Watercooler Sensation

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2008’s Top Celebrity Meltdowns

• In a year of sex scandals, girl fights, out of control guns, stealing, and stupidity, it can be hard to find the top celebrity scandals.
• Luckily for you, Fox’s Pop Tarts has compiled a list of the worst celeb meltdowns this year. [Fox]
• The winner? Obviously Amy Winehouse.
• Even in a crazy world, crack cocaine, emphysema, a messy divorce, and a public battle with the on-again, off-again Blake landed the pop diva at the top of both the Grammys and the Celebrity Meltdown list.
• A close second was Plaxico Burress, a walking (or stumbling) lesson for better gun safety.
• The NFL star took a gun into a NYC club and accidentally shot himself in the leg. Yea, that’s right— shot HIMSELF in the leg.
• He faces two counts of illegal weapon possession, three years behind bars, and a lifetime of mocking.
• Third place goes to the cheating pols, Eliot Spitzer and Tim Mahoney.
• You know the details, and we’re not the National Enquirer, but suffice to say, Ashley Dupre has been the news story that just won’t go away.
• Even more fun than political sex scandals was the admission that actor David Duchovny was in rehab for a sex addiction.
• “Truth is stranger than fiction and David Duchovny revealed similarities to his to his TV role as sex-obsessed writer Hank Moody in Showtime’s Californication when he admitted to sex addiction.  Just like his TV role, Duchovny engaged in self-destructive behavior. The irony is that Duchovny is back for a third season playing Hank Moody in Showtime’s Californication and this could just reignite his sex-addiction.”
• Next in line is the Hogan family. First the 17 year old, Nick, was sentenced to 8 months in jail for a car accident.
• Then Hulk’s wife Linda filed for divorce and started dating a teenager.
• Speaking of dating, you really can’t forget Anne Hathaway’s infamous ex-boyfriend Raffaello Follieri, known for money laundering and fraud.
• Then the trio of stars got in fights, capturing the public imagination and some jail time.
• Josh Brolin of W got arrested for a bar fight, Christian Bale assaulted his mother and sister, and Kayne West had a scuffle with a photographer.
• Last but not least, Heather Locklear with attempted suicide, problems with anxiety and depression, a DUI, and a stint in rehab.

Unlike last year, the pop starlets were relatively quiet as the boys of Tinseltown showed that they were born to be wild.

Adam Finally At Rest

• Cops in Florida closed the Adam Walsh case yesterday, naming drifter Ottis Toole as the little boy’s murderer. [ABC News]
• In 1981, 6-year-old Adam disappeared from a shopping mall in Florida. His head washed up on a shore near Vero Beach two weeks later. There were very few clues. [NYT]
• Adam’s distraught father, a mid-level marketing exec, channeled his frustration and rage into becoming the nation’s top advocate for missing children. John Walsh formed the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center and co-founded the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. He also created the now-iconic television show “America’s Most Wanted.”
• An emotional John Walsh yesterday: “For 27 years we’ve been asking who could take a six-year-old boy and murder him and decapitate him? Who? We needed to know. And today we know. The not knowing has been a torture but that journey is over.”
• Police yesterday said there was a great deal circumstantial evidence against Toole, who died in prison in 1996.
• Toole twice before confessed to the murder of young Adam but then recounted. He also confessed to a variety of other murders; in many cases, his confessions turned out to be false.
• Since its creation in 1984, Walsh’s foundations have “assisted law enforcement with more than 148,160 missing child cases, resulting in the recovery of more than 132,300 children.”

The made-for-TV movie about the abduction (starring Jo-Beth Williams as Mrs Walsh) haunted our dreams well beyond 1984.

You May Be Freezing, But The Earth Is On Fire

• According to the World Meterological Organization (WMO), this year will be written in history as the coolest year since 1997, but still the tenth hottest in a temperature record dating back 150 years. [Reuters]
• Global mean temperature for 2008: 57.7 degrees Fahrenheit, 14.3 degrees Celsius.
• So what equates to these warmer temperatures? Experts believe that human influence, particularly emission of greenhouse gases, has greatly increased the chance of having such warm years.
• “Without human influence on climate change we would be more than 50 times less likely of seeing a year as warm as 2008,” said one expert.
• Global temperatures vary annually according to natural cycles, such as shifting ocean currents, and scientists say dips do not undermine the case that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are causing long-term global warming.
• Freezing air continued to cover much of the nation Tuesday, making roads hazardous in Texas and slowing recovery from blackouts in New England, due to an icestorm. [USA Today]
• The cold wave and storms have caused at least 14 deaths. An avalanche in Colorado killed a Ski Patrol member, and exposure probably killed an 87-year-old man found outside his Montana nursing home.
• Chillier weather this year is partly due to a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino.
• The 10 warmest years measured since records began in 1850 have occurred since 1997, with global temperatures for 2000-2008 standing at almost 0.2 degrees Celsius above the average for the decade 1990-1999.

So, humans we must do our part to stop global warming—before we become a scene in “The Day The Earth Stood Still.”

By the Numbers

It’s no surprise that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been incredibly costly, and that a majority of Americans support getting troops out within the next two years. Let’s take a look at the numbers. [Reuters]

$904 BILLION

Cost of U.S. military operations since 2001

$1.7 TRILLION

Estimated cost of U.S. military operations from 2001 to 2018.

$687 BILLION

Price of just the Iraq conflict, more expensive than any war except World War II.

$184 BILLION

Spending in Afghanistan.

50%

The Iraq and Afghanistan wars eclipse the cost of Vietnam by this much.

$808 BILLION

Amount the Pentagon has recieved from Congress for the Bush Adminstration’s Global War on Terror (2001-Sept 2008)

$416 BILLION- $817 BILLION

Likely cost to U.S. taxpayers over the next decade, even with significant troop cuts.

70 PERCENT

Americans who believe that President Elect Barack Obama should fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq within 16 months

Celebrities: Unfiltered

“Chicago has had a history of bizarre politics that we thought we had moved beyond with Obama and with [Mayor Richard] Daley. And I think that it’s a great city and it’s a great place and I hope that we don’t get judged based on that. We’re hoping for the Olympics and I don’t want anything to blow the chances of that.”

—- Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz on Chicago politics. [Time]

Speed Round

NO LONGER A STAR

They may have been two of the biggest teen stars of the 90s, but Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt’s new cartoon movie “Delgo” (have you even heard of it) goes down in the history books as the poorest opening weekend ever. The movie only made $511,920, though it was showing in over 2,000 screenings across America. [E! Online]

SHE’S NOT YOUR AVERAGE GAL

“I say what I think. I’m a real person, not some manufactured pop tart who’s afraid to step out of the hotel room. I am flawed. I swear, I have the occasional cocktail, I pick my nose and I fart. I’m not running for any presidential campaign at the moment. I’m a sassy girl."—Katy Perry. How...nice. [Perez Hilton]

MIAMI’S THE PLACE TO BE

Forget the Big Apple. When it comes to ringing in the New Year, it seems celebs are now turning to Miami, where the likes of Lindsay Lohan, P Diddy and Maroon 5 will all host parties in the city to bring in 2009. [USA Today]

DID ANYONE HEAR HER FIRST ALBUM?

Hey, it’s always important you stick with what you good at. And that goes for you Mrs. Scarlett Johnansson, who decided that she was going to make a second record (as if her first one was a hit). Her debut disc, comprising 10 Tom Waits covers and one original tune, “Song for Jo,” received mixed reviews when it was released. [People]

JUST SAY NO TO WOW

Be careful what you mention in a job interview. One job hunter reports the following story: “He replied that employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players. He said there is a belief that WoW players cannot give 100% because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, etc.” You heard him kids— just say no to WoW! [Kotaku]

SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

Did you watch the Giants-Cowboys game this past Sunday? Well, you weren’t the only one. In fact, the game set a record viewership for Sunday night football with 23.1 million viewers. [NBC]

SUPERPOKED

After trying phone, email, and their front door, a court in Australia has allowed loan collectors to use Facebook to serve official documents to a couple notifying them that they have lost their house through default. [MSNBC]

TALK ABOUT A “DEAD ZONE”

“It seems that everyone under 40 who dies takes their cell phone with them,” says Noelle Potvin, family service counselor for Hollywood Forever, a funeral home and cemetery in Hollywood, Calif. “It’s a trend with BlackBerrys, too. We even had one guy who was buried with his Game Boy.” Creepy. [MSNBC]

TWO GREAT TASTES...

...that taste great together! Oprah Winfrey just inked a three-year production deal with It’s-Not-Television-It’s-HBO to develop new shows for the network. [NY Times]

BRING ON THE BREAD

Bad News: According to new research, no-carb diets may impair your brain, leaving you “fuzzy-headed” and with memory problems. Good News: Maybe you’ll forget how much you looooove toast? [CBS News]

DANGER

The FDA is issuing a warning for drugs used by millions of patients to control their epilepsy. Twenty-one different medications, including GlaxoSmithKline’s Lamictal, Johnson & Johnson’s Topamax and Pfizer’s Lyrica, will now come with a warning that taking that drug may increase suicidal tendencies. [MSNBC]

MISSOURI

I can’t believe it’s not legal! The state of Missouri is hard at work, trying to dump an old law banning the sale of yellow margarine. Although the state hasn’t enforced the thing in years, “yellow margarine dealers” face six months in jail and a $500 fine. It’s okay, Safeway, we’ll come visit you in the slammer. [Fox News]

PARENTS OF THE YEAR

Okay, here’s the deal. If you’re going to name your kid Adolf Hitler, you’re going to have to understand when the local grocery store refuses to put your little snowflake’s name on a birthday cake. (And forget about finding that personalized license plate for his dirt bike!) [MSNBC]

HOW SANTA DOES IT

“We believe that he uses nanotechnology to grow the presents under the tree and really, what he’s done, is he’s figured out how to turn what we call irreversible thermo-dynamic properties into reversible ones and so he really starts with soot, candy, other types of natural materials, he puts them under the tree and he actually grows them in a reverse process to create the presents, wrapping and all.” — North Carolina State University science professor Larry Silverberg explains how Santa does it all. Uh, yeah....we still don’t understand, but would you tell him we’d like a Blu-Ray? [Reuters]