'Three Stooges' coming together at MGM

MGM and the Farrelly brothers are finally slapping together their high-profile cast for "The Three Stooges," a comedy project the filmmakers have been developing for years. Sean Penn is set to play Larry, and Jim Carrey is in negotiations to play Curly. Benicio del Toro is a rumored possibility for the brothers' taciturn leader, Moe.

The studio is looking to start production in the fall for a 2010 release slot.

The project was originally set up at Columbia, which produced the 1930s Stooges shorts. C3 Entertainment Inc., which holds the licensing rights to the Stooges brand, then sold the feature rights to Warner Bros. in 2001 for the Farrellys to write and produce the movie. Eventually, Warner Bros. let the rights lapse and MGM's Mary Parent scooped them up along with the Farrellys' continuing participation.

Peter and Bobby Farrelly wrote the script, which Bobby has referenced as "Dumb, Dumber & Dumbest," and will produce with Bradley Thomas and Charlie Wessler. Earl and Robert Benjamin of C3 will executive produce.

The film is not a biopic but a fictional treatment that maintains the Stooges' gleeful slap schtick updated for a modern milieu.

Originally constructed as four separate shorts, the feature screenplay has since been streamlined into a single narrative. Included in the story line is an opening that shows the Stooges as kids in an orphanage, a device that will require some "Benjamin Button"-style visual trickery to place the adult actors' heads on child actors' bodies.

The Stooges maintain remarkably global brand recognition, and their shorts, films and cartoons are still broadcast in 30 countries. The Farrelly brothers' latest comedy "The Heartbreak Kid" grossed $124 million worldwide.

Penn is repped by CAA, Carrey by CAA and the Miller Co.

Former maid sues Kobe and Vanessa

SANTA ANA, Calif. - Kobe Bryant’s former housekeeper is suing the NBA star and his wife, contending she was “harassed and humiliated,” denied health insurance and forced to quit because of “intolerable” working conditions.

In one instance, Maria Jimenez says Bryant’s wife ordered her to put her hand in a container of dog waste to retrieve the price tag of a blouse.

Jimenez filed suit Friday in Orange County Superior Court. She says in court papers that Vanessa Bryant “badgered, harassed and humiliated” her in front of Bryant, the couple’s children and others. She said the couple failed to provide health coverage, as promised when she was hired. She said she didn’t learn she didn’t have it until she became ill and sought medical attention.


The action seeks unspecified general, punitive and special damages, as well as back pay and overtime Jimenez says she is owed. The lawsuit was first reported by tmz.com.

Rob Pelinka, agent for the Los Angeles Lakers star, did not immediately return a call.

Jimenez wasn’t fired but her lawyer said she was wrongly discharged because Bryant’s wife made it impossible for her to continue working at the couple’s Orange County home.

“She quit but because the working conditions were intolerable,” attorney William Vogeler said Wednesday. “We allege it was a violation of labor laws that protect people from working in unhealthy situations.”

In court papers, Jimenez says she went to work for the Bryants in September 2007 and left in March 2008. Almost immediately upon starting work, “Vanessa began a continuing pattern of verbally abusing and demeaning her.” Jimenez said she was called lazy, slow, dumb, a liar and was cursed and screamed at.

After Jimenez told Kobe Bryant she wanted to quit he talked her out of it and elicited an apology from his wife, court papers said. But then, she said, the abuse began again.

According to the papers, Vanessa Bryant screamed at Jimenez for putting an expensive blouse in the Bryants’ clothes washer. “Then Vanessa demanded that Maria put her hand in a bag of dog feces to retrieve the price tag for the blouse.”

Although she gave notice, Jimenez said, Vanessa Bryant demanded that she work until her next pay day to cover the $690 cost of the blouse. Jimenez said she did.


http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/29881441/

Lucky Number: Naturally 7 and the return of the beatbox

From the Paris subway to London's annual celebration of middle-of-the-road family entertainment, the Royal Variety Performance, NATURALLY 7 took hip hop's fifth element - beatboxing - to more places last year than the mouth-made-music had reached in the previous 20. As the New York-based group finally embark on a major label career, STEVE YATES asks them about defying industry trends, winning over unlikely crowds, and standing in the shadows of Doug E, Biz and Rahzel.

Two different routes to stardom:

Embark on a worldwide tour with a supper-club jazz singer, crash through the planet’s breakfast TV shows and receive the ultimate accolade of mainstream acceptability - an appearance on the UK’s Royal Variety Performance in front of HRH Prince Charles. Or, hit the underground armed only with your voices and a video camera, record a song that leaves rush hour commuters awestruck, upload the resulting video and watch it become a worldwide internet phenomenon.

One is a vision of pop hell; the other couldn’t be more hip hop if you strapped lino to its back and spray cans to its hands; especially since the song with which you stormed the Paris Metro was a reworking of In the Air Tonight by perennial hip hop fave Phil Collins (no hating at the back there) featuring beatboxing, rapping and a lyric about a street murder.

But a vocal group from New York have travelled both roads. Naturally 7, the church-reared septet who’ve spent the last year-and-a-bit warming up Michael Bublé’s audience, aren’t quite your textbook definition of keeping it real, with their a cappella singing and omni-instrumental beatboxing. But, at their core, they’re still hip hop, connecting the doo wop street culture of the ‘50s with its modern equivalent. Ask them about their influences and Biz Markie and Doug E Fresh are writ as large as The Drifters or Frankie Lymon.

"Those two things [hip hop and doo wop] are very close to us," says N'glish, aka Roger Thomas, the group’s founder, the day before their RVP slot. "That a cappella way of guys getting together and singing, that’s very close to hip hop because in every classroom there’d be kids banging on a table, someone rapping over it and kids trying to figure out how to do different sounds on top of that."

While N'glish is every bit the spokesman, there’s little sense of rivalry in the group. They dress and talk in the manner you’d expect of seven hip hop-loving New York men, but for two noticeable omissions - they don’t swear, and they don’t talk over each other (a consequence, presumably, of their church upbringing), at least until rehearsal time when all is a whirr of ideas and conflicting opinions. Originally designed as a singing group, Naturally 7 evolved into something unique when Roger realised his brother Warren’s beatboxing skills could spice up the traditional vocal mix. Bit by bit they allocated other ‘instruments’ - ‘guitarist’ Jamal Reed, ‘bass player’ Marcus "Hops" Davis, a ‘brass section’, and not forgetting Rod Eldridge, the ‘DJ’ - until their style, which they call Vocal Play, was complete.

Naturally 7 make the music with their mouths and, at times, the result is extraordinary. Feel It (their Collins interpretation) blends gut-wrenching soul with a looped groove and a gospel theme that goes way beyond its source material. Wall of Sound has a jazz group’s flair for individual improvisation while staying collectively on-message. Touring the world with Bublé may have left them with a few too many crowd-pleasing covers in their repertoire (Broken Wings,Bridge Over Troubled Water), but they have enough quality originals to avoid the polite pigeonhole traditionally accorded a cappella acts.

What they didn’t have, until recently, was an American record deal. Despite doing some 250 shows back home, they were initially signed to a German label. "We were quite disappointed that our fellow Americans - I’m talking about the label executives - didn’t get it so fast," admits Roger (who, with his brother, was born in Manchester, England but raised from his pre-teens in New York), "because the kids got it right away. It’s taken everyone else a little while to catch up."

"It was so different," explains Rod. "If it hasn’t been tried and proven a lot of execs are too scared to touch it. What is it? How do we market it? That’s why our first CD was called What Is It? The German label said, ‘Wow, you make hip-pop cool.’"

"Now you speak to a record executive, he asks, ‘who’s your audience?’" N'glish adds. "The kids - I mean real kids - love it because you’re doing sounds and that’s exciting to them. The silverheads, people who are over 55, love it because you’re bringing back harmonies from the doo wop era. And the people in the middle love it because they’re looking for something a bit different. So you’re pretty much saying your music is for everybody - and that is a no-no," he laughs.

While they fell foul of the US industry’s rigid niche-mongering, they also eluded the trap set for most hip hop artists who don’t practise one of the only two elements the music marketplace recognises, rapping and DJ-ing. Just as graf painters or breakdancers are rarely more than a sideshow to the main event, so beatboxers have struggled to transcend the esoteric nature of their art and turn talent into box office. Scratch and Rahzel delivered fine records for limited returns, while the likes of Kenny Muhammad and Kid Beyond (who Naturally 7 cite as dazzling beatboxers) generally give recording studios a wide berth. So why would anyone sign an act that needs to be seen in the flesh to really be appreciated?

"The record company guy is changing," says N'glish. "He’s a little different from five years ago. That guy is now going, ‘We really need real artists, we need live shows, something we can put our hands into on that side.’ That’s why we think our time has come. People who are true performers will rise again, you can betcha bottom pound."

Naturally 7’s harmonising opens the way to an audience closed off to orthodox beatboxers, but it also represents something genuinely fresh: a multi-faceted option for an art form that’s always previously been about one man and his trick box. Rahzel’s ability to sing and beatbox simultaneously takes the viewer’s breath away (if not his), but its musicality is necessarily restricted. As N'glish says, "What most people in the hip hop community ask us is why is there no one else out there doing a group. It’s easy to be that solo artist like Rahzel doing a bunch of these things - Rod’s pretty much in that category, he’s doing the beats and stuff - but you take it to the next level as soon as you add a second person. This is why we don’t worry about other people doing what we’re doing: it’s really hard."

That it is. While HIPHOP.COM watches, they work on an interlude to the rhythm of Special Ed’s I Got It Made; the 20-second end product is arrived at only afrter several minutes of frantic rehearsal, and you need only marvel at the layers of a track like Wall of Sound to realise the depths of their mastery. The group may have their roots in street corner improvisation, but the deliberation and professionalism put into it is from somewhere else entirely. The Paris Metro video works precisely because the meticulous delivery is in such stark contrast to the setting, a collision of everyday experience and perfect production values. The guerrilla gig idea wasn’t met with unanimous enthusiasm, but despite fears about not being heard above the noise of the train and being pelted with tomatoes (Hops) or being sworn at by irate Parisians (Jamal: "I’m from New York and New Yorkers are somewhat angry. I thought with Paris being another big city..."), the performance concluded with an instant fan base and a YouTube hit-in-waiting.

N'glish recalls, "When we first came to England, the YouTube video worked for us - ‘Those are the seven guys from the train’ - it went everywhere before us." And in return, Naturally 7 are now taking the fine art of beatboxing to places it can only have dreamt of reaching.

"The Grey People" Chapter I - Voices of Despair

ABOUT:
Nick Stratum (Nathan Allen Pinard) and Greg White (Faires Rivers) are two normal employees of Pathopens Industries who discover terrorists inside the world largest Fusion Reactor...capable of destroying all life on earth on the planet if in the hands of the wrong people....

Starring
Nathan Allen Pinard
J.L. Jeremiah
Faires Rivers
Bentuttle90
Pookashells
JohnnyEx
Annabelle Bay
D.L. Watson
Ubernewbie

Music by D.L. Watson

Naturally 7 on Tavis Smiley Show

performing Wall of Sound and explaining the diffrence between acapell and vocal play

Lyrics

Higher and higher
I'm building seek
Consumed by desire
It's killing me
Like a moth to the fire
I go willingly
With windows of fame but they can't keep it safe so

I built this wall, all around me
I built this wall, to surround me
I build this wall, from the ground see
These sticks and stones can't break these tones no...

Shout out..
Shout out...
Shout out all you want to

I suppose call me Mr., Please Acknowledge me
Self imposed i'm a prisoner, no apologies
Wrote a note to my listeners, don't you follow me
I'm probably strange but i know i can change cos

I don't wanna be alone anymore
There's a hole in my soul
Yet i'm happy at home no

I built this wall, all around me
I built this wall, to surround me
I build this wall, from the ground see
These sticks and stones can't break these tones no...

[Rap]

I built this wall, all around me
I built this wall, to surround me
I build this wall, from the ground see
These sticks and stones can't break these tones no...

Shout out..
Shout out...
Shout out all you want to

I built this wall

Naturally 7 live on Leno

Naturally 7 live on Leno 3/18 singing "Wall Of Sound"
The Official Video
Myspace Page

Wall Of Sound Lyrics

Jordan’s son leads prep team to state title

PEORIA, Ill. (AP)—Michael Jordan celebrated another Chicago basketball championship—his son’s.

Marcus Jordan, son of the Bulls’ six-time champion, scored a game-high 19 points to lead Chicago Whitney Young to a 69-66 victory over Waukegan in the Illinois Class 4A championship Saturday.

As Marcus Jordan and his teammates celebrated on the court after the final buzzer, Michael Jordan stood quietly, clapping his hands with tears in his eyes.

“Crying?” the NBA great said in response to a reporter’s question. “I’m not crying. Not for me, anyway.”

The younger Jordan was key down the stretch after two teammates fouled out, hitting four of four free throws in the final 3 minutes to seal the victory.

“Awesome,” Marcus Jordan said. “Just awesome.”

Michael Jordan, part-owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, skipped his team’s home loss to Indiana so he could attend his son’s game. Another son, Jeff Jordan, plays basketball for the University of Illinois.

Flying car takes off

A car that transforms into a plane in 30 seconds has its first successful test flight.

From CEO to pizza man

Ken Karpman went from making $750,000 a year to $7.29 an hour, plus tips.

Ground is broken for White House 'kitchen garden'

WASHINGTON – Twenty-six elementary schoolchildren wielded shovels, rakes, pitchforks and wheelbarrows to help first lady Michelle Obama break ground for a produce and herb garden on the White House grounds.

Crops to be planted in the coming weeks on the 1,100-square-foot, L-shaped patch near the fountain on the South Lawn include spinach, broccoli, various lettuces, kale and collard greens, assorted herbs and blueberries, blackberries and raspberries.

There will also be a beehive.

"We're going to try to make our own honey here as well," Mrs. Obama told the students from Bancroft Elementary School in Washington. The school has its own community garden.

The students will be brought back to the White House next month to help with the planting, and after that to help harvest and cook some of the produce in the mansion's kitchen. The first harvest is expected by late April.

Mrs. Obama said her family has talked about planting such a garden since they moved to the White House in January.

After she spoke, the students were paired off and handed a gardening tool. The first lady joined, with a tool of her own, and together they began raking and scraping up the grass and topsoil, dumping it into wheelbarrows and depositing the contents in a central location.

"Are we done yet?" Mrs. Obama jokingly said at one point. "I want to plant. Let's harvest something."

When the work was finished, the students sat at three nearby picnic tables and were treated to apples, apple cider and cookies baked in the shape of a shovel.

Some of the produce from the garden will be served in the White House, including to the First Family and at official functions. Some crops also will be donated to Miriam's Kitchen, a soup kitchen near the White House where Mrs. Obama recently helped serve lunch.

Assistant chef Sam Kass said the garden will exist year round, and the crops will change based on the seasons.

He gave no estimate on how much produce the garden would yield, but said, "It should be quite a bit, if we're lucky."

Chart Watch Extra: The American Idol Alumni Association

Chart Watch Extra: The American Idol Alumni Association
Posted Fri Mar 20, 2009 7:00am PDT by Paul Grein in Chart Watch

When Kelly Clarkson sold 255,000 copies of All I Ever Wanted in the week that ended Sunday night, she lengthened her lead as the American Idol alumnus who has sold the most albums. This brings her career total to 9,836,000 albums. Still, it's probably just a matter of time until Carrie Underwood overtakes her. Underwood, the Season 4 champ, has already sold 9,408,000 albums. These two women are the only Idol alums who rank among the top 200 album sellers of the Nielsen/SoundScan era (which began in 1991). Clarkson is #187 on the list. Underwood ranks #198. In all, eight Idol contestants have sold 1 million or more albums so far in their careers. Fifteen have sold 500,000 or more.

The best-selling individual album by an Idol alum is Underwood's Some Hearts, which has sold 6,720,000 copies since its release in November 2005. It edges out Clarkson's Breakaway, which has sold 6,056,000 copies. (Oddly, neither album made #1 on The Billboard 200. Some Hearts peaked at #2. Breakaway reached #3). The rest of the top five in terms of total sales: Daughtry's Daughtry (4,401,000), Clay Aiken's Measure Of A Man (2,783,000) and Clarkson's Thankful (2,719,000).

The song with the most paid downloads by an Idol alum is "No Air," Jordin Sparks' melodramatic duet with Chris Brown, which has sold 2,874,000 digital copies. It edges out Underwood's revenge saga "Before He Cheats" (2,673,000). The rest of the top five: Clarkson's turbo-charged "Since U Been Gone" (2,063,000), Daughtry's rock ballad "It's Not Over" (1,978,000) and Sparks' gently rhythmic "Tattoo" (1,927,000).

Three Idol contestants have become Grammy winners. Underwood has amassed four Grammys, Clarkson has picked up two and Jennifer Hudson has won one. Hudson has also won an Oscar.

Four of the 15 Idol contestants who have sold the most albums competed in Season 5. They are Taylor Hicks, that season's winner; Elliot Yamin, who came in third; Chris Daughtry, who finished fourth; and Kellie Pickler, who placed sixth. Though Hicks won the competition, all three of these other finalists have outsold him. (Hicks isn't the only Idol winner who has been humbled on the charts by a singer he beat on the show. Ruben Studdard, the Season 2 winner, has been outsold by runner-up Clay Aiken.)

Here's a complete list of the 15 Idol contestants who have sold 500,000 or more albums. Each artist's name is followed by their total album sales tally, through this week.

1. Kelly Clarkson, 9,836,000. The Season 1 winner this week becomes the first Idol contestant to land two #1 albums. All I Ever Wanted was preceded by her 2003 debut, Thankful. Both albums contained #1 singles, "My Life Would Suck Without You" and "A Moment Like This," respectively. But Clarkson's best-seller is her sophomore album, Breakaway. The 2004 album spawned four top 10 hits, including "Since U Been Gone" and "Because Of You." It's the only album by an Idol contestant to feature four top 10 hits. The album also brought Clarkson two Grammys, including Best Pop Vocal Album.

2. Carrie Underwood, 9,408,000. The Season 4 winner is the only Idol contestant who has won (or even been nominated for) a Grammy as Best New Artist. Underwood has won a total of four Grammys, more than any other Idol contestant. She has also sold more albums than any other country singer in Idol history. Underwood's debut album, Some Hearts, spawned three top 20 hits: "Inside Your Heaven" (which hit #1), "Jesus, Take The Wheel" and "Before He Cheats." While Some Hearts stalled at #2, her sophomore album, Carnival Ride, opened at #1 with first-week sales of 527,000.

3. Clay Aiken, 4,896,000. The Season 2 runner-up has sold more albums than any other male singer in Idol history. Aiken has also sold more albums than any other singer who didn't win the competition. His debut album, Measure Of A Man, opened at #1 with first-week sales of 613,000. That's still the record for the biggest weekly sales tally of any Idol contestant's album. The album included two top 10 hits: the #1 "This Is The Night" and a cover of the Carpenters' hit "Solitaire." Aiken also had a million-seller with Merry Christmas With Love, the best-selling holiday album by an Idol contestant.

4. Daughtry, 4,413,000. Chris Daughtry, who finished fourth in Season 5, has sold more albums than any other rock artist in Idol history. He has also sold more than any other Idol performer who didn't make the final round, and more than any other Idol performer who went on to form a group. The band's debut album, Daughtry, is the only album by an Idol contestant to climb to #1 (as opposed to debut at #1). It first hit the top spot in its ninth week. The album spawned four top 20 hits, "It's Not Over," "Home," "Over You" and "What About Tonight." Daughtry's tally includes an EP that sold 9,000 copies.

5. Ruben Studdard, 2,487,000. The Season 2 winner has sold more albums than any other African American contestant in Idol history. He's also the only artist on this list who was born outside the U.S. He was born in Frankfurt, Germany, while his father was stationed there in the U.S. Army. Studdard's debut album, Soulful, bowed at #1 with first-week sales of 417,000 copies. It featured two top 10 hits, "Flying Without Wings" and "Sorry 2004." Studdard's sophomore album, the gospel-oriented I Need An Angel, hit #20. His third release, the R&B-focused The Return, hit #8.

6. Fantasia, 2,309,000. The Season 3 winner, Fantasia Barrino, shed her last name and became a star. She hit #8 with her debut album, Free Yourself. The album featured four Hot 100 hits, including the #1 "I Believe." Her follow-up album, Fantasia, reached #19. Like Clay Aiken (who played Sir Robin in Monty Python's Spamalot), Fantasia has made her mark on Broadway. She played Celie in The Color Purple in 2007.

7. Jordin Sparks, 1,053,000. The Season 6 winner reached #10 with her debut album, Jordin Sparks. It featured four top 20 hits, "This Is My Now," "Tattoo," "One Step At A Time" and "No Air," a duet with Chris Brown. This tally also includes an EP which has sold 49,000 copies.

8. David Cook, 1,029,000. The Season 7 winner reached #3 with his sophomore album, David Cook. It spawned a #3 hit, "The Time Of My Life," as well as a top 20 follow-up, "Light On." This tally also includes Cook's pre-Idol debut album, Analog Heart, which has sold 2,000 copies.

9. Kellie Pickler, 990,000. Pickler, who finished sixth in Season 5, reached #9 with both her debut album, Small Town Girl, and her follow-up, Kellie Pickler. Pickler is from North Carolina, a state that produced three other top-selling Idol contestants-Clay Aiken, Daughtry and Fantasia.

10. Josh Gracin, 780,000. Gracin, who finished fourth in Season 2, reached #11 with his debut album, Josh Gracin. The album spawned three chart hits, including "Nothin' To Lose," which made the top 40. Gracin's tally also includes his follow-up album, We Weren't Crazy.

11. Bo Bice, 735,000. The Season 4 runner-up reached #4 with his debut album, The Real Thing. It included the #2 hit, "Inside Your Heaven." Bice's tally also includes his follow-up album, See The Light. Bice is from Alabama, a state that has produced two Idol winners, Taylor Hicks and Ruben Studdard (though he was born in Germany, he grew up in Birmingham, Ala.).

12. Taylor Hicks, 719,000. The Season 5 winner reached #2 with his debut album, Taylor Hicks. It featured his #1 hit, "Do I Make You Proud," and a remake of the Doobie Brothers' "Takin' It To The Streets," which was a hit a few months before Hicks was born in 1976. Hicks' tally also includes The Distance, his new album, and Early Works, a collection of pre-Idol recordings.

13. Jennifer Hudson, 669,000. Hudson finished seventh in Season 3. No other Idol contestant who was voted off so early has sold 500,000 albums. Her debut album, Jennifer Hudson, reached #2 and won a Grammy for Best R&B Album. It featured her top 30 hit "Spotlight." Hudson also won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls.

14. David Archuleta, 665,000. The Season 7 runner-up reached #2 with his debut album, David Archuleta. It featured the #2 hit "Crush," which has sold 1,642,000 downloads.

15. Elliott Yamin, 630,000. Yamin, who finished third in Season 5, reached #3 with his debut album, Elliot Yamin. It featured his top 15 hit, "Wait For You." Yamin's tally also includes two holiday titles, Sounds Of The Season and My Kind Of Holiday.

Four singers who made it to the final round on Idol have sold less than 500,000 albums to date and thus didn't make the list. Justin Guarini, the runner-up on Season 1, has sold 146,000 albums; Diana DeGarmo, the runner-up on Season 3, has sold 168,000; Katharine McPhee, the runner-up on Season 5, has sold 376,000; and Blake Lewis, the runner-up on Season 6, has sold 353,000.

White Americans Sold Into Slavery to European Bankers

US taxpayers have bailed out AIG, the largest insurance company in the world and we learn now that billions of those dollars were then given to mostly European banks and/or banks that had already received billions of taxpayer bailout dollars. The Republicans and many whites, in general, have often scapegoated using African Americans and Mexicans when the economic situation sours. This is the opportunity for those defined as "white" to rise above the level of those who have often manipulated you against other groups. It is time to unite and make America what it should be.

Who are those banks that are getting over on American labor and what remains of its wealth? Who are the politicians, bankers and corporate officials who have betrayed the interests of the country that made their wealth possible? What should we do about these bailouts? Who needs to go to prison? Who needs to be removed from political office?

Schwarzenegger to help Obama answer GOP critics

LOS ANGELES – President Barack Obama is playing a bit of divide and conquer this week, pitting his Republican critics in Washington against GOP governors and mayors eager for the federal money that his hard-fought stimulus plan will bring. Next on the list of Republican notables to embrace the president is California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is to join Obama at a town hall meeting Thursday in Los Angeles.

Congress recently enacted Obama's $787 billion stimulus bill without a single House Republican's vote, and with only three GOP senators' votes.

Republican governors have had mixed reactions to the massive measure. Some hardline conservatives, such as Mark Sanford of South Carolina, have rejected portions of the economic bounty.

Other GOP governors, including Charlie Crist of Florida, have welcomed Obama and the stimulus money. Schwarzenegger is casting his lot with that group.

As Obama began his two-day Southern California visit Wednesday in Costa Mesa, the White House released a list of projects to be funded with stimulus money. They include adding an eastbound lane to the Riverside Freeway/SR91 in Orange County. Obama's mention of the project drew cheers from a crowd of 1,300 that greeted him in Costa Mesa.

When a recently laid-off school teacher told Obama of her plight, he said the stimulus will help thousands of teachers nationwide keep their jobs.

Throughout the trip, Obama is playing the role of the embattled populist crusader, helping average Americans fight entrenched interests on Capitol Hill and Wall Street.

He said Southern California's weather and conversations are much nicer than in Washington. The conversation Wednesday was more one-sided, to be sure, as the Costa Mesa crowd cheered, 2,500 miles from the Capitol's shadow.

He defended his ambitious plan to overhaul health care, energy, education, taxes and spending policies in the coming months, against unidentified forces aligned against him.

"I know some folks in Washington and on Wall Street are saying we should focus on only one problem at a time: 'our problem,'" Obama said. "But that's just not the way it works."

"You don't get to choose between paying your mortgage bills or your medical bills," he told those in a hot auditorium. The government also must tackle multiple challenges at the same time, he said.

Obama spoke for 21 minutes, then took eight questions. The first: Will he seek re-election in 2012?

"If I could get done what I think needs to get done in four years, even if it meant that I was only president for four years, I would rather be a good president — to take on the tough issues for four years — than a mediocre president for eight years," Obama said.

There were other whiffs of self-sacrifice. Referring to the uproar over bonuses paid to executives of the largely nationalized AIG insurance company, Obama said: "I know Washington's all in a tizzy, and everybody's pointing fingers at each other and saying, 'It's their fault, the Democrats' fault, the Republicans' fault.' Listen, I'll take responsibility. I'm the president."

In the same breath, he said, "We didn't draft these contracts." But he added, "It is appropriate when you're in charge to make sure that stuff doesn't happen like this."

Obama tried to head off questions about AIG by saying he understood taxpayers' anger. And he tried to broaden the issue, which has vexed his young administration.

"These bonuses, outrageous as they are, are a symptom of a much larger problem," he said. It's "a culture where people made enormous sums of money taking irresponsible risks that have now put the entire economy at risk."

In fact, no one asked Obama about AIG. The questions focused on jobs, schools, union rights and other issues that are easier for him to handle.

One little curve ball came, however, on a topic Obama rarely mentions on his own: immigration. Before a crowd that seemed divided on the emotional, politically dangerous issue, Obama said he still supports "comprehensive immigration reform."

The nation must find a way, he said, to strengthen its borders while also giving about 12 million illegal immigrants a path to possible citizenship.

"People who have been here for a long time and put down roots," he said, should have "a mechanism over time to get out of the shadows" and achieve legal status, including citizenship.

They would have to learn English, pay a significant fine and "go to the back of the line" of those applying for legal entry, he said.

Former President George W. Bush backed a similar immigration program. But it died in Congress amid heavy criticisms, especially from those saying too many illegal immigrants have been allowed to enter the country.

Before returning to Washington late Thursday, Obama will tape an appearance on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno."

Smush Trashes Kobe in an interview

Obama's town hall in GOP heartland -- and open to the public

President Barack Obama will make his first official stop in blue-state California with a two day trip starting Wednesday -- but here's the twist: He has chosen the GOP heartland of Costa Mesa in Orange County for his debut town hall meeting here.

That's classic OC territory -- the site of the weekly Orange County Swap Meet, within shouting distance of the South Coast Mall, one of the hallowed altars of OC culture, and at the epicenter of a world-class freeway tangle that is the stuff of nightmares. So, yeah, there will be issues to talk about.

The White House announced this morning that on Wednesday, Obama will open the town-hall session, starting at 4 p.m. That's followed the next day by a tour of the Edison International Vehicle Electrics Plant in Pomona.

The town hall is scheduled for the Orange County Fair and Event Center -- and free tickets are available to the public on a first- come, first-served basis. They'll be distributed starting Tuesday at 10 a.m. at the following location: OC Fair and Event Center (Enter at Gate 1 or Gate 10; park in Lot A.), 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa.

So if you haven't caught the O yet on the campaign trail -- or if you think the press still isn't asking the tough questions -- here's your chance, OCers.

Nigerian student gets 19 years' jail for love scam

LAGOS (Reuters) – A Nigerian undergraduate has been sentenced to 19 years in prison for obtaining $47,000 (33,382 pounds) from an Australian woman by convincing her over the Internet that he was 57 years old, white, and madly in love with her.

Lawal Adekunle Nurudeen met his victim on the Internet in 2007 and convinced her that he was a British widower called Benson Lawson. He said he was an engineer working in Lagos whose wife and only child had been killed in a car accident.

"The victim, a 56-year-old woman from Australia, told the convict that she wanted a husband and all the men she had met always disappointed her," said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria's anti-corruption police.

"The convict, who is married with three children, instantly replied and told the victim she had met her Mr Right ... He sent the picture of a white man to foreclose any suspicions."

The woman sent Nurudeen money for medical treatment and travel costs to visit Australia. He spent the funds on two plots of land and a Honda Prelude car.

Nigerian confidence tricksters have a long history of extorting money via the Internet through "419" scams, named after the clause that outlaws them in Nigeria's penal code. Many are never caught.

The EFCC said Nurudeen was ordered to pay around $10,000 immediately and a further $250 a month to his victim until the full amount stolen was returned. She would also receive the proceeds of the sale of his land and car.

US firm to close branch due to lack of employees

the Florida, US-based Sykes Enterprises works in front of her terminal …

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TAMPA, Florida (AFP) – A Florida-based firm will soon close one of its North Dakota offices for a reason that seems unfathomable during the deepening US recession: it can't find enough employees to hire.

Sykes Enterprises, which specializes in creating and maintaining computer customer care services for corporations, opened a telephone call center in Minot, North Dakota in 1996. Last May, management wanted to increase the number of employees to 450.

Yet an unexpected thing happened: so few people applied for the Minot jobs that the Tampa-headquartered company will have to close the call center on May 10 -- a cutback by Sykes that will result in 200 people losing their jobs.

"We've been working for several months there (in Minot) to find enough applicants for the work, since we have been experiencing significant growth in the US," said Sykes spokeswoman Andrea Burnett.

She also told AFP that Sykes advertised for many months in the local Minot electronic and press media for applicants.

The state of North Dakota has bucked the national trend which has seen the US economy hemorrhage 651,000 jobs in February, pushing the unemployment rate to a 25-year high of 8.1 percent and pointing to an ever-deepening recession.

But the unemployment rate in North Dakota stood at just 5.1 percent, one of the lowest in the nation.

And Minot in particular has been seemingly recession-proof with the city's economy being based on agricultural commodities and oil production, and with it being the home town of a US Air Force base. The micro-economies of all three are productive, leading to Minot's economic healthiness.

Geography, demographics and weather may have kept outsiders from applying for the jobs. The sparsely populated state of just 640,000 residents is in the far northern Great Plains, one of the remotest regions in the contiguous United States.

Parts of North Dakota, including the northwest where Minot, a city of about 40,000, is located, can be as cold as Alaska during winter months.

Gridiron singed by Obama no-show

No offense intended, says the Obama White House.

None taken, say the esteemed leaders of the Gridiron Club.

Still, in Washington, a slap does not have to be officially labeled as such for its sound to echo — and its sting to be felt.

And make no mistake: President Barack Obama deciding that he is too busy to attend the Gridiron’s annual banquet later this month is a slap. He’s the first president since Grover Cleveland to skip the white-tie-and-tails affair in his first year in office.

The official line from the Gridiron Club — a society of Washington reporters, columnists, and bureau chiefs — is, “We understand.”

But some Gridiron veterans make clear they don’t understand. Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page said, “People feel uncommonly saddened, miffed and burned.

“I don’t think he understands the implications of not coming to the club in the first year. It’s not your ordinary state dinner. I think it would be helpful for him and his relations with the Washington establishment to come to the club.”

Beyond bruised feelings among the pundit class, Obama’s snub is a revealing cultural moment.

Gridiron has for decades been an inner sanctum of Washington’s political press corps. The club’s mostly aging members were considered highly prestigious because they said so — and because they had the ability to summon the capital’s political elite to a spring frolic of skits and songs.

But if a young and glamorous president decides he can afford to blow off an august and tradition-bound institution, one has to at least entertain the possibility that this institution may not be quite as august as its members assumed.

The rejection was heightened by the that’s-the-night-I-wash-my-hair explanation the Gridiron got from Obama.

At first, Gridiron members heard through back channels that the Obama family would be in Chicago during the Obama daughters’ spring break from school. Then, on Friday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily briefing that the family would actually be in Camp David on March 21, the night of the dinner.

That’s not exactly out of town by presidential standards — in fact, it is about a 20-minute helicopter ride if Obama had decided the event were important enough.

According to one member, “We got the impression from talking to our senior members who had talked to senior people at the White House that Mrs. Obama had made the decision about the family’s spring break and no one on the senior staff was about to challenge that.”

A White House official said this is untrue — Obama made the decision and it should not be pinned unfairly on the first lady.

The White House said larger meaning should not be read into Obama’s choice. An official told POLITICO via e-mail, “The assumption was we would do this — then we found out the girls would have spring break — it was as simple as that.”

But the chattering class that either attends the Gridiron dinner or busies itself finding out who did reads large meaning into small events. So there was zero chance that Obama’s gesture would not be carefully dissected.

Is the Gridiron still vital? Still cool?

“Was it ever cool?” asked D.C. journalist Matt Cooper. He’s never been to the dinner but said it reeks of old-timers. “It always seemed kind of geriatric. The humor is slightly out of sync in the Jon Stewart and even the Johnny Carson era,” he said. “In general, isn’t it musical comedy?”

But if not exactly cutting edge, the Gridiron in the view of some observers serves a function in the Washington ecology.

“It’s a tradition of massaging the cooperating aspects of the relationship between the president and the press,” said presidential historian and political scientist Martha Joynt Kumar. “They are in a relationship in which each is tied to the other; neither can do its job without the other.”

And for that, she said, “I think the Gridiron is going to survive. I wouldn’t read too much into [Obama] not showing. ... Don’t look upon this as Armageddon.”

Even so, it was a fate the Gridiron tried mightily to avoid.

Gridiron Secretary Carl Leubsdorf and member George Condon took on the responsibility of lobbying the White House press office about the president’s attendance. The effort started when Gridiron President Dick Cooper gave an Obama aide an invitation letter to the president-elect at a Washington social event in December. “After that, every contact we had with them was very positive,” Leubsdorf said. “Every indication was that he was coming.”

Condon took the job of talking to Gibbs about it. “There was a lot of back and forth between me and Robert,” Condon said. “I would pop in and ask. And he was trying to find out.” Then, on Feb. 28, Jay Carney of Vice President Joe Biden’s office sent an e-mail to one of the club’s officers, indicating that Biden would be filling in for Obama.

One of the Gridiron’s big challenges has nothing to do with Obama. Consider the names in the paragraph above. The regional newspaper bureaus from which the club drew many of its members are on the ropes. Leubsdorf works for The Dallas Morning News, which has scaled back its capital staff. George Condon was bureau chief for the Copley newspaper chain — owner of the San Diego Union-Tribune — which recently shuttered its bureau. He now writes for CongressDaily. Dick Cooper worked for the Los Angeles Times, which has suffered severe cuts to its D.C. bureau and was merged with the Tribune Co. for whom he now works.

The club’s motto is “singe but never burn,” and its members rehearse for months the ditties parodying the president and other Washington politicians.

As it happens, the proceedings are supposed to be off the record — an odd custom, arguably, for a press association — but the best lines and performances all make it quickly into widespread circulation. Each year, there is a Democratic and Republican speaker. This year, the choices are California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Michigan Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Obama does not evidently have any disdain for the dinner. He attended in 2004 and 2006, when he even sang a song.

Some presidents have been downright hostile toward the ritual. Richard Nixon started skipping the events, and even declined to send the vice president. But even that was a validation of sorts — the Gridiron was worth getting worked up about.

Is it still?

Many (relatively) younger journalists say it is still an honor to be invited to join. Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum said he recently joined “because I was asked.” Time magazine’s Karen Tumulty’s rationale: “It’s fun!”

“I kind of like the retro and tradition-bound nature of it — it very much is part of its charm and part of what makes it fun,” Tumulty said.

According to Purdum, “It’s like the Statue of Liberty or liver and onions: You’d miss it if it wasn’t there.”

Members emphasize that Obama’s absence hasn’t changed any songs or the lineup. Associate member Annie Groer said that, even without the president, “it will be no less a schmooze-fest.”

As for Obama’s choice, Groer said, “I don’t see it as an insult. I think his priorities are perfectly in order.”

Leubsdorf also notes that this year the dinner is two weeks later than last year — and they signed the contract three years ago. “I suspect this would have never come up and he would have been at the dinner,” he said. “Having it later worked against us.”

It’s not like the Gridiron is being left with a bunch of political B-listers. In addition to Biden, most members of the Cabinet are planning to attend, along with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, according to one member.

Club historian Cheryl Arvidson said: “I don’t think the club is going to take this personally. I think the Gridiron is an important part of Washington. I don’t think that the absence of the president is what’s going to bring the club into any sort of spiral effect.”

Leubsdorf laughs off the naysayers of his club thusly: “People think its silly, old fashioned, so be it. Some people think baseball is silly — I think it’s great.”

And Purdum is taking the long view: “This too shall pass.”