FINALLY - A PILL TO MAKE YOUR POOP GOLD !

f you've got so much money that you're just looking for new ways to waste it, Tobias Wong and Ju$t Another Rich Kid created the Gold Pill for you. It's a pill dipped in gold and filled with 24-karat gold leaf. You're supposed to eat it "to increase your self-worth." That would be funny if it didn't cost $425 for the joke. Supposedly an added benefit is that it will make your poop sparkle, but no one seems to have proven that part yet (and if you do, please don't send us the pictures). This is either genius social commentary or a brilliant way to bilk rich people out of their money. If Wong's name sounds familiar, it's probably because he also created the $2,000 ccPhone.

NEW SPACE HOTEL OPENING 2012 ???

BARCELONA (Reuters) - "Galactic Suite," the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes.

Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay.

During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Company director Xavier Claramunt says the three-bedroom boutique hotel's joined up pod structure, which makes it look like a model of molecules, was dictated by the fact that each pod room had to fit inside a rocket to be taken into space.

"It's the bathrooms in zero gravity that are the biggest challenge," says Claramunt. "How to accommodate the more intimate activities of the guests is not easy."

But they may have solved the issue of how to take a shower in weightlessness -- the guests will enter a spa room in which bubbles of water will float around.

When guests are not admiring the view from their portholes they will take part in scientific experiments on space travel.

Galactic Suite began as a hobby for former aerospace engineer Claramunt, until a space enthusiast decided to make the science fiction fantasy a reality by fronting most of the $3 billion needed to build the hotel.

An American company intent on colonizing Mars, which sees Galaxy Suite as a first step, has since come on board, and private investors from Japan, the United States and the United Arab Emirates are in talks.

PLENTY RICH ENOUGH

If Claramunt is secretive about the identity of his generous backer, he is more forthcoming about the custom he can expect.

"We have calculated that there are 40,000 people in the world who could afford to stay at the hotel. Whether they will want to spend money on going into space, we just don't know."

Four million dollars might be a lot to spend on a holiday, but those in the nascent space tourism industry say hoteliers have been slow on the uptake because no one thought the cost of space travel would come down as quickly as it has.

Galactic Suite said the price included not only three nights in space. Guests also get eight weeks of intensive training at a James Bond-style space camp on a tropical island.

"There is fear associated with going into space," said Claramunt. "That's why the shuttle rocket will remain fixed to the space hotel for the duration of the guests' stay, so they know they can get home again."

In an era of concern over climate change, Galaxy Suite have no plans so far to offset the pollution implications of sending a rocket to carry just six guests at a time into space.

"But," says Claramunt, "I'm hopeful that the impact of seeing the earth from a distance will stimulate the guests' urge to value and protect our planet."

HIGHEST PAID TV STARS Oprah Winfrey : $260 million

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Talk might be cheap, but Oprah is not, topping a list of the highest-paid television stars in the United States.
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Oprah Winfrey, host and supervising producer of "The Oprah Winfrey Show," earns an estimated $260 million a year, according to a list in TV Guide magazine's July 23 issue.

Music producer Simon Cowell, the blunt and often contentious British judge of "American Idol," placed a distant second to Winfrey, with $45 million for his role on the Fox network's smash hit talent show and other projects.

Courtroom chief Judge Judy (Judith Sheindlin), CBS News anchor Katie Couric and "Scrubs" actor Zach Braff round out the top five.

The list breaks down star salaries by category -- prime-time TV, daytime, cable and news with a partial listing below:

TOP FIVE (all salaries are per year)

Oprah Winfrey ("The Oprah Winfrey Show"): $260 million

Simon Cowell ("American Idol"): $45 million

Judge Sheindlin ("Judge Judy"): $30 million

Katie Couric ("CBS Evening News Anchor"): $15 million

Zach Braff ("Scrubs"): $6.3 million

NETWORK PRIME TIME (all salaries are per episode)

William Petersen ("CSI"): $500,000

Charlie Sheen ("Two and a Half Men"): $350,000

Mariska Hargitay ("Law & Order: SVU"): $350,000

Chris Meloni ("Law & Order: SVU"): $350,000

Hugh Laurie ("House"): $300,000

Julia Louis-Dreyfus ("New Adventures of Old Christine"): $225,000

Ellen Pompeo ("Grey's Anatomy"): $200,000

Eva Longoria ("Desperate Housewives"): $200,000

DAYTIME (all salaries are per year)

Judge Judy: $30 million

Bob Barker: $10 million

Maury Povich (per year plus profits): $7 million

Ellen DeGeneres: $5 million

Jerry Springer: $3 million - 4 million

Tyra Banks: $3.5 million

NEWS ANCHORS (all salaries are per year)

Katie Couric ("CBS Evening News" anchor): $15 million

Matt Lauer (NBC "Today" co-anchor): $12 million

Meredith Vieira (NBC "Today" co-anchor): $10 million

MEXICAN - 2ND RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD !

Mexican magnate becomes world's second richest man
Apr 11 07:16 PM US/Eastern

A Mexican telecoms tycoon has become the second richest man in the world, pushing US investment guru Warren Buffett into third place and breathing down the neck of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

Carlos Slim Helu quietly slipped past Buffett at the end of last month thanks to his rising stock, and was valued at the close of trade Wednesday at 53.1 billion dollars, 700 million dollars more than Buffett, Forbes.com reported Wednesday.

Now only Gates, valued as the richest man in the world for the last 13 years, is ahead of Slim.

And while slim may be catching up, Gates, who stepped aside as Microsoft chief in 2000 to devote his energies to the philanthropic foundation he runs with his wife Melinda, is still sitting on a nest egg of 56 billion dollars.

Slim, 67, has added a staggering 23 billion dollars to his personal fortune over the last 14 months, thanks largely to a strong Mexican economy and a stock market that jumped nearly 50 percent last year.

He accrued four billion dollars of that just since Forbes unveiled its annual rich list in early March, giving Slim the equivalent of roughly seven percent of Mexico's annual economic output, according to Forbes.

The tycoon has brushed off criticism that his Telmex company is effectively a monopoly, saying earlier this year: "When you live for others' opinions, you are dead. I don't want to live thinking about how I'll be remembered."

He has derided Gates and Buffett for giving away so much of their wealth, reportedly saying: "Poverty isn't solved with donations," according to Forbes.

Building businesses, he reportedly said, did more for society than "going around like Santa Claus."


Copyright AFP 2005,