GEORGE CARLIN DIES AT 71
Irreverent US comedian George Carlin, who became known as a voice of the 1970s counterculture and was one of the country's best known funny men, died on Sunday aged 71, US media reported.
The Grammy award winner, whose career spanned five decades, died of heart failure, his publicist Jeff Abraham told the New York Times.
Carlin had a history of heart problems and passed away in Santa Monica, California after checking into the hospital with chest pains.
He won four Grammy Awards, including one for his 1972 comedy recording "FM & AM," in which he combined his older, more conventional material that entertained audiences in the 1950s and 60s, with his new, edgier and more controversial style.
Gray-bearded and often dressed in black casual attire, Carlin frequently admitted to drug use and shocked 1970s audiences with his hit "Seven Words That Can Never Be Said on Television."
When a radio station played the album on air, Carlin's use of numerous swear words sparked a legal case over obscenity regulations that made it all the way to the Supreme Court.
The material was judged indecent, though not obscene, and a 1978 high court ruling upheld the government's right to penalize stations that broadcast such material during hours when young people may typically be tuned in.
DOES THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME?
Occasionally we'll hear a story that makes NO sense at all. This is one of those stories.
Earlier this year, an 18-year-old high school kid named Omar Khan of Orange County started to get concerned about his grades.
See, Omar's been underachieving... and he was worried he wouldn't be able to get into college with such a low GPA.
So to improve his chances, Omar stole a master key to his school, and broke in late at night. Then he used teachers' passwords to hack into the school's computer system a few times to change his grades from C's, D's and F's to A's.
But when Omar's teachers noticed his grades had been changed, they became suspicious and called the cops.
Omar's now been charged with 69 counts of altering and stealing public records, computer fraud, burglary, identity theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy.
He's being held on $50,000 bail... and if he's convicted, he could get up to 38 years in prison.
Now, I'm not saying Omar shouldn't be punished... but 38 years? There are killers who get less time in prison. The saddest part is this kid probably still could've gotten into half of the party schools in the country, even with the F's.
PC OR MAC?
The guy who plays Hodgman ("the PC" in the Mac commercials) has been outed before for being an iPhone user (scandal), and I have heard rumblings that he is not, in fact, a PC user. Now I've got it straight from the horse's mouth!
He recently came clean and admitted his devotion to Apple... "I play a PC only on television. I've used Macs since 1984. When I was a kid, I talked my dad into getting the very first Mac and I've been loyal to the brand ever since."
So how about you? Vote at www.977thebreeze.com.
