02 Aug Dan Abrams’ Websites Today

From Mediaite: Senator Harry Reid’s been a big name in the news today, mostly for his public scolding of his Republican colleagues. Today, Mediaite reports that he’s not backing down on his claims. Writes the site,”On the floor of the Senate earlier today, Harry Reid continued to criticize Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney over continuing to withhold his tax returns, and remarked that “the word’s out” about Romney not paying any taxes for ten years, without mentioning the fact that it was Reid himself who spread that word in the first place. Reid first scolded his Republican colleagues for making the defeat of President Obama a top priority in the coming months, before going after the tax plan touted by Romney that the Tax Policy Center. ” Read the full story here.

From Gossip Cop: Michael Jackson’s family saga continues, as today it is revealed that his mother, Katherine Jackson, who is a legal co-guardian of his children, was kept from contacting the kids while she was in Arizona. Reports Gossip Cop, “Katherine Jackson, who told ABC News a little more than a week ago that she went to Arizona for a ‘short vacation,’ and that she didn’t contact her grandchildren Prince, Paris and Blanket because ‘I didn’t want to have any phone calls while I was here,’ told the court a very different story in documents made public on Thursday in connection with her bid to be co-guardian of Michael’s kids with T.J. Jackson. According to court papers, the Jackson matriarch said that while she was at a Tucson spa, she was completely unaware that she had been reported missing, because her cell phone and iPad were taken, and the room she was in didn’t having a working phone or TV.” Read more about the situation here.

From Geekosystem: Google Street View has been expanding its scope recently, and now, it takes you into one more cool place: the NASA Kennedy Space Center. Reports Geekosystem, “Now we can walk the path of astronauts and people who take humanity to its farthest. See what they see, what’s behind our loftiest achievements, and dream of slipping our surly bonds. The Kennedy Space Center has inspired generations of Americans… Now, we get to see its transition into a multipurpose launch complex in great detail. The full collection has 6,000 panoramic views of its facilities, including the Apollo/Saturn V Center, the Space Station Processing Facility, the firing rooms, and the Space Shuttle Orbiters.” Watch the video and read more here.

From Styleite: Whitney Port, former star of The Hills turned fashion designer, is asking for your help with her clothing line. Writes Styleite, she “is putting on the ‘first-ever fan-supported fashion show’ (say that five times fast!) at this fall’s New York Fashion Week, which sounds really cool and awesome until you realize that she’s hitting you up for money. Starting a clothing line isn’t just a difficult endeavor, it’s an expensive one. Between trade shows, fashion week, and everything in between, getting noticed takes a lot of dough. And Whitney’s line,Whitney Eve, is still in the start-up stage, so we can understand why the label is strapped for cash. Still, it’s basically unheard of for designers to turn to their fans for funding, especially in such a public setting.” Read Styleite’s opinion on her action here.

From SportsGrid: Sometimes the Olympics aren’t about winners, losers, or medal counts. They’re about moments. And a great moment happened for Brazil yesterday: reports Sportsgrid, “It’s been a rough run at the Summer Olympics for Brazil’s women’s volleyball team. They won gold in Beijing in 2008, but they’re staring down early elimination this time around after unexpectedly dropping a match to South Korea in straight sets yesterday. But even if they can’t repeat their 2008 efforts, it won’t mean the Brazilians didn’t have their moments in London. Specifically, we’re talking about one point from the second set of that loss to South Korea yesterday – a point Brazil won after a save we can only describe as miraculous.” Watch that play here.

From The Mary Sue: As always, The Mary Sue is here to continue covering all the casting rumors and revelations for the next film installment of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. Today, it is confirmed that Lynn Cohen was cast as Mags. Reports The Mary Sue, “Lynn Cohen, a stage and film actress best known for her role as Miranda’s nanny Magda in HBO’s Sex and the City,will play the lovable 80-year-old Mags, a former Hunger Games victor from District 4. In the novel, Mags serves as a mentor to Finnick Odair, and they both end up playing pivotal roles in the Quarter Quell, the 75th Annual Hunger Game in which old victors are pit against one another anew. Although she doesn’t say much, Mags grows on Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) very quickly–she can make fish hooks out of anything (being from the fishing district and all), and Finnick is extremely loyal to her.” Read the whole article here.

From The Jane Dough: In the Arianna Huffington v Rupert Murdoch iPad showdown, who will win? Huffington’s made a new move, and The Jane Dough’s reporting on it: “During the June launch of the [Huffington] iPad publication, executive editor Tim O’Brien said they went with paid content because ‘it’s a premium product and it deserves to carry a price with it in order to access all the value we’re giving people.’ This is a much different answer than what HuffPost spokesperson Rhoades Alderson gave to Capital New York nearly two months later. With regards to the recent switch, Alderson said, ‘In the end, we felt that asking people to pay for the magazine was inconsistent with The Huffington Post itself, which has never charged for content.'” This comes in contrast to Murdoch’s The Daily, which is struggling. Read more about the app here.

From The Braiser: Ever wonder where all the Olympic revenue is going? Maybe to a lunch that costs $69,000. So how do you spend that much money on lunch? Writes The Braiser, “By buying a bottle of Hennessy 1853, according to an anonymous person on Reddit. He posted the above photo to the social networking site’s r/Olympics forum, claiming he’d received the photo from a friend who was a waiter. ‘This is a receipt from lunch for 15 Olympic bosses,’ he wrote. ‘Now we see where all the money’s going…’ Yes, £44,660 (or $69,000) is a lot of money. Everyone else thinks so, but too bad that the original poster deleted his account after someone pointed out that he could get his friend fired for posting the receipt online, much like that time someone did the same thing to Peyton Manning.” See the receipt and read more here.