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Ed McMann's Final "Goodnite"

By Robert Bianco, USA TODAY
Now, Tonight truly feels like an irretrievable yesterday.

The show's era as an icon ended with the death of Johnny Carson, but as long as his "hi-yo" sidekick, Ed McMahon, was still with us, some part of the era was as well. Tuesday, at age 86, McMahon died, taking what was left of the old Tonight Show with him.



McMahon put himself through college pitching products on the Atlantic City boardwalk, which may have been a more useful education than college itself. In a way, that's what McMahon did with startling success for 30 years: He pitched Carson to the public. His laugh made Carson's jokes seem funnier; his straight-man cluelessness in the Carnac routines made Carson seem smarter; and his booming, much-imitated "Here's Johnny" made Carson seem like the most important person on American TV.

On his own, McMahon was not a great talent. As a sidekick, he made the star not just brighter but better. His gregariousness was a perfect complement to the notoriously private Carson's button-down approach, providing a reflected warmth the host might have otherwise lacked.
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And indeed, much of what we learned about Carson as a person on air came from his exchanges with McMahon. Fans knew about the pair's divorces, not because they gave interviews to the tabloids but because they discussed them with each other — rarely, but with revealing frankness.

McMahon first worked with Carson as his announcer on the game show Who Do You Trust in the late '50s. The pair obviously clicked, because they moved together to The Tonight Showwhen Carson took it over in 1962.

McMahon set the sidekick mold most all would follow, and indeed for years made a sidekick seem essential. He mostly served to flatter the star, laughing with sometimes exaggerated gusto even when the joke didn't particularly merit a laugh. (McMahon did honestly what Paul Shaffer now does ironically.) But at crucial times, he could also serve as a foil, puncturing pomposity before it could grow.

His star status on Tonight enabled McMahon to have a career outside its confines, hosting Star Search and TV Bloopers and Practical Jokes, and pitching various products, from magazine sweepstakes to mobility chairs.

In his later years, McMahon's appearances on TV were less fortunate — and often tied to a how-the-mighty-have-fallen fascination with his financial woes. But today, we can remember him young and laughing, welcoming us to the greatest night-time party TV has ever thrown.

Goodnight, Ed. We had a blast.

4800 Calorie Burger: More than Just a Heart Attack Waiting to Happen
By MjrHkr, Community Contributor -- Published: May 19, 2009

A recent trend seems to be developing in the restaurant world. Whether this practice has always been in place, or is just coming more to the forefront due to America’s increasing problem of obesity, one thing is clear: it’s a dangerous following. What I’m talking about is “larger-than-life” foods.

A couple of examples:
In Michigan, the West Michigan Whitecaps minor league baseball team has created a promotional 4,800-calorie burger with 300 grams of fat. If you are able to consume the whole thing, you get a T-shirt.

CBS recently covered a story on a restaurant called, "Heart Attack Grill" in Tempe, Arizona. They offer the “Quadruple Bypass Hamburger," which boasts a whopping 8,000 calories. You won’t get a T-shirt for finishing it, but they will offer you a ride to your car in a wheelchair if you’re just too full and bloated to walk.

Keep in mind that the average number of calories that an active, healthy man should get on a daily basis is 2,500; for a woman it’s no more than 2,000. For the whole day.

Ok, ok. We’ve all heard that foods like these – larger-than-life steaks and burgers – are just “a heart attack waiting to happen.” But recent research indicates that a diet rich in red meat may do much more than that.

A study performed by the United States National Cancer Institute has recently linked Alzheimer’s and stomach ulcers to have a red meat diet. The study also showed staggering numbers when an individual reduced their meat consumption altogether to that taken in by the bottom twenty percent. It showed that it would save 11 percent of men’s lives and 16 percent of women’s lives.

This study justifies the findings of the World Cancer Research Fund, American Institute for Cancer Research, and the American Cancer Society. Those organizations highly recommend reducing the consumption of red meat. It is believed that this is something new in the sense of mortality. As with previous studies these too have found that red meat is often associated with cancer incidence. This was confirmed by a study conducted by vegetarian groups.

A study conducted last year by the United States Cancer Institute showed that eating a quarter pound hamburger or a small pork chop each day could easily put you are an increased risk of getting a variety of cancers. The American Meat Institute negatively reacted to the results claiming that they were notoriously unreliable. They also went on to state that meat was an excellent source of B12, zinc, iron, and other essential vitamins and minerals.

Another study showed that individuals eating the highest amount of red meat were thirty one to thirty six percent more likely to die from any cause than those individuals eating the least amount of red meat. That study stated that the causes of death could be any of the following: diabetes, ulcers, pneumonia, liver disease, HIV, influenza, Alzheimer’s, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and tuberculosis. The research also determined that the chances of dying from cancer were twenty two percent higher for men who ate the highest amount of red meat and twenty percent for women who ate the most amount of red meat.

The lesson? By eating such a diet rich in red meat, and indulging in mammoth burgers and steaks, you’re certain to get much more than a T-shirt. In fact, you may just be solidifying your death sentence.

Bodies Of Air France 447 Found

Saturday, June 06, 2009

The first bodies of passengers of the doomed Air France flight that plummeted into the sea have been found, Brazil's air force said Saturday.

The Brazilian military said search crews scanning the Atlantic Ocean located two male bodies of passengers aboard Flight 447 — which crashed midway through a trip from Rio de Janeiro to Paris before dawn Monday morning.

Air force spokesman Col. Jorge Amaral said searchers also recovered a leather briefcase with an Air France ticket for the flight inside of it.

"It was confirmed with Air France that the ticket number corresponds to a passenger on the flight," he told The Associated Press.

Amaral said the bodies were recovered Saturday morning and were picked up roughly 400 miles northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.

All 228 passengers and crew perished in the accident, which is believed to have occurred when the Airbus 330's systems failed during a violent storm about four hours into the flight. There were no survivors, officials said.

Air France acknowledged on Saturday that speed monitors on some of its Airbus planes have proven faulty, icing up at high altitude, and that recommendations to change them were first made in September 2007.

Air France issued a statement with details about the monitors hours after the French agency investigating the disaster of Flight 447 said the instruments were not replaced on that aircraft — an A330 — before it crashed last week.

Air France said it began replacing the monitors on the Airbus A330 model on April 27 after an improved version became available.

Pitot tubes, located on the exterior of the aircraft, are used to help measure aerodynamic speed.

Aviation officials have said the crash investigation is increasingly focused on whether external instruments may have iced over, confusing speed sensors and possibly leading computers to set the plane's speed too fast or slow — a potentially deadly mistake in severe turbulence.
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An Air France statement said that icing of the monitors at high altitude has led at times to loss of needed flying information.

However, the Air France statement stressed the recommendation to change the monitor "allows the operator full freedom to totally, partially or not at all apply it." When safety is at issue the aircraft maker issues, rather than a recommendation, a mandatory service bulletin followed up by an airworthiness directive.

Air France said that only a "small number" of incidents linked to the monitors had been reported.

Airbus has said the French agency investigating the crash found the doomed flight received inconsistent airspeed readings by different instruments as it struggled with turbulence in a massive thunderstorm.

Earlier in the week, French investigators said debris reported to have been from Flight 447 was in fact not from the crashed Air France plane, despite Brazil's assertion that it was.

In Brazil, visibility and weather conditions improved Saturday in the area searchers are focusing on but debris earlier spotted on the ocean's surface may have sunk by now.

"Debris doesn't indefinitely float, and when it sinks we will not have the means of finding them," Air Force Brig. Gen. Ramon Cardoso told reporters late Friday.

Cardoso has insisted that the debris spotted — an airplane seat, a slick of kerosene and other pieces — was from the plane. But he confirmed that Brazilian searchers had yet to recovered any of the material.

He said searchers did not pursue the reports of debris — the first sighting was reported on Tuesday — because priority was given to the hunt for survivors or the remains of victims.

Meanwhile, a German government-owned satellite spotted debris in the Atlantic on Wednesday, a German Aerospace Center spokesman said, but he added it was unclear whether the material came from the plane.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

How Do You Like Owning GM ??

By John Hughes, Caroline Salas, Jeff Green and Bob Van Voris

June 1 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp., the world’s largest automaker for 77 years, began filing for bankruptcy by putting a New York affiliate into Chapter 11, a landmark for an industry that defined American economic might.

Chevrolet-Saturn of Harlem Inc., sought bankruptcy protection today, the first of many filings in the bankruptcy process. While GM hasn’t yet filed, the affiliate called the parent company a “debtor in possession under Chapter 11,” in court documents, a reference to the main U.S. bankruptcy law.

The move follows the bankruptcy filing of Chrysler LLC and represents the Obama administration’s attempt to remake a 100- year-old company that became burdened by higher costs than competitors and a reliance on fuel-guzzling light trucks as gasoline prices rose. Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. surpassed Detroit-based GM last year as the world’s largest automaker.

“Our objective is to make sure we’re limiting our involvement to the minimum necessary, and that we get out of those involvements as quickly as we can,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said today in Beijing. “We want to have a quick, clean exit as soon as conditions permit.”

The “new GM” will get $30.1 billion in bankruptcy financing from the government, and the Treasury “does not anticipate providing any additional assistance” after that, the Obama administration said yesterday in a statement. The federal government will have a 60 percent equity stake in the retooled automaker, and 12 percent will be held by the Canadian government, which is lending $9.5 billion to the company.

Restructuring Chief

Al Koch, a managing director at the advisory company AlixPartners LLP in New York, will be the company’s chief restructuring officer, reporting to Chief Executive Officer Fritz Henderson, according to the Harlem affiliate filing. The unit filed to give federal courts in New York jurisdiction over the case.

“Any suggestion that an American corporate icon like GM could file for bankruptcy would have been laughable a few years ago,” said Lynn Hiestand, a partner specializing in restructuring with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP.

Bondholders are owed about $22.76 billion, the affiliate filing said. The United Auto Workers are owed about $20.56 billion, excluding “approximately $9.4 billion corresponding to the GM Internal VEBA,” the filing said.

“GM going through bankruptcy is a very positive thing for the auto industry: They should emerge as a reasonable competitor,” said Len Blum, managing director at investment- banking firm Westwood Capital LLC in New York. “The only thing that’s been holding GM back is labor contracts and relationships with debtors and franchisees. All that should be cleansed in a bankruptcy.”

GM Shares

GM plunged 33 percent to 75 cents on May 29, the lowest level in 76 years, and less than the $1 minimum price normally needed for a New York Stock Exchange listing. The stock was valued above $40 less than two years ago. GM shares traded in Germany fell 19 percent to the equivalent of 65 cents as of 10:16 a.m. in Frankfurt.

GM intends to close 11 factories and idle an additional three, while attempting to reopen one idled facility to build a new small car, the administration said, without estimating how many jobs would be eliminated. The automaker has said it aims to reduce its U.S. hourly workforce to about 40,000 next year from 61,000 at the end of last year.

The company has lost almost $88 billion since 2004.

The government is “a reluctant equity owner” that “will protect the taxpayers’ investment by managing its ownership stake in a hands-off commercial manner,” the Obama administration said yesterday in a “statement of principles” for its management of private firms.

Ousting Wagoner

President Barack Obama’s administration finds itself in control of an icon of American industry after rejecting a recovery plan filed in February and ousting Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner.

The terms of the filing were hammered out by a government task force led by Quadrangle Group LLC co-founder Steven Rattner, which demanded concessions by the company, the United Auto Workers and bondholders.

“The resulting agreement is tough but fair,” the administration said in the statement.

The administration expects the new GM to emerge from bankruptcy in 60 to 90 days, said administration officials, who asked not to be identified in advance of the filing, on a conference call yesterday with reporters.

New Leadership

The U.S. Treasury and GM prepared the way for the bankruptcy filing by getting 54 percent of bondholders to agree to the revised reorganization plan, bondholder representatives said yesterday. GM also got approval in the past week from the United Auto Workers union for an agreement that may save the company $1.3 billion annually.

The process for picking the new board majority is already under way, as chief executives, former chief executives and people with business experience are being examined, one of the Obama administration officials said. The new members will join the revamped company as GM’s desirable assets emerge from bankruptcy, one of the officials said.

GM, which has already received $19.8 billion in U.S. Treasury loans, will be the largest manufacturer to file for bankruptcy, surpassing Chrysler LLC. A bankruptcy judge would supervise the sale or liquidation of unprofitable brands, such as Saturn and Hummer, and the 14 factories that would be closed or idled.

The new GM would emerge armed with vehicles from its Cadillac, Chevrolet, Buick and GMC units. It will be built to survive in a market of 10 million annual U.S. car sales, down from 16 million, the Obama administration said.

United Auto Workers

New cars and light trucks probably sold at an annual rate of 9.9 million vehicles in April, based on the average of 7 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Sales totaled 13.2 million in 2008 and averaged 16.8 million this decade through 2007.

The UAW health trust fund for retirees, which is owed $20 billion by GM, will be replaced by a new entity that will own 17.5 percent of the new company with warrants to purchase an additional 2.5 percent. Bondholders and other creditors would get a 10 percent stake in the new GM, with warrants for an additional 15 percent, in exchange for $27.1 billion unsecured debt.

Administration officials said GM will have to comply with executive compensation limits the Treasury announced in February for financial institutions that receive more than $500 million in federal funds, as well as the so-called Dodd Amendment. The provision is named after Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat, who attached the pay restrictions to the $787 billion economic stimulus bill Congress passed on Feb. 13.

Those restrictions place a $500,000 salary cap on the top five executives at banks, and the 20 most highly paid employees below them, and require them to forgo cash bonuses.

To contact the reporters on this story: John Hughes in Washington at jhughes5@bloomberg.net; Caroline Salas in New York at csalas1@bloomberg.net; Jeff Green in Southfield, Michigan, at jgreen16@bloomberg.net; Bob Van Voris in New York at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net.