LOS ANGELES — Michael Jackson, the sensationally gifted child star who rose to become the “King of Pop” and the biggest celebrity in the world only to fall from his throne in a freakish series of scandals, died Thursday. He was 50. Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. Ed Winter, the assistant chief coroner for Los Angeles County, confirmed his office had been notified of the death and would handle the investigation.

The circumstances of Jackson’s death were not immediately clear. Jackson was not breathing when Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics responded to a call at his Los Angeles home about 12:30 p.m., Capt. Steve Ruda told the Los Angeles Times. The paramedics performed CPR and took him to the hospital, Ruda told the newspaper.

Jackson’s death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music’s premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage.

His 1982 album “Thriller” _ which included the blockbuster hits “Beat It,” “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” _ is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide.

The public first knew him in the late 1960s, when as a boy he was the precocious, spinning lead singer of the Jackson 5, the music group he formed with his four older brothers. Among their No. 1 hits were “I Want You Back,” “ABC,” and “I’ll Be There.”

He was perhaps the most exciting performer of his generation, known for his feverish, crotch-grabbing dance moves and his high-pitched voice punctuated with squeals and titters. His single sequined glove, tight, military-style jacket and aviator sunglasses were trademarks second only to his ever-changing, surgically altered appearance.

“For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don’t have the words,” said Quincy Jones, who produced “Thriller.” “He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I’ve lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him.”

Jackson ranked alongside Elvis Presley and the Beatles as the biggest pop sensations of all time. He united two of music’s biggest names when he was briefly married to Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie, and Jackson’s death immediately evoked that of Presley himself, who died at age 42 in 1977.

As years went by, Jackson became an increasingly freakish figure _ a middle-aged man-child weirdly out of touch with grown-up life. His skin became lighter, his nose narrower, and he spoke in a breathy, girlish voice. He surrounded himself with children at his Neverland ranch, often wore a germ mask while traveling and kept a pet chimpanzee named Bubbles as one of his closest companions.

“It seemed to me that his internal essence was at war with the norms of the world. It’s as if he was trying to defy gravity,” said Michael Levine, a Hollywood publicist who represented Jackson in the early 1990s. He called Jackson a “disciple of P.T. Barnum” and said the star appeared fragile at the time but was “much more cunning and shrewd about the industry than anyone knew.”

Jackson caused a furor in 2002 when he playfully dangled his infant son, Prince Michael II, over a hotel balcony in Berlin while a throng of fans watched from below.

In 2005, he was cleared of charges he molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor at Neverland in 2003. He had been accused of plying the boy with alcohol and groping him, and of engaging in strange and inappropriate behavior with other children.

The case followed years of rumors about Jackson and young boys. In a TV documentary, he had acknowledged sharing his bed with children, a practice he described as sweet and not at all sexual.

Despite the acquittal, the lurid allegations that came out in court took a fearsome toll on his career and image, and he fell into serious financial trouble.

Jackson was preparing for what was to be his greatest comeback: He was scheduled for an unprecedented 50 shows at a London arena, with the first set for July 13. He was in rehearsals in Los Angeles for the concert, an extravaganza that was to capture the classic Jackson magic: showstopping dance moves, elaborate staging and throbbing dance beats.

Singer Dionne Warwick said: “Michael was a friend and undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest entertainers that I fortunately had the pleasure of working with. … We have lost an icon in our industry.”

Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital as word of his death spread. The emergency entrance at the UCLA Medical Center, which is near Jackson’s rented home, was roped off with police tape.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Jackson has just died,” a woman boarding a Manhattan bus called out, shortly after the news was announced. Immediately many riders reached for their cell phones.

So many people wanted to verify the early reports of Jackson’s death that the computers running Google’s news section interpreted the fusillade of “Michael Jackson” requests as an automated attack for about half an hour Thursday evening.

In New York’s Times Square, a low groan went up in the crowd when a screen flashed that Jackson had died, and people began relaying the news to friends by cell phone.

“No joke. King of Pop is no more. Wow,” Michael Harris, 36, of New York City, read from a text message a friend sent to his telephone. “It’s like when Kennedy was assassinated. I will always remember being in Times Square when Michael Jackson died.”
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Associated Press Writers Derrik J. Lang in Los Angeles and Virginia Byrne, Nekesa Mumbi Moody and Jocelyn Noveck in New York contributed to this report.

With Dick it’s become a family affair, with his dragging along his wife and daughter–the normal hetero one, not the icky lesbo–to get his back as the questions get tough, and he is required to provide proof to his allegations. OK, it’s not so much proof as just his normal grunting and heavy breathing reminiscent of a dirty phone call from Darth Vader. But who needs evidence when the guy from the team who told us where to find all those weapons of mass destruction tells you to believe him. I mean this guy’s track record is impeccable.

If Dick wasn’t telling us about the iron clad connection between Mohamed Atta and Hussein’s super secret weapons program via Czechoslovakia–nine years after the counry ceased to exist–he and his gang of dogooders were sewing yarns about the super solvency of the credit market and absolute stability of the banking system.

Yes, Dick “Go Fuck Yourself” Cheney never missed a beat. Well, he missed several heartbeats, enough times that he slept in a coffin, but as far as intelligence went, this man was second to only George W. Bush in accuracy.

Just weeks after being wheeled out onto the Capitol steps for the last time looking like an even frailer version of Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life, Cheney was back on the talk show circuit talking up torture like the Shamwow guy tries to sell you absorbant rags for an RV you don’t even own. For a man who could never be found, hiding in his nondisclosed location for nearly the entire duration of his eight-year reign as Number Two, the man just can’t shut up now.

But I guess we do have to give Mr. Cheney credit for keeping up safe all those years. We were not hit once in those eight years he was at the helm, or at least silently guiding the hand of the guy at the helm when he was too drunk to steer, put his hand on the wheel, or even find the bridge. I mean the only time we were hit was that unfortunate incident on September 11, 2001. But he couldn’t be faulted for that. This was before we started torturing, so there was no way he could have ever found out about it. He would have had to have had ESP or at least the ability to read a Presidential Daily Briefing or listen to an FBI field agent.

Torture kept us safe by providing valuable information preventing another attack, or at least providing an invaluable link between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. In fact it was so successful, they waterboarded one guy 183 times in one month. You could even say that if it weren’t for torture, we never would have gotten into Iraq in the first place. And what kind of a world would this be with 5,000 more Americans alive and kicking in it?

While Mr. Cheney might not have known dick about the economy, he was dead on when it came to torture and using torture to keep us safe from the ticking time bomb, which was the imaginary and wholly illusionary link between 9/11 and Iraq. Cheney’s creative reading of such quaint documents as the Geneva Convention and goddamn pieces of paper like the Constitution, have helped us build the case for war and kept us safe from all those evildoers everywhere–except for the guys who blew up buses in London, trains in Madrid, nightclubs in Bali, beheaded journalists in the Middle East, and kept killing our soldiers using the type of road side improvised explosive devices, which would make Popular Mechanics proud.

Mr. Five-Time “I’ve Got Better Things to Do” Deferment Cheney knows the horrors of battle well, and would only send our soldiers into harm’s way based on sound intelligence, checked, double checked, and finally triple checked. He would never endanger the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans based on the desperate utterances of a man believing he was drowning, seeking any way to relieve the pain, no matter how fanciful the tale or fictitious the story. Not our Dick.

When Mr. Cheney condemns our President’s strategy in the fight against terrorism, he isn’t just playing politics. He is doing it to protect not only us, but more importantly, himself. You see, it seems there are a bunch of folk out there who think that we do not torture. They are misguided by quaint ideas like morals and Christian ethics. They don’t know that if we don’t torture, then the terrorists win. They live in ivory towers, also known as the front lines, and are under the mistaken idea that if we condone torture, then we have no standing to condemn others who torture. If you ask me on this Memorial Day, they are just a bunch of pussies.

Cheney is playing for his life, delivering a performance worthy of an Oscar, as he attempts to keep himself away from prying eyes, who would investigate who tortured whom. Look, we all know it takes two to torture, one to do the torture, and one to sit there and be tortured. At least that is how the whole S&M thing works between Sean Hannity and Geraldo Rivera. So there is plenty of blame to go around. I mean if someone claims he was tortured, like some 12-year-old boy getting sodomized, can’t we all just agree he was asking for it like the woman who gets brutally raped for dressing pretty?

We owe it to Mr. Cheney to get his back after he got our backs, and mail, and phone calls, and email, and financial data for the last seven years. Just remember the next time he tells us we are all going to die because we now know what he was up to for those seven years, that he is only doing this to protect us all from the boogie man, which appears to no longer be some bearded guy in a cave in Pakistan, but is now some black guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

So here’s to that big Dick for keeping us safe and protecting his ass. Let’s hope this world tour of torture lasts a long time. Mr. Cheney, might I suggest you take this road trip international? What do you say to Spain?

This is just another example of how liberal radio cannot compete with the much more powerful and popular conservative radio. We are a right of center nation. We elected a black guy with a Muslim name who promised to raise taxes on the rich and to take us down the road to universal health care, because America loves conservatism and wants to continue the very successful Republican Experiment, which has resulted in the best economy ever.

Every single liberal voice in this nation has gone under, because this conservative nation rejects their beliefs and ideals.

Except for Ed Schultz, Stephanie Miller, Bill Press, Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, NPR, CNN, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, PBS, The New York Times, Arriana Huffington, the millions of liberal blogs, and just about anything not owned by Rupert Murdoch.

On her website, Randi states that she is looking for a new home for her radio program. Although there have been accusations that Rhodes is a “drama queen,” she is expected to be picked up by another network. Considering she was able to move her entire show from Air America to Nova M in just 24 hours last year, she most likely won’t be silent for long.

If the Fairness Doctrine is coming, as some in Congress have alluded, then I think the Premiere Radio Networks should pick up Randi and start a new show, where she takes the left, and Rush takes the right. It would be an instant hit. They could also have a celebrity death match, with the winner taking all the time slots. Of course any match up between Randi and Jabba the Hutt would be unfair. Oxycotyn not only shrinks your gonads, but it makes you incapable of putting up a fight or getting it up.

Just ask any of the boys Rush rapes in the Carribean.

Joe the Plumber ditched John McCain on the campaign trail and went rogue in his own way, declaring that a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel. Priceless!

Elizabeth Dole claims her opponent is godless. Crazy bitch!

Norm Coleman sues Al Franken. Dude!

Bible Spice says “drill, baby, drill” at a stump stop at a solar plant in Ohio. Infuckingcredible!

Some polls are saying the race is tightening. Others show that Obama has a comfortable lead. Early voters are overwhelmingly Democratic. Huge numbers of African Americans and young voters are turning up early to vote for Obama, which begs the question.

In a poll, which uses likely voters, what exactly do they do with people who have already voted? Are they being counted as likely voters? If they are not, then are the numbers becoming more skewed as we get closer to election day as more and more people have already voted?

Remember to join Blanca on election day. She will be calling each and every state for Obama or McCain. She will also call each Senate and Congressional race. She will also call other important elections, like Prop 8 in California and Prop R in San Francisco. She will be blogging live from the cradle of liberty, Atlanta.

I wanted to write you to thank you for all of your work on behalf of the sanctity of marriage. Your countless efforts to protect traditional marriage will garner for you a saint hood and a place in Heaven.

That is if you weren’t Godless heathens destined for Hell. But what is a little blasphemy between friends?

I mean you guys have done an amazing job. Your work for Proposition 8 in California is just stunning. I mean considering the source, for a bunch of wife swapping, bigamist loons, I am really impressed.

By the way, do you know Chloë Sevigny? Is she just as big a bitch in person as she is on TV? Does she give head as good in person as she did on the big screen?

This whole fight for marriage has turned out to be an expensive one. I heard that it is expected to cost $60 million. I really want to thank you for spending this money on a worthy cause instead of something silly like feeding the poor or helping children. Oh, who are we kidding? You are too busy fucking children to be helping them.

Please keep up the good work. Marriage needs protection. And who better to protect it than bigamists who have the 26th worst divorce rate in the country? And remember, Jesus loves you. Oh, listen to me! Of course He doesn’t. You Satanist bastards!

Love,

Blanca

The Maverick, the War Hero, the Straight Talk Express himself has suspended his campaign today and wants to “postpone” the debate on Friday to address the economic crisis.

John, if they need or want you, they will send for you. Right now Washington needs the advice of saged economic advisors. If they need the advice of a crackpot know-nothing, they will certainly call on you.

McCain is being attacked by Obama as incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. Indeed, the President of the United States must be able to handle a myriad of crises at the same time, and without taking mid-day naps. Who the hell do you think you are, Reagan?

Some have offered to have Palin take his place in the debate. Others–mostly those who know Palin–have offered to sacrifice her to the Money God for better juju.

Now they want to “postpone” the Vice Presidential Debate, as well. And I was so looking forward to seeing Joe Biden mop the floor with that hockey mom’s hair.

John McCain even cancelled an appearance on Dave Letterman. Dave excoriated the septuagenarian for his ploy.

These little timeouts are going to cost McCain dearly. It appears that Obama and Ole Miss are planning to go through with the debate, with or without McCain. With McCain, it will just be an opportunity to see another young black guy beat up an old white guy for money–the only difference is instead of pocket change it is trillions of dollars. Without McCain, it will be a 90-minute infomercial for Barack Obama, who will walk America through the crisis, with his detailed plan for resolution.

Listen to me, you decrepit old dip shit, you want as much time as possible between the debates and the election. Both Obama and Biden are going to have you for lunch. They will enjoy a healthy post-debate bounce, while you will enjoy a post-debate dump–as long as Cindy doesn’t forget your Metamucil.  You will need all the Spin Meisters you can muster to make it look like you didn’t suffer an aneurysm and that Palin didn’t flash her tits to take attention away from her stupid stare and dumb responses in the debates.

Are the rest of your so-called Republicans out there finally ready to accept the fact that we were taken to the cleaners with this dynamic duo of dunces? If you want any chance of keeping the White House this fall–and keeping Dick and George out of jail–you better get us two real candidates right now.

The polls are showing McCain falling faster than his wife’s tits or his lesbian daughter’s testicles. ABC now has him 9 points ahead of McCain in its latest poll. A single poll has McCain ahead, but to be fair, the Dyslexic Society of America has not been known for their polling efforts in the past.

Each time a new crisis dawns, McCain pulls some asinine trick to keep from having to address the actual issue. The other day he claimed he was washing his hair and couldn’t be bothered to answer questions on the mortgage meltdown. Note to John: YOU HAVE NO FUCKING HAIR.

And for God’s sake, stop sending Palin out to talk to people. Firstly, her voice is worse than a cross between Roseanne and Fran Drescher. Secondly, she is an idiot. Thirdly, she moves too fast for our sniper to target her. Put something in her coffee to slow her down so he has a clear shot. This isn’t as easy as shooting moose from an airplane, you know.

The days of the campaign are waning, and the great white haired hope is letting us down. Republicans are planning a Hail Mary Pass in the fourth quarter, hoping to block any rescue plan for Wall Street. The Democrats are sure to pump it full of all kinds of provisions to punish executives and to give aid to home owners. Voting against such a bill is political suicide in this climate.

I think it’s time to try the fake kidnapping or assassination attempt to rescue your asses. Only, in the case of McCain and Palin, can you make it real, please? Mike Huckabee has nothing to do, and is ready to take the reigns of the campaign if you only ask him. And for his number two? Jeb, of course!

Well, since John McCain has distanced himself from Commander Guy, I have been looking for another candidate, whom I can support in the November. It looks like the Colored guy, may finally fit the bill. Who knew?

Well, of course then again, it seems that John McCain is trying to get back in my good graces by selecting Steve Schmidt to fix his broken campaign. Normally I would welcome this as a move in the right direction, but we are talking about flippity flop McCain now, aren’t we?

And then there was the recent revelation from General Wesley Clark, that sitting on your ass in a POW camp is not something that makes you a good leader. After all, I thought the whole point was not to get captured. Sounds like McCain was just as lazy as Frederick of Hollywood back then and didn’t want to do his fair share in Vietnam.

No, once again, we are reminded as conservatives that if you cannot vote for Bob Barr, you must vote for Barack Obama, who will continue Bush’s third term, according to the WSJ, and if you don’t include raising the taxes on the super rich, investing in science, energy independence, getting out of Iraq, and restoring our nation’s respect abroad.

Yep, just like Bush’s third term.

In between the usual banter of Nina Totenberg and Juan Williams, I listened to what at first I had hoped was a 21st century equivalent of War of the Worlds. I heard a report, which sent a shiver down my spine and nearly stopped me in the tracks.

It seems that both John McCain and Barack Obama are in Florida, trying to woo Cuban Americans for their votes this November. Normally I would think nothing of pandering to a bunch of minorities, especially if they agree to vote for us in exchange for shutting the Hell up for the next four years and promising to remain out of site, except to make baseless racist claims against the Democrats.

But in this case, I am horrified. Those sugar-cane sucking, cigar-smoking, cha-cha-heel-wearing Cubanos have been a reliable voting block for us ever since the Bay of Bigs fiasco under Kennedy. But in the past couple of years, many things have occurred to shake this reliable support base.

Even though 18% percent of the country thinks our country is heading in the right direction, a vocal minority of 82% think we are heading in the wrong direction. Add to that the perception in the Cuban American community that the Decider has been ignoring Latin America, except to chastise Hugo Chavez or one of the Castros, and what you have is pissed off Hispanics ready to whack the Republicans in November like a piñata filled with cocaine.

So Barack Obama is courting the Cubanos, hoping that there are now enough of them who are disgruntled that the state may swing back into the blue column this year. He is talking about relaxing the sanctions against Cuba and opening up dialog with all leaders in Latin America, including Chavez and Castro. And with too many Americans confused by high gas prices, the mainstream media’s insistence on shining a light on all the bad parts of the Iraq War, and a falling dollar, it seems that folks are beginning to support crazy ideas like negotiations and diplomacy.

My God, what kind of Hell is this?

So I would just like to talk to those Cuban Americans who are thinking about voting for a Democrat this fall. If you know what is good for you, you will vote for the Republican candidate. Remember all those hurricanes God sent to New Orleans, just because a bunch of gays wanted to have a parade? Well, if you thought Katrina and Rita were bad, wait until God finds out you are contemplating voting for Barack Obama.

If I were you, I would stock up on drinking water and learn how to say “I’m drowning” in English. By late August downtown Miami will be a shipping channel.

So to quote Nancy Reagan, if you are thinking of voting Obama, just say ¡no!

So there was Commander Guy, standing in front of the Knesset, delivering a speech on how wonderful it is to be a Jew in Israel, how dressing funny and praying at some wall is all that, and how Israel is a shining example of a democracy–1950’s American style–when all of the sudden he dropped a bomb on Barack so big I for a moment forgot I was a white lady and said “damn, bitch!”

The Decider warned us that becoming an appeaser, appeasing those who would be appeased, like those appeasers in the appeasing past, appeased Hitler, made him appeased, and led to all kinds of bad shit, which I really don’t remember, but I would if I actually believed in fact checking and doing my homework before opening up my mouth and talking all indignant about crap, about which I know nothing.

Fucking appeaser!

So as I listened to our Decider talk about how Barack Obama was no better than those people who let Hitler have his way, giving him what he wanted, and supporting him, so he could go on to march into the Sudetenland, annex Austria and invade Poland. And I thought to myself, who better than Dear Leader to discuss the evils of appeasing Hitler. Yes, if it’s one thing our brilliant President Man understands, it’s appeasing dictators and terrorists!

And after the speech, Lieberman and McCain both jumped to our President’s defense while others attacked him and belittled him, and actually tore apart what he said by actually making a distinction between negotiations, diplomacy, and appeasement. Those bitches!

Look, Commander Guy is correct. You cannot talk to our enemies, that would be just crazy. I mean what would have happened if we talked to North Korea, Libya, or the Soviet Union? I shudder to think.

Look, the carrot and stick approach has never worked. What we have been doing for the past seven years under the brilliant command of Bush has worked perfectly. I mean just look at everything we have accomplished. Iraq is a flourishing democracy, Afghanistan is just like a Midwest state, and everyone in the world loves and respects us.

Indeed, every time Condi goes overseas to deliver some brilliant piece of advice, she is hailed as a hero. In the words of Barbara Bush, this is working quite well.

So although I do not support John McCain, I do support continuing the wonderful policies of W., which have made me rich, lots of brown people not so rich (and in some cases quite dead), and has made Iraq the shining example of what can be done when you put a Bush to it.

This blogger wins the unprecedented Saying What Everyone on the Right is Thinking Glenn Beck Award.

Kudos to you!