Metro train derails in DC

Perez Hilton v. Wil.I.Am | Black Eyed Peas' manager turns himself in

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!

According to Roger Gillies of the Associated Press, Polo Molina, the manager of the Black Eyed Peas, turned himself in to the Toronto police and was charged with assault on Perez Hilton.

 

Polo Molina 

Hilton got into a heated, verbally abusive argument first with Fergie, the popular singer with "The Peas" then with Black Eyed Peas' lead rapper Wil.I.Am early Monday morning. According to videos from both Wil.I.Am and Hilton, Hilton's verbal abuse led to his being beaten by what Wil.I.Am called "a fan" while Hilton said the attacker was the band's manager.

You can learn more with my initial video on this:



And more information's coming as the flow from Twitter is tremendous, but my estimate is it will subside by this time tomorrow unless someone from the Peas makes a new statement, Perez follows up, or another video surfaces.

This subject is now the fourth highest hashtag on Twitter, towering over Tehran; #iranelection remains at number one.

Perez Hilton says Wil.I.Am of Black Eyed Peas beat him up; lying?

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!

On YouTube.com



Famous blogger Perez Hilton blasted the Twitterverse just under an hour ago (in a story broke by "Tila Tequila" on Twitter) literally screaming that he was beaten up by rapper Wil.I.Am (of the red-hot group The Black Eyed Peas) and his security guards.

I was assaulted by Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas and his security guards. I am bleeding. Please, I need to file a police report. No joke.about 1 hour ago from Sidekick

This is the full series of Hilton's tweets starting from most recent first:

The Toronto police are here now. Thank you. Please stop calling them.34 minutes ago from Sidekick

I spoke to my lawyer. I really need to talk to the authorities. Please come to the SoHo Met Hotel. Have called the police. Need them here.about 1 hour ago from Sidekick

Still waiting for the police. The bleeding has stopped. I need to document this. Please, can the police come to the SoHo Met Hotel.about 1 hour ago from Sidekick

I was assaulted by Will.I.Am of the Black Eyed Peas and his security guards. I am bleeding. Please, I need to file a police report. No joke.about 1 hour ago from Sidekick

I'm in shock. I need the police ASAP. Please come to the SoHo Metropolitan Hotel now. Please.about 1 hour ago from Sidekick

Is there a gay bar that we can go to with GaGa now that like has a balcony or some place to have fun but be safe?about 4 hours ago from Sidekick

Mission accomplished! I just got a picture with Taylor Lautner!!!! That one is for my fellow fangirls! Xoxo

But Wil.I.Am sent a text to a friend who then posted a photo of it on Twitter which read "What the hell would I be doing sockin Perez Hilton???"

So now it's a case of he-said, he-said. Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, is known for being verbally abusive and in one case was physically assaulted but not for nothing; in that case at a party at the Playboy Mansion, Hilton never reported why he got a black-eye.

Hilton's also known for being an attention hound, so many Twitterers think this is just another ploy by Hilton to get attention that leads to traffic for his blog.

UPDATE:

Wil.I.Am just created a video where he explained what happened. The rapper said that it started at an event after the MuchMusic Awards in Canada where Fergie of "The Peas" came up to the blogger and asked why he didn't like their music. Hilton explained it was just the record, but according to Wil.I.Am was "up in her face" and rude to her.

Later, Wil.I.Am encountered Hilton at another club and requested that he not treat the group in such a rude way as he did on his website. But rather than apologize, Hilton said "I don't respect you" to Wil.I.Am, who said "OK. That's cool." But then Hilton, who's Gay, called Wil.I.Am the "F-Word" but even then the lead lyricist for the Black Eyed Peas held his cool and backed off; but an unknown fan didn't and accordind to Wil.I.Am "got all up into him". So it was the fan that assaulted Hilton, not Wil.I.Am; if Wil.I.Am's story is accurate, Hilton lied about the incident.

My read on this is Hilton may have been drunk and a bit out of control of himself, which explains his behavior and the case of mistaken identity.

Hilton didn't stop tweeting. His last posts as of this writing said..

I won't be talking about this any further. It is in the hands of the authorities.22 minutes ago from web

Thank u all from the bottom of my heart for ur concern. The police are investigating the assault now. I did the right thing by reporting it.22 minutes ago from web

For his part Wil.I.Am said "It's all cool; it just got a little crazy."

No kidding.

Iran Elections: reporter reportedly shot in Tehran; bloggers arrested

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!

I was skimming the Twitter listings under the hashtag #iranelection and this came up:

charmedguy18 @liviarierref Do you know which reporter, representing what news agency was shot dead minutes ago? #iranelection #helpiran #tehran

It's difficult to get more reliable information on this tweet as the information flow is really too fast to deal with. And while that was happening, there were reports of others being shot as well. Meanwhile there are some writing "not to trust" Twitter, and undoubtedly agents of the Iranian Government. But it's clear that today is not a good day to be a reporter or a blogger in Iran:

RadoxTheGreen RT @dcb23: 23 bloggers/reporters known arrested in #Iran http://tr.im/peVi #Neda #IranElection #Tehran #gr88

CNN iReport a good source too

While everyone raves about Twitter, and rightly so, CNN's iReport website's also a great source of video and photo news and I don't write that because I'm an iReporter. The idea of the program has been and is to give people on the scene who have camera a camcorders a fast way to report the news as they see it and many are doing so in Iran. While the flow of content to the iReport has been slow of late due to the Iranian Government's crack down on all things Internet, there's still material, like this video posted just five hours ago as of this writing:



And this photo shows police actually smashing a car! You'd think they'd not even consider such actions, but this pict proves otherwise.




There are other videos, including many too ugly to post here; you understand the story by now, I think.

iranian protesters after the helicopters released some sort of chemical (ITS NOT TEAR GAS)

From YouTube.com

WSJ: WSJ's Kara Swisher attacks Zennie on Twitter

More at Zennie62.com | Follow me on Twitter! | Get my widget!'




YouTube, MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, StupidVideos, Sclipo and Viddler



So a few days ago I wrote a blog post with a vlog about the Iran Elections or given what's going on over there the "Iran Revolution" and in preparing for it ran across an article who's take on Twitter, the main event in the Iran uprising, I disagreed with. It was written by Kara Swisher, the semi-well-known Wall Street Journal vlogger who covers "All Things D" or "Digital" as her blog site's called.

I wrote:

The amount of information communicated through Twitter has been of staggering proportions. While Kara Swisher may write that it's "inane and half-baked", the fact that Iranians can use their cell phones to tweet information and share photos has done more than the mainstream media in telling the World what's happening.

Well that sent her into a tizzy. She got on Twitter and publicly blasted me, writing things like:

karaswisher@zennie62 "inane and half-baked" were NOT my words and you said they were. I said it was simple which is different. Are you all-baked?

At first, I looked at her words with empathy and offered to make a correction, even though I totally disagree with her take. As a response, she wrote:

karaswisher@zennie62 it is not a favor to me for you to make an alteration. You attributed a quote to me I did not say. You made an error, so fix it.

After that, I reconsidered. After all it's my view, my opinion, and it's not against her at all. I like Kara's work and her -- not met her yet. But that doesn't mean I have to agree with everything she writes. In this case, no the words were not Kara's but she used them as a device to make a point and it's the use of the term I take issue with, as she didn't back away from it in her blog post.

And her title did use the words Inane and Half-baked. Maybe she'll go back and change it (please don't), but that's what was there.

So Kara, it wasn't personal. Ok? Twitter is a complex system to me. The rules of engagement on how to gain followers, following the right people, improving one's reach; that's a complex set of relationships in my view.

Twitter's not simple, and it's indeed revolutionary.

Facebook: Use It to Get a Job, Not To Say You're Fired

There's a great article in the SF Chronicle's website about how to use social networks if you've been fired. My advise? Just plain use them to introduce yourself and show your experience and give expert opinion, and then send private messages about job leads; don't advertise that you've been fired.