Today's Blogs

Live Receiver

The blogosphere dissects both Terrell Owens’ hospitalization and the resignation of Hewlett-Packard’s general counsel. Bloggers are also guffawing at the assertion by Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer that he’s the father of her daughter, but they’re somber about reports that traces of methadone were found in her son’s autopsy.

Live receiver: Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens was taken to the emergency room Tuesday after what a police report called a suicide attempt and what Owens says was an adverse reaction to prescription painkillers. Owens vehemently denied the suicide allegations and said he hopes to play Sunday.

Owens’ publicist, Kim Etheredge, was with him when he took the pills and initially told police that Owens was depressed. She’s now denying that statement, leading sports blog Deadspin to ask: “Which Kim Etheredge do you trust more? Do you trust the one who witnessed a man that she sees every day … overdosing on 30-plus pain pills and immediately calls 9-1-1, telling paramedics in a panic that he was trying to kill himself? Or do you trust the one who realized that she’s not a human being: She’s a publicist, and her job is to make Terrell Owens look like everything is just fine?”

Sports blog Kissing Suzy Kolber also wonders what to believe: “There were so many options to consider: attempted suicide, accidental overdose. … Frankly, I’m still grasping a bit here. I’m stuck somewhere between accidental OD and stupidity (although I’ve always thought Vicodin makes me smarter). Unfortunately I’ve been unable to rule out the possibility of severe depression. TO has made a career out of crying out for help, it’s just too bad they’ve always manifested themselves as arrogance and entitlement.”

At the Dallas Cowboys blog on AOL Sports, poster MJD agrees that there are many questions left unanswered but points out the police had no reason to fabricate their report: “I’m not in a position to accuse anyone of lying, but I also don’t believe that the police were making anything up here. For all the problems that Terrell Owens has had, they’ve never been of a legal nature. And while I do believe that there’s often some resentment from cops towards star athletes and vice-versa, even if they did have a problem with Owens, why make something up about him trying to kill himself?”

And Seattle blogger Bean, a morning radio host, doesn’t buy T.O.’s story: “[He is a badly damaged young man with more problems than we knew and this obvious, desperate cry for help should convince the Cowboys and every other club that exploiting him for whatever athletic talent he has left is unacceptable from this point on. Let him go. He needs help and we need to not hear about him anymore.”

Read more about Terrell Owens.

Hewlett-Packard: Hearings before the House energy and commerce committee about the Hewlett-Packard spying case started Thursday. Just before the hearings, HP general counsel Ann O. Baskins resigned, following the steps of Chairwoman Patricia C. Dunn. Baskins wrote a letter to the committee saying that she had been told by her subordinates that the spying HP engaged in was legal.

On Good Morning Silicon Valley, John Paczkowski was skeptical of Baskins’ claim: “But such professions aren’t likely to get Baskins or HP off the hook. Indeed, at the congressional hearing this morning, subcommittee members, who this week learned that the spying operation went forward despite warnings from HP global security investigator Vince Nye that the tactics used were ‘probably illegal’ and should be stopped, tore into HP, wondering how it was possible that the highest-ranking officials of a company of its fame and stature to be aware of and seemingly approve an investigation that wouldn’t even past the simplest of smell tests.”

Dvorak Uncensored, the blog produced by PC Magazine columnist John C. Dvorak, chided Baskins for invoking her Fifth Amendment rights during the hearing: “Pleads the fifth? This sounds like a mob hearing in the 1950’s. What is wrong with this company? This whole scene is unbelievable.”

Wall Street blog Dealbreaker was likewise unimpressed: “Subcommittee chairman Ed Whitfield begins the questioning with the obvious point: Come on, Pattie, you look like a smart girl. Did you really think your investigators accessed to private phone records without using deceit or fraud? Where did you think these things were publicly available? Dunn’s answers were, let us say, unpersuasive.”

Read more about Hewlett-Packard.

Who’s the daddy? Anna Nicole Smith’s lawyer, Howard K. Stern, told CNN’s Larry King that Stern is the father of her newborn daughter. Smith’s former boyfriend, celebrity photographer Larry Birkhead, insists that he’s the real father. Meanwhile, pathology tests revealed that Smith’s 20-year-old son Daniel died of a combination of methadone and two anti-depressants.

Writing on Pink Is the New Blog, celebrity-news blogger Trent Vanegas questioned Stern’s motives: “Anna Nicole became prime shark bait as soon as her rich husband died and I knew it would be just a matter of time before her lawyer sunk his teeth into her. So gross!”

Gawker mocked pathologist Cyril Wecht’s statement that a “classical” combination of methadone, Lexapro, and Zoloft caused Daniel Smith’s death: ” ‘Classical?’ Does that make our Wellbutrin, Adderall and Ortho Tri-Cyclen combination ‘post-modern?’ ”

Gossip blogger Perez Hilton noted, “This tale continues to get sadder and stranger!”

Read more about Anna Nicole Smith.