Dan Abrams’ Websites Today

Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 11.36.20 AMFrom Mediaite: Who will be the next pope? The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart offers some ideas, writes Mediaite: “Jon Stewart tonight took on the ongoing search at the Vatican for the next Pope in the wake of Pope Benedict resigning from the papacy. Stewart suggested Bill O’Reilly as a possible replacement, and brought on correspondents to break down the negative ad campaigns between the potential new Popes and the suspicious wording of some of the Vatican’s rituals for selecting the new pontiff… [A]fter hearing that any male Catholic could technically be selected for the position, he suggested Bill O’Reilly, though he doubted O’Reilly would accept the ‘demotion.'” Read more about the show here.

 

Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 11.44.23 AMFrom Gossip Cop: It’s been a crazy few days for Justin Bieber. Gossip Cop reports on what happened most recently: “Justin Bieber exploded at a paparazzi photographer in London on Friday, leaping from his SUV and screaming, ‘I’ll f**king beat the f**k out of you!’ as handlers held him back. The incident occurred after the singer briefly made physical contact with the paparazzo as he raced from his hotel to the vehicle. After the photographer complained that Bieber’s brushback was ‘assault’ and began swearing at him, the pop star jumped back out of his SUV, demanding, ‘What the f**k did you say?’ …Bieber, who collapsed on stage on Thursday and had to be hospitalized, took to Twitter after the altercation.” See those tweets and video here.

 

Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 11.38.07 AMFrom Geekosystem: Another day, another scientific discovery it seems. Geekosystem reports on the latest: “Russian researchers working on samples from Lake Vostok — a subglacial lake in Antarctica sealed away for eons by more than two miles of ice — say they have found signs of a wholly new kind of bacterial life in water samples taken from the lake. It’s a pretty impressive claim, if true, and one could quiet concerns raised late last year the lake may have been entirely devoid of life — not to mention meaning new chapters in microbiology textbooks. Now we just have to wait and see if this bold announcement holds water. The bacteria, which was recovered from ice samples taken in May 2012, just a few months after the lake had been breached, appears to have very little in common with known bacteria, and researchers haven’t been able to find any genetic relatives to it thus far.” Read on here.

 

Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 11.46.38 AMFrom Styleite: Oh, Jennifer Lawrence. She continues to be a goldmine of interview quotes and inspiration to all, writes Styleite: ” Everyone goes through ups and down in life, and it’s no different for Oscar winner and all-around cool kid Jennifer Lawrence. In a piece from The Sun, Lawrence recalls her days being bullied by mean girls: ‘I changed schools a lot when I was in elementary school because some girls were mean… But that was fine, I just hocked a loogie on them and threw them in the trash can…Don’t worry about the b*tches — that could be a good motto, because you come across people like that throughout your life.’ Yeah, she would hock a loogie at those chicks. We bet those mean girls are totally kicking themselves for being bullies right about now!” Read more of what she had to say here.

 

Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 11.41.24 AMFrom SportsGrid: Tired of basketball? Here’s some golf news from SportsGrid: “Tiger Woods is winning some golf tournament thing. The WGC-Cadillac Championship at Doral. Yeah, Doral. That’s the one. Tiger Woods shot a six-under 66, including nine birdies to take a share of the lead with Bubba Watson, Graeme McDowell, Sergio Garcia and Fredrik Jacobson. The problem with golf is that there are four rounds, and this was only round one; so it will take more of Tiger Woods being, say, good, for this to work out. Rory McIlroy, meanwhile, shot a one-over 73, and just never seemed to be able to get it going. His tooth must still hurt.” Read more about what happened in the world of sports yesterday here.

 

Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 11.48.46 AMFrom The Mary Sue: Disney’s Oz, The Great and Powerful is released today. But Disney’s already planning a sequel. The Mary Sue’s Rebecca Pahle writes, “Oz the Great and Powerful comes out in theaters today, but Disney’s already hired Mitchell Kapner, who co-wrote the first film, to write a sequel. Man, I sure hope a bad script doesn’t keep Oz from earning a ton of money. Oh, who are we kidding? Good script, bad script. It’ll make tons either way. Enough to warrant a sequel at any rate. Unlike with recent fantasy flop Jack the Giant SlayerOz the Great and Powerful‘s studio seems to know how to market it… And then there’s the fact that the classic Oz is good and Disney’s Oz looks… not. So if Disney wants to do a sequel, fine, whatever. I don’t have to see it.” Read more of her opinion there.

 

Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 11.59.56 AMFrom The Jane Dough: Today is International Women’s Day, and fittingly, President Obama celebrated early by signing a new law into act. The Jane Dough reports, “Ladies, grab your vuvuzelas, put Kool And The Gang on repeat, and begin helicoptering your bras over your heads: after much Congressional kerfuffling, President Obama finally signed the reauthorized Violence Against Women Act into law. Originally passed in 1994, VAWA provides federal funding for the prevention, investigation, and prosecution of domestic and sexual violence. The reauthorized act features several new measures including provisions granting Native American tribes jurisdiction to prosecute non-native perpetrators of sexual and domestic violence against native women, extended protections for LGBTQIA individuals and organizations, the SAFER Act, which hopes to lead to the elimination of the DNA backlog of evidence collected in rape cases, and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act which provides services to victims of human trafficking.” Read more here.

 

Screen Shot 2013-03-08 at 11.50.13 AMFrom The Braiser: There’s a new celebrity-endorsed wine and it’s selling like hotcakes. The Braiser reports, “Were you hoping to get a bottle of the wine that Brad Pitt grew and bottled for his life partner Angelina Jolie? Were you hoping that you might consume it, and upon doing so, achieve some of the power couple’s stunning good looks or feel, for a moment, like one of the guests at their upcoming wedding? Well, too bad. It’s all gone. In an online sale, all 6,000 bottles of Miraval Cotes de Provence, the blend developed in a collaboration between the Jolie-Pitts and the Perrinwinemaking family, sold out in five hours, according to a PR firm representing Miraval. ‘Selling started at 9 a.m. and everything was sold by 2 p.m.,’ they told the New Zealand Herald.” Read more about it here.