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Another ‘not ready for prime time’ idea from Herman Cain

Many of the GOP believe that the federal government should get out of the student aid business entirely. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), for instance, said that he’d phase out the federal student loan program entirely. Former pizza magnate Herman Cain, meanwhile, said that he doesn’t believe in any form of federal student aid whatsoever, believing that such aid is better off left to the states:

I believe that if a state wants to help with college education, then they should do that.

Secondly, you have people living within communities within states that are willing to help fund those kinds of programs. So I do not believe that it is the responsibility of the federal government to help fund a college education because herein, our resources are limited and I believe that the best solution is the one closest to the problem. The people within the state, the people within the communities, ultimately, I believe, are the ones who have that responsibility.

If you want an education, a college education in America, I believe that people can get it if they are determined to get it. They might have to work a little harder.

Clearly there are issues posed by devolving student loans and aid to the states:

  • Would students receive grants from their home state or from the state in which they attend school?
  • What if a student’s parents want or need to move midway through a student’s college years?
  • Would she lose her aid and have to get it from either her or her parents’ new state?

Federal student loans and programs like Pell Grants have helped millions of Americans access higher education. Without federal aid, students would be pushed into more expensive private student loans, even as student loan debt is en route to eclipsing $1 trillion for the first time.

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Gov. Bangbang to skip debates after bad showing

Rick Perry will begin to pick and choose whether or not he will take part in future debates with other candidates.

“These debates are set up for nothing more than to tear down the candidates,” Mr. Perry told Bill O’Reilly on Fox News. “It pretty hard to be able to sit and lay out your ideas and your concepts with a one minute response. “So, you know, if there was a mistake made, it was probably ever doing one,” Mr. Perry added.

Mr. Perry’s campaign has struggled in the wake of several debate performances that were widely criticized. But whether Mr. Perry could get away with skipping a debate is an open question.

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Olivia at International Rome Film Festival for “A Few Best Men”

Olivia Newton-John, with co-star Kris Marshall and director Stephan Elliott, for the premiere of “A Few Best Men” at the International Rome Film Festival.

Translated from the press conference, Olivia said: “Roles like the ones I starred in Grease, or Xanadu, inevitably belong to my younger years. Now I prefer performances like this. Where, finally, I can let go and do crazy things. At first I was a little scared: then did not know how to stop. When I decide whether to participate in a film I’m most certainly not thinking about Grease: I choose the things I enjoy most.”

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Herman Cain to slow his schedule down

Herman Cain is gearing up to slow down the pace of his presidential effort, according to one of his top aides.

J.D. Gordon, the campaign’s vice president for communications, said Cain will try to avoid future gaffes by achieving a “more deliberative pace” on the trail.

“We’re trying to slow down a little bit, make sure he’s rested, make sure he’s focused,” J.D. Gordon told CNN’s Howard Kurtz.

Gordon added that mistakes happen when a candidate is conducting seven or eight events a day and does not use a teleprompter, as is the case with Cain.

The comments follow a string of statements and staff defections that have received negative press.

Gordon said a lack of sleep was partially to blame for Cain’s comments to CNN’s Piers Morgan about abortion and his comments to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about the possibility of a prisoner exchange with detainees in Guantanamo Bay that he quickly retracted.

The abortion flare up has yet to die down and the campaign attempted to clarify the former pizza executive’s stance again Thursday. After saying he was “pro-life, no exceptions,” a Cain campaign adviser said he “learned more about the issue” and that he would now support abortions in instances of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at stake.

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Bradley Cooper pursues J. Lo

Bradley Cooper pulled out all the stops to woo Jennifer Lopez, sources reveal in the new Us Weekly.

After a talked-about, candlelit dinner date at NYC’s chi-chi eatery Per Se Sept. 10, the 36-year-old Limitless actor stepped up his seduction game again — this time with a secret flight to Boca Raton, Florida.

Cooper checked into the posh Boca Beach Club resort where Lopez, 42, was staying with 3-year-old twins Emme and Max as she shot the 2012 thriller Parker.

“They checked in one day apart,” a source says of the posh Boca Beach Club. Ever since she and Marc Anthony ended their seven-year marriage in July, the singer, actress, American Idol judge and designer “has been trying to concentrate on her kids and work,” a friend explains. “But Bradley has been especially eager.”

Cooper, who split with Renee Zellweger after two years together in March, “has been after Jennifer, calling her, for ages,” the friend says.

And Lopez, at last, has decided to “let him in.”

Adds another source: “She likes the thrill and the fact that Bradley has been pursuing her.”

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Professional rugby player comes out

Old Redcliffians captain Jed Hooper has become the first Combination player to publicly announce that he is gay.

Jed Hooper, the 22-year-old back row forward for the Old Redcliffians, came out to family and friends earlier this year.

The decision, he said, was still far from easy. “I met someone earlier this year who said he could not be with someone who was in the closet. That, basically, was the catalyst that I needed.

Even with that knowledge, though, Hooper still agonised over what he knew he had to do. “I was never going to do it bit by bit, that would have been too drawn out, so I decided to text everyone and also put it on Facebook.

“I was horribly nervous. I wrote and rewrote the text four or five times, and I had my finger on the ‘send’ button for ages before I finally pushed it.

“The text basically said something along the lines that ‘I’ve been hiding it and fighting it for too long, and I can’t hide any more. If you can accept me this way then great … and if you can’t then I don’t need you and you can get lost!’

“I then cried my eyes out as I was thinking to myself ‘what have you done?, but very quickly I must have had 40 replies and all of them were positive.”

Instantly, Hooper added, there were feelings of relief. “A massive weight came off my shoulders. If I couldn’t accept myself the way I am, how could I expect my friends to?

“I said that if the club doesn’t want a gay man as its figurehead I would understand and step down. But he was brilliant and said ‘you’re our captain and this doesn’t change anything’. That support was massive to me.”

Reaction throughout the Bristol rugby community, in fact, has been overwhelmingly positive.

“If anyone is reading this and they’re in the same situation as me, all I want to say is don’t bottle things up because, trust me, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The world’s not against you. If my story can help one person then this has been worth it.”

Read more here.