See where women are injecting illegal silicone these days and check out our list of must-reads that will have you chatting at the lunch counter, over IM or wherever it is that people actually talk these days.
- Cash-strapped women looking to get a make over on the cheap have turned to illegal silicone injections. Rather than pay for costly cosmetic surgery, the number of women who have opted to inject the thick liquid to plump up areas such as thighs and buttocks has increased -- with many injecting the substance at home, in motels, or during "pumping parties." But silicone isn't approved by the FDA to be used in tissue and becomes toxic when leaks occur -- making the substance deadly.
- Never one to mince words, Nicolas Sarkozy managed to diss President Obama, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Jose Luis Zapatero all during one lunch. The French president said there were "numerous things" on which Obama "hasn't got a position" and that he was not efficient. Sarkozy then slammed Merkel saying she had to "round to my position" on the fight against economic downturn. And about Zapatero, Sarkozy said, "Perhaps he's not very intelligent."
- It's possible that nothing could be worse than a sappy Jane Austen romance novel -- let alone a spin-off of that genre. But in a new novel called "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" the bucolic town of Pemberley is descended upon by aliens, vampires and robots in a Jane Austen spin-off that actually sounds palatable and has been well-reviewed. The opener is already much-improved over the original: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."
- France may be doing away with champagne corks. One of the biggest producers of bubbly has decided to ditch the cork in favor of metallic caps -- but promise the new design will "pop" just like the traditional corks. Producers made the change because they were annoyed by imperfect corks tainting champagne.
- More than a half dozen cops serving in Scotland's largest police force have declared their official religion to be Jedi. The information was obtained via Freedom of Information request and showed that the officers had listed their religion as the Star Wars-based faith. In England and Wales about 390,000 people declared their religion to be Jedi, according to the 2001 Census.
