I, Elizabeth: Elizabeth Taylor Jewelry Auction Brings in Record Amount

"I may have only played Cleopatra in a movie, but my life was just as spectacular and fiery..."

Christie's Auction House in New York City was the location for one of the most sought-after and anticipated auctions in memory... the fabulous jewelry collection of the superstar film and stage actress Elizabeth Taylor.

The beautiful Cat on a Hot Tin Roof star died earlier this year at the age of 79. Over the years, Taylor had collected a stunning array of jewelry that would even give Great Britain's Royal House of Windsor's Crown Jewels a run for its money. The eight-times married actress possessed two of the most coveted items of jewelry in the world, the Krupp diamond, an incredible 33.19 carat ring that was given to her by actor Richard Burton, as well as the La Peregrina - an early 16th century pearl, ruby and diamond necklace by Cartier, also a gift from Burton, who Taylor married, twice. The necklace was expected to bring in around $3 million, but sold for an astonishing $11 million. The Krupp diamond ring fetched a staggering $8,818,500. 


A large collection of the always-fashionable Taylor's designer haute couture gowns and dresses, many worn in films or to exclusive movie premieres, was also on display. All-in-all, the auction broke all records for a private collection, bringing in a beyond-belief $150 million, with a majority of the proceeds going to a cause close to her heart, the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, for which the star helped millions of people around the world suffering from the disease.

Taylor's LaPeregrina pearl, ruby and diamond necklace sold for $11 million at Christie's Auction House in New York City.

Drawn This Way: Tony Bennett's Sketch of Lady GaGa to Sell for Top $$$

"I'm not bad. I'm just drawn this way. By Tony Bennett, no less..."

Lady GaGa might be quoting Jessica Rabbit's classic line in the cartoon Who Framed Roger Rabbit? "I'm not bad. I'm just drawn this way," after the legendary crooner Tony Bennett sketched a nude drawing of the superstar singer, which is now for sale on eBay!

The 85-year-old "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" singer is also a highly talented and successful artist as well as an avid art collector, with a collection worth millions of dollars. The unlikely duo met when Bennett filmed a cameo appearance on Lady GaGa's recent Thanksgiving Day special that aired on CBS. The two recorded a rendition of the standard "The Lady Is a Tramp", made popular by both Bennett and Frank Sinatra. GaGa (real name Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta), 25, spoke recently about posing in the nude for Bennett. "I walked in and said "Well Tony here we are," and I dropped my robe and I got into position. I felt shy and thought “It’s Tony Bennett, why am I naked?"

The starting bid for the original charcoal etching starts at $5000 on online auction site eBay. Also included in the package is a photograph taken by the famed fashion photographer Annie Leibovitz. All proceeds from the sale will go to Exploring the Arts, a nonprofit organization co-founded by Bennett and his wife Susan Benedetto, which strengthens the role of the arts in public high school education.  Money raised will also benefit Lady Gaga's youth support charity the Born This Way Foundation.

The auction closes on Monday, December 19.

The Insanity Virus Spreads: Crazed Gunman Kills Six, Injures Hundreds in Belgian Mall Attack

Christmas shoppers flee for their lives in Liege, Belgium

The Insanity Virus that continues to spread unabated throughout the world has claimed more victims, this time in the once-tranquil and peaceful city of Liege, Belgium.

A man, identified as  career criminal Nordine Amrani, 33, killed six people and left at least 123 people injured when he opened fire on shoppers at a market in the city of Liege. The rogue gunman lobbed hand grenades and used a pistol and a rifle and shot indiscriminately into the popular market, crowded with Christmas shoppers as well as tourists. 

The dead included an 18-month old girl who lost her fight for survival at a hospital. Other victims included a 15-year-old boy, a 17-year-old girl, a 20-year-old man and a 75-year-old woman were confirmed as the other victims of the horrific attack. 


Belgian police confirmed that the attacker was a convicted criminal and sex offender who had only recently been released from prison. Thousands of shoppers fled for their lives carrying shopping bags full of merchandise as the crazed gunman started his rampage, as police and ambulances descended onto the crowded area. 

Reports from the scene said Amrani used an FN FAL automatic rifle, a Belgian made rifle capable of firing 700 rounds a minute, a pistol and threw three grenades in the terrifying attack. The attacker was killed at the scene, but it is unclear at present if he committed suicide or was shot by police officers responding to the emergency. 

Police arrived on the scene quickly and sealed off the square. TV images showed blood splattered across the cobblestones of the square. Place Saint-Lambert is a busy crossroads. Every day 1,800 buses serve the square, which leads to downtown shopping streets. The Place Saint-Lambert and the nearby Place du Marche host Liege's annual Christmas market and attracts some 1.5 million visitors a year.

This Is Only a Test II: Verizon Apologizes After Mass Civil Alert Warning Sent to Subscribers

"This is not a test...wait a minute, this IS only a test..."

Telephone service carrier Verizon has issued an apology after a mass text alert warning people living in New Jersey of a "life-threatening civil emergency" was sent out to thousands of people...without informing them it was "only a test".

The text urged people to "take immediate shelter" before 1:24 PM and was sent out an hour before the "take cover" deadline. The text was sent to thousands of subscribers in a four-county region of New Jersey. The ominous message caused thousands to contact their local authorities, who were unaware of any emergency or national threat to lives or homeland security. 


Many people were in a state of panic, as they contacted relatives to warn them of the non-existent threat. Approximately two hours after the text went out, Verizon sent out a second text, assuring them that it was only a test and apologizing for causing any confusion or concern.


Company spokesman David Samberg said: "This test message was not clearly identified as a test.
We apologize for any inconvenience or concern this message may have caused." Local 911 emergency services say they handled a high volume of calls shortly after the text message was issued, as concerned citizens tried to find out exactly what type of dangerous threat they were facing. 

The New Jersey Office of Homeland Security later issued a special statement on Twitter reassuring citizens of the Eastern Seaboard state that there was no actual emergency.

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter: Norwegian Butter Shortage Pushes Cost to $400 a Lb.

Gingerbread men might be a little lonely this year in Norway, as a shortage of butter has increased the price of the kitchen staple to an astonishing $400 a pound! The cooking necessity is being traded on the Internet like stock in Apple!

The shortage creates a serious challenge for Norwegians who are trying to finish their traditional Christmas baking, a task which usually requires them to make at least seven different kinds of cookies and yummy treats.

The shortage has been blamed on an extremely rainy summer that cut into feed production and therefore dairy output, but also the popularity of a fad, low-carbohydrate, fat-rich diet that has sent demand for butter soaring in the wealthy Scandinavian nation.

The price for butter has jumped so much, it's even being illegally smuggled! On Friday, customs officers stopped a Russian citizen at the Norwegian-Swedish border and seized 200 pounds of rich, creamery butter stashed in his car.

 God Jul, Norway...go easy on the cookies!

The Grinch of Pyongyang: North Korea Threatens to Shoot Down Christmas Tree Tower

"Look everybody, it's the Star of Bethlehem! Wait, that's a rocket from the North! Ruuunnn!"

The Christmas Grinch has been found this year, and he lives in Pyongyang, North Korea!

The atheist rogue nation of North Korea has threatened to shoot out the lights of a giant Christmas tree-shaped tower that neighbor South Korea plans to illuminate near the tense militarized border between the two countries!  South Korea plans to turn on about 100,000 lights on the 100 foot-tall steel tower in the shape of a Christmas tree at the top of Aegibong Hill for a second year, located some two miles from the border with North Korea. 

Government officials in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, say that switching on the Christmas lights is an act of sheer propaganda because the twinkling beacons of hope will be visible with the naked eye from the major northern border city of Kaesong.  North Korea, ruled beneath the crushing dictatorship of mini-whack job Kim Jong Il,  believes the lights on the border of prosperous South Korea will be viewed by North Koreans as a sign of affluence of the South and will weaken the regime’s ideological control of its people, who are currently suffering through one of the worst famines in decades.          

So, the psychos of Pyongyang would shoot down a Christmas tree tower, but would let this hideous eyesore of a skyscraper, the decades-unfinished Pyongyang Hotel, stand?

"North Korea: Come for the charm, stay for the death sentence."

 

Girls (Panic) on Film: Duran Duran Return with Controversial Supermodel Video

"Trust us...we bagged a lot of babes with this look!"

Harkening back to their heyday in the super-glamorous 1980s, enduring rock band Duran Duran have returned to form in a hot new video featuring a host of 90s supermodels!

The English band, who scored Number One after Number One hit in the 80s and 90s, were also in the vanguard of groups who became popular by making sensuous and sexy videos with heavy rotation on a new cable music channel called MTV. Often filming in exotic locations such as Sri Lanka or Paris, the group topped the charts with songs like "Hungry Like the Wolf" and "Is There Something I Should Know". One of their very first videos for the song "Girls on Film" featured topless models and was banned from airplay on the burgeoning MTV network.

Fast forward some thirty years, and the group's latest song "Girl Panic" features a bevy of former supermodels including Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Helena Christensen, and Eva Herzigova (Hey, didn't all these ladies show up in George Michael's "Freedom 1990" video?). The beauties star as female versions of the male band-members, and the spicy video also features some Girl-on-Girl make-out action! Even band member Simon LeBon's model wife Yasmin makes an appearance. Naturally, this has caused both MTV and VH-1 to ban the video. (We've come a long way from 1981, haven't we, baby?)

You can check the super-sexy video out on YouTube below:

Cry Havoc: Little Boy Destroys Kitchen With Dog Food

The latest item the Dept. of Homeland Security has defined as a weapon of mass destruction...

When you select a name such as Havoc for your son, you're pretty much setting him up for a lifetime of precocious disasters...

Case in point, a hapless father comes upon his son merrily wreaking Havoc on the family's kitchen using a butt-load of Kibble & Bits as a weapon of mass destruction! Seems the tyke thought that family pet Ryder (does the boy have a dog name and the dog have a boy name, or is it just me?) needed a bit of extra nourishment, so he helpfully emptied a container of dry dog food all over the kitchen floor.

We have to hand it to dear old Dad, as he took the whole mess with a sense of humor (obviously, he's had lots of practice dealing with similar predicaments). The dad's YouTube name is Life with Havoc... we sense a nationally-syndicated comic strip by that name in the future featuring the adorable toddler with the destructive name...

Rattled: Powerful Earthquake Strikes Mexico, Killing Two

A powerful earthquake measuring 6.5 on the Richter scale rattled Mexico City last night, knocking out power to the Latin republic's capital and killing at least two people. Emergency services said an 18-year-old man was killed in the town of Iguala when a roof collapsed onto him and another man was killed when a dislodged boulder crashed into his vehicle as he was driving along the busy Mexico City-Acapulco Highway.

The temblor struck as streets and stores were packed with Christmas shoppers along Mexico City's famed retail and entertainment district the Zona Rosa. Thousands of people fled department stores such as La Condesa, running out into the streets in panic, as the loss of street lights and traffic signals due to a power failure snarled traffic in one of the world's largest cities, with an estimated population of 28 million people. The earthquake was felt as far away as the resort city of Acapulco, on the Pacific coast in Mexico's popular Mexican Riviera. Communications also went off line for a while after the quake, including telephone and some cable television services, with millions of people trying to call friends and relatives once the shaking had ceased.


Many people feared a repeat of the catastrophic 1985 earthquake that struck Mexico City, which killed almost 20,000 people and caused billions of dollars in damages. The enormous metropolis sits on a large plain located between two active volcanoes Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl and is highly susceptible to seismic events

The Blood Red Moon: Eclipse Turns Moon Revelations Red

"And the sun became black as sackcloth and the full moon turned red as blood," Revelations 6:12

A rare eclipse of the moon early on Saturday turned Earth's celestial satellite an eerie shade of blood red, reminding many of an oft-quoted bible passage from the Apocalyptic Revelations: "I watched as the Lamb broke the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake. The sun became as dark as black cloth, and the moon became as red as blood." Revelations 6:12

The eclipse was visible to large portions of the world, including most of North America as well as Europe and Asia.

A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth blocks the sun’s light from reflecting off the moon, casting a eerie shadow over its surface. During a total lunar eclipse, the moon is completely obscured from view. Saturday morning’s event was the last total lunar eclipse  until 2014, but it’s the second of 2011. Another total eclipse was visible from parts of Europe, Africa, Australia and southern Asia in June.

The year 2012 will hold another rare celestial event, the Transit of Venus, which will take place in June of next year. A transit of Venus occurs when Venus passes directly between the sun and earth.  This alignment is rare, coming in pairs that are eight years apart but separated by over a century.  The most recent transit of Venus was a thrilling sight in 2004.  After the June 2012 transit of Venus (the last one in your lifetime), the next such alignment occurs in 2117.

The pivotal year of 2012 is also the much-discussed end of the Mayan long-count calendar. 

Royal Junk in the Trunk: Pippa's Butt Boosters Top Seller in UK

Pippa Middleton's superb silhouette at the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton has caused a supreme spike in sales of Bum Boosters padded underpants in the UK!

The blue-blooded backside of the Duchess of Cambridge's younger sister Pippa (real name Philippa) stole the show at the Wedding of the Century back in April. Now, UK retail outlet Debenham's reports that they are selling out of the special padded underpants, that adds up to two inches to the wearer's derriere! The undergarments are made from the shaping material polyamide elastane and retail in the UK for $29 US. The department store chain has sold out of its stock of the shape-wear in the pre-Christmas rush, as millions of women struggle to have their onions look Pippa Perfect during the holiday party circuit. 

The popularity of butt-enhancing products has risen in the past several years, courtesy of cheekily-endowed stars such as J. Lo, Nicki Minaj, Beyonce, Shakira and Kim Kardashian.

Pippa recently made headlines by signing a high six-figure publishing deal to pen her first book on party planning and proper hostessing. 

Set Fire to the Charts: Adele Conquers the US as Artist of the Year

She may be temporarily out-of-commission due to delicate throat surgery, but superstar singer Adele can claim victory as the top recording artist of 2011!

The chanteuse's sophomore album 21 is the biggest selling album of the year in the US, selling almost five million copies, with over thirteen million copies sold worldwide! The album debuted at Number One on the US album charts, the first time a female British solo artist has achieved the feat. She also has the Number One smash hit of the year, with her incredibly catchy "Rolling in the Deep", which remained the top single in the country for an astonishing eight weeks.

Adele's first live concert performance to be released on DVD, Adele Live at the Royal Albert Hall, has quickly become the biggest selling music video of 2011 since its release in November. In all of Nielsen SoundScan history, NO OTHER ARTIST has topped all three of these year-end charts. An amazing accomplishment for an amazingly talented lady. 


Recover soon from your surgery, Adele, as we are all expecting even bigger things from you in 2012...

Godzilla Eats Christmas: Giant Radioactive Lizard Christmas Tree Inspires Holiday Fear

Godzilla on his way to trample the mall's Nativity scene. (Photo Credit: BuzzFeed)

Holiday shoppers in Aqua City's Odaiba mall in Tokyo, Japan, have an extra incentive to hurry up and get their shopping done: a monstrously-sized, fire-breathing, radioactive Godzilla Christmas tree!

Not content with terrifying the local children by throwing them on the lap of a strange man dressed in a fake beard and red suit, the mall decided to place the massive topiary in the center of the fashionable retail paradise. Funny, in all the films I've seen of Godzilla, hoards of people are always running away from the giant lizard with a look of abject terror on their faces, the look that says "I just peed my pants" as they run forward screaming while looking back at the massive beast!

No word if Godzilla's winged archenemy Rodan will be making an appearance in the mall as the Baby New Year...

Victim No More: Woman Confronts Attacker At His Sentencing

Heidi Damon refuses to be a victim

A woman who suffered through a vicious attack and sexual assault bravely confronted her attacker as he was sentenced to fifteen-years in prison for the heinous crime.

Heidi Damon was attacked by a then 16-year-old Javon Cooper as she parked her automobile in a parking garage in Ybor City, Florida, in 2009. After striking Damon in the face, Cooper began to choke her until she lost consciousness,  removing her clothing and sexually assaulting her.

As Damon stood in the court where her attacker was to receive his sentence after pleading guilty to attempted murder and sexual battery, Cooper shifted uncomfortably in his seat and averted his gaze from a triumphant Damon. "I just want to tell you — and I want you to look at me when I address you — I woke up ecstatic today, happier than ever," she told the disturbed teen defiantly. "You know why? Because I'm alive. I'm alive, alive, alive."

"You have not broken my spirit," she continued courageously. "You have not changed my belief in God. If anything, you've strengthened both. I am not a victim. I am the victor, the stronger and the winner. My desire to be all that I can be cannot be broken by you or anyone," Damon informed Cooper. "I survived."

Heidi waived all her rights to anonymity by addressing her attacker in court, as she railed at him, "I will never forgive you because what you have done to me is never forgivable. I contribute to my community. You help decay yours."

 "My life will never be the same. You know why? It's going to be better than it was before. My tears are out of joy. Because I'll never see you again. Ever. Oh and by the way, I do have one more thing," she added in closing, "My name is Heidi Elizabeth Damon. I have a name. I have a name that will go on forever. You have a number and the title of the crimes that you've committed. Your name is Sex Offender, Attempted Murderer. Nice to put you away," she finished with aplomb, as her attacker was lead away to the cold, cramped cell that will be his home for the next fifteen years. 

And millions of women from around the world who have suffered abuse at the hands of a monster like Cooper stood up and cheered...

Hair of the Dog: Hangover Cure to Debut...After the Holidays

The Federal Drug Administration in the United States has approved the sale of the first over-the-counter remedy for a hangover, but you'll have to wait until after the Holidays are over before you can purchase it in stores!

The agency approved the new effervescent tablets to be sold under the name BlowChunks  Blowfish. The Alka-Seltzer-like product dissolves in water and can be taken the morning after a bout of heavy drinking and comes in convenient packages of two tablets (which you can keep in your wallet along with that condom you've kept in there for the past several years). 

The tablets contain 500 mg of aspirin and 60 mg of caffeine to stop that incessant pounding in your head as well as a stomach-calming medication to keep those pesky dry heaves at bay, so you can spend your morning doing more useful things than hugging the Porcelain God!  Blowfish also claims to help restore mental alertness or wakefulness when experiencing fatigue or drowsiness associated with a hangover. (How much do you want to bet that the product features in the upcoming film The Hangover III?)


Other, similar medications have been on the market for a while, but the product is considered a new drug by the FDA because of its packaged combination of ingredients. For more information on the product, you may visit their website Blowfish Cure of the Common Hangover.

All Dogs Go to Heaven II: World's Oldest Dog Dies at 26

Photo Credit: Reuters/The Daily Mail

A dog that was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the oldest living canine on the planet has died at the age of 26.

Pusuke, a male cross breed, died peacefully on Monday afternoon at Sakura in Tochigi prefecture, Japan, according to the dog's owner Yumiko Shinohara. At 26 years of age, he would have been the equivalent of a 125-year-old human, animal experts say. 


Shinohar told Japanese press that Pusuke had maintained a healthy appetite and was able to complete several walks a day for exercise until earlier in the week when he suddenly stopped eating and became listless and had difficulty breathing. He died after Shinohara had returned home from running errands, prompting his owner to believe, "I think [Pusuke] waited for me to come home [to die]." 

The beloved pet was born in March, 1985, when Ronald Reagan was President. Before Pusuke's inclusion in The Guinness Book of World Records, the oldest dog listed was a beagle born in the United States, who died in 2003 at the age of 25.