulled the neck of his navy T-shirt over his mouth. Jurors also heard from the children's therapist, who said the oldest boy has been hospitalized three times for being suicidal. His testimony earlier in the trial was so stressful he vomited afterward. "He worried that he would have to go to hell because he could not forgive Alfredo," Dr. Ashley Lind said. Another doctor, Matthew Cox, said two of the children were terrified of the bathroom. One, who had suffered brain atrophy related to chronic starvation, preferred urinating in his hospital bed to going into the bathroom. The same child gained 22 pounds in less than two months in the hospital thanks to a healthy diet. Testifying in his own defense a day earlier, Santiago repeatedly denied sexually assaulting the girl, beating her brothers or denying the children food. He said he made them breakfast and lunch every day and it wasn't his fault the children refused to eat. Santiago also said he could not explain why he told investigators he awoke from naps to find himself having sex with the girl. He could not recall telling police that, he said. Prosecutor Eren Price told jurors in her closing argument that the case was about isolation, hopelessness, suffering, torture and starvation. "Mostly the evidence in this case has been about evil," Price said, standing over Santiago. "These kids thought they were going to die in that bathroom." Another prosecutor, Carmen White, told the jury the siblings would pray for God to rescue them. "He starved those children," White said of Santiago. "We don't let people treat animals that way." Santiago's defense attorney, Richard Carrizales, acknowledged in his closing argument that jurors "couldn't just ignore the photos" of the starving children. Carrizales blamed the children's mother, Abneris Santiago, for denying the children food and suggested the youngsters' testimony about beatings and rapes was unreliable. Each of the three children have different fathers. Alfred and Abneris Santiago, who share a last name but were not married, have a daughter who was 1 when they were arrested. She was healthy and unharmed. Abneris Santiago's trial is scheduled to begin Wednesday. The four children live together with a foster family.

A 'Situation' At Stock Exchange

Stock Market and Celebs: 1. Cast members of MTV's "Jersey Shore" participate in opening bell ceremonies of the New York Stock Exchange, joining a long line of celebrities who have done the honor - July 27, 2010
2. Meatloaf Rings The NYSE Opening Bell - June 21, 2010
3. Bullseye, Target stores' mascot dog - July 21, 2010
4. Actresses Jane Leeves,Wendie Malick, Betty White and Valerie Bertinelli - June 15, 2010
5. Actor Bryan Cranston - April 08, 2010
6. Actress Sherri Shepherd - March 01, 2010
7. Sadie, a Scottish Terrier who won Best In Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show - February 18, 2010
8. Cirie Fields, Tom Westman and Stephenie LaGrossa of "Survivor" - February 10, 2010
9. Actor Ty Burrell - February 03, 2010
10. TV personalities JoAnn Ward and Steven Ward - December 29, 2009
11. Darth Vader and Stormtroopers - December 22, 2009
12. Rapper Snoop Dogg - November 16, 2009
13. Mick Jones, left, and Kelly Hansen of the rock group Foreigner - October 21, 2009
14. Actress Elizabeth Hurley - October 13, 2009
15. Hillary Rodham Clinton - September 21, 2009
16. Actor Elijah Wood - September 18, 2009
17. The cast of "The Toxic Avenger" - August 31, 2009
18. Actor Jim Parsons - August 27, 2009
19. Actress and singer Jill Hennessy - August 26, 2009
20. TV personalities Jeff Lewis and Jenni Pulos - August 19, 2009
21. Actors Channing Tatum and Sienna Miller - August 04, 2009
22. The New York Yankees' Nick Swisher - April 22, 2009
23. Former tennis player and model Anna Kournikova - March 25, 2009
24. Sabrina Bryan, from The Cheetah Girls - January 22, 2009
25. Singer Hilary Duff - December 22, 2008
26. Musician Dee Snider - December 21, 2008
27. Sam Bradford, center, the 2008 Heisman Trophy winner - December 15, 2008
28. NASCAR star Jimmie Johnson - December 01, 2008
29. Singer Delta Goodrem - October 14, 2008
30. Olympic gold medalists Michael Phelps and Natalie Coughlin - September 09, 2008
31. U.S. Olympic track and field medal winners Walter Dix, LaShawn Merritt and Angelo Taylor - September 05, 2008
32. NEW YORK - MARCH 11: Music group The Ventures ring the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange March 11, 2008 in New York City - March 11, 2008
33. Olympic gold medalists Mark Spitz, Bob Beamon, Greg Louganis, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Bruce Jenner - October 16, 2007
34. Tiger Woods - August 28, 2007

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Give The Gift Of Laughter

The best way to cheer yourself up is to cheer up somebody else.

-Mark Twain

Huge Salaries In Poor Town

Outrage remains after CA council votes to cut pay: BELL, Calif. — The City Council of this tiny blue-collar city voted to slash its bloated salaries, but some residents suggested nothing short of a totally cleaned house would appease their anger. Under pressure from furious Bell community members, council members on Monday voted to cut their own salaries by 90 percent and two said they would not seek re-election when their terms end. Four of the five council members were getting paid nearly $100,000 for their part-time jobs. Other officials were getting paid far more and the city manager, who made nearly $800,000, has already resigned. Attorney General Jerry Brown on Monday revealed he had subpoenaed hundreds of city records. Hundreds of residents packed the community center on Monday to assail council members who listened to more than five hours of public comment. After the council announced its decision to cut its salaries, dozens of people waited for hours to vent their anger. Many demanded the council resign immediately. "I can never, ever, forgive you," an emotional Marcelino Ceja shouted at the council members, who sat grim faced through the noisy public comment. "You need to resign today." Vice Mayor Teresa Jacobo was defiant in saying she would not resign and that she would "stand by my people." "How dare you try to take a penny more from our pockets," responded Raquel McLafferty, an 11-year-resident of Bell. "Do the city a favor, we don't want you here and we are not your people." Bell's city manager, police chief and assistant city manager all resigned last week after it was revealed they were making salaries totaling $1.6 million a year. The six-figure salaries at City Hall have prompted investigations by California Attorney General Jerry Brown and the Los Angeles County district attorney. "We ask that you leave and give us our city back," said Alfredo Ruvalcaba, a 27-year-old college student. "I am here on behalf of my parents, who couldn't make it here today because they have to work to pay your salaries." Last week, Mayor Oscar Hernandez defended the salaries of the city manager and other staff as being in line with similar positions in other jurisdictions. He also noted the city had achieved 15 years of balanced budgets. Brown, a candidate for governor, said he had demanded to see employment contracts within two days to determine whether to file any charges. The grass-roots Bell Association to Stop the Abuse had threatened to recall the council members if they didn't resign or slash their own pay.

The salaries exploded into public view after a Los Angeles Times investigation, based on California Public Records Act requests, showed the city payroll was bloated with six-figure salaries:
_ Chief Administrative Officer Robert Rizzo made $787,637 a year, getting a series of raises since being hired in 1993 at $72,000. President Barack Obama makes $400,000.

_ Assistant City Manager Angela Spaccia made $376,288 a year.

_ Police Chief Randy Adams earned $457,000 _ $150,000 more than Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck.

Councilman Lorenzo Velez makes about $8,000 a year, in line with the part-time pay for council members of similar-sized cities. He urged his colleagues to reduce their salaries to that level.

Teacher Guilty In Pic Scandal

Teacher Sex Scandals: Melinda Dennehy, a former high school English teacher, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure after she e-mailed nude photos of herself to a 15-year-old student. She joins the list of teachers who found trouble after being inappropriate with students.

Swimsuit Model Or Fierce Warrior?

Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim 2011 Official Coverage - Runway Day 5: MIAMI BEACH, FL - JULY 19: A model walks the runway at the Nicolita Swimwear 2011 show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Swim 2011 Official Coverage at The Raleigh on July 19, 2010 in Miami Beach, Florida.

Gingrich Blasts Cuomo Over Proposed WTC Mosque

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich ripped State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo over the controversial plans to build a mosque near the World Trade center site. Appearing on Monday's edition of "Inside City Hall," Gingrich said the Democratic candidate for governor should investigate the funding of the project in his role as attorney general. The Republican says Cuomo ought to demand that people who want to put up the mosque explain where their $100 million is coming from. "There are over a thousand mosques in the United States. There are over a hundred mosques in New York City. I defend the right to have mosques in America. I defend the right of people to worship as they want to worship," Gingrich said. "This is a political act designed to establish a 13-story building two blocks from the World Trade Center for the purpose of saying worldwide, we're winning, the Americans are losing, and they're too dumb to even know they're in a war." Cuomo's office had no comment on Gingrich's remarks, but said in the past that they would look into any allegations of wrongdoing connected to the mosque.

New BP Head Named

Successor named to BP top job: Embattled BP CEO Tony Hayward will be replaced by American Robert Dudley.

BP replaces CEO Hayward, makes record loss: LONDON – BP's embattled Chief Executive Officer Tony Hayward will be replaced by American Robert Dudley on Oct. 1, the company said Tuesday, as it reported a record quarterly loss and set aside $32.2 billion to cover the costs of the devastating Gulf of Mexico oil spill. BP said the decision to replace Hayward, 53, with the company's first ever non-British CEO was made by mutual agreement. In a mark of faith in its outgoing leader, BP said it planned to recommend him for a non-executive board position at its Russian joint venture and will pay him 1.045 million pounds ($1.6 million), a year's salary, in lieu of notice. "The BP board is deeply saddened to lose a CEO whose success over some three years in driving the performance of the company was so widely and deservedly admired," BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg said in a statement accompanying the quarterly earnings update. Svanberg said the April 20 explosion of the Macondo well on the Deepwater Horizon platform run by BP in the Gulf of Mexico has been a "watershed incident" for the company. "BP remains a strong business with fine assets, excellent people and a vital role to play in meeting the world's energy needs," he said. "But it will be a different company going forward, requiring fresh leadership supported by robust governance and a very engaged board." Besides permanently plugging the oil leak and cleaning up the spill and the company's image, Dudley will oversee the sale of $30 billion in assets over the next 18 months to bolster the company's finances. Hayward, who has a Ph.D in geology, had been a well-regarded chief executive. But his promise when he took the job in 2007 to focus "like a laser" on safety came back to haunt him after the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig killed 11 workers and unleashed a deep-sea gusher of oil. He became the lightning rod for anti-BP feeling in the United States and didn't help matters with a series of gaffes, raising hackles by saying "I want my life back," going sailing, and what was viewed as an evasive performance before U.S. congressmen in June. In a statement on Tuesday, Hayward said it was right that BP embark on its next phase under new leadership. "The Gulf of Mexico explosion was a terrible tragedy for which — as the man in charge of BP when it happened — I will always feel a deep responsibility, regardless of where blame is ultimately found to lie," he said. On top of the payout, Hayward retains his rights to shares under a long-term performance program which could eventually be worth several million pounds if BP's share price recovers. The stock has lost around 35 percent, or $60 billion, in market value to around $116 billion since the well explosion. It was marginally higher on Tuesday, up 0.4 percent at 418.7 pence in midmorning trade on the London Stock Exchange. Hayward, who will remain on the board until Nov. 30, will also be entitled to draw an annual pension of 600,000 pounds from a pension pot valued at around 11 million pounds. Svanberg described Dudley, 54, who was thrown out of Russia after a battle with shareholders in the company's TNK-BP joint venture, as a "robust operator in the toughest circumstances." Currently BP's managing director, Dudley grew up partly in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and has so far avoided any public missteps. He spent 20 years at Amoco Corp., which merged with BP in 1998, and lost out to Hayward on the CEO slot three years ago. Dudley will be based in London when he takes up his appointment and will hand over his present duties in the United States to Lamar McKay, the chairman and president of BP America. BP said the $32.2 billion charge for the cost of the spill led it to record a loss of $17 billion for the second quarter, compared with a profit of $4.39 billion a year earlier. It is the first time in 18 years that the company has been in the red. The charge includes the $20 billion compensation fund the company set up following pressure from President Barack Obama as well as costs to date of $2.9 billion. But the company also stressed its strong underlying financial position — revenue for the quarter was up 34 percent at $75.8 billion — and Hayward said it had reached a "significant milestone" with the capping of the leaking well. Crews were restarting work to plug the leaky Gulf well after the remnants of Tropical Storm Bonnie blew through, forcing a short evacuation. The U.S. government's oil spill chief, Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said Monday that the so-called static kill — in which mud and cement are blasted in from the top of the well — should start Aug. 2. If all goes well, the final stage — in which mud and cement are blasted in from deep underground — should begin Aug. 7. BP said the bottom kill could take days or weeks, depending on how well the static kill works, meaning it will be mid-August before the well is plugged for good. Hayward said the company expects to pay the "substantial majority" of the remaining direct spill response costs by the end of the year. "Other costs are likely to be spread over a number of years, including any fines and penalties, longer-term remediation, compensation and litigation costs," Hayward said. BP said the sale of $30 billion in assets will come primarily from its $250 billion Exploration and Production portfolio and assets will be selected "on the basis that they are worth more to other companies than to BP." The company has already made a start with the $7 billion sale of gas assets in the United States, Canada and Egypt to Apache Corp. In London, Greenpeace protestors closed more than 50 service stations in a protest timed to coincide with the company's earnings update. The environmental action group is calling on Dudley to focus the company on greener and renewable sources of energy. Richard Hunter, head of U.K. Equities at Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, said that significant challenges remain for the company but it is "moving aggressively to position itself for the tough times ahead." "The triple pronged approach of increased provisions, asset sales and a new CEO should be a potent mix in forming a strong future foundation," Hunter said. "Behind the obvious headlines, the underlying trading performance was robust with a significant improvement having been made on a like for like basis." The company reported that underlying replacement cost profit — the measure most closely watched by analysts — was $5 billion for the three months between April and June when adjusted for one-off items and accounting effects. That compared favorably with a $2.9 billion profit for the second quarter of 2009. "Outside the Gulf it is very encouraging that BP's global business has delivered another strong underlying performance, which means that the company is in robust shape to meet its responsibilities in dealing with the human tragedy and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico," Hayward said. Higher prices for oil and gas made up for slightly lower output and a loss in gas marketing and trading in Exploration & Production, while Refining & Marketing reported increased profits as a result of strong performance in the fuels value chains and the lubricants and petrochemicals businesses. The company said it planned to reduce net debt to a range between $10 billion and $15 billion within the next 18 months, compared to net debt of $23 billion at the end of June, to ensure that it had the flexibility to meet its future financial obligations. Capital spending for 2010 and 2011 will be about $18 billion a year, in line with previous forecasts.

A Bold Method To Cut Doctor Bills

One bold way to lower a doctor's bill: A finance expert knocked $1,000 off a $4,000 medical bill, just by using his phone.

One Way to Lower a Doctor's Bill: In his book, "Secrets of a Stingy Scoundrel: 100 Dirty Little Money-Grubbing Secrets," Consumerist.com's contributing editor Phil Villarreal shares one way to get a lower medical bill. Last year, he was able to knock $1,000 off the $4,000 price of his daughter's birth simply by asking the hospital, obstetrician, anesthesiologist and pediatrician to each reduce their bills by 25 percent if he paid the bill in full over the phone. "It seems the medical establishment is so used to getting stiffed by patients who either declare bankruptcy or just flat-out refuse to pay, that they'll give up one in the bush for three in the hand," Mr. Villarreal wrote in his book. What was his exact script? Here it is. "Hey, my friend told me that if I offer to pay the bill in full over the phone, I get a 25 percent discount." And the response he generally received was "O.K." "It was the same conversation with the doctors as it was with the hospital. There was no negotiation whatsoever. Just standard procedure," Mr. Villarreal said by e-mail. I think I'm going to adopt Mr. Villarreal's approach when I feel a medical bill is inflated. Asking for a discount in this way over the phone seems less embarrassing and confrontational than asking the doctor in person for a discount. I have to admit I've done that successfully in the past, but now I feel slightly awkward about visiting those doctors again. No wonder other tips for haggling with a doctor also similarly recommend offering to pay a discounted amount immediately or upfront. Still, as I discussed in this recent Bucks post about punishing doctors who make you wait, whether your doctor's office will be allowed to offer you a discount generally depends on the insurance policy and the practice's philosophy, among other variables. What do you think is the best approach for getting a discount on a doctor or hospital bill? Have you ever tried Mr. Villarreal's technique and, if so, how did it go?

Palatial Mansion Crumbles

Majestic mansion crumbles as fate awaits: The sprawling, once-opulent estate of an American Gilded Age tycoon now faces a grim predicament.

Regal ruins: Palatial mansion near Philly crumbles: ELKINS PARK, Pa. – Lynnewood Hall, a century-old stunner of a building just outside Philadelphia, silently, almost invisibly, languishes 200 feet beyond a two-lane blacktop road like a crumbling little Versailles. The graceful fountain that welcomed hundreds of well-heeled visitors, President Franklin Roosevelt among them, was dismantled and sold years ago. Its once meticulously sculpted French gardens are overgrown with weeds and vines. The classical Indiana limestone facade may have lost its luster but its poise still remains — at least from the other side of rusted wrought iron gates that keep the curious at bay. Like other Gilded Age palaces of the nation's pre-Depression industrial titans, Lynnewood Hall is a relic of a bygone era facing an uncertain future. Will it befall the same fate as neighboring Whitemarsh Hall, the demolished mansion of banking magnate Edward Stotesbury? Or will it be returned to former glory, like industrialist Alfred I. duPont's former Nemours Mansion in Delaware? "It's a tragedy that people drive past Lynnewood Hall and don't know what it is, or don't even notice it's there," said Stephen J. Barron, who runs a website and Facebook group aiming to drum up interest in the mansion's plight. "It breaks my heart and it bothers me. The house is a work of art." Long before its current humble predicament, Lynnewood Hall was home to the uber-wealthy Widener family and called "the last of the American Versailles." The lord of Lynnewood Hall, Peter A.B. Widener, started out as a butcher. After making a small fortune supplying mutton to Union troops during the Civil War, he grew into a full-fledged tycoon from buying streetcar and railroad lines and investing in steel, tobacco and oil. Among the spoils was his 480-acre estate, its centerpiece the 110-room, 70,000-square-foot Georgian-style palace designed by architect Horace Trumbauer. Lynnewood Hall was completed in late 1900 and cost $8 million to build — a staggering $212 million in today's dollars. It had a ballroom that held 1,000 people, an indoor pool and squash court, a bakery and full-time upholstery and carpentry shops. The estate boasted its own power station, horse track and stables, and a 220-acre farm run by a staff of 100. French landscape architect Jacques Greber designed the formal French gardens, which were graced by his brother Henri-Louis Greber's fountain of bronze and marble statuary. "It's a great building and it has great potential for commercial use, especially for institutional use," said Mary Werner DeNadai, principal of John Milner Architects in Chadds Ford. "It was certainly built to last." Contrary to accounts describing it as largely gutted, Lynnewood Hall is in surprisingly stable condition and generally intact, said DeNadai, who got a rare look inside in 2004 at the behest of an client interested in a possible purchase. Her firm specializes in breathing new life into mothballed mansions, among them Nemours in Wilmington, Del., owned by a duPont-founded nonprofit and reopened in 2009 as a house museum after a three-year, $39 million rehab. The rough estimate six years ago for rehabbing Lynnewood Hall was $12 million, not including grounds or other structures on the estate, DeNadai said. For aging mansions without healthy endowments to keep them going, a second chance can come in the form of an upscale hotel, conference center or country club, said Jim Vaughan of the National Trust for Historic Preservation in Washington. "If the building has good bones it might make sense, but it takes a major capital investment," he said. "Coming up with a successful business plan, then finding investors to make it happen, is a real challenge with these great old mansions." He said it's also easier to come up with workable ideas for "smaller" mansions — perhaps half the size of the Wideners' former home. "It's a very wonderful property but a very difficult property in the sense of bringing it back from the edge," said David Rowland, president of the Old York Road Historical Society, who has long followed Lynnewood Hall's precarious plight. Lynnewood Hall's reversal of fortune began when P.A.B. Widener's son, Joseph, died there in 1943 and the younger generation deemed the property too large to maintain. Much of the acreage was sold to developers and the opulent furnishings were auctioned. In 1952, the Rev. Carl McIntire of Collingswood, N.J., a controversial fundamentalist preacher, bought the property for $190,000 and established a Christian seminary. As maintenance and heating costs on the past-its-prime palace skyrocketed, the Faith Theological Seminary sold Lynnewood Hall's magnificent fountain, marble walls and fireplaces and other parts of its interior to make ends meet. New York physician Richard Sei-Oung Yoon, a former student of McIntire and one-time chancellor of the cash-strapped seminary, bought its mortgage in 1993 for $1.6 million with plans of establishing his own church there. He and Cheltenham Township have been embroiled in a yearslong legal battle over Yoon's request for tax-exempt status as a religious organization, which the township has denied. Meanwhile, Yoon has paid tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes, which Rowland said are being held in escrow while the case is held up in the courts. Neither Yoon nor Cheltenham Township manager David Kraynik responded to repeated requests for comment. A caretaker lives on a 15,000-square-foot "guest house" but could not be reached. Norman J. Manohar, current president of the seminary, now headquartered in Baltimore, referred all questions to the group's attorney Herman Weinrich. He did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Jailbreaking’ IPhone Is Legal

Govt. OK's 'jailbreaking' smartphones: Smartphone owners can legally unlock their devices to run other programs or even switch carriers.

iPhone jailbreaking (and all cell phone unlocking) made legal: Owners of iPhones and other smartphones are one step closer towards taking complete control of their gadgets, thanks to a new government ruling Monday on the practice of "jailbreaking." This weekend has seen a flurry of activity about digital rights, but the biggest news dropped Monday morning, when the FCC announced that it had made the controversial practice of “jailbreaking” your iPhone — or any other cell phone — legal. Jailbreaking — the practice of unlocking a phone (and particularly an iPhone) so it can be used on another network and/or run other applications than those approved by Apple — has technically been illegal for years. Most jailbroken phones are used on the U.S. T-Mobile network or on overseas carriers, or are used to run applications that Apple refuses to sell, such as Safari ad-blocking apps, alternate keyboard layouts, or programs that change the interface to the iPhone's SMS system and the way its icons are laid out. While technically illegal, no one has been sued or prosecuted for the practice. (Apple does seriously frown on the practice, and jailbreaking your phone will still void your warranty.) It’s estimated that more than a million iPhone owners have jailbroken their handsets. Apple fought hard against the legalization, arguing that jailbreaking was a form of copyright violation. The FCC disagreed, saying that jailbreaking merely enhanced the inter-operability of the phone, and was thus legitimate under fair-use rules. The upshot is that now anyone can jailbreak or otherwise unlock any cell phone without fear of legal penalties, whether you want to install unsupported applications or switch to another cellular carrier. Cell phone companies are of course still free to make it difficult for you to do this — and your warranty will probably still be voided if you do — but at least you won’t be fined or imprisoned if you jailbreak a handset.

In addition to the jailbreaking exemption, the FCC announced a few oth er rules that have less sweeping applicability but are still significant:
• Professors, students and documentary filmmakers are now allowed, for “noncommercial” purposes, to break the copy protection measures on DVDs to be used in classroom or other not-for-profit environments. This doesn’t quite go so far as to grant you and me the right to copy a DVD so we can watch it in two rooms of the house, but it’s now only one step away.

• As was the topic in the GE ruling I wrote about, the FCC allows computer owners to bypass dongles (hardware devices used in conjunction with software to guarantee the correct owner is behind the keyboard) if they are no longer in operation and can’t be replaced. Dongles are rarities in consumer technology products now, but industrial users are probably thrilled about this, as many go missing and are now impossible to obtain.

• Finally, people are now free to circumvent protection measures on video games — but, strangely, only to investigate and correct security flaws in those games. (Another oddity: Other computer software is not part of this ruling, just video games.)

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Don’t Focus On The Negative

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

-Ambrose Redmoon

Terrifying Ordeal For Star's Wife

Athletes Held Up: 1. Stephen Jackson: Armed men broke into the home of the Charlotte Bobcats' Stephen Jackson and locked his wife in a bathroom before making off with a pistol, ruby-encrusted watch and other items. See other athletes who have been the victims of robberies.

2. Chi Chi Rodriguez: Golf legend Chi Chi Rodriguez was tied up by three intruders at his Puerto Rican resort home and stole about half a million dollars of valuables.

3. Antoine Walker: NBA player Antoine Walker was duct taped and held at gunpoint during a robbery at his Chicago home in 2007. He also lost a $55,000 Rolex during a 2000 robbery outside a nightclub.

4. Eddy Curry: In a crime suspiciously similar to the Walker home invasion, Eddy Curry was also tied up and robbed in his Chicago home in 2007.

5. CC Sabathia: While still a member of the Indians, CC Sabathia and a cousin were robbed of $44,000 in cash and jewelry at a Cleveland hotel in 2002.

6. Jerome McDougle: Former NFL draft bust Jerome McDougle was shot in the stomach during a robbery attempt in 2005.

7. Dernell Stenson: Reds prospect Dernell Stenson was murdered in 2003 during a carjacking in Arizona.

8. Chris Childs: Chris Childs of the Nets was robbed of $30,000 in cash and jewelry outside a New York nightclub in 2002.

9. Tim Carter: Giants bust Tim Carter was carjacked outside a New Jersey movie theater in 2002 and relieved of his BMW and $10,000 in cash and jewelry.

10. Sean Taylor: Redskins star Sean Taylor was shot dead in 2007 during a botched home invasion, eight days after his home had been burglarized.

11. Stephon Marbury: In 2000, Stephon Marbury, then with the Nets, had a $150,000 diamond necklace taken from him as he sat in his Bentley at a red light in New York.

12. Steve Smith: A man approached Giants star Steve Smith from behind when he came home one night in 2008, pointed a gun to his head and demanded 'everything you got'. smith lost his cash, jewelry and cell phone.

13. Dunta Robinson: NFL star Dunta Robinson was surprised by two men who broke into his home. They secured him with duct tape at gunpoint and made off with some of his jewelry.

Meet the $35 Computer

India unveils prototype of $35 tablet computer: MUMBAI, India — It looks like an iPad, only it's 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011. If the government can find a manufacturer, the Linux operating system-based computer would be the latest in a string of "world's cheapest" innovations to hit the market out of India, which is home to the 100,000 rupee ($2,127) compact Nano car, the 749 rupees ($16) water purifier and the $2,000 open-heart surgery. The tablet can be used for functions like word processing, web browsing and video-conferencing. It has a solar power option too _ important for India's energy-starved hinterlands _ though that add-on costs extra. "This is our answer to MIT's $100 computer," human resource development minister Kapil Sibal told the Economic Times when he unveiled the device Thursday. In 2005, Nicholas Negroponte _ co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab _ unveiled a prototype of a $100 laptop for children in the developing world. India rejected that as too expensive and embarked on a multiyear effort to develop a cheaper option of its own. Negroponte's laptop ended up costing about $200, but in May his nonprofit association, One Laptop Per Child, said it plans to launch a basic tablet computer for $99. Sibal turned to students and professors at India's elite technical universities to develop the $35 tablet after receiving a "lukewarm" response from private sector players. He hopes to get the cost down to $10 eventually. Mamta Varma, a ministry spokeswoman, said falling hardware costs and intelligent design make the price tag plausible. The tablet doesn't have a hard disk, but instead uses a memory card, much like a mobile phone. The tablet design cuts hardware costs, and the use of open-source software also adds to savings, she said. Varma said several global manufacturers, including at least one from Taiwan, have shown interest in making the low-cost device, but no manufacturing or distribution deals have been finalized. She declined to name any of the companies. India plans to subsidize the cost of the tablet for its students, bringing the purchase price down to around $20. "Depending on the quality of material they are using, certainly it's plausible," said Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester Research. "The question is, is it good enough for students?" Profitability is also a question for the $35 machine. Epps said government subsidies or dual marketing _ where higher-priced sales in the developed world are used to subside low-cost sales in markets like India _ could convince a manufacturer to come on board. This and similar efforts _ like the Kakai Kno and the Entourage Edge tablets _ show that there is global demand for an affordable device to trim high textbook costs, she said. If it works, Epps predicts the device could send a shiver of cost-consciousness through the industry. "It puts pressure on all device manufacturers to keep costs down and innovate," she said. The project is part of an ambitious education technology initiative by the Indian government, which also aims to bring broadband connectivity to India's 25,000 colleges and 504 universities and make study materials available online. So far nearly 8,500 colleges have been connected and nearly 500 web and video-based courses have been uploaded on YouTube and other portals, the Ministry said.

Hip-Hop's Greatest Debuts

More so than other types of music, hip-hop is a genre of debuts: At its best, the music moves quickly, and fans are constantly awaiting the next game-changer, the latest and greatest emcee or producer to create (and erase) history. We've compiled our picks for the 20 best hip-hop debuts. A quick ground rule: the debuts listed served as the artists' introduction to a larger public audience, so we're not listing albums by emcees who were members of popular hip-hop groups. Other than that, have fun with this and don't get too cross-eyed about it. Feel free to leave your comments and let us know what we missed.

20. Kool G Rap & DJ Polo, Road To The Riches - If you want a lesson on how to flip a funk sample, listen to Marley Marl's production, which smoothly traverses different rhythms and offers a history course for novices: "It's a Demo" alone deftly samples Bobby Byrd, James Brown and the Commodores. The art would disappear soon following new sampling laws, so this stands among the pinnacles of the form. Check out the title track, the fast rap workout "Men at Work" or "Trilogy of Terror." This album is a classic.
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19. Black Star, Black Star - Released in 1998, Black Star's self-titled debut was immediately heralded as a hip-hop classic, full of insightful, intelligent wordplay and deliciously mellow production. While Mos Def and Talib Kweli have both released solo LPs since, this group effort remains a favorite of critics and fans alike. If only they’d get around to releasing that sophomore disk.
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18. Goodie Mob, Soul Food - Every bit as quirky as frequent collaborators Outkast -- thanks to vocalist Cee Lo Green's tremendous contributions -- Goodie Mob always had a more political edge. Songs such as "Cell Therapy" and "Fighting" not only chronicle the struggle, but also try to illuminate the forces responsible for it. The title track, meanwhile, is a folksy and warm slice-of-Southern-life.
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17. Lupe Fiasco, Food & Liquor - Food and Liquor wraps its tales of estrangement and isolation in gorgeously addictive pop packages. "Daydreamin'" offers a bed of breathtaking, panoramic soul, and the Chi-Town rapper responds with a meditation on morality and hip-hop that is more impressionistic than pedantic. This trick is repeated again on the lonely and sublime "Hurt Me Soul." Lupe is the rare pop artist who is humanistic and honest, and Food and Liquor was the introduction of a serious new talent.
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16. Missy Elliott, Supa Dupa Fly - Missy's 1997 debut introduced the world to her unique, multi-dimensional style. Already an established producer and songwriter, on Supa Dupa Fly she shows that she can also shine as a solo artist. Features lots of Timbaland beats, numerous A-list cameos (Aaliyah, Busta, Lil' Kim), and the single "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)."
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15. LL Cool J, Radio - With his classic debut album, (and the first full-length released by Def Jam), hip-hop pioneer LL Cool J became a full-blown rap superstar. Backed by chunky '80s beats courtesy of ultra-producer Rick Rubin, Uncle L comes through with timeless mega-hits such as "I Can't Live Without My Radio" and "Rock The Bells."
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14. Ultramagnetic MC's, Critical Beatdown - This is a crucial early underground record and the first dispatch from rap's favorite extraterrestrial satirist, Kool Keith. The interplay between Keith and Ced Gee is incredible, with Keith's high-pitched squeal anchored by Ced Gee's bass. Not yet the perv he would become, Keith comes across as a spastic teenager with an active imagination. It all coalesces over Gee's production, which is a mixture of Eric B's James Brown fetishism and Prince Paul's quirky sampledelia. Nearly every song is hot, but standouts include "Funky," the title track and "Ego Trippin'."
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13. De La Soul, 3 Feet High and Rising - An inevitable development in the class history of rap, they're new wave to Public Enemy's punk, and also "pop" rather than pop, as self-consciously cute and intricate as Shoes or Let's Active. Their music is maddeningly disjunct, and a few of the 24-cuts-in-67-minutes (too long for vinyl) are self-indulgent, arch. But their music is also radically unlike any rap you or anybody else has ever heard--inspirations include the Jarmels and a learn-it-yourself French record. And for all their kiddie consciousness, junk-culture arcana, and suburban in-jokes, they're in the new tradition--you can dance to them, which counts for plenty when disjunction is your problem.
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12. Kanye West, College Dropout - Loaded with quotable verses and exceptional beats, College Dropout is one of the most anticipated debuts of 2004. Chicago emcee and Roc-A-Fella super-producer Kanye West comes through with his signature soul sampling tracks, while Jay-Z and Ludacris show up for quality cameos. Believe the hype.
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11. A Tribe Called Quest, People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm - People’s Instinctive Travels Tribe's excellent debut LP from 1990 introduced the world to one of hip-hop's most beloved crews. Smart and clever rhymes abound here, backed by production that's both mellow and undeniably catchy. Features several classic jams, such as "Bonita Applebaum" and "Footprints."
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10. Big L, Lifestyles of Da Poor & Dangerous - The debut album from Harlem's illest emcee. Big L goes all out on every track, dazzling heads with high-flying lyricism that is simultaneously brutal, hilarious, and just plain awesome. Banging beats from Lord Finesse and Diamond D seal the deal. A slept-on classic, this record is truly outstanding.
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9. Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle - After stealing the show on The Chronic, Snoop Dogg became a major superstar on the strength of this classic 1993 debut. Produced entirely by Dr. Dre, Doggystyle is one of the dopest, most influential, and just plain funkiest hip-hop albums ever made. Packed with hits, it includes "Gin and Juice," "Who Am I" and "Ain't No Fun."
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8. Eric B and Rakim, Paid In Full - When this album hit the scene in 1987, rap music would be forever changed. Rakim Allah single-handedly raised the bar for all emcees, helping hip-hop lyricism progress from simple shouted rhymes to complex, intricate street poetry. The production is equally hype, with thumping breakbeats and slick cuts galore. An undeniable masterpiece.
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7. Jay-Z, Reasonable Doubt - Upon release, Jay-Z's debut was considered solid if not revelatory. Raekwon had (re)invented gangsta rap, while Nas had redrawn the parameters of hip-hop lyricism. Jigga split the difference and threw in a something for the ladies. Scarface fantasies ("Brooklyn's Finest") are tempered by booty calls ("Ain't No N*gg*"), while coffee shop displays of technical acumen ("22 Twos") and drug land morality tales ("Can I Live") are cut with paeans to materialism ("Cashmere Dreams"). This is a well-balanced and consistent album, and though it didn't reinvent the wheel, it made it a lot smoother.
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6. Outkast, Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik - Outkast's 1994 debut introduced the world to the groundbreaking, ever-evolving duo of Big Boi and Andre. Produced by Organized Noize, the disc's original soundscapes and high-level rhymes set the songs apart from the usual southern fare of booty raps and gangsta cliches. Features their first big single, "Players Ball."
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5. Wu-Tang Clan, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) - Revolutionary '93 debut from Shaolin warriors known as the Wu. This release introduced the world to kung-fu samples, multiple aliases, and RZA's twisted genius production -- not to mention nine furiously skilled emcees. Includes "C.R.E.A.M.," "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthin Ta F Wit," "Tearz," and "Protect Ya Neck." You need this record.
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4. Notorious B.I.G., Ready To Die - Ready to Die was a line in the sand for hip-hop. Afterwards, everything was different: simply killing enemies was no longer enough, you had to blast caps while wearing Armani suits. On "Things Done Change" Biggie pours blood over those with rose-colored glasses: "Back in the day our parents used to take care of us/ Look at 'em now/ they even f*cking scared of us." He dedicates "Juicy" to those who called the cops on him. Elsewhere, we get sex raps from a 300-pound "chronic smoking, Oreo cookie eating, pickle juice drinking, chicken gristle eating" rap legend It's made palatable by Biggie's wit and endless charisma.
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3. Run-D.M.C., Run-D.M.C. - One of the most important and influential hip-hop LPs ever recorded, Run-D.M.C.'s classic 1984 debut helped spread rap music around the globe and inspired a whole new generation of artists. The reissue includes a pair of live cuts ("Sucker M.C.s," "Here We Go"), an alternate mix of "Rock Box," and "Russell and Larry Running at the Mouth."
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2. N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton - N.W.A.'s gangsta alpha revealed the underbelly of Reagan's 1980s daydream. Ice Cube's hyper-violent, gonzo street reportage was immediate, visceral and as political as anything Chuck D ever committed to wax, while Dr. Dre's tightly wound breaks provided the template for an entire generation of G-Funk trunk rattlers. Every line on this album is classic, and is arguably the most important release in hip-hop history.
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1. Nas, Illmatic - Nas captures post-crack N.Y.C. in all its ruinous glory on his landmark 1994 debut. Realizing that drugs were both empowering and destructive, his lyrics alternately embrace and reject the idea of ghetto glamour. "Life's a Bitch" is possibly the saddest hip-hop song ever recorded, while "The World Is Yours" finds optimism in the darkest urban crevices.

Wrong Move For Young NBA Star

Wrong move: Chris Paul has distinguished himself in the NBA, but he may be throwing it all away, a writer says.

Paul bends to King James’ rule: James, his business manager Maverick Carter and powerbroker William Wesley have far too much influence over Paul’s career, and they’re running it right out of the sunshine and into darkness. They’re using Paul as a commodity to elevate their clout, to show how they can take a player with no contractual leverage and muscle him out of New Orleans. What they don’t care about – and maybe don’t understand – is that Paul built such a beautiful, unique relationship with the city of New Orleans. He’s been so truly invested there, a beacon and ambassador in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Yet, the James gang see these bonds as disposable and they’re convincing Paul of it, too. In a Twitter pronouncement on Thursday, King James declared, “Best of luck to my brother [Chris Paul] … Do what’s best for You and your family.” James was referencing Paul’s half-baked trade request that’s come through Worldwide Wes. Do what’s best for your family? Here’s an idea: What Paul ought to do is run away from James, Wesley, Carter and not stop moving until he’s returned to New Orleans and reaffirmed the obligations he’s made there. No, this isn’t a championship team, but a franchise player reveals himself in good times and bad. What’s best for Paul’s family is best for everyone’s family in the NBA. It needs James to restrict the polluting onto others of his own warped value system. James plays for the Miami Heat, but somehow he wants control of transactions elsewhere, too. He wants the building of these so-called super teams to protect his own legacy, to make it look like he isn’t the only superstar searching for the easy way to championships. Wesley has been running around for months trying to orchestrate a trade for Paul, and the packages he proposes are beyond comical. He doesn’t even know half the names of players on the rosters. CAA should take a long look in the mirror, and ask itself what kind of outfit it’s turned into with Wes running basketball operations. Wes is a full-service middleman now: players, coaches and general managers. He has long orchestrated deals for players and coaches, but through CAA he’s also in the GM business now. Worldwide Wes was responsible for Oklahoma City Thunder executive Rich Cho getting hired as the Portland Trail Blazers’ GM. Now, Portland is one more franchise under the impression that Wes can broker a trade for Paul. Before New Orleans hired Dell Demps as GM, Wes was asking people: Who is that guy? Now, Wesley and CAA will try to overrun the young, inexperienced Demps and coach Monty Williams with a trade demand. CAA does have a list of preferred teams, and Demps’ first act as GM should simply be to take the list and tear it up. Paul has two years left on his contract and no leverage unless the Hornets are foolish enough to relinquish it. Paul is a first-team All-NBA talent, and you don’t trade those players. All the proposed deals for him bring back the same thing for New Orleans: far less value. Five nickels don’t add up to a quarter in basketball trades. All this saga promises to do is cast Paul as an insolent star, and James’ group as the ultimate powerbrokers. Paul doesn’t want to hear this, but they’re preying on his insecurities. They’re using him. In Paul’s earliest days with Team USA, officials preferred Deron Williams(notes) to him because they believed Williams was far more his own man. No one liked the way Paul was so eager to follow James, Carmelo Anthony(notes) and Dwyane Wade(notes). These changes haven’t come overnight with Paul, but over time. James, Carter and Wesley embarked on a long, orchestrated campaign to work Paul over, unfasten him from past loyalties and trusts, and transform him into a creation of their own. And he’s let them, for no other reason than it seems Chris Paul believes this is somehow the path that will convince people that he belongs with the sport’s biggest stars. He could’ve stayed true to himself and elevated his standing, and now they’re dragging him down with them. Everyone else embraced Paul for an All-American image, for a wholesomeness, and it feels like he’s rejected it all now. Chris Paul doesn’t need LeBron and Maverick and Wes. They need him. For their operation, Paul represents credibility. He’s always been better than this, and he needs to be again. As much as ever, the NBA needs Chris Paul to be true to his upbringing and character. Commitment always mattered to him, and it still should with the Hornets. After all this bluster comes and goes this summer, and the Hornets don’t trade him, he still has to return to play there. All his brand new business partners have made that so much harder for him. He saved the NBA in New Orleans, and now it’s time he saves something else before it’s too late. His reputation, his good name. All the advice that Chris Paul has ever needed out of LeBron James came calling in less than 140 characters on Thursday. Do what’s best for you and your family. Before it’s too late, Chris Paul needs to think for himself and respond with the best move of a brilliant young career: Turn around, go home and leave King James and his court of jesters far, far behind. Chris Paul(notes) had come into the NBA with so much of Kevin Durant’s(notes) pureness of purpose: humble, grateful, still the kid who worked summers pumping gas and changing tires at his grandfather’s gas station in North Carolina. He constructed himself a reputation of values and character, and separated himself in all the best ways. He should stay on course to be his generation’s Tim Duncan(notes), but that no longer appeals to Paul. He’s veered the wrong way, into the wrong clutches. Bad enough that LeBron James(notes) damaged his own standing in the sport this summer, he wants to take down Chris Paul with him too.