Category Archives: news

the girl who does not age.

I’m not going to comment a lot on this story because I really don’t even know what to say about it other than you MUST read this. It  is, by far, one of the craziest things I’ve ever read.  It seems like it should be science fiction.

 Brooke Greenberg, age 16, does not age.  The doctors cannot figure out why.  She has been a toddler since she was a toddler.  Here is a picture of her, at age 16, being held by her younger sister.  Her sister is 13.

 

brooke greenberg

I think the Greenbergs are a wonderful example for all of us.  They have such an inspiring outlook on life. 

CLICK TO READ THE STORY.

[Posted by Kathleen]

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grayson wynne is boy vs. wild.

I'm a fake!

I'm a fake!

Apparently shows like Discovery Channel’s “Man vs. Wild” have some value. When 9-year-old Grayson Wynne was separated from his family during a camping trip in Utah’s Ashley National Forest, he remembered the things he had seen Bear Grylls do. (That man, by the way, is the biggest fake. Not that the New York Post is gospel, but this article is worth a read: click here. Fancy resorts, Bear?  Seriously?)

Grayson ripped his yellow rain jacket in to strips and tied them to trees to leave a trail and clues. He spent the night in a small shelter he made under a fallen tree, and the next morning followed a creek in hopes of finding a lake. He was found on Sunday after surviving on his own for 18 hours. I’m impressed, little G! This story of boy vs. wild also has a warm and fuzzy ending. The first thing he said to his dad was “Happy Father’s Day”. Awwww.

[Posted by Kathleen]

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deadliest crash in d.c. metro history.

APTOPIX Metro Train Derailment

Yesterday around 5 p.m., two metros on D.C.’s red line collided, leaving seven nine people dead and over 70 injured. According to The Washington Post:

One Metro train slammed into the back of another on the Red Line at the height of the evening rush yesterday, killing at least seven people and injuring more than 70 others in the deadliest accident in Metrorail’s 33-year-history.

D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin said cadaver dogs were also being used, and the wooded areas on either side of the tracks had been thoroughly searched for any surviving or dead victims. Earlier media reports had put the death toll as high as nine. A total of 76 people were taken to hospitals for treatment of injuries that ranged from minor to critical.

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said this morning that seven people were confirmed dead in the crash, and two others remain in critical condition after being hospitalized overnight. He said rescue crews were using heavy equipment to search through the crushed rail cars for any possible remaining victims, and hoped to be able to say definitively by late afternoon whether there were additional casualties.

Perhaps most worrisome about all of this is that this exact situation was supposed to be impossible:

Metro was designed with a fail-safe computerized signal system that is supposed to prevent trains from colliding. The agency’s trains are run by onboard computers that control speed and braking. Another electronic system detects the position of trains to maintain a safe distance between them. If they get too close, the computers automatically apply the brakes, stopping the trains.

When all else fails, the operator of a Metro train is able to slam on the brakes to prevent a crash, but it seems that in this case, the operator of the train that crashed never braked.

We’ll keep you posted as more news comes out, and until then, we’ll all be thinking about those involved and their families.

UPDATE (6/24): Read more about what officials are speculating about the crash, along with some stories about victims, in this morning’s New York Times article.

UPDATE (6/25): Metro officials seem to think that a faulty circuit may have caused the crash, says The Washington Post.

[Posted by Mallory]

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jon and kate are officially dunzo.

jon_and_kate1236354668

At just 13 minutes in to the special announcement episode, watching Jon and Kate together is painful.

The kids are still incredibly adorable, as always. In this episode, they get Crooked Houses. I would have given up all of my American Girl dolls for one of these. They are amazing. I tried to go to the Web site, but I suppose everyone had that great idea. So it’s not working. Crooked Houses just got the Jon and Kate Plus 8 bump. Look at these, aren’t they just whimsically wonderful?

Kids-Crooked-HousesOddly enough, each kid was wearing one a Crooked House t-shirt. Can you believe that?! How convenient.

Okay, enough about the houses. That’s not what you care about anyway. After 35 minutes of saying how bad things are, they finally just said it. They are separating. They filed their divorce papers today. The interviews are really devastating, actually. Kate doesn’t want to be alone and she’s talking about how her children are going to be statistics with separated parents. Jon just seems lost. But the show must go on. The show will continue, but with Jon and Kate filming separate segments with the children.

No footage of them telling the children, but I think that’s for the best.

Will you keep watching? Is the charm gone?

[Posted by Kathleen]

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peta is trying to hook phish.

Perhaps not quite the image PETA was thinking of?

Perhaps not quite the image PETA wanted to conjure up?

When I think of the band Phish, I think of fun music and happy crunchy granola hippies dancing around at their seventeenth consecutive show. Apparently, when PETA thinks of Phish they think of unpleasant things… ya know, like murder. Those PETA people are such downers.

I’ve mentioned this before on the blog. PETA wants to change the name of fish (the swimmy creatures, not the band) to sea kittens. That way, people won’t want to eat them if they think they’re eating a kitten of the sea. And when I said people, what I really meant was children. PETA is trying to make sure the little kiddies feel guilty when it’s fish sticks day at school. How admirable! PETA spokeswoman Ashley Byrne used this graphic similie:

“Hooking a fish through the mouth and dragging it out of the water is really the same as hooking a dog through the mouth and dragging him behind your car.”

Well, no. But I get what she’s trying to say. So now, PETA wants Phish, the band, to change its name to Sea Kitten. Not that Sea Kitten is a bad name for a band… if you’re a nautically themed chick rock band.

Phish_foodIf the band did change its name, the world would see some serious changes. Life changing ones. Obviously, I’m talking about Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Phish Food would have to be changed to Sea Kitten Food, and that just sounds gross.

I’m sure some people will fall hook, line and sinker for this stupid publicity stunt. (Hook, line and sinker. Get it?! I’m funny!) But I just don’t take the bait. I think there are more important ways to attack animal cruelty, and PETA is wasting its time and energy. Why don’t they go after the sickos that actually kill animals with malice? Like that woman who skinned her Jack Russell Terrier last week to make a belt. Ugh. Now that makes me sick.

And what does the band have to say about all this? Nothing as of yet. But their Web site still says they are called Phish.

Thanks for the tip, Annie!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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perez tweets about will.i.am’s alleged assault.

perez

Last week, Twitter provided a forum for Iranians to speak out about what they saw as a fraudulent election. This week, Twitter allowed Perez Hilton to issue a cry for help.

According to a bunch of random celebrity sites, including the LA Times’ The Envelope, infamous celeb blogger Perez Hilton claims he was assaulted by Will.i.am at last night’s MuchMusic Video Awards in Toronto. Hilton issued this tweet after the alleged assault:

I was assaulted by Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas and his security guards. I am bleeding. Please, I need to file a police report. No joke.

I have a couple of thoughts here. 1) Perez, if this was a legitimate assault, wouldn’t it be more important to actually file said police report, rather than tweet about it? [UPDATE: According to Hilton’s video statement, linked below, he attempted to contact the police before Twittering about the incident.] 2) Will.i.am just doesn’t seem like the assaulting type. Maybe I’m biased by Will.i.am’s associations with our beloved Barry, but from my in-depth research — a history of liking his music and a perusal of his Wikipedia page — he doesn’t seem violent, nor does he seem to have a history of violence. Impressively, Will.i.am’s Wikipedia page has already been updated to include an entire separate section on the Perez Hilton assault, and that account claims that Hilton was rude to Fergie, so Will.i.am confronted him but did not hit him. Hmm.

Will.i.am responded to all of this with a video, which you can see here. (Call me a big bloggy nerd for saying this, but I find it sort of endearing that Will.i.am says “twitting” when he means “twittering” or “tweeting.” Yeah I just typed that.) Check out Hilton’s somewhat melodramatic statement about the incident here. I’m clearly leaning a little towards Will.i.am’s side here, but what are your thoughts? Can this all be blamed on a little too much booze?

UPDATE (6/25): Aaaand looks like Perez Hilton is filing a lawsuit. According to the same Yahoo! News article, Hilton (who is openly gay) called Will.i.am a “faggot” during the fight, but has since refused to apologize for his use of the term, despite requests to do so from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Not cool, Perez.

[Posted by Mallory]

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tim burton’s ‘alice in wonderland’ photos!

It doesn’t come out until 2010, but people are so excited already. Tim Burton is going to take us through his demented, but creative, looking glass and give us his take on “Alice in Wonderland”. (Even the Disney version is trippy… I can only imagine what this is going to be like.) I’m going to give you one guess as to who is playing the Mad Hatter.

Johnny Depp, of course. And if you didn’t guess that, shame on you. Helena Bonham Carter will be playing the Red Queen and Anne Hathaway is the White Queen. The role of Alice will be played by Australian Mia Wasikowska, but let’s face it– Johnny Depp will steal the show. He just plays crazy a little too well. Some publicity photos were just released today. Check these out:

johnny depp mad hatter

red queen

white queen

Intense! What are your thoughts?

[Posted by Kathleen]

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meet henry allingham, world’s oldest man.

Here he is, looking adorable and drinking a glass of the bubbly on his 113th birthday!

Henry Allingham turned 113 earlier this month, clinching the Guinness World Records title of World’s Oldest Man.  The picture is of him on his 113th birthday, celebrating with a bit of the bubbly.  Mr. Allingham, who has lived in three centuries, is also one of two surviving veterans of  World War I left in the UK.  Click here to read about his amazing life.  I like this quote:

His experiences, and the sights he saw at the third Battle of Ypres, ensured that his youthful enthusiasm was replaced by an undying passion for peace. “War’s stupid,” he told the BBC. “Nobody wins. You might as well talk first, you have to talk last anyway.”

After finding out he was the World’s Oldest Man, his caretakers said he returned to bed after breakfast.

Awww.  When I’m that age, I’ll go back to bed after breakfast too.  While he is not the oldest person to ever live, he is surely something special.  Here’s to 114, Henry!  Cheers!

[Posted by Kathleen]

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swtctw has gone global…on facebook!

Hello dear friends and readers,

We just created our Six Words fan page on Facebook! So add us! Become a fan! We’re fans of you. It’s only fair.

To do that, click HERE!

xoxo, Kathleen and Mallory

[Posted by Kathleen and Mallory]

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meester sex tape: life imitates art?

leighton-meester-photos

Oh boy, here we go.

So after many months of wondering what this whole Google Reader thing was, I decided to set up my page. For good measure, I threw in a bundle of celebrity news sites. And what a day for celebrity news! In case your Google Reader isn’t set up yet, or you don’t stalk celeb blogs, guess what?! Leighton Meester, best known as Gossip Girl‘s Blair Waldorf, has a sex tape. And it’s not with Chuck Bass. According to Perez and the Superficial and Pink is the New Blog and all of our faithful celeb bloggers, a couple-year-old sex tape of Leighton Meester is allegedly available online. My office computer is blocking most of the links, but it appears that this is pretty legit. Feel free to try to investigate a little more yourself. The Superficial has photos, and Tyler Durden’s linking to something, but I can’t even access his blog because it’s adult content. Ha.

I mean, I suppose something scandalous like this was bound to happen with someone from the GG cast. My typical frustration with stuff like this — and especially with stars who get all riled up when something scandalous is released — is, “If you are even moderately famous, why would you even consider making a sex tape of any kind? It WILL get out. So if you make one, be prepared for it to go viral. That’s just the way it works.” But with Ms. Meester, I almost feel sorry for her. She appears to have made this thing way before she was famous, and now it’s going to become this huge scandal and her grandma will think she’s a whore, or something. She couldn’t really have seen that coming. (That’s what she said?)

We here at SWTCTW still love you, B!

[Posted by Mallory]

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