Melissa McCarthy: 'I've been every size'

Celebs

Gael Fashingbauer Cooper TODAY

17 hours ago

Yu Tsai for More 2013

Melissa McCarthy on the cover of More magazine.

Actress Melissa McCarthy's weight was an issue for movie critic Rex Reed, who called the actress "tractor-sized" when she starred in "Identity Thief." But it's not an issue for McCarthy, she tells More magazine in the July/August issue, on newsstands June 25.

"I've been every size in the world," she said. "Parts of my twenties, I was in great shape, but I didn't appreciate it. If I was a 6 or an 8, I thought, 'Why aren't I a 2 or a 4'?

But McCarthy can see beyond dress sizes to realize how lucky she is -- with a happy marriage to writer-actor Ben Falcone, two young daughters, and a lively movie career. And she hears from fans, some in the field themselves, who may not be a size zero.

"The letters I really love are from young actresses who were worried they had to fit a certain look," she tells the magazine. "They say I've opened it up. And I don't just mean plus-size girls. You can push things now. With all the great performances in 'Bridesmaids,' it changed how people see funny women."

McCarthy stars with Sandra Bullock in "The Heat," a rare buddy comedy that involves two women, not men. She says that a scene in which she sticks a straw up Bullock's nose to dislodge a peanut helped the two bond.

"But the peanut was so far up," McCarthy remembers. "I was nervous for Sandy that something was going to go terribly wrong and we're gonna end up in a hospital. I was literally up her sinus cavity. It was a very bonding moment. After that, you're friends for life."

"The Heat" opens June 28.

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/melissa-mccarthy-ive-been-every-size-world-6C10435395

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Mad Men Review: Past vs. Future in the Season Six Finale

Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/06/mad-men-review-past-vs-future-in-the-season-six-finale/

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TDK ST750

TDK continues to bring quality headphone?options to the world, the latest being the intriguing TDK ST750. Its alluring leather and metallic design houses a unique feature?an internal, battery-driven amplifier that makes the audio performance louder and more bass-heavy when powered-up. The $249.95 (list) headphones also work in passive mode, but in both modes, the audio leans toward a brighter, crisper sound that should appeal to purists more so than bass fiends.

Design
The ST750 sports a refined look, with black leather lining the headband and the edges of the earcups. The heavily cushioned black earpads and underside of the headband make for a very comfortable, lightweight fit, even over longer listening sessions. Each side incorporates the TDK logo on a brushed metallic surface. Inside the circumaural (around-the-ear) earcups, 40mm dynamic drivers bring intense audio when the power switch on the right earcup is on. The right side also houses the battery compartment?the ST750 requires two AAA batteries for powered operation.

Unfortunately, the cable is not detachable. Many current competing models now feature removable cables and often come with two (one is usually armed with an inline remote and microphone). It's not a deal-breaker, but at this price, it would've been a smart design addition. The ST750 has no inline remote or mic to speak of, and the cable itself has a tendency to stay wound and rigid, unlike many of the cloth-bound or flat cables we see on high-end headphones. The headphones themselves look and feel great, but the cable is a weak point of the design.

The ST750 ships with two AAA batteries, a shirt clip, and a black cloth drawstring carrying pouch.

Performance
It should be noted that while the ST750 has an internal amplifier to boost volume and bass response, these headphones sound pretty solid without the power?they just don't get super loud. In passive mode, their sound signature is close to flat, but spiked a bit with bright, crisp highs. The bass response is steady and clean, nothing booming.

With the batteries in and the power on, however, these headphones get very, very loud. They also do not distort at top volumes, even on tracks with intense sub-bass content, like the Knife's "Silent Shout." Some headphones manage not to distort on tracks like this by simply not delivering the very deepest bass frequencies, but the TDK ST750 does indeed deliver deep low-end, it just doesn't boost the lows dramatically.

On Jay-Z and Kanye West's "No Church in the Wild," the star is actually the mid-high and high frequency response?the kick drum loop's attack is crisp and punchy. Sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are robust but not comically intense, while the vocals and other high-mid content take center-stage.

Bill Callahan's vocals on "Drover" are imbued with a nice treble edge that helps them stay in the forefront of the mix. This track can often sound muddy on bass-boosted headphones, but here, Callahan's vocals, as well as the guitars, remain bright and clear. And the low frequencies enhance the drums only subtly?there's not nearly as much thunder to their low end as you hear on the Velodyne vTrue, for instance. Occasionally, however, the vocals sound a bit too sibilant, on both this track and the Jay-Z/Kanye West track.

On classical tracks, like John Adams' "The Chairman Dances," the higher register strings and percussion steal the spotlight, and they also can sound a bit overly bright at times. The lower register strings are graced with a touch of added bass response, but nothing intense. At the end of the piece, large drum hits that can sound unnatural on bass-heavy pairs sound powerful and real here?just enough low-end presence to bring a little thunder, but nothing that sounds unnatural or amplified, as the drums do on heavy-bass options like the aforementioned vTrue headphones.

In the $250 price range, you have a few options that offer different sound signatures. The Yamaha PRO 400 has a clean bass response but focuses more on the midrange content than the highs. The Denon Urban Raver AH-D320, meanwhile, offers a far more intense bass response?not unlike the Velodyne vTrue. If all of these are out of your price range, the Editors' Choice Sennheiser HD 558 is a more affordable gem, with a balanced frequency response and plenty of power.

For the price, the TDK ST750 delivers two different experiences?the quieter, less bass-enhanced passive mode, and the powered-up, louder, bass-heavy active mode. The ST750 is quite unique, in that it's a headphone pair with a powered internal amp but no extra features like Bluetooth streaming or noise cancellation. Forgetting about this factor and focusing on the audio delivered itself, the ST750 still stands out as a powerful audiophile-friendly pair that errs on the side of brightness, not booming low-end, when it errs at all. It's light on accessories or extra features beyond the internal amp, but it offers solid, clean sound.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/Gpx8j4eUgbU/0,2817,2417925,00.asp

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Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev Boston Bomber Suspect - Business Insider

AP Photo/Federal Bureau of Investigation

This photo released Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows a suspect that officials identified as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

The surviving bombing suspect has been named as Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, of Cambridge, Mass., AP reported.

Dzhokhar is the younger brother of 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was shot and killed in a gun battle with Boston police early Friday morning that also ended in the death of an MIT police officer.

An FBI official told the Los Angeles Times that Dzhokhar may have been wounded in the confrontation before escaping.

The 19-year-old is being referred to by authorities as "Suspect 2" and is identified in FBI-released surveillance footage as the man wearing a white hat at the marathon.

The brothers were "ethnic Chechens with ties to the Russian region," AP reports. Dzhokhar lived in the Russian city of Makhachkala for a brief time before moving to the United States, according to the AP.

Another report from CNN says that the Tsarnaev family lived in Kazakhstan before coming to the U.S., possibly in the early 2000s.

Dzhokhar was a registered student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, the university confirmed. The campus closed down and the dorm where Dzhokhar lived was evacuated on Friday, SouthCoastToday.com reports.

A biology student at UMass Dartmouth told the paper that Tsarnaev was "quiet," although she did not know him well.

The father of the Tsarnaev brothers spoke to the Associated Press by telephone on Friday from Makhachkala.

"My son is a true angel," Anzor Tsarnaev told the the AP. He said Dzhokhar was a medical student in the United States and described him as an "intelligent boy."

Dzhokhar was a wrestler at the Cambridge Rindge and Latin School in Cambridge, Mass, USA Today's Natalie DiBlasio reports. He was also honored as student athlete of the month.

A high school classmate told USA Today that Dzhokhar was a "funny, sweet, goofy kid."

According to a Cambridge government website, a high school senior named Dzhokhar Tsarnaev won a $2,500 scholarship from the city in 2011 to pursue higher education.

An aquatic coordinator at Harvard University told CNN that Dzhokhar was hired as a lifeguard for the university's pool about two and a half years ago.

According to Russian Facebook VKontakte, a page that bears the same name as the surviving suspect lists "career and money" as the account holder's personal priorities, and "Islam" as the member's religion.

The page says an individual named Dzhokhar was born on July 22 and that he speaks English, Russian, and the Chechen language ?Nokhchiin Mott.?

Here are some translations from that page:

Meanwhile, for more on his dead older brother, see here.

Keep following this post for more biographical information.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-2013-4

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How Long Can the Post-Boston Unity Last?

In the days and weeks after the 9/11 tragedy, virtually every national-security and terrorism expert predicted it was only a matter of weeks or months before another major attack came. They said a terrorist event within six months was a virtual certainty; and that certainly seemed plausible to many of us at the time. As each week, month, and season passed with no attack, most people still instinctively assumed one would come and seemed surprised that year after year went by without some comparable horror. It turned out to be 11 and a half years before another major attack. The bombings on the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday were obviously not on the same scale as the 9/11 tragedy?but were horrific nevertheless.

I?ve been spending this semester on a college campus in Boston, and it was interesting to observe the faces of dozens of undergraduates and graduate students in a common room, watching in horror and disbelief as the events unfolded on a giant television screen. It made me realize that this was a new and terrible experience for the freshmen and sophomores, many of whom were only in second or third grade on Sept. 11, 2001. They have few memories of that day, not the vivid recollections of graduate students, faculty members, and other grown-ups who uniformly felt that sick feeling of d?j? vu on Monday.

Of course, many senseless tragedies have occurred since 9/11, most recently the killings in Newtown, Conn. But events such as the attack on Boylston Street in Boston, and the horrors that unfolded in the skies, at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and outside Shanksville, Pa., on 9/11 are profound in their psychological impact. Suddenly, some issues that seemed so pressing and caused such wide divisions a week ago, while still real, appear in a different context.

One thing that happens when there is mass tragedy of this kind is that people come together and cooperate in a collective response. From the race?s finish line, we?ve heard reports of split-second reactions, as both first responders and impromptu ones stepped into action, filling whatever void they found in the chaos and mayhem that surrounded them. As people of every partisan, ideological, religious, regional, and socioeconomic stripe watched from their homes, jobs, or schools, their mouths open in horror, they shared a common emotion. We have once again been brought together by tragedy; for this moment, we are reunited, acting and feeling as one.

I vividly recall watching on television on the evening of 9/11 as hundreds of members of Congress, from both parties and chambers, stood on the Capitol steps, hours after they had been evacuated from the building, singing ?God Bless America.? I wondered (briefly) whether some good might come from such a horrific event that had ended and devastated so many lives.

Maybe the good could have happened. I would like to think it might have happened, that the tone and behavior in Washington could have changed to some degree because of those terrible events. However, the controversy, the heated emotions over whether we should invade Iraq, served to reopen the wounds, tearing Americans, particularly those in Washington and in politics, apart from each other. Soon, relations in D.C. became as bad, and eventually even worse, than before the tragedy. The ?God Bless America? moment turned out to be only a brief respite from the bitter partisan warfare that has become the norm in our nation?s capital. The vituperation returned, the national interest relegated to a subordinate role as partisans and ideologues sought every opportunity to score points on the other side, to further drive wedges to divide the country.

It?s my hope, but sadly not my expectation, that while the most committed political combatants won?t likely be deterred for long, some others on both sides of the aisle?the normally reasonable people who have come to serve as enablers for the most bitter partisans?will pause, take a breath, and take stock of our nation?s challenges. There is a terrible cost to be paid for endless bickering that comes from those who see compromise as a four-letter word. We should once again begin to build bridges rather than tear them down. To a hammer, everything looks like a nail, but every opportunity to attack people on the other side does not create the necessity to do so. It really does not have to be that way.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/long-post-boston-unity-last-213946622--politics.html

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Senators who blocked gun bill represent just 38% of America

The Senate's failure to end a filibuster of stronger gun legislation yesterday prompted the president to lash out against the "continued distortion of Senate rules" that allows 41 senators to block the will of their 59 counterparts. The problem is even more stark when you consider the population those senators could represent: Just over ten percent of Americans can block any federal legislation from moving forward. That's fewer people than live in the state of California alone.

RELATED: Congress Is So Bad It Can't Even Agree on a Gun Proposal We Can All Agree on

A Senate filibuster, as it is commonly practiced, allows any senator to speak indefinitely on any bill. If 40 of his or her colleagues vote to end the filibuster (known as "cloture"), the legislation can move forward. If not, it's essentially defunct. We compiled data comparing state population, yesterday's Senate vote, and the 2012 election to put together a portrait of how senators representing only a fraction of the country could ensure that no bill advances.

RELATED: The NRA Wins: Senate Gun Deals Fizzle on Vote Day

States, by population

First, we looked at each state's population, using July 2012 population estimates from Wikipedia. The darker the blue, the higher the population.

RELATED: The Incredibly Low Bar for Success in Our Broken Senate

RELATED: FAA Will Stay Open for Business Despite Senator's Objection

The twenty-one smallest states

Then we isolated the 21 smallest states. If every senator from each of these states were to oppose cloture on any given bill, they could maintain the filibuster indefinitely.

RELATED: Senate Republicans Block the Paycheck Fairness Act

Those states have a population of about 32 million Americans ? which is just over ten percent of the country. And about six million fewer than live in California.

Vote to end the filibuster of background check compromise

In practice, it's not only the smallest states that will support a filibuster. After all, a number of them, particularly in the Northeast, are "blue" states. Here's how the 2012 vote broke down. Blue states voted for Obama; red, for Romney.

And here's how states voted on the Manchin-Toomey compromise. Dark blue states had two senators supporting cloture. Lighter blue states had one.

It may be easier to see how those states compare in this GIF. For the GIF, the map above is reversed: darker colors mean more senators backing cloture.

Breaking out the population of the states that backed the filibuster (and splitting it in half if only one senator backed cloture), we see that 37.7 percent of America, represented by 46 senators, blocked the background check compromise.

It's also worth comparing that to the Washington Post's recent poll on the topic. The poll asked: "Would you support or oppose a law requiring background checks on people buying guns at gun shows or online?" Yielding the following responses:

Eighty-six percent of Americans backed background check reform. Senators representing 38 percent of America blocked it. But it only takes senators representing ten percent of America to block any federal policy whatsoever.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/broken-senate-gun-bill-blockers-only-represent-38-151836480.html

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Rush jams into Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? Rush fans can relax. The band is now officially in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Canadian rockers were welcomed into the musical fraternity at Thursday's 28th annual induction ceremony by the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins. At the beginning of the Nokia Theatre event, the audience was already administering a standing ovation to the group.

"We've been saying for a long time that this wasn't a big deal," drummer-lyricist Neil Peart told the crowd, most of whom came out to specifically support the band. "It turns out, it kind of is."

Rush gained entry following its first appearance on the ballot after repeatedly being left off the list since gaining eligibility in 1998, to the great consternation of the legion of Rush fans who cried bias against progressive rock. The long wait didn't seem to matter at Thursday's star-studded concert event, which ran over five hours. Peart, lead singer Geddy Lee and guitarist Alex Lifeson made up for lost time by launching into a rambunctious rendition of "Tom Sawyer" in front of the more than 7,000 attendees.

Rush was among this year's eight eclectic inductees, which also included fellow classic rockers Heart, singer-songwriter Randy Newman, rap group Public Enemy, disco queen Donna Summer, bluesman Albert King, and producers Quincy Jones and Lou Adler.

For Heart, entering the hall of fame isn't just about music.

"Our long and winding road has always been about the magical power of love and the enduring strength of family," said Nancy Wilson. "We came from an era when women normally did not rock and women were not expected to be leaders."

Wilson, her sister, Ann, and their band mates celebrated their induction with lively performances of "Crazy for You," ''Dreamboat Annie" and "Barracuda."

Adler was inducted by comedy duo Richard "Cheech" Marin and Tommy Chong before being serenaded by Carole King with "So Far Away." Jack Nicholson was among Adler's fans in the audience who lavished the producer-mogul a standing ovation.

With his guitar around his neck, John Mayer inducted the late King before joining Gary Clark Jr. for King-tinged jam session.

"Albert King is why guitar-face was invented," joked Mayer.

Newman ? joined by Jackson Browne, John Fogerty and Tom Petty ? kicked off the Los Angeles ceremony with a performance of his classic "I Love L.A." It was an appropriate song choice given the fact this year's event marks the first time since 1993 that the Cleveland institution has held its induction ceremony on the West Coast. Backstage, Newman was matter-of-fact about his inclusion.

"I didn't think it would happen until I died or something," he said.

Oprah Winfrey was on hand to welcome Jones into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Usher lauded the producer-mogul with a rendition of the Michael Jackson tune "Rock with You."

Jennifer Hudson paid tribute to Summer with a medley of her hits, much to the delight of Flava Flav. The Public Enemy rapper, clad in an all-white tux, was the only person in the crowd who remained on his feet throughout her performance. He later commanded the microphone for a long-winded acceptance speech when Public Enemy was recognized. His colleague, Chuck D, was more succinct in his remarks.

"Let us all not forget, we all come from the damn blues," he told detractors.

Thursday's event concluded with all-star jam session featuring Rush, Heart, Chuck D, Grohl, Chris Cornell, Tom Morello and others riffing together on stage.

The induction ceremony will be broadcast May 18 on HBO.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang

___

Online:

http://rockhall.com

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/rush-jams-rock-roll-hall-fame-102344043.html

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