dre in the morning

Girl, Interrupted: The Life & Death Of Brittany Murphy
It’s something we’ve watched in progress throughout this entire decade: young women who are held up as the next big thing (Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears) and then brushed aside or openly mocked after they no longer fit an expected mold. It is both a story of self-destruction and mass-destruction, the business of creating and destroying a star; sometimes it’s caused by internal forces, and sometimes it’s fed by the rest of the world. (jezebel)

Democrats’ health bill passes key Senate vote
Dramatic defeat for GOP puts legislation on track for passage this week. (msnbc)

Familiar faces among health industry lobbyists
Many of them used to work in the Capitol as aides or as lawmakers themselves. (latimes)

Poland police question men over stolen Auschwitz sign
The five suspects, aged in their 20s and 30s, were not members of a neo-Nazi group, Krakow police said. (bbc)

The Love of Lust
The so-called sexual revolution has created a generation of braggarts who love to flaunt their sexual prowess. Flip the coin, and what you see is a society of men and women anxious not to be seen as sexual have-nots. (open)

The Fembot Mystique
Sex-and-tech writer Annalee Newitz explores the pop-culture fascination with female robots. (popsci)

Who is really smarter, dogs or cats
A dog really is man’s best friend claims a new scientific study that shows that canines make better pets than their arch rivals cats. (timeidol)

Bad Santa: Gifts that say you’re old, fat or hairy
Self-improvement surprises are best never to give nor receive. (msnbc)

Majority of U.S. Cocaine Supply Cut with Veterinary Deworming Drug
Cocaine’s a hell of a drug, and even more so when laced with another drug that’s commonly used to deworm opossums. Federal agents have found that 69 percent of cocaine shipments seized entering the United States contain levamisole, a veterinary drug linked to serious weakening of the immune system in humans. Here’s the real funny part: no one knows why. (popsci)