KANYE'S NEW SONG:


~~~

BISHOP, JD ERA AND DRAKE: http://www.zshare.net/audio/18255214df639cf5/
NOT THE MOST ORIGINAL SONG TOPIC, BUT I LOVE THESE GUYS REGARDLESS, LOL
THIS ONE ISN'T THAT BAD, BUT THEY GOT OTHER SONGS THAT ARE EVEN ILLER!

~~~

SARAP PALIN IS THE TYPE OF GIRL THEY WERE RAPPING ABOUT, LOL:

http://www.crosscut.com/politics-government/17341

Quote:
About Sarah Palin: an e-mail from Wasilla
A suburban Anchorage homemaker and activist — who once did battle with the Alaska governor when Palin was mayor — recounts what she knows of Palin's history.

By Anne Kilkenny

Editor's note: The writer is a homemaker and education advocate in Wasilla, Alaska. Late last week, Anne Kilkenny penned an e-mail for her friends about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, whom she personally knows, that has since circulated across comment forums and blogs nationwide. Here is her e-mail in its entirety, posted with her permission.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am a resident of Wasilla, Alaska. I have known Gov. Sarah Palin since 1992. Everyone here knows Sarah, so it is nothing special to say we are on a first-name basis. Our children have attended the same schools. Her father was my child's favorite substitute teacher. I also am on a first-name basis with her parents and mother-in-law. I attended more City Council meetings during her administration than about 99 percent of the residents of the city.

She is enormously popular; in every way she's like the most popular girl in middle school. Even men who think she is a poor choice for vice president and won't vote for her can't quit smiling when talking about her because she is a "babe."

It is astonishing and almost scary how well she can keep a secret. She kept her most recent pregnancy a secret from her children and parents for seven months.

She is "pro-life." She recently gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby. There is no cover-up involved here; Trig is her baby.

She is energetic and hardworking. She regularly worked out at the gym.

She is savvy. She doesn't take positions; she just "puts things out there" and if they prove to be popular, then she takes credit.

Her husband works a union job on the North Slope for BP and is a champion snowmobile racer. Todd Palin's kind of job is highly sought-after because of the schedule and high pay. He arranges his work schedule so he can fish for salmon in Bristol Bay for a month or so in summer, but by no stretch of the imagination is fishing their major source of income. Nor has her lifestyle ever been anything like that of native Alaskans.

Sarah and her whole family are avid hunters.

She's smart.

Her experience is as mayor of a city with a population of about 5,000 (at the time) and less than two years as governor of a state with about 670,000 residents.

During her mayoral administration, most of the actual work of running this small city was turned over to an administrator. She had been pushed to hire this administrator by party power-brokers after she had gotten herself into some trouble over precipitous firings, which had given rise to a recall campaign.

Sarah campaigned in Wasilla as a "fiscal conservative." During her six years as mayor, she increased general government expenditures by more than 33 percent. During those same six years, the amount of taxes collected by the city increased by 38 percent. This was during a period of low inflation (1996-2002). She reduced progressive property taxes and increased a regressive sales tax, which taxed even food. The tax cuts that she promoted benefitted large corporate property owners way more than they benefited residents.

The huge increases in tax revenue during her mayoral administration weren't enough to fund everything on her wish list, though — borrowed money was needed, too. She inherited a city with zero debt but left it with indebtedness of more than $22 million. What did Mayor Palin encourage the voters to borrow money for? Was it the infrastructure that she said she supported? The sewage treatment plant that the city lacked? Or a new library? No. $1 million for a park. $15 million-plus for construction of a multi-use sports complex, which she rushed through, on a piece of property that the city didn't even have clear title to. That was still in litigation seven years later — to the delight of the lawyers involved! The sports complex itself is a nice addition to the community but a huge money pit, not the profit-generator she claimed it would be. She also supported bonds for $5.5 million for road projects that could have been done in five to seven years without any borrowing.

While Mayor, City Hall was extensively remodeled and her office redecorated more than once.

These are small numbers, but Wasilla is a very small city.

As an oil producer, the high price of oil has created a budget surplus in Alaska. Rather than invest this surplus in technology that will make us energy independent and increase efficiency, as governor Sarah proposed distribution of this surplus to every individual in the state.

In this time of record state revenues and budget surpluses, she recommended that the state borrow/bond for road projects, even while she proposed distribution of surplus state revenue: Spend today's surplus, borrow for needs.

She's not very tolerant of divergent opinions or open to outside ideas or compromise. As mayor, she fought ideas that weren't generated by her or her staff. Ideas weren't evaluated on their merits but on the basis of who proposed them.

While Sarah was mayor of Wasilla, she tried to fire our highly respected city librarian because the librarian refused to consider removing from the library some books that Sarah wanted removed. City residents rallied to the defense of the city librarian and against Palin's attempt at out-and-out censorship, so Palin backed down and withdrew her termination letter. People who fought her attempt to oust the librarian are on her enemies list to this day.

Sarah complained about the "old boy's club" when she first ran for mayor, so what did she bring Wasilla? A new set of "old boys." Palin fired most of the experienced staff she inherited. At the city and as governor, she hired or elevated new, inexperienced, obscure people, creating a staff totally dependent on her for their jobs and eternally grateful and fiercely loyal — loyal to the point of abusing their power to further her personal agenda, as she has acknowledged happened in the case of pressuring the state's top cop.

As mayor, Sarah fired Wasilla's police chief because he "intimidated" her, she told the press. As governor, her recent firing of Alaska's top cop has the ring of familiarity about it. He served at her pleasure and she had every legal right to fire him, but it's pretty clear that an important factor in her decision to fire him was because he wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, a state trooper. Under investigation for abuse of power, she has had to admit that more than two dozen contacts were made between her staff and family to the person that she later fired, pressuring him to fire her ex-brother-in-law. She tried to replace the man she fired with a man who she knew had been reprimanded for sexual harassment; when this caused a public furor, she withdrew her support.

She has bitten the hand of every person who extended theirs to her in help. The City Council person who personally escorted her around town, introducing her to voters when she first ran for Wasilla City Council became one of her first targets when she was later elected mayor. She abruptly fired her loyal city administrator; even people who didn't like the guy were stunned by this ruthlessness.

Fear of retribution has kept all of these people from saying anything publicly about her.

When then-Gov. Frank Murkowski was handing out political plums, Sarah got the best, chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission — one of the few jobs not in Juneau and one of the best paid. She had no background in oil and gas issues. Within months of scoring this great job, which paid $122,400 a year, she was complaining in the press about the high salary. I was told that she hated that job: the commute, the structured hours, the work. Sarah became aware that a member of this commission (who was also the state chair of the Republican Party) engaged in unethical behavior on the job. In a gutsy move which some undoubtedly cautioned her could be political suicide, Sarah solved all her problems in one fell swoop: got out of the job she hated and garnered gobs of media attention as the patron saint of ethics and as a gutsy fighter against the "old boys' club," when she dramatically quit, exposing this man's ethics violations (for which he was fined).

As mayor, she had her hand stuck out as far as anyone for pork from Sen. Ted Stevens. Lately, she has castigated his pork-barrel politics and publicly humiliated him. She only opposed the "bridge to nowhere" after it became clear that it would be unwise not to.

As governor, she gave the Legislature no direction and budget guidelines, then made a big grandstand display of line-item vetoing projects, calling them pork. Public outcry and further legislative action restored most of these projects — which had been vetoed simply because she was not aware of their importance — but with the unobservant she had gained a reputation as "anti-pork."

She is solidly Republican: no political maverick. The state party leaders hate her because she has bit them in the back and humiliated them. Other members of the party object to her self-description as a fiscal conservative.

Around Wasilla, there are people who went to high school with Sarah. They call her "Sarah Barracuda" because of her unbridled ambition and predatory ruthlessness. Before she became so powerful, very ugly stories circulated around town about shenanigans she pulled to be made point guard on the high school basketball team. When Sarah's mother-in-law, a highly respected member of the community and experienced manager, ran for mayor, Sarah refused to endorse her.

As governor, she stepped outside of the box and put together of package of legislation known as "AGIA" that forced the oil companies to march to the beat of her drum.

Like most Alaskans, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). She has questioned if the loss of sea ice is linked to global warming. She campaigned "as a private citizen" against a state initiaitive that would have either protected salmon streams from pollution from mines or tied up in the courts all mining in the state (depending on whom you listen to). She has pushed the state's lawsuit against the Department of the Interior's decision to list polar bears as a threatened species.

McCain is the oldest person to ever run for president; Sarah will be a heartbeat away from being president.

There has to be literally millions of Americans who are more knowledgeable and experienced than she.

However, there are a lot of people who have underestimated her and are regretting it.

Claim vs. Fact
"Hockey mom": True for a few years
"PTA mom": True years ago when her first-born was in elementary school, not since
"NRA supporter": Absolutely true
Social conservative: mixed. Opposes gay marriage, but vetoed a bill that would have denied benefits to employees in same-sex relationships (said she did this because it was unconsitutional).
Pro-creationism: Mixed. Supports it, but did nothing as governor to promote it.
"Pro-life": Mixed. Knowingly gave birth to a Down's syndrome baby but declined to call a special legislative session on some pro-life legislation.
"Experienced": Some high schools have more students than Wasilla has residents. Many cities have more residents than the state of Alaska. No legislative experience other than City Council. Little hands-on supervisory or managerial experience; needed help of a city administrator to run town of about 5,000.
Political maverick: Not at all.
Gutsy: Absolutely!
Open and transparent: ??? Good at keeping secrets. Not good at explaining actions.
Has a developed philosophy of public policy: No.
"A Greenie": No. Turned Wasilla into a wasteland of big box stores and disconnected parking lots. Is pro-drilling off-shore and in ANWR.
Fiscal conservative: Not by my definition!
Pro-infrastructure: No. Promoted a sports complex and park in a city without a sewage treatment plant or storm drainage system. Built streets to early 20th century standards.
Pro-tax relief: Lowered taxes for businesses, increased tax burden on residents
Pro-small government: No. Oversaw greatest expansion of city government in Wasilla's history.
Pro-labor/pro-union: No. Just because her husband works union doesn't make her pro-labor. I have seen nothing to support any claim that she is pro-labor/pro-union.
Why am I writing this?
First, I have long believed in the importance of being an informed voter. I am a voter registrar. For 10 years I put on student voting programs in the schools. If you google my name, you will find references to my participation in local government, education, and PTA/parent organizations.

Secondly, I've always operated in the belief that "bad things happen when good people stay silent." Few people know as much as I do because few have gone to as many City Council meetings.

Third, I am just a housewife. I don't have a job she can bump me out of. I don't belong to any organization that she can hurt. But I am no fool; she is immensely popular here, and it is likely that this will cost me somehow in the future: that's life.

Fourth, she has hated me since back in 1996, when I was one of the 100 or so people who rallied to support the city librarian against Sarah's attempt at censorship.

Fifth, I looked around and realized that everybody else was afraid to say anything because they were somehow vulnerable.

Caveats: I am not a statistician. I developed the numbers for the increase in spending and taxation two years ago (when Palin was running for governor) from information supplied to me by the finance director of the City of Wasilla, and I can't recall exactly what I adjusted for: Did I adjust for inflation? For population increases? Right now, it is impossible for a private person to get any info out of City Hall — they are swamped. So I can't verify my numbers.

You may have noticed that there are various numbers circulating for the population of Wasilla, ranging from my "about 5,000" up to 9,000. The day Palin's selection was announced, a city official told me that the current population is about 7,000. The official 2000 census count was 5,460. I have used about 5,000 because Palin was Mayor from 1996 to 2002, and the city was growing rapidly in the mid-1990s.

Anne Kilkenny is a homemaker and education advocate in Wasilla, Alaska.

YOU THINK WE'RE DONE? WE'RE NOT DONE:

Sarah Palin's 9 Most Disturbing Beliefs

By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet. Posted September 8, 2008.

It's time to shift the discussion about Palin to what really matters: her far-right views on the issues.

http://www.alternet.org/e...tion08/97907/?page=entire

Let's forget for a moment that Sarah Palin likes to kill moose, has lots of children and was once voted the second-prettiest lady in Alaska; that's all part of the gusher of sensationalist, but not particularly substantive, news that has dominated coverage of the Alaska governor's addition to the Republican ticket.

Before the next news cycle brings the shocking information that Palin was actually impregnated by Bigfoot, we need to shift the discussion to what really matters about her in the context of the White House: her dangerous views.

AlterNet has compiled a list of Palin's most shocking beliefs, ranging from her positions on the economy to her views on reproductive rights. This list has nothing to do with her personal life, her looks or her gender. It's the stuff that voters need to know: what Sarah Palin really believes.

1. Despite problems at home, Sarah Palin does not believe in giving teenagers information about sex.

The McCain campaign is spinning Bristol Palin's pregnancy as a neat, shiny example of the unbreakable bonds of family. But while Bristol's actions and choices should not be attacked, teen pregnancy is no cause for celebration, either. To state the very obvious, it is not a good thing when teenagers have unprotected sex. And U.S. teens appear to have unprotected sex a lot: The United States has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world, and 1 in 4 American teen girls has an STI.

Like John McCain, Palin's approach to the problems of teen pregnancy and STI transmission is abstinence-only education. In a 2006 questionnaire by the conservative group Eagle Forum, Palin stated: "Explicit sex-ed programs will not find my support." Presumably the programs that do find Palin's support are ones that focus on abstinence and only mention contraceptives to talk about their supposed shortcomings.

But someone already tried that. For eight years the Bush administration has thrown its heft behind Title V, a federal program that provides states with funding for abstinence-based sex education. In 2007 an expansive study proved abstinence-until-marriage education does not delay teen sexual activity.

If Palin is elected, she will continue to throw money at a policy that does little besides ensure that a larger number of sexually active teens lack information about how to avoid pregnancy and STIs.

2. Sarah Palin believes the U.S. Army is on a mission from God.

In June, Palin gave a speech at the Wasilla Assembly of God, her former church, in which she exhorted ministry students to pray for American soldiers in Iraq. "Our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," she told them. "That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

Palin talked about her son, Track, an infantryman in the U.S. Army:

When he turned 18 right before he enlisted, he had to get his first tattoo. And I'm like -- I don't think that's real cool, son. Until he showed me what it was and I thought, oh he did something right, 'cause on his calf, he has a big ol' Jesus fish!

Holy war, holy warriors.

3. Sarah Palin believes in punishing rape victims.

Palin thinks that rape victims should be forced to bear the child of their rapist. She believes this so strongly that she would oppose abortion even if her own daughter were raped.

The Huffington Post reports: "Granting exceptions only if the mother's life was in danger, Palin said that when it came to her daughter, 'I would choose life.'

At the time, her daughter was 14 years old. Moreover, Alaska's rape rate was an abysmal 2.2 times above the national average, and 25 percent of all rapes resulted in unwanted pregnancies.

If Palin's own daughter was only 14 when she made that statement, does she think any girl of reproductive age is old enough to have a child? Girls are hitting puberty earlier and earlier. What if the rape victim were only 10? 9? 8?

Palin also opposes abortion in cases of incest and would grant an exception only if childbirth would result in the mother's death. She has not made any statements yet about whether she believes a 10-year-old who was raped by her father would be able to actually raise the child once it was born. Perhaps Palin doesn't care.

4. Who's really not in favor of clean water? Sarah Palin.

As The Hill reports, "Governor Palin has ... opposed a crucial clean water initiative."

Alaska's KTUU explains: "It is against the law for the governor to officially advocate for or against a ballot measure; however, Palin took what she calls 'personal privilege' to discuss one of this year's most contentious initiatives."

Palin said, "Let me take my governor's hat off just for a minute here and tell you, personally, Prop. 4 -- I vote no on that." And what is that? A state initiative that would have banned metal mines from discharging pollution into salmon streams.

She also approved legislation that let oil and gas companies nearly triple the amount of toxic waste they can dump into Cook Inlet, an important fishery. It looks like being an avid outdoorsperson doesn't mean Palin really has the health of watersheds, natural resources or our environment at heart.

5. Sarah Palin calls herself a reformer, but on earmarks and the "Bridge to Nowhere," she is a hypocrite.

Palin says she's a "conservative Republican" who is "a firm believer in free market capitalism." She's running as an anti-tax crusader, and she did make deep cuts to Alaska's budget.

So, one would assume she is no borrow-and-spend conservative like George W., right?

Well, there was the time when she served as the mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla, Alaska. According to the Associated Press, "Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million." You'd think that $27 mil in taxpayers' funds would be enough scratch for a town with a population of 8,000, but you'd be wrong. According to Politico, Palin then "racked up nearly $20 million in long-term debt as mayor of the tiny town of Wasilla -- that amounts to $3,000 per resident."

Then there's her current stint as Alaska governor, during which her appetite for federal pork spending has been on clear display. The Associated Press reported, "In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation." While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "Bridge to Nowhere."

6. Sarah Palin believes creationism should be taught in schools.

Until somebody digs up the remnants of a T. rex with an ill-fated caveman dangling from its jaws, the scientific community, along with most of the American public, will be at peace with the theory of evolution. But this isn't true of everyone. More than 80 years after the Scopes "Monkey" trial, there are people -- and politicians -- who do not believe in evolution and lobby for creationism to be taught in schools.

Palin is one of those politicians. When Palin ran for governor, part of her platform called for teaching schoolchildren creationism alongside evolution. Although she did not push hard for this position after she was elected governor, Palin has let her views on evolution be known on many occasions. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin stated, "Teach both. You know, don't be afraid of information. Healthy debate is so important, and it's so valuable in our schools. I am a proponent of teaching both."

Palin further argued, "It's OK to let kids know that there are theories out there. They gain information just by being in a discussion."

Not when those "theories" are being presented as valid alternatives to a set of principles that most scientists have ascribed to for more than a century.

7. Sarah Palin supports offshore drilling everywhere, even if it doesn't solve our energy problems.

If McCain was hoping to salvage any part of his credibility with environmentalists, he threw that chance out the window by adding Palin to his ticket. Palin is in favor of offshore drilling and drilling in the ecologically sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Miami Herald reported:

The Alaska governor has said that she has tried to persuade McCain to agree with her on drilling in the wildlife refuge. She also has said that she was happy that he changed his position over the summer and now supports offshore oil drilling.

As if that weren't bad enough, in her speech this week at the Republican National Convention, she said, "Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America's energy problems -- as if we all didn't know that already." Huh. I guess drilling even when it won't help is better than working on renewable energy sources, as Palin also vetoed money for a wind energy project.

8. Sarah Palin loves oil and nuclear power.

Aside from her "drill here, drill there, drill everywhere" approach to our energy crisis, the only other things we know about Palin's energy policy, especially given her Bush-like love of avoiding the press, comes from her acceptance speech:

Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines, build more nuclear plants, create jobs with clean coal and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources.

Nuclear power plants. Interesting. As folks look for alternative fuel sources (and again, Palin loves oil first and foremost so her commitment to any alternative energy source is suspect at best), nuclear power is enjoying a return to vogue. But here's the problem: Even the U.S. government's own nuclear agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, thinks an atomic renaissance is a bad idea:

Delivered by one of America's most notoriously docile agencies, the NRC's warning essentially says: that all cost estimates for new nuclear reactors -- and all licensing and construction schedules -- are completely up for grabs and have no reliable basis in fact. Thus any comparisons between future atomic reactors and renewable technologies are moot at best.

Not to mention all the other problems with nuclear energy, such as how to dispose of nuclear waste and the possibility of a catastrophic meltdown, to name a couple. Palin has no background with nuclear energy and shows no evidence of having looked into the science behind it or the dangers that come with it.

Also, it's time for Palin to drop another Bush-like tendency: Governor, the word is pronounced "new-clear."

9. Sarah Palin doesn't think much of community activism; she'd much rather play insider political games.

In her Republican convention speech, Palin slammed Barack Obama's early political work, saying, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except you have actual responsibilities." Palin's put-down of grassroots workers, often unpaid or low-paid, demeaned an American tradition of neighbors helping neighbors, according to Deepak Bhargava, executive director of the Center for Community Change. But more revealing is Palin's apparent lack of experience in community change and local volunteer efforts, during her years in Alaska before becoming governor.

Scores of press accounts of her early years as mayor of Wasilla omit any mention of such work. Instead, they note as mayor, and in the intervening years before running for governor, Palin gravitated to those with power, money or influence. She worked to enlarge Wasilla's Wal-Mart and build a sports center (that went over budget in an eminent domain dispute), and she hired a Washington lobbyist, directed a political fundraising committee for the state's senior U.S. senator, Republican Ted Stevens, now under indictment for corruption, and steered $22 million in federal aid to her town. While some of her early community work was undoubtedly centered on her church, perhaps this comment by a blog reader best sums up Palin's political opportunism:

So community organizers (aren't) responsible? Or caring? Or doing anything important. What a terrible insult to the greatest community organizer of all time, Jesus Christ.

~~~

MC SERCH SPEAKS TO ICE CUBE, YEAH:



~~~

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080906.BBALL06/TPStory/?query=Will+Strickland

FORMER PRO-BALLER: WILL STRICKLAND
Every legend has a home court
Toronto's behind-the-scenes urban-music guru has big plans. But he's not above the rough-and-tumble of a little four-on-four

TENILLE BONOGUORE

September 6, 2008

He levels his cool gaze at the rim and lets the basketball fly. The joking laugh, the meandering grin, have slipped away, replaced by a steely determination tempered during his previous incarnation on the pro circuit.

Everything, it seems, comes down to this moment.

Never mind that this is a Wednesday afternoon in the sunshine of downtown Toronto. For Will Strickland - president of the Urban Music Association of Canada, hip-hop spokesman, music promoter and burgeoning media personality - this is life.

Set up, execute, follow through. The three simple steps have taken the 38-year-old from his childhood home in New York through the worlds of professional basketball and big-label music, into a career as a media maverick in Toronto.

His latest target - LeBron James - puts much of that in the shade. The National Basketball Association superstar breezes through Toronto today to promote the documentary More Than a Game, which is being screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, and will take part in a promotional dunk competition at Yonge-Dundas Square. Mr. Strickland hopes to lure the 23-year-old down a new career path.

Not only has the man once known as "The Negotiator" written his first screenplay, he also wants arguably the world's hottest young player to be the star. On top of that, he is about to become the star of his own show.

Television station The Score has signed a letter of intent to air a sports talk show pitched by Mr. Strickland and Toronto Star sportswriter Morgan Campbell. The pair believe the show - currently titled The Throwdown - could be the first national non-comedy show created and presented by two black men when it begins airing in May, 2009.

"I would love for some kid to be sitting at home in Rexdale, or in Flemingdon Park, or in any kind of similar neighbourhood across this country, and see me and say, 'Wait a minute. He's not a professional basketball player, he's not a rapper, he's not a politician, he's not any of this. How is he here?' " Mr. Strickland says over a coffee near UMAC's King Street West office, his tall frame relaxed and animated, his eyes curious, his smile frequent.

"I imagined it, I dreamt it, figured out how to get there, and I did it. I made my life valuable not only to myself but to other people who found value in what I did."

For anyone else, it would all seem too audacious to pursue.

Since moving to Toronto seven years ago - "for work and a woman, not necessarily in that order" - few things have not gone well for him.

The co-principal of entertainment marketing and promotions firm Keikwalk Consulting travels the world as a guest speaker on urban music and hip-hop culture, and visits schools across Canada presenting The Corner, a musical in which emerging urban artists address issues from gang violence to women's rights and HIV/AIDS.

He has also spent the past 18 months rebuilding UMAC after its previous board was dissolved (a new board was appointed this month), and in his downtime has crafted a strong presence in the city's street basketball scene, particularly at Harbourfront Community Centre, where he's known as "Wall $treet."

It seems the only thing that hasn't work out as planned is his personal life. Mr. Strickland is single, and confesses he "has no work-life balance." But he's certain that will change next year. It has to. His 12-year-old son Cameron is coming to Toronto to live with him.

"I've been knocked down plenty of times, but I have this undying belief in me, and [in] what I think I can accomplish, and what I know I can accomplish," Mr. Strickland says.

"To me, the true mark of someone's character is not how you act when everything is going really well, but how you react when it's not going so well."

Mr. Strickland's rock-solid self-belief came early. During his New York childhood, he and his five siblings sometimes went hungry, and teenage role models were often school dropouts, drug users and/or gang members. The young Will was determined to be different.

He auditioned for the lead in his elementary-school play, The Wizard of Oz, even though he was only in kindergarten, and landed the part.

He pursued basketball - even though people doubted he would make it in college - ended up turning pro, and was christened "The Negotiator" at streetball's highest altar, Harlem's Rucker Park.

And in 1998, he created and taught the world's first university course on hip-hop culture at the University of Massachusetts.

That first step into hip-hop promotion evolved eight years later into his presidency at UMAC, a volunteer position he still holds. (He turned down the position twice before finally feeling local enough to take it on.) A rebranded UMAC plans to increase its profile and introduce an Urban Music Month, while Mr. Strickland continues his efforts to promote and nurture Canadian urban music.

And then there's the script for Halftime, the potential LeBron James vehicle about a pro basketballer struggling to differentiate between his celebrity status and his real self.

He says it's not autobiographical, but does embrace his experiences in and around the game.

All of this effort, he says, isn't designed to make him rich or famous, although at best it could do both. His definition of success is more focused: make a good living, be a good role model to Cameron and maybe wind up running a bed and breakfast in Costa Rica.

A recent conversation between the two centred on Cameron's latest career aim: to be a mortician. Mr. Strickland asked what Cameron would write on his dad's tomb. After a long thought, his son replied: "He did it for me."

"The fact he even sees it like that means I'm doing something right, and it's all worthwhile," he says.

"That's my hero. That's who I do all of this for."

***

Street Ball Trash Talk

Baja: The basket or rim.

Disco: High-level signature moves. Example: Wall $treet really gave your man some extra buttery disco today!

Hot Sauce: See "Disco" x 5!

I Spy: Player who will sabotage his team on purpose to lose because he is not getting the ball.

Numbers: A made basket.

OTB: Unlimited range on your shot. Stands for Off The Bus (not Off-Track Betting).

The Whole Dinner Winner: Player who can take over a game at any time and help his team win.

Wrinkles: Signature moves on the court. Example: Wall $treet got a lot of wrinkles in his game, bro!

~~~

It is the stuff of fantasy: The lipstick-painted mouths, silicone enhancements, the unlikely scenarios that can transform an average pizza delivery boy into a well-hung sex god offering services way beyond hot slices of pepperoni pie.

Behind the scenes, the online porn biz is rife with competition, literally overflowing with a constant stream of new faces, sexual skills and flashy websites -- making standing out from the crowd pretty hard.

Fetish queen Maxine X, a 33-year-old self-described exhibitionist, knows the path to virtual stardom can be a grueling haul.

Even with 100 or so porn flicks under her belt, she's still wet behind the ears, fiercely trying to attract the world's eyes in a multi-billion industry that dominates cyberspace.

"I want to become a household name in my own way," says Maxine X.

"Just not quite the cookie-cutter version ... I was kind of like a Girls Gone Wild girl from the beginning," she laughs.

The porn actress, along with business partner and husband Scott Rhodes, have their eyes set on the big leagues -- mainstream porn success, the kind of rolling-off-the-tongue familiarity that the Jenna Jamesons of the biz have already nailed.

"You have to be a little unique and you have to be around for a long time," says Scott, a former corporate video creator.

"It's extremely saturated and the competition is massive. My only regret is that we didn't start 10 years earlier."

The Toronto-area couple, who met nine years ago while working at a hotel, are among the colourful cast of Canadian porn star up-and-comers whose lives are profiled in the third season of the documentary-style series, Webdreams, airing Friday on Showcase.

With the newish addition of her double-D breasts Maxine X and Scott say they're ready for "world dominance."

That said, the pornography road hasn't always been smooth, especially when they first set up their own company, Maxine X Productions, about five years ago.

"It poses a lot of challenges," admits Scott, including jealousy and dealing with disapproving family members and friends, among others.

"I think most of which we've resolved in our own way. We work together and we keep it going."

Maxine X, who shares sex-capades with men and women, said they've learned where to draw the line, often relying on co-stars they already know and feel comfortable with.

"We've made our own boundaries and rules," she says.

"You can hear horror stories about young girls working in L.A. and stuff, but with Scott and I, it's totally different."

"We call all of the shots. Any jealousies that have happened were in the early days before we had boundaries," Scott says.

Viewers of Webdreams are split almost 50-50 between men and women, surprising since the majority of porn users are male.

Producer Michael Kronish believes females are drawn in because, rather than focusing solely on salacious nudity, the episodes are character driven.

"We could have easily taken a fly-on-the-wall approach, but because we're dealing with the psychology of the characters, that might be one of the reasons it's of interest to women," says Kronish.

"To an extent, we are demystifying the world ... it probably does make it a little easier to wrap your head around it. I think there are some people who really love knowing who these people are: It literally could be your next-door neighbour's mother, or the couple who lives in the downstairs apartment -- I really don't think there's a type. There are people who do it for money, some do it for fame, it's for all different reasons."

I PONDER IT EVERY DAY...

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COMING TO CANADA, EH!

Recently, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission gave the green light to a new homegrown porn channel.

Called Northern Peaks, the paid adult digital channel launches in 2009 and will become the first of its kind in the Great White North.

Whether the channel will give world-famous pornography trailblazers from Los Angeles a run for their money is yet to be seen, but proud nationalists will certainly be delighted by the rise of made-in-Canada content.

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The Best Optical Illusions. - The most amazing videos are a click away

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LOVE EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THIS, FROM LEGENDS LEAGUE TO LARGE PROFESSOR:



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LIL WAYNE @ MTV:





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ROYCE SPEAKS!



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ANOTHER NEW KANYE WEST TRACK AT 5:10, CALLED 'HEARTLESS':



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GOTTA SUPPORT THESE GUYS. stic.man IS THE SHIT, HE PRODUCED 'SLY FOX' FOR NAS!



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I THINK I'M GOING TO BE SICK.



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THIS WILL MAKE ME BETTER:



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JAY ELECTRONICA SPEAKS:



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DJ MUGGS SPEAKS:



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JOE BUDDEN SPEAKS (ON BEING DROPPED):



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GAME BOY:



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THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST RAPPERS THAN EVER, MURKING JAYCEON TAYLOR'S CLAIMS OF BEING WEST COAST KING:



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PEACE TO HOLLYWOOD AND TIFF.
I DIDN'T DO THE VIRGIN MUSIC FESTIVAL THIS WEEKEND.
I HEAR THE GUY FROM FOO FIGHTERS GOT TACKLED BY A FAN HERE, THEN SECURITY GOT HIM.
PEACE TO KATE PARTRIDGE, I LOVE YOU!
SINCERELY YOURS,
MINDBENDER SUPREME

P.S. PRAY FOR CONSPIRACY.