Mark Madoff

NEW YORK — The eldest son of disgraced financier Bernard Madoff hanged himself by a dog leash in his apartment Saturday after two years of "unrelenting pressure" following his father's arrest in a multibillion-dollar fraud that enveloped the entire family, law enforcement officials and a family attorney said.

Mark Madoff was found hanging from a ceiling pipe in the living room of his SoHo loft apartment on Saturday, the second anniversary of Madoff's arrest in a multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme that swindled thousands of investors of their life savings, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. His 2-year-old son was sleeping in the next bedroom, the officials said.
Mark Madoff, who reported his father to authorities the day after he confessed his fraud to them, has never been criminally charged in the investigation that has snared a half-dozen Madoff employees. He and his brother Andrew have said they were unaware of their father's crimes. But they have been remained under investigation and been named in multiple investor lawsuits.

Mark Madoff's lawyer, Martin Flumenbaum, said the 46-year-old had taken his own life Saturday.


The law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about the death, said that Mark Madoff's wife Stephanie, who is in Florida with another son, became concerned about her husband after he sent an e-mail to her Friday night or early Saturday morning that someone should check on the 2-year-old child with him.
She asked her father to check on the home, where he found Madoff's body; the child was sleeping in a bedroom unharmed. A dog was also found in the apartment, the officials said.
Bernard Madoff, 72, swindled a long list of investors out of billions of dollars. He admitted that he ran his scheme for at least two decades, cheating thousands of individuals, charities, celebrities and institutional investors. Losses are estimated at around $20 billion, making it the biggest investment fraud in U.S. history.
He was arrested on Dec. 11, 2008, after confessing his crimes to his family.

This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy.

video game awards 2010

Video Game Awards 2010.

he VGA 2101 Video Game Awards will air tonight at 8pm ET on Spike. The show will be hosted by Neil Patrick Harris.
Nominees for Game of the Year are: Call of Duty Black Ops, God of War III, Halo Reach, Mass Effect 2, and Red Dead Redemption.
Because my children are still young, we tend to be in the sports or cartoon stage of video games. The nominees for Best Wii Game are more our speed: Donkey Kong Country Returns, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Metroid: Other M, and Super Mario Galaxy 2.
You can also see what video games will be hot in the next year, with the category of Most Anticipated Video Game: Batman: Arkham City, Bioshock: Infinite, Gears of War 3, and Portal 2.
You can tune in to watch the winners in the more than 20 categories. Some of the games may not be appropriate for small children, so exercise caution if you are going to let your children watch the awards.

Do you play video games with your children?
Do they have a favorite?
Do you have a favorite video game that you think should have been nominated?

Now, enjoy playing video games and see the beauty of gaming.

army navy game

Army Navy Game.

It doesn't matter if you are conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican, male or female. Everyone I know believes in supporting and praising our brave troops. One can disagree with war policy but still appreciate the sacrifices our soldiers and their families make for our country.
My father is an ex-Marine who served in Iwo Jima during World War II. I feel we Americans can never repay him and his generation of war heroes for what they have done, not just for this nation, but the world.

Having seen war first-hand, my dad is also a pacifist. But that doesn't mean he can't accept the thankfulness of a new generation of Americans. He sports his Iwo Jima Marine cap with pride. Whenever he wears it in public, people come up to him to show their appreciation, at times even offering to buy his dinner.


This mutual admiration for our Armed Forces is one of the reasons that the Army-Navy game, which will be played Saturday (2:30 p.m.) at Lincoln Financial Field -- home of the Philadelphia Eagles -- is an event that transcends politics and sports. As a sporting event, it has lost some of its athletic significance through its 110 years. There was a time (in 1926, 1944, 1945, and 1963) when the game actually had national championship implications. However, since then -- as top level college football has developed into a training ground for the NFL -- military commitment, high academic entrance requirements, and height and weight limits have reduced the overall competitiveness of both academies.
So sports-wise, it's not the Super Bowl or NCAA championship or even the level of some of the college bowls. But as a tradition and century-old rivalry, no event can match it. Navy leads the series 54-49-7. One of the great appeals of the game may be that few, if any, of the participants will ever play in the NFL (Roger Staubach, Phil McConkey, and Napoleon McCallum being notable exceptions), hence they are playing solely for the love of the game (and the rivalry and the Thompson Cup, named after its donor, Robert M. Thompson).

There is also the pomp and circumstance. Journalist Joseph P. Owens of the ExpressTimes wrote of the 2009 Army-Navy contest at Lincoln Financial Field: "The game was entertaining, but the memories are made in all the pageantry and festivities before the game." Last year's event featured the Navy Leap Frogs parachuting into the stadium. Navy won, 17-3.
Usually, high ranking officers such as the Secretary of Defense (Robert Gates in 2009) and even the Commander in Chief attend. In fact, the contest has been nicknamed the "President's Game." The tradition of presidents attending began in 1901 with Theodore Roosevelt. Former Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all have presided over the event. Ironically, Dwight G. Eisenhower, the only U.S. president to play in the game (Eisenhower played for the Army Cadets in a 6-0 loss in 1912), and Jimmy Carter, the only other U.S. President to go to one of the academies (USNA), never attended the competition as president.
Regarding Presidential visits, the most emotional games played may have been in 1963 and 2001. President John F. Kennedy was a Navy hero in WWII and he attended in 1961 and 1962, initiating the practice of having the Commander in Chief do the pre-game coin toss. He was assassinated on November 22, 1963, eight days before he was supposed to attend the Army-Navy event.

Alistair Overeem

Alistair Overeem.

There hasn’t been one before him and it may be a while before there’s another like him, but Alistair Overeem became the first MMA champion to also be crowned the K-1 World Grand Prix champion, after he defeated fellow Dutchman Peter Aerts to win the title in Japan.
Overeem said several times this year that he wanted to take K-1 seriously, which for MMA fans drew him away from that sport, but it looks like his plan paid off with three consecutive victories, the final being the TKO win over Peter Aerts.

Kelly Osbourne

Kelly Osbourne.

The "Fashion Police" star finally blew the whistle on her own two feet. The "Dancing With the Stars" alum will undergo surgery on both feet that will leave her unable to walk – much less dance – for months afterwards. Osbourne says "DWTS" didn't cause the problems, but sped up the need for surgery.

Related story:
We'll get to Kelly Osbourne's scary sounding surgery in a second, but first let's talk fashion!

She is thisclose to finally signing a deal to design her own clothing collection. "I've had an offer from an amazing clothing line that I would be so over the moon to work with them," she says. "I can't say which one just yet, but it's looking really good."

Osbourne promises whatever she does will be affordable.

"It's important to me not to make clothes which I call 'untouchable' clothing," she said. "I don't want it to be clothes that only rich people could buy."

Osbourne and a friend launched a line, Stiletto Killers, in 2004 but it closed within a couple of years.

New business isn't the only pressing matter on Osbourne's mind. She has to have surgery on not one, but both of her feet. She had foot problems before Dancing With the Stars, but her stint on the show "made it worse."

"It was going to happen but [Dancing With the Stars] kicked it up about 10 years," she said. "They have to break bones in my feet and reset them. I've put it off because I've not been ready to not walk for a month."

Yikes.

Miley Cyrus Bong Video

Miley Cyrus Bong Video.

This oughta get the blogosphere chatting about Miley Cyrus again. TMZ.com has gotten it’s Hot Little Hands on cellphone video footage of the scandal-prone singer-actress smoking a legal substance out of a bong, cursing, and laughing uncontrollably while a friend records the whole scene.

Oh Miley, you make it so easy to make fun of you!

Miles turned 18 just last month, but she’s already five minutes away from a sex tape and her first trip to rehab. In the video obtained by TMZ, Cyrus is taped “tripping” at a belated birthday party at her Los Angeles home just five days after her 18th birthday. She can be seen smoking the herb salvia through a bong. Salvia, which has psychedelic qualities, is legal in California. It is often compared to the effects which a user gets from LSD. LSD, however, is man-made, whereas salvia, like marijuana, grows naturally. Both drugs contain salvinorin A.

We know that this probably became an age-old question after her umpteenth nearly-nude picture scandal, but “What the Hell Happened to Miley Cyrus?!” Once a cute Disney star with a famous dad, Miley is now a sexually charged vamp, who has completely transformed herself in a few short years. From accusations of racism to pause-worthy lapdances and barely-there clothing, Miley has gone the way of Britney Spears — and it could get worse. 

Christina Aguilera Racy Photos

Christina Aguilera Racy Photos.

Christina Aguilera’s racy photos were just released on the internet after a hacker got into the personal account of Christina Aguilera’s personal stylist. The Christina Aguilera leaked photos are causing quite a stir, and a big question is why Christina Aguilera’s stylist had the racy pictures in the first place.

A statement made by Christina Aguilera’s rep said that the racy photos were, “taken in the privacy of Ms. Aguilera’s home and were used only in a personal exchange between the star and her stylist.”
Considering that Christina Aguilera was still married to husband Jordan Bratman when the pictures were taken, it definitely makes us wonder about how involved her relationship with her personal stylist was. Why would the stylist have semi-nude photos of her?
What do you think about Christina Aguilera’s racy photos?

Elizabeth Edwards Death

Elizabeth Edwards Death.

Elizabeth Edwards breathed her last, succumbing to metastatic breast cancer on Tuesday, December 7, 2010, at home in Chapel Hill, surrounded by friends and family.




It was not more than a day that the family of Elizabeth Edwards, announced that that the doctors have advised to give up treatment.
 
Elizabeth Edwards began her career as a law clerk for a Federal Juudge and moved on to take up the role as an associate at the law firm of Harwell Barr Martin & Sloan in 1978. In 1981 she worked in the Office of the Attorney General, and at the law firm Merriman, Nicholls, and Crampton. She dropped her legal role that she played after the sudden demise of her son and gave up her maiden name.




The death of her son led to the emergence of 'Wade Edwards Foundation', aimed at aiding high school children. She then took up the role of an adjunct instructor at the University of North Carolina School of Law and parallely worked as a substitute teacher in the Wake County Public Schools.



Cancer was but yet another battle that she had to combat while she had suffered the death of her son Wade Edwards, who was killed in a Jeep crash and the infidelity of her husband, who publicly confessed about fathering a child with another woman. This marked the end of her marital relationship, filing for a divorce, which required a compulsory separation for a year.

WASHINGTON -- Elizabeth Edwards, who closely advised her husband in two bids for the presidency and advocated for health care even as her marriage publicly crumbled, died Tuesday after a six-year struggle with cancer. She was 61.


She died at her North Carolina home surrounded by her three children, siblings, friends and her estranged husband, John, the family said.

Bushkill Park

Bushkill Park.

Things didn’t look that rosy for Bushkill Park this Summer, when owners Sammy Baurkot and Neal Fehnel had to put on hold their project of reviving the park because of lack of funds.
In 2004, when , Hurricane Ivan struck, the old amusement park in Forks Township was flooded. Its iconic Haunted Pretzel ride has been completely destroyed, and many of its other rides suffered irreparable damages. So the park closed, and ulterior attempts to reopen it were unsuccessful: poor management being one of the main reasons.
When Walt Reis and Frank Clever reopened the park in 2006, without its Haunted Pretzel, Bumper Cars and The Whip rides, the number of visitors during the season was way below expectations. Debt closed the park down completely, and vandalism destroyed its remaining attractions, including “Bar’l of Fun” one of America’s oldest fun-houses.

But things could take a better turn for Bushkill Park. The venue was recently visited by Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, the stars of American Pickers, a documentary reality television series on History Channel, that focuses more on antiques and collectibles. Wolfe and Fritz explore people’s homes, barns, sheds, and other outbuildings in search for other peoples’ “junk” – in many cases valuable collectibles. The two run a home-business, Antique Archaeology, in Le Claire, Iowa. The show on History Channel, which debuted January 18, 2010, has made a huge difference in their business, making Antique Archaeology an internationally recognized brand. Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz are also synonymous with their business. Their interest for any random venue in the world can instantly capture media and public attention. This is what happened yesterday, after the third season of American Pickers debuted with A Banner Pick, featuring the Bushkill Park in Easton, and some of its vintage sideshow banners.
Fritz and Wolfe paid $700 for these, a sweet bargain, if you consider their real value. The banners, made by the O. Henry Tent & Awning Co., were appraised at $5,000 to $6,000 each. The appraiser said that they were the work of sideshow sign artist Fred Johnson, and to Fritz and Wolfe’s delight, the signs sold for $10,000 at an online auction. The two pickers went back to Bushkill Park and gave Neal Fehnel $5000 from the win. You can only imagine the park owner’s joy – a hope for the park’s future: